"Nonchalance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quickly rear a progeny only too legitimate: and the ruin within the man is gradually consummated as the sublimities of his soul wither away and fade, and in ecstatic contemplation of our mortal parts we omit to exalt, and come to neglect in nonchalance, that within ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... then, until we reach a row of cottages not far from the railway station. 'Will you knock at one of these doors,' I asked. And he, 'I do not feel like chaffering and bargaining this morning.' 'Why then did you come out,' I urged. And he, in an air of nonchalance, 'Only for the walk.' And so, we pursued our way in the Bronx, until we reached one of our favourite spots, where a sycamore tree seemed to invite us to ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... small plantation of 10,000 to 15,000 trees, but at the harvest time neighbours assist each other. It appeared to me to be an easy, pleasant life; the work is all done under shade, and occupies only a few weeks in the year. The incorrigible nonchalance and laziness of the people alone prevent them from surrounding themselves with all the luxuries of a tropical country. They might plant orchards of the choicest fruit trees around their houses, grow Indian corn, and rear cattle and hogs, as intelligent ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... press of business and I had to stay," said Ellen with masculine nonchalance. "A most interesting ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... this summons with outward nonchalance but tremendous secret apprehensions, and immediately fled for advice to no less ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... stock. To be sure, claims are allowed them by Congress for the losses by Indian depredations, but these usually fall into the hands of speculators, and in reality, assist the people to a very trifling extent. It can be said, to their credit, that Mexicans bear reverses of fortune with a nonchalance seldom seen among any other race. Although generally poor they are as happy and joyous as it is possible for ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... the first of these the landau stopped to await, as we afterward ascertained, Count Bismarck, with whom the diplomatic negotiations were to be settled. Some minutes elapsed before he came, Napoleon remaining seated in his carriage meantime, still smoking, and accepting with nonchalance the staring of a group of German soldiers near by, who were gazing on their fallen foe ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the trial, the utmost recklessness and nonchalance, had drank many times in the course of the day, and when the rope was placed about his neck, was evidently much intoxicated. All at once, however, he seemed startled into a consciousness of the awful reality of his position, and requested ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... same tones a hundred times. She is so intoxicated with her own verbosity that she can neither listen to the sounds of her own voice nor analyze her own utterances. While her neighbor is teaching she is talking, and then with sublime nonchalance she ascribes the retardation of her pupils to their own dullness and never, in any least degree, to her own unprofitable use of ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... guessed, from the young editor's bearing, on his return, that he knew himself to be facing a crucial situation. With the utmost nonchalance he insisted that he must have time for consideration. Influenced by Pierce, who was sure he had Hal beaten, the committee insisted on an immediate ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... 'vogue' sometimes are printed in italics. Among other words which have been borrowed at various times and more or less naturalized, but which are now being driven out of the language, are the following: confrere, congee, cortege, dishabille, distrait, ensemble, fete, flair, mellay (now melee), nonchalance, provenance, renconter, &c. On the other hand, it is satisfactory to note that 'employee' appears to be ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... drinking-shops, which will scarcely be credited. A party of negroes were seen around a card-table, with money beside them, engaged in betting; glasses of liquor were on the table, from which they ever and anon regaled themselves with all the nonchalance and affected mannerism of the most fashionable blades of ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... Mrs. Sin Kerry had read menace, and for all their dark beauty they had reminded him of the eyes of a cornered rat. Beneath the contemptuous nonchalance which she flaunted he read terror and remorse, and a foreboding of doom—panic ill repressed, which made her dangerous as any beast at bay. The attitude of the Chinaman was more puzzling. He seemed to bear the Chief ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... day, he wore a heavy overcoat, lined with white fox fur. In his right hand—for his left still rested upon the case—he held a soft hat. With an easy nonchalance, he stood regarding the man who had sworn to kill him, and the latter made no move, uttered no word. Stark amazement ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... it is true, and I certainly did not pay much attention to it; but that sort of obscure intention, which seemed to lurk in his nonchalance like a wary old carp in a pond, had never before come so near the surface. He had distinctly aroused my expectations. I would have been unable to say what it was I expected, but at all events I did not expect the absurd developments he sprung upon me no later than ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... recognized authorities and got into trouble over it; indeed, had become mildly notorious in the newspapers. The only way she could carry off her mistake and her notoriety was, like a child, by exaggerating her nonchalance. Thus she had met President West and the other officers of the trust company. Alone—for as usual Archie had evaded the disagreeable—she had met them in their temple and felt their frigid disapprobation of her and all ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... partially, in their language. Like all savages, they consider their women as secondary objects, oblige them to procure their own food, or throw to them over their shoulders the bones they have already picked, with a nonchalance that is extremely amusing; and, on the march, make them beasts of burden to carry their very weapons. The population of the Morumbidgee, as far as we had descended it at this time, did not exceed from ninety to a hundred souls. I am persuaded that disease and accidents ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... point to an inmate of the garrison, do they not?" asked Miller, with as much nonchalance as ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... carpet and not a single chair or lounge of any description. Some fifteen young fellows were painting. All wore workmen's blouses. All had mustaches, and most of them had long hair. They appeared intent on their work, but smiles and winks were furtively exchanged, and the careless nonchalance of this tall young Englishman evidently amused them. In four or five minutes M. Goude turned round and walked towards the easels. Cuthbert stepped to them and removed the cloths. The master stopped abruptly, looked at them without speaking for ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... such an air of nonchalance as I could summon to the operation, and began casually to inspect the varied articles of virtu loading the shelves and tables about me. I am bound to confess that I retain no one definite impression of this tour. Vases I handled, statuettes, Egyptian scarabs, bead necklaces, ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... which he reads, and the impressive manner in which he applies his white hand, studded with brilliants, to his perfumed hair. Observe the graceful emphasis with which he offers up the prayers for the King, the Royal Family, and all the Nobility; and the nonchalance with which he hurries over the more uncomfortable portions of the service, the seventh commandment for instance, with a studied regard for the taste and feeling of his auditors, only to be equalled by ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... buying and selling on the same day, content with a profit of ten dollars. Others who might at that very moment be nursing plans which in a week's time would make them millionaires; still others who, under a mask of nonchalance, strove to hide the chagrin of yesterday's defeat. And they were there, ready, inordinately alert, ears turned to the faintest sound, eyes searching for the vaguest trace of meaning in those of their rivals, nervous, keyed to the highest tension, ready to thrust deep into the ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... inclination of the head, tinctured with disdain: on which his lordship turned his back, with a kind of open-mouthed nonchalance that was truly epigrammatic; and fell into conversation with Sir Barnard, who had advanced toward the fire, with all the apparent ease of the most intimate friendship: though, since his lordship had changed sides, they had become, in politics at ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... with apparent nonchalance, 'Twenty-seven is not very old.' He added, however, 'Anyhow, you're five minutes older, and I've published a book, if ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... to go to walk in the Public Garden." Pollyanna was trying hard to speak unconcernedly. "I—I thought maybe you'd like to go with me, too." Outwardly Pollyanna was nonchalance itself. Inwardly, however, she was aquiver with excitement ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... she could not deceive Mrs. Dagon by an appearance of interest; so, after a few moments, Mrs. Dinks seated herself in a large easy-chair opposite that lady, who was still looking at her, shook her dress, glanced into the mirror with the utmost nonchalance, and finally, slowly drawing out her own glasses, raised them to her eyes, and with perfect ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... said Sylvia, her gaze turned on the elegant nonchalance of a handsome, elderly woman ahead of her. Her mother looked at her askance, and thought ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... noticing other people. She is happily unconscious of the mortification which is in store for her, or wilfully shuts her eyes to the peril. Alas! Her hand is resting, even now, upon the destroyer of all her present enjoyment, the beautiful, fragrant, treacherous peach. With a nonchalance really shocking to the anxious beholder, she raises it, and breaks it open, talking the while, and scarcely bestowing a thought upon what she is about. Dexterously done; but—O luckless maiden!—the fruit is ripe, and rich, and juicy, and the running drops fall, not into her plate, but ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... easy nonchalance, and three days later he was in the office of the secretary of the Mississippi River Commission, at St. Louis, calmly inquiring into the duties and performance thereof, involving the efforts of 100,000 ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... was hurry and anxiety. The clerks seemed trying to brazen out their own terror, and shovelled the rapidly lessening gold and notes across the counter with an air of indignant nonchalance. The vicar asked to see ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... certainly brought himself to the point, but he seemed actually further from it than at first, and he made a desperate plunge, trying at the same time to keep something of his habitual nonchalance. "But that doesn't account for my being here. Imogene accounts for that. She has allowed me to stay ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... an every-day affair here now," that young man remarked with amazing nonchalance; "since the workmen began to shoot the patrols, the city has had no peace. I see that it interests you very much. You will find it less amusing when you have been in Russia for a month or two. Now let us dress and dine while we ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... it witness together the play of a new jet d'eau. Their counterparts greet them even in the marble and bronze figures which people the paths and basins, in the dignified face of an Apollo, in the theatrical air of a Jupiter, in the worldly ease or studied nonchalance of a Diana or a Venus. The stamp of the court, deepened through the joint efforts of society for a century, is so strong that it is graven on each detail as on the whole, and on material objects as ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... "Nothing much." Nonchalance sat well upon the Kid. "Just a case of raising hell and putting a chunk under. See that bend down there? That's where she'll jam millions of tons of ice. Then she'll jam in the bends up above, millions of tons. Upper jam breaks first, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... the wine-flush on his cheek, the wine-glitter in his eye, and she remarked the slight smile on his lips and the cynical assumption of nonchalance with which he fingered the jewel in his ear as he returned her gaze. She beheld now in her son a man more purposeful than ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... had come in from the remote outskirts and found we must compete for honours with men so well equipped. We perhaps magnified the gifts and acquirements of the fellows who had been more favourably placed. Barlow seemed like a paragon of scholarship, and the nonchalance with which he always won in the classrooms was a constant marvel. He had a queer way of turning serious things into fun. With a freshman desire for self-improvement, a thing apt to evaporate in the college atmosphere, we had ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... by the liberal elements. In protest against the nonchalance with which the door had been shut in their faces the working classes in Berlin and elsewhere entered upon a fresh series of demonstrations by reason of which the Government was embarrassed through several weeks. In the Landtag ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... by taking a decanter of whiskey and glasses from a cupboard. The captain filled his glass, and continued with the same gentle but exasperating nonchalance, ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... there silent, with no one at hand but the owner of the shop, who was busy upon the keel of a new boat, a fisherman came in and took a seat, with an affectation of ease and nonchalance; in a moment another followed; two or three more came in, ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... scanned the dreadful pathway with eyes deep-set and burning, resolute, vigilant, and yet defiant, too, as though she had been trapped into this track of danger, and was fighting without great hope, but with the temerity and nonchalance of despair. Her arms were bare to the shoulder almost, and her face was again and again drenched, but second succeeded second, minute followed minute in a struggle which might well turn a man's hair gray, and now, at last—how many hours ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... whirled, blowing down the pipe first (but without taking his cigar from his mouth) again and again, until the solid lump was a great glistening globe. The artist—for if ever there was an artist it is he—carried on this exhausting task with perfect nonchalance, talking and joking with the others the while, but never relaxing the concentration of his hands, until there came a moment when the globe was broken from the original rod and fixed in some magical way to another. Again it went into the furnace, now ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... breaking a bush, now dropping a piece of her dress, and when she crossed a stream, slyly turning over a stone, she hoped thus to guide her husband in pursuit or enable herself to find her way back to the block-house. The vigilance of the Indians was relaxed by the nonchalance with which she bore her captivity, and in a few days she succeeded in effecting her escape and pursuing the trail which she had marked, reached home after a weary march of two days and nights, during ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... occupiers of the pews, who appeared to consist almost entirely of farmers, with their wives, sons, and daughters, opened a door to admit us. Mrs. Petulengro, however, appeared to feel not the least embarrassment, but tripped along the aisle with the greatest nonchalance. We passed under the pulpit, in which stood the clergyman in his white surplice, and reached the middle of the church, where we were confronted by the sexton dressed in long blue coat, and holding ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... another girl in a trig outing suit and little patent-leather shoes, toss a bundle, done up in a sheet, over her shoulder and walk away in the procession with the most fascinating nonchalance. ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... for a mere idler, an individual whose enterprise and industry have been sapped by the insidious nonchalance of the Beachcomber, to tell of practical details of cultural pursuits—the enthusiasm, the disappointments, the glowing anticipations, the realisation of inflexible facts, the plain emphatic truths which others have reason to know ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... paused for a while, then rose, and walked about, apparently musing and reflecting, with something of uneasiness and perplexity in his looks; whilst Phil unfolded the True Blue, and began to peruse its brilliant pages with his usual nonchalance. ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Guayaquil, and Lima, to Spain, he says: "These will soon cease whenever an active government, willing to protect commerce, shall construct a good road from Panama to Porto Bello. The aristocratic nonchalance of Spain, and her fear to open to strangers the way to the countries explored for her own profit, only kept those countries closed." The court forbade, on pain of death, the use of plans at different times proposed. They wronged their ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... suddenly that the roadster had no excuses ready. Irresistibly, but so composedly that it seemed almost absendmindedness on his part, the dispenser of drinks pushed Curly to the swinging doors and kicked him out, with a nonchalance that almost amounted to sadness. That was ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... arrived when he was shown upstairs, even though Laurie himself was late. (This was partly deliberate. He thought it best to show a little nonchalance.) There was only a young clergyman in the room with the ladies; and the ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... From the nonchalance of this question it will be seen that Sally herself thought nothing of the fact that items concerning her garden should have seemed of sufficient importance to go into the letters of a brother whose time was ordinarily occupied with affairs much more momentous. The garden was of overwhelming ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... my uncle. "Let us be serious. Your nonchalance and irony have been growing with the years. Surely you recognize that you have reached the end of your rope. I tell you, George, these men ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... child, I have news, really important news for you. If I have not been discussing your future," said Tewfick Pasha, staring with stern nonchalance ahead and determinedly unaware of her instant stiffening of attention, "I have by no means been neglectful of it.... To-day—indeed to-night—there has been a consummation of my plans.... It is not to every daughter that a father may hurry with such ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Long was just now the creature of old hopes and fears consequent upon his arrival—this man who once had not cared if his name were blotted out from that district. The evening light showed wistful lines which he could not smooth away by the worldling's gloss of nonchalance that he had learnt to fling over ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... visited strikes were on, and the people were convulsed with discussions, projects for resistance, and hopes of bettering their condition. Great social problems, the tyranny of capital, and such-like, occupied the minds of men, and there was naturally little taste for the laughing nonchalance of La Fille de Madame Angot or the fooling of the Baillie in the Cloches. As forty thousand men had struck work, our band of travelling actors rolled out of Leeds, and they left it bearing ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... slow and mournful eyes rested on the lady. The exclamation, if profane, was justified, for it is probable that the American had never before set eyes on such a masterpiece of the Creator's power. There was in this woman's being—in her eyes, her face, her every movement—that combination of nonchalance and dignity which comes to beautiful and bright- minded girls when they are beginning to leave girlhood behind them. She was moderately tall, with hair of living brown, and deep blue eyes full of life and sweetness. She was not slim, but held herself like a boy with the strength that comes of perfect ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... answered Jake with great nonchalance, apparently giving but little thought to the little craft whose broken timbers were now floating away, ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... back, in airy nonchalance,— The more determined on my wayward quest, As some bright memory a moment dawns A ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... in my opinion and liking. He is sensible, rational, and highly cultivated ; very modest in all he asserts, and attentive and pleasing in his behaviour ; and he is wholly free from the coxcombical airs, either of impertinence, or negligence and nonchalance, that almost all the young men I meet, except also young Burke, are tainted with. What chiefly, however, pleased me in ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... never had occasion to reprove me once. Yet I could not but perceive that she was at times unhappy and dissatisfied with herself or her position, and truly I myself was not quite contented with the latter: this assumption of brotherly nonchalance was very hard to sustain, and I often felt myself a most confounded hypocrite with it all; I saw too, or rather I felt, that, in spite of herself, 'I was not indifferent to her,' as the novel heroes modestly express it, and while I thankfully ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... wore the brilliant uniform of a colonel in the yeomanry, for the dinner to which he was going was to be followed by an official reception. But he was very pale, and his manner had lost much of its studied nonchalance. ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... conviction that the editor of the 'Morning Breakfast Table' would be powerful for all things, brought new doubts to her mind. But she could not convince herself, and when at last she went to her bed her mind was still vacillating. The next morning she met Hetta at breakfast, and with assumed nonchalance asked a question about the man who was perhaps about to be her husband. 'Do you like ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... realising his appalling error endeavoured to pass it off by humming the Jewel Song from Faust. For a moment his nonchalance amazed everyone then as though a veil had been suddenly snatched from their eyes they gave a great cry: 'This is Spout! What Humour! What Roguery! Spout ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... In certain respects travellers fare well. They may feast like Lucullus on fresh trout and on the dainty aniseed cakes which are a local speciality. But hygienic arrangements were almost prehistoric, and although politeness itself, mine host and hostess showed strange nonchalance towards their guests. Thus, when ringing and ringing again for our tea and bread and butter between seven and eight o'clock, the chamber—not maid, but man—informed us that Madame had gone to mass, and everything was locked up ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... his bath-robe, stretched himself, and with leisurely nonchalance put on a second pair of gloves, was filling in the time with a little shadow boxing. He moved rhythmically to and fro, now ducking his head, now striking out with his muffled hands, and a sickening realization of the man's animal power ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... then once more the question was put. Gashed, bleeding, strung up by his thumbs to the crossbeam; every blow of the extemporized whips extorting from him a howl of agony; no rescue at hand; Lysander looking on with a merciless smile; the brothers doing their assigned work with merciless nonchalance; well might poor Toby cry out, in ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... to listen to all these romances," laughed Cane defiantly. He was an astute and polished adventurer, one of the cleverest and most elusive in Europe, and he had all the adventurer's nonchalance and impudence. At this moment he was living in that fine house he had taken furnished for the summer and passing as Mr. Charles K. Munday, banker, of Chicago. Certainly he had so altered his personal appearance that at first I scarcely recognised him ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... at nonchalance, Stanton shoved his right fist into the brown hat and his left fist into the green one, and raised them ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... room, and disappeared through another door. Laura, with forced nonchalance, seated herself on the arm of the sofa, humming a popular air. Brockton turned and ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... on her last legs (three altogether). Her one man and a boy are fighting with the nonchalance of despair to resist the Allied pressure. Good news may be expected ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 19, 1917 • Various
... as though he was anxious to avoid, by a perfect air of nonchalance, arousing the suspicions of some concealed emissary of ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... conference was on my mother's part, for she chose to have me present as mistress of the house. She had put on her richest black velvet suit, and looked a most imposing chatelaine, and though he came in trying to carry it off with military bravado and nonchalance, he ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as we see, had arrived at such a stage as to look with the greatest nonchalance on the awful destruction in which they were about to perish. Their hatred against Robur and his people had so increased that they would sacrifice their own lives to destroy the "Albatross" and all she ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... a greeting to Wrayburn, and grinned with cool nonchalance at Webb. He knew from report in what esteem he was held by the owner of the Flying ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... was ill, so I had the enterprise to myself, and clambered up the steep bank with a quicker pulse than when I first levelled a rifle at a Highland deer. My intended victims might have prided themselves on their superior nonchalance; and, indeed, as I approached them, there seemed to be a sneer on their ghastly mouths and winking eyes. Slowly they rose, one after the other, and waddled to the water, all but one, the most gallant or most gorged of the party. He lay still until I was within a hundred yards of him; ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... stayed, and many times Campbell met him in the streets, and each time was exaggerated, insulting courtesy from the Aleppo man, as he drew aside to let the Frank pass. There was hostility and contempt in his veiled eyes.... There nonchalance in his smelling of the rose ... Campbell passed by frigidly, as if the man weren't there, and all the time his blood was boiling.... But what was one to do? One could not make a scene before the riff-raff of Syria. And besides, there was too much of a chance of a knife in ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... that night, his face wore a look of satisfaction very imperfectly concealed beneath a mask of nonchalance. ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... Now he stopped to look into a shop, then to gaze up at the windows of a house as if he expected to see some one there, and then to throw a copper to some importunate beggar. He walked with an air of so much independence and nonchalance, indeed, at times, almost of haughtiness, that it was difficult to suppose he had the slightest apprehension of danger. Not a person, however, who, passed him, escaped his scrutiny; and even when he appeared to stop carelessly, or for the sake of considering the ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... boarding-place, the storm overtook him with a rush which straight-way reduced the roads to the consistency of cream. He looked about for shelter; but no shelter was at hand, and the road meandered along before him uphill and down again with an easy nonchalance which appeared to take no account of the pelting rain. It was hard riding and dangerous, but he pushed on manfully, while the streams of water trickled down his neck and along the bridge of his nose. As he reached the crest of the hill, he saw before him, just crawling over the crest of ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... may not, through wilfulness or nonchalance, fall into that wherefrom we may, peradventure, an we but will, by some means or other escape, I know not if it seem to you as it doth to me, but methinketh it were excellently well done that we, such as we are, depart this city, as many have done before us, and eschewing, as we would ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... appearance; but he was, apparently, unconscious of this defect, as he affected an air of great consequence, and repeatedly requested the police to address him in a becoming manner; also behaving with the greatest nonchalance at his examination before the Privy Council, the ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... eyes met hers with deliberate nonchalance. "Sit down," he said, "while I fetch you ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... cheek an incongruous little flush of red began to show. With much more nonchalance than was really necessary she pointed towards her ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... foreigners—French, apparently, for they spoke that language together. His clothes were English, evidently from a smart tailor, and he wore them with that easy nonchalance of the English golfer, while his pretty, dark-eyed companion, although her gown was of cheap material, it was nevertheless cut well, and both in figure and in gait she had all the chic of the ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... further urged to this course by the insolent nonchalance of the two young men. They weren't paying any more attention to him than they were to the inanimate sticks of ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... table d'hote, whom I squired and helped to wine, and pledged and tried generally to encourage, with quite a contrary effect; but the other two, both married, were both more handsome than the average of women. And Clarisse? What shall I say of Clarisse? She waited the table with a heavy placable nonchalance, like a performing cow; her great grey eyes were steeped in amorous languor; her features, although fleshy, were of an original and accurate design; her mouth had a curl; her nostril spoke of dainty pride; her cheek fell into strange and interesting lines. It was a face capable of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... If she continued to live, it was by inertia; to cease from life would have required an effort. She did not regret the vocation which she had abandoned; she felt no curiosity about the fortunes of the newspaper. A tragic nonchalance held her. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... had touched the pillow. I had no nerves, and I had done nothing which I regretted. I fancy, therefore, that my general appearance and reception of him somewhat astonished my early visitor. He seemed, indeed, to take my nonchalance almost as an affront, and he proceeded at once to try ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... about his high cheek-bones. In his valiant khaki he has more than any of us the air of being on the eve. He is visibly bracing himself to a stupendous effort. He smokes a cigarette with ostentatious nonchalance. We all think we know these symptoms. We turn our eyes away, considerately, from Mr. Grierson. Which of us can say that when our turn comes the thought of danger will not ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... prairie, we saw a lively picture of nonchalance, (to speak in the fashion of dear Ireland.) There, in the wide sunny field, with neither tree nor umbrella above his head, sat a pedler, with his pack, waiting apparently for customers. He was not disappointed. We bought, what hold in regard to the human world, as unmarked, ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... adequately few; That half your little life is spent In furious strife or argument; Still, though your wickedness must harrow All feeling souls, I love my sparrow; Still, though I oft and gravely doubt you, I really could not do without you. Your pluck, your wit, your nonchalance, Your cheerful confidence in chance, Your darting flight, your bouts of play, Your chirp, so sociable and gay— These, and no beauty soft or striking, Make up your passport to my liking; And for your faults I'll still defend you, My ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... the tables, smoking and chatting hilariously. At one of them sat three men, two of whom were actors he had met. Summoning his courage, he approached them with a well-assumed air of nonchalance. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... emptied the trunk as she was talking, tossing out fascinating feminine mysteries of lace and silks, with a nonchalance which brought a twinkle into the dark eyes. He ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... forth, whether I came or went, I was sure to find the Senora seated in the sun against a pillar, or stretched on a rug before the fire; only at times she would shift her station to the top round of the stone staircase, where she lay with the same nonchalance right across my path. In all these days, I never knew her to display the least spark of energy beyond what she expended in brushing and re-brushing her copious copper-coloured hair, or in lisping out, in the rich and broken hoarseness of her voice, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... apron around me, then," he said, with the utmost nonchalance, and Helen obeyed, tying her check apron around the young man's neck, who felt her hands as they touched his hair and knew that they were brushing queer fancies into his brain, fancies which made him wonder what his mother would think of Helen, or what she would say if ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... looked so miserable, so ashy-grey and worn out, that never did human greatness appear to me so little worth.... In spite of his feebleness, George IV. read his banale speech with great dignity and a fine voice, but with that royal nonchalance which does not concern itself with what his Majesty promises, or whether he is sometimes unable to decipher a word. It was very evident that the monarch was heartily glad ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... suffice for a good-night, Letty, with the red volume of Hans Andersen under her arm, passed out into the hall. It was not easy to carry herself with the necessary nonchalance, but she got strength by saying inwardly: "Here's where I begin to walk on blades." The knowledge that she was doing it, and that she was doing it toward an end, gave her a dignity of carriage which ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... sat up with profound gravity, and with a great air of nonchalance opened the handbag, and, instead of shoes took out, first, a pint bottle of claret, then "devilish" ham sandwiches in oiled paper, a bottle of stuffed olives, a great bag of salted almonds, two little tumblers, a paper-covered novel, and a ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... critique francais, nous a raconte dans un de ses livres l'anecdote suivante, qui donne une impression frappante de l'independance et de la nonchalance d'un hotelier espagnol. La scene se passe ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann
... electrician in the semi-gloom and with him his fellow members of the technical staff needed in the taking of the scenes in the library. The camera men I guessed, and a property boy, and an assistant director. The last, at any event, of all those in the huge room, had summoned up sufficient nonchalance to bend his mind to details of his work. I saw that he was thumbing a copy of the scenario, or detailed working manuscript of the story, making notations in some kind of little book, and it was that which enabled me to establish his ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... stood gaping in admiration at the sudden quarrel which had arisen, Colonel Everard's vexation and resentment was not a little increased by the nonchalance of the young Scotsman, who, with his hands thrust into his pockets, (with a courtly affectation of the time,) had thrown himself into one of the antique chairs, and, though habitually too polite to laugh aloud, and possessing that art of internal laughter by which men of the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... ground round being clear, and having a double-barrel gun and two pistols, I was not so very much frightened. It is no use to say I was perfectly comfortable, because I wasn't. A Frenchman writing this, would represent himself as smoking a cigar, and singing with the greatest nonchalance. I did neither. Being an Englishman, I may be allowed to confess that I did ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... ray out over the North Sea, keeping their stations accurately apart. At a given signal all the guns are trained on a target which (the master gunner counts the seconds, watch in hand—at the sixth he looks up) flames into splinters. With equal nonchalance a dozen young men in the prime of life descend with composed faces into the depths of the sea; and there impassively (though with perfect mastery of machinery) suffocate uncomplainingly together. Like blocks of tin ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... which marked the winning of Mexican Independence from Spain in the eighteen-twenties, and also in the incessant Indian wars. He was a fighter by necessity, but also by choice. They shed blood with grace and nonchalance in those days, and the Delcasars were ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... agony. While his wife basked in the sun on the pavement, trailing her skirt with nonchalance and impudence, shameless and unconcerned, he followed behind her, pale and shuddering, repeating that it was all over, that he would be unable to save himself and would be guillotined. Each step he saw her take, seemed to him a step nearer punishment. ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... this with the greatest nonchalance. He took some papers from his pocket, and looked at them carefully; but the papers were not charts nor maps—like as not they were things no way connected ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... deductive guess: but the shot struck the center of the bull's-eye. Warren, alias Count Laschlas, staggered back, and his nervous fingers touched the chilling surface of the stone wall. He dropped his eyes, and then strove to regain his nonchalance. It was ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... was gone, never to return. He had lost none of his old look of breeding, of refinement, of blood—but he had lost that air which rich young men bear about with them. It is an air, not of carelessness, precisely, but of absence of care; a sort of nonchalance, bred of lack of responsibilities and of definite ambitions. It is an air that makes one think of them that they would fit better into the scenery of a country club or a game of golf than into an office ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... into a pawnbroker's shop, and obtained with perfect nonchalance five pounds upon her mother's watch. She had no idea that she ought to dispute the dictum of the bald young man with the fishy eyes and the high collar. It did not occur to her that she was paid too little. What she realized ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... ostensible discomfiture whose symptoms Lanyard had remarked had been a transitory humour. Mr. Blensop was now in what seemed the most equable and blithe of tempers. His very posture at the telephone eloquently betokened as much: he had thrown himself into the chair with picturesque nonchalance, sitting with body half turned from the desk, his right hand holding the receiver to his ear, his left thrust carelessly into his trouser pocket, thus dragging back the lapel of that impeccable morning-coat and exposing the bright cap ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... illusion which her air of nonchalance and easy grace left with me," says Marmontel. "Mme. de Tencin, the woman in the kingdom who moved the most political springs, both in the city and at court, was for me only an indolente. Ah, what finesse, what suppleness, what activity were concealed beneath this naive air, this appearance ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... good four miles from Nuthill and nearing the gap in the high ridge through which one looked out over the Sussex weald from Desdemona's cave. In another couple of minutes the Master was on the ground beside Betty, and Punch, with the nonchalance of his kind, was nosing the turf, as though to distract attention from his hard breathing. The gallop ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... the sight, listened in nonchalance, stopping to watch the group for a minute as they would look into a shop window. The exhibition stirred no religious feeling in them, for their minds, with the tenacity of childhood, associated religion ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... sallow-faced and freckled, with hair that gave him the only name his comrades knew him by. Lane packed the boy's few possessions and talked vehemently all the time. Red braced up, ready to go, but he had little to say and that with the weary nonchalance habitual with him. Lane helped him up on deck, and the exertion, slight as it was, brought home to Lane that he needed help himself. They ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... situation resolves itself thus: The mutineers have expressed their determination to go ashore, and until they have done so we can do nothing beyond holding ourselves ready for action at a moment's notice. And meanwhile we must all wear an air of the utmost nonchalance and unconcern; for if we were to manifest any symptoms of excitement or interest in their movements, there are, no doubt, some among them who would be astute enough to observe it, and thereupon to become suspicious. Let them ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... at having his machine hired for a hoax; but money was money and he agreed to obey our instructions meticulously. His tone was perfunctory, however, despite my desperate attempts to impress him with the seriousness of the matter; and that nonchalance of his came ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... madam, where the wife of one of our staff will attend you," or "Pray allow me to slip this penknife of mine into the lining of your coat" (after which he would extract thence shawls and towels with as much nonchalance as he would have done from his own travelling-trunk). Even his superiors acknowledged him to be a devil at the job, rather than a human being, so perfect was his instinct for looking into cart-wheels, carriage-poles, horses' ears, and places whither an author ought not to penetrate ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... into the shop, and affecting nonchalance, inquired how long the printing-press had been in Rome. The man said he believed there was no such thing in the city. "Oh, the Lactantius; that was printed on the top of ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... had been that he had checkmated the girls in their disposition to make jesting comparisons, He would retire with so much nonchalance as to leave nothing to be said. They would find complete inaction and silence hard to combat. But the more he thought of it the less it seemed like an honorable retreat. He had openly wooed one girl, he had since lost his heart to another, and ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... amabile). Nearly all in the above list are cultivated for home consumption only, and many valuable fruits and vegetables which would grow well are unknown to Quitonians. As Bates says of the Brazilians, the incorrigible nonchalance and laziness of the people alone prevent them from surrounding themselves with all the luxuries of a temperate as well as ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... into the room, and are now seated, what they think of bullying boys and hunting cats and tying kettles to a dog's tail, and seating a comrade upon tacks with the point upward. Undoubtedly they reply, with dignified nonchalance, that it is all child's play and contemptible. Undoubtedly, young gentlemen, answers the professor, and, to multiply Nathan's remark to David, ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... Keg how to get jobs after his first experience. He had a knack of scenting a soft financial snap a mile away to leeward, and working his way through college was the least of his troubles. It used to make me tired to see the nonchalance with which he would sleuth up to a nice fat thing like a baseball season program, and put away a couple of hundred with a single turn of the wrist and about four days' hard soliciting among the long-suffering Jonesville merchants. I never could do it myself. I had the popular ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... with an air of easy nonchalance into the faces of the two men who smoked their short pipes, and uttered ever and anon some short ejaculation, such as, "Hem!" "Ah!" "Zounds!" and so forth, while the sow exhibited a familiarity with her superiors only to be acquired by mixing in the best society. There was a respectful ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... hours of the early dawn those sleeping in tenements and extensions adjacent to the hall bedroom occupied by Caput were roused by a trembling voice that sought vainly to imitate the nonchalance of experience, declaiming: "Gentlemen of the jury, the defendant is indicted for the crime of bigamy! This offense is one repugnant to the instincts of civilization and odious to the tenets of religion!" And thereafter they tossed until ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... unaffected. He was carefully and correctly dressed in clothes borrowed from his new tailor, and he showed not the slightest signs of strangeness or gaucherie amongst his unfamiliar surroundings. He looked about him always, with the cold, easy nonchalance of the man of the world. Of being recognized he had not the slightest fear. His frame and bearing, and the brightness of his deep, strong eyes, still belonged to early middle age, but his face itself, worn and hardened, was the face of an elderly man. The more Aynesworth watched ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... generally on these occasions that under the great carriage gateway Lady Ded—I mean Madame Delestang—catching sight of my raised hat, would beckon me with an amiable imperiousness to the side of the carriage, and suggest with an air of amused nonchalance, "Venez donc faire un tour avec nous," to which the husband would add an encouraging "C'est ca. Allons, montez, jeune homme." He questioned me some times, significantly but with perfect tact and delicacy, as to the way I employed my time, and never failed to express the hope that I wrote ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... another. Strange to say, the ewes did not seem to trouble themselves about the matter. Most of these were feeding quietly, or if at times they looked up towards their belligerent lords, it was with an air of nonchalance and indifference, as if they cared nothing at ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... Aurea. Then she added, touching my arm as with a touch of honeyed fire: "O I'm so glad! He did it delightfully—quite en prince. Just the right nonchalance—and perhaps, poor dear, he's ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... with easy nonchalance approaching impudence, he turned to his own neglected dinner partner, Sylvia Quest, who received his tardy attentions with childish irritation. She didn't know any better. And there was now no time to patch up matters, for the signal to rise had been given and Dysart ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... that, Ellis pocketed the purse with nonchalance. He stood leaning on his boar-spear, and looked round upon the rest. They, in various attitudes, took greedily of the venison pottage, and liberally washed it down with ale. This was a good day; they were in luck; but business ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... there could be nothing in it; certainly not, from such a source. It was the old John M. Hurd who turned again to face his visitor, who with but one card left to play awaited breathlessly but with outward nonchalance the ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... with you there,' he replied, with great nonchalance, taking a card from his pocket-book, which ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... attached to the modest boast of somebody that he was "the third best authority in England on gray shirtings." On the other hand, the critic of this kind will not be able to neglect the uninteresting with the serene nonchalance of some of his fellows. He will sometimes have to look back on days and months and years of laborious reading and say to himself, "Were it not well for us, as others use, to take all this for granted?" But to say this is to say no more than that the ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... last winter," she faltered, as a beginning, then could get no further. Roderick made a desperate effort to regain control of himself, and spoke with an attempt at nonchalance. ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... had loved the theatre, and old Jolyon recalled how he used to sit opposite, concealing his excitement under a careful but transparent nonchalance. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... required promise, whereupon my pious employer presented me with a five-dollar bill, which I received with all the nonchalance in the world. I then withdrew, and reached my own room without encountering any more adventures. Sleep did not visit me that night, for my thoughts were too busily engaged with the discoveries which I had made; and besides, the blissful consciousness of being the possessor of the princely ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... humour that morning. He darted little quick questioning glances at his brother and at his sons, but whatever complaint or sarcasm may have trembled upon his lips, was effectually stifled by De St. Quentin's ministrations. With the nonchalance born of long custom, the official covered the royal chin with soap, drew the razor swiftly round it, and sponged over the surface with spirits of wine. A nobleman then helped to draw on the king's black velvet haut-de-chausses, ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that very night, to pay the poor stage-coachman. His recollection came too late, for after Lord Rawson had paid three or four guineas for his trinket, he let the remainder of the money down with an absent nonchalance, into his pocket. "We'll settle—I'll pay you, Holloway, to-morrow ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... trappings, pushed a button, and the world was illumined. There were years of unremitting toil behind this achievement, years of discouragement bordering on despair, but years in which the light of hope was kept burning. We accept his gift with the very acme of nonchalance and with little or no feeling of gratitude. Perhaps he would not have it otherwise. We do not know. But certain it is that his marvelous achievement has made life more agreeable to millions of people and he must be conscious ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... the girl that both her elderly friend and she herself were accepting an extraordinary situation with remarkable nonchalance. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... perpetual compromises, with fluctuations and contradictions, with every kind of weakness, and yet with shrewdness, with gentleness, even with conscientiousness, and a light and airy mastery of men and of events. He conducted the transactions of business with extraordinary nonchalance. Important persons, ushered up for some grave interview, found him in a towselled bed, littered with books and papers, or vaguely shaving in a dressing-room; but, when they went downstairs again, they would realise that somehow or other they had been pumped. When he had to ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... she ran in through the gate, and up the gravel walk, and so he was left to turn away and pass the intruder with an appearance of nonchalance. And pass him he did, though whether with successful indifference or not, one can hardly say; but in passing him he looked up, and in looking ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... life, so Isabelle saw, with an order of its own, a direction of its own, a strong undercurrent. Its oddity and nonchalance were refreshing. Like one of the mountain brooks it ran its own course, strong and liquid beneath the snow, to ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... pushed forward a chair with the nonchalance of a man familiar with such accidents, and who is beforehand quite secure as ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... almost dead calm. The hale, lusty-lunged nor'wester that had snorted them forth from the Golden Gate had lapsed to a zephyr, the schooner rolled lazily southward with the leisurely nonchalance of a grazing ox. At noon, just after dinner, a few cat's-paws curdled the milky-blue whiteness of the glassy surface, and the water once more began to talk beneath the bow-sprit. It was very hot. The sun spun ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... half-hidden by being drawn, turtle-like, into their blue-quilted shells. Like the Persians, they seem nipped and miserable in the cold; looking at them, standing about with humped backs and pinched faces this morning, I wonder, with the Chinaman's happy nonchalance about committing suicide, why they don't all seek relief within the nice warm tombs at the end of the village. Surely it can be nothing but their rampant curiosity, urging them to live on and on in the hopes of seeing something new and novel, that keeps them from ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... Holliday raised his glass and his left eyebrow simultaneously with easy nonchalance, "may we all ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... fairly besieged by his friends, who joked him about his arrest, and then, out of genuine concern, wanted to know if his prospects were seriously damaged. To each interrogatory, Henry waved his hand with absolute nonchalance. As far as he knew, only six people were in the secret—himself, his wife, Judge Barklay, Standish, Mr. Archer and Aunt Mirabelle—and he wasn't anxious to increase the number. His aunt might not have believed it, but this was more on her account ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... of the intendant Colbert," added Fouquet; letting every word fall from his lips with the most inimitable nonchalance, and with an admirably assumed expression of forgetfulness and ignorance. And having finished, and having overwhelmed Colbert beneath the weight of this superiority, the superintendent again saluted the king and ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... recorded it with a vividness well set off by his own nonchalance. Again and again he was to repeat this triumph of depicting the wild, and the wild in a condition ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... opinion of the Germans?' said Pavel Petrovitch, with exaggerated courtesy. He was beginning to feel a secret irritation. His aristocratic nature was revolted by Bazarov's absolute nonchalance. This surgeon's son was not only not overawed, he even gave abrupt and indifferent answers, and in the tone of his voice there was something ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... banishment and entire confiscation of property." The possibility was also admitted, of mitigating the punishment of those who, without being heretics or sectaries, might bring themselves within the provisions of the edicts, "through curiosity, nonchalance, or otherwise." Such offenders, it was hinted, might be "whipped with rods, fined, banished, or subjected to similar penalties of a lighter nature." It will be perceived by this slight sketch of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... habitude, to discover the smallest connexion between the sexes here. No familiarity, but under the veil of friendship, is permitted, and love's dictionary is as much prohibited, as at first sight one should think his ritual was. All you hear, and that pronounced with nonchalance, is, that Monsieur un tel has had Madame un telle. The Duc de Nivernois has parts, and writes at the top of the mediocre, but, as Madame Geoffrin says, is manqu'e par tout; guerrier manqu'e, ambassadeur manqu'e, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... house, she desired us to arrange a meeting on the neutral ground of the Legation. On the day fixed they met here In the afternoon. I remained out of the salon, and only returned when the tea-table was brought in. The President partook of his tea with graceful nonchalance. ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... his shoulders. "Sais pas," he answered with French nonchalance. "One does not know that. It is a long time, M'sieur le Docteur. It was lost, that stirrup, some years ago. It may be a hundred years. It may be two hundred. My grandfather, he who keeps the grocery shop, has told me that there is a saying that a Martel must go to France to find ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... school, and soliciting the king in vain to visit it in state, which would have given a sort of prestige. Coldly received by the dauphin, the queen, and the princesses, he could not, as the friend of Madame de Pompadour, obtain from the nonchalance of Louis XV. the visit which he so much desired, when the idea struck him, in his despair, of having recourse to the young harpist, who appeared to be so assiduous in his attendance on the princesses, ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... said with a sort of nonchalance, which Corny did not at all like. But Mademoiselle, who was summoned to Corny's private council, gave it as her opinion, that M. de Connal was already quite in love—quite as much as a French husband ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... as a born Englishman. He had the neat, chiseled accents and the imperturbable air of a perfect gentleman, with a touch of nonchalance and the suggestion that if at the time of adjournment he had just got to the up stroke of a small "i", he could leave it there and come back to-morrow, beginning precisely where he had left off. But he was not ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... we must hold on to the ties of life as we may, and especially to such as unite you and me. But are you not getting a strange feeling of nonchalance about everything,—life, death, and the time of death, what matters it? I rather think it is natural for the love of life to grow stronger as we advance in life and yet it is so terribly shaken by the experience of life, and one is so burdened at ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... his customary nonchalance. Eveline remained stretched on the Divan of the Favourite in an attitude ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... Bottomless Pit.' The men who have been spoken of dealt largely in satire and humor; but joyousness deals in infinitely more. Mirth and laughter are all very well, but they are not all in all. Cheerfulness requires something more than a well-balanced Rabelaisian nonchalance in adversity and a keen relish for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various |
