"Debonair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fit of Paradise-wind, A slip of coerule weather, A thought as simple as Himself, And ravelled them together. Unto His eyes He held it there, To teach it gazing debonair With memory of what, perdie, A God's young innocences were. His fingers pushed it through the sod— It came up redolent of God, Garrulous of the eyes of God To all the breezes near it; Musical of the mouth ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... thought of Ilbert coming in and out as he had been used to, when he should come no more. For the first time in his life, which had had no room for self-consciousness, he compared himself with another man, handsome, debonair, and remembered the lean visage over which mornings he passed the razor, dark, lantern-jawed, almost grotesque. It was the only aspect of himself he knew, the one which was presented to ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... our retrospective mind-screens, as at times we dreamily delve into the past, beloved faces come and go. Forever in the memory of the writer, as his ideal conception of healthy, virile splendid Youth personified, will stand the bronzed, debonair, clean-shaven young face of George Redmond—or "Reddy," as he was more familiarly dubbed by ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... earthly kings, leading the armies of the gods to war against the demons when occasion requires, and passing the leisure of peace in the enjoyment of celestial dissipation. His morals have not improved: he is a debonair debauchee. Brahma the Creator, a more popular version of Prajapati, is still too impersonal to have much hold on the popular imagination; the same is the case with Agni the Fire-god. Plainly there was a vacancy for a supreme deity ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... sinking heart. The merry interlude of supper was robbed of its zest, as she cudgelled her brains to imagine what she was about to hear. Ralph was evidently in trouble of some sort, and his parents for once inclined to take a serious stand. Yet anything more gay and debonair than the manner with which the culprit handed round refreshments and waited on his father's guests it would be impossible to imagine. Darsie watched him across the room, and noted that wherever he passed faces brightened. ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... knights of the two parties in contest, and with the knights came their esquires in attendance. Now these knights were all in full armor, shining very bright, and the esquires were clad in raiment of many textures and various colors, so that they were very gay and debonair. So, with all this throng moving along the highway toward the meadow of battle, it seemed as though the entire world was alive with ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... easy, careless, unperturbed. His stories were amusing Pasquale, and the old ruffian had a fondness for anybody that could entertain him. But back of his debonair gayety Steve nursed a growing unease. He was no longer dressed in the outfit of a cowpuncher, but wore a gray street suit and a Panama straw hat. Culvera had caught only a momentary glance at him the night they had faced each other revolver in hand. Yet the American was morally convinced that ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... have known this Ross Worthington reclining so easefully in the steamer-chair as the original of her beloved photograph. She might have recognized the eyes, keen and bright in their glance as ever, and with the same debonair smiling; but the wavy dark hair was clipped as closely as the hair of any other male biped and had greyed a trifle just at the temples. He was less like a novelist's creation, and more like the men Arethusa had known in the flesh, in his appearance, ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... silently thought over the impression he had made. He was the same handsome, confident Tom Endover, but there was something gone,—and was there not something in its place? Had that gay courtesy, that debonair good fellowship, changed into something more finished, but harder and more conscious? Was there a suggestion that his old careless charm had become a calculated and a clearly appreciated facility? Lucy Eastman did not formulate ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... riveted on his sad, lean apparition, how terribly changed from the old debonair days! Kind sympathy spoke in her look and mien till the radiance of love, beginning in little ghosts of welcoming smiles at the corners of her mouth, broke into ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... By chance arrived a damsel at the place, Who was (though mean and rustic was her wear) Of royal presence and of beauteous face, And lofty manners, sagely debonair: Her have I left unsung so long a space, That you will hardly recognise the fair. Angelica, in her (if known not) scan, The lofty daughter ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the Literary Editor (lacing up one's shoes) one may study the wild pinnacle of Woolworth, faintly superfused with a brightness of gold and pink. From the office of one of our dramatic critics the view is negligible (being but a hardy brick wall), but the critic, debonair creature, has a small mirror of his own, so there one manages the ticklish business of the cravat. And from our own kennel, where are transacted the last touches (transfer of pipe, tobacco, matches, Long Island railroad timetable, commutation ticket, etc., to the other pockets) there is a heavenly ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... might be mentioned a third reason: that this same Danny O'Rourke, red-haired, smiling, and debonair was listed on the Air Fire Force of the United States with the highest rating that the A. F. F. has to give its pilots. But Danny would have grinned at such a suggestion and would have countered with a denial that he was better qualified than "the ...
— The Hammer of Thor • Charles Willard Diffin
... I fed in the hay, while Harry swung up and down at the wheel, slender and debonair in spite of his coarse blue garments, with merry brown eyes. He was younger than I, and evidently inferior in muscle; but, as I know now, he had inherited a spirit which is greater than mere bodily strength. No man had a truer comrade than I in Harry Lorraine, and the friendship ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... country in which it flourished only accentuated their own misgivings. They were tired before the train drew in to St. Marys and decided to discuss nothing that evening. At the works station Clark met them. He was cheerful and debonair. ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... between the lawyer and one of the racing-men, Banneker, as the dinner progressed, found himself watching Delavan Eyre, opposite, who was drinking with sustained intensity, but without apparent effect upon his debonair bearing. Banneker thought to read a haunting fear in his eyes, and was cogitating upon what it might portend, when his attention was distracted by Ely Ives, who had been requested (as he announced) to exhibit his small skill at some minor ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and try this temper, sirs; Mood it and brood it in your breast; Or if ye ween, for worldly stirs, That man does right to mar his rest, Let me be left, and debonair; I am content; I ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... discomfiture. He did not put in appearance until the sheriff and his friend were climbing anxiously and sadly into the light wagon to return home empty-handed. Then he sauntered from behind a hedge and lifted his hat in his usual debonair manner. ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... What he saw sent a shiver through him. A great change had come over his friend. His untidy dress,—always so neat and well kept; his haggard eyes and shambling, unsteady walk, so different from his springy, debonair manner, all showed that he had been and still was under some terrible mental strain. That he had not been drinking was evident from his utterance and gait. This last discovery when his condition was considered, disturbed him most of all, for he saw that Garry was going ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... more especially at those points which demanded some sacrifice of one's self, for the weak, for the aged, for little children, and even for the dead. And then, for its constant outward token, its significant manner or index, it issued in a certain debonair grace, and a certain mystic attractiveness, a courtesy, which made Marius doubt whether that famed Greek "blitheness," or gaiety, or grace, in the handling of life, had been, after all, an unrivalled success. Contrasting with the incurable insipidity even of what was ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... strong hand, the bold eye, the ready tongue; kneel to her, and she will scorn and contemn you. What woman, think you, would prefer the solemn, stern-eyed purity of a Sir Galahad (though he be the king of men) to the quick-witted gayety of a debonair Lothario (though he be but the shadow of a man)? Out upon thee, pale-faced student! Thy tongue hath not the trick, nor thy mind the nimbleness for the winning of a fair and lovely lady. Thou'rt well enough in want ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... accompanying Mrs. Craigie on the long voyage to Southampton was a Lieutenant Thomas James, a debonair young officer of the Bengal Infantry, who made himself very agreeable to her and with whom he exchanged many confidences. He was going home on a year's sick leave; and at the suggestion of his ship-board acquaintance he ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... wont to favor. And the surtout, single-breasted, was thrown open gallantly; and in the second button-hole thereof was a moss rose. The vest was white, and the trowsers a pearl-gray, with what tailors style "a handsome fall over the boot." A blue and white silk cravat, tied loose and debonair; an ample field of shirt front, with plain gold studs; a pair of lemon-colored kid gloves, and a white hat, placed somewhat too knowingly on one side, complete the description, and "give the world assurance of the man." And, with his light, firm, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... which three of them were Governors, and which of them had served as officers of the State Line in the Revolution; and, in fine, was more than satisfied to have his daughter play Penelophon to Colonel Musgrave's debonair ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... Denys you are right," said the cure. "But, que voulez-vous? the saints are debonair, and have been flesh themselves, and know man's frailty and absurdity. 'Tis the Bishop of Avignon ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... some sager sing) The frolic wind that breathes the spring Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-Maying— There, on beds of violets blue And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... of wine except at the hands of a maiden fair, Who, like unto thee and it, is joyous and debonair. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... one which includes these cypresses of Monterey. Yet this same mordant area holds Point Lobos, a headland which displays in moss and lichens all the minute delicacy of a gleeful, elfin world. I challenge the earth to produce a region more beautiful, yet also more gay and debonair in natural connotation, than the one which enfolds San Francisco. For here the water presents gorgeous, plastic color, alternating blue and gold. Here Mount Tamalpais lifts its long straight slopes out of the sea and thrusts them high in the sky. Here Marin County offers ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... found a considerable sprinkling of photographs; for the most part either of very debonair-looking young ladies or old women of the lodging-house persuasion. But one among them was the means of our ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... first with a sparkle of coquetry in her eye, then with a glance of compassion as she noticed how much the debonair visitor had changed for the worse since she saw him last. She looked at him solicitously, as though she would have liked to remove with womanly hands the marks of neglect from his apparel. From the door she watched him making ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... So did Arthur Updyke. It was rather to be expected of Arthur, however. His duties at the City Drug Store seemed to encourage a debonair lightness of conduct. He treated his blond ringlets assiduously from the stock of pomades; he was as fastidious about his fingernails as we might expect one to be in an environment of manicure implements and nail beautifiers; ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... sprightliest air, she spread her plumage and prepared to descend with effect, for a party of uninvited peris stood at the gate of this Paradise casting longing glances at the forbidden splendors within. Slowly, that all might see her, Kitty sailed down, with Horace, the debonair, in her wake, and was just thinking to herself, "Those girls won't get over this very soon, I fancy," when all in one moment she heard Fletcher exclaim, wrathfully, "Hang the flounces!" she saw a very glossy black hat come skipping ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... invariable practice to speak affably to his enemy in passing, mainly because it so angered the latter; this time he insisted upon stopping. He was debonair and smiling, as always, but there was more than a trace of mockery in his ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... exactly what the other was not. Lapierre was handsome, debonair, easy of speech, and graceful of movement; deferential, earnest, at times even pensive, and the possessor of ideals; generous and accommodating to a fault, if a trifle cynical; maligned, hated, discredited by the men who ruled the North, yet brave and infinitely capable—she ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... Camp Cooke in compliance with orders from division headquarters at 'Frisco had, three weeks later, practically finished the case of Brevet-Captain Nevins, and that debonair person, who had appeared before it on the first day, suave, laughing, and almost insolently defiant, had wilted visibly as, day after day, the judge advocate unfolded the mass of evidence against him. All that Nevins thought to be tried for was a charge of misappropriation ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... could hardly ask to be conducted off the premises like the honored guest. Nor would it do to retire by the way I had come. If I could have leaped the hedge with a single bound, that would have made a sufficiently dashing and debonair exit. But the hedge was high, and I was incapable at the moment of achieving a debonair leap ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... body so arrogantly well gowned, she had in some way touched his lethargic imagination. She showed herself to be of finer and keener fiber than the sordid demireps with whom he had to do. Shimmering and saucy and debonair as a polo pony, she had seemed a departure from type, something above the meretricious termagants round whom he so often had to weave his accusatory webs ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... was called 'Le debonair Francois.' He loved the Provencal songs, and indeed learned to sing his sweet melodies to Christ after the mode of those songs of earthly love. His eyes danced with life, he went singing about all day long, and through ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... the writer of 'slams.' He is as debonair and inconsequential as a young Hermes to whom only the serious lessons of life can teach sympathy and true insight, if he ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... dark man, dapper and debonair, swallow-tailed and top-hatted, was waltzing about the stage with dainty, mincing steps, and in a thin little voice singing something or other about somebody or something evidently pathetic. As his waning voice neared the end of the lines, a large woman, crowned ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... tame and tedious days of the policeman rampant, our melancholy selves are debarred from many a sport, joyous and debonair, whereof our happier fathers were free. Book-stealing, to be sure, remains to us; but every one is not a collector; and, besides, 'tis a diversion you can follow with equal success all the year round. Still, the instance ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... Debonair in dress and deportment, there seemed nothing to inspire alarm in the air of gentle concern with which he regarded the man whom he had come to visit. Yet Spencer cursed the languor which had kept him from recovering the revolver which an hour or ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... grateful. Still, she could not help wishing that Tom's name could have been Jerome. That did sound so splendid! But Tom in her eyes was just as nice as Jerome Vane, even if he was solemn and shy while Jerome was laughing and debonair. ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... down on her bed, still furious. After a while she was able to understand something of this fury. The world was upside down, wrong end to. Dennison, not Cunningham, should have acted the debonair, the nonchalant. Before this adventure began he had been witty, amusing, companionable; now he was as interesting as a bump on a log. At table he was only a poor counterfeit of his father, whose silence was maintained admirably, at all ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... short-sighted and colour-blind. On the other hand, she liked a petit verre with her coffee, and both at a separate restaurant. But never had Madame Valiere appeared to Madame Depine's eyes more like the "Princess," more gay and polished and debonair, than at this little round table on the sunlit Boulevard. Little trills of laughter came from the half-toothless gums; long gloved fingers toyed with the liqueur glass or drew out the old-fashioned watch ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... without haste and reached the outer door. She opened it without fumbling, and in a moment Saltash's debonair accents ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... wife," volunteered Markel, with a debonair wave of his pudgy hand, and trying to make his voice ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... had brought a pink flush to her cheek and a moist brilliance to her eye. You could not help thinking, had society not made her what she was, how fresh and fair and debonair a little maiden she would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... shy, Though in that cage of words wild thoughts were pent Like prisoned birds that some sweet accident Might yet release to sing again, and fly. We passed between long lines of poplar trees . . . Where, summer comrades gay and debonair, The south wind and the sunlight danced . . . you smiled, With great glad eyes, as bright as summer seas, To feel their twinkling fingers in your hair . . And then you kissed ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... alongside Raffles, as he rode, bronzed and bearded, with warworn wide-awake over eyes grown keen as a hawk's, and a cutty-pipe sticking straight out from his front teeth. I can see him now, so gaunt and grim and debonair, yet already with much of the nonsense gone out of him, though I thought he only smiled on ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... happened to one of Hamp's great acquaintance, which much affected him at that time, and it would have certainly have been happy for him if he had retained a just sense of it always. There was one Scrimgeour, a very merry debonair fellow, who used to make not only the men, but sometimes the officers merry on board the ship. He was particularly remarkable for being always full of money, of which he was no niggard, but ready to do anybody a service, and consequently was very far from being ill-beloved. This man being ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... thriving in unwonted soil and air Far from its native springtime's genial care; So on my ready tongue hath Love assayed In a strange speech to wake new flower and blade, While I of thee, proud yet so debonair, Sing songs whose sense is to my people lost— Yield the fair Thames, and the fair Arno gain. Love willed it so, and I, at others' cost, Already knew Love never willed in vain: Would my heart slow and bosom hard were found To him who plants from heaven ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... a mere subterfuge. Now, look here, ask her again, and be more debonair and dashing this time. What you want is to endue her with the spirit of revelry. Perhaps you'd better go to the bar first and have a dry ginger-ale, and then you'll feel ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... Staunton himself appeared. He looked years older than the strong, debonair man to whom I had told my story a few hours ago, but in his face was none of the despair which I had feared. He was pale, and his eyes were shining with suppressed excitement, but he had by no means the air of a beaten man. He came over to where ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... She ran from the intrusion of her parents at home, to her bedroom, where, looking out on the moonlit country, she stretched up her arms, hard, hard, in bliss, agony offering herself to the blond, debonair ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... discoursed upon its history. He would take Darrow aside at the first opportunity and ask him——But—it! how could he do that? These were his intimate friends. He knew them well, more than well, with one exception, and he——Well, he was the handsomest of the lot and the most debonair and agreeable. A little more gay than usual to-night, possibly a trifle too gay, considering that a man of Mr. Blake's social weight and business standing sat at the board; but not to be suspected, no, not to ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... cheerly[obs3]; of good cheer, smiling; blithe; in spirits, in good spirits; breezy, bully, chipper [U.S.]; in high spirits, in high feather; happy as the day is long, happy as a king; gay as a lark; allegro; debonair; light, lightsome, light hearted; buoyant, debonnaire, bright, free and easy, airy; janty[obs3], jaunty, canty[obs3]; hedonic[obs3]; riant[obs3]; sprightly, sprightful[obs3]; spry; spirited, spiritful[obs3]; lively, animated, vivacious; brisk as a bee; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... pressed her face close against the glass; across the clearing from the direction of the river dashed a dog-team, with three men running before and three behind, while upon the sled, jaunty and smiling, and debonair as ever, sat Pierre Lapierre himself. With a flourish he swung the dogs up to the tiny veranda and stepped from the sled, and the next moment Chloe found herself standing in the little living-room with Lapierre bowing low over her hand. Harriet Penny was in the schoolhouse; ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... hands! how hale you virtuous honour forth! You do not well: away! Now, by my faith, ye do not well, I say. Take her, fair queen, use her as she deserves: She's fair, she's noble, chaste, and debonair. I must, according to due course of war, See that our soldiers scatter not too far, Lest, what care won, our negligence ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... nod and a bright smile from him on Sundays, and sometimes on week days when she went down into the village. And he was always as gay and as debonair and handsome as anybody could wish ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... in his cheerful, debonair manner and rode off. Troubles sat lightly on his stout heart. His effervescent nature never left him long depressed when Fortune played her freakish tricks upon him. He had lost his commission upon the sale of Iredale's land, but he had secured the ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... Harcourt, "but in the fashion that befits gentlemen—with a bold face, a gay tongue, and a fine coat well carried. Remember, Dick, look up, and no snivelling! Tell your ill-fortune and you bid for more. 'Tis Monsieur Debonair that owns ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... not Neville's should be, after all, the last word, but Pamela's. Pamela, who seemed lightly, and as it were casually, to swing a key to the door against which Neville, among many others, beat; Pamela, going about her work, keen, debonair and detached, ironic, cool and quiet, responsive to life and yet a thought disdainful of it, lightly holding and easily renouncing; the world's lover, yet not its servant, her foot at times carelessly on its neck to prove her power over it—Pamela said blandly to Grandmama, when the old lady ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... through her unhappy mind. Women are women and understand one another. And Teresa, unclean and abandoned old hulk though she was, had stood by this girl when she came to us flying out of the wrack like a lost ship. "Dear, dear, dear"—I remembered scraps of her talk—"the good Lord is debonair, and knows all about these things. He isn't like a man, as you might say": and again, "Why bless you, He's not going to condemn you for a matter that I could explain in five minutes. 'If it comes ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... went along, and swung his gun in debonair fashion. It would not take him, an expert borderer and woodsman, long to get that prairie chicken, and after that, as he had said before, it was only a step from grass ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... taste and try this temper, sirs, Mood it and brood it in your breast; Or if ye ween, for worldly stirs, That man does right to mar his rest, Let me be deft, and debonair, I am ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... his back, staring at the roof of the berth. By lying absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inland scenes and objects, he had contrived to reduce the green in his complexion to a mere tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth to say that he felt debonair. He received ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... a girl more jubilant, never more buoyant, never so charming, so blithesome, or so debonair, as when she is the gazetted about-to-be bride of the man of ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... how he lookt when, with grace debonair, He began first to court—rather late in the season— Or when, less fastidious, he sat in the chair Of his old friend, the Nottingham Goddess ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... witty—even volatile—fond of society, dancing, and a good time generally; not of the strongest intellectual power, judged by modern standards, but, as shown by his marvellous dramatic insight, by no means the debonair light-weight he is often represented. Yet whenever music was under consideration he was a changed being; he became instantly serious, and would suffer no disrespect to himself or to his art. During the last sad years of his career in Vienna, when he ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... was a stroke of genius, his "call of the wild" being by far the best whim of the evening. Miss EVA LEONARD-BOYNE as Ninetta, the orphan, did her little job tenderly and prettily, but I couldn't believe in Ninetta in that galley, and I doubt if she did. Mr. GORDON ASH was the debonair hero. I do most solemnly entreat him to consider the example of some of the elders in his profession who have adopted a laugh as their principal bit of business. It may turn into a millstone. Was he not laughing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... Maid of the sylph-like air, Blooming and debonair, Whither so early? Chasing the merry morn, Down through the golden corn? List'ning the hunter's ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... children sweet and fair, To you will come suave debonair, Fortune robed in shining ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... heightened by the letter regarding Sadie Burch. There was something even more offensively plebeian about them than that of the vulgar Weng. It would have been bad enough to have had to consider the propriety of paying over a large sum to a lady calling herself by an elegant or at least debonair name like Claire Desmond or Lillian Lamar,—but Sadie! And Burch! Ye gods! It was ignoble, sordid. That was a fine discovery to make about ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... enemy of gloom, Grandson of Momus, blithe and debonair, Who, aping Pan, with an inverted broom, Can'st brush the cobwebs from the brows ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... a man with one of those black bags which doctors carry. He was a young man in appearance, one of those whom one sees in the White Light District, with unnaturally bright eyes which speak of late hours and a fast pace. He wore a flower in his buttonhole—a very fetching touch with some women. Debonair, dapper, dashing, his face was not one readily forgotten. As we passed hurriedly I observed that he had torn open the note and had thrown the envelope, unsuspectingly, into ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... the doorway wore velveteen trousers of green, old and faded, a black jacket rusty, with the sleeves patched, and a scarlet sash tied loosely about the waist. On the back of her cropped yellow curls was a velveteen cap, rakishly tipped, and she stood debonair beneath the folds of the curtain with a laugh ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... sight of my figure in the antechamber beyond, and resuming in an instant his former debonair manner, he bowed very low and opened his lips as if about to ask a question. But he evidently thought better of it, for he strode by me and made his way to the front door without a word. Being an intruder myself, I did not like to stop him. But I am sorry now for the consideration I showed ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... shadow, Florence Baker's face dropped into her hands. When at last she glanced up another couple, likewise immaculate of attire, likewise debonair and smiling, were seated at the little table. She turned to her companion. His cigar was still glowing brightly. He ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... the true mountains I stood silently and still, Drawing strength from fancy's dauntings, From the air about the hill, And from Nature's open mercies, and most debonair good will." ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... telegraph occupied one-half of the small tent next the Miners' Retreat, and the youthful operator instantly recognized his debonair visitor. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... a number of formal visits. General Yanushkhevitch, Chief of the Staff, had held that same position when the Grand Duke Nicholas had been commander-in-chief at the Stavka. Tall, handsome and debonair, he was a man whom it was a pleasure to meet, although he may not perhaps intellectually have been quite equal to the great responsibilities placed on his shoulders in the early days of the war. This distinguished ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... a man of the nobility—a man in whose veins flowed the blood of three kings—a man handsome of face, graceful of figure, debonair—a man who had sinned much, and who had paid for that sinning only in the sufferings of others; and they had ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... Sanders and his classmate Jervis, both of whom had known the "Parson" in his cadet days, but from the somewhat immeasurable altitude of a two years' start, yet they were the younger looking now, gay, debonair bachelors, pillars of the social gatherings at the post and most delightful partners, and, having completed their duties with tattoo roll-call, they were now in search of these reigning belles and an opportunity to talk over the hop projected for the ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... pale woman with keen gray-blue eyes that never betrayed her. A little apart, speaking now and then to some courtier or councilor, stood the Spanish Ambassador in somber black and gold, like a watchful spider in a garden of rich flowers. Ralegh, careless and debonair, gave him a frank salutation as he came ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... nationality might have looked at him askance; but madame was French. She was fifty years of age, she was fat, she was ugly—but she was French. The sense of a pleasant encounter—the appreciation of romance was in her blood. She smiled at the debonair boy with as agreeable a self-consciousness as though she had been ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... a debonair hand and mounted the steps again. The porter was standing in the vestibule looking at ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... gallant figure, scrupulously attired; a blue frock-coat with a ribboned button-hole, a well-turned boot, hat a little too hidalgoish, but quite new. There was something respectable and substantial about him, notwithstanding his moustaches, and a carriage a degree too debonair for his years. He did not look like a carbonaro or a ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... impression of that most charming of debonair noblemen, Lord Melbourne. I had the honor of dining at his house once, with the beautiful, highly gifted, and unfortunate woman with whom his relations afterwards became subject of such cruel public scandal; and after dinner I sat for some time opposite a large, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.—Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.—Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.—Very weel enacted—whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,—and motion to you to rise;—whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... her—but then, alas, my heart would have ceased to beat, and I should be dead!" Pale and red he grew. He recked not of his own great worth. For all there agreed that so handsome a warrior had never come to the Rhineland, so fair of body, so debonair ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... its unavoidable horror. Such have been the characteristics always of the secular wars between the British and the French. From the old glittering days of knighthood, with their high and gallant courtesy, through the eighteenth century campaigns where the debonair guards of France and England exchanged salutations before their volleys, down to the last great Napoleonic struggle, the tradition of chivalry has always survived. We read how in the Peninsula the pickets of the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... are a debonair man of the great world; and yet you are still American, in that you are ab-om-i-nab-ly rich. [She laughs sweetly.] The settlement—Such matter as that, over which a Frenchman, an Italian, an Englishman might hesitate, you ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson
... she saw the platform. She saw George Cannon, conspicuous and debonair in a new suit, swinging his ebony stick. The train stopped. He ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... "are almost too costly for humanity." Who wishes to be severe? Who wishes to resist the eminent and polite, in behalf of the poor and low and impolite? and who that dares do it can keep his temper sweet, his frolic spirits? The high virtues are not debonair, but have their redress in being illustrious at last. What forests of laurel we bring, and the tears of mankind, to those who stood firm against the opinion of their contemporaries! The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... the men running to cut the boat lashings and struggle to launch the boats from the deck. Ned Rackham, handsome and debonair, stared coolly at the brigantine but gave no sign that he had heard the ultimatum. With a shrug he walked across the poop, glanced up at the British ensign which flew from his main truck, and made no motion to ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... most people accorded it to him. It irritated me to see how his wife had subdued her personality to his, she who was of so tender and delicate a fibre, and who more than anyone wanted cherishing, instead of being ridden down, in that debonair, rough-shod way of his, that, although often exasperating, still had something attractive about it. She and I used to discuss it sometimes, in the evenings, when he was kept out late at his job—it's an uncertain business, ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... of the Americo-African Mining Company was not looking his usual debonair self that evening. His manner was nervous and flustered, his face pale and drawn with anxious lines. His coat lacked the customary boutonniere, and his crumpled linen and unshaved chin suggested that he had come direct from his office after a strenuous day without stopping to go through ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... then with distress as her alert mind swiftly encompassed the pitiful awakening that was coming to this joyous home-comer. Before she could master her emotions, he was disappearing over the brass rail at the end of the observation-car; even as he waved her a debonair farewell, she caught the look of surprise and puzzlement in his black eyes. Wherefore, she knew the ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... dearest boy," he said to me. "I love you quite as dearly as I love him, or better, but he was sprung upon me so suddenly, and dazzled me with his comely debonair face, so full of youth, and health, and frankness. Did you see him, he would go straight to your heart, for he is wonderfully like you in spite of your taking so much after your ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... hardly a doctor even in name) hastened downtown in response to a message from the American executor, and was told of the will which had been filed in England, the home land of the testator. To say that this debonair, good-looking young gentleman was flabbergasted would be putting it more than mildly. There is no word in the English language strong enough to describe his attitude at ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... so debonair His dress was rich, his words were fair, He sweetly sang, he deftly played: He could ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Rosamunda, here are your letters, and your most devoted ready to execute any commissions you may have for him," was Charlie's greeting as he came in looking comely, gay, and debonair as usual. ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... depressed. Such, too, are the men whom they lead with such skill and devotion. Under the frightful hammer-blows of circumstance, the national characters seem to have been reversed. It is our British soldier who has become debonair, light-hearted and reckless, while the Frenchman has developed a solemn stolidity and dour patience which was once all our own. During a long day in the French trenches, I have never once heard the sound of music or laughter, ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... laughed at; but it has lost its silky curl and stands straight out now from the corners of his mouth, its points reaching almost to the line of his ears. There is, too, beneath it a small imperial, giving to his face the debonair look of a cavalier, and which accentuates more than any other one thing his Southern birth and training. As you follow the subtle outlines of his body you find too, that he is better proportioned than he was in his early manhood; thinner around the waist, broader across ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... prepared for the afternoon's races. In a generous mood he bought his employee's lunch and took him to a seat in the grand stand. All afternoon the two men watched the races, smoked and quarreled. Tom contended that Bud Doble, the debonair, the dramatic, the handsome, was the greatest of all race horse drivers, and Jim Priest held Bud Doble in contempt. For him there was but one man of all the drivers he whole-heartedly admired, Pop Geers, the shrewd and silent. "That Geers of yours doesn't ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... flying column of the hospital was preparing to set out in search of wounded men on the firing line under direction of Lieut. de Broqueville, son of the Belgian War Minister. The Lieutenant, very cool and debonair, was arranging the order of the day with Dr. Munro. Lady Dorothie Feilding and the two other women in field kit stood by their cars, waiting for the password. There were four stretcher-bearers, including Mr. Gleeson, an American, who has worked with this party around Ghent and Antwerp, proving ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... charetter [charioteer] shall be a full braver [finer, more showy] man than the prince his master. Sir Roger made a deal more bruit than ever the King himself; that during all these four years was meek and debonair [humble and gentle], as though he abode his time. He wrought what he would (which was mostly ill), and bare him like those of whom the Psalmist speaketh, that said, "Our lips are of us, who is our lord?" [Psalm 9 4, Rolle's translation.] He held up but a finger, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... gilded chair: Now roars the talk like crashing seas, Foams upward to the painted frieze, Echoes and ebbs. Still surges in, To yelp of hautboy and violin, Plumed and bedazzling, rosed and rare, Dance-bemused, with cheek aglow, Stooping the green-twined portal through, Sighing with laughter, debonair, That concourse of the proud and fair— And lo! 'La, la! Mamma ... Mamma!' Falls a small cry in the dark and calls— 'I ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... at the new-comers, at Griffo of the Claw, that had lost him one toss already, and at the woman who rode beside him so gay and debonair in her mannish habit—the woman he had slighted, the woman who had, as he guessed, baffled his plans once, and had now come, as he might be very sure, to baffle them again. It was plain to him that he had lost the day. It needed ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... looking particularly debonair, and taking pattern by him, I turned away from my aunt's husband, pretending that I had ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... gasps Willie, 'and there'll be a vacant seat in the sergeant's mess;' and so the afternoon wears away and the landscape is littered wi' shell cases, but high in the air, glitterin' in the dyin' rays of the sun, sits the debonair scoot, cool, resolute, ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... necromancy); and the best work-woman she was with her hands that any man knew in any land, and she had the fairest head and the fairest hands under heaven, and shoulders well-shapen; and she had fair eloquence and full debonair she was, as long as she was in her right wit; and when she was wroth with any man, she was evil to meet." This lady was one of Merlin's pupils, but the one whom he loved most and instructed the most was Nimiane or Vivian, already mentioned, who seems to have ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... never seen him so perturbed. He usually approached these conflicts with his father with a passing grimace, exhibited sufficient repentance to get what he wanted, and emerged more debonair than ever. It was disturbing to see ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... conquered the foe, St. George, according to The Golden Legend, "said to the maid: 'Deliver to me your girdle, and bind it about the neck of the dragon, and be not afeard.' When she had done so, the dragon followed her as it had been a meek beast and debonair." It was later, and not until St. George had baptized the King and all his people (which was his reward), that he smote ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... assembled at length, the dinner was in full swing. It would have been hard for any onlooker to have guessed that so much misery and heart-burning were there. Sir Charles, smiling, gay, debonair, chatted with his guests as if quite forgetful of the silent watchers by the railings outside. He might have been a rich man as he surveyed the tables and ordered the waiters about. True, somebody else would eventually pay for the dinner, but that detracted ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... base, by the way, Miss Scudder attributes as the work of Laurence Grant White. Pan is enjoying the music of the two long pipes he blows-playing one of the unplaced wild lilts of nature, we may be sure. This sense of enjoyment and his debonair little swagger are festive and delightful. His mischievous gaiety communicates itself to the beholder. This humorous quality appears in another merry little god by the same sculptor, her "Flying ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... especially rare, exquisite, unfamiliar, or even so distinguished as to be obsolete. He was about twenty-two, but not one of those book-read sportsmen of that age, confident in clothes and manner, easy travellers and debonair; that is to say, Noble was not of the worldly type twenty-two. True, he had graduated from the High-school before entering his father's Real Estate and Insurance office, but his geographical experiences (in particular) had been limited to three or four railway ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... answered, pluming himself and speaking in his softest tones. 'And the most charming, I assure you, the most debonair of men. But ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... energetic warning to Lady May Quisante. This last item came home most closely to the general feeling, and the general voice asked what Lady May was thinking of. There was warrant for the question in the wondering despair of Lady Mildmay and the sad embarrassment of debonair Sir Winterton. The Mildmays knew all about it, the whole thing had happened in their house; but Sir Winterton, challenged with the story about Sir Rufus, could only hum and ha, and Lady Mildmay had not denied the interview between Quisante's ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... move toward the house, and he strode beside, as debonair and gallant a figure as ever filled the eye and the heart of a woman. The morning sun glow irradiated him, found its sparkling reflection in the dark curls of his bare head, in the bloom of his tanned cheeks, ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... the bride-elect of the debonair Aristide Pujol it was impossible to imagine. However, it was none of my business. I raised my ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... coffee brown, with the lean lithe grace of youth garbed in the picturesque regalia of the vaquero, Flandrau was a taking enough picture to hold the roving eye of any girl. A good many centered upon him now, as he sauntered forward toward the Cullison box cool and easy and debonair. More than one pulse quickened at sight of him, for his gallantry, his peril and his boyishness combined to enwrap him in the atmosphere of romance. Few of the observers knew what a wary vigilance lay ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... the time, and the father made a point of capping them all. This was home in a liberal sense which the word had never meant to Henry. Doubtless, it had its own individual restrictions and censorships; but its surface was at all events debonair, and it was serviceable to Henry as revealing the existence of more genial social climates than that in which he had been nurtured—though in making the comparison with his own atmosphere, he realised that this bonhomie was nothing ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... followed (there was nothing rude in it: these French folk are gentle and courteous in their gayest frolics) the chevalier was forgotten. When he came in, late (somewhat flushed, as if he might have been running when no man was looking, but debonair and smiling, with many apologies), there was no place for him near mademoiselle, and I was not sorry. Neither, I confess, did he seem to be, for he devoted himself pointedly to Mademoiselle Chouteau, ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... remember how debonair The new moon shone when we said good-bye? How it listened and smiled when we parted there? I shall hate the new moon until I die— Hate it for ever, nor think ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... problem of the new spring dress. They never guessed that the commonplace man in the frayed old smoking-jacket had banished them all from the room long ago; had banished himself, for that matter. In his place was a tall, debonair, and rather dangerously handsome man to whom six o'clock spelled evening clothes. The kind of man who can lean up against a mantel, or propose a toast, or give an order to a man-servant, or whisper ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... one phase endlessly repeated. The dentist, for example, has special advantages for character study, but he should remember that the least heroic of his patients has moments when he is more blithe and debonair than ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... was thirty-two, was debonair and attractive of countenance to a degree. His eyes, which were grey, were extraordinarily mirthful, mischievous. A supremely airy and careless and bold spirit looked through those eyes and shone through their flashes and glints and sparkles of diamond light. His face was thin and of tanned ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... and exact that sections might be sliced off them like cheese, and doors and windows might be carved in them; but these French haystacks were devil-may-care haystacks wearing tufts on their polls like headdresses. The windmills had a rakish air; and the scarecrows in the truck gardens were debonair and cocky, tilting themselves back on their pins the better to enjoy the view and fluttering their ragged vestments in a most jaunty fashion. The land though looked poor—it had a driven, overworked look ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... the performers were A.S.C. men. The most popular vocalist turned up on his own, however, viz. Captain the Maclean, of Lochbuie (of the 19th Hussars), who is quite an artist in his way. This gay, debonair Scotsman is simply worshipped by the men. One of the latter (himself holding the D.C.M. and the French Medaille Militaire for conspicuous bravery at Landrecies) told me Maclean was the bravest man he had ever seen; he is always at the head of a rush whether on horseback or on foot, and invariably ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... Aucassin. "Where now is honour on earth so high, which Nicolette my sweet friend would not grace if it were hers? Were she Empress of Constantinople or of Germany, were she Queen of France or of England, there were but little in it, so noble is she and gracious and debonair and ...
— Aucassin and Nicolette - translated from the Old French • Anonymous
... the sturdiness and gallant bearing of the other; considering, from the standpoint of her own personal knowledge in the premises, the Notary's disposition toward a secretive reticence that bordered upon severity, in contrast with the cordially frank and debonair temperament of the Major; and, at the back of all, keeping well in mind the fundamental truths that opportunity ever is evanescent and that time ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... it seemed to Blair as though the sparkle had fled from the glasses, the gleam of candlelight from the silver. Across the cloth he had watched her—girlish, debonair, and with a secret laughter lurking in her eyes. And yet he had not had a chance to exchange half a dozen sentences ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley |
