"Complacently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... home farm was five miles from the station. The outlying farms were scattered in five villages—"there are always spendthrift lazy fellows willing to sell their land." "I have a firm belief," the speaker added complacently, "that agriculture is the most honest, the most sincere, the most interesting, the most secure and the ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... you can afford to sleep till half-past three in the morning once in a while," Mrs. Stilwell said complacently. "Why, Mr. Morgan, that man didn't sleep under a roof once a month the first five or six years we were on this range! He just laid out like a coyote anywhere night overtook him, watchin' them cattle like they were children. Now, ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... which come in from the Black Sea. The stratagem is a good one, and I dare say some hundreds of men will be added to the encamped army, while certain unconscious diplomatists are sipping their coffee, and complacently gazing ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... public and gregarious. We flatter ourselves in the Pilgrim Fathers, and the Virginian offshoot of a transported convict swells with the fancy ef a cavalier ancestry. Pride of birth, I have noticed, takes two forms. One complacently traces himself up to a coronet; another, defiantly, to a lapstone. The sentiment is precisely the same in both cases, only that one is the positive and the other the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... appealed to the worst side of the Mexican's nature. This hatred was after his own heart. Lablache was aware that such would be the case. That is why he made it. He was accustomed to play upon the feelings of people with whom he dealt—as well as their pocket. Pedro Mancha grinned complacently. He thought he understood ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... have any fears, if I worked it rightly," said the old gentleman complacently. "I wasn't coming without her, Marian, if it could possibly be managed. The truth is, that Phronsie had been pining for Polly to such an extent, that there was no other way but for her to have Polly; and her mother was just on the ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... for a circus performance. However, the showmen uttered no protest, going about their business as methodically as if the air were warm and balmy, the moon and stars shining down over the scene complacently. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... surprised ourselves," Yurt said complacently. "But this seems to be how Zen reproduce. Can you have only ...
— Zen • Jerome Bixby
... less violent in her prejudices, she might have forced herself to dwell upon the advantages over her present position and come to accept the situation with something like serenity. But she was too strong a character to adapt herself complacently to a livelong, intimate association with a person so genuinely, so uncontrollably, physically repugnant to her as ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... Moreno can afford to pay such salaries during the Fiesta," he answered complacently, taking a fresh ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... she does; we have her yet, I assure you, monsieur.' 'Though neither very safe, nor very sound,' interposed an officer of the Irish Brigade, who happened to be present, looking very significantly at O'Leary, and not very complacently at the courier. 'And pray, monsieur,' rejoined John Bull to the Frenchman, 'why encore?' 'Pardon, monsieur,' replied the Frenchman, 'I heard it had been worn out (fatigue) long ago, by the great number of people that were living in it.' The fact is, the Frenchman had been told, and really ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... old-fashioned," resumed the ex-judge, complacently, after a pause. "And I am grateful to Miss Johnson, who has trained her very well. If she were like some of the girls one sees now! Last year there was a young lady here—Ach, Gott!" He raised his shoulders, ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lots," said Chris, complacently. "She didn't tell me nothing, hardly. But I told her lots. My apple fritter got cold whilst I was telling it. She sent it away, and had two hot ones, new, on purpose ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... to do—carrying out objects which were identified not only with his theory, which is but a kind of secondary egoism, but also with the primary egoism of his feelings. Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution: a self-obtrusive, over-hasty reformer complacently disclaiming all merit, while his friends call him a martyr, has not in reality a career the most arduous to the fleshly mind. But Mr. Tryan was not cast in the mould of the gratuitous martyr. With a power of persistence which had been ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Dynasty perpetuated the tradition of preceding ages. Ai, in his fine tomb at Tell el Amarna, recounts the episode of his marriage with the daughter of Khuenaten. Neferhotep of Thebes, having received from Horemheb the decoration of the Golden Collar, complacently reproduces every little incident of his investiture, the words spoken by the king, as also the year and the day when this crowning reward was conferred upon him. Another, having conducted a survey, is seen attended by his subordinates with their measuring chains; ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... from the outset. In all its early stages he was its most efficient promoter, and seems to have given ample proof of his compliant zeal in its execution. His visit to the Leyden brethren in Holland was, apparently, wholly instigated by Gorges, as the latter complacently claims and collateral evidence proves. In his endeavor to induce the leaders to "break off with the Dutch," their pending negotiations for settlement at "Hudson's River," he evidently made capital of, and traded upon, his former kindness to some of them when they were in straits,—a ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... speaking he glanced complacently round, as if to intimate to the listeners what an old friend of the captain's they enjoyed in the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... conditions did not change. Germany had no reason at all for making war on France from the time that it had got well ahead of that country in industry, commerce and navigation. It is true that there were a certain number of unbalanced people in the metal industry who talked complacently of French iron and stirred up the yellow press, just as in France to-day there are many industrials with their eyes fixed on German coal which they want to seize as far as possible. But the intellectuals, the politicians, even military circles, ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... combination of the two wants most essential to his mental life,—the voice of his wife, the touch of his Familiar. He rose,—he left his bed, he leisurely put on his old dressing-robe, in which he had been wont to compose. He smiled complacently as the associations connected with the garment came over his memory; he walked tremulously across the room, and entered the small cabinet next to his chamber, in which his wife had been accustomed more often to watch than sleep, when illness separated her from his side. The room was desolate and ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and lean, walked complacently and condescendingly in, followed by his master. At a glance, the least imaginative could see that Jud Carpenter, the Whipper-in of the Acme Cotton Mills, and Bonaparte, his dog, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... you should think so, an' you had the doing of it," said Barbara complacently. "Up ere the lark, and abed after the nightingale! What with scouring, and washing, and dressing meat, and making the beds, and baking, and brewing, and sewing, and mending, and Mrs Clare and ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... [Complacently.] I fancy she's pretty nearly at the end of her rope. My maid tells me she couldn't pay her grocer's bill till she got ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... excitement is visible among his hearers, a scream is heard, and some young girl falls senseless on the floor. There is a momentary rustle, but it is only for a moment—all eyes are turned towards the preacher. He pauses, passes his handkerchief across his face, and looks complacently round. His voice resumes its natural tone, as with mock humility he offers up a thanksgiving for having been successful in his efforts, and having been permitted to rescue one sinner from the path of evil. He sinks back into his seat, exhausted with the violence of his ravings; the ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... Stuart complacently stroked the gold braid on his left sleeve and looked about the hunting lodge, the walls of which had been decorated accordingly long since ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... standing. All the world watched Brummell to imitate him, and order their clothes of the tradesman who dressed that sublime dandy. One day a youthful beau approached Brummell and said, "Permit me to ask you where you get your blacking?" "Ah!" replied Brummell, gazing complacently at his boots, "my blacking positively ruins me. I will tell you in confidence; it is ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... altar, and uplifted there His voice to God in fervent praise and prayer; In praise for blessings past, so rich and free, And prayer for benedictions yet to be. Then on a stile, which spanned the dooryard fence, He sat him down complacently, and thence Surveyed with pride, o'er the far-reaching plain, His flocks and herds and fields of golden grain; His meadows waving like the billowy seas, And orchards filled with over-laden trees, Quoth he: "How vast the products of my lands; ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... nation seem to have lost that ideal enthusiasm which constituted the greatness of its history. With the increase of wealth they live for the moment, they are incapable of sacrificing the enjoyment of the hour to the service of great conceptions, and close their eyes complacently to the duties of our future and to the pressing problems of international life which await a solution at the present time."—GENERAL VON BERNHARDI in ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... sake of getting the curtain rapidly down over the benedictory guardian and the virtue-rewarded fair, who are impatient themselves to be off to a very different distribution of cakes and ale. We know that the hero and the heroine walk complacently away in the company of the dejected villain to wash off their rouge and burnt cork, and experience the practical domestic felicity which is ordered for them on the same principles as for us who sit in the pit and applaud. If it were not so, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... said poor Tommy, "I guess!" And the company bowed a unanimous "Yes," And the horse, cow and sheep, duck, duckling and hen, Complacently turned themselves ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... he replied complacently, "and the moon'll rise earlier to-night than he did last night. Ef 'tes clear moonlight we c'n zee. Ef tes'n, we must be up as zoon as ther's any light and find et afore anybody ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... entertainment, and will be pleased if you will come to my mean abode to have a glass of wine. But I wonder whether you will entertain favourably my modest invitation?" Y-ts'un, after listening to the proposal, put forward no refusal of any sort; but remarked complacently: "Being the recipient of such marked attention, how can I presume to repel ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Dame Lyngern," complacently remarked the lady whose heart lay bleeding. "Be that ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... of the simpleton, who had forgotten to tell him which to follow. But, on L'Isle's asking what they should do now, he dismounted, and stepped up to consult his wisest mule, which he did by slipping the bridle from his head. At once, sure instinct came to faltering reason's aid; the beast turned complacently into the right hand path, and moving briskly on, jingled his bells more cheerily than before, as if he already saw the open stable door, and snuffed his evening meal. Their path bending westward, they now saw clouds mustering ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... to desperation by means of methods that are common enough inside the department, he might have invoked competent and willing assistance, for the word had filtered down from on high, where the seats of the mighty are, that those mysterious forces aloft would look complacently upon the eternal undoing of the Stretchy Gormans and their titular ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... a second of stillness in the room, and then everyone with one accord burst out laughing. As they did so the figure in the corner complacently uncoiled all the ropes and let them fall with a flourish. Then, advancing into the middle of the room with a bow, he produced from his pocket a big bill printed in blue and red, which announced that ZALADIN, ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... experiences in Upper and Lower Canada, which are mentioned in the despatch, and in Ireland, which is not, that race distinctions increase instead of lessening the necessity for responsible government, Mr. Lyttelton complacently quotes bi-racial Lower Canada as a precedent for his Transvaal Constitution. Quite frankly, though in curiously misleading terms,[37] he records the fact that a similar Constitution there led to deadlock and rebellion. Without intention ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... same time he regarded complacently his own fingers, which he carefully kept aloof from anything that would soil ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... ain't a thing. It ain't a circumstance," he said complacently. "No, sir. The West. That's the place for lumbering. B.C. West of the Rockies. Man, it's the world's greatest proposition. The place you can spend a lifetime cutting ninety foot baulks, and lose ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... my appetite has been a good deal affected. I don't think I have eaten as much in a week as you would in a day," he added, complacently. ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... picking up his skull, and putting it on his shoulders,—and all appearing greatly startled, only half awake, and at a loss what to do next. Some devils are dragging away the damned by the heels and on sledges, and above sits the Redeemer and some angelic and sainted people, looking complacently down upon the scene! ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Ovide, who was standing complacently behind Fielding's chair, not understanding the allusion, and thinking that he was called upon to say something, said brightly, "Oh, yes, sir, dat turkey is de finest turkey I ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... too often neglected by our painters, some of them even complacently confessing their ignorance of it; while the ordinary student either turns from it with distaste, or only endures going through it with a view to passing an examination, little thinking of what value it ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... their dashed dresses with impunity. Competition between them, indeed, was about an end. Amelia claimed Mr. Sponge, should he be worth having, and should the Scamperdale scheme fail; while Emily, having her mamma's assurance that he would not do for either of them, resigned herself complacently to what she ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... a telephone at pa's ranch," said Sucatash, complacently. "Better hit the high spots. There's a ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... Walsingham, of course, only as a matter to be smiled at by a pair of philosophers like them. But Dr. Walsingham, who was an absent man, and floated upon the ocean of his learning serenely and lazily, drawn finely and whimsically, now hither, now thither, by the finest hair of association, glided complacently off into the dim region of visionary prognostics and warnings, and reminded him how Joseph dreamed, and Pharaoh, and Benvenuto, Cellini's father, and St. Dominick's mother, and Edward II. of England, and dodged back and forward among patriarchs and pagans, and modern Christians, men and women ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... worse than his bite, I find," said Mr. Sturge complacently. "And, after all, the moment you chose was not precisely opportune—was ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in every line of the figure that holds the dice box, and in every line of the figure in the background is nervous fear for the result of the throw—fear that is fully justified. But Death, master of the game, waits complacently to mark the score, knowing that these two gamblers are the losers—and ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... failure," Lady Caroom said, complacently. "Three seasons, Arranmore, have I had to drag that girl round. I've washed my hands of her now. She must look after herself. A girl who refuses one of the richest young men in England because she didn't ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... old devil simply retired into his house, and barricaded the door on my approach; and I might beat and shout myself hoarse, he turned a deaf ear. Another, having given me a direction which, as I found afterwards, I had misunderstood, complacently watched me going wrong without adding a sign. He did not care a stalk of parsley if I wandered all night upon the hills! As for these two girls, they were a pair of impudent sly sluts, with not a thought but mischief. One put out her tongue ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spoke, so different from his usual nonchalant way of speaking. She was about to answer when the carriage stopped at the door of the Melbourne Club. Brian, anxious to escape any more remarks about the murder, sprang quickly out, and ran up the steps into the building. He found Mr. Frettlby smoking complacently, and reading the AGE. As Fitzgerald entered he looked up, and putting down the paper, held out his hand, ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... a true son of Israel,' he murmured complacently to himself. 'He will trust his gold ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... of the water." "But we must fill our pitchers," one of them replied. "Then fill them at once, and be not afraid; or leave them, and we will fill them for you." Thereupon they put the pitchers down, but remained watching us very complacently while we sank the vessels to the bottom of the lake, and let them fill from the colder and purer tide of the springs. In bringing them back through the water to the gate, the one I propelled before me ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... noble edifice, and the people are quite proud of it. The interior is finely laid out, and has some spacious rooms for the civic revelries of the fathers of the town. The good woman who showed us round feels complacently enough as she explains the uses of the rooms. The ball-room is ninety feet by forty-six, and forty feet high. The dining and drawing-rooms are spacious apartments. On the grand staircase is a noble statue of George Canning, by Chantrey, whose beautiful ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... in the arm-chair, and puffed complacently at his cigar. Then suddenly he slapped his thigh in a ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Tretherick, indignant, the Rev. Asa Crammer, principal, injured, and Mr. Joel Robinson, sen., complacently respectable, called upon Mr. Prince. There was a stormy meeting, ending in a demand for Carry. "We certainly cannot admit of this interference," said Mrs. Tretherick, a fashionably dressed, indistinctive looking woman. "It is several days before the expiration ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... literally than the golden crowns, which we do not expect or want to wear on our heads, or the golden harps, which we do not want or expect to hold in our hands. Is it not too true that many religious sectaries think of the last tribunal complacently, as the scene in which they are to have the satisfaction of saying to the believers of a creed different from their own, "I told you so"? Are not others oppressed with the thought of the great returns which ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... He smiled complacently. She noted it without irritation. Truly, small indeed is the heat of any kind that can be got from the warmed-up ashes of a burnt-out passion. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... existence. He learned this tune and played it. The patient's face brightened amazingly. He marched about the room on the light fantastic toe enjoying it; and when Clement's fingers ached nearly off with playing it, he had the satisfaction of seeing the young man sink complacently to sleep to this lullaby, the strange creation of his own mind; for it seems he was no musician, and never composed a tune before or after. This sleep saved his life. And Clement, after teaching the tune to another, in case it should be wanted again, went forward with his ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... don't acknowledge quite so fast I fail of all your manhood's lofty tastes Enumerated so complacently, On the mere ground that you forsooth can find In this particular life I choose to lead No fit provision for them. Can you not? Say you, my fault is I address myself To grosser estimators than should judge? And that's no way of holding up the soul, 370 ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... "Yes," the host complacently in reply to his guests' admiring comments, "a real man-eater. Shot him myself in the Johore jungle. Easy enough to get a tiger if you use ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... masterful and devout, praying with one hand and keeping from being fooled with the other and we want our public men to have courage and vision for themselves and for us. We give notice that thousands of our most complacently puttering, most quibbly and fuddly politicians are going to be taken out by the people, lifted up by the people, and dropped kindly but firmly over the edge of the world. This nation is facing the most colossal, most ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... said that my admiration for Livingstone has been growing. This is true. The man that I was about to interview so calmly and complacently, as I would interview any prominent man with the view of specially delineating his nature, or detailing his opinions, has conquered me. I had intended to interview him, report in detail what he said, picture his life and his figure, then bow him my "au revoir," and ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... look complacently on this land. Politics have been a fruitful source of quarrels, misrepresentation, alienation, and division. The opposition parties are locally designated "snatchers" and "snarlers," and no love is lost between the two. It is broadly affirmed that half the people on ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... was over, Aunt Katie complacently patted her teeth back into place. "I never like no one to see me without them," she said, "exceptin' my own folks. I tell you, I suffer agonies when there's a stranger in for a meal. Now, Jane, let's git the children to bed. Mary and Pearl, ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... Porthos, looking complacently at his old lackey as he went away, "you are right, D'Artagnan; Mouston will do; Mouston ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... mantel, a very handsome man in claret-colored satin, with a vest of flowered gold brocade, a gold-hilted sword upon which his fine fingers rested, and a pair of silk-stockinged legs of which he seemed complacently aware. ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... talk—all quite ostensibly about her impressions and her intentions. She tried to put Densher again on his American doings, but he wouldn't have that to-day. As he thought of the way in which, the other afternoon, before Kate, he had sat complacently "jawing," he accused himself of excess, of having overdone it, having made—at least apparently—more of a "set" at their entertainer than he was at all events then intending. He turned the tables, drawing her out about ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... shoved his frowsy head against the window, and a patient large-eyed ox stood near the door with the obvious intention of remaining there till the master put in an appearance. All were envious of the favourite cat who was seated serenely inside the window, blinking complacently at the assemblage through a safe shield of glass, and at last her airs of superiority and content became too much ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... as comfortable as I am?" Occasionally, too, when safely fastened in the pantry enjoying her green tea and Boston crackers, she would be startled with the words, "That must have an excellent relish!" and looking up, she would spy Sal, cosily seated on the top shelf, eyeing her movements complacently, and offering, perhaps, to assist her if she ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... destiny, pushing out into the unknown in obedience to an inward voice, to an impulse beating in the blood, to a dream of the future. They were wonderful; and it must be owned they were ready for the wonderful. They recorded it complacently in their sufferings, in the aspect of the seas, in the customs of strange nations, in the glory of ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... CHAPLIN the cheery, to WINCHILSEA wise, And valorous MUNTZ, who the land-question shunts, and "goes the whole hog" for Protection and rise; With rollicking LOWTHER, who's no Malagrowther, but larkily hints that the look-out is mournful; And NETHERSOLE, rustic and most nubibustic, of law and of logic complacently scornful. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... feel injured—at your having been willing. If you were to go to papa, my dear, you would have to stop coming to me." Marian put it thus, indefinably, as a picture of privation from which her companion might shrink. Such were the threats she could complacently make, could think herself masterful for making. "But if he won't take you," she continued, "he shows at ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... round aghast and with a sinking of the heart. She had never been in any room like this before, and its lack of comfort, its vulgarity, struck upon her strained nerves like a loud discordant note in music; but its owner looked round complacently and turned the gas a ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... said Blake complacently, "that I shall differ from them." He turned to Ruth, eager to engage her in the conversation, to flatter her by including her in the secret. Knowing the loyalist principles she entertained, he had no reason to fear that his plans could other than meet her approval. "What do you say, Mistress ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... their minds were taken up with the doings of the moment, and they complacently left the ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... the surrounding hills the Confederates complacently viewed the magnificent pageant, mistaking it for a grand review. So secure were they in their apparently impregnable positions that we carried Orchard Knob and captured nearly the whole picket line before they realized that we were not dress parading. And so, ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... time they talked about how splendid it was of them to be so kind to little 'Lias. "My! I don't believe most girls would put themselves out this way for a dirty little boy!" said Stashie, complacently. ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... indeed, a most shady and secluded bench, an ideal seat for any gallant young Baron who had left his Baroness sufficiently far away. He glanced down complacently upon his brawny knees, displayed (he could not but think) to great advantage beneath his kilt and sporran, and then with a tenderer complacency, turned his ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... she had in some way put her foot in it, but as the two men walked away together she nodded complacently to herself, with the words, ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... made as good a bar as any in the state with old Uncle Wilks to officiate, and in the wing in one of the private dining rooms a huge wheel stood with its face to the wall during the day, but came complacently out of its corner when night descended. On the porch could always be found either Mrs. James Knight or Mrs. Buford Cunningham. They neither of them had children, hated home and were serenely happy sitting ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the Indian Civil and Jessie in the Imperial Service Troops,' sighed Mrs. Morgan complacently. 'And both, my dear, within a year. It ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... to my feet to put my hand in my pocket for a chew of tobacco, I looked complacently about upon my comrades. Stumpy Jack stood paralysed, his head thrown back at an alarming angle, precisely as he had tilted it to watch the ascending column, and his neck somehow out of joint, holding it there. All the others were down upon their marrow-bones, ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... meat, and biscuit, made my way to a spot a short distance off, where I might take my food on the solitary system, according to the custom that we Englishmen most delight in. When I had lighted the fire, and put the water on to boil, I cast myself on the ground, and complacently puffing away at my pipe, gazed at the wild but picturesque scene before me. The position of the river was marked out by a semicircle of some fifty or sixty fires, before which dark and ill-defined figures were ever and anon flitting ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... circumstances seemingly of far fairer promise. The strength of a party of insurrection is a power which official statesmen never justly comprehend. It depends upon moral influences, which they are professionally incapable of appreciating. They are able complacently to ignore the existence of substantial disaffection though all society may be undermined; they can build their hopes, When it suits their convenience, on the idle trifling of superficial discontent. In the present instance there was some excuse for the mistake. That in England there ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... town-house was locked on the club Tammas spoke out, but though the scandal ran from door to door, as I have seen a pig in a fluster do, the minister did not lose his place. Tammas preserved the Bible, and showed it complacently to visitors as the present he got from Mr. Byars. The minister knew this, and it turned his temper sour. Tammas' proud moments, after that, were ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... me ma tea, includin' twa hot pies, an' she gi'ed me a packet o' fags—guid quality, mind ye!—an' she peyed for first-class sates in a pictur' hoose! That's hoo to dae it, ma lad!' he concluded complacently. ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... his big, bold eyes on his seatmate and calmly examining him from the toe of a well-worn shoe to the crown of a dusty old hat that Howard was trying to make last till the end of the season. When he had finished the survey his eyes travelled complacently back to his own immaculate attire, and his well-polished shoes fresh from the hands of the city station bootblack. With a well-manicured thumb and finger he flecked an imaginary bit of dust from the knee ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... poverty are endured by unmarried men who spend twice the larger of those sums on chamber-and-club life. He knows that there are men who shiver at the bare thought of losing caste by marriage with a portionless girl, whilst they are complacently leading the life which, in nine cases out of ten, terminates in the worst form of social degradation—matrimony where the husband blushes for his wife's early history, and dares not tell his own children the date of his marriage certificate. If it were his pleasure he could speak ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... their action. He might have quoted the nursery rhyme, "Let them alone and they'll come home"; it would have been like him and in tune with a frivolous side of his nature. He was quite as irresponsible when he complacently assured the North that the trouble would all blow over within ninety days. He also believed that any display of force would convert these hypothetical Unionists of the South from friends to enemies and would consolidate opinion in the Confederacy to produce war. In justice to Seward ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... satin," he returned, complacently. "It is so very becoming. You look like a sultana, ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... smiling complacently—'I cannot blame you for conceiving a passion for our handsome young pastor. To confess the truth, I myself view him with high admiration, not only as a talented preacher, but also as one who would ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... said L. 'He cannot value it, or he would not look complacently on the peculation which surrounds him. Every six months some magnificent hotel rises in the Champs Elysees, built by a man who had nothing, and has been a minister for a ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... dry. Whether I want them dry for the sake of England and America I cannot quite decide. But if I ever do come to a decision, it will not be influenced by that other clich, which is often trotted out complacently, as if it were something to thank Heaven for. "You can't make people moral by Act of Parliament." It is not a question of making them moral, but of keeping them from alcohol. It may be a pity to do this, ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... approach, and took refuge beneath the bed. Finding that no one was conscious of his presence, he flung off his dark overcoat, and laying it on a little pine table by the window, drew a large rocking-chair from its nook in the corner, and seating himself by the hearth, began very complacently to contemplate the ornaments upon the mantle-piece. But soon growing tired of this employment, he left his seat and crossed over to some pictures that hung against the opposite wall. At this moment a door opened to his left, and turning, he beheld Mary entering the apartment, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... "I don't s'pose we're any worse than some that read their Bibles every day," she said, complacently. She had often heard others say that, ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... "Yes," said Blanche complacently, "he's been werry good. He's put his fingers in his ears, and kept bumming to himself such a lot, and he hasn't played ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... the polished floor, with the rustle and the "hang," still more beautifully bedecked. The difficulty was that it would also make her feel herself still more sharply in a state; which was exactly what she proposed not to do. The only drops of her anxiety had been when her thought strayed complacently, with her eyes, to the front of her gown, which was in a manner a refuge, a beguilement, especially when she was able to fix it long enough to wonder if it would at last really satisfy Charlotte. She had ever ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... heathen things she's got put away somewheres. She's got money, I guess, but she's got furniture in her parlour that's just like what Miss Hathaway's got set away in the attic. We wouldn't use them kind of things, nohow," she added complacently. ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... was in truth, distinguished in his village and his valley, and as I have come to know men of fame in larger villages and broader valleys I can still look back to him with loving pride. Yet that day I sat complacently with my feet on the chair-rung, regarding the Professor ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... success is the measure of my happiness. I am bringing consolation to a wayward and tormented spirit. A year has swept aside the petty feminine vanities, the opera-glasses, so to speak, through which a woman complacently views her influence over a man, and it has cleared my vision. A year has proved beyond mortal question that without me this wayward and tormented spirit would fail. I hold in my hands the very soul of a man. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... the gray light of dawn. The enemy evidently had no hint of what they were. They emptied their rifles at them, and the things came rolling on. They turned on their machine guns, and the bullets only struck sparks from the great beasts' awful sides. In several places they sat themselves complacently astride of the trench, and swept it in both directions and all the ground beyond with their machine guns. Against strong points they were invaluable, because they could thrust themselves, secure in the toughness of their hide, in ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... aggravating young uns?" said Aunt Chloe, rather complacently, as, producing an old towel, kept for such emergencies, she poured a little water out of the cracked tea-pot on it, and began rubbing off the molasses from the baby's face and hands; and, having polished her till she shone, she set her down in Tom's ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... vipers and others, or, as you are accustomed to call them, viper-aspides, who sow their seed here and there in their discourses and writings, and, as Paul says [2 Tim. 2, 17], eat as doth a canker (gar sehr um sich fressen) and promote godlessness, about which they, when among themselves, laugh so complacently and are so happy that one can hardly believe it." (St. L. 14, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... some bloated crab, or lobster, magnified by the mist," I said to myself, complacently. But, at the same moment, there was a concentrated flashing and blazing in one spot among the rigging, and it was as if I saw a beatified ram, or, more truly, a sheep-skin, splendid as ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... little rudely broken by Mrs. Martin's voice, but she complacently rose and went into ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... somehow. He didn't belong. Nor could he go back to a life on Earth. But there were still the recruiting stations there; so long as war existed, there had to be such stations. He headed for the fat ships of Earth that squatted complacently on the wrecked port. ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey
... avenue expanded into a motor that was presently throbbing at the entrance. Undine, at its approach, turned from the window, and as she moved down the gallery her glance rested on the great tapestries, with their ineffable minglings of blue and rose, as complacently as though they had been mirrors reflecting her ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... Tretherick, indignant, the Rev. Asa Crammer, principal, injured, and Mr. Joel Robinson, Sr., complacently respectable, called upon Mr. Prince. There was a stormy meeting, ending in a demand for Carry. "We certainly cannot admit of this interference," said Mrs. Tretherick, a fashionably dressed, indistinctive-looking woman. "It is several days before the expiration of our ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... That reminded most of the officers that they had food also, and producing it they divided it and fell to with an appetite. As they ate, a shell from one of the retreating Northern batteries burst almost over their heads and fragments of hot metal struck upon the hard road. They ate on complacently. When Jackson had finished his portion he took out one of his mysterious lemons and began to ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... "Well" (complacently), "we have our points. As Jane Austen wrote of the Misses Bingley, 'Our powers of conversation are considerable—we can describe an entertainment with accuracy, relate an anecdote with humour, and laugh ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... make a town here he would have given me a different kind of liver!" He slapped his knees as he sighed: "This is a funny world, and the more you see of it the funnier it gets." The old man grinned complacently at the ceiling for a minute, and before getting out of his chair kicked his shoe-heels together merrily, wiped his glasses as he rose, put his bundle of papers under his arm, and left the office whistling an ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... bad," said the hausfrau complacently, and John's compliment won him an unusually good room that night. Hans told him also that he could probably secure him a place in an empty supply wagon the next morning, and John was grateful. Walking was good, and it had done much to maintain his strength and steady ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... amiable child complacently bore with my stormy adoration, less hidden by me than is customary among the English, schooled in self-restraint; she waited patiently; gently, almost imperceptibly, encouraging me the while until I should be old enough to dare press my suit more urgently. ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... the Tribune?" "Can you digest stewed lobster or apple-dumpling?" so that whenever a juror shall be found freed from dyspepsia, or to be a good sleeper, or a man who can digest even the new Tariff or the Income Tax, it is PUNCHINELLO'S opinion that such a juror will make a capital chap to listen complacently to lawyers, keep patience with witnesses, respect the judge, laugh at the crier, smile at the reporters, give "true deliverances," and contribute something toward redeeming our boasted Anglo-Saxon ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... to. It moved, she thought, like a twisted drum on very short drumsticks. It had a water-logged appearance. It was bird and fish ordinarily, but now it was pretending to be animal as well—a thing that flew, swam, walked. Its webbed feet patted the ground complacently. It came laboriously towards the wall of the house, then halted. It paused a moment, then turned its eyes up, while Judy turned hers down. The pair of creatures looked at one another steadily for ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... regard the abandonment of wealth as a necessary condition of the Christian life, but He does very distinctly say that rich men are beset with great difficulties owing to their wealth, and He indicates that a man who trusts complacently in his possessions is tempted into a disastrous security. He speaks of laying up treasure in heaven as opposed to the treasures which men store up on earth; and He points out that whenever things are put aside unused, in order that the owner may comfort ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... wind that blows nobody some good," reflected the jailer complacently. "I'm gettin' a dollar a day because you coveted your neighbor's tomatoes and then had no more sense than to shy one at him. Missed him, too, they ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... presence in Ireland of Lady Sandhurst and Mr. Stansfeld dismayed Mr. Balfour and scattered his myrmidons as the forces of the Evil One fly before the advent of the angels, could they not have used their semi-divine power for these humiliated rent-payers? Instead of complacently listening to bunkum—which, if they had had any sense of humour would have made them laugh; any of modesty would have made them blush—could they not have brought their inherited principles of commercial honesty and manly fidelity to ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... Tammas complacently, "there's truth in what ye say, but the women can be managed if ye have ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... his legs all tangled up in the web. Fiercely he fought to get out, while off scuttled the other spiders leaving him to his Fate. For a minute, the little green hairs on Greenie's back stuck up straight with merriment. Then complacently he measured his way home to his own Family Tree. Mrs. Cricky as she passed him heard him muttering: "It's a long worm that has no turning, a very long worm that has ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... to the night when Samuel appeared to him, and recounting his father's business and character, introducing the different tutors that were chosen for him, and his own choice of Azariah, to whom he owed his knowledge of Greek. To all of which the philosopher listened complacently enough, merely asking if Azariah shared the belief prevalent in Galilee that the world was drawing to a close. On hearing that he did, he seemed to lose interest in Joseph's story of Azariah's relations to his neighbours, nor did he seem unduly afflicted at hearing ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... have to ask your advice when the time comes," went on Anne, complacently. "You must assist me in selecting the most worthy ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Anglo-Saxon who speaks complacently of "the native" forgets that during that same "once upon a time" when civilization was old in India, his ancestors, clad in deer skin and blue paint, were stalking the ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... that he was not alone, which would have made our meeting more awkward. There were with him, Mr. Steevens[316] and Mr. Tyers[317], both of whom I now saw for the first time. My note had, on[318] his own reflection, softened him, for he received me very complacently; so that I unexpectedly found myself at ease, and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... live at home you do not talk nonsense at dinner, you probably join in sensible talk. Well, do not alter because you are with girls, and say complacently in your heart "How silly the others are!" Your neighbours would not be silly if you did not admire it. You yourself are part of the mass you are criticizing. On which side do your words go—talk or chatter? Watch yourselves, ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... the dust, that's all," said James, complacently tapping his well-polished boot with a light cane ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... "and then you'll know it all. Except their horses and saddles, the accused haven't a red cent to their names—not an honest one, that is. So it looks well for them to be spending all they've apparently got in the world to pay counsel fees. Now I have this case worked up," he pursued, complacently, "so that any such ambiguous stuff as yours is no good to me at all—would be harmful, in fact. It's not good policy, my friend, to assail the character of opposing counsel. And Bishop Meakum! Are you aware of his power and standing in this section? Do ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... phraseology, has become, in its detailed application to life, utterly strange to us. We congratulate ourselves on the enlargement of our understanding when we read the decisions of grave law-courts in cases of supposed witchcraft; we smile complacently over Raleigh's story of the island of the Amazons, and rejoice that we are not such as he—entangled in the cobwebs of effete and foolish superstition. The true conclusion is the opposite of the conclusion which we draw. ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude |
