"Apathy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... followed his pitiless conductress as blindly as the culprit follows the executioner; while Madame, as cruel as women of overstrung temperaments generally are, did not spare him the slightest detail. But it must be admitted that, notwithstanding the kind of apathy into which he had fallen, none of these details, even had he been left alone, would have escaped him. The happiness of the woman who loves, when that happiness is derived from a rival, is a living torture for a jealous man; but for a jealous ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... here. We were all delighted to see her, Virginie in particular; for, hearing of her approaching marriage with M. La Touche, we were afraid she might not come. We all noticed a change in her—her manner different from what it used to be—a languor, an apathy to all things—a general listlessness that nothing could arouse her from. She, who used to be so full of life and spirits, was now the quietest in the house, and seemed to like nothing so well as being by herself and dreaming ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... strenuous work. A few women kept up a semblance of a State organization, met annually and in 1901 Mrs. Addie Johnson was elected president; in 1902 Mrs. Louis Werth and in 1903 Mrs. Alice Mulkley, but there was great apathy among women in general. From 1903 to 1910 no State convention was held. In St. Louis, which comprised one-fourth of the inhabitants of the State, there was no visible organization working for woman suffrage. The largest and most ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... America, and Channing always strove to keep Unitarianism there from succumbing to denominationalism. The ardour of those especially who had newly espoused the Unitarian view and found it precious to themselves may be easily understood, and they might be forgiven some impatience with the apparent apathy of those who had no great desire to multiply proselytes. Some of these eager spirits strove to rescue the body from what they evidently regarded as a paralysing indefiniteness. From time to time it was argued that Unitarianism must be 'defined' authoritatively; then, and then only, ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... more at home in England than Japan. P. My good, grave Sir of Theory, whose wit, Grasping at shadows, ne'er caught substance yet, 'Tis mighty easy o'er a glass of wine On vain refinements vainly to refine, To laugh at poverty in plenty's reign, To boast of apathy when out of pain, 50 And in each sentence, worthy of the schools, Varnish'd with sophistry, to deal out rules Most fit for practice, but for one poor fault That into practice they can ne'er be brought. At home, and ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... was kind to her: it was his nature to be kind, even to the very rats that swarmed in the cellar: kind to her in just the same way. She knew that. And it might be that very knowledge had given to her face its apathy and vacancy more than her low, torpid life. One sees that dead, vacant look steal sometimes over the rarest, finest of women's faces,—in the very midst, it may be, of their warmest summer's day; and then one can guess at the secret of intolerable solitude that lies hid beneath ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... criminal propaganda. For two whole years it was carried on with relative impunity under the very eyes of the Government of India in Calcutta. Month after month they must have seen its audacity grow in direct proportion to official apathy. They must have seen a reign of lawlessness and intimidation spread steadily over a great part of the Metropolitan province. The failure of the ordinary machinery of justice to check these crying evils was repeatedly brought ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... takes nothing from our own means of enjoyment? We wrap ourselves up in the cloak of our own better fortune, and turn away our eyes, lest the wants and woes of our brother-mortals should disturb the selfish apathy of ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... long couch at the end of the room. Large pictures of men in the blackness, out of the moon's rays, frowned at Rodriguez mysteriously. He could not see their faces in the darkness, but he somehow knew they frowned. Two portraits that were clear in the moonlight eyed him with absolute apathy. So cold a welcome from that house's past generations boded no good to him from those that dwelt there today. Rodriguez knew that in carrying the hurt man there he helped at a Christian deed; and yet there was no putting the merits of the case against the omens that crowded the chamber, lurking ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... Tok'. It was plain he was a clothes-horse; that he wore livery; that, in a word, he was his wife's wife. They reversed the parts, indeed, down to the least particular; it was the husband who showed himself the ministering angel in the hour of pain, while the wife displayed the apathy and heartlessness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suddenly to sway beneath his feet. He had a constant buzzing in his ears, flashes of light dazzled his eyes. He took a loathing for wine, he had no longer any appetite, and his digestion was seriously impaired. Then, in the midst of the apathy of his constantly increasing idleness he would have sudden fits of aimless activity. The equilibrium was destroyed, he had at times outbreaks of nervous irritability, without any cause. The slightest emotion brought ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... only to affect the passions. This is the reason why, in ages assumed to be refined, it is not a rare thing to see gentleness degenerate into effeminacy, politeness into platitude, correctness into empty sterility, liberal ways into arbitrary caprice, ease into frivolity, calm into apathy, and, lastly, a most miserable caricature treads on the heels of the noblest, the most beautiful type of humanity. Gentle and graceful beauty is therefore a want to the man who suffers the constraint of matter and of forms, for he is moved by grandeur and strength long before he becomes ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... of a rock, whether in the midst of a calm or raging sea—or of a strong tower, whether surrounded by warring elements or by profound calm. Need we say that Pedro's imperturbability was by no means the result of apathy? ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... listless apathy which had so persistently preyed upon her, Mrs. Gray rattled on with a new and surprising cheerfulness which delighted Grace. Perhaps this was another link in the invisible chain. The sudden upheaval ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... battle. That is, I mean that I could not be a Christian otherwise, though I have certainly had intercourse with a great many enlightened and Christian people who did no such thing; and I confess that the apathy of religious people on this subject, their want of perception of wrongs that filled me with horror, have engendered in me more scepticism than ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... skipper's fee. It seemed to him that there was no bright side to the life over in those wretched Culm huts. If there was, he could not see it. It puzzled and perplexed him to imagine how human beings could live in such ignorance and apathy of all that was transpiring about them; and the sights which he had seen in the miserable, tumbledown village left a very disagreeable feeling in his heart. Somehow, his hitherto blithe spirits were dampened by this morning's walk, and he thought the great bare Rock would be a ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... The apathy of the citizens of Detroit in availing themselves of the magnificent advantages possessed by the city for prosecuting manufacturing upon an extensive scale, is wholly inexplicable. There is a mine of unproductive wealth in our midst that might at once be placed at ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... evidential. Nothing came of them except the relief, real or supposed, granted to the sufferers. No message from God was supposed to be accredited by them. No attempt was made to spread the knowledge of them; indeed, so far from this, in one case at least, Augustine is "indignant at the apathy of the friends of one who had been miraculously cured of a cancer, that they allowed so great a miracle to be so little known." (Vol. ii. p. 171.) In every conceivable respect they stand in the greatest contrast ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... woods, and always tried to escape after being taken to them; when angry would gnaw clothing and hurl furniture about; feared to look from a height, and Itard cured him of spasms of rage by holding his head out of a window; met all efforts to teach him with apathy, and learned ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... on tour," he went on. "That is hard work, if you like. I have gone a four months' tour without missing a night. It takes it out of one terribly. But it is very paying work. In the South of England I have made as much as L300 a week. My friends tried to frighten me as to the apathy of my Scotch audiences; as a matter of fact, I have no better audiences anywhere. I like performing to country audiences. I am never nervous as I am apt to be at St. James's, where there are a number of my friends. And it is on my country tours ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... her voice, and exclaimed twice or thrice, "Gudemither! gudemither!" but, lost in the apathy of age and deafness, the aged sibyl she addressed continued plying her spindle without understanding the appeal ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... but Elie Magus was there; every mart knew him; he traveled all over Europe. The ice-cold, money-worshiping soul in him kindled at the sight of a perfect work of art, precisely as a libertine, weary of fair women, is roused from apathy by the sight of a beautiful girl, and sets out afresh upon the quest of flawless loveliness. A Don Juan among fair works of art, a worshiper of the Ideal, Elie Magus had discovered joys that transcend the pleasure ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... heard the word 'Fire!' This was too common an occurrence to disturb his equanimity; he wondered absently in which street the fire might be, but trudged on without a thought of making investigation. Repeated yells and rushes, however, assailed his apathy. Two women came tearing by him, and he shouted to them: ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... with his usual steadiness, and soon after making a signal with his handkerchief, was swung off. After hanging about twenty-five minutes, his body was cut down and buried near the gallows. His deportment during his journey to and at the place of execution was marked with the same apathy and indifference which he discovered before and since his trial. We do not learn he has made any ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... and once or twice the other prisoners appeared to take an excited interest in the sounds that came up to them; but they only sank directly after into a state of moody apathy, letting their chins go down upon their chests, and many of them dropping ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... feeling of responsibility for the sort of children they bring into the world. In the coming scientific age this may be changed, and society may visit upon a grandmother the sins of her grandchildren, recognizing her responsibility to the very end of the line. But it is not strange that in the apathy on this subject the novelists should be careless and inconsiderate as to the characters they produce, either as ideals or examples. They know that the bad example is more likely to be copied than to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... mattered little in a case so hopeless. There was no rivalry between George Tanqueray and his contemporaries; therefore, his publishers had not scrupled to produce him in the same month as Jane Holland. They handled any work of his with the apathy of despair. ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... from his apathy, Heraclius leaves Constantinople and lands at Alexandria; he defeats the Persians, recovers Cilicia, and places his army in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... with the increase in those who deny is a growth in the numbers of those who come to regard apathy, suspended judgment, or a lack of interest in a religious matter as a state of positive belief. There are agnostics quite literally all over the place. Belief peters down into acceptance, acceptance becomes a probability, a probability declines into a reasonable doubt, and a reasonable ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... lethargy of paralytic disease, but having the mind calm and clear, and the body conscious of its own decay,—dying, as it were, in cold blood. One thing I must add. That morning when you were obliged to leave, and when "cold obstruction's apathy" had already begun its reign—when he knew us, and that was all, and when he followed us with his dying and loving eyes, but could not speak—the end came; and then, as through life, his will asserted itself ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... impossible. It was even difficult to carry on a conversation with any degree of briskness. Hour after hour slowly passed away, and there was no change in the weather, when a sound struck our ears which suddenly aroused us all from our apathy. ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... no such thing as a real atheist in the world!" declared Cyrillon passionately, "No reasoning human being alive, that has not felt the impress of the Divine Image in himself and in all the universe around him! He may, through apathy and the falsehoods of priestcraft, have descended into callousness, indifference and egotism, but he knows well that that impress cannot be stamped out—that he will have to account for his part, however small it be, in the magnificent pageant ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... carried away by artistic enthusiasm, stretched out her arms and cried aloud—"Ah! my dear Cauchereau!" This unexpected exclamation had troubled her mother, who had sent away the beautiful tenor, and, putting aside her habitual apathy, determined to watch over her daughter herself. There remained the Princess Louise, who was afterward Queen of Spain, and Mademoiselle Elizabeth, who became the Duchesse de Lorraine, but as to them there was nothing said; either they were really wise, or else they understood ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... to sign, and she signed them without a question, but on the whole she treated the affair with considerable apathy, the truth being that it was repugnant to her mind, which she preferred to occupy with other and very different thoughts. So she let it go. She knew that she was going to do a thing which was dreadful to her, because she believed it to be her duty, but she comforted ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Dutchman, arrived almost at the down-hill of life, I still retain a lingering spark of that fire which kindles in the eye of youth when contemplating the virtues of ancient worthies. Blessed thrice, and nine times blessed be the good St. Nicholas, if I have indeed escaped that apathy which chills the sympathies of age and paralyses every glow ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... classes, still half savage, do not have a sufficiently ardent desire to ameliorate their condition: this M. Dunoyer shows. But as this absence of desire is itself the effect of misery, it follows that misery and apathy are each other's effect and cause, and that the ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... staring like a hawk's over the hills, and, light-headed as I was, I caught the infection of his ardour. For, remember, I was so low in spirit that all my hopes and memories were forgotten, and I was in that blank apathy which is mastered by another's passion. For a little the life of Virginia seemed unspeakably barren, and I quickened at the wild vista which Shalah offered. I might be a king over a proud people, carving a fair kingdom out of the wilderness, and ruling it justly ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... respiration of Luke. The sexton stood by, apparently an indifferent spectator of the scene of horror. His eye wandered from the dead to the living, and gleamed with a peculiar and indefinable expression, half apathy, half abstraction. For one single instant, as he scrutinized the features of his daughter, his brow, contracted by anger, immediately afterwards was elevated in scorn. But otherwise you would have sought in vain to read the purport of that cold, insensible glance, which dwelt for a brief ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... all the names I have heard of in this great revolution in all human affairs, I find no man of any distinction who has remained in that more than Stoical apathy, but the Prince de Conti. This mean, stupid, selfish, swinish, and cowardly animal, universally known and despised as such, has indeed, except in one abortive attempt to elope, been perfectly neutral. However, his neutrality, which it seems would qualify him for ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... less sullen. Lena ignored her subtlety as she had ignored her sulks. She had no more use for her as a confidant and spy, and Ethel lived in a back den off Hippisley's study with her Remington, and displayed a convenient apathy in ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... listened with a stolid, stony apathy to all this, save for a slight glimmer of triumph that, spite of himself, shone out at the corners of his half-closed eyes. When the young man had ceased sobbing and exclaiming, he said: 'You admit, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... his individual opinions and doubts expressed in a manner forceful enough to diversify him from a porcine apathy? The pig, secure against the inequalities of fate and weather, wallowed through life with a dull fullness of food as regular as the solar course. Christopher was his wife. Now that, Lee told himself, with a vision ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... she contented herself with a manner of listless apathy during dinner, and then retired to her room. Graydon was giving her so little thought that there was slight occasion for disguise, and less incentive for effort ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... present when a hearty meal of excellent soup and a large lump of bread were given to between three and four hundred men, chiefly dock labourers out of employ. It was a touching sight to notice the stolid apathy depicted on most of the countenances, which looked unpleasantly like despair. One of the men assured me that for every package that had to be unladen from the docks there were ten pair of hands ready to do the work, ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... letter it was stated that the pretty blue-eyed Mary Collins, Andy's betrothed, had been base enough to marry another, last Shrovetide. But the detaching process had gone on at this side of the Atlantic also. Linda was amazed at the apathy with which the discarded lover received the intelligence. He scratched his red head, and looked somewhat bewildered; indulged in a few monosyllable ejaculations, and half an hour afterwards came back to the parlour to ask her 'if she was in airnest, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... her breath, her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkled, her whole aspect changed from apathy to animation, and ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... absent, but in close correspondence with the others. Their plans had not taken any definite shape; but they were ready for any sacrifice and service, and they were filled with wrath against the insolence of those who thought that the Church was given over into their hands, and against the apathy and cowardice of those who let her enemies have their way. Yet with much impatience and many stern determinations in their hearts, they were all of them men to be swayed by the judgment and experience ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... if in answer to the spiritual apathy of which Voltaire was only the expression, not the cause, there arose Methodism, which in externals at least showed itself the most passionate and the most expressive form of devotion to Christianity. Wesley and Whitefield, the celebrated preachers, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... abruptly. There was a silence of expectancy, and a turning of heads, a craning of necks. Even the group of secretaries at the round table below the president's dais roused themselves from their usual apathy to consider this young man who was mounting the tribune of the Assembly for ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... say that she was," replied the little girl, gently, warmed by a touch of sympathy; for even this stern betrayal of feeling was less repulsive than the chill apathy of ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... lead in all the arrangements of the journey, determined where and how long they should halt, and decided on the route next to be taken; the other showing a real or affected indifference on all these matters, and making of his town-bred apathy a very serviceable quality in the midst of Irish barbarism and desolation. On politics, too—if that be the name for such light convictions as they entertained—they differed: the soldier's ideas being ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... listened in a dull apathy to the conversation, raised her head in sudden and intelligent interest when the picture was replaced upon the wall. It seemed that her every hope was bound up in that. As she saw Dennis and her husband standing before it—-as she saw the face of the latter begin to assume ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... fool!' said I, in my civil way," (and the colonel's brusquerie was here, at least, not misplaced,) "'if a man throws himself into the fire or a well, or in the path of a tiger, is he without blame?'" Such apathy seems almost unaccountable to English minds; but it may find a parallel in Lady Chatterton's story of the Irish parents, [7] who, after refusing to spend fourpence in nourishment for a dying child, came in deep grief after its death to their employer, to solicit an advance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... approven agent of the Secret Service to the Head of all the Politicals.... What chiefly troubled Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison of the Gungapur Fusiliers was the shocking condition of those same Fusiliers and the blind smug apathy, the fatuous contentment, the short memories and shorter sight, of the British Pompeians who were perfectly willing that the condition of the said Fusiliers ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... Queen knew how to win over the nobles. Her cardinal was recalled, and the apathy of the Parisians put an end to these dissensions, from which, one must admit, the people and the bourgeoisie got all the ills and the nobility ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... recovered, although two of them were slightly lamed for life. All that care and attention could do for them was done; and when they were in a fit condition to travel, their horses and a supply of provisions were given to them. The Indians had maintained during the whole time the stolid apathy of their race. They had expressed no thanks for the kindness bestowed upon them. Only when their horses were presented to them, and bows and arrows placed in their hands, with an intimation that they were free to go, did ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... forehead in token of gratitude, but she seldom gave utterance to any words, and would remain with her eyes fixed vacantly on some object which seemed unseen or to awaken no idea in her mind. At such times the face of the young squaw wore a dreamy apathy of expression, or rather it might with more propriety have been said, the absence of all expression, almost as blank as that of an infant of ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... world-famous crop Where honors tie 'twixt bean and pea; At Daisy's restaurant each chop Would rouse a Muse from apathy; Babette's a broker, who must be Where rumors anent stocks are rife; They're all most useful, I agree— But where am I to ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... probably associated the engines with all the misery, both mental and physical, which she had ever since suffered. However that may be, the sight or sound of them was sufficient to rouse her from the state of dull apathy usual to her, into a paroxysm of alarm and nervousness; and if Tony were anywhere within reach she always sought his side with some fancied idea of protection, until the terror was beyond her vision ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... perfect indifference which she evinced as to whether she sold her goods or not. While all the rest of her tribe were fawning, cringing, flattering, and importuning, she sat there like a statue, but a statue of a most perfect order. Nor was this indifference and apathy of her manner thrown away on the purchasers who crowded towards the Ghetto. It stood her in better stead than the most manifest anxiety could have done; it placed her apart from that detestable crowd. I observed many persons stop and make purchases of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... that was not only theoretically indefensible, but practically mischievous. The period, little short of a century, which elapsed between the death of William III. and Pitt's accession to office had been one of almost complete stagnation and apathy. The Scotch Union, the Septennial Bill, the establishment of a militia, and the Place Bill of 1743 were the only instances of any legislation deserving the name of constitutional which made the reigns of Anne and the first two Georges memorable. ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... neither seen in Germany in that dangerous light which might naturally be expected from the sufferings in which it has involved both Princes and subjects, nor are its future effects dreaded from its past enormities. The cause of this impolitic and anti-patriotic apathy is to be looked for in the palaces of Sovereigns, and not in the dwellings of their people. There exists hardly a single German Prince whose Ministers, courtiers and counsellors are not numbered, and have long been notorious among ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... stimulant that is needed to raise you from your apathy," he asked. "Will you find it in the rapid motion of your horse—a very noble animal—in the joy of this morning's sunshine and breeze, or in the toyland where these puppets move and walk?" he added, glancing down the promenade. "Dear Lady ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the eight years previous to 1890. The report of the United Hebrew Charities for 1901 shows similar conditions existing among the Jewish population of New York. Pauperism is a peril, and poverty is a source of apathy and despair. The unskilled immigrant tends to increase the poverty by creating a surplus of cheap labor, and also falls under the blight of the ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... Barney's wrath always broke out when he thought the women had been in his study, and how he charged every missing paper for a month after upon their cursed meddling. But Sturk was a good deal gentler now, and had a dull and awful sort of apathy upon him; and I think it was all one to him whether the women had been in the study or ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... dared bring it into the schoolroom. There were ways, however, of evading inexorable law and circumventing base injustice. He hid the precious thing under a thistle just outside the window. The teacher had sometimes a brief season of apathy on hot afternoons, when she was hearing the primer class read, "I see a pig. The pig is big. The big pig can dig;" which stirring in phrases were always punctuated by the snores of the Hanks baby, who kept sinking down on his fat little ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the present war the proportion that we are paying by taxation, instead of being 47 per cent., as it was when our sturdy ancestors fought against Napoleon, is less than 20 per cent.[1] Why has this been so? Partly, no doubt, owing to the slackness and cowardice of our politicians, and the apathy of the overworked officials, who have been too busy with the details of finance to think the problem out on a large scale. But it is chiefly, I think, because our system of taxation, though probably the best in the world, involves so many inequities that it cannot be applied ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... manner gave sudden rein to its inherent nervousness, and his voice rang out for a moment as if he were angrily haranguing the Senate. "Of course I want it. Every human instinct I have compels me to want it, and I cannot understand the apathy and conservatism which prevents our being at war at the present moment. We have posed as the champions of liberty long enough; it ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... Her apathy had become exhaustion. The flat, powerless voice, dying of its own utterance, gave him a sense of things past and done with, sunk into the ultimate oblivion. No voice of her energy and defiance could ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... on an independent footing: and it would, therefore, become the immediate duty of the Council, on its formation, to look to its establishment or to its support. It is admitted that a journal exists; but the apathy which meets the efforts of individuals among the Jews to benefit their brethren, has extended itself to this: but it still might be made available for all the ends we seek, by means within the powers of the Council, which would yet leave ...
— Suggestions to the Jews - for improvement in reference to their charities, education, - and general government • Unknown
... was music in his ears. He listened to the flattering courtesies with childlike pleasure. Her happiness was his. Often when overcome with the cares and anxiety of public affairs a smile from her ladyship had a charm like magic. A quiet caress was sure to arouse him from the deepest apathy. ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... rule a keener interest in political matters—meaning thereby the one absorbing question of the Union—than their sex in other parts of the United Kingdom. When critical times for the Union arrived there was, therefore, no apathy to be overcome by the Protestant women in Ulster. Early in 1911 the "Ulster Women's Unionist Council" was formed under the presidency of the Duchess of Abercorn, and very quickly became a most effective organisation side by side with that of ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... Apathy. Disbelief in South's Seriousness. Divided Opinion. Suggestions toward Compromise. Anti-coercion. Convention at Albany. Mayor Wood of New York. Buchanan's Vacillation. Treason all about Him. Star of the West Fired on. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... bitterly, had never once betrayed any concern as to her shattered happiness. But gradually, as from time to time she glanced covertly at Hannah's face, her resentment gave way to apprehension. Hannah did not seem now even to be aware of her presence; this persistent apathy filled her with a dread she ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... on it the future of the Government is staked. There are faint-hearted friends behind; there are loud-voiced foes in front. The brewer's dray has been pulled across the road, and behind it are embattled a formidable confederation of vested interests. A mountainous obstacle of indifference and apathy bars our advance. What is your ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... express what I owe to you on the score of religion. I told Mr. Robinson you were the first instrument of my being brought to think deeply on religious subjects; and I feel more and more every day, that if it had not been for you, I might, most probably, have been now buried in apathy and unconcern. Though I am in a great measure blessed,—I mean blessed with faith, now pretty steadfast, and heavy convictions, I am far from being happy. My sins have been of a dark hue, and manifold: ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... south, and smote upon their summits until they melted and mouldered away in a dust of blue rain? Who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight left them last night, and the west wind blew them before it like withered leaves? All has passed, unregretted as unseen; or if the apathy be ever shaken off, even for an instant, it is only by what is gross, or what is extraordinary; and yet it is not in the broad and fierce manifestations of the elemental energies, not in the clash of the hail, nor the ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... anti-Masonic convention at Baltimore, where Samuel S. Seward and Thaddeus Stevens nominated Mr. Wirt for President, because one white man had been stolen. The murder of Jacob Cannon by Owen Daw did produce some distant comment a little later, chiefly because of the apathy of the Delaware society to ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... thus only second to measles and in the gravity of its results scarcely second to tuberculosis. "And yet," as Grandin remarks in comparing gonorrhoea to tuberculosis, "witness the activity of the crusade against the latter and the criminal apathy displayed when the former is concerned."[236] The public must learn to understand, another writer remarks, that "gonorrhoea is a pest that concerns its highest interests and most sacred relations as much as do smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... time we seemed to have accomplished nothing. Before a day or two he had wiped off the ill results of his discomfiture, and, to all appearance, stood as high as ever. As for my Lord Durrisdeer, he was sunk in parental partiality; it was not so much love, which should be an active quality, as an apathy and torpor of his other powers; and forgiveness (so to misapply a noble word) flowed from him in sheer weakness, like the tears of senility. Mrs. Henry's was a different case; and Heaven alone knows what he found to say ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and holy tears were seen to dim those eyes wherein it once seemed as though the source of such emotion was dried up for ever. It was done. A great thing was accomplished, whatsoever had been the cause. A soul which incredulity had frozen into apathy became fervent before its Creator. Anne de Gonzagua did not fear to let her repentance be seen; she desired that the publicity of her penitence might obliterate, if it were possible, the scandal of her past life. Her conscience ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... find the will becoming dull and listless, with no quickening of the pulses, but only apathy or a sneer for the high purpose or the great promise, it is but a sign of the approach of senility, of the failure of the powers. When the ambition can be satisfied with the less while the greater is before it, when things ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... feet. The reaction was going away but there was still a dull apathy about his brain. Just to ...
— One Purple Hope! • Henry Hasse
... your inquiry ever reach the foundations of this edifice that you have condemned? I think not. One or two scapegoats will satisfy the British public upon those few occasions when it rises up in a thirst for blood. Willingness to pay rather than interfere will do the rest. And the spirit of apathy which is characteristic of the nation, in spite of the occasional outbursts of interested indignation, will prevent a true disclosure of the horrid facts as long as the war is unfinished. Once a peace is ratified the ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... considerably misled, for he now found that though much latent sympathy existed for his cause, yet as far as giving active aid was concerned, the enthusiasm exhibited by the secessionists of Kentucky in the first year of the war was now replaced by apathy, or at best by lukewarmness. So the time thus spent in political machinations was wholly lost to Bragg; and so little reinforcement was added to his army that it may be said that the recruits gained were not enough to supply the deficiencies resulting from ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... of the small growers, for prices paid on the spot have already gone up very considerably. The valley is sure to flourish before many years shall have passed, and nothing else would so much hasten this end as the completion of the railway from Manila. But when we passed through, a sort of general apathy seemed to fill the air: the people were listless, and so much of the tobacco crop as we could see looked neglected. A partial explanation is to be found in the belief, wide-spread in these parts at this time, that the ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... post-office, either on account of the inconvenience of the hours or on the head of occasional irregularity. So much has been done in reducing the rate to three cents, and in giving a daily mail throughout the States, that the department should be praised for energy, and not blamed for apathy. ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... that things are going well with me; much better than I could have expected. Time is a good teacher; that devouring longing does not gnaw so hard as it did. Is it apathy beginning? Shall I feel nothing at all by the time ten years have passed? Oh! sometimes it comes on with all its old strength, as if it would tear me in pieces! But this is a splendid school of patience. Much good it does to sit wondering whether they are alive ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... been sultry, and the men, in the Sunday emancipation of white flannel and duck, filled the deck-chairs of the yacht with their outstretched apathy, following, through a mist of cigarette-smoke, the flitting inconsequences of the women. The part was a small one—Flamel had few intimate friends—but composed of more heterogeneous atoms than the little pools into which society usually runs. ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... perpetual summer, of perennial life, perhaps. Great luscious pineapples sold through the windows at two or three cents each. The peons of this region carried a machete in a leather scabbard, but still wore a folded blanket over one shoulder, suggesting chilly nights. The general apathy of the population began to manifest itself now in the paucity of hawkers at the stations. On the plateau the train seldom halted without being surrounded by a jostling crowd, fighting to sell their meager wares; here they either ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... and then, wearied out with the tedium of the proceeding, rose and made a retreat, leaving the rest of the taciturn company to wait for and contemplate their dessert. It was not so much the supineness of the attendants as the apathy of the guests that amazed us; having generally observed in France, that mauvaise honte by no means stood in the way of hungry persons, and that a French appetite is with difficulty appeased, even after partaking of every dish on the table: a fact of which we had lately been reminded ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... cross-questioning, the fear of punishment, finally the injurious effect of solitary confinement, shock and weaken the slight mental tension of the prisoner to a marked extent. As a result of this, we have on the one hand a condition of apathy, of inability to concentrate the mind, of incapacity to think and of a sort of feeling of being wholly at sea, accompanied by vertigo and other nervous manifestations, while on the other hand the physical despair, the obstinacy of the prisoner, now increase to pathological ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... ladies of the harem. I saw Hassan, the fisherman, getting his nets; and Ali Baba going off with his donkey to the great forest for wood. Smith looked at these wonders quite unmoved; and I was surprised at his apathy; but he had been at Smyrna before. A man only sees the miracle once; though you yearn over it ever so, it won't come again. I saw nothing of Ali Baba and Hassan the next time we came to Smyrna, and had some doubts (recollecting the badness of the inn) about landing at all. A person who wishes ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "I leave it to your majesty to consider, if after having lost the princess Nouronnihar, who was the only object of my desires, I could bear to be a witness of Ali's happiness. If I had been capable of such unworthy apathy, what would the court and city have thought of my love, or what your majesty? Love is a passion we cannot suppress at our will; while it lasts, it rules and governs us in spite of our boasted reason. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... in copying my manuscripts in a very neat hand, and in giving lessons in reading and spelling, etc., to Annie. In the other room was the orphan Sally, with her toys. Beside her sat her attendant, chewing her paun[A] and enjoying a state of perfect apathy. Thus did our mornings pass, whilst we sat in what the lovers of broad daylight would call almost darkness. During these mornings we heard no sounds but the monotonous click, click of the punkah,[B] or the melancholy moaning of the burning blast without, ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... learn to apprehend somewhat of the eternal unity and harmony, that underlies the good and evil of time, the shock and stress of circumstance and place. The highest virtue for man is a placid and a quiet constancy, whatever the changes and chances of life may bring. It is the pantheistic apathy. ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... priest, defending the doctrine of purgatory, said to a protestant, who did not relish it, "He may go farther, and fare worse. The language of the Bible seems not to concur in the propriety of the Doctor's philosophic apathy in such occurrences. The Psalmist, it may be safely affirmed, knew as much of human nature as the Doctor, and was as well acquainted too with what was becoming worship. He, however, differs egregiously in opinion. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... tell me, perhaps, or think within yourselves, that the apathy with which we regard this company of the noble, who are praying us to listen to them; and the passion with which we pursue the company, probably of the ignoble who despise us, or who have nothing to teach us, are grounded in this,—that we can see the faces of the living men, and it is themselves, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... direction of the deer by long graceful sweeps of her oar; in front of her was a squaw of maturer age, performing a like labour. In the centre of the canoe were two children, queer guinea-pig-looking little devils, and near these lay a man in all the lazy apathy of a redskin on his return from on the hunting ground; but towards the stern stood a splendid Antinous-like young savage, leaning in an attitude of graceful negligence on his rifle, and evidently waiting an opportunity to get a blow or a shot at the stag. As soon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... minister, and had received the Garter from another. But these things were matters of course to a Duke of Omnium, He was born to be a lord lieutenant and a Knight of the Garter. But not the less on account of his apathy, or rather quiescence, was it thought that Gatherum Castle was a fitting place in which politicians might express to each other their present hopes and future aims, and concoct together little plots in a half-serious and half-mocking way. ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... The apathy of the government itself toward everything in commerce and agriculture contributes not a little to foster indolence. There is no encouragement, at all for the manufacturer or for the farmer; the government furnishes no aid either when poor crop comes, when the locusts ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... faction invigorated his government; and insubordination made him invincible. In the midst of this confusion, even a new terror arose. The democracy of France, after startling Europe, had seemed to be sinking into feebleness and apathy, when a new wonder appeared in the political hemisphere, too glaring and too ominous to suffer our eyes to turn from it for a moment. The Consulate assumed the rule of France. Combining the fiery ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... received with apparent indifference, by people whose lives are alternate changes from the extremity of want to abundance. But as their countenances seldom betray their emotions, it cannot be determined whether their apathy is real or affected. However, the women prepared their sledges and dogs, with the design of dismembering, and bringing home, the carcass: a proceeding to which, in their necessitous condition, I could have had neither reasonable nor available ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... had no sooner crawled into the enticing bed than she sank into unconscious forgetfulness. This was to an extent fortunate. Louise possessed one of those dispositions cheery and equable under ordinary circumstances, but easily crushed into apathy by any sudden adversity. She would not suffer so much as a more excitable and nervous girl might do ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... reclined for some considerable time, gloomily pondering, he discerned above the ferns a drawn bonnet of white silk approaching from the left, and Yeobright knew directly that it covered the head of her he loved. His heart awoke from its apathy to a warm excitement, and, jumping to his feet, he said aloud, "I knew she was ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Through all those dark and bitter mists which rose about her, his voice broke like a ray of light: her timid heart sprang up in her bosom and went out to him with an abandon which, but for the extreme physical fatigue which produces a sort of apathy, must have broken down everything. For a moment she swayed towards him as if she would have thrown ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... Street and the clubs. He was dressed plainly, though in a style peculiar to himself,—a white neck-cloth (which was not at that day quite so uncommon for morning use as it is now), trousers without straps, thin shoes, and gaiters. In his manner there was nothing of the supercilious apathy which characterizes the dandy introduced to some one whom he doubts if he can nod to from the bow-window at White's,—none of such vulgar coxcombries had Lord Castleton; and yet a young gentleman more emphatically coxcomb it ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Mr Gosport, "confess the least pleasure from any thing, a total apathy being the chief ingredient of his character: he must, upon no account, sustain a conversation with any spirit, lest he should appear, to his utter disgrace, interested in what is said: and when ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... book was published on the subject of missions. The author is earnest, even to intensity. He says the Church is "sleeping." He deplores its "deadly apathy," He says that "a thousand millions" have not heard of the Saviour. He says that "a Christless multitude" dies at the rate of thirty millions a year. He says that "many millions have gone to Christless graves." He says that for these uncounted millions ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... government in withering terms, seemed to spring up from the pavement. "Arise, Oh Russia!" says one unknown writer, "Devoured (p. 216) by enemies, ruined by slavery, shamefully oppressed by the stupidity of tchinovnik and spies, awaken from thy long sleep of ignorance and apathy! We have been kept in bondage long enough by the successors of the Tartar khans. Arise! and stand erect and calm before the throne of the despot; demand of him a reckoning for the national misfortunes. Tell him boldly that his throne is not the altar of God, and that God has not condemned ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... whose services were accepted was the serang of Angria's gallivat. Unknown to Desmond, while he was holding this conversation with the Gujarati, the serang, crouching in apparent apathy on his bench, had really strained his ears to catch what was being said. He, with the three other men selected, was released from his bonds, and ordered to lower the longboat of the gallivat and stow in it all the ammunition for the guns that was to be found in ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... on before Lord Peterborough could overcome the apathy and obstinacy of the Germans and Dutch. At a council of war held on the 30th of December Peterborough proposed to divide the army, that he in person would lead half of it to aid the insurrection which had broken out in Valencia, and that the ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... slender fingers in warning, or given him a look of reproachful meaning, or uttered one cry of entreaty, at least the conscience within him might have visited him with a temporary shame, and restrained the raging propensity for a longer interval; but seeing her apparent apathy, knowing how timid and unresisting was her nature,—that nothing on earth will lie still and be trodden on but a woman,—Abner Dimock rioted and revelled to his full pleasure, while all his pale and speechless wife could do ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... been roused from my apathy by this last speech, which the notary thought very funny; then I sat down in my armchair, with my feet on the fire-dogs. I had lost myself in a romance a la Radcliffe, constructed on the juridical base given me by Monsieur Regnault, when the door, opened by a woman's cautious hand, turned ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... we are either of us "impatient and irritable listeners"—oh dear, no! "I have my faults," as the miser said, "but AVARICE is not one of them"—and we have our faults too, but notoriously they lie in the direction of long-suffering and apathy. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... agent) in the passive voice: the continued product of seminators by generation: the continual production of semen by distillation: the futility of triumph or protest or vindication: the inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of nescient matter: the apathy of ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... quietly sat down upon the step, leaned her chin upon one hand, and looked up and down the street, which, it seemed to Hope, offered a prospect that would hardly enliven her mind. There was something more touching to Hope in this dull apathy than in ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... likewise aware that even strong economies, when they become static, do not guarantee safety. On the contrary, they seem likely to induce a dangerous national apathy. ...
— The Practical Values of Space Exploration • Committee on Science and Astronautics
... at Elizabeth; her stony calmness irritated him almost to a frenzy. He was too much excited to perceive that her very quiet was the apathy of despair; it seemed to him that she was only testing her power over him to its full extent. If her story was true, she would die rather than humble her pride by protestations or proof; if it was false! ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... him to do. The coalition seemed so natural and so eminently practical, and yet the sailor sat coldly listening to each proposition as it fell from his companion's lips, weighing it, sifting it with a judicial, indifferent apathy. ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... began to catch a glimpse of the approaching issue. The Emperor acted in full liberty, with all the strength that still pertained to his isolated position, and the moral and physical exhaustion of the country. Such general apathy was never before exhibited in the midst of so much national anxiety, or so many disaffected persons abstaining from action under similar circumstances, with such numerous partisans ready to renounce the master they still served with implicit docility. It was an entire ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... plump lips, whistling inaudibly. "Too bad, too bad!" he murmured sympathetically. "We're all hard hit, more or less." He lapsed into dejected apathy, from which Kirkwood, growing at length impatient, found it necessary to ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... the mighty crowds, unanimous in their ardour, of '89, never again the millions, one in heart and soul, that in '90 thronged round the altar of the federes. Well, good citizens must show double zeal and courage, must rouse the people from its apathy, bidding it choose between liberty ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... on the prayer. The irresponsive quiet of the night over the Mannering woods and park, with nothing but the wind for voice, seemed to her unbearable. And it only answered to the apathy within doors. Why, the Squire had scarcely mentioned the war since her return! Neither he nor Mrs. Gaddesden had asked her for an evening paper, though there had been a bad London raid the night before. She ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... indeed, that something should be done; and nothing will avail but to place every truly historical monument under national protection. Individual efforts may answer here and there, and a right spirit may be awakened from time to time by local societies; but during intervals of apathy mischief is done that can never be mended; and unless the damaging of national monuments, even though they should stand on private ground, is made a misdemeanor, we doubt whether, two hundred years hence, any enterprising explorer would be as fortunate as Mr. Layard and Sir H. Rawlinson ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... is because I have been threatened with legal proceedings by my creditors, and have just come victoriously out of a hard struggle to appease them for the time. This little fight has roused me from my apathy; it has rallied my spirits, and made me feel like my old self again. I am no longer content with silently loving my dearest friend; I open my ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... place but the great question of this same bridge. Its advantage was apparent to all. Finally it was decided by acclamation that they must have a bridge, and when it was built, and the shepherd died, "Really," said the good people of Avignon, "he must have been a saint to have roused us out of our apathy." ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... beautiful young wife, and a small and increasing family. The result may be easily anticipated. The want of society—a dreadful want to a man of his previous habits—the absence of all the comforts and decencies of life, produced inaction, apathy, and at last, despondency, which was only alleviated by a constant and immoderate use of ardent spirits. As long as Captain N—- retained his half-pay, he contrived to exist. In an evil hour he parted with this, and quickly trod ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... the right and left unnoticed; was the apathy, not of despair, for our faith would never let us feel that, but of sheer ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... his handcuffs prevented his ridding himself. However, in a day or two, after a visit from the commandant, his cell was cleaned. His manacles prevented his walking, or even standing, and the moral effect of being unable to use his hands was a strange apathy such as might precede imbecility. He was interrogated several times, but always adhered to his confession at Kamenitz; menaces of harsher treatment, even of torture, were tried—means which he knew ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... shelter a ghastly load of dead. Every hour at least one new body is uncovered and borne on a rough stretcher to some one of the many morgues. The sight loses none of its sadness and pathos by its commonness; only the horror is gone, giving place to apathy and stupor. Stalwart men, in mud-stained, working clothes, bring up the body, the face covered with a cloth. The crowds part and gaze at the burned corpse as it passes. At the morgue it is examined for identification, washed and prepared ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... deeds of incredible desperation; but they are strangers to that steady magnanimity, that cool heroic resolution in battle, which constitutes in our idea the perfection of this quality, and renders it a virtue.* Yet it must be observed that, from an apathy almost paradoxical, they suffer under sentence of death, in cases where no indignant passions could operate to buoy up the mind to a contempt of punishment, with astonishing composure and indifference; uttering little more on these occasions than a proverbial saying, common among them, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... as a noble resignation; to defy fate, even if one cannot rule it. Many of us northerners would be the better for a little mektoub. But this doctrine of referring everything to the will of Allah takes away all stimulus to independent thought; it makes for apathy, improvidence, and mental fossilification. A creed of everyday use which hampers a man's reasoning in the most ordinary matters of life—is it not like a garment ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... will contend, is the only possible attitude to the mingled apathy and abandon of existence—and it is, in fine, the poetic attitude. Romantic it is, without question, and I imagine Cabell would be the last to cavil at the implication. For, mocked by a contemptuous silence gnawing ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... is not annihilation, but unceasing apathy. The notion of it as a happy state seems derived from the experience of ecstasies; or else the pleasant, refreshed feeling with which one wakes from profound repose is referred to the period of actual ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... mood than the energy and action which the study always suggested. Walking directly to the great bed, he sat on its side and for several minutes stared straight in front of him, apparently seeing nothing; then at last the apathy passed from him, as his previous anger against Chilcote had passed. He stood up slowly, drawing his long limbs together, and recrossed the room, passing along the corridor and through the door communicating with the rest of the house. Five minutes later he was in ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... afflict my body He would spare my understanding. . . . Soon after I perceived that I had suffered a paralytic stroke, and that my speech was taken from me. I had no pain, and so little dejection, in this dreadful state, that I wondered at my own apathy, and considered that perhaps death itself, when it should come, would excite less horror than seems now to attend it. In order to rouse the vocal organs I took two drams. . . . I then went to bed, and, strange as it may seem, I think, slept. When I saw light it was time I should contrive ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... own unpleasant reflections. His body, prone on the moist earth, was fairly comfortable, but his mind was ill at ease. The scramble up the hillside had convinced him that he was growing old, and there was no rebound in his soul to counter the conviction. He felt listless, spiritless—an apathy with fright trembling somewhere at the back of it. He regarded the verandah wall with foreboding. How on earth could he climb that? And if he did there would be his exposed hinder-parts inviting a shot from some malevolent ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... odd apathy as to my character; rather like death, when one dreams of flying the soul. What does it matter? I should have left the flies and wasps to worry a corpse. And then-good-bye gentility! I should have worked for my bread. I had thoughts of America. I fancy I can write; and Americans, one hears, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... neared its end; and while the lackeys refilled for the last time the champagne-glasses, the table grew silent—the guests felt the apathy of digestion. The Dreamer looked at them, one after the other, and all the faces had satiated, blase expressions which disturbed and disquieted him. A sentiment, obscure, inexplicable, but so bitter! protested even from the depth of his ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee |
