"Callousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the murderous party. Readily it may be supposed that few would be disposed to urge such a vindication, when it became known in what way it was likely to operate. The government itself had made it perilous to profess humanity; and every man henceforward gloried publicly in his callousness and insensibility, as the one best safeguard to himself on a path ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... an outrage that would have made the men of a less vulgar period shudder. The “benefit of the public,” indeed! Who is this “public,” and what are its rights as against the rights of the dead poet, whose heartstrings are woven into “copy” by the disloyal friend he trusted? The inherent callousness of man’s nature is never so painfully seen as in the relation of this ogre, “the public,” to dead genius. Without the smallest real reverence for genius—without the smallest capacity of distinguishing ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... I had to tell her what it was? And when I had told her she exclaimed with extraordinary callousness, "The book? I had forgotten all about the book!" And then after reflection she added, "Pooh!" Had she not added Pooh I might have spared her, but as it was I raised the blotting-pad rather haughtily and presented her with the ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... respect for the young lady, but he is afraid of Christine, who has his dangerous secrets in her keeping. His emotional callousness is sufficient to prevent the night's happenings from exercising a disturbing influence on his plans for the future. Having at once the slave's brutality and the master's lack of squeamishness, he can see blood without fainting, and he can also bend his back under a mishap ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... readily eat up a colony of grubs or despoil the husbandry of the bees as will her mate. If, then, the human animal drops the restraints imposed by law, reverting thereby to the theft, murder, and cunning of savagery, why should it be shocking that the female should equal the male in callousness? Why should it be shocking should she even surpass the male? It is quite possible that, since for physiological reasons she is nearer to instinctive motivation than the male, she cannot help being more ruthless once deterrent inhibition ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... disgrace to any community that tolerates such a horrible law or such a feeble administration of it, and such callousness to human suffering that it will not save these innocent victims from its outrageous injustice. When to this brutality are added the comparative safety of the criminal, and the vile jails and the vile inmates with whom young boys and girls and honest men and decent women are thrown ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... him narrowly. He saw the perfect good-humoured callousness, even strange, glistening malice, in Gerald, glistening through the plausible ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... exit of their brilliant flash seem to leave greater darkness in the night, thus the impulses of grace shot across the soul of Cassier; he struggled in the grasp of an unseen power, but suddenly lapsed into the awful callousness which characterizes the relapses of confirmed guilt; he pretended to smile at his weakness, and found a sorry relief in cursing and scoffing at ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... frank aspect, the artless smile, the youthful seriousness. He was of the right sort; he was one of us. He talked soberly, with a sort of composed unreserve, and with a quiet bearing that might have been the outcome of manly self-control, of impudence, of callousness, of a colossal unconsciousness, of a gigantic deception. Who can tell! From our tone we might have been discussing a third person, a football match, last year's weather. My mind floated in a sea of conjectures till the turn of the conversation enabled me, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... day, like the people who live tranquilly on the slopes of a volcano, be rudely awakened from our fancied security. But this is an entirely different question. I am at present not endeavouring to justify our habitual callousness with regard to social dangers, but simply seeking to explain why the Russians, who have little or no practical acquaintance with pauperism, should have taken such ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... before," he said to himself, "that a dying man's throat rattled but once." Then it flashed on him with horror that he should have so little feeling, and he knew it at once as the curious callousness that comes quickly to toughen the heart for the sights of war. A man killed in battle was not an ordinary dead man at all—he stirred no sensation at all—no more than a dead animal. Already he had heard officers remarking calmly to one another, and ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... vivacity which had made Kennedy such a favourite in Roman society. I say "had," because just at the moment the young Englishman was somewhat under a cloud. A love-affair, the details of which had never quite come out, had indicated a heartlessness and callousness upon his part which shocked many of his friends. But in the bachelor circles of students and artists in which he preferred to move there is no very rigid code of honour in such matters, and though a head might be shaken or a pair of shoulders shrugged over the ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... case continued as hopeless as ever. Prayer was unceasing for her; and it pleased God suddenly to reveal Christ to her as her Saviour. Great self-loathing now at once took the place of former indifference; confession of sin, of previous callousness of conscience; and unspeakable joy in the Lord, of former apathy and coldness. It was a spiritual miracle—this girl's sudden transformation into a witness for God, manifesting deepest conviction for past sin and earnest concern for others. Her ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... certain that had the transgressor been imbued with feelings of ordinary delicacy he would not have permitted himself to be goaded into using such expressions as are to be found in his "Statement of Facts," published at York nearly two years after the type riot.[78] His callousness stirred the hot blood of Francis Collins, of The Canadian Freeman, to speak his mind editorially on the subject:—"We view it," he wrote, "as the greatest misfortune that could happen to any man in this life to imbrue his hands ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... neither feeling glad nor sorry, I got my last lesson about mankind; I mean my latest lesson, for of course I do not know what surprises there are yet in store for me. But that I could have so felt astonished me beyond description. There is a wonderful callousness in human nature which enables us to live. I had no feeling one way or another from New York to California, until, at Dutch Flat, a mining camp in the Sierra, I heard a cock crowing with a home voice; and then I fell to hope and regret both ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... only on Ephraim as she had at first learned to know him, wise and quiet and kind. The warm chimney seemed a poor thing to lean her head against while she felt that her faith was failing. Then the remembrance of the shot Ephraim had fired and his callousness choked back her tears. ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... to her because he had thought her great. Then she had disappointed him. She had been shallow and unworthy. And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over him, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little child. He remembered with what callousness he had watched her. Why had he been made like that? Why had such a soul been given to him? But he had suffered also. During the three terrible hours that the play had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of torture. His life was well worth hers. She had marred ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... so many things that were interesting to him. He would find himself confronted with the image of the society clergyman, or of the sleek editor in his club, or some other memory out of the world of luxury and pride. And each day came the newspaper, with its burden of callousness and scorn; and perhaps also a letter from Corydon, with something to goad him to new tilts with the enemies ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... shall be capped for hanging to-morrow. But no more than I call these peaceful sights, can I apply the name of peace to the insensibility of a conscience seared by sin; to the calmness, or rather callousness of one who has allowed the devil to persuade him that God is too merciful to reckon with us for our transgressions. The peace we are to seek, and, seeking to pursue, is not that of death, but life,—not ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... extraordinary callousness with which he made this reply. It disconcerted me, but I did my best not to show it. I adopted the tone used by my Uncle Henry, a clergyman, when he was asking one of his relatives for a subscription to ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... trait in the Boer character is his callousness, amounting to brutality, in the case of ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... India, a missionary found a victim of famine lying on one side of the village street, and not far off, upon the other side, two or three men of the middle class. The missionary reproached them for their callousness. What might be answered for them is not here to the point; their answer for themselves was, "It is his karma." The missionary did what he could for the famine sufferer, and then when repassing the group could not forbear remarking ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... mental withdrawal from him, angry at myself for my callousness, awkwardly I tried to crawl over to him, to touch him, comfort him as well as ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... Her callousness was like a gust of wind upon the living embers of his fears. It blew them into a blaze of wrath, sudden and terrific as that of such a man at bay could be. He advanced upon her with the rolling gait of the obese, his cheeks purple, his arms waving wildly, ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... groping to his feet. I was torn between joy at his deliverance and rage at the inhuman callousness of Abud. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... southward with a strong rush of water, its steep banks forming a plateau on either hand. The narrow gorge was spanned by a rough bridge of boats lashed firmly together; and on the farther side Honor found a lone dak bungalow, its homely dovecot and wheeling pigeons striking a friendly note amid the callousness ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... this cankered apathy has its merciful compensations. After the first shock and panic of war there appears to descend on all who have a share in it, whether active or passive, a kind of numbed indifference as to danger; a kind of callousness as to consequences, which I find it difficult to define in words, but which, nevertheless, impresses itself on the observer's mind as a definite and tangible fact. The soldier gets it, and it enables him to endure his own discomforts ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... Ashley disclosed a state of things in the mining districts the most appalling. Cruel oppressions were perpetrated by the mine owners and overseers, especially upon women and children; and frequently parents showed an utter callousness to the sufferings of their offspring. The work assigned to girls and young women was destructive of health, and was conducted under circumstances so indecent that it was difficult for the noble speaker ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... in his pulpit voice—which he used when "my people" stood convicted of some exhibition of extreme callousness to impression. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... were dry with anger, there was a contained insolence in the manner and voice of the other that roused her as much as his callousness. His mind seemed as cold as his pale blue eyes. All her mixed feelings towards him focussed suddenly into a point—she loathed him; but she ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... house now," he used to say to his mother with joy. They learned how perfectly peaceful the home could be. And they almost regretted—though none of them would have owned to such callousness—that their father ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... daughter. The poor lad received such a volley of bullets, that his blood went in one rush to the floor, and traced the outlines of his trunk on the ceiling of the room below, where it remained months afterwards, an eye-witness told me, as an illustration of the callousness of the jailer. The leading murderers were tried. They had no defence. The facts were not disputed. The judge and the bar did their duty, but the jury acquitted the prisoners without leaving their seats. Mrs. Chisholm, the widow, found neither sympathy nor friends at the scene of the tragedy. ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... I know that it was right. It is right to save the man whom one loves. I am less enthusiastic about justice now. But we both thought you wrote at his dictation. It seemed the last touch of his callousness. Being very much wrought up by this time—and Mrs. Bast was upstairs. I had not seen her, and had talked for a long time to Leonard—I had snubbed him for no reason, and that should have warned me I was in danger. So when the notes came I wanted us to go to you for an ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... home in Stanhope Street, Regent's Park, and seeing my dear mother stitching at those pretty frocks by the light of one candle. It was no uncommon thing to find her sewing at that time, but if she was tired, she never showed it. She was always bright and tender. With the callousness of childhood, I scarcely realized the devotion and ceaseless care that she bestowed on us, and her untiring efforts to bring us up as beautifully as she could. The knowledge came to me later on when, all too early in my life, my own responsibilities ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... any callousness or want of gratitude, but simply from the fact that for the last five years he had been the be-all and end-all of their tiny community—the Imperial master. And he would just as soon have thought of thanking her for handing him the spear as of thanking his right hand for ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... lack-lustre condition of feeling once or twice before. But I note, that it was accompanied then by an odd indifference, as the thought of them occurred to me, in regard to the sufferings of others—a kind of callousness, so unusual with me, as at once to mark the humour it accompanied as a palpably morbid one [174] that could not last. Were those sufferings, great or little, I asked myself then, of more real consequence to them than mine to me, as I remind myself that 'nothing that will end is really ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... either about this idyll of Elizabeth Kemp of the lissome limbs and auburn hair. The story pursues its way, and one sees the soul of a woman shining clearly through the racy dialect and frolics of the Chingford beano, the rueful futility of faithful Thomas and the engaging callousness ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... flinch or give back. Neither did he obey. Instead, he laughed with a hollow callousness and replied, "Shoot ef ye've a mind ter. I hain't goin' ter stir a step ter ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... support these reformers had received from such men as John Stuart Mill and Jacob Bright. Such legislation, she resolved, must not gain a foothold in her country, because it not only disregarded women's right to personal liberty but showed a dangerous callousness toward men's share of responsibility ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... subject. Whether their attitude was a spontaneous expression of respectful indifference, or a parti-pris to mislead and hoodwink her, of course Europe couldn't tell. All that that continent, or the subdivision of it known as Shepherd's Bush, could see was a parade of callousness and studied civility on the part of both. The only circumstance that impaired its integrity or made the bystander doubt the good faith of its performers was the fact that one of them was a girl, and an attractive one—so attractive that elderly ladies jumped meanly at the supposed ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... though he wonders at his own callousness, he can bear to look on the bed through a mist of tears; and, so looking, feels his intellect failing in its effort to grasp the calamity that has ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... become, in the hands of Peter de Hoogh, and thanks to the magic of light and shade, as beautiful and interesting in their way as a swirl of angels and lilies by Botticelli. But this redemption of the vulgar was at the expense, as I have elsewhere pointed out, of a certain growing callousness to vulgarity. What holds good as to the actual artistic, visible quality, holds good also as to the imaginative value. Velasquez's Flagellation, if indeed it be his, in our National Gallery, has a pathos, a something that catches you by the ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... in the fact that all are there in body and may sometimes be there in spirit too. The familiarity of the oft-repeated prayers and the oft-sung hymns leads to inattention perhaps, but seldom, it may be hoped, to callousness; religious emotion may only occasionally be stirred but the thread of natural piety, binding man to man and man to God, is strengthened, as fresh strands are added. At the least it may be claimed for the chapel services that they rescue from our hours of business some minutes each day in which our ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... to hell," he said with brutal callousness. "You're no' hauf a woman like Leebie. She's a tippy wee lass, an' has a way wi' her. She has some spirit, an' is aye snod and nate," and there was a tantalizing smile about his lips that was plainly meant ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... C.O.S. As a method of producing a quick, inexpensive, and pleasing effect on one's egotism the C.O.S. is simply not in it with this dodge of giving pennies at random, without inquiry. Only—which of the two devices ought to be accused of harshness and callousness? Which of them is truly kind? I bring forward the respectable young widow as a sample case of the Heart v. Brain conflict. All other cases are the same. The brain is always more kind than the heart; the brain is always more willing ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... of the utter callousness of the men who at that time ruled Germany, was the murder of Captain Fryatt, a gallant British seaman, who had dared to attack ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... allotted a certain portion of their income to the regular calls of necessity, which cannot be exceeded, and have a specified circle of objects which cannot be changed; and, if one may judge by their comparative callousness to all other claims, it would be natural to infer that they had taken a certain quantum sufficit from their stock of sensibility, which bore an invariable proportion to their calculations. In vain you plead for the most urgent distress, in vain you solicit the smallest contribution; they have no ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... little den, he would give way to fits of violent rage. He had not yet reached a state of callousness to be able to endure these humiliations without the keenest torture to his false ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... to which these touching recollections do not pertain, and they heed them not; and some there are, who, with a callousness which shocks sensibility, have the ignorant effrontery to ask, "Of what use are such recollections?" With such frigid utilitarians it would be vain to argue; but this question, at least, may be put in return:—Why should the ancient glories of Greece and Rome form a ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... and before his righteous fury I was for a moment abashed. "Give me back my daughter!" he thundered, with his back to my closed door, and a pistol pointed to my head. I rang the bell, and Irene came, dressed for the evening, and humming a light opera tune. Then I saw to what depths of callousness I had dragged her, and I shuddered. She listened to the old man's stormy eloquence, and when he had finished his passionate appeal, she shrugged her shoulders slightly. She was perfectly happy, she declared, and she would die sooner than go back to that triste ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... but I could not observe any other expression on the faces of the men than that of total indifference or contempt. It seemed to me a very awful thing that it should be possible for men to come to such hardness of heart and callousness to the sight of bloodshed and violence; but, indeed, I began to find that such constant exposure to scenes of blood was having a slight effect upon myself, and I shuddered when I came to think that ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Chance or Providence should ever gratify his secret wish to participate in stirring adventures, he would see to it that all his wounded enemies, no matter how many there might be of them, received adequate medical attention. He had often been shocked at the callousness with which so many of the heroes of romance dash blithely into the next adventure—though those whom they have seriously injured lie on all sides of them as thick as autumn leaves—with only the most perfunctory consideration of these victims; sometimes, ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... absent from school," said the master coldly, turning away. "If you are satisfied, I have nothing more to say." Nevertheless, for the moment he was so startled by this remarkable theory of his own responsibility in the case that he quite accepted the father's callousness,—or rather it seemed to him that his unfortunate charges more than ever needed his protection. There was still the chance of his hearing some news from Julian Fleming's father; he lived at some distance, in the valley on the opposite side of Hemlock Hill; and thither the master made his way. ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... had returned upon her over-whelmingly with his brief reference to it. His lack of emotion seemed to her as hideous callousness, more horrible than the deed itself. His physical exhaustion had called her out of herself, but the reaction was ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... past the aftermath of war was in many ways as horrible as war itself, whilst the period during war witnessed an enormous amount of privation and suffering among non-combatants almost as ghastly as that of the battlefield. This was due not so much to inaction resulting from callousness as to unwise action and ignorance. During the past century political science and economic inquiry have made vast strides, and consequently the injurious social effects of warfare may be minimised, though not averted; and ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... futurity. Therefore it is that I feel an irresistible impulse to be present at every execution, as I there behold the various effects of the near approach of death.' He maintains 'that the curiosity which impels people to be present at such affecting scenes, is certainly a proof of sensibility, not of callousness. For, it is observed, that the greatest proportion of the spectators is composed of women.' See post, June ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... pleasure's sake, but to preserve it for the autumn floods when they might want to float on down to the Indian villages; and surely it would have afforded the finest sport in the way of trolling for lake trout. But with utter callousness he made his pistol serve as a hook and line. Often he would crawl down, cautiously as a stalking wolf, to the edge of a trout pool, then fire mercilessly at a great, spotted beauty below. The bullet itself did not penetrate the water, but the shock carried through and the fish usually ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... seats, on the steps of hotels, discharging dilatory duties; the appalling chaos of hard-eyed, capable dames with defiant clothes, and white-cheeked hunted-looking men; of splendid creatures in their cabs, and cadging creatures in their broken hats—the callousness and the monotony! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and have had opportunities of pretty thoroughly knowing them. And my experience of the class has been very much the reverse of that of Burns. I have usually found their virtues of a merely theatric cast, and their vices real; much assumed generosity in some instances, but a callousness of feeling, and meanness of spirit, lying concealed beneath. In this poor fellow, however, I certainly did find a sample of the nobler variety of the genus. Poor Charles did too decidedly belong to it. He it was that projected the Sunday party ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... about the limit to which he will commit himself. His natural reticence in serious situations and calamity, and his reserve in the outlet of feeling by vocal expression, give a wrong impression of its real depth, and may even convey the impression of callousness to anyone not conversant with the working of ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... but for my iron resolve not to stain a well-earned reputation for callousness. As I returned home that night from what are known as "the wilds of Hammersmith" (Hammersmith is a suburb of London) I said to myself: "This play is bound to succeed" The next moment I said to myself: "This play cannot possibly succeed. It ...
— Abraham Lincoln • John Drinkwater
... moved and softened] Oh, doctor, if you acknowledge that—if you have confessed it to yourself—if you realize what you have done, then there is forgiveness. I trusted in your strength instinctively at first; then I thought I had mistaken callousness for strength. Can you blame me? But if it was really strength—if it was only such a mistake as we all make sometimes—it will make me so happy to ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... bridge, and the Bannisdale gate. Laura shut her eyes, and reckoned up the minutes that remained. Then, as they sped up the park, she wrestled indignantly with herself. She was outraged by her own callousness towards this death in front of her. "Oh! let me think of her! Let me be good to her!" she cried, in dumb appeal to some power beyond herself. She recalled her father. She tried with all her young strength to forget the man beside her—and those ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of course that the hard-handed merchant-skippers who in brigs and schooners hung round the coasts of the Islands thought little of carrying off men or women. They would turn their victims adrift in Australia or on some South Sea islet, as their humour moved them. With even more cruel callousness, they would sometimes put Maoris carried off from one tribe on shore amongst another and maybe hostile tribe. Slavery was the best fate such unfortunates could expect. On one occasion the missionaries in the Bay of Islands rescued from bondage twelve who had in this fashion been thrown amongst ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... hurly-burly of arms and legs as a capital jest. So far from being alarmed or annoyed, they shouted with glee. The old lady, who had gathered herself together and was directing a stream of voluble reproof at Corporal Smith for his "callousness and cruelty to these unhappy blind heroes," retired discomfited. Jock's comments routed her more effectively than the Corporal's assurance that the episode was none ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... of one whose heart is bruised or torn. That she had gained in queenliness within the past year was not evidence of austerity or the callousness that ensues upon the healing of a wound. The Ayletts were a stately race, and the few who, while she was in her teens, had carped at her lack of pride because of her disposition to choose friends from the walks of life lower than her own, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... she was wondering, however, but because the recollection of it did not move her in any way. Reflections which had caused her the sharpest misery only yesterday recurred to her now without affecting her in the least degree—except in that they made her feel herself to be a kind of monster of callousness, coldness, and egotism. The lonely grave, looking deserted already, with the rain-bespattered, mud-bedraggled flowers fading upon it; the man himself as she had known him; his goodness, his kindness, the disinterested affection he had lavished upon her—she dwelt upon these things; she racked ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... brutality in the scene from which Richard would, oftentimes, have recoiled. To-day he was selfish, absorbed to the point of callousness. If he remarked them at all, it was in bitter welcome, as he had welcomed the chill and staring blankness of the fog. He was indifferent to the fact that Chifney was harsh, the horses testy or wicked, that the boys' ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... that the Lord's saints should be caught up to meet Him in the air. Were it not true its very boldness and apparent foolishness would be its refutation. And what would be the character of mind that could invent such a thought? What depths of wickedness! What cruelty! What callousness! The spring from which such a statement, if false, could rise must be corrupt indeed. But how different in fact! What severe righteousness! What depths of holiness! What elevated morality! What warmth of tender affection! What clear reasoning! Every word that he ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... and the smile which accompanied it, melted Bertha's callousness; remorse had already taken possession of her, as her disgust ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... decidedly sick. He was country-born himself, and, being no mere dreamer of dreams, realised that it was as well that country people should not flinch at the less poetic side of their lives, but this callousness struck him as horrible in a young child like Phoebe. Yet as he saw Ishmael wince he regretted the very sensibility in the boy, the lack of which had shocked him in Phoebe. He knew Ishmael had a horror of blood and disagreeable sights, and the thought of how often the boy would have to encounter ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... Lund's apparent callousness that affected him more than his own squeamishness. He could not regret Carlsen's death. With the doctor alive, his own existence would have been a constant menace. But he was not used to seeing a killing, though, in his water-front detail, he had not ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... of these unhappy children, shivering with cold and fear, Bourdin, in spite of his natural callousness, and the constant sight of scenes like the present, felt something akin to compassion; his companion, unpitying, brutally disengaged his leg from the grasp ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... all these people. I found that my lamp had gone out leaving behind an awful smell. I fled from it up the stairs and went to bed in the dark. My slumbers—I suppose the one good in pedestrian exercise, confound it, is that it helps our natural callousness—my slumbers were deep, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... sobering effect even among the most reckless. A man is face to face with eternal things, and though after a little while the influence of this to some extent passes off, and either an unhealthy excitement or an equally unhealthy callousness takes its place, it never wholly goes, and any serious battle suffices to bring the man to his ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... her with as little compunction as they would a fly," he said. "Ah! you do not know the callousness of those people. I only hope and pray that she may have escaped and is in hiding somewhere, and will arrive unexpectedly and give me a startling surprise. She delights in startling me," he added with ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... envy of paternity and in strange jealousy of a sorrow which he could never know. Man, and even the sea-man, is a capricious animal, the creature and the victim of lost opportunities. But he made me feel ashamed of my callousness. I had ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... unconscious head and held it to her bosom. Alone, with no eye looking, she pressed her lips on his forehead. Courant's callousness roused a fierce, perverse tenderness in her. He might sneer at David's lack of force, but she understood. She crooned over him, moved his hair back with caressing fingers, pressing him against herself as if the strength of ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... I answered, with prompt callousness. 'I object to these base utilitarian considerations being imported into the discussion of a serious question. Florence is the city of art; as a woman of culture, it behoves you to revel in it. Your medical ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... observed, with great advantage and attention, the countenance and movements of Flora from the beginning. He was fully persuaded that her woe was genuine and profound. He had felt his eyes moist when she wept. He recoiled from the cruelty and the callousness that, without the slightest symptom of sympathy, could leave a young girl who had been labouring for their amusement, and who ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... caused if some commission were free to determine who were insane or feeble or worthless enough to be put out of the way! Or free to select a human victim for vivisection whenever experts deemed it wise! The widespread horror and uneasiness of such a regime, the callousness to suffering it would engender, the private revenges and crimes that might insidiously creep in under the guise of public good, are alone enough to render vicious ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the guilty awarded to the innocent. As man to man, I charge thee speak; bring forward some proof of innocence. Let me not condemn to death as a coward and a murderer, one whom I have loved and trusted as a friend! Answer—wherefore this strange callousness to life—this utter disregard of thine honor ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... she had, however: she was a devoted student, and in the society of her books she forgot the callousness of her parents, and, living in imagination in the bygone annals of the empire, she was able to take part, as it were, in the great deeds which mark the past history of the state, and to enjoy the converse and society ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... style of his attire declared that he was completely indifferent to any comments by his townsmen—and such a trait exposed in a New England village revealed more fully than his usurious habits the real callousness of the Britt nature. There was not a man in sight who did not have patches either fore or aft, or both! Mr. Britt wore a light, checked suit with a fitted waist, garishly yellow shoes, a puff tie of light blue, and a sailor straw with a sash band. He was a peacock in a yard full of brown ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... Professor Ker, exulting in his strength, finds it admirable. I say it is inadequate, and not justified to us by what else the saga tells us of the speaker. I am sure that Skarphedin had more to say, or that if he had not the poet could have expressed him better. It recalls the humorous callousness of our soldiers, which, nakedly rendered, is often shocking. This is, however, not really the point. Terseness may be dramatic—it often is, as in "Cover her face—mine eyes dazzle—She died young"—but in narrative it may check instead of provoke the imagination. But if it provoke, is it not ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... never before heard the English language twisted into such enigmas as these few simple words presented. It was an outrage to credit this well-mannered and delightful girl with the cold-blooded callousness which seemed to reveal itself in every syllable. That she was blithely unaware of this element in her excited utterances was shown by her eager face and animated attitude. She had risen from the chair ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... disregard of all the laws and customs of civilised warfare by the Germans in 1914-1919 has now been so well established that it seems almost unnecessary to give yet another instance of this callousness. In the case about to be quoted, however, there is, as the reader will observe, an almost ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... she said, 'of such indifference and callousness, arising from this self-contempt; this wretched, inefficient, miserable pride; that it has gone on with listless steps even to the altar, yielding to the old, familiar, beckoning finger,—oh mother, oh mother!—while it spurned it; ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... almost went so far as to hint that he had made money by the articles in the Grand Journal. There were others who took upon themselves to defend Christophe against him: they appeared to be broken-hearted at Olivier's callousness in dragging a sensitive artist, a dreamer, ill-equipped for the battle of life,—Christophe,—into the turmoil of the market-place, where he could not but be ruined: for they regarded Christophe as a little boy not strong enough in the head to be allowed to go out alone. The ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... foot as he was, looked far and wide during his years of illness. I thought I knew, thought I understood him; but since his death I have almost felt that he was inspired. It's a damnable pity that our stupidity and callousness prevent us realizing in life what we are quick enough to perceive in death—when it is too late! Truedale's faith in me, when I gave him so little to go by, is both flattering and touching. He knew he could trust me—and that knowledge is the best thing he bequeathed to me. But ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... impossible—impossible!" The clinched fist came down on the black broadcloth knee with the conviction of the man behind it. The words rushed like melted metal, hot, stinging, not to be stopped. The judge quivered as if they had stung through the callousness, touched a nerve. A faint color crawled to his cheeks; for the first time he spoke quickly, as if his thoughts connected with something more ...
— The Lifted Bandage • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... forgot all his anger. It seemed shocking to him to find the old man untended in his extremity. He had heard tales of Indian callousness. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... are revealed far more abundantly in our later literatures than in the earlier classics. In the austere masterpieces of the Greek drama, for example, we may discover a lack of this warmth of sympathy; and we can not but suspect a certain aloofness, which is akin to callousness. The cultivated citizens of Athens were supported by slave-labor; but their great dramatic poets cast little light on the life of the slaves or on the sad conditions of their servitude. Something of this narrow chilliness is to be detected also ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... the iron of the Philistine giant in the effort to bring him to reason. These are the ostentatious violences of a missionary, who would fain save his enemy alive, where a grimmer purpose is glad to employ a more silent weapon and strike but once. The callousness of a thick-witted auditory lays the need for coarse method on the gentlest soul resolved to stir them. But he whose message is for minds attuned and tempered will beware of needless reiteration, as of the noisiest way of emphasis. Is the same word wanted again, he will examine carefully whether ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... but it must reckon with the might of organized, united mass defense represented and organized by the I.L.D. For example, the Nine Old Men who have made the United States Supreme Court the stronghold of reaction with the same callousness as their predecessors, arrogantly refused to review the appeal in the case of Haywood Patterson, one of the innocent Scottsboro boys. But the fight goes on, until all ...
— Labor's Martyrs • Vito Marcantonio
... brutal, sickening! Dull callousness to smug contrition quickening Under the spur of an ignoble terror, A hope scarce less ignoble—in expression, At least. Yes, calm judicial self-possession Is difficult, most easy trimming error; But compromise with claims ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... awake and conscious, were killed forcibly in broad daylight within a few paces of a number of men occupied in pitching tents, without their noticing anything of the matter; and this may certainly be characterised as an instance of murder as a fine art to show the absolute callousness of the Thugs towards their victims and the complete absence of any feelings of compassion, the story of the following murder by the same gang may be recorded. [685] The Thugs were travelling from Nagpur toward Jubbulpore with a party consisting of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... a little as he read this, at his mother's curious interest in the girl; and he wondered too at the report of Beatrice's callousness. It was her damned pride, ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... and whose coarseness and callousness, as he whips his team, are the consequences of the hard calling in which he ministers to the recluse's pleasure and refinement. If town life has its evils, from the city comes all that makes retirement comfortable and civilized. Retirement without the city-would have ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... It was as if the whole tale of her adultery, with all its secret infamy, its squalor, its utter callousness, was there in that room of ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... sent to teach them, to whom they never as a race paid any heed. There was never such antagonism of Yea to God and Nay to Him in the history of any nation as among them; never such openness to whisperings, and such callousness to the thunder of God's voice; on the one side, never such tenderness, and on the other, never such hardness, of heart. Nor except by their religion, which they did not believe at heart themselves, and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... English: the English personal independence and public spirit, and hospitality, and truth. He liked to tell stories in proof of their virtues, but he was not blind to the defects of their virtues: their submissive acceptance of caste, their callousness with strangers; their bluntness with one another. Mrs. Clemens had been in a way to suffer socially more than he, and she praised the English less. She had sat after dinner with ladies who snubbed and ignored one another, and left her to find her own amusement in the absence ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... lesser ills, illume.—Thy Victims rove Unquiet as the Ghost that haunts the Grove Where MURDER spilt the life-blood.—O! thy dart Kills more than Life,—e'en all that makes Life dear; Till we "the sensible of pain" wou'd change For Phrenzy, that defies the bitter tear; Or wish, in kindred callousness, to range Where moon-ey'd IDIOCY, with fallen lip, Drags the loose knee, and ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward |
