"Nonchalance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... likely to accomplish anything. He sauntered back, casting furtive glances into the spacious front-yard, and concluded to ease his restless legs by leaning against a tree and crossing them in an attitude of profound nonchalance. The tree happened to be almost directly in front of the Nixon gate. Not to seem actually employed in shadowing the house, he decided to pose with his back to the premises, facing down the street, twisting his whiskers ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... name on the wall. Now he stopped to look into a shop, then to gaze up at the windows of a house as if he expected to see some one there, and then to throw a copper to some importunate beggar. He walked with an air of so much independence and nonchalance, indeed, at times, almost of haughtiness, that it was difficult to suppose he had the slightest apprehension of danger. Not a person, however, who, passed him, escaped his scrutiny; and even when he appeared to stop carelessly, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... [Lat.]; impassibility, impassibleness; inappetency^, apathy, phlegm, dullness, hebetude^, supineness, lukewarmness^. cold fit, cold blood, cold heart; coldness, coolness; frigidity, sang froid [Fr.]; stoicism, imperturbation &c (inexcitability) 826 [Obs.]; nonchalance, unconcern, dry eyes; insouciance &c (indifference) 866; recklessness &c 863; callousness; heart of stone, stock and stone, marble, deadness. torpor, torpidity; obstupefaction^, lethargy, coma, trance, vegetative state; sleep &c 683; suspended animation; stupor, stupefaction; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and beautiful in the cropped bloom of youth, idealize the hero of romance; if Michael Angelo's Penseroso translate in marble the dark broodings of a despot's soul; if Della Porta's Julia Farnese be the Roman courtesan magnificently throned in nonchalance at a pope's footstool; if Verocchio's Colleoni on his horse at Venice impersonate the pomp and circumstance of scientific war—surely this Medea exhales the flower-like graces, the sweet sanctities of human life, that even in that turbid age were found among high-bred Italian ladies. Such power ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... was speechless and far from hygienic. No man of us chewed the new beef a proper number of times; he swallowed intently and reached for more. It was rather like twenty minutes for dinner at what our railway laureates call an eating house. Lew Wee shuffled in bored nonchalance between range and table. It was an old ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... was generally on these occasions that under the great carriage gateway Lady Ded—I mean Madame Delestang—catching sight of my raised hat, would beckon me with an amiable imperiousness to the side of the carriage, and suggest with an air of amused nonchalance, "Venez donc faire un tour avec nous," to which the husband would add an encouraging "C'est ca. Allons, montez, jeune homme." He questioned me some times, significantly but with perfect tact and delicacy, as to the way I employed my time, and never failed to express ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... slow and mournful eyes rested on the lady. The exclamation, if profane, was justified, for it is probable that the American had never before set eyes on such a masterpiece of the Creator's power. There was in this woman's being—in her eyes, her face, her every movement—that combination of nonchalance and dignity which comes to beautiful and bright- minded girls when they are beginning to leave girlhood behind them. She was moderately tall, with hair of living brown, and deep blue eyes full of life and sweetness. She was not slim, but held herself like a boy with the strength that ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... off in the market. Others are preparing homony for breakfast; children, in ragged garments, are toddling, running, playing, and sporting about the brick pavement; the smallest are crouched at the feet of their mothers, as if sharing the gloom or nonchalance of their feeling. Men are gathering together the remnants of some cherished memento of the old plantation; they had many a happy day upon it. Women view as things of great worth the little trinkets with which good master, in former days, rewarded their energy. They recall ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... towards him with gracious nonchalance even before he had finished speaking. He pressed the hand respectfully to his lips, and made the mental remark that it was bony. Madame de Lionne was a blonde, with too fine a skin ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... exploring expeditions (1829-1831), wrote (II., 55) that the men oblige their women to procure their own food, or they "throw to them over their shoulders the bones they have already picked, with a nonchalance that is extremely amusing." The women are also excluded from religious ceremonies; many of the best things to eat are taboo to them; and the cruel contempt of the men pursues them even after death. The men are buried with ceremony (Curr, I., 89), ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... conviction that the editor of the 'Morning Breakfast Table' would be powerful for all things, brought new doubts to her mind. But she could not convince herself, and when at last she went to her bed her mind was still vacillating. The next morning she met Hetta at breakfast, and with assumed nonchalance asked a question about the man who was perhaps about to be her husband. 'Do ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... in a voice of studied nonchalance that night, as we were preparing to turn in, "did you notice anything in the Vault ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... much as possible to the amusement or entertainment of others, but such attention was absolutely embarrassing. There was nothing to do but to appear unconscious of it, and we went along with as much nonchalance as if the whole town ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... buttons. He is jostled by a fellow-countryman, who gathers his serape across his left shoulder and breast so adroitly as to partially conceal his shabby attire, while he puffs his cigarette with assumed nonchalance, exchanging a careless word in the mean time with the gypsy-like woman who offers bananas and zapotas for sale. Dainty senoritas trip across the way in red-heeled slippers of Cinderella-like proportions, while noisy, laughing, happy children, ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... certainly brought himself to the point, but he seemed actually further from it than at first, and he made a desperate plunge, trying at the same time to keep something of his habitual nonchalance. "But that doesn't account for my being here. Imogene accounts for that. She has allowed me ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... part of Grace to preserve political harmony between father and lover; but the latter speedily recognized that the major's age and infirmities, together with his early associations, gave him almost unlimited privilege to think and say what he pleased. Hilland soon came to hear with good- natured nonchalance his Northern allies berated, and considered himself well repaid by one mirthful, grateful ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... of 1824, I find one entitled Arrogance or Nonchalance? of the Tenth Reported,—the "tenth" here referred to being the Tenth Hussars. This distinguished regiment set the pencils of the Brothers Cruikshank and their fellow caricaturists in motion at this period, and I find an amazing number of caricatures of the date of 1824, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... brief pause, then she looked up and put a second question. She put it with the best nonchalance that she could assume. It did not sound like ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... with, and exposed him, as to render him quite harmless in future. The minister of Great Haughton was made of different metal to the "old reading parson Lewis," or Lowes, to whose fate Baxter refers with such nonchalance. As the only clergyman of the Church of England, that I am aware of, who was executed for witchcraft, Lewis's case is sufficiently interesting to merit some notice. Stearne's (vide his Confirmation of Witchcraft, ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... he laughed, for his old nonchalance had returned to him. "I've been full of business since nine o'clock. I have an appointment out at La Muette at two, and I'll have to get ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... delightful. Not too hot for walking, yet warm enough to incline one of Tom's temperament to throw open his vest and bare his broad bosom to any breeze that might chance to gambol through the forest. With characteristic nonchalance he pushed his wideawake off his forehead for the sake of coolness, and in so doing tilted it very much on one side, which gave him a somewhat rakish air. He carried his heavy double-barrelled gun on one of his broad shoulders with the butt behind him, and his right hand ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... these dangerous duties. I can frankly say I disliked the listening-post duty that first time. Nothing happened of course. There was no killing, but it was nervy work. Later, in common with other fellows, I was able to go on listening-post with the same nonchalance as my first coster friend. It lies in whether one is used to the thing or not. Nothing comes easy at first, especially in the trenches. Later on, it is all in ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... expressing his American temperament best in his business—is the one who is expressing in it the most courage for himself and for others and for his government. He has big beliefs every few minutes a day, and he acts on them with nonchalance. ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... have passed through life without experiencing times when it would cost them little to lay it down. At least such times have occurred to me, and this was among them. Yet this feeling, whether it is to be called nonchalance or despair, has its advantages for the moment; it renders the individual considerably careless of the worst that man can do to him; and I began to question my oratorical judge's clerk on the events in the "city of cities." No man could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... Renaissance we find already outlined with surprising definiteness, and at the same time with an almost childlike naivete, a careless, mirth-provoking nonchalance, in the Carmina Vagorum. They remind us of the Italian lyrics which Lorenzo de' Medici and Poliziano wrote for the Florentine populace; and though in form and artistic intention they differ from the Latin verse of that period, their view of life is not dissimilar to ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... four miles from Nuthill and nearing the gap in the high ridge through which one looked out over the Sussex weald from Desdemona's cave. In another couple of minutes the Master was on the ground beside Betty, and Punch, with the nonchalance of his kind, was nosing the turf, as though to distract attention from his hard breathing. The gallop ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... she rattled the stove doors beneath the cookshed in the yard. Three very young children were sitting half under our bed examining our shoes and other articles of apparel, and as many older heads stared at us from the opposite beds. My anguish can be better imagined than described, and the nonchalance with which William arose and assumed his trousers did not add to my opinion of him. I afterward learned that nothing was more common than this populous way of entertaining guests, and that he had long since become hardened to the indelicacies ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... that Joedy had fallen out of the machine and had just escaped our rear wheels, and that the previous night we had had three earthquakes. I had never felt an earthquake before, and it will be some time before I develop the nonchalance of a seasoned Californian, whose way of referring to one is like saying, "Oh, yes, we did have a few drops of rain last night." One more little tremble and I should have gathered the family for a ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... continued to advance; but with such easy nonchalance that in two or three hours afterwards eight of the ten had returned to the glade, all equally unsuccessful ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... Tom easily, rubbing her cheeks as if to wipe away the kisses pressed upon it, and advancing to greet Evie with a nonchalance which for once was a trifle overdone, though neither of her friends was in the least danger of mistaking her real feelings. "The same to you, and many of them," she continued, sitting down without waiting ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... invitation he moved up to the fire in nervous haste, and with a deprecating smile; dropped suddenly into a chair, and tilted it back in imitation of Callum's easy nonchalance; but finding the character difficult to maintain in view of his feet, he suddenly came down to the horizontal once more, and in so doing descended upon poor Bruce's tail. That unoffending canine uttered a ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... entering it witness together the play of a new jet d'eau. Their counterparts greet them even in the marble and bronze figures which people the paths and basins, in the dignified face of an Apollo, in the theatrical air of a Jupiter, in the worldly ease or studied nonchalance of a Diana or a Venus. The stamp of the court, deepened through the joint efforts of society for a century, is so strong that it is graven on each detail as on the whole, and on material objects as ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... lose nothing in stateliness if you can manage to adopt the goose-step. On your return to the wicket you will probably find, if the weather is mild and the grass dry, that the fieldsmen are reclining on the ground; it will enhance your reputation for nonchalance and good-fellowship if you can contrive to give one of them a playful pat with your bat in passing, especially if he is a total stranger to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... of nonchalance, replied to the effect that Dr. Sampson was not her offspring, and so she was not bound to correct his eccentricities. "And I suppose," said she, languidly, "we must accept these extraordinary people as we find them. But that is no reason why you should say ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Constantinople, which are more nervous and more dangerous. She rang and a maid appeared. She entered an alcove without a word, and a few minutes later I saw her leaning on her elbow in her habitual attitude of nonchalance. ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... howld yer tongue, Blunderbore!" cried O'Riley, handing the glowing coal demanded, with as much nonchalance as if his fingers were ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... they stroll to and fro across the quads, so keenly aware in their inmost bosoms of the presence of visitors and determined to grant an appearance of mingled wisdom, great age, and sad doggishness! What a devil-may-care swing to the stride, what a nonchalance in the perpetual wreath of cigarette smoke, what a carefully assumed bearing of one carrying great wisdom lightly and easily casting it aside for the moment in the pursuit of some waggish trifle. "Here," those very self-conscious young visages seem to betray, "is one who might tell you all about ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... recovered all his customary nonchalance. Eveline remained stretched on the Divan of the Favourite in an ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... are full of her peculiar note. Death is the "one dignity" that "delays for all;" the meanest brow is so ennobled by the majesty of death that "almost a powdered footman might dare to touch it now," and yet no beggar would accept "the eclat of death, had he the power to spurn." "The quiet nonchalance of death" is a resting-place which has no terrors for her; death "abashed" her no more than "the porter of her father's lodge." Death's chariot also holds Immortality. The setting sail for "deep eternity" brings a "divine ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... before a squat, dumpy building and was working noisily at the lock with a big key. Now that his back was necessarily toward his prisoner, two of the posse stepped up close beside Sinclair. They had none of the sheriff's nonchalance. One of them was the man whose head had made the acquaintance of Sinclair's knee, and both were ready for instant ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... his Serene Highness with a somewhat affected nonchalance intended to show that, as a highly trained military man, he left it to Russians to make an idol of this useless old man, but that he knew whom he was dealing with. "Der alte Herr" (as in their own set the Germans called Kutuzov) "is making himself very comfortable," thought Wolzogen, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... but Mr. Dangerfield, who promised you five hundred guineas,' said Mr. Lowe, with a dry nonchalance. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the open. But he didn't. With the exception of Ann Leighton, mammy, and Natalie, who were not women at all so much as part and parcel of his own fiber, women were just women. He treated them all alike, and with a gallant nonchalance that astounded his two neighbors, Lady Blanche Trevoy and the Hon. Violet Materlin, accustomed as they were to find youths of his age stupidly callow or at best, in their innocence, mildly exciting. Leighton, seated at H ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... shrugged his shoulders. "Sais pas," he answered with French nonchalance. "One does not know that. It is a long time, M'sieur le Docteur. It was lost, that stirrup, some years ago. It may be a hundred years. It may be two hundred. My grandfather, he who keeps the grocery shop, has told me that there is a saying that a Martel must ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... a dreadful silence—Spout realising his appalling error endeavoured to pass it off by humming the Jewel Song from Faust. For a moment his nonchalance amazed everyone then as though a veil had been suddenly snatched from their eyes they gave a great cry: 'This is Spout! What Humour! What Roguery! Spout ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... refraction and these tints, but without ceasing to enjoy the beautiful aggrandizement they bestow. When there is danger that a character will melt into a mere mush of ungirt feelings, the astringent and bracing use of satire is fit. The application of a fleecing nonchalance or of a jibing scorn to a soul of strong and ardent sentiment, is unfit. A certain divinity should hedge every manifestation of trustful affection, even though it be misjudged. It is for the most part profane to scoff an overstretched ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... not lose his smile. He sat down. He nodded across the room to Harlan with as much nonchalance as though he had been seeing ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... it is true, and I certainly did not pay much attention to it; but that sort of obscure intention, which seemed to lurk in his nonchalance like a wary old carp in a pond, had never before come so near the surface. He had distinctly aroused my expectations. I would have been unable to say what it was I expected, but at all events I did not expect the absurd developments he sprung upon me no later ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... inevitably doomed one day to destruction, Straight over against the town impends a huge mass of loosened rock, which, so authorities predict, must sooner or later slide down, crushing any thing with which it comes in contact. People point to the enemy with nonchalance, saying, "Yes, the rock will certainly fall at some time or other, and destroy a great part of the town, but not perhaps in our time." Be this as it may, the gigantic fragment of rock hanging so menacingly over Nantua, is a ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... illusion which her air of nonchalance and easy grace left with me," says Marmontel. "Mme. de Tencin, the woman in the kingdom who moved the most political springs, both in the city and at court, was for me only an indolente. Ah, what finesse, what suppleness, what activity were concealed beneath this naive air, this appearance ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... any remarkable change had taken place upon his finances, Geordie slowly put his hand into his pocket, drew out the twenty pounds, and gave his mother one for interim expenditure. As he returned the money into his pocket, he said, with an air of the most supreme nonchalance, "If ye want ony mair, ye can ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... come in from the remote outskirts and found we must compete for honours with men so well equipped. We perhaps magnified the gifts and acquirements of the fellows who had been more favourably placed. Barlow seemed like a paragon of scholarship, and the nonchalance with which he always won in the classrooms was a constant marvel. He had a queer way of turning serious things into fun. With a freshman desire for self-improvement, a thing apt to evaporate in the college atmosphere, we had formed a society for grave writing and debate and hired ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... state of nerves bordering on stage fright, from the time that Tommy brought home the news, a condition which Pearl did her best to relieve by assuming a nonchalance which she did not feel, regarding the ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... a life, so Isabelle saw, with an order of its own, a direction of its own, a strong undercurrent. Its oddity and nonchalance were refreshing. Like one of the mountain brooks it ran its own course, strong and liquid beneath the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... a decanter of whiskey and glasses from a cupboard. The captain filled his glass, and continued with the same gentle but exasperating nonchalance, "Mind ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... suffice for a good-night, Letty, with the red volume of Hans Andersen under her arm, passed out into the hall. It was not easy to carry herself with the necessary nonchalance, but she got strength by saying inwardly: "Here's where I begin to walk on blades." The knowledge that she was doing it, and that she was doing it toward an end, gave her a dignity of carriage which Allerton watched with ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... many times Campbell met him in the streets, and each time was exaggerated, insulting courtesy from the Aleppo man, as he drew aside to let the Frank pass. There was hostility and contempt in his veiled eyes.... There nonchalance in his smelling of the rose ... Campbell passed by frigidly, as if the man weren't there, and all the time his blood was boiling.... But what was one to do? One could not make a scene before the riff-raff of Syria. And besides, there ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... safari, carrying its loads, plunged again into a forest path, walking single file, a tatterdemalion crew. And yet a philosophic observer might have caught a certain nonchalance, a faint superiority of bearing on the part of these scarecrows; ridiculous when considered against the overwhelming numbers, the military spruceness, the savage formidability of the wild hordes that surrounded them. And if he ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... an air of nonchalance, for leaning against a big old buhl table he took out a cigarette from his gold case and slowly lit it, ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... The mutineers have expressed their determination to go ashore, and until they have done so we can do nothing beyond holding ourselves ready for action at a moment's notice. And meanwhile we must all wear an air of the utmost nonchalance and unconcern; for if we were to manifest any symptoms of excitement or interest in their movements, there are, no doubt, some among them who would be astute enough to observe it, and thereupon to become suspicious. Let them leave the ship, as many as may please to go—and the more ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... sometimes are printed in italics. Among other words which have been borrowed at various times and more or less naturalized, but which are now being driven out of the language, are the following: confrere, congee, cortege, dishabille, distrait, ensemble, fete, flair, mellay (now melee), nonchalance, provenance, renconter, &c. On the other hand, it is satisfactory to note that 'employee' appears to be taking ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... I have news, really important news for you. If I have not been discussing your future," said Tewfick Pasha, staring with stern nonchalance ahead and determinedly unaware of her instant stiffening of attention, "I have by no means been neglectful of it.... To-day—indeed to-night—there has been a consummation of my plans.... It is not to every daughter that a father may hurry with ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... With my meditative life, I had observed a great deal, and had understood the various characters which Fate had put in my way, so that I really knew enough of human nature to be able to depict it." She now had that facility, that abundance of matter and that nonchalance which were such characteristic ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... courtly in his reception of strangers. The missionary, however, had dealt with several varieties of the human animal before, and was by no means disturbed at this nonchalance. ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... the order mechanically, Tom unconsciously holding up his shaving-cup as well, so that the good whisky flowed down his arm into his coat. He looked utterly foolish. Bill was the first to recover, and inquired with apparent nonchalance: "What are you gentlemen after?" In the meantime he had noticed that the two men at the door wore soldiers' caps with broad peaks, and he construed this ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... electrician in the semi-gloom and with him his fellow members of the technical staff needed in the taking of the scenes in the library. The camera men I guessed, and a property boy, and an assistant director. The last, at any event, of all those in the huge room, had summoned up sufficient nonchalance to bend his mind to details of his work. I saw that he was thumbing a copy of the scenario, or detailed working manuscript of the story, making notations in some kind of little book, and it was that which enabled me to establish ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... nonchalance, the situation was serious. His money was at a low ebb. All his regular income was diverted to the support of the large household in the country. He was too proud to appeal to his wealthy uncle. He hated also to think of Mrs. Purp's mortification if ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... told him, at great length, of her trip to New York in 1895, and inquired about certain landmarks in the Metropolis,—such as the aquarium, the Hoffman House, Madison Square, Stewart's Drygoods Store, Tiffany's place,—revealing a sort of lofty nonchalance in being able to speak of things she had seen while the others had merely read about them; Mrs. Pollock had him write in her autograph album, and wondered if he would not consent to give a talk before the Literary Society at its next meeting; and Margaret Slattery made a point of passing ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... called handsome; but there was a certain sinister expression in his eyes and mouth, which rendered the effect of his physiognomy rather disagreeable than prepossessing. At a small distance from him, and playing, with an air which, in its carelessness and nonchalance, formed a remarkable contrast to the painful anxiety of the man I have ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Throughout all the morning and afternoon he remained in his apartments. Breakfast over, the Rhamdas told him his part in certain ceremonies, such as need not be detailed here. They were very solicitous as to his food and comfort, and as to his feelings and anticipations. His nonchalance pleased them greatly. Afterward he had a bath ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... granite-smashing, steam-fed, irresistible. And butter was churned with a twang in it, and rustics danced, and sheep that had fed in clover were "blasted," like poor BONDUCA's budding prospects. And, from the calm nonchalance of a Wessex hamlet, another novel was launched into a world of reviews, where the multitude of readers is not as to their external displacements, but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... the young gentlemen who have loitered into the room, and are now seated, what they think of bullying boys and hunting cats and tying kettles to a dog's tail, and seating a comrade upon tacks with the point upward. Undoubtedly they reply, with dignified nonchalance, that it is all child's play and contemptible. Undoubtedly, young gentlemen, answers the professor, and, to multiply Nathan's remark to ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... event, he recorded it with a vividness well set off by his own nonchalance. Again and again he was to repeat this triumph of depicting the wild, and the wild in a condition of activity and ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... neither the unnatural brightness nor the unnatural dullness of the eyes about him: they were ordinarily clear eyes, of an ordinary gray. His very age was moderate: a putative thirty-six, not more. ("Not less," I would have said in those days.) He assumed no air of nonchalance. He did not deal out the cards as though they bored him, but he had no look of grim concentration. I noticed that the removal of his cigar from his mouth made never the least difference to his face, for he kept his lips pursed out as steadily as ever when he was ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... detection. But they had never succeeded in making Charlie take this view; he never would adopt the change of language by which they altered the accepted meaning of words in accordance with their own propensities and dispositions, and to him this particular act which Penn committed with perfect nonchalance, appeared to be not only a theft, but a theft accompanied by a cruelty and deadness to all sense of pity, which dipped it in the very blackest and most revolting dye. He could not restrain, and did not attempt ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... handkerchief, I say.' He did so, to humour her. 'Miss Chaworth is married.' An expression very peculiar, impossible to describe, passed over his pale face, and he hurried his handkerchief into his pocket, saying, with an affected air of coldness and nonchalance, 'Is that all?'—'Why, I expected you would have been plunged in grief!'—He made no reply, and soon began ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... ten Englishmen have seen, and having stayed in the camp for a few days, set out homeward, riding on a camel through the Berber desert to Korosko, a distance of five hundred miles. After an absence of exactly four months he turned up for duty at the Cavalry Barracks, Windsor, with as much nonchalance as if he had been for a trip to the United States in a ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... by division along the main road leading to Warrenton, the troops awaited the last of the grand pageants that had made the Army of the Potomac famous for reviews. Its late Commander, as he gracefully sat his bay, had not the nonchalance of manner that he manifested while reading a note and accompanying our earnest President in a former review at Sharpsburg; nor was the quiet dignity that he usually exhibited when at the head of his Staff, apparent. His manner seemed nervous, his look doubly anxious; troubled in the present, ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... Bowers's puzzled inquiring gaze and focused his attention upon the business of extracting a suitable straw from the politely tendered broom. When he had found one to his liking, he leaned back and operated with a large air of nonchalance. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... upon his arrival—this man who once had not cared if his name were blotted out from that district. The evening light showed wistful lines which he could not smooth away by the worldling's gloss of nonchalance that he had learnt to ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... disconcerting manner. And you feel that all these shells, all these other devices, are simply straining to go off. They are like things secretly and terribly alive, waiting the tiny gesture which will set them free. Officers, handling destruction with the nonchalance of a woman handling a hat, may say what they like—the ammunition train is to my mind an unsafe neighbour. And the thought of all the sheer brain-power which has gone to the invention and perfecting of those propulsive and explosive machines causes ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... flowing sleeves, while the head is half-hidden by being drawn, turtle-like, into their blue-quilted shells. Like the Persians, they seem nipped and miserable in the cold; looking at them, standing about with humped backs and pinched faces this morning, I wonder, with the Chinaman's happy nonchalance about committing suicide, why they don't all seek relief within the nice warm tombs at the end of the village. Surely it can be nothing but their rampant curiosity, urging them to live on and on in the hopes of seeing something new and novel, that keeps ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... for they spoke that language together. His clothes were English, evidently from a smart tailor, and he wore them with that easy nonchalance of the English golfer, while his pretty, dark-eyed companion, although her gown was of cheap material, it was nevertheless cut well, and both in figure and in gait she had all the chic of the ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... dealing with me?" continued Lumley, who, for once in his life, was really angry. "If I were an old coat you had worn for five years you could not throw me off with more nonchalance." ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cottages, and at the first of these the landau stopped to await, as we afterward ascertained, Count Bismarck, with whom the diplomatic negotiations were to be settled. Some minutes elapsed before he came, Napoleon remaining seated in his carriage meantime, still smoking, and accepting with nonchalance the staring of a group of German soldiers near by, who were gazing on their fallen foe with curious and ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... have, to more gushing persons, the slightly ludicrous air which attached to the modest boast of somebody that he was "the third best authority in England on gray shirtings." On the other hand, the critic of this kind will not be able to neglect the uninteresting with the serene nonchalance of some of his fellows. He will sometimes have to look back on days and months and years of laborious reading and say to himself, "Were it not well for us, as others use, to take all this for granted?" But to say this is to say no more than that the thorough-going ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... all the nonchalance he could muster into the laconic reply, but he was anticipating the sequent demand which came like a shot out of ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... not finish her sentence. The words she uttered were, however, so full of poignant surprise and disappointment that I felt constrained to inquire with a guilty attempt at nonchalance: ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... The nonchalance and dolce-far-niente air of nature and society hint at infinite periods in the progress of mankind. The States have leisure to laugh from Maine to Texas at some newspaper joke, and New England shakes at the double-entendres of Australian circles, while the poor ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... Dane, "I never heard that silly story before." And he went on eating his dinner with extraordinary nonchalance and an unusual, almost ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... yet, and the ground round being clear, and having a double-barrel gun and two pistols, I was not so very much frightened. It is no use to say I was perfectly comfortable, because I wasn't. A Frenchman writing this, would represent himself as smoking a cigar, and singing with the greatest nonchalance. I did neither. Being an Englishman, I may be allowed to confess that I did ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... before him, I leaning against the wall of the house with an air of studied nonchalance mingled with mild interest, at least that is what I meant to do, and Marut smiling sweetly and staring at the heavens. Whilst I was wondering what exact portion of my frame was destined to become acquainted with that spear, of a sudden Simba gave it up. Turning to his followers, ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... absolutely refused to entertain the black demon under any pretext whatever, and after spending a small fortune with the easy grace of a prince, he settled down to doing without one with equal grace and nonchalance, in a manner more creditable to himself than satisfying to his creditors. Did his hatter or tailor present an untimely bill, the gay debonnaire Eugene would scribble on the back thereof an impromptu rhyme ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... the doctrine of United States citizens—of all people? And is this the doctrine preached now, of all times, when the King of Naples and the Italian dukes have just been dismissed from their thrones with such enchanting nonchalance because their people have not chosen to keep them? Of course the movement is revolutionary; and why not? It is agreed now among all men and all nations that any people may change its form of government to any other, if it wills to do so—and if ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... any description. Some fifteen young fellows were painting. All wore workmen's blouses. All had mustaches, and most of them had long hair. They appeared intent on their work, but smiles and winks were furtively exchanged, and the careless nonchalance of this tall young Englishman evidently amused them. In four or five minutes M. Goude turned round and walked towards the easels. Cuthbert stepped to them and removed the cloths. The master stopped abruptly, looked at them without speaking for a minute ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... sweep the hearth with the brass-handled brush proper to it, remarked with an obvious affectation of nonchalance— ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... as it is received; many individuals defer so doing for some days, which certainly shows fashionable ease and nonchalance, besides allowing time for the arrival of another and preferable one; but, by those who are absolutely bent upon advancing themselves in society, this practice is to be eschewed, since by perplexing, it so annoys ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... the conflict in him that his outward nonchalance gradually gave way. As dinner drew to its close, his conversation with the wife of the Oriel don flagged and halted. He sank, at length, into a deep silence. He sat ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... peeve at having his machine hired for a hoax; but money was money and he agreed to obey our instructions meticulously. His tone was perfunctory, however, despite my desperate attempts to impress him with the seriousness of the matter; and that nonchalance of his came near to having ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... to present it at maturity. Wardlaw & Son will provide for it, I dare say." This with the lofty nonchalance of a rich man who had never broken an engagement ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... discover the smallest connexion between the sexes here. No familiarity, but under the veil of friendship, is permitted, and love's dictionary is as much prohibited, as at first sight one should think his ritual was. All you hear, and that pronounced with nonchalance, is, that Monsieur un tel has had Madame un telle. The Duc de Nivernois has parts, and writes at the top of the mediocre, but, as Madame Geoffrin says, is manqu'e par tout; guerrier manqu'e, ambassadeur manqu'e, homme d'affaires ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... God-sends from the sale of his stories and from odd jobs on the Visitor and other journals, Edgar Poe was poor—miserably poor. And just as he had begun to flatter himself that he did not mind, that he would bear it with the nonchalance of the true philosopher he believed he had become, it assumed the shape of horror unspeakable to him. Not for himself, if there were only himself to think of, he felt assured, he could laugh poverty—want ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... set eyes on Africa in my life," said Mr. Hoopdriver, completing the confession. Then he pulled his right hand from his pocket, and with the nonchalance of one to whom the bitterness of death is passed, began to ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... confide in you so? You cannot deny that I am the most polite husband in the world. A young man pays his addresses to my wife: I see it, and know it; I am not angry; I do not make him leap out of the window, I do not point my pistol at him: I merely slap him on the shoulder with perfect nonchalance, and say, 'my dear boy, you will be arrested to-night in ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... halt her face lost its blithe serenity, showed a faltering uncertainty, then stiffened into resolution. Inside her muff her hands gripped, inside her bodice her heart jumped. Both these evidences of agitation were hidden and that gave her confidence. Assuming an air of nonchalance she moved forward, her gait slackened, her eyes abstractedly shifting from ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... in airy nonchalance,— The more determined on my wayward quest, As some bright memory a moment dawns A ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... way out into the hall, with all the nonchalance in my face and manner that I could assume, the very first thing that I saw was Bouvet's dead body, with his legs drawn up and a broken sword in his hand. I could see by the black smudge that he had been ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to ascertain from the watch if they had found the cause of the disturbance, but the men could only guess that a chance blow with an adze had straightened a kink in one of the casings. Coke treated the incident with nonchalance. ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... stilly hours of the early dawn those sleeping in tenements and extensions adjacent to the hall bedroom occupied by Caput were roused by a trembling voice that sought vainly to imitate the nonchalance of experience, declaiming: "Gentlemen of the jury, the defendant is indicted for the crime of bigamy! This offense is one repugnant to the instincts of civilization and odious to the tenets of religion!" And thereafter they tossed until breakfast time, bigamy becoming more and more ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... dressed women and shiningly groomed men—grouped about white-linened, silver-laden tables; an ornamental grimacing little multitude come to the cafe as to some grave rite, moving to the tables with an unctious nonchalance. Women dressed in effulgent silks, their flesh gleaming among the spaces of exotic plumage, gleaming through the flares of luxurious satin distortions. A company that gestured, grimaced with the charm of lustful marionettes. Flesh reduced to secrecy. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... cowboys. The unlimited impudence and the astounding mendacity of the youth amused the cowboys very much, and they allowed him to narrate a whole list of terrible acts he had committed in the East. Before he had been in his new company an hour, he had talked of thefts and even killings with the nonchalance of a man who had served a dozen years in jail. His listeners enjoyed the absurdity of the situation, and allowed him to ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... their dear daughters to the richest youths, and the richest youths affecting a "jolly" and "stunning" life,—reputed to know the world because they are licentious, and to have seen life because they have tasted foreign dissipation. We should hear insipidity praised as good-humor, and nonchalance as ease. We should have boorishness accounted manliness, and impudence wit. We should gradually lose faith in man as we associated with men, and soon perceive that the only safety for the city was in its constant recruiting from the simplicity and ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... drilled every day in the open place in front of the hotel. His steed, artfully stimulated by the spur, caracoled, danced, and lashed out with his hind feet, and Monsieur Dorn, with one fist stuck against his own fat ribs, swayed to the motion with admirable nonchalance. His voice, which has the barky tone inseparable from military command, would ring about the square like the voice of a commander-in-chief, and by the exercise of a practised imagination, I ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... the steps, assuming a kind of nonchalance as she calmly viewed the loafing boarders. They in turn gazed at her, some with interest and some with open disdain. With the boarders at 126 one must prove herself down to their standards before being accepted into their ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... at the Calligans', and amid much excitement was installed in the bosom of her new home. She took her situation with much nonchalance, once she was properly placed, distributing her toilet articles and those of personal wear with quiet care. The fact that she was no longer to have the services of Kathleen, the maid who had served ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... conscious that she could not deceive Mrs. Dagon by an appearance of interest; so, after a few moments, Mrs. Dinks seated herself in a large easy-chair opposite that lady, who was still looking at her, shook her dress, glanced into the mirror with the utmost nonchalance, and finally, slowly drawing out her own glasses, raised them to her eyes, and with perfect indifference ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... distance behind these two personages, rode a man who appeared by his dress and deportment to be their attendant. He sat with perfect nonchalance on a stout Andalusian horse, but by the looks of suspicious alertness, which he now and then cast around, it might be inferred that this apparent ease was not in strict unison with his inward feelings. At the moment of which we speak, he was singing in a mezzo tuono the romance of ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... heaps of nuggets. Gold reigns here. Silver is a meaner metal hardly attainable. Bank notes are a flimsy possibility of the future. Piles of yellow sovereigns and the coinage of every land load the tables. Sallow, glittering-eyed croupiers sweep in, with affected nonchalance, this easy-gained harvest of ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... The nonchalance of the Princess Petrovska had disappeared in a flash, and Foyle noted her quick change of countenance. She had recollected she was carrying Lady Eileen Meredith's jewels. They would inevitably be found, if she were searched. She was not so much worried by what explanation she could ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... from smiling up at it between her ankles. She forgave the divined intention of the gift, for the gift itself was precisely what her soul had been craving. She borrowed it for the day with affected nonchalance—Tilda never gave herself away—and hugged the volume in her pocket as she and Arthur Miles and 'Dolph explored the coombe's downward windings ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... suddenly felt very small, but she concealed her embarrassment beneath an excessive nonchalance. "Why, in Boston don't people use their banisters? We find them ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... further, there came to his aid that rapid power of intuition which passion will develop at moments in the least wise among mortals, while a great man at such a time possesses it to the full. He guessed the terrible truth revealed by the Duchess's nonchalance, and his heart swelled with the storm like ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac |
