"Complacently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... commentary on their force. The pleasure was never realised. You might say the joints of her body thought and remembered, and were gladdened, but her essential self, in the immediate theatre of consciousness, talked feverishly of something else, like a nervous person at a fire. The image that she most complacently dwelt on was that of Miss Christina in her character of the Fair Lass of Cauldstaneslap, carrying all before her in the straw-coloured frock, the violet mantle, and the yellow cobweb stockings. Archie's image, on the other ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... drew from his pocket a good-sized bag which appeared to be nearly full of dust. "There must be several hundred dollars' worth there," he said, complacently. ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... say, for there's been a Declaration of Independence and a Revolution in our house, and I'm commander-in-chief now; and don't I like it!" cried Molly, complacently surveying the neat new uniform she wore of her ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... sat back watching the anchored vessel and relieving the tedium of the long row by scratching the monkey's head and pulling its ears, the animal complacently accepting both operations, and turning its head about so that every portion should receive its share of the scratching, till all at once the boat was run alongside, the coxswain took hold with his boathook, and while ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... complacently; "I shall become a shareholder in the newspapers, like Finot, one of my friends, the son of a hatter, who now has thirty thousand francs income, and is going to make himself a peer of France. When one thinks of that little Popinot,—ah, mon Dieu! ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... that I had some such power," answered the king complacently; "though amid my toils and the burdens of state I have had, as you say, little time for the ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from which it would be in danger of sliding off, if its houses were not mortised into the solid rock. This makes the house-foundations secure, but the labor of blasting out streets is considerable. We note these things complacently as we toil in the sun up the hill to the Victoria Hotel, which stands well up on the backbone of the ridge, and from the upper windows of which we have a fine view of the harbor, and of the hill opposite, above Carleton, where there is the brokenly truncated ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... muttered King AEetes to himself, "and the four-footed pedant, his schoolmaster, into the bargain. Why, what a foolhardy, self-conceited coxcomb he is! We'll see what my fire-breathing bulls will do for him. Well, Prince Jason," he continued aloud, and as complacently as he could, "make yourself comfortable for today, and tomorrow morning, since you insist upon it, you shall try your skill ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... you will come to my mean abode to have a glass of wine. But I wonder whether you will entertain favourably my modest invitation?" Yue-ts'un, after listening to the proposal, put forward no refusal of any sort; but remarked complacently: "Being the recipient of such marked attention, how can I presume to repel your ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... "Old wiseheads, complacently smoothing the brim, May jeer at my velvet, and call it a whim; They may think in a cap little wisdom there dwells; They may say he who wears it should wear it with bells; But when Broadbrim lies flat, I will answer him ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... said Mrs. Mayhew complacently; "but Ida has so many friends, or beaux, rather, that I can't keep track of them. Her friends speedily become furnace-like lovers, or else escape for their lives into the dim and remote region of mere bowing acquaintanceship. I once tried ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... before she could rise from her stooping posture, discovered some cowslips to be scrambled for. Wild columbine, the delicate corydalis, and more uvularias, which she called yellow bells, were added to her handful, till it grew a very elegant bunch indeed. Mr. Van Brunt looked complacently on, much as Ellen would at a kitten running round ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... a great fancy to Lucian, which was just as well, seeing what was the object of his visit, and complacently watched the growing attachment between the handsome young couple, who seemed so suited to one another. But her duties as chaperon were nominal, for when not pottering about the garden she was knitting in a snug corner, ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... the revolutionary leaders, who had looked complacently at the scene, now stood near the queen, and as her eyes met his in calm defiance, he felt a thrill of pity for her and for the little Dauphin, and when he saw the perspiration rolling down the boy's forehead from under the thick woollen cap, he ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... rather good at thinking of things," Virginia owned complacently. "And then," she continued, "I poked around the rose bush, and peeped in at the window, and sure enough she was there, brushing the hearth. She saw me and came to the window, and when I ran away, 'cause I thought maybe she was mad, she rapped, and then opened the ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... the old men came to his lodge to smoke with him, and the host was more than gratified, for he was of a common family and had never before known what it is to bask in the sunshine of popularity and distinction. He spoke complacently as he crowded a handful of tobacco into the bowl of ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... sciences where every step is demonstrable and sure, they will plunge headlong, and without one thought of incompetency, into that science in which the greatest men have trembled, and the wisest erred. Strange, that they will complacently and pridefully bind up whatever vice or folly there is in them, whatever arrogance, petulance, or blind incomprehensiveness, into one bitter bundle of consecrated myrrh. Strange, in creatures born to be Love visible, that ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... Eric looked complacently at the airy room, the crowded book-cases, the soft chairs, the bellying curtains and the neat pile of ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... I answered, much nettled by her tone, "I do not think anybody can properly regard me as a fool. As for the other qualification," I went on complacently, ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... The captain nodded complacently. "I've sort of got a feelin' that way, an' if I ain't mistaken, them's his pony's hoofs comin' now—someway they sound different from what yours ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... foremost Christian peoples of the world maintain luniolatry to this day, notwithstanding that they have the reproving light of the latest civilization. We are so prone to talk of heathenism as abroad, that we forget or neglect the gross heathenism which abounds at home; and while we complacently speak of the march of the world's progress with which we identify ourselves, we are oblivious of the fact that much ancient falsehood survives and blends with the truth in which our superior minds, or ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... to have things nice about me," said Mrs. Gunnison, complacently. "Sit down here, my dear. I want to have you near me. And you, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... his papers, and withdrew. Bella's eyes followed him to the door, lighted on Mr Boffin complacently thrown back in his easy chair, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... slowly appropriated the land it had no right to. It moved, she thought, like a twisted drum on very short drumsticks. It had a water-logged appearance. It was bird and fish ordinarily, but now it was pretending to be animal as well—a thing that flew, swam, walked. Its webbed feet patted the ground complacently. It came laboriously towards the wall of the house, then halted. It paused a moment, then turned its eyes up, while Judy turned hers down. The pair of creatures looked at one another steadily ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... in which they fervently blessed each other, and agreed, henceforth, that each do his own cooking. A week later, Cuthfert neglected his morning ablutions, but none the less complacently ate the meal which he had cooked. Weatherbee grinned. After that the foolish custom of washing passed out ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... will be enough," he murmured, as ceasing his labours he complacently gazed upon the transformation he had effected; "but no!" he added, "I had best be on the safe side," and he gently scratched his hands to give himself the appearance of having passed through a ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... Certainly he had borne, very philosophically, delay after delay which had taken place in the devised union; and being quite sure of his mistress, had not cared to press on the marriage, but lingered over the dregs of his bachelor cup complacently still. We all know in what an affecting farewell he took leave of the associates of his vie de garcon: the speeches made (in both languages), the presents distributed, the tears and hysterics of some of the guests assembled; the cigar-boxes given over to this friend, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... what they would do. In my late combat with the bear, I had the anticipation of a meal off my foe, should. I prove the victor, but on this occasion I had not that incitement to exertion, for a man must be very hard up for food who could complacently dine of the flesh of a gaunt wolf at the end of winter; and even the cubs, though probably not quite such tough morsels as their parents, had already far too much muscular development to afford satisfactory employment to ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... talk—all quite ostensibly about her impressions and her intentions. She tried to put Densher again on his American doings, but he wouldn't have that to-day. As he thought of the way in which, the other afternoon, before Kate, he had sat complacently "jawing," he accused himself of excess, of having overdone it, having made—at least apparently—more of a "set" at their entertainer than he was at all events then intending. He turned the tables, drawing her out about London, about her vision of life there, and ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... himself hugely over the late presidential election. He considers the result a signal triumph of good principles and good men, and a very pointed rebuke of bad ones. He says the people did it. He forgets that the "people," as he complacently calls only those who voted for Buchanan, are in a minority of the whole people by about four hundred thousand votes—one full tenth of all the votes. Remembering this, he might perceive that the "rebuke" may not be quite as durable as he seems ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... music for the chants and other portions of the service, when the dean did not do so himself. The anthem he had put up for this occasion was a very good one, taken from the Psalms of David. It commenced with a treble solo; it was, moreover, an especial favourite of Mr. Pye's; and he complacently disposed himself ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... message from that woman who had brought up Dwight—"made him what he was," he often complacently accused her. It was a note on a postal card—she had often written a few lines on a postal card to say that she had sent the maple sugar, or could Ina get her some samples. Now she wrote a few lines on a postal card to say that she was going to die with cancer. ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... thorough and conscientious search for political microbes, informed his Chief that in no respect could the department be improved, that there was not a trace of crime, past or present. Jefferson was disconcerted; but, as a matter of fact, his administrations were passed complacently amidst Hamilton legacies and institutions. Jefferson's hour had come. He could undo all that he had denounced in his rival as monarchical, aristocratical, pernicious to the life of Democracy. But the administrations of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, ran from first to last on those Federal ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... deer driven within enclosures, and there slain by archers who shoot from horseback, the monarch under his parasol looking on the while, pleased with the dexterity of his servants. It is thus exactly that Xenophon portrays Astyages as contemplating the sport of his courtiers, complacently viewing their enjoyment, but taking no active part ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... to Britt with growing pain and indignation—pain at thought of Viola's undoing, indignation that the mother and her physician could so complacently join in the dark proceedings. "Of course, you took hold of ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... their tramp, came in to lunch attired in heavy wool skirts and stout shoes and carried their sweaters. Ada Nansen glanced complacently at her own ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... this is a delusion; you really must not give way to this kind of thing," murmured the doctor, rather complacently. He had a son-in-law who kept a private madhouse at Wimbledon, and began to think Mrs. Granger was drifting that way. It was sad, of course, a sweet young woman like that; but patients are patients, and Daniel Granger's wife would be ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... bent on his own pleasure, nothing else; and Kelmar followed him to his ruin, with the same shrewd smirk. If the boy said there was "a hole there in the hill"—a hole, pure and simple, neither more nor less—Kelmar and his Jew girls would follow him a hundred yards to look complacently down that hole. For two hours we looked for houses; and for two hours they followed us, smelling trees, picking flowers, foisting false botany on the unwary. Had we taken five, with that vile lad to head them off on idle divagations, for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in with her bucket and kneeler. "Those steps do pay for a bit of extra doing," she remarked, complacently. "Since I've been able to give more time to them, they've improved ever so. You've no idea, ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... very absence of practical results, for the expression of itself is the purer thereby. A basin of water and a towel would have done as well or better for washing Christ's feet, but not for relieving Mary's full heart. Do we know anything of that omnipotent impulse? Can we complacently set ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... said Wilton Barnstable, complacently, "that it would develop that Miss Genevieve Pringle was herself being pursued. I was confident of it, Cleggett. And now that I have cleared up for you the mystery of Logan Black, the mystery of the box of Reginald Maltravers, and the mystery of ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... know, Mr. Le Breton,' said old Mrs. Martindale, complacently, 'we must remember that Providence has wisely ordained that we shouldn't all of us be masons or carpenters. Some of us are clergymen, now, and look what a useful, valuable life a clergyman's is, after all, isn't it, Mr. Berkeley?' Berkeley smiled a faint ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... he added complacently, "that I have a cask of rum down below, which came straight from that accursed country, England, and is said to be the nectar whereon feeds that confounded Scarlet Pimpernel. It gives him the strength, so 'tis said, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... good," said I complacently, regarding the drawing with head bent sideways. "It's an old theme, but it's up to date. At Janot's they would say ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... yarn, and getting his drugs, and being terribly cowed by the tailor, William had a hurried day. However, he managed to reach Mr. Lloyd Pryor's house as the clock struck six. "Just in good time," he said to himself, complacently. Indeed, he was ahead of time, for it appeared that Mr. Pryor ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... sense," drawled June complacently. "'Tain't no harm. But don't you tell me! I don't want to hear nothin' 'bout Loretty noway." Again Hale laughed and June laughed, too. Imp that she was, she was just pretending to be jealous now. She could see the big ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... and many others, on which Lucian complacently enlarges in his opuscule on the goddess of Hierapolis, daily revived the habits of a barbarous past in the temples of Syria. Of all the conceptions that had successively dominated the country, none had completely disappeared. As in Egypt, beliefs of very different ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... explain everything," agreed Betty complacently. Agatha blushed consciously as she drew a small diamond from among ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... a telephone at pa's ranch," said Sucatash, complacently. "Better hit the high spots. There's a row ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... inconsistent kind, less that of a God than of a demon. To them he was still a great shape like a man, but a shape to be loved as well as feared; a God of peace who patronized war; a gentle lamb who looked on at carnage complacently; a just God who condemned the innocent to suffer; an omnipotent God who was powerless to make his law supreme; and they reserved to themselves the right of constantly adding to or slightly altering this picture; ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... raised, at a moment of transition, to the place he held, by a consummate command of all the meaner arts of compromise and management, no less than by an invaluable power of playing to the gallery. He led a party who despised him—and he complacently imagined that he was the party. His speech on this occasion bristled with himself, and had, in truth, no other substance; the I's swarmed out upon the ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Hans Fuellenberg was an amiable, giddy-headed young buck, knowing well how to deal with the ladies. When Frederick called his attention to the fact that the Englishwoman was casting impatient glances toward him, visibly eager for his return, he complacently winked his eye as ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... "Indeed," said Porthos, looking complacently at his old lackey as he went away, "you are right, D'Artagnan; Mouston will do; Mouston has ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Lucy, and seemed, by his action, as well as his words, to ask her consent to something. Lucy looked at him, but neither by her word nor gesture appeared to accede to or refuse his request; and her father, after complacently bowing, as if to thank her for ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... in its history, no doubt because its Presidents have been so frequently men of mark for learning and for character. Even in the dark period of the eighteenth century it recovered sooner than the rest of the University, and one of its sons records complacently that "scarcely a day passed without my having added to my stock of knowledge some new fact or idea." A charming picture of the life of the scholars of Corpus at the beginning of the last century is given in Stanley's /Life of Arnold/; for the famous reformer of the English ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... home you do not talk nonsense at dinner, you probably join in sensible talk. Well, do not alter because you are with girls, and say complacently in your heart "How silly the others are!" Your neighbours would not be silly if you did not admire it. You yourself are part of the mass you are criticizing. On which side do your words go—talk or chatter? Watch yourselves, and see how your words, each day, can ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... hammering resounded strangely through the quiet school-room. When this piece of work was over, Miss Matilda folded down the pink calico, and marked out two long seams to be run and felled. Anna Maria took the sewing to her seat, and stitched away complacently, while the other girls fretted and growled over "that horrid grammar lesson." When school was over, she brought the work to Miss Matilda, who put it away carefully ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... good to last," said Mrs. Watson complacently, "I knew it wasn't the Spring, it was too ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... you say to that?" asked Mrs. O'Keefe, complacently. "All nice and comfortable as you would ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... curriculum. Such a child will realize that even an empty water-pail or a vacant wood-box presents a golden opportunity for usefulness which should not be slighted. He will not appropriate for himself the last pint of cold water from the pail, or the last cup of hot water from the teakettle, and complacently leave them for some one else to fill. That child, even though he be grown up who sees nothing in these little opportunities for usefulness, will let greater ones pass by with ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... on to the more important details of clothes, noting that his sack coat was properly loose at the waist and that the buttons were sufficiently large to pass muster, but also detecting that the trousers lacked breadth at the ankles and that the hat had a high crown and a broad brim, from which he complacently concluded the other was somewhat behind the shifting changes ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... satisfaction." I have plenty of leisure these holidays, and I mean to be like Hueber, and study bees, and find out wonderful things about them. He was blind, you know, and as I am not blind, I ought to find out a lot more than he did!' Olive finished up, complacently. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... and listened complacently to his sentence of not less than four years at hard labor in Sing Sing. A sneer curved his lips as, after nodding curtly to his lawyer, he turned to be led away by the court attendant. The fortune snatched from his client had procured for him the most adroit of ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... of the interpreters having been solved Fong settled himself comfortably in the witness chair, crossed his hands upon his stomach and looked complacently at Mock Hen. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... integrity of their set, but they have to cultivate a special gift for knowing what other social sets are doing. They act as a kind of ministry of foreign affairs. Where most of the members of a set live complacently within the set, regarding it for all practical purposes as the world, the social leaders must combine an intimate knowledge of the anatomy of their own set with a persistent sense of its place in ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... compete at a great English agricultural cattle-show, and was much disgusted at not getting a prize, consoled himself for the disappointment, by insinuating that the judges could hardly act quite impartially by a Scottish competitor, complacently remarking, "It's aye been the same ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... (complacently).—"Of course you don't. There are no poisons with us. That's just the difference between you and me, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... sit in any other," she remarked complacently. "The blue drawing-room is open to-night, but that is because Lord and Lady Westover are dining here. I am afraid May will not be able to come; she has a cold or something of the sort. I wonder whether it is true, what they say, that ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... affliction. Well, it's a good thing your poor father has you left to comfort him. My darling Maud is my one comfort, I'm sure, while her father is away in those dreadful foreign places. Perhaps I spoil her a little," complacently; "but then I dare say," playfully, ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... of Dosenheim, going out to wash clothes in the morning at the river, called her the heathen, she mirrored herself complacently in the fountain, and when she had admired her own long dark tresses, her violet lips, her white teeth, her necklace of red berries, she would smile ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... to sleep till half-past three in the morning once in a while," Mrs. Stilwell said complacently. "Why, Mr. Morgan, that man didn't sleep under a roof once a month the first five or six years we were on this range! He just laid out like a coyote anywhere night overtook him, watchin' them cattle like they were children. Now, ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... of the young man were vaguely thrilled with the coming of spring, and so he complacently took in the never-ceasing tide of eager women, on the street's shady side, with one comprehensive ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... their tea the two elder women chatted complacently about the matinee, about their acquaintances, about other women in the tea-room and the gowns they had on, about bridge hands—the usual ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... the name, Robinette realized who Miss Meredith was. They seated themselves side by side on a garden bench, and Miss Meredith remarked upon the heat, planting a rather fat hand upon the arm of the garden seat, and surveying it complacently, especially the very bright diamond ring upon ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... his hat complacently, in return to this salute, though he was obliged to smile at the array which met his eyes. Every one of the Dutchmen had got his musket to an order, following a sort of fugleman of their own; while Mike had invented a "motion" that would have puzzled any one but himself to account for. The ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... day found Dr. Cutting, the army surgeon, who was a handsome and dressy man, arranging his cravat complacently before a glass. "Cutting," said Lee, "you must be the happiest man in creation."—"Why, general?"—"Because," replied Lee, "you are in love with yourself, and you have not a rival ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... I got me a ranch mineself alreatty," remarked Hans Mueller. "Den I could raise all mine own meats for mine delicatessen stores, not so?" and he smiled complacently. ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... mat over the wheel to save my dress, Adolphe," said the old lady; and as the little boy obeyed her order she stepped nimbly into the carriage, assisted by the Major. "The silk is old," she observed complacently; "but it is my best, of course, or it would not have been worn to-day," and she gave a graceful little bow towards Aunt Theresa; "and I hope that, with care, it will serve as such for the rest of my life, which ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... only solution. His first question, 'What think ye of the Christ?' is simply preparatory to the second. The answer which He anticipated was given,—as, of course, it would be, for the Davidic descent of the Messiah was a commonplace universally accepted. One can fancy that the Pharisees smiled complacently at the attempt to puzzle them with such an elementary question, but the smile vanished when the next one came. They interpreted Psalm 110 as Messianic, and David in it called Messiah 'my Lord.' How can He be both? Jesus' question is in two forms,—'If He is son, how ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... always have in clear phantasm before his eyes the ignorant monk trampling on the manuscript, the village mason striking down the monument, the court painter daubing the despised and priceless masterpiece into freshness of fatuity, he would not always smile so complacently in the thoughts of the little learnings and petty preservations of his own immediate sphere. And if every man, who has the interest of Art and of History at heart, would at once devote himself earnestly—not to enrich his own collection—not ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... the peace of the world depend. But for it, Napoleon might never have reached the ports of France on his return from Egypt, nor Nelson lived to fight and win at Trafalgar. Men call this Power Magnetism, and then complacently think that they have explained it all; and yet they have but given a new name to an unknown thing, to hide their ignorance. What is this wonderful Power? It is a real, actual, active Power: that we know and see. But what its essence is, or how it acts, we do not ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... was certain if conditions did not change. Germany had no reason at all for making war on France from the time that it had got well ahead of that country in industry, commerce and navigation. It is true that there were a certain number of unbalanced people in the metal industry who talked complacently of French iron and stirred up the yellow press, just as in France to-day there are many industrials with their eyes fixed on German coal which they want to seize as far as possible. But the intellectuals, the politicians, even military circles, had no anxiety at all except ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... opportunity to justify the hopes formed of him by his political associates, who had not lost sight of him, and who elected him military chief of the insurrection. As General of the National Guard, he has given us the history of his deeds during the 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd March. He has since complacently described the energy with which he executed his command, has explained the means he used, and the points occupied by the insurgents; and has described in the same style the occupation of the Paris forts ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... always rude, my dear," he replied complacently. Then he added, "If I were commissioned to draw up a new legal code, and had previously enjoyed the privilege, as I have been doing lately, of listening to the conversation of you three young ladies, I should make ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... loose, looking-glasses stood uncovered, yet, thanks to the gentleness and honesty of the Finnish sailors, nothing appeared to get broken, and when we left the quay we saw the owner of these chattels standing complacently in the midst of his household gods, from which, judging by the serenity of his smile, nothing ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... argument may be pressed will take it as a joke in bad taste: "Horrible! disgusting!" Yet that same citizen, stirring the contents of his morning newspaper into his muddy brain as he stirs his sugar in his coffee, will complacently absorb all the news of the day, so many hundred thousand men killed, wounded, or diseased in the course of the Balkan campaigns, so much ugly and hopeless misery all over the earth, and all avoidable, all caused, in the last analysis, by the incompetence, obstinacy, blindness, or greed of ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... all, we have often, when in a tight craft, tossing amid howling billows, complacently repeated—and perchance shall again—the closing lines of The Sailor's Consolation, which, we believe, but are not ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... the world's history through which we pass complacently is of no light portent, its happenings no casual concern, but, in point of crucial fact, a virtual "rending of the sphere"—a cosmic upheaval such as never yet before has racked the tense life sinews ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... same, will Vngngn, or some one else of my folk get it," Ngurn complacently assured him. "And just the same will it turn here in the and turn devil-devil house in the smoke. The quicker you slay me with your Baby Thunder, the quicker will your ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... at the wall from which the matting had been torn. And out of the little niche in the cunningly masked door the green-eyed joss leered at him complacently. ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... only Carlos Moreno can afford to pay such salaries during the Fiesta," he answered complacently, taking a fresh ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... Mr. Dunborough said, nodding complacently but not moving a finger. 'Keep to that and ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... point, save you the trouble. Is not turkey-cock just as proud of his homely feathers as peacock of his magnificent plumes? And after the battle fought, which leaves him but the tattered rag of a tail to display to the sun, will not turkey-cock spread that tattered rag of a tail as self-complacently, and strut as grandly and gobble as obstreperously as ever? Aye, that will he! And why? Because his tail—tag-rag or not—is all his own and nobody else's; though almost anybody else may have one which the sun would rather shine on. As with turkey-cock, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... is a true son of Israel,' he murmured complacently to himself. 'He will trust his gold only to his ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... complacently, "though I didn't have much to work with. Two small vials of my liquid and a hand generator to furnish the current. A tubular strut from the frame of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... had been dreaming complacently about the happy results of Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy awoke to find Ireland in possession of the powerful, well-organized, hostile, combination known ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... least, they imagined. What, then, was their amazement when he turned not a hair at the question, but replied, stirring his tea complacently as he did so, "You see, each of the Rockshire men may have been a good cricketer, and yet if they had not been used to playing together, as our fellows have been, we should have ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... the poetic and wholly imaginary interpretation of these marvellous nuptials. They evidently misjudge the form and colour of the truth, but they live in its atmosphere and its influence far more than the others, who complacently believe that the entire truth lies captive within their two hands. For the first have made ample preparations to receive the truth, have provided most hospitable lodging within them; and even though their eyes may not see it, they are eagerly looking towards the ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... intellect knows where the geese live, it is elsewhere said; but among Reineke's victims we do not remember one goose, in the literal sense of goose; and as to geese metaphorical, the whole visible world lies down complacently at his feet. Nor does Mr. Carlyle's expressed language on this very poem serve any better to help us—nay, it seems as if he feels uneasy in the neighbourhood of so strong a rascal, so briefly he dismisses him. 'Worldly prudence is the only virtue which is certain of its reward.' Nay, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... back complacently, and Miss Alan began as follows: "It was a novel—and I am afraid, from what I can gather, not a very nice novel. It is so sad when people who have abilities misuse them, and I must say they nearly always do. Anyhow, ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... start on," he told himself, complacently. "A fellow who can't begin business on that capital, ain't much of a fellow. I wonder now if ever I'll take a peak at this little room of mine again; 'tain't a bad room; I'll have one of my own just like it one of these days. I'll have a square patch of carpet just that size, ...
— Three People • Pansy
... pique all the gossips in town, and nearly double our next issue," complacently muttered the local editor, as he carried the scrawl at the last ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... Continued Goemon—"The Go Inkyo[u] died a leper, eaten by the rats. Such an end hardly calls for congratulations." Mizoguchi gasped, with round eyes and round face. "Extraordinary!"—"Not at all," replied Kamimura, complacently tapping the palm of one hand with the elongated fingers of the other. "The Go Inkyo[u] drove out O'Iwa San from Tamiya. He gave O'Hana in her stead to Iemon as wife. Hana the harlot! Cursed by O'Iwa in dying, he has met this frightful end. Akiyama, ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... complacently for her to swing round towards him—as she did—her eyes and voice filled with surprised gratitude: for he was getting on well in the world himself, and he liked sometimes to feel what a good-hearted fellow he ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... horse and a few hens. The home farm was five miles from the station. The outlying farms were scattered in five villages—"there are always spendthrift lazy fellows willing to sell their land." "I have a firm belief," the speaker added complacently, "that agriculture is the most honest, the most sincere, the most interesting, the most secure ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott |
