"Debonair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of children sweet and fair, To you will come suave debonair, Fortune robed in shining dress, Bearing ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... Now, look here, ask her again, and be more debonair and dashing this time. What you want is to endue her with the spirit of revelry. Perhaps you'd better go to the bar first and have a dry ginger-ale, and then you'll feel ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... saw the platform. She saw George Cannon, conspicuous and debonair in a new suit, swinging his ebony stick. The ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... there be three things which drive the goodman from home, to wit, a dripping roof, a smoking chimney and a scolding woman.[11] Wherefore, fair sister, I pray you that in order to keep yourself in love and good favour with your husband you be unto him gentle, amiable and debonair. Do unto him what the good simple women of our country say has been done unto their sons, when the lads have set their love elsewhere and their mothers cannot wean them from it. It is certain that when fathers and mothers be dead, and ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... the laughter in his handsome, dark face, and the careless grace of the fellow as he stood beneath the dripping umbrella debonair as a young prince, in perfectly fitting blue serge-he wore no overcoat; mine was buttoned up to the chin, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... very ferociously at the new-comers, at Griffo of the Claw, that had lost him one toss already, and at the woman who rode beside him so gay and debonair in her mannish habit—the woman he had slighted, the woman who had, as he guessed, baffled his plans once, and had now come, as he might be very sure, to baffle them again. It was plain to him that he had lost the day. It needed no great tactician, ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair, His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease, His lack of all we prize as debonair, Of power or will to shine, of art ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... it much easier to converse with men familiarly than solemnly. A celebrated incident of his career is that one winter's night he took off his wadded silk garment to evince sympathy with the poor who possessed no such protection against the cold. Partly because of his debonair manner and charitable impulses he is popularly remembered as "the wise Emperor of the Engi era." But close readers of the annals do not fully endorse that tribute. They note that Daigo's treatment of his father, Uda, on the celebrated ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... child Winifred, Danvers had been a hero—handsome, debonair; to the woman Winifred, he found himself talking as easily as to the little girl who listened years before. The life at Fort Macleod was the one subject that would win Danvers from his silence, and in the next hour Miss Blair had good reason to think that ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... breathes the spring Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-Maying— There, on beds of violets blue And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... some difficulty. He had a sharp thought of Ilbert coming in and out as he had been used to, when he should come no more. For the first time in his life, which had had no room for self-consciousness, he compared himself with another man, handsome, debonair, and remembered the lean visage over which mornings he passed the razor, dark, lantern-jawed, almost grotesque. It was the only aspect of himself he knew, the one which was presented to him when ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... is true, but with muscles of steel—and a soul of fire. From all parts, from the warden of Guildford Castle, from the tilt-yard of Farnham, tales of his prowess were brought back to her, of his daring as a rider, of his debonair courage, of his skill with all weapons; but still she, who had both husband and son torn from her by a bloody death, could not bear that this, the last of the Lorings, the final bud of so famous an old tree, should share the same fate. With a weary heart, but with a smiling face, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... —the one which Sue once laughed at; but it has lost its silky curl and stands straight out now from the corners of his mouth, its points reaching almost to the line of his ears. There is, too, beneath it a small imperial, giving to his face the debonair look of a cavalier, and which accentuates more than any other one thing his Southern birth and training. As you follow the subtle outlines of his body you find too, that he is better proportioned than he was in his early manhood; thinner around the waist, broader across ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Carefree and debonair, between acts Mr. Toomey strolled in the lobby smoking and looking so very much in his element that Mrs. Toomey temporarily forgot her disquietude in being proud of him. His dinner jacket was not the latest cut, but after giving it much consideration ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... and portly, and his bearing, carriage and presence were gentlemanly and refined. He was of fair complexion, was possessed of a delightful smile, and had side whiskers (turning white) continued in the old-fashioned way under the chin, and yet he was so bright and debonair that he never looked old-fashioned. Like myself he was a great lover of Dickens, and I think his most prized possession was a small bookcase which had belonged to Dickens' study and which he purchased at the sale at Gad's Hill. His directors esteemed ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... pocketbooks, entered the ballroom. First came Marya Dmitrievna and the count, both with merry countenances. The count, with playful ceremony somewhat in ballet style, offered his bent arm to Marya Dmitrievna. He drew himself up, a smile of debonair gallantry lit up his face and as soon as the last figure of the ecossaise was ended, he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted up to their gallery, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... shots,' gasps Willie, 'and there'll be a vacant seat in the sergeant's mess;' and so the afternoon wears away and the landscape is littered wi' shell cases, but high in the air, glitterin' in the dyin' rays of the sun, sits the debonair scoot, ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... and debonair, lowered his point. "Your hand is played," he said with a fine smile. Landless's stern, despairing gaze passed him and went on to the overseer. "I surrender to you," he ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... monarchy of Paradise assigned to him by the Brahmanas; he now figures as the prototype of earthly kings, leading the armies of the gods to war against the demons when occasion requires, and passing the leisure of peace in the enjoyment of celestial dissipation. His morals have not improved: he is a debonair debauchee. Brahma the Creator, a more popular version of Prajapati, is still too impersonal to have much hold on the popular imagination; the same is the case with Agni the Fire-god. Plainly there was a vacancy for a supreme deity whose character ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... into the little drawing-room, where Hermione was waiting to receive him, he looked young and debonair, though still pale from his recent ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... you are right," said the cure. "But, que voulez-vous? the saints are debonair, and have been flesh themselves, and know man's frailty and absurdity. 'Tis the Bishop of Avignon sent ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... passing had been, it had been long enough to bring consolation to Archie. A sudden bright light had been vouchsafed to Archie, and he now saw an admirably ripe and fruity scheme for ending his troubles. What could be simpler than to toddle down one flight of stairs and in an easy and debonair manner ask the chappie's permission to use his telephone? And what could be simpler, once he was at the 'phone, than to get in touch with somebody at the Cosmopolis who would send down a few trousers and what not in a kit bag. It was a priceless ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... this time, when not chatting with the debonair officer at her side or saying a word to his bronzed, sun-dried, silently observant comrade opposite, Lilian's fond eyes forever sought her father's rubicund face, love and admiration in every glance. All this time, even while in cordial talk with her guests, Mrs. Archer never seemed to lose ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... outwardly like ice. I was an attentive, careful, reliable, and respectful attendant, seeing to the safety of my charges; but the one-time gay and debonair cowboy was a thing of ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... Agobard,[213] Archbishop of Lyons, who lived under the Emperor Louis the Debonair, wrote a treatise against certain superstitious persons in his time, who believed that storms, hail, and thunder were caused by certain sorcerers whom they called tempesters (tempestarios, or storm-brewers), who raised the rain in the air, caused ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... was mitigated by the fact that certain of those friends who had known him at his highest point of success still esteemed him as a character. Mr. Power was one of these friends. His inexplicable debts were a byword in his circle; he was a debonair ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... on the phone brought back a slight, faint echo of the thrill. What he said was matter-of-fact and colorless—he had warned her that it would be—just if she was comfortable and everything Was all right. She tried to answer it with debonair brevity; show the right spirit, bold and undismayed, of the dauntless woman to the companion of ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... enemy of gloom, Grandson of Momus, blithe and debonair, Who, aping Pan, with an inverted broom, Can'st brush the cobwebs ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... surtout, single-breasted, was thrown open gallantly; and in the second button-hole thereof was a moss rose. The vest was white, and the trowsers a pearl-gray, with what tailors style "a handsome fall over the boot." A blue and white silk cravat, tied loose and debonair; an ample field of shirt front, with plain gold studs; a pair of lemon-colored kid gloves, and a white hat, placed somewhat too knowingly on one side, complete the description, and "give the world assurance of the man." And, with his light, firm, well-shaped figure, his clear ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... Monty was now almost a physical wreck, haggard, thin and defiant, a shadow of the once debonair young New Yorker, an object of pity and scorn. Ashamed and despairing, he had almost lacked the courage to face Mrs. Gray. The consolation he once gained through her he now denied himself and his suffering, ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... not take it so lightly as he did, even though she did not know that he had barely escaped with his life. Something about his debonair, smiling hardihood touched her imagination, as did also the virile competence of the man. If the cool eyes in his weatherbeaten face could be hard as agates, they could also light up with sparkling imps of mischief. Certainly he was ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... Puss than Tabitha; for all of which she was deeply grateful. Still, she could not help wishing that Tom's name could have been Jerome. That did sound so splendid! But Tom in her eyes was just as nice as Jerome Vane, even if he was solemn and shy while Jerome was laughing and debonair. ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... writer of 'slams.' He is as debonair and inconsequential as a young Hermes to whom only the serious lessons of life can teach sympathy and true insight, ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... other nationality might have looked at him askance; but madame was French. She was fifty years of age, she was fat, she was ugly—but she was French. The sense of a pleasant encounter—the appreciation of romance was in her blood. She smiled at the debonair boy with as agreeable a self-consciousness as though she had ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... sky, And all our talk was delicate and shy, Though in that cage of words wild thoughts were pent Like prisoned birds that some sweet accident Might yet release to sing again, and fly. We passed between long lines of poplar trees . . . Where, summer comrades gay and debonair, The south wind and the sunlight danced . . . you smiled, With great glad eyes, as bright as summer seas, To feel their twinkling fingers in your hair . . And then you kissed me, ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... Paul Burton sat opposite Loraine Haswell at one of the small and snowy tables, he sought to cloak his nervousness under a guise of debonair ease and soon the woman was embarked upon ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... lead by Holcomb, were seen picking their way along the trail; Margaret keeping close to the young woodsman and plying him with innumerable questions. She thought she had never seen him look so handsome, debonair and manly. Then, too, his wide knowledge of the woods was a delight to her. Little by little he explained, as he followed the trail, those secrets of woodcraft not ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... more uncontrolled, than Charles of Burgundy, whose personal magnetism yet enabled them to win friends and to keep them, as the duke was powerless to do. The failure to command personal devotion, unquestioning loyalty, was one of his chief personal misfortunes. Philip, magnificent, lavish, debonair, found many lenient apologists for his crimes, while his son received criticism for his faults even from the faithful among his servitors. How a reflection of his bearing glows out from the mirror turned casually upon him by Commines' skilful hand! Take the glimpse of ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... charmed, Miss Forrest. Never even in the palmiest days of Washington society have I seen more elegant and becoming a toilet, and as for your singing,—it was simply divine." The doctor looked, as well as spoke, his well-turned phrases. He was gallant, debonair, dignified, impressive,—"a well-preserved fellow for forty-five," as he was wont to say of himself. He anxiously inquired for her health, deplored the state of anxiety and excitement in which they were compelled to live, thanked heaven that there ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... god and possessed of a godlike propensity to do as he liked and the devil take the consequences. Already Ned Holiday's younger son had acquired something of a reputation as a high flier among his own sex, and a heart breaker among the fairer one. Reckless, debonair, utterly irresponsible, he was still "terrible Teddy" as his father had jocosely dubbed him long ago. Yet he was quite as lovable as he was irrepressible, and had a manifest grace to counterbalance every one of his many faults. His soberer ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... something even more offensively plebeian about them than that of the vulgar Weng. It would have been bad enough to have had to consider the propriety of paying over a large sum to a lady calling herself by an elegant or at least debonair name like Claire Desmond or Lillian Lamar,—but Sadie! And Burch! Ye gods! It was ignoble, sordid. That was a fine discovery ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... doorway wore velveteen trousers of green, old and faded, a black jacket rusty, with the sleeves patched, and a scarlet sash tied loosely about the waist. On the back of her cropped yellow curls was a velveteen cap, rakishly tipped, and she stood debonair beneath the folds of the curtain with a ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... Useth to go the little shepherd maid, Watering some strange fair plant, poorly displayed, Ill thriving in unwonted soil and air Far from its native springtime's genial care; So on my ready tongue hath Love assayed In a strange speech to wake new flower and blade, While I of thee, proud yet so debonair, Sing songs whose sense is to my people lost— Yield the fair Thames, and the fair Arno gain. Love willed it so, and I, at others' cost, Already knew Love never willed in vain: Would my heart slow and bosom hard were found To him ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed, and he was assailed by doubts of ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... sliced off them like cheese, and doors and windows might be carved in them; but these French haystacks were devil-may-care haystacks wearing tufts on their polls like headdresses. The windmills had a rakish air; and the scarecrows in the truck gardens were debonair and cocky, tilting themselves back on their pins the better to enjoy the view and fluttering their ragged vestments in a most jaunty fashion. The land though looked poor—it had a driven, overworked look ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... tedious days of the policeman rampant, our melancholy selves are debarred from many a sport, joyous and debonair, whereof our happier fathers were free. Book-stealing, to be sure, remains to us; but every one is not a collector; and, besides, 'tis a diversion you can follow with equal success all the year round. Still, the instance may haply be pregnant with ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... hand, the bold eye, the ready tongue; kneel to her, and she will scorn and contemn you. What woman, think you, would prefer the solemn, stern-eyed purity of a Sir Galahad (though he be the king of men) to the quick-witted gayety of a debonair Lothario (though he be but the shadow of a man)? Out upon thee, pale-faced student! Thy tongue hath not the trick, nor thy mind the nimbleness for the winning of a fair and lovely lady. Thou'rt well enough in want ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... so bright and gay, Oh, years! that slip so fast away, Keep her, I pray thee, fresh and fair, Dainty, bewitching, debonair, For life is but a holiday ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... with exultant joy. An intoxication seized him that lifted him at once over all his sorrow, and placed him almost in that very spot wherein he stood ten days ago; gay, debonair, light of heart as a boy, untouched by grief or the dread of grief. It was a divine madness. He threw off his clothes, admired his shapely body for a moment as he poised on the bank, and flung himself in ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... not Neville's should be, after all, the last word, but Pamela's. Pamela, who seemed lightly, and as it were casually, to swing a key to the door against which Neville, among many others, beat; Pamela, going about her work, keen, debonair and detached, ironic, cool and quiet, responsive to life and yet a thought disdainful of it, lightly holding and easily renouncing; the world's lover, yet not its servant, her foot at times carelessly on its neck to prove her power over it—Pamela ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... time of change, there arose anomalies. Side by side persisted a romantic devotion to the King and a determination to have popular assemblies; a great sense of the rights of the white individual together with African slavery; a practical, easy-going, debonair naturalism side by side with an Established Church penalizing alike Papist, Puritan, and atheist. Even so early as this, the social tone was set that was to hold for many and many a year. The suave climate was somehow to foster alike a sense of caste and good neighborliness—class ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... Mrs. Craigie on the long voyage to Southampton was a Lieutenant Thomas James, a debonair young officer of the Bengal Infantry, who made himself very agreeable to her and with whom he exchanged many confidences. He was going home on a year's sick leave; and at the suggestion of his ship-board acquaintance he ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... 827; cheery, cheerly^; of good cheer, smiling; blithe; in spirits, in good spirits; breezy, bully, chipper [U.S.]; in high spirits, in high feather; happy as the day is long, happy as a king; gay as a lark; allegro; debonair; light, lightsome, light hearted; buoyant, debonnaire, bright, free and easy, airy; janty^, jaunty, canty^; hedonic^; riant^; sprightly, sprightful^; spry; spirited, spiritful^; lively, animated, vivacious; brisk as a bee; sparkling, sportive; full of play, full of spirit; all alive. sunny, palmy; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... uttered no complaint, asked no question. He had undertaken to march, and he meant to march, that was all. In the front with which he veiled his suffering there was no lessening of his old careless confidence—if his dash had hardened into endurance it wore still an expression that was almost debonair. ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... up to the door with much gong-clanging, and the capable young medico, in his white linen coat, ready, active, confident, with his smooth face half debonair, half grim, danced up ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... criminologist noted with relief that they evidenced their afternoon libations even so early. Eyes dulled with over-stimulus were the less analytical. Chance was favoring him. The newcomers were garbed in that debonair and "cultured" modishness so dear to the hearts of magazine illustrators. Faces, weak with sunken cheek lines, strong in creases of selfishness, darkened by the brush strokes of nocturnal excesses and seared, ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... then, "She is the fairest and the loveliest," said Arden. "Her beauty is a fadeless flower, but her eyes hold a history it were hard to read without a clue. One only knows the tale is tragical. She is most gentle, sweet, and debonair. The thorns of Fortune's giving she has twisted into a crown, and she wears it royally. I saw her ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... the flour, And eik hir faderis air; Off lusty laitis and he honour, Meik bot and debonair: Scho wynnit in a bigly bour, On fold wes nane so fair, Princis luvit hir paramour In ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... morning saunter was the debonair Arkansas goldfinch, which has received its bunglesome name, not from the State of Arkansas, but from the Arkansas River, dashing down from the mountains and flowing eastwardly through the southern part of Colorado. Most nattily this little bird wears his black cap, his olive-green frock, ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... it seemed to Blair as though the sparkle had fled from the glasses, the gleam of candlelight from the silver. Across the cloth he had watched her—girlish, debonair, and with a secret laughter lurking in her eyes. And yet he had not had a chance to exchange half a ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... for my wife," volunteered Markel, with a debonair wave of his pudgy hand, and trying to ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... arrogantly well gowned, she had in some way touched his lethargic imagination. She showed herself to be of finer and keener fiber than the sordid demireps with whom he had to do. Shimmering and saucy and debonair as a polo pony, she had seemed a departure from type, something above the meretricious termagants round whom he so often had to weave his accusatory ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... fell back. This debonair, self-reliant fellow could not be Billy! But as a hasty glance down the line revealed only half a dozen straggling women, and beyond them, no one, William decided that it must be Billy; and taking brave hold of his courage, he hurried ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... rhetorical pyrotechnics, and at its touch, the latent floods of pity gushed; people sprang to their feet, and somewhere in the wide auditory a woman sobbed. Habitues of a celebrated Salon des Etrangers recall the tradition of a Hungarian nobleman who, apparently calm, nonchalant, debonair, gambled desperately; "while his right hand, resting easily inside the breast of his coat, clutched and lacerated his flesh till his nails dripped with blood." With emotions somewhat analogous, Mr. Dunbar sat as participant in this judicial rouge et noir, where the stakes were a human life, and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... The splendor of this look seemed to him a mute expression of her happiness—of love reciprocated, ambition realized—and in it he read his own doom. He turned blindly round to pick up his hat; the door behind him was opened, and there, handsome, debonair, fresh as a May morning, stood Lord Hastings, hat ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... a man of the nobility—a man in whose veins flowed the blood of three kings—a man handsome of face, graceful of figure, debonair—a man who had sinned much, and who had paid for that sinning only in the sufferings of others; and they had ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... no one, not having prior knowledge of the fact, would have guessed that he had the slightest personal interest in the affair. There was danger of his even over-doing the attitude of indifference. But he escaped it, and was exactly as smiling, debonair and courtly as if he were in his box at the theatre watching the development of some quite other dramatic performance. He has all the courage of his race, and his long training has ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... which really appeared was very different to anything which I had conceived. Into the clear space there came galloping a fine young man upon a most beautiful roan horse. He was fresh-faced and pleasant-looking, with the most debonair bearing in the world and the most gallant way of carrying himself—a way which reminded me somewhat of my own. He wore a singular coat which had once been red all over, but which was now stained to the colour ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... between Adelaide and Simon. When Withers retired, Simon followed him, and under Adelaide's window, and under her eyes, he boxed the ears of Philip, the Debonair. After that, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... this temper, sirs; Mood it and brood it in your breast; Or if ye ween, for worldly stirs, That man does right to mar his rest, Let me be left, and debonair; I am content; I ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... now baptized are, As it suits my simple skill, Not the lofty rank you fill; Unmeet for such great service I; Yet my God, so debonair, All that's wanting ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... view of the man. What he saw sent a shiver through him. A great change had come over his friend. His untidy dress,—always so neat and well kept; his haggard eyes and shambling, unsteady walk, so different from his springy, debonair manner, all showed that he had been and still was under some terrible mental strain. That he had not been drinking was evident from his utterance and gait. This last discovery when his condition was considered, disturbed him most of all, for ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... had not caused him to be feared as a demon. His glance, more penetrating than his bistouries, looked straight into your soul, and dissected every lie athwart all assertions and all reticences. And thus he went along, full of that debonair majesty that is given by the consciousness of great talent, of fortune, and of forty years of a ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... to receive his guests, attended by three hangers on of the family—a chaplain, a captain, and a young lawyer. His lordship was scarcely past the meridian of life; yet, in spite of his gay and debonair manner, he looked old, as if he were paying for the libertinism of his youth by premature decrepitude. His countenance announced pretensions to ability; his easy and affable address, and the facility with which he expressed himself, gained him credit ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... them. But there was something big and significant in their presence behind Hough. Gamblers leagued against a crooked gambling-hell! Durade had lost a fortune, yet not all his fortune. He seemed a haggard, flaming-eyed wreck of the once debonair Durade. His hair was wet and dishevelled, his collar was open, his hand wavered. Blood trickled down from his lower lip. He saw nothing except the gold, the cards, and that steel-nerved, gray-faced, implacable Hough. Behind him lined up ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... his cheerful, debonair manner and rode off. Troubles sat lightly on his stout heart. His effervescent nature never left him long depressed when Fortune played her freakish tricks upon him. He had lost his commission upon the sale of Iredale's ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... with keen gray-blue eyes that never betrayed her. A little apart, speaking now and then to some courtier or councilor, stood the Spanish Ambassador in somber black and gold, like a watchful spider in a garden of rich flowers. Ralegh, careless and debonair, gave him a frank salutation as he came to speak to ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... of life were refreshed as a flower in the perfumed dew-fall. She felt competent, able to cope with them all; her restored self-confidence pervaded her whole entity, spiritual and material. She walked back with an elastic step, a breezy, debonair manner, and she met Justus Hoxon at the gate of her cousin's yard with a jaunty assurance, and with all the charm of her rich ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... did rise, winding the sarong about his lean waist twice, allowing one end to dangle down on his left side in a debonair and striking fashion. If set off his slim figure in ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... sardonic smile on his usually placid face, with his big eyes riveted upon those in the Convention who were fighting desperately and against great odds the effort of the state machine to nominate President Wilson. Across the aisle from me sat "Plank-Shad" Thompson, of Gloucester, big and debonair, a thoroughly fine fellow socially, but always ready to act upon and carry out every tip that came to him from the master minds in ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... persuade you to break," interrupted the debonair attorney. "I think this secret will throw a light on the matter, and we must have it. Extreme cases require extreme measures, my dear young lady. Throw aside your honorable scruples, break your promise, and tell us this secret which has caused ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... ither crews be debonair, But we 've a weird to dree, I wis we maun be bumpit sair By boaties two and three: Sing stretchers of yew for our Toggere, Sith we maun ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... This debonair gentleman, as presently transpired, was Colonel von Scheller, for four years consul to the German Embassy at Washington, more lately minister for foreign affairs of the kingdom of Saxony, and now doing staff duty in the ordnance department ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... himself, his instincts seemed to be to allude in a debonair spirit to the incidents of the past day—to the flowers in Lady Constantine's beds, the date of her house—perhaps with a view of hearing a little more about their owner from Louis, who would very readily have followed the Bishop's lead had the parson allowed ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... Thomasson answered, pluming himself and speaking in his softest tones. 'And the most charming, I assure you, the most debonair of men. But do ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... about from one to another all the time, and the father made a point of capping them all. This was home in a liberal sense which the word had never meant to Henry. Doubtless, it had its own individual restrictions and censorships; but its surface was at all events debonair, and it was serviceable to Henry as revealing the existence of more genial social climates than that in which he had been nurtured—though in making the comparison with his own atmosphere, he realised that this bonhomie was nothing more ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... and they were keeping very quiet, indeed—Oh! it was joy! There was gallant Morgan himself swinging from Black Bess to kiss his mother, who stood waiting for him at her gate, and there was Colonel Hunt, gay, debonair, jesting, shaking hands right and left, and crowding the streets, Morgan's Men—the proudest blood in the land, every gallant trooper getting his welcome from the lips and arms of mother, sister, sweetheart, or cousin of farthest degree. But where was Dan? She had ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... at the chief with an admiring smile. He had never ceased to wonder at the multifarious qualities which enabled the man to remain indispensable to native and cottager alike. Courteous, handsome, urbane, diplomatic, debonair, when a matron of the very highest caste sent for him to enlist his efforts in the regaining of some jewel, tiara, or piece of vertu, missing after a weekend, he never for a moment forgot that it was all a bit of carelessness, which the gentlest sort of reminder ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... to live up to," said Patty, smiling at the debonair Philip, who quite looked the part his aunt ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... his head and laughed in his debonair fashion; but I watched him narrowly and I saw the corners of his mouth twitch for the infinitesimal fraction ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... and try this temper, sirs, Mood it and brood it in your breast; Or if ye ween, for worldly stirs, That man does right to mar his rest, Let me be deft, and debonair, I am content, I ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... pedestrian muse Shouts paeans to the earth-born giant, Whose brows Apollo's wreath refuse, Whose strength to Charis is unpliant. Demos distrusts the debonair, Yet Demos found himself disarming To gracious GRANVILLE; unaware Won by the calm, witched ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... and kissed his fingers to the girl. Then he led the way out of the room, fine and gallant and debonair, a villain every ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... gave her with it a smile that seemed all brilliant color—white teeth, ocean-blue eyes, and poppied cheeks. His square little figure was very boyish in the thin silk shirt and baggy knickerbockers, and a wide hat, slipping from his yellow mane, added a last debonair touch to his picturesque little person. He was flushed, but gracious ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... Both were quite unconscious of any discrepancy in their statements as they silently thought over the impression he had made. He was the same handsome, confident Tom Endover, but there was something gone,—and was there not something in its place? Had that gay courtesy, that debonair good fellowship, changed into something more finished, but harder and more conscious? Was there a suggestion that his old careless charm had become a calculated and a clearly appreciated facility? Lucy Eastman did not formulate the ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... length, the dinner was in full swing. It would have been hard for any onlooker to have guessed that so much misery and heart-burning were there. Sir Charles, smiling, gay, debonair, chatted with his guests as if quite forgetful of the silent watchers by the railings outside. He might have been a rich man as he surveyed the tables and ordered the waiters about. True, somebody else would eventually pay for ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... and requyred of her lord the duc/ that his heed myght be smyten of/ The prynce answerd to her and sayde/ yf we shold slee them that loue us/ what shall we doo to our enemyes that hate us/ Certaynly this was thanswer of a noble & debonair prynce That suffred that villonye don to his doughter and to hymself yet more This prince had also a frende that was named Arispe that sayd on a tyme as moche villonye unto the prynce as ony man miht saye And that might not suffise hym/ but he scracchid hym ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... Geoffrey Kynaston; to have bereft them of all reasoning power and thought, to have numbed even their limbs and physical instincts. It was only a few minutes ago since they had left him, careless and debonair, with his thoughts intent upon the business, or rather the sport, of the hour. His laugh had been the loudest, his enjoyment the keenest, and his gun the most deadly of them all. But now he lay there cold and lifeless, with his heart's ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a melodramatic outbreak. He slipped into his habitual pose, rose and withdrew without another word. All this fright and groveling and treachery for plunder, the loss of which would not impair his fortune—plunder he had stolen with many a jest and gibe at his helpless victims. Like most of our debonair dollar chasers, he was a good sportsman only when the game was ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... Some of them had been put out of business. Their property had been destroyed and confiscated. Fines had been imposed on them. The current whisper was that the whiskey-smugglers would retaliate against the constables in person whenever there was a chance to do so with impunity. Some day a debonair wearer of the scarlet coat would ride out gayly from one of the forts and a riderless horse would return at dusk. There were outlaws who would ask nothing better than a chance to dry-gulch one of these inquisitive riders of ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... the berth. By lying absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inland scenes and objects, he had contrived to reduce the green in his complexion to a mere tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth to say that he felt debonair. He received Sam with a ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... paid a number of formal visits. General Yanushkhevitch, Chief of the Staff, had held that same position when the Grand Duke Nicholas had been commander-in-chief at the Stavka. Tall, handsome and debonair, he was a man whom it was a pleasure to meet, although he may not perhaps intellectually have been quite equal to the great responsibilities placed on his shoulders in the early days of the war. This distinguished soldier of very attractive personality was murdered by revolutionaries while travelling ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... of relief flitted over the face of Grell's friend. After all, it was something to have the worst postponed. A man may face swift danger with debonair courage, may be undaunted by perils or emergencies of sport, of travel, of everyday life. But few innocent men can believe that a net is slowly closing round them which will end in the obloquy ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... "Thank you," said the debonair spirit, rather carelessly—while Laurence Varney, off in another world, clutched at the invitation, fought for it, lied, thieved, prayed, lived and died for it—"I'm afraid I must go ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... And loud was the roar of acclaim; but dark was the face of Tamdoka. They strip for the race and prepare,— DuLuth in his breeches and leggins; And the brown, curling locks of his hair down droop to his bare, brawny shoulders, And his face wears a smile debonair, as he tightens his red sash around him; But stripped to the moccasins bare, save the belt and the breech-clout of buckskin, Stands the haughty Tamdoka aware that the eyes of the warriors admire him; For his arms are the arms of a bear and his legs ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... near her, a half-knitted jumper lying across her knees, the inevitable cigarette in her hand, while Barry, who had returned from Cannes some weeks ago—entirely unperturbed at finding his new system a complete "wash-out"—leaned, big and debonair, ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... valse legere, la valse legere, The free, the bright, the debonair, That stirs the strong, and fires the fair With joy like wine of vintage rare— That lends the swiftly circling pair A short surcease of killing care, With music in the dreaming air, With elegance and grace to spare. Vive! vive la valse, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... paid off our cabman and sauntered into the Recherche in the most debonair manner we ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... fine old-fashioned ladies and gentlemen. Our aged relatives and friends seem to be tucked away, nowadays, into neglected corners, as though it were the correct thing to give them a long preparation for still narrower quarters. For my own part, comely and debonair old age is most attractive; and when I see the "thick silver-white hair lying on a serious and weather-worn face, like moonlight on a stout old tower," I have a strong tendency to lift my hat, whether I ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields |
