"Complacently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a somewhat fallacious gauge of merit among the population of entire countries. The chatelain, Melchior de Willading, and the Prior, all of whom came from the same Teutonic root, received the remark complacently; for each felt it an honor to be descended from, such ancestors; while the more polished and artificial Italian succeeded in concealing the smile that, on such an occasion, would be apt to play about the mouth ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... hours, he turned into a park to rest. As he approached his usual bench, sacred to him because Ida and he in the old days had often sat there, he was annoyed to see it already occupied by a pleasant-faced, matronly looking German woman, who was complacently listening to the chatter of a couple of small children. Randall threw himself upon the unoccupied end of the bench, rather hoping that his gloomy and preoccupied air might cause them to depart and leave him to his melancholy revery. And, indeed, it was not long before the children stopped ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... seen the change in me, and, I am sure, guessed the new direction of my thoughts, and knew that I wished to take refuge in a new companionship—a thing, indeed, not easily to be achieved, as I felt now; for no girl of delicate and proud temper would complacently regard a hasty transference of attention from another to herself. Besides, it would be neither courteous nor reasonable to break with Mrs. Falchion abruptly. The error was mine, not hers. She had not my knowledge of the immediate circumstances, which made my position ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... packing up her young mistress' things, had fallen asleep in an arm-chair. Unconscious of the terrible events which were rapidly succeeding each other in the house, the worthy old soul was snoring peaceably, with her hands complacently folded on her ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the other complacently, "and a great deal of it sticks to the grimy fingers of these patriotic makers of revolutions. Thus do I ensure my own safety. I buy it with the Emperor's money, and thus am I able to work for the restoration of the ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... said the lady in a disapproving way. "I know he is; and he can't help it; but if I had my way, I'd allays have a minister as much as fifty year old. It looks better," said Mrs. Flandin complacently; "and it is better." ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... object of his wishes, which actuated the young lord? 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 ecrin of ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... message to congress] 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.... All of us who did not vote for Mr. Buchanan, taken together, are a majority of four hundred thousand. But in ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... the mingled odor of roses and mignonette that was thick about him. It was good to sing to her a wailing song of unrequited love and know that she loved him. Francois dallied with his bliss, parodied his bliss, and—as he complacently reflected,—lamented in the moonlight with as tuneful a dolor as Messire Orpheus may have evinced ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... a scene, 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
... nonsense, De Burgh," complacently. "The heart of a benedict knoweth its own bitterness, though I can't complain much. If you hadn't been the reckless roue you are, you might have been as well off ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... now?' he rejoined complacently, 'and yet it got copied into some of the London papers, too, I was told. Well, I brought a cutting with me, in case—would you like to ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... Stuart complacently stroked the gold braid on his left sleeve and looked about the hunting lodge, the walls of which had been decorated accordingly long ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... boundary a low, narrow, sandy strip of land, several miles in length, called the Palisades, running from the east towards the west; at which end is seen the town of Port Royal standing a few feet above the water, and looking complacently down on its predecessor, buried eight fathoms below the surface by the earthquake of 1692. Here, too, is the Royal Naval Yard, hospital, barracks, and the works of Fort Charles defending the entrance, which is rendered still more difficult of access to an ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... complacently towards the wife as stout as himself, who was sitting a few yards away. She, hearing her name, nodded back, with smiles aside to the bystanders. Most of the spectators, however, were already acquainted with a conjugal ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... rotten," replied Reade complacently. "Harry and I have had to dig up a lot of new math. since we've taken on with an engineering corps in the field. Harry, trot up some of the kind of mathematics that ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... shut the Major out. 'No sympathy. And what do we live for but sympathy! What else is so extremely charming! Without that gleam of sunshine on our cold cold earth,' said Mrs Skewton, arranging her lace tucker, and complacently observing the effect of her bare lean arm, looking upward from the wrist, 'how could we possibly bear it? In short, obdurate man!' glancing at the Major, round the screen, 'I would have my world all heart; and Faith is so excessively charming, that ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... the selection of their objects. So by revolving in his mind all the beauties of the character of her who, however disqualified by law, was still of his flesh and blood, yea, of his very nature, as he complacently thought in compliment to himself, he became more and more reconciled to his intention, if the very thought of making a will, which had been horrible to him, did not become even a pleasing kind of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... Coliseum with the criminals and the innocent martyrs, shut out from hope by its merciless walls and by a populace more merciless, and slain by thousands by wild beasts and swordsmen and spearsmen, to make a Roman holiday. How complacently he felicitates himself upon the assumption that modern times present nothing like this. But less than one hundred years ago, the pen of a lawyer erected in France a statute which inclosed a kingdom with its architectural horror, made one arena of an empire, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... atheistic premises; and there is now a new and very tempting field inviting some bold Calvin or Luther in the ranks of positivism to write an immortal book, with the original and attractive title, Ethics of Atheism. The great offense of the scientific (sciolistic) atheist is his lofty arrogance. He complacently assumes the name of Infallible Wisdom. He "understands all mysteries;" his mental telescope sweeps eternity "from everlasting to everlasting;" his microscopic vision pierces the secrets of creation,—sees the beauty and order of all celestial ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... "The contemptible creature!" But such words were far enough beyond Miaki's vocabulary, so he looked on and grinned complacently. ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... battered condition which is the natural consequence of a long and weary tramp. He walked as if he had no particular objective point, and looked like one of those peripatetic gentry who toil not neither do they spin, the genus "tramp." He complacently puffed a short clay nose-warmer, with his hands in his pockets, and taking first one side and then the other of the road, as his fancy dictated, found himself near the old distillery at the outskirts of ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... nice to be able to help yourself," remarked Lottie complacently. "There! mine's done; what do you think ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... I stepped forward, and passing the head-master, who was standing by, I bowed to him, and looked earnestly in his face, thinking to myself, "He is old and infirm, and in this world I shall not see him again." I was right; I never did see him again, nor ever shall. He looked at me complacently, smiled good-naturedly, returned my salutation (or rather my valediction), and we parted (though he knew it not) for ever. I could not reverence him intellectually, but he had been uniformly kind to me, and had allowed me many indulgences; and I grieved at the thought of the mortification ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... acknowledge quite so fast I fail of all your manhood's lofty tastes Enumerated so complacently, On the mere ground that you forsooth can find In this particular life I choose to lead No fit provision for them. Can you not? Say you, my fault is I address myself To grosser estimators than should judge? And that's no way of holding up the ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... supply of tea, sugar, cold meat, and biscuit, made my way to a spot a short distance off, where I might take my food on the solitary system, according to the custom that we Englishmen most delight in. When I had lighted the fire, and put the water on to boil, I cast myself on the ground, and complacently puffing away at my pipe, gazed at the wild but picturesque scene before me. The position of the river was marked out by a semicircle of some fifty or sixty fires, before which dark and ill-defined figures were ever and anon flitting like phantoms; while, in the midst, the funnel ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... a temporary commercial triumph at the enormous sacrifice of the natural development of the individual, would be a fatal and short-sighted policy that could only end in national ruin. We have not yet reached the worst depths of the education fallacy, but we are complacently drifting in that direction. ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... to-day. SARAH — puts the ring on his finger. — There's the ring, holy father, to keep you minding of your oath until the end of time; for my heart's scalded with your fooling; and it'll be a long day till I go making talk of marriage or the like of that. MARY — complacently, standing up slow- ...
— The Tinker's Wedding • J. M. Synge
... ears would have found harsh and discordant sounded pleasantly enough to the listening Timothy, who nodded his head complacently, wishing and thinking: ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... there. She then pointed to two young women who were walking towards the gate at a very slow pace and told me they were English. "I do not know them," said I. The old lady, who was somewhat deaf, thinking that I said I did not know English, leered at me complacently, and said that in that case, I was like herself, for she did not speak a word of English, adding that a body should not be considered a fool for not speaking English. She then said that the young women had been taking a walk ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... along rapidly to the chicken-yard where grossly self-satisfied hens scratched in trash and filth undiscriminatingly, and complacently called their families to share what they had found there, or indeed at times apparently to admire them for having found nothing. Marise stood regarding them with a composed, ironic eye. It was good, she reflected, to be able to know that that was the way you looked from the outside, and not ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... of apprehension, he submitted to being stroked and rubbed about the ears and neck and throat. The sensation was curiously comforting, and suddenly his fear vanished. With his long, mobile muzzle he began to tug appealingly at a convenient fold of the man's woollen sleeve. Smiling complacently at this sign of confidence, the man left him, and started the team at a slow walk up the trail. With a hoarse bleat of alarm, thinking he was about to be deserted, the calf followed after the sled, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... find out," said Miss Custer complacently; and Hugh flung away his apple-core and walked ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... acquaintance with Jim, that he drifted into one of those youthful escapades on which elders are apt to sit in severe but not always considerate judgment. Believing, like many other children, that nobody cared particularly for him, except to RESTRAIN him, discovering, as children do, much sooner than we complacently imagine, that love and preference have no logical connection with desert or character, Clarence became boyishly reckless. But when, one day, it was rumored that a herd of buffalo was in the vicinity, and that the train would be delayed the next morning in order that ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... appeared and, as if to give the lie to their fond parents, puffed complacently at their pipes and yawned as if but recently aroused from a nap. Their sleeves were rolled up and I marvelled at the ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... now which seem beyond belief. That the Dardanelles Committee should complacently send me a message to say we "quite understand that you are adopting only a purely defensive attitude at present" is staggering when put side by side with the carbon of this, the very last cable I have sent them. "I think ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... Williams is nearly two inches taller, and probably a long year older than his opponent, and he is very strongly made about the arms and shoulders—"peels well," as the little knot of big fifth-form boys, the amateurs, say, who stand outside the ring of little boys, looking complacently on, but taking no active part in the proceedings. But down below he is not so good by any means—no spring from the loins, and feeblish, not to say shipwrecky, about the knees. Tom, on the contrary, ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... right," Smith replied complacently. "I'm kind of a head-worker in my way, but steady thinkin' makes me sicker nor a pup. I got a headache for two days spellin' out a description of myself that the sheriff of Choteau County spread around the country on handbills. It was plumb insultin', as I figgered it ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... a few of us left in the world," Dick retorted complacently. "But you, Dexter, you wouldn't care whether it was money or slime, as long as you ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... price of their merchandise, and the peculiar propensities of the unfortunates who employ them. Not that they are destitute of all sympathy with the malady which they feed. The caterer generally gets infected in a superficial cutaneous sort of way. He has often a collection himself, which he eyes complacently of an evening as he smokes his pipe over his brandy-and-water, but to which he is not so distractedly devoted but that a pecuniary consideration will tempt him to dismember it. It generally consists, indeed, of blunders or false speculations—books ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... remarked my colleague rather complacently, as he paced towards the gun platform. One prayed for those who were naked to its fearsomeness up on the hill there, and prayed about Saint Michael's intervention to Saint Michael's Commander-in-Chief. The long-drawn moments slurred by us. A bell ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... an unrefined working woman, that's all," she said complacently. "Anyway, Louis, to please you or anyone else I can't pretend to be ill. Now just forget it till it ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... Juon Tare perceived that his antagonist was foolhardy enough to try a fall with him, he complacently allowed his body to be encircled and calmly murmured: 'Ho, ho! then you would wrestle with me, eh, Fatia Negra! Very ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... an office to give his language all the precision and exactness which science requires when monopoly is in question. What he so complacently calls a MODIFICATION OF ECONOMIC FORMULAS is but a long and odious violation of the fundamental laws of labor and exchange. It is in consequence of monopoly that in society, net product being figured over and above gross product, the collective ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... under-breeding in the matter of polite feeding. So nothing was a problem to him. At once reminded of the morsel of Arvaroot in his mouth, a substitute for another sort of sedative then unattainable, he was instantly illuminated concerning the purpose of the nut; and very complacently introduced each to the other; in the innocence of his ignorance making no doubt that he had acquitted himself with discretion; the little hemisphere plainly being intended as a place of temporary deposit for ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... definite religious views appeared to him to linger gladly. Here he left behind all the persons who depended upon systems. Here remained Roman Catholics, who depended chiefly upon the authority and tradition of the Church, and Protestants, depending no less blindly and complacently upon the authority of the Bible. The real and crucial difficulty lay further on; and it was simply this: he saw a world full of joy, and full too of suffering; sometimes one of his fellow-pilgrims would be stricken down with some incurable malady, and ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... order their clothes of the tradesman who dressed that sublime dandy. One day a youthful beau approached Brummell and said, "Permit me to ask you where you get your blacking?" "Ah!" replied Brummell, gazing complacently at his boots, "my blacking positively ruins me. I will tell you in confidence; it is made with the ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... excellent fit of the shoes. She did more than this. As Mart watched the process of buttoning them, and remarked complacently that she shouldn't wonder if Dirk would buy her a pair some day, when he earned money enough, she kept her lip from curling with an incredulous sneer. You will remember that she had not the slightest faith ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... off. We form many such with bad men because they have agreeable qualities, or may be useful to us. We form many such by mistake, imagining people to be different from what they really are.' And he goes on complacently to observe that we shall either have the satisfaction of meeting these gentlemen in a future state, or be satisfied without ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... explanation is that a stability had been imparted to that Far Eastern civilization, which Europe has lacked altogether; whose history, for all its splendid high- lights, has had thousands of hideous shadows; has not been so noble a thing as we tacitly and complacently assume; but a long record of wars, confusions, disorder, and cruelities, with only dawning now the possibility of that union which is the first condition of true progress, as distinguished from the riot of material inventions and political experiments that has ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Winnie wheeling Bessie in a tiny tin cart no bigger than a match-box. Then they had a grand game of hide-and-seek in the stocking basket Annie had left on the floor. Grace soon joined them, while Augusta, quite gracious by this time, sat eying them complacently from her arm-chair. ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... dishes, and then came out with the milk-pails to the corral where the cows, puffing and chewing, complacently awaited her arrival. But she had not reached the gate when the hired man was at her side and had slipped one of the pails from ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... hour of noon, the zemindar was seated in council. He was a big stout man, having waxed fat with age and prosperity. His beard descended to his waist like the moss on an old tree, and, above, his moon-like face surveyed complacently the circle of courtiers, soldiers, and retainers. Petitions had been presented, judgments had been spoken, and affairs of the day had been discussed, and we, the few close counsellors who tarried, were only awaiting the raised hand that ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... it, he asked himself, complacently, that gave her such a delicate distinction? Her grey dress, and soft grey hat, were, he supposed, perfect of their kind. But Oxford in the summer term was full of pretty dresses. No, it must be her ease, her sureness of herself that ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Levering had the reputation of being a conscientious, high-minded man. He knew that he was thus estimated, and self-complacently appropriated the good opinion ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... then he is such a splendid success, so hardy and vigorous. I think he enjoys the cold and the snow. His wings seem to rustle with more fervency in midwinter. If the snow falls very fast, and promises a heavy storm he will complacently sit down allow himself to be snowed under. Approaching him at such times, he suddenly bursts out of the snow at your feet, scattering the flakes in all directions, and goes humming away through the woods like a bombshell,—a picture of ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... show me the way," untruthfully answered the guest, as Benham complacently buttoned up his coat, little imagining that his neighbour was weighing a question, very momentous to him, in ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... amusing?" she said. "Well" (complacently), "we have our points. As Jane Austen wrote of the Misses Bingley, 'Our powers of conversation are considerable—we can describe an entertainment with accuracy, relate an anecdote with humour, and laugh at ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... 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, and when knitting ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... creative genius makes for his own person a 'self' which he thinks he is, or desires other people to believe him to be. It makes little difference whether he succeeds or not, so long as he flatters himself he does. He complacently takes all his images from the other animals, or from natural objects and phenomena, depicting himself bold as an eagle, brave as a lion, strong as an ox, patient as an ass, vain as a popinjay, talkative ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... grow too miserly. "If there's anything I can't stand," she said to me in Tiny's presence, "it's a shabby rich woman." Tiny smiled grimly and assured me that Lena would never be either shabby or rich. "And I don't want to be," the other agreed complacently. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... Instead of inferring from our bitter experiences in Upper and Lower Canada, which are mentioned in the despatch, and in Ireland, which is not, that race distinctions increase instead of lessening the necessity for responsible government, Mr. Lyttelton complacently quotes bi-racial Lower Canada as a precedent for his Transvaal Constitution. Quite frankly, though in curiously misleading terms,[37] he records the fact that a similar Constitution there led to deadlock and rebellion. Without intention to deceive, he ignores the fact that wholly British Upper ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... to 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 ...
— Three People • Pansy
... always end up,' observed Alfred complacently. 'No doubt he'll drink himself to death, or something of that kind, and then we shall have the pleasure of seeing a new tablet in the church, inscribed with manifold virtues; or even a stained-glass window: the last of the Eldons ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... had, poor old buffer!" her husband answered complacently, his temper restored. "By the way, I've brought in the last number of Dickens. Shall ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Mrs. Presty complacently closed her book. "I was quite prepared to hear it," she said; "all the unpleasant complications since your Divorce—and Heaven only knows how many of them have presented themselves—have been left for me to unravel. It so happens—though I was too modest to mention ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... on me," replied Long Jim complacently. "I'm one that's always tryin' to do better than he did before. Ef I've yelled so I could be heard a mile then I want to yell the next time so I kin be heard a mile ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of steel, a mould of stone were he, Who could complacently behold thy pains I came not here as craving for this sight, And, seeing it, I stand ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... bit of paper to the all too unconcerned looking young Adonis, and the gleam of a napoleon shone out in the grave faced Figaro's hand. "Now for our cafe noir, a good pousse cafe—and—a dash at the painted beauties. I can't play very long," was Anstruther's salutation, as he complacently twisted his mustache en hussar. Major Hawke bowed in ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... otherwise. His demands are at times somewhat funny, and when made known surprise a world. And now that they are so firmly and extensively identified with each other in pursuits of the noblest character, would it not be a sin to quarrel?' Thus spoke John, very complacently. ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Sir John remarked complacently, "it is astonishing how easy it is for people with brains and a little knowledge of the world to completely hide themselves. I am absolutely certain that up to the present we have escaped all notice, and I do not ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Turner moved out last week, and she took some of the furniture and things over so's you could be sort of at home right away." Observing his start, and the sudden tightening of his lips, she went on complacently: "'Twasn't much trouble for her. Your house isn't more than fifty yards from hers,—just across ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... men were rough and unkempt, but they were splendid horsemen—that I knew intuitively—and to have one of their number select my very own horse above all others to speak of with unstinted praise, was something to be proud of, but to have my own self calmly and complacently disposed of with the horse—"put up," in fact—was quite another thing. But not the slightest disrespect had been intended, and to leave the table without making myself known was not to be thought of. I wanted the ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... history into all of his work, but they appear most clearly in his Terro-Human Future History. While not everyone will agree with Piper's theories they give his work a bite that most popular fiction lacks. One cannot read Piper complacently. And one can often find a wry insight sandwiched in between the ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... years. Time's nothing to me. But I never forget a face. Yes, sir. Him and me's met at Ikey's, all right." This important point the drummer stated to all of us. We were called to witness how well he had proved old acquaintanceship. "Ain't the world small, though!" he exclaimed complacently. "Meet a man once and you're sure to run on to him again. That's straight. That's no bar-room josh." And the drummer's eye included us all in his confidence. I wondered if he had attained that high perfection when a man believes ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... curtains of the west were tinged with the varied dyes of sunset, and nature seemed revived by the cool, fresh evening breeze, and smiled complacently beneath the sun's last ray. The full orbed moon arose in the east, and the crystal streams reflected myriads of diamonds beneath her silver beams, and the stars, those golden lamps of night, shone bright in the blue chambers of the sky. An aged man was leaning on his staff, the vigor ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... peaceful-looking, drab-coloured beaver on his head, surmounted by a furious tri-coloured cockade, was brought before him. This strange anomalous ' personage having placed himself very carefully directly in front of the bench, smiled complacently upon his Worship, and the following laconic ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... my appetite has been a good deal affected. I don't think I have eaten as much in a week as you would in a day," he added, complacently. ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... jaundiced moment he saw himself a failure foreordained; debarred from marriage by evils supposed to spring from the dual strain in him; his cherished hopes of closer union between the two countries he loved threatened with shipwreck by an England complacently experimental, an India at war with the British connection and with her many selves. He seemed fated to bring unhappiness on those he cared for—Aruna, Lance, even Rose. And what of his father—if he failed to marry? He hadn't even the grit to ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... were struggling to clear a passage. The driver of the coal waggon, a big man in shirt sleeves, lighted a pipe and sat smoking. He glanced down complacently at a captain of police who was raving and cursing at him, and his only acknowledgment was a shrug of the shoulders. From the rear arose the rat-rat-tat of clubs on heads and a pandemonium of cursing, yelling, and shouting. ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... broke his record he seemed to himself an unconscionable time in dressing, but when he gave himself a final survey in the mirror, he had every reason to feel satisfied with the result. He was correct in every detail and he thought complacently that he could not but contrast favourably with the appearance of that "roughneck" from Montana—or ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... heavy door. At the far end, two more guards sat, complacently playing cards, while a third stood at a door a few yards away. A television screen imbedded in the door was connected to an interior camera which showed ...
— What The Left Hand Was Doing • Gordon Randall Garrett
... 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 hand, when it presented itself was never welcomed ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... powerless to control policy, because the nation behind it does not give it sufficient support. It is because of the absence of the driving force of a public opinion in Germany that the German people submit complacently to the infringements on political liberty which form part of the normal regime of German life—the domineering arrogance of officers and officials, the restraints upon the Press and the shameless manufacture of news and inspiration of opinion from official sources, the control of the Universities, ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... Ukridge complacently. "Nothing like resource, Garny my boy. Some men would have gone on letting a good ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... insult to the spectator when obesity is superadded. When he had put on a clean shirt, of which there was grossly too much, and added a white waistcoat, that seemed to accent his rotundity, he completed his attire with a black frock coat of the latest style, and surveyed himself complacently before a mirror. It is to be recorded that, however satisfactory the result might have been to Mr. Gashwiler, it was not so to the disinterested spectator. There are some men on whom "that deformed thief, Fashion," avenges himself by making their clothes appear ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... style, the expression being closely modelled upon the thought; nothing is vague, but nothing is superfluous. We must not seek in this volume for picturesque landscape painting, for the lyrical note, for the complacently woven "purple patch." The book is rigorously deprived of all these things; and, having regard to its subject, this is not its ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... he'll come home in rags, and grow up a day-laborer," said Sinclair complacently. "When I'm a rich man I'll give him work. He won't feel like putting ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... acclamations of the multitude, rose a few hundred feet and descended half a mile away. The cock was found to have sustained an unexplained mishap: its leg was broken; but the sheep was feeding complacently, and the duck was quacking with much ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... papa," said Luella complacently. "Do you know I have made up my mind to go to Europe on a ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... myself in a dilemma. My modesty (?) is at variance with my love of verity. Oh, the inconvenience of that little pronoun, I! Would that I had in the first instance imitated the wily conduct of the bald-pated invader of Britain. How complacently might I not then have vaunted in the beginning, have caracoled through the middle, and glorified myself at the conclusion of this my autobiography! What a monstrous piece of braggadocio would not Caesar's Commentaries have been, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... to justify his security. The son of a rich man, he had also inherited a taste for business and the art of making money. Years of prosperity had confirmed his confidence, and he looked complacently around upon his family and talked of the ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... gambling from property owners in Milton, and then characterized such a use of God's property as wrong and unchristian, it was curious to note the effect on the congregation. Men who had been listening complacently to Philip's eloquent but quiet statements, as long as he confined himself to distant historical facts, suddenly became aware that the tall, palefaced, resolute and loving young preacher up there was talking right at them; and ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... and it was contended that the passage of this measure would give employment to thousands of people; that the rumbling of the locomotive would soon be heard in every corner of the state, and that the dealer in town lots and broad acres would again be able to complacently inform the newcomer the exact locality where a few dollars would soon bring to the investor returns unheard of by any ordinary methods of speculation. The campaign was short and the amendment carried by an immense majority. So nearly unanimous was the sentiment of the ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... other complacently, "was my final argument, my crowning effort, or peroratio, as the orators have it. For, coz, since all thoughts are things, you have but to think a pair of herrings, and then conjure up a pottle of milk wherewith to ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... you have less courage than a woman. All the women are on the side of the good Bourgeois: he is an honest merchant—sells cheap, and cheats nobody!" Babet looked down very complacently upon her new gown, which had been purchased at a great bargain at the magazine of the Bourgeois. She felt rather the more inclined to take this view of the question inasmuch as Jean had grumbled, just a little—he ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... standing-room, for they appear to have been obliged to clamber up the mountain-side, and perch themselves on spots where there does not seem to be standing-room for a goat. From such elevated positions they look down complacently on their ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... smiling complacently—'I cannot blame you for conceiving a passion for our handsome young pastor. To confess the truth, I myself view him with high admiration, not only as a talented preacher, but also as one who would make a ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... with excusable pride. To TWEENY). Nor mine for nearly three months. It was only last week, Tweeny, that he said to me, 'Ernest, the water cure has worked marvels in you, and I question whether I shall require to dip you any more.' (Complacently.) Of course that sort of thing encourages ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... enough to assure the approval of connoisseurs, irrespectively of the intrinsic value of the results obtained. Scholars are mostly malevolent and discourteous towards each other; they make molehills and call them mountains; their vanity is as comic as that of the citizen of Frankfort who used complacently to observe, 'All that you can see through yonder archway is Frankfort territory.'"[120] We, for our part, are inclined to draw a distinction between three professional risks to which scholars are subject: dilettantism, ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... his blunt bull-dog pipe as he supervised the undoing of the smothering fabric and complacently ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... the easiest affairs possible," said the Jinnee, complacently running his fingers through the thin strands of his beard. "I have accomplished such ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... middle of the room, was tying the handkerchief over his head. He looked complacently ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... when the nerves and brain are excitable from over tension and exertion, and anxiety and constant worry and wear, little matters are magnified. But already I feel myself so much stronger in nerve and courage that I look now complacently upon much which in the last two years would have cut ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... Mr. Lind smiled complacently: he knew Douglas, if not Athens, better, but was in too tolerant a humor to say so. Little more passed between the two until they reached Westbourne Terrace, where Marian and her cousin were dressing for dinner. When Marian came down, her beauty so affected ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... dissatisfied feelings of her own heart. But she found that her peace was not made, for all her fastings, scourgings, vigils, and prayers. Guy's words came back to her with every rite, "God strip you of your own goodness!" and she could not wrap herself in its mantle as complacently as before. ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... sister obeyed, and, stationing herself in the middle of the room, surveyed the whole effect with much approval. Annis, her fair face flushed with the exertion, balanced herself on her lofty perch and gazed complacently upon her handiwork; while even Mistress Vane, who had been seated quietly on a deep chair by the fireplace, roused herself as from a reverie, and looked half-wistfully around the cheerful room. "What bell was that I heard just now?" ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... is it not?" said my friend, glancing complacently at a long procession of little charity children, who were passing, two and two—two and two—with closely cropped heads, little close-fitting sun-bonnets and dark dresses; "pleasant sight, is it not, ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... her jointure, which had been secured on the property appertaining to the villa at Fulham, would devolve upon Evelyn. Maltravers could never accept what Alice owed to another. Poor Alice! No! not that modest wealth which you had looked upon complacently as one day ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... seen an accomplished young woman of considerable refinement and of a highly strung nervous temperament, string flies with her needle on a piece of thread, and watch complacently their flutterings. Cruelty may remain latent till, by some accident. it is aroused, and then it will break forth in a devouring flame. It is the same with the passion for blood as with the passions of love and hate; we have no conception ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... good reason," said Mrs. Douglass complacently, "before I'll have any help to spoil my work. Come along, and I'll let you ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... postponement and an infringement of a time-honoured habit; and Rainham had for his habit all the respect of a man who is always indolent and often ill; though it must be admitted that to his clerks, who viewed the trait complacently, and to the importunate Bullen, who resented it, he seemed to be only regular in his irregularity. He decided that at least this occasion should not be allowed to slip; a free afternoon would benefit him. He was always rather lavish of those licenses; and it seemed to him that the tintinnabulation ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... her remonstrances and threats as they chased each other up and down the nicely-polished stairway. Worse than all, he was proof against the vituperations and reproaches with which she indirectly assailed him from the recesses of her kitchen. He smoked his pipe and dozed over his newspaper as complacently as ever, while his sins of omission and commission were arrayed ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... troops, smitten with panic, threw down their arms and ran, 'carrying so infectious a fear with them, that the whole body of troops was seized by it and fled.' Colonel Digby followed, with all the horse at his disposal, 'till,' says Clarendon complacently, 'their swords were blunted with slaughter.' Perhaps the Royalists were more anxious to impress a salutary warning against the sin of rebellion than to kill the fugitives, for Clarendon finishes the account by saying that the rebels 'were scattered and dispersed all over the country, and ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... any fears, if I worked it rightly," said the old gentleman complacently. "I wasn't coming without her, Marian, if it could possibly be managed. The truth is, that Phronsie had been pining for Polly to such an extent, that there was no other way but for her to have Polly; and her mother was just on the point, although ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney |
