"Casualness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lady in the case. There was, in fact, something almost dignifying in that strickenly defiant face of hers. I was almost sorry for her when she turned and walked white-lipped out of the room. What I resented most, as I stood facing my husband, was his paraded casualness, his refusal to take a tragic situation tragically. His attitude seemed to imply that we were about to have a difference over a small thing—over a small thing with brown eyes. He could even stand ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... emotion was genuine, and his desire to comfort and sustain her genuine, and his admiration for her genuine, he thought to himself: "How theatrically she told it! Every effect was studied, nearly every word. Well, she can't help it. But does she imagine I can't see that all the casualness was deliberately part ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... just talking of children," said Brotherton with studied casualness. "You know, Doctor," Brotherton smiled abashed, "I've always thought I'd like ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... replied. The younger brother was flattered by this proof of esteem from the elder, but he did his best by casualness of tone to prevent ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... assured her in a tone whose casualness did not quite hide his welcome of the prospect. "We'll just be interested in each other enough to make it interesting. Why, Joy of My Life, I wouldn't take anything from good old Hewitt for anything ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... only carry packages of a certain size and weight? What did they care if the duty remission for materials on some Government contract, or the customs classification of a shipment, depended on adherence to specific directions? I could multiply examples of the most amazing casualness and careless disregard, of bad packing, of ungenerous credit, which have enraged ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... of Professor Kelton and she had met him now and then in the Delaware Street house, but her knowledge of him and his family was only the most fragmentary. Nothing had occurred during the year to bring the Keltons again to her attention; but now, with a casualness in itself disconcerting, they had arrived at Mrs. Owen's farmhouse, where, Mrs. Bassett was sure, no guests had ever been entertained before. The house had just been remodeled and made altogether habitable, a fact which, Mrs. Bassett had been flattering herself, argued ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... saw the figure walk slowly by the glass front of the shop, looking in with over-elaborate casualness. He was casing the joint, making sure there was no ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... home, though he did not fail to note that Ida sat in the driver's seat with Sonny in Sonny's car. Thus, she was home ahead of him and brushing her hair when he arrived. The parting of bed-going was usual, on the face of it, although he was almost rigid in his successful effort for casualness as he remembered whose lips had ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... whispering with Aunt Jane and Miss Browne, now with a very made-to-order casualness proposed to the two ladies that they take a stroll on the beach. This meant that the triumvirate were to withdraw for discussion, and amounted to notice that henceforth the counsels of ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... (1881-1952) by J. C. Dykes in Billy the Kid: The Bibliography of a Legend, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1952 (186 pages). It lists 437 titles, including magazine pieces, mimeographed plays, motion pictures, verses, pamphlets, fiction. In a blend of casualness and scholarship, it gives the substance and character of each item. Indeed, this bibliography reads like a continued story, with constant references to both antecedent and subsequent action. Pat Garrett, John Chisum, and other related characters weave all through ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... aversion from Mrs. Pembrose was in some mysterious way strengthened in Lady Harman by this extraordinary convergence of testimony. When Sir Isaac mentioned the lady with a kind of forced casualness at breakfast as the only conceivable person for the work of initiation and organization that lay before them, Lady Harman determined to see more of her. With a quickened subtlety she asked her to tea. "I have heard so much of your knowledge of social questions and I want you ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... secret from Oliver," and she felt suddenly guilty because for the first time since her marriage she was keeping something back from him. Then, following this, there came the knowledge, piercing her heart, that she must keep her secret because even if she told him, he would not understand. With the casualness of a man's point of view towards an emotion, he would judge its importance, she felt, chiefly by the power it possessed of disturbing the course of his life. Unobservant, and ever ready to twist and decorate facts as she was, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... might be reached, though it is doubtful, by the road of Puritanism and "efficiency," the appeal to abstinence and "living hard." It cannot be reached, that is certain, by merely disciplinary methods and the appeal to fear, for the commonest form of schoolboy vice is such that, even allowing for the casualness of boys, it will not be detected ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... thinking upon his sin and was startled at the casualness of the question. He laughed, a bit nervous. "Why, didn't you ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... Liputin, Shigalov, and the authority on the peasantry supported this plan; Lyamshin said nothing, though he looked approving. Virginsky hesitated and wanted to hear Pyotr Stepanovitch first. It was decided to hear Pyotr Stepanovitch, but still he did not come; such casualness added fuel to the flames. Erkel was absolutely silent and did nothing but order the tea, which he brought from his landladies in glasses on a tray, not bringing in the samovar nor ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a well-simulated air of casualness, I dropped in upon a physician who is a friend of mine and in whose judgment I have confidence; and then, after a two-day interval, I went to see a second physician of my acquaintance who, I believe, also thoroughly knows his trade. With both men I followed the same tactics—roundabout ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... in silence for a few minutes, during which the old lawyer seemed very thoughtful, and glanced at her sideways, as if he were trying to make up his mind about something. At last he said, with an affectation of casualness: ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... furniture, and nothing can be more certain than that there was nobody on the premises at the time." The noise, unluckily, occurred twice, April 28 and 29, 1818, and Lockhart does not tell us on which of these two nights Mr. Bullock died. Such is the casualness of ghost story-tellers. Lockhart adds that the coincidence made a strong impression on Sir Walter's mind. He did not care to ascertain the point in his own mental constitution "where incredulity began to waver," according to his friend, Mr. ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... I smoke?" I asked with complete casualness to hide my emotions. She shook her head, and I lit ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... pass for him, as regards his mother! This was the first time he had ever overtly spoken of the theatre in his mother's presence. In the best bedroom he had talked of it—but even there with a certain self-consciousness and false casualness. Now, his mother stared straight in front of her with an expression of which she alone among human beings ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... philosophically educated laymen, but appears spontaneously in everybody of a reflective mind; its best known representative in earlier times is Euripides. Typical of its popular form is in the first place its casualness; it is directed against details which at the moment attract attention, while it leaves other things alone which in principle are quite as offensive, but either not very obviously so, or else not relevant to the matter in hand. ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann |
