"Nonchalance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of business and I had to stay," said Ellen with masculine nonchalance. "A most interesting client ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... gave the required promise, whereupon my pious employer presented me with a five-dollar bill, which I received with all the nonchalance in the world. I then withdrew, and reached my own room without encountering any more adventures. Sleep did not visit me that night, for my thoughts were too busily engaged with the discoveries which I had made; and besides, the blissful consciousness of being the possessor of the princely ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... out over the North Sea, keeping their stations accurately apart. At a given signal all the guns are trained on a target which (the master gunner counts the seconds, watch in hand—at the sixth he looks up) flames into splinters. With equal nonchalance a dozen young men in the prime of life descend with composed faces into the depths of the sea; and there impassively (though with perfect mastery of machinery) suffocate uncomplainingly together. Like blocks of tin soldiers the army covers the cornfield, moves up the hillside, stops, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... take, till he had carefully deciphered the name on the wall. Now he stopped to look into a shop, then to gaze up at the windows of a house as if he expected to see some one there, and then to throw a copper to some importunate beggar. He walked with an air of so much independence and nonchalance, indeed, at times, almost of haughtiness, that it was difficult to suppose he had the slightest apprehension of danger. Not a person, however, who, passed him, escaped his scrutiny; and even when he appeared to stop carelessly, or for the sake of considering the way he was to take, he cast ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... happen while we were dining," he added with serene thankfulness. And his nonchalance scored for him in the ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... so little of the language of those who surrounded me, as actually to envy the fluency of a parrot which I heard chattering with, I suspect, the true Parisian accent, I can scarcely account for the feeling of thorough nonchalance with which I commenced my pilgrimage, and which ever accompanied me to its conclusion. It was seldom even that I was sensible of loneliness, though I must bear witness to the almost inspired truth of the ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... sat up with profound gravity, and with a great air of nonchalance opened the handbag, and, instead of shoes took out, first, a pint bottle of claret, then "devilish" ham sandwiches in oiled paper, a bottle of stuffed olives, a great bag of salted almonds, two little tumblers, a paper-covered novel, ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... said Judy with great nonchalance, "I bid you good afternoon," and she walked on, trying to keep ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... my place of concealment, I became conscious of the half-suppressed chirping of a woodpecker, and, to my intense joy, a moment later a Williamson's sapsucker swung to a pine bole a little below me and began pecking leisurely and with assumed nonchalance for grubs in the fissures of the bark. From my hiding-place behind some bushes I kept my eye on the handsome creature. An artist might well covet the privilege of painting this elegant bird as he scales the wall of a pine tree. Presently ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... little piqued, however, at the nonchalance of her manner. Why should it occur to her that she might hate him? She has, unknowingly certainly, but unquestionably, blocked his way to the fulfilment of his desires, but he—— He changes colour; is he ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... Isabelle saw, with an order of its own, a direction of its own, a strong undercurrent. Its oddity and nonchalance were refreshing. Like one of the mountain brooks it ran its own course, strong and liquid beneath the snow, to its ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... Thus, by this nonchalance, they conspired to hide from themselves the seriousness of that which had passed between them. The grotesque, pretentious little apartment was mysteriously humanised; it was no longer the reception-room of a furnished flat by chance hired for a month; ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... perhaps you might have heard from her or about her, through some mutual friend," remarked Kennedy, carefully concealing under his nonchalance what I knew was working in his mind - a belief that, after all, the old attachment had not been so dead as ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... the home of Harold Hervey, Bentley found himself unable to walk slowly, with the air of nonchalance, which the other police ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... protested with a nonchalance that rang a little flat. "You must be awfully tired. Hadn't we better put ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... of these the landau stopped to await, as we afterward ascertained, Count Bismarck, with whom the diplomatic negotiations were to be settled. Some minutes elapsed before he came, Napoleon remaining seated in his carriage meantime, still smoking, and accepting with nonchalance the staring of a group of German soldiers near by, who were gazing on their fallen foe ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... and fears consequent upon his arrival—this man who once had not cared if his name were blotted out from that district. The evening light showed wistful lines which he could not smooth away by the worldling's gloss of nonchalance that he had learnt ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... the gaol leant forward and repeated the order to a warder, who had already heard it perfectly and dived below, apparently through the solid floor of the court. The next moment Mr. Hall appeared, with easy nonchalance, and leant forward in a graceful attitude on the bar of the dock, while the clerk of arraigns proceeded to acquaint him with the crime of ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... dangerous duties. I can frankly say I disliked the listening-post duty that first time. Nothing happened of course. There was no killing, but it was nervy work. Later, in common with other fellows, I was able to go on listening-post with the same nonchalance as my first coster friend. It lies in whether one is used to the thing or not. Nothing comes easy at first, especially in the trenches. Later on, it is all ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... wrestler stayed, and many times Campbell met him in the streets, and each time was exaggerated, insulting courtesy from the Aleppo man, as he drew aside to let the Frank pass. There was hostility and contempt in his veiled eyes.... There nonchalance in his smelling of the rose ... Campbell passed by frigidly, as if the man weren't there, and all the time his blood was boiling.... But what was one to do? One could not make a scene before the riff-raff of Syria. And besides, there was too ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... straight, and, his lips still quivering, lit a cigarette. Then assuming his wonted air of nonchalance, he returned ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... treasures of the New World passed from Acapulco, Guayaquil, and Lima, to Spain, he says: "These will soon cease whenever an active government, willing to protect commerce, shall construct a good road from Panama to Porto Bello. The aristocratic nonchalance of Spain, and her fear to open to strangers the way to the countries explored for her own profit, only kept those countries closed." The court forbade, on pain of death, the use of plans at different ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... easy nonchalance, and three days later he was in the office of the secretary of the Mississippi River Commission, at St. Louis, calmly inquiring into the duties and performance thereof, involving the efforts of 100,000 Negroes, ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... and Scotch Reviewers, charged the hero and heroine of Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. Her heroes do not merely love, they are "enamoured to a romantic degree." Her arbours are "composed of jasmine, white rose, and other odoriferous sweets of Flora." She sprinkles French phrases with an airy nonchalance worthy of the Lady Hysterica Belamour, whose memoirs are included in Barrett's Heroine. Her duchesses "figure away with eclat"—"a party quarrie assemble at their dejeune." It is noteworthy that by 1820 even Miss Wilkinson ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... goes a hippopotamus," said Harold, with the easy nonchalance of a man who had been to the Zoological Gardens, and knew all about it. Nevertheless it was quite plain that Harold was much excited, for he almost dropped his oar overboard in making a hasty grasp at his rifle. Before ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... dismounting, I arranged the new saddle with ostentatious offhandedness, though in a prayerful frame of mind, and presently climbed on as if nothing was the matter. I certainly anticipated Westminster Abbey rather than a peerage; but the horse, with a nonchalance greater than my own, inasmuch as it was genuine, turned quietly round as I pressed the rein against his neck, and sailed away across the plain at his own inimitable canter. Then I looked back to see the bullock drivers disgustedly resume the work they ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... came to Bar he made love to a pretty girl there who was quite amiable to him, and now he never thinks of the other. There is more talk, and Katherine insists that he shall introduce her to his new lady, that she may try this remedy of counter-love. He consents with perfect nonchalance, and is at last allowed to go to sleep. No details are given of the conversation with the rival,[82] except the bitterness of Katherine's heart at the fact, and at seeing the ring she had given to Gerard on his hand. This she actually has the pluck to play with, and, securing it, to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... was fairly besieged by his friends, who joked him about his arrest, and then, out of genuine concern, wanted to know if his prospects were seriously damaged. To each interrogatory, Henry waved his hand with absolute nonchalance. As far as he knew, only six people were in the secret—himself, his wife, Judge Barklay, Standish, Mr. Archer and Aunt Mirabelle—and he wasn't anxious to increase the number. His aunt might not have believed it, but this was more on her ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... pillow. I had no nerves, and I had done nothing which I regretted. I fancy, therefore, that my general appearance and reception of him somewhat astonished my early visitor. He seemed, indeed, to take my nonchalance almost as an affront, and he proceeded at once to ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... all, dearest," he laughed, for his old nonchalance had returned to him. "I've been full of business since nine o'clock. I have an appointment out at La Muette at two, and I'll have to get back ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... were standing idle and unharmed, to take the stretchers and carry the wounded from the field. Under a most severe fire of musketry, grape, and canister, they performed this duty with unflinching courage and nonchalance. They suffered severely in this duty both in killed and wounded; yet not a man faltered. These men had just been recruited, and were not even partially disciplined. But I next saw the negroes (engineers) working in these trenches, under a heavy ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... back, in airy nonchalance,— The more determined on my wayward quest, As some bright memory a moment dawns ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... The nonchalance and dolce-far-niente air of nature and society hint at infinite periods in the progress of mankind. The States have leisure to laugh from Maine to Texas at some newspaper joke, and New England shakes at the double-entendres ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... by the liberal elements. In protest against the nonchalance with which the door had been shut in their faces the working classes in Berlin and elsewhere entered upon a fresh series of demonstrations by reason of which the Government was embarrassed through several weeks. In the Landtag the Conservative ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... looked at the cafe. The inn was filled with people—elaborately dressed women and shiningly groomed men—grouped about white-linened, silver-laden tables; an ornamental grimacing little multitude come to the cafe as to some grave rite, moving to the tables with an unctious nonchalance. Women dressed in effulgent silks, their flesh gleaming among the spaces of exotic plumage, gleaming through the flares of luxurious satin distortions. A company that gestured, grimaced with the charm of lustful ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... to the slipshod methods and the rollicking humour of Charles and his circle. He insinuated himself into the intimacy of the King's boon companions: availed himself of the easy access to the King, which Charles's nonchalance permitted, and knew how to suggest what might be useful to him as a diplomat, in the careless intercourse of the table, and amidst the jests of a carouse at Court. Bristol did his best to aid the Spanish diplomat. ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... ago. In certain respects travellers fare well. They may feast like Lucullus on fresh trout and on the dainty aniseed cakes which are a local speciality. But hygienic arrangements were almost prehistoric, and although politeness itself, mine host and hostess showed strange nonchalance towards their guests. Thus, when ringing and ringing again for our tea and bread and butter between seven and eight o'clock, the chamber—not maid, but man—informed us that Madame had gone to mass, and everything was locked ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... of fiction. A sunny Provencal childhood is clouded by family misfortunes; then comes a year of wretched slavery as usher in a provincial school; then the inevitable journey to Paris with a brain full of verses and dreams, and the beginning of a life of Bohemian nonchalance, to which we Anglo-Saxons have little that is comparable outside the career of Oliver Goldsmith. But poor Goldsmith had his pride wounded by the editorial tyranny of a Mrs. Griffiths. Daudet, by a merely pretty poem about a youth and maiden making love under a plum-tree, won the protection of the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... a contrast! Patty, dainty, graceful and sweet, was the very antithesis of tall, gawky Azalea, with her countrified dress and badly made black shoes. Her careless air, too, was unattractive,—for it was not the nonchalance of experience, but the unselfconsciousness of sheer ignorance ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... looked up with an air of easy nonchalance into the faces of the two men who smoked their short pipes, and uttered ever and anon some short ejaculation, such as, "Hem!" "Ah!" "Zounds!" and so forth, while the sow exhibited a familiarity with ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... with hair that gave him the only name his comrades knew him by. Lane packed the boy's few possessions and talked vehemently all the time. Red braced up, ready to go, but he had little to say and that with the weary nonchalance habitual with him. Lane helped him up on deck, and the exertion, slight as it was, brought home to Lane that he needed help himself. ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... room, madam, where the wife of one of our staff will attend you," or "Pray allow me to slip this penknife of mine into the lining of your coat" (after which he would extract thence shawls and towels with as much nonchalance as he would have done from his own travelling-trunk). Even his superiors acknowledged him to be a devil at the job, rather than a human being, so perfect was his instinct for looking into cart-wheels, carriage-poles, horses' ears, and places whither ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... hair of the most beautiful blonde. She had the most majestic air, and yet her peculiar characteristic was grace. To these were added the great difference of manners and tone. Madame de Longueville was, in her deportment, dignity, politeness, modesty, sweetness itself, with a languor and nonchalance which formed not her least charm. Her words were few, as well as her gestures; the inflexions of her voice were a perfect music.[1] The excess, into which she never fell, might have been a sort of fastidiousness. Everything in her was wit, sentiment, charm. Madame de Montbazon, on the contrary, ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... him, perceiving that my prospects bid fair to improve. For very few people can feel out of it without drifting into a self-regarding mood, and then they are the easiest prey imaginable. Undoubtedly a man like Zaluski, with his easy nonchalance, his knowledge of the world, his genuine good-nature, and the background of sterling qualities which came upon you as a surprise because he loved to make himself seem a mere idler, was apt to eclipse an ordinary mortal like James Blackthorne. The curate perceived this and ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... story to pass uncontradicted. Perhaps a few believed it; perhaps they had foreseen the future. It may have been that they knew that Millicent Chyne, surrounded by the halo of whatever story she might invent, would be treated with a certain careless nonchalance by the older men, with a respectful avoidance by the younger. Truly women have the deepest punishment for their sins here on earth; for sooner or later the time will come—after the brilliancy of the first triumph, after the less pure satisfaction ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... so surprising? 'Twas a secret even from her father and uncle, by the Duke's command; but she has now writ her father so pretty a letter that 'tis the town's talk, Horry Walpole having shewed it about. But Horry—have you forgot his pride, hid always under a nonchalance as if't was nothing? I was at Gloucester House, where she received en princesse, two nights ago; and to see Horry kiss her hand and hear him address her with, "Madam, your Royal Highness," at every word—sure no wit of Congreve's could ever equal the comedy! But if ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... a cigar, a big, fat cigar with a gold band. It was inspiration again that made Alan accept it and light it. His blood was racing. But Rossland saw nothing of that. He observed only the nod, the cool smile on Alan's lips, the apparent nonchalance with which he was meeting the situation. It pleased Graham's agent. He reseated himself in the desk-chair and motioned Alan to another chair ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... for that question. He delivered his answer with all the nonchalance of a man dropping a burnt ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... have lived? Is this to be the doctrine of United States citizens—of all people? And is this the doctrine preached now, of all times, when the King of Naples and the Italian dukes have just been dismissed from their thrones with such enchanting nonchalance because their people have not chosen to keep them? Of course the movement is revolutionary; and why not? It is agreed now among all men and all nations that any people may change its form of government to any other, if it wills to do so—and ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... fixed on the woman; the woman scanned the dreadful pathway with eyes deep-set and burning, resolute, vigilant, and yet defiant, too, as though she had been trapped into this track of danger, and was fighting without great hope, but with the temerity and nonchalance of despair. Her arms were bare to the shoulder almost, and her face was again and again drenched, but second succeeded second, minute followed minute in a struggle which might well turn a man's hair gray, and now, at last—how many hours was it since they had been cast ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... suddenly felt very small, but she concealed her embarrassment beneath an excessive nonchalance. "Why, in Boston don't people use their banisters? We find them so ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... might be something. They even welcomed those boys who were neither limp nor perky, but odd—those boys who had never been at a public school at all, and such do not find a welcome everywhere. And they did everything with ease—one might almost say with nonchalance, so that the boys noticed nothing, and received education, often for the ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... to remark," said Captain Everard, with attempted nonchalance, "that that is strange ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... William Ware, we must hold on to the ties of life as we may, and especially to such as unite you and me. But are you not getting a strange feeling of nonchalance about everything,—life, death, and the time of death, what matters it? I rather think it is natural for the love of life to grow stronger as we advance in life and yet it is so terribly shaken by the experience of life, and ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... cropped bloom of youth, idealize the hero of romance; if Michael Angelo's Penseroso translate in marble the dark broodings of a despot's soul; if Della Porta's Julia Farnese be the Roman courtesan magnificently throned in nonchalance at a pope's footstool; if Verocchio's Colleoni on his horse at Venice impersonate the pomp and circumstance of scientific war—surely this Medea exhales the flower-like graces, the sweet sanctities of human life, that ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... from behind a hedge, then summoned courage to walk past with slow nonchalance. All was as dead and dull as though Alice was not there. Yet somewhere within those prison-walls her young beauty was dressing itself to meet the spring. Perhaps, in delicious linen, soft and white, she was dashing cool ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... Grace to preserve political harmony between father and lover; but the latter speedily recognized that the major's age and infirmities, together with his early associations, gave him almost unlimited privilege to think and say what he pleased. Hilland soon came to hear with good- natured nonchalance his Northern allies berated, and considered himself well repaid by one mirthful, grateful glance ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... his Serene Highness with a somewhat affected nonchalance intended to show that, as a highly trained military man, he left it to Russians to make an idol of this useless old man, but that he knew whom he was dealing with. "Der alte Herr" (as in their own set the Germans called Kutuzov) "is making himself very comfortable," ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... promptly offered his arm to Madeline, who accepted it with perfect nonchalance. They followed Cora to the dining-room, themselves followed ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... and highly cultivated ; very modest in all he asserts, and attentive and pleasing in his behaviour ; and he is wholly free from the coxcombical airs, either of impertinence, or negligence and nonchalance, that almost all the young men I meet, except also young Burke, are tainted with. What chiefly, however, pleased me ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... taking a decanter of whiskey and glasses from a cupboard. The captain filled his glass, and continued with the same gentle but exasperating nonchalance, "Mind my smoking?" ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... The nonchalance of the Princess Petrovska had disappeared in a flash, and Foyle noted her quick change of countenance. She had recollected she was carrying Lady Eileen Meredith's jewels. They would inevitably be found, if she were searched. She was not ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... minutes afterward recollected that he should want five of them that very night, to pay the poor stage-coachman. His recollection came too late, for after Lord Rawson had paid three or four guineas for his trinket, he let the remainder of the money down with an absent nonchalance, into his pocket. "We'll settle—I'll pay you, Holloway, to-morrow ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... well. I suppose I may never see him again: and so I suppose we both thought as the Rail carried him off: and each returned to his ways as if scarcely diverted from them. Age again!—I liked Hallam much; unaffected, unpretending—no Slang—none of Young England's nonchalance—speaking of his Father as 'Papa' and tending him with great Care, Love, and Discretion. Mrs. A. T. is much out of health, and scarce leaves ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... of speedy success, led her to take her place, on the first day, very near the master, in a peculiar seat—a sort of small, low easy chair which inspired one with a sense of nonchalance. She was in full sight. Her gaze, profound and sombre at times, roamed over the room with the natural air of a meditative queen. She inspired all beholders with curiosity and interest. The feeling which she aroused in her fellow-pupils was less distinct. Her rare advantages caused a vague ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... short distance behind these two personages, rode a man who appeared by his dress and deportment to be their attendant. He sat with perfect nonchalance on a stout Andalusian horse, but by the looks of suspicious alertness, which he now and then cast around, it might be inferred that this apparent ease was not in strict unison with his inward feelings. At the moment of which we speak, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... little like you, though," said Vernon, with a nonchalance which provoked Maxwell, whose temper was not of ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... an attempt at nonchalance, but letting go of the bar was too much for him, and he slumped ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... disinherit me?" quoth he in mockery. "And of what, pray? If report speaks true, you'll be needing to inherit something yourself to bear you through your present straitness." He shrugged and produced his snuff-box with an offensive simulation of nonchalance. "Ye cannot cut the entail," he reminded his almost apoplectic sire, and took ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... "Certainly," and the easy nonchalance of the other was almost insolent; evidently Masterson had not picked up an affinity. "I was coming your way; had been riding alone for several hours, and feared I should be deprived of the pleasure of your society if I allowed ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... long silence. A sense of poignant embarrassment descended upon those present. No one knew what to say or where to look. Garnett, with a laboured attempt at nonchalance, murmured: ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... dogged expression, which showed that the old Jewish blood still heat true, under all its affected shell of Neo-Platonist nonchalance; and there was a quiet unpleasant earnest in his ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... slight inclination of the head, tinctured with disdain: on which his lordship turned his back, with a kind of open-mouthed nonchalance that was truly epigrammatic; and fell into conversation with Sir Barnard, who had advanced toward the fire, with all the apparent ease of the most intimate friendship: though, since his lordship had changed sides, they had become, in politics at ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... caps, fichus, and mantelets, after the queen's model. The robes with long trains, the court-dresses of heavy silk, jewels and gold ornaments, were on a sudden despised; every thing which could add brilliancy and dignity to the toilet was banished, the greatest simplicity and nonchalance were now the fashion; every lady strove, if possible, to resemble a shepherdess of Watteau, and it was soon impossible to distinguish a ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... snatched the watch from his pocket—I broke the chain, I see—and then left him and ran again. He didn't make the slightest resistance nor utter a word. Of course it wouldn't do for him to make any noise about it, and I dare say he was glad to get off so easily.' With affected nonchalance: 'I'm pretty badly rumpled, I see. He fell against me, and a scuffle like ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... friends and comrades of the deceased, and had served with him in the same yeomanry corps. Jack O'Malley was a Roman Catholic—a square, stout-built, and handsome fellow, with a pleasant word for every one, and full of that gaiety, vivacity, and nonchalance for which the Roman Catholic peasantry of Ireland are so particularly distinguished. He was now about forty-five years of age, sternly attached to the dogmas of his religion, and always remarkable for his revolutionary and anti-British principles. He was brave ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... one side of the hedge, resting upon his rifle, in a superb attitude of nonchalance, and the most imperturbable sangfroid, and Cuchillo, on the other side, with his head stretched across the green inclosure of the little valley, looked very much like two country neighbours, for the moment chatting ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... arranging the luncheon with the head waiter. Miss Beers was the sort of girl with whom a young man liked to seem experienced. She was dark and slender and fiery. She was witty and slangy; said daring things and carried them off with NONCHALANCE. Her childish extravagance and contempt for all the serious facts of life could be charged to her father's generosity and his long packing-house purse. Freaks that would have been vulgar and ostentatious in a more simpleminded girl, in Miss Beers seemed whimsical and ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... generally gay, generally in spirits; and her girl companions knew well that there was no one so reserved, and that the inmost self of her, if such a thing existed, dwelt far away from any ken of theirs. Every now and then she would have vehement angers and outbreaks which contrasted with the nonchalance of her ordinary temper; but it was hard to find the ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I had assumed and played my role as a white man with a certain degree of nonchalance, a carelessness as to the outcome, which made the whole thing more amusing to me than serious; but now I ceased to regard "being a white man" as a sort of practical joke. My acting had called for mere external effects. Now I began to doubt my ability to play the part. I watched ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... particularly seductive for its Creole complexion, the vividness of which can be described only by comparing it to muslin overlying crimson, so equally is the whiteness suffused with color. Her figure, which was full and rounded, attracted the eye by a grace which united nonchalance with vivacity, strength with ease. She attracted and she imposed, she seduced, but promised nothing. She was tall, which gave her at times the air and carriage of a queen. Men were taken by her conversation like birds in a snare; for she had by nature ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... McEwart, who had been one of the New Year's visitors to Tallyn, tall, wiry, red-haired, the embodiment of all things shrewd and efficient; and two or three more. A young London member was holding forth, masking what was really a passion of disgust in a slangy nonchalance. ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of fluttering and squealing accompanied the act. But as he worked, Mark thought hard, and of something else beside ravens. How was he to get out of this unpleasant fix, being as he was quite at his enemy's mercy? But all the same, with assumed nonchalance, he drew out the fluttering ravens, loosened his hold of the shrub with his left hand, and trusted to his powers of retaining his balance, in spite of the birds' struggles, while in the coolest way possible he transferred the legs from his right hand to his left, ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... what was worse, he wasn't likely to accomplish anything. He sauntered back, casting furtive glances into the spacious front-yard, and concluded to ease his restless legs by leaning against a tree and crossing them in an attitude of profound nonchalance. The tree happened to be almost directly in front of the Nixon gate. Not to seem actually employed in shadowing the house, he decided to pose with his back to the premises, facing down the street, twisting his whiskers in a ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... The infield closed in for a bunt, but the Rube had no orders for that style of play. Spears had said nothing to him. Vane lost his nonchalance and settled down. He cut loose with all his speed. Rube stepped out, suddenly whirled, then tried to dodge, but the ball hit him fair in the back. Rube sagged in his tracks, then straightened up, and walked slowly to first base. Score 5 to 5, ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... ran in through the gate, and up the gravel walk, and so he was left to turn away and pass the intruder with an appearance of nonchalance. And pass him he did, though whether with successful indifference or not, one can hardly say; but in passing him he looked up, and in looking up ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... guess. I had a passionate love affair when I was thirteen," she replied, with the nonchalance and sophistication of experience. ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... 'Change, and a reckless debauchee at leisure, who analyzes the operations of finance in the language of a monte dealer describing a prize fight, and whose notion of a successful career is something between a gambler, a revolutionist and a buccaneer. He is supposed to vibrate in cheerful nonchalance between Delmonico's and a beanery, according as he is in funds or hard up, and to exhibit a genial assurance that "a member of the New York Stock Exchange, sir," will prove a pleasant addition to the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... appearing to feel that any remarkable change had taken place upon his finances, Geordie slowly put his hand into his pocket, drew out the twenty pounds, and gave his mother one for interim expenditure. As he returned the money into his pocket, he said, with an air of the most supreme nonchalance, "If ye want ony mair, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... paused for a while, then rose, and walked about, apparently musing and reflecting, with something of uneasiness and perplexity in his looks; whilst Phil unfolded the True Blue, and began to peruse its brilliant pages with his usual nonchalance. ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... will confide in you, in case you should ever require his services. For truly, although I had some difficulty in persuading him that I broke no faith in seeking to escape from France (a point in which self-respect obliged me to insist, though he himself treated it with irritating nonchalance), this agent proved a zealous fellow, and ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... me once. Yet I could not but perceive that she was at times unhappy and dissatisfied with herself or her position, and truly I myself was not quite contented with the latter: this assumption of brotherly nonchalance was very hard to sustain, and I often felt myself a most confounded hypocrite with it all; I saw too, or rather I felt, that, in spite of herself, 'I was not indifferent to her,' as the novel heroes modestly express it, and while I thankfully enjoyed my present good fortune, I could not fail to wish ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... Jack," said my hero, lighting the cigar and blowing the first puff toward the ceiling, his face admirably set with nonchalance, "do you know of a family named Annesley—Colonel Annesley?" I knew it would take only a certain length of time for this question ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... think that they would not be favorably impressed with such a wholesale exhibition were each one to repeat the same performance as yourself," retorted Mr. Howe, assuming an air of nonchalance. ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... suburbs. We foot it along then, until we reach a row of cottages not far from the railway station. 'Will you knock at one of these doors,' I asked. And he, 'I do not feel like chaffering and bargaining this morning.' 'Why then did you come out,' I urged. And he, in an air of nonchalance, 'Only for the walk.' And so, we pursued our way in the Bronx, until we reached one of our favourite spots, where a sycamore tree seemed to invite us to ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... this time paying the tribute of many an admiring glance to every detail of Mr. Opp's costume, and Mr. Opp, realizing this, assumed an air of cosmopolitan nonchalance, and toyed ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... are printed in italics. Among other words which have been borrowed at various times and more or less naturalized, but which are now being driven out of the language, are the following: confrere, congee, cortege, dishabille, distrait, ensemble, fete, flair, mellay (now melee), nonchalance, provenance, renconter, &c. On the other hand, it is satisfactory to note that 'employee' appears to be taking the place ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... little during the meal, but, like the proverbial parrot, noticed much. She noticed that, though the utmost courtesy was maintained between uncle and nephew, the elder man was evidently annoyed by the persistent nonchalance of the younger; and she had a shrewd suspicion that Gervase knew as much, yet did not trouble himself to rectify it. She noticed that, while Ned was depressed, Lilias's mood was of the gayest and sweetest; and she noticed that Gervase noticed as much, and studied the lovers narrowly from his point ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... be afraid, and you will place them under so much constraint, that the enjoyment they might have permitted themselves in your society will be banished. Why, indeed, try to be amiable toward a man who is a source of anxiety to you by his nonchalance, who does not unbosom himself? Women are not at their ease except with those who take chances with them, and enter into their spirit. In a word, too much circumspection gives others a chill like that felt by a man who goes out of a warm room into a cold wind. I intended to say that habitual ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... seek to extract from such a situation all the fun it promised. Taken off her guard, for the span of ten heart-beats she sat up straight and stared; but with the eleventh her attitude relaxed. She had regained her outward nonchalance, and resolved upon her system ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... assumptions," he said between his clenched teeth. "He is a mere Spaniard. He takes this farcical conspiracy with perfect nonchalance. Decayed ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... took his leave of Genevieve with apparent nonchalance, Blake noted an exultant sparkle in the black eyes of Dolores. Yet the look was flatly contradicted by her words as she flounced about toward the door: "You needn't say good-bye, Mr. Scarbridge. You may as well stay right here, since ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... not lose his smile. He sat down. He nodded across the room to Harlan with as much nonchalance as though he had been seeing him ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... of telling this lie was very great for Mrs. Gerhardt, but she went through the falsehood with a seeming nonchalance which allayed Gerhardt's suspicions. The children were also told, and when, after the general discussion, Jennie repeated the falsehood to her father ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... in the bank parlor. The clerks had gone. Potts was in that state of dejection in which even liquor was not desirable. John showed his usual nonchalance. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... and so accurately that an entire performance often is conducted and concluded without the repetition of a single command. One by one the orders are executed with the most human-like precision and steadiness, amounting sometimes to actual nonchalance. Human beings of the highest type scarcely could do better. To some savage races—for example, the native Australians, the Veddahs of Ceylon, or the Jackoons of the Malay Peninsula, I believe that such a performance would be impossible, even under training. I do not believe their ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... upon Curly so suddenly that the roadster had no excuses ready. Irresistibly, but so composedly that it seemed almost absendmindedness on his part, the dispenser of drinks pushed Curly to the swinging doors and kicked him out, with a nonchalance that almost amounted to sadness. That was the way ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... a certain indolent nonchalance, characteristic of his correspondence with Pinkney, delayed to answer for two months, and then gave a reply as indifferent in manner as it was brief in terms. Jackson had written, "There appears to have prevailed, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... columns by division along the main road leading to Warrenton, the troops awaited the last of the grand pageants that had made the Army of the Potomac famous for reviews. Its late Commander, as he gracefully sat his bay, had not the nonchalance of manner that he manifested while reading a note and accompanying our earnest President in a former review at Sharpsburg; nor was the quiet dignity that he usually exhibited when at the head of his Staff, apparent. His manner seemed nervous, his look doubly anxious; ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... Inspector asked with affected nonchalance that bordered on insolence. 'Can you make anything that's satisfactory to you out ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... monsieur," said he, with true Eastern nonchalance where the opposite sex was concerned. "Her head and arms ache now that her bonds are removed. If Allah wills it, she should revive presently. And we cannot remain here. Whether she live or die let us ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... remained in his apartments. Breakfast over, the Rhamdas told him his part in certain ceremonies, such as need not be detailed here. They were very solicitous as to his food and comfort, and as to his feelings and anticipations. His nonchalance pleased them greatly. Afterward he had a ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... There was a world of affection in Ella's soft hazel ayes, as they looked eagerly up to Henry, who for the sake of torturing the young girl feigned not to see her until she had stood near him some minutes. Then offering her his hand he said, with the utmost nonchalance, "Why, Ella, are you here? I was watching so anxiously for your sister that I did ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... had come from Duvillard himself, and at his bidding his wife had resigned herself to all this worry for the benefit of the enterprise over which she presided with such distinguished nonchalance. On the previous day the "Globe" newspaper, inspired by its director Fonsegue, who was also the general manager of the asylum, had published a very fine article, announcing the bazaar, and pointing out how noble, and touching, and generous was ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... afterwards many times at the extraordinary nonchalance with which he faced the remainder of that terrible day. He wrote several letters, and was aware that he wrote them carefully and well. He had his usual evening bath and changed his clothes, making perhaps a little more careful toilet even ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... climb on his knee for comfits, and beg to be taken to Astley's. Mrs. Holmes wondered at his procuring a governess for the children, and asked a good deal about her, with the view of ascertaining if her brother was fixed at last; but he talked about her with perfect NONCHALANCE, saying that she was a particular favourite of an old servant of his called Peggy Walker, and that her account of Miss Melville's qualifications was perfectly satisfactory, as the result had proved. Mrs. Holmes was bewildered as to the curious social relations of Australian people, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... a state of nerves bordering on stage fright, from the time that Tommy brought home the news, a condition which Pearl did her best to relieve by assuming a nonchalance which she did not feel, regarding ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... Notwithstanding the studied nonchalance of his tone, a glance into his eyes might have shown Helen how much importance he attached to her answer. A woman is peculiarly dangerous when she is telling one man that another loves her. The masculine greed of possession is aroused by the mere thought of a possible ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... bending delicately to sweep the hearth with the brass-handled brush proper to it, remarked with an obvious affectation of nonchalance— ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... apron around me, then," he said, with the utmost nonchalance, and Helen obeyed, tying her check apron around the young man's neck, who felt her hands as they touched his hair and knew that they were brushing queer fancies into his brain, fancies which made him wonder what his mother would think of Helen, or what she ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... a clear pink. And his eyes had neither the unnatural brightness nor the unnatural dullness of the eyes about him: they were ordinarily clear eyes, of an ordinary gray. His very age was moderate: a putative thirty-six, not more. ("Not less," I would have said in those days.) He assumed no air of nonchalance. He did not deal out the cards as though they bored him, but he had no look of grim concentration. I noticed that the removal of his cigar from his mouth made never the least difference to his face, for he kept his lips pursed out as steadily as ever when ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... alternately brandishing knives, forks, pots, logs of wood, in short, whatever her hand fell upon in the course of her fury, at her poor passive help-mate, who appeared to consider the storm with a nonchalance, which evidently could only have been produced by very long experience; while he kept saying to us all the time, [6]"Soyez tranquille, Monsieur; ce n'est rien que cela." At length he commenced getting ready our supper, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... intercourse with Mrs. Marston, or as, for distinctness sake, we shall continue to call her, "Mademoiselle," since her return; and she on her part had appeared to acquiesce with a sort of scornful nonchalance, in the tacit understanding that she and her former pupil should see and hear as little as might be ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... moment the suddenness of her release left Magda swaying dizzily on her feet. Then her brain clearing, she looked across to where Dan Storran's big figure faced her. The nonchalance with which she usually met life, and with which a few moments earlier she had been prepared to face inevitable death, stood by her now. A faint, quizzical smile tilted ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... the world quite rightly set this down to a proper care for his person rather than to timidity, since on one famous occasion, riding up to find the whole field hesitating before a "rasper" (they were hunting a strange country that day), he put his horse at it and sailed over with a nonchalance relieved only by his ringing laugh on the farther side. It was odds he would clear the fence of matrimony, some day, with the same casual heartiness; and, in any case, he was masterful enough to insist on ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had cured Armand of sheepishness; and further, there came to his aid that rapid power of intuition which passion will develop at moments in the least wise among mortals, while a great man at such a time possesses it to the full. He guessed the terrible truth revealed by the Duchess's nonchalance, and his heart swelled with the storm like a ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... and lowering peace—he desired something else than power, some little touch of human sympathy perhaps, his was the blame if no heart responded to his own. Christian Vellacott sat and wondered dreamily, with the nonchalance of a man who has been at the very gates of death, if power were worth ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... door shut Arithelli sat down, hiding her face in her hands. Once she shivered involuntarily. Directly she found herself alone the mask of her assumed nonchalance had fallen suddenly. As long as there was an audience she had worn a disguise on her soul as well as her body. She had been feeling moody and depressed all day, and this last episode was the climax. ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... remove mountains. If difficulties occurred, his resource was to be still more self-confident. He was well aware of the hostility his ordonnances would create; he was well aware that the army must be their veritable support: yet observe with what a sublime air of nonchalance he prepares himself for the subjection of a people. "How many men," asked M. d'Haussez, as the ministers sat round the council-table, "can you reckon on at Paris?—have you twenty-eight or thirty thousand?" "More," said the premier; "I have forty-two ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... easy nonchalance approaching impudence, he turned to his own neglected dinner partner, Sylvia Quest, who received his tardy attentions with childish irritation. She didn't know any better. And there was now no time to patch up matters, for the signal to rise had been given and Dysart took ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... managers, irascible foremen. Fred Starratt listened like a man in a dream. When Hilmer was named he found himself shivering. These people were plotting murder now—cool, calm, passionless murder! There was something fascinating in the very nonchalance of it. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... to college I waited upon him, and then staid away four. On the sixth, Mr. Jorden asked me why I had not attended. I answered I had been sliding in Christ-Church meadow[176]. And this I said with as much nonchalance as I am now[177] talking to you. I had no notion that I was wrong or irreverent to my tutor[178]. BOSWELL: 'That, Sir, was great fortitude of mind.' JOHNSON: ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... one be chosen to carry that flag. And so every three hundred and sixty-fifth day the lean straight figure of Old Aaron marched directly under the fluttering folds of Old Glory and the soldier became a subject worthy of veneration, then with customary nonchalance the little town forgot him again or spoke of him as Old Aaron, a little lazy, a little shiftless, a little childish, and Granny Hogendobler became the more important figure of ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... them," said Sylvia, her gaze turned on the elegant nonchalance of a handsome, elderly woman ahead of her. Her mother looked at her askance, and ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the head is half-hidden by being drawn, turtle-like, into their blue-quilted shells. Like the Persians, they seem nipped and miserable in the cold; looking at them, standing about with humped backs and pinched faces this morning, I wonder, with the Chinaman's happy nonchalance about committing suicide, why they don't all seek relief within the nice warm tombs at the end of the village. Surely it can be nothing but their rampant curiosity, urging them to live on and on in the hopes of seeing something ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... day, he wore a heavy overcoat, lined with white fox fur. In his right hand—for his left still rested upon the case—he held a soft hat. With an easy nonchalance, he stood regarding the man who had sworn to kill him, and the latter made no move, uttered no word. Stark ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... South-Eastern Europe is still under the morning clouds, and they are inclined to take seriously what we in the West make fun of. However, there is one man whose presence in the Cabinet the Croats cannot be expected to regard with good-humour or with nonchalance. The reconciliation of Croatia will be much more easily effected if Mr. Pribi[vc]evi['c] resigns. His merits as a demagogue and political writer are undeniable. He would make an excellent Whip. But he prefers to be ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... the moment. The threatening aspect of the cavalcade and especially of Dario Gomez himself was too much for the nonchalance of the boy. Even the hidden weapon in his sash gave him no comfort, for these "forty thieves" were all armed ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... brought new doubts to her mind. But she could not convince herself, and when at last she went to her bed her mind was still vacillating. The next morning she met Hetta at breakfast, and with assumed nonchalance asked a question about the man who was perhaps about to be her husband. 'Do you ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... do you?" Wagner's countenance had become normal again, and with an effort at nonchalance he leaned his elbows back against the glass showcase, glancing the while down at the small man, almost patronisingly. "Well, then, for your benefit, I was merely observing that you filled the bill of what ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... masculine deportment. The chief difficulty I hardly like mentioning; and if the Obstacle had not been present, I certainly dare not have spoken of it to Nicolete. I mean that she was so shy about her pretty legs. She couldn't cross them with any successful nonchalance. ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... uneasiness crept into his replies after I had told him that Joedy had fallen out of the machine and had just escaped our rear wheels, and that the previous night we had had three earthquakes. I had never felt an earthquake before, and it will be some time before I develop the nonchalance of a seasoned Californian, whose way of referring to one is like saying, "Oh, yes, we did have a few drops of rain last night." One more little tremble and I should have gathered the family for a night ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... languid interest. Curiosity about the contents of a telegram is ordinarily acute. Victor, on the contrary, sat for a long moment staring thoughtfully at nothing and absently turning the envelope over and over in his hands; while Nogam with specious nonchalance found something unimportant to do in another ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... wheeling "half-left" and lolling lazily in his saddle with shortened leg stared back at his enemy with an expression there was no mistaking. His debonair young face had altered in an incredible fashion. Although his lips were pursed up with their whistling nonchalance his eyes had contracted beneath scowling brows into mere pin-points of steel and ice. He looked about as docile ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... head, and crossed himself, saying that it was charity:—that the Lord gave it to us. Knowing the amount of this to be that he did not sell it, but was willing to receive a present, we gave him ten or twelve reals, which he pocketed with admirable nonchalance, saying, "Dios se lo pague." Taking leave of him, we rode out to the Indians' huts. The little children were running about among the huts, stark naked, and the men were not much better; but the women had generally coarse gowns, of a sort of tow cloth. The men are employed, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... which will be explained in the sequel. I as yet suffered no bodily inconvenience, breathing with great freedom, and feeling no pain whatever in the head. The cat was lying very demurely upon my coat, which I had taken off, and eyeing the pigeons with an air of nonchalance. These latter being tied by the leg, to prevent their escape, were busily employed in picking up some grains of rice scattered for them in the bottom of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... summons with outward nonchalance but tremendous secret apprehensions, and immediately fled for advice to no less a person than ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... upstairs, opened the door of his own particular den on the right of the landing, stepped inside, closed the door, switched on the light—and Jimmie Dale's debonair nonchalance dropped from him as a mask instantly—and it was another Jimmie Dale—the ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... gushing persons, the slightly ludicrous air which attached to the modest boast of somebody that he was "the third best authority in England on gray shirtings." On the other hand, the critic of this kind will not be able to neglect the uninteresting with the serene nonchalance of some of his fellows. He will sometimes have to look back on days and months and years of laborious reading and say to himself, "Were it not well for us, as others use, to take all this for granted?" But to say ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... Marlow answered with his usual nonchalance. "In a general way it's very difficult for one to become remarkable. People won't take sufficient notice of one, don't you know. I remember Powell so well simply because as one of the Shipping Masters in the Port of London he dispatched me to sea on several long stages of my sailor's ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... Cassidy, was a combination of irresponsibility, humor, good nature, love of fighting, and nonchalance when face to face with danger. His most prominent attribute was that of always getting into trouble without any intention of so doing; in fact, he was much aggrieved and surprised when it came. It ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... generally called handsome; but there was a certain sinister expression in his eyes and mouth, which rendered the effect of his physiognomy rather disagreeable than prepossessing. At a small distance from him, and playing, with an air which, in its carelessness and nonchalance, formed a remarkable contrast to the painful anxiety of the man I have ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... intimation of the method to be pursued, I was not at all prepared to hold on, as I believe it is called, without assistance. Miss E., however, who was more observant, hooked her parasol into one of the ropes, which she subsequently caught. We were now to be taught a new lesson—the extreme nonchalance with which the officers of a Government steamer treat the passengers who have the misfortune to choose these boats instead of making the voyage on board merchant vessels. Some minutes elapsed before any notice was taken of us, or any assistance afforded in getting ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... should have been so troublesome," Miss Sharperson said, in a voice fashionably unintelligible, and with a most becoming yet intimidating nonchalance of manner. Intimidating it might have been to any man but our hero; he, who had the happy talent of catching, wherever he went, the reigning manner of the place, replied to the lady in equal strains; and she, in her turn, seemed to look ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Beneath the mask of nonchalance which he wore it might have been possible to detect excitement repressed with difficulty; and had Gray been more composed and not obsessed with the idea that Sir Lucien had deliberately intruded upon his plans for the evening, he could not have failed to perceive that Mrs. Monte Irvin was feverishly ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... nothing could have been more ordinary than his expression and his conversation. But she knew she was not wrong and she sat there, on the alert, losing not a glance, not a tone. Her limbs were trembling, she could not eat and she was astonished that Aunt Rose could nibble biscuits with such nonchalance, that Francis Sales ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... his score and went out boldly and with studied nonchalance. He reasoned that, notwithstanding the growing accuracy of the street report, he was still in no immediate danger so long as he remained in such close proximity to the bank. It was safe to assume that this was one of the things the professional "strong-arm ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde |
