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Indifference   /ɪndˈɪfərəns/  /ɪndˈɪfrəns/   Listen
Indifference

noun
1.
Unbiased impartial unconcern.
2.
Apathy demonstrated by an absence of emotional reactions.  Synonyms: emotionlessness, impassiveness, impassivity, phlegm, stolidity, unemotionality.
3.
The trait of lacking enthusiasm for or interest in things generally.  Synonyms: apathy, numbness, spiritlessness.
4.
The trait of remaining calm and seeming not to care; a casual lack of concern.  Synonyms: nonchalance, unconcern.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Indifference" Quotes from Famous Books



... press, under the title of "Forecastle Yarns," but a gentleman connected with the New York Mirror took a fancy to that title, and immediately appropriated it to himself with the most genteel indifference as to the prior right of another. In consequence, I have been obliged to adopt a new name. The "Pirate of Masafuero" was written after the above preface was prepared. "Old Cuff" has already been before the public in the columns of the first and only number of a new ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... with scrubby sage half buried in gray snowbanks, a horse whinnied inquiringly; Barney, his own red-roan, perked his ears toward the sound and sent shrill answer. In that land and at that season travelers were never so numerous as to be met with indifference, and Billy felt a slight thrill of expectation. All day—or as much of it as was left after his late sleeping and later breakfast—he had ridden without meeting a soul; now he unconsciously pressed lightly with his spurs to ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... is pierced, this isolation will pass away, and with it the indifference of foreign nations. From wheresoever they come and whithersoever they afterward go, all ships that use the canal will pass through the Caribbean. Whatever the effect produced upon the prosperity of the adjacent continent and islands by the thousand ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan

... of poverty, very imperfectly covered over by words of fiction, are very touching. It is deeply interesting, that Essay, where the rare enjoyments of a poor scholar are brought into contrast and relief with the indifference that grows upon him when his increased income enables him to acquire any objects he pleases. Those things are no longer distinguished as "enjoyments" which are not purchased by a sacrifice. "A purchase is but a ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... evening there had been hopes deferred and sickened hearts over the indifference of the public to a menu fit for a king. Were there not consomme royale, filet of sole, maitre d'hotel, poulet en casserole, pommes de terres sautes, haricots verts, and a wonderful Camembert? A savory could be inserted in an instant, and a sweet arranged ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... going on a journey. It's queer" (the sneering voice fell to a murmur), "all my prison-years I've thought of this and planned it; the doing of it seems quite the simplest part. I wonder now why I have kept behind the bars when, by a little exertion—a little indifference to opinion—I might have broadened my horizon. But good Lord! I haven't wasted time. I've studied every detail; nothing has escaped me. This" (he touched his head—a fine, almost noble head, covered by a wealth of white hair), "this has been doing double ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... that the outbuildings, although so near, loomed out only as shadows. The wind was growing almost fierce in its violence. Webb had so long kept up his pretence of reading that Amy began in her thoughts to resent his seeming indifference as cold-blooded. At last he laid down his book, and went quietly away. She followed him, for it seemed to her that something ought to be done, and that he was the one to do it. She found him in an upper chamber, standing ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... her to commit and to avow. She owned that she had once rallied Norris on his delaying his marriage, and had told him that he probably expected her when she should be a widow: she had reproved Weston, she said, for his affection to a kinswoman of hers, and his indifference towards his wife; but he told her that she had mistaken the object of his affection, for it was herself; upon which she defied him.[*] She affirmed that Smeton had never been in her chamber but twice, when he played on the harpsichord; but she acknowledged ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... just as the bread and wine are the {275} elements in the Holy Communion. Water as used in Holy Baptism signifies "cleansing," The amount of water to be used the Church has always regarded as matter of indifference. ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller

... other tribe, who still lingered on our right front, made this appear like a preconcerted attack; and two of the tribe again came forward, just as the shots were echoing along the river, to ask for fire and something to eat. Their apparent indifference to the sound of musketry was curious, and as they had not yet communicated with those to whom they were visitors, I believed they were really ignorant then of what was going on. The river extended along our front from ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... proved her surmise regarding Mr. Brown's indifference to be perfectly well founded. That young man searched for his card, found it, and sat down on the chair opposite the young woman, who already occupied her chair, and was, in fact, the first one at table. Seeing there would be no unseemly dispute about places, she began to plan in her own mind ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... in particular. His dress and his manners amused me very much. While staying with the Tyrrells one of my chief occupations had been making fun of this young man, a fact of which I believe he was blissfully unconscious. Perhaps experience had made him incredulous as to the indifference any young lady might feel to his special favour; or it might have been conceit; I will not pretend to decide which. But when he drew near me, murmuring (shall I say lisping?), "Oh, do come; pray, take pity on us—we have missed you so dreadfully," I ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland

... will of men over whom we have no check. Did they contract for us that, with folded arms, we should expect that justice and mercy from brutal and inflamed invaders which have been denied to our supplications at the foot of the throne? Were we to hear our character as a people ridiculed with indifference? Did they promise for us that our meekness and patience should be insulted; our coasts harassed, our towns demolished and plundered, and our wives and offspring exposed to nakedness, hunger, and death, without our feeling the resentment of men, and exerting those powers ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... other transactions of great antiquity, if not of doubtful credit, which, though important to our ancestors, relate to times and circumstances so different from our own, that we cannot be expected to take any great concern in them? We hear of them therefore with apparent indifference; we repeat them almost as it were by rote, assuming by turns the language of the deepest humiliation and of the warmest thankfulness, with a calm unaltered composure; and when the service of the day is ended, ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... hard was it to brook the long delay at the Porte St. Denis ere the officials deigned to look at us and our passes. However, my brother had gone through too many gates no to know that silver and an air of indifference will smooth the way, so we came through at last without our valet having ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... spoke with apparent indifference, Prescott covertly caught sight of a slight flush rising ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock

... Povy's, after I and Mr. Andrews had been with Mr. Ball and one Major Strange, who looks after the getting of money for tallys and is helping Mr. Andrews. I had much discourse with Ball, and it may be he may prove a necessary man for our turns. With Mr. Povy I spoke very freely my indifference as to my place of Treasurer, being so much troubled in it, which he took with much seeming trouble, that I should think of letting go so lightly the place, but if the place can't be held I will. So hearing that my Lord ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... brought this about most fully, and however much he might in his secret heart distrust the man himself, and doubt whether the match was really acceptable to Ida, he could not view its collapse with indifference. While they were still talking the dressing-bell rang, and ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... with an air of indifference, and turned to watch the flower withering and consuming in the fire, and Nell, with something like a sob, ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... attacks, upon British officers and men, by Ghazis. These attacks were sometimes made in broad daylight, in the streets of Candahar, where the escape of those who perpetrated them was impossible. These fanatics regarding their own life with indifference, so that they could but kill one or more of the British, before being ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... seeketh to achieve. Both of these heroes, well-skilled in encounter with the mace, are my disciples. My affection, therefore, for Bhima is equal to that for king Duryodhana. For these reasons, I shall now repair to the tirtha of the Saraswati for ablutions, for I shall not be able to behold with indifference the destruction of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... the ideas derived from Buddhism -and the curious superstitions touched upon in these sketches are little shared by the educated classes of New Japan. Except as regards his characteristic indifference toward abstract ideas in general and metaphysical speculation in particular, the Occidentalised Japanese of to-day stands almost on the intellectual plane of the cultivated Parisian or Bostonian. But he is inclined ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... zeal in your cause urged me to sacrifice everything in your interests. Every advantage was then on the side of the Countess. But now there is a different face on things; all her pride to-day, is barely strong enough to resist you. Formerly, her indifference was in her favor, and, what was worth still more, your lack of skill; to-day you have the experience, and she has her ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... see your old friends, Amedee. They will try to warm your heart at the fireside of their friendship, and to give you some of their courage, the courage of poor people which is composed of a little indifference and a ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... after the gibbering of myriad people all rattling their personalities, I am glad to be with the profound indifference of faceless trees. Their rudimentariness cannot know why we care for the things we care for. They have no faces, no minds and bowels: only deep, lustful roots stretching in earth, and vast, lissome life in air, and primeval individuality. ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... difficulties gathering around the emperor with satisfaction which he could not easily disguise. Though intensely eager to be restored to the command of the armies, he affected an air of great indifference, and when the emperor suggested his restoration, he very adroitly played the coquette. The emperor at first proposed that his son, the Archduke Ferdinand, should nominally have the command, while Wallenstein should be his ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... Buddhism also, as we shall see, sets out. The world is really nothing but an apparent world; and the true wisdom, the only salvation consists in knowing this, and in living a life in accordance with that knowledge. The wise man should regard a world which he knows to be illusion, with complete indifference; it can do nothing to him, he can do nothing for it; it affects him only with an ineradicable regret that it exists at all, and with a longing for its disappearance. The practical outcome of the state of matters which he recognises is firstly negative, ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... heavy indifference infected him; and for some time the only sound to be heard was that of his fingers drumming on the glass. When he spoke again, he seemed to be concluding an argument with himself; and indeed, on this particular day, Maurice found it hard to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... by strange faces, some looking compassionately upon us, others with indifference, as if it was a matter of very little consequence that two boys should ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston

... inquired about them? Stoic indifference? A good loser? How had he got through the customs without a lot of publicity? The Russian consul of the old regime probably; and an appraiser who was a good sport. To have come safely to his destination, and then to have lost out! The magnificent careless generosity of putting the wallet ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... life and do the great work of woman. There is much in starting right. A stumble in the start often defeats the race, while a good strike at the onset often wins the victory. There is no more alarming feature in the Girlhood of our times than its apparent indifference to the great work before it. Multitudes of girls are as thoughtless and giddy as the lambs that sport on the lea. They seem scarcely to cast a prophetic glance before. They live as though life was a theater, good for nothing but its acting. ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... at first at the air of great secrecy and wisdom on the part of the younger men. They were so heartily and foolishly suspicious. The older men, as a rule, were inscrutable. They pretended indifference, uncertainty. They were like certain fish after a certain kind of bait, however. Snap! and the opportunity was gone. Somebody else had picked up what you wanted. All had their little note-books. All had their peculiar squint of eye or position or motion which meant "Done! I take you!" Sometimes ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... of the divine advice, than one united under a single monarchy, or submitted to the rigid austerity of castes and priestcraft; and in which the inhabitants felt for political affairs all the languid indifference habitual to the subjects of a despotic government. Half a century might pass in Egypt without any political event that would send anxious thousands to the oracle; but in the wonderful ferment, activity, and restlessness of the numerous Grecian towns, every ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... insincerity of her attitude towards Champney, he had never justified his own tacit participation in it, and the concealment of his own pretensions before his possible rival. It was true that she had forbidden him to openly enter the lists with her admirers, but Champney's innocent assumption of his indifference to her and his consequent half confidences added poignancy to his story. There seemed to be only one way to extricate himself, and that was by a quarrel. Whether he did or did not believe Champney's story, whether it was only the jealous exaggeration of a rival, or ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... towards the nose, the other towards the lungs; through neither of which is any sort of food allowed to pass. But, as you may imagine, the food itself knows nothing of such spiteful restraints, and it is a matter of perfect indifference to it through which of the doors it passes. Not unlike a good many children who, though they are reasonable creatures, will push their way into places where they have been forbidden to go; and who can expect a pulpy food-ball ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... this painful bereavement were deep,—too deep for expression; but she maintained under it a calm spirit of resignation, which some might have mistaken for indifference. The writer sees her yet, as she stood for some minutes, pale and motionless, leaning on the side of the coffin, just before it was closed; and gazing in the face of the dead. There was no tear; ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... would stand no nonsense. Prosperous tradesmen would push their children into it, and even themselves. This was what had happened to Edwin in the dark past, before he had left school. Edwin had regarded the trick with indifference at first, because, except the opening half crown, his father had paid the subscriptions for him until he left school and became a wage-earner. Thereafter he had regarded it as simple ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... broadminded, wholly cynical, and absolutely fearless, she went through life exactly as though she were following a path carefully taped out for her by a suitably instructed Providence. Somewhere beneath the mask of smiling indifference she presented so bravely to a difficult world, she had a heart, but so carefully did she hide it that Horace had only discovered it on a certain grey November morning when he had started out for the first time on active service. For ever afterwards a certain weighing-machine ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine

... by this time become sufficiently acquainted with me to interest themselves in my affairs, they will not learn with indifference, that my most gracious Sovereign the Emperor has honoured me by the most condescending testimonials of his satisfaction, and that after our long separation, I had the gratification of finding my wife and children ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... the war," said Mrs. Todd with lofty indifference. "It was a cause of real distress to him. He kep' enlistin', and traveled far an' wide about here, an' even took the bo't and went to Boston to volunteer; but he ain't a sound man, an' they wouldn't have ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett

... following examples: Man has a fixed relation to pleasure and pain. In relation to pain, the true mean is found in neither fearing it nor courting it, and this is fortitude. In relation to pleasure, the true mean stands between greediness and indifference; this is temperance. The true mean between prodigality and narrowness is liberality; between simplicity and cunning is prudence; between suffering wrong and doing wrong is justice. Extending this ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... met the twins and Gladys Bailey just returning from their round of calls. One look at the strange pair, and even Gladys lost her air of blase indifference. Her eyes opened wide and she took a deep breath of interest ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore

... fact of small importance; nor the possession of a continuous tract of fine and fertile land, that connects us with the shores of the Indian ocean, and which would appear to render the Australian continent a mere extension of the Anglo-Indian empire as a matter of indifference. It would be almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of these considerations; I shall, however, abstain from occupying your time by dwelling upon what must be so obvious to all. The Colonists of New South Wales, Dr. Leichhardt, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... sentiments, her true and prevailing character, did not appear in the lines of her face. She seemed equal to anything, but might not choose to put forth her strength. You felt that a great possibility lay behind that brow, but you felt, also, that the talent that was in her might miscarry through indifference or caprice. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... I like your candor—your beauty. As for the love, excuse me for saying that is a matter of total indifference. I have no doubt, however, that it will come as soon as your feelings in favor of the young gentleman, your cousin, have lost their present fervor. That engaging young man has, at present, another mistress—Glory. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... care what she does?" replied Vassili, with indifference, although he trembled with a ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky

... Jove! I thought so. 1690! The best period." He ran his forger round the sundial's edge. "Splendid line-clean as the day they made it. You don't seem to care much about that sort of thing"; and once again, as though accustomed to the indifference of Vandals, his face regained ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... aristocratic indifference will not allow it to believe that here, as everywhere else in the world, great and fatal changes are going on all the time. These lands, for example—to whom do they belong? Nominally to the old Roman nobility, ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... Interrupting him—Indifference let it be—you have not (in my opinion at least) deserved that it should be other: if you have in your own, you have cause (at least your pride has) to hate me for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... was no revision, save in a few unimportant schedules in which the planters were not interested; but the vote on this measure showed a curious combination of the Jackson and the Clay politicians in the West and considerable indifference in New England, as the accompanying map shows. Having challenged Calhoun to do his worst, Clay now pressed upon Jackson the question of renewing the Bank charter. Under his instructions the president of the Bank, Nicholas Biddle, a ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... house. It was empty now, but no one had dared to go into it. She could show it to me, but she was sure he had had nothing to do with that liniment, if I wanted any more. After which she relapsed into indifference, or I thought so, till I showed her what little money I had in my pocket. She rose then, abruptly, and led the way out of her hut to the deserted house the Frenchwoman's son had built for ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... about President Wilson's determination to have the Covenant inserted in the Peace Treaty, even after the announcement was published to the world by the Havas Agency, and the confirmation given to pressmen by Lord Robert Cecil. The system of reticence and concealment, coupled with the indifference of this or that delegation to questions in which it happened to take no special interest, led to these unseemly ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... from this load of wretchedness triumphant over my enemies. So long and ardently did my fancy dwell on this picture, that my mind at length acquired a heroism which Socrates himself certainly never possessed. Age had benumbed his sense of pleasure, and he drank the poisonous draught with cool indifference; but I was young, inured to high hopes, yet now beholding deliverance impossible, or at an immense, a dreadful distance. Such, too, were the other sufferings of soul and body, I could not hope they might be supported ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... its simple state; it is a sad thought to feel that we despise it; that all we respect in our species is what has been created by art; the gaudy dress, the glittering equipage, or even the cultivated intellect; the mere and naked material of Nature, we eye with indifference or trample on with disdain. Poor child of toil, from the grey dawn to the setting sun, one long task!—no idea elicited—no thought awakened beyond those that suffice to make him the machine of others—the serf of the hard soil! And then too, mark how we scowl upon his scanty holidays, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the truth, an eager willingness to believe it simply, and to act upon it, that suggests the way they did in the Book of Acts. In our home-lands of America and Great Britain and Germany there seems to be either indifference, or an atmosphere of quibble and criticism. With questions and doubts naturalistic explanations are sought that do away with much of the ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon

... Darya Mihailovna motioned him to an easy chair, which stood near her lounge, and bending a little towards him began to question him about his family, his plans and intentions. Darya Mihailovna spoke carelessly and listened with an air of indifference; but it was perfectly evident to Rudin that she was laying herself out to please him, even to flatter him. It was not for nothing that she had arranged this morning interview, and had dressed so simply yet elegantly a la Madame Recamier! But ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev

... brotherly affection which is increasingly making the Southern whites and the Northern whites one people in the bonds of an indissoluble friendship and union. Non-interference is the ominous word which has cast its dark spell over the North and has turned its once warm and active sympathy into cold indifference ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke

... to look for him when I was last out,' returned Eugene with the calmest indifference; 'but I dare say he was there. Come! Be a British sportsman and enjoy the pleasures of the chase. It will ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... expected to marry her. I knew, too, that it was a suitable match in every way. But then every girl is, to some extent, accomplished, pious, virtuous, and intelligent. I believe sometimes that my apparent indifference towards Agnes arises from the fact that I respect her—if anything—too much. She seems too remote—that is the word—for the ordinary wear and tear of domesticity. Other men—who might be called impassioned lovers—would be less ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... noticed, however, that Manuel, the assistant of Diaz, had taken no part in the row. The young man had calmly proceeded with his making up without appearing to take the slightest interest in the affair. Whether or not his apparent indifference was ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... does strict state-honour ask of me?— No less than that I bare this poppling plot To the French ruler and our fiercest foe!— Maybe 'twas but a hoax to pocket pay; And yet it can mean more... The man's indifference to his own vague doom Beamed out as one exalted trait in him, And showed the altitude of his rash dream!— Well, now I'll get me on to Downing Street, There to draw up a note to Talleyrand Retailing him the facts.—What ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... well as an art of music had to be built up. It was built up, and in the process of building up noble works of art were achieved. After it was built up and men had got, so to say, a grip of music and no longer merely groped, Beethoven and Wagner went back to the freedom and indifference to rule of the first composers; and the mere fact of their having done so should show us that the rules were nothing in themselves, nothing, that is, save temporary guide-posts or landmarks which the contrapuntal men set up ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... they at all indifferent to art or decorative costume; many of them are alarmingly attached to these things. Yet the popular instinct was right. For the popular instinct was that in this movement, rightly or wrongly, there was an element of indifference to female dignity, of a quite new willingness of women to be grotesque. These women did truly despise the pontifical quality of woman. And in our streets and around our Parliament we have seen the stately woman of art and culture ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... Howard, in an interview published in the New York "Tribune" of September 14, 1898, explains the apparent indifference of General Shafter to the approach of these reinforcements as follows: "In regard to the Cubans allowing the Spanish reinforcements to enter Santiago from Manzanillo, I would say that I met General Shafter on board the Vixen, and from my conversation with him I infer that he intended ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... sincerely and tenderly attached to her. She, however, with the want of steady reflection of a young girl, as she then was, had, as is generally the case among several admirers, chosen the very worst: that is, the man who treated her with the most indifference, and who paid her the least attention, was of course, thought the most of, and she gave her hand ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... his England. It passed the heavy time till dinner—a most unappetizing meal served to the boys and a few invalids in a corner of a barrack-room. But that he had written to Mahbub Ali, Kim would have been almost depressed. The indifference of native crowds he was used to; but this strong loneliness among white men preyed on him. He was grateful when, in the course of the afternoon, a big soldier took him over to Father Victor, who lived in another wing across another dusty parade-ground. The priest ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... communicate to anybody his more cherished opinions, unless they fall in exactly with the stream. Added to which, I think there is in these times less than there ever was of a proselytising spirit; and people are content to keep their opinions to themselves—more perhaps from indifference ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps

... said to have an indifference for money, he yet estimated it as a thing worth infinitely less than character; and every penny that he earned was honestly come by. He had no wife, *[8] nor family, nor near relations to provide for,—only himself in his old age. Not being thought ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... blanket. As they all did, he slept in most of his clothes. He pulled on his moccasins. The other four watched him with ill-concealed excitement. The contrast between his sleepy indifference and their parted lips and anxious eyes ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... beaten enemies were resolute enough, accepting defeat with grim carelessness, or with sphinx-like indifference, or even with airy jocularity. But for the most part their alert, eager deference, their tame subservience, the abject humility and debasement of their bent shoulders drove Jadwin to the verge of self-control. He grew to detest the business; he regretted even ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... Machias. Never in their history did the Maliseets receive such attention as in the Revolutionary war, when they may be said to have lived at the joint expense of the contending parties. The peace of 1783 proved a dismal thing indeed to them. Their friendship became a matter of comparative indifference and the supplies from either party ceased while the immense influx of new settlers drove them from their old hunting grounds and obliged them to ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... cloak-presser in a hired dress suit, sits alone and ill at ease at one end of the hall, sipping whiskey with a fine air of indifference, but glancing apprehensively toward the crowd of women in the opposite corner that surround the bride, a pale little shop-girl with a pleading, winsome face. From somewhere unexpectedly appears a big man in an ill-fitting coat and skullcap, flanked on either ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... Michaels he suffered a severe hemorrhage. For the first time in his life Laughing Bill stood face to face with darkness. He had fevered memories of going over side on a stretcher; he was dimly aware of an appalling weakness, which grew hourly, then an agreeable indifference enveloped him, and for a long time he lived in a land of unrealities, of dreams. The day came when he began to wonder dully how and why he found himself in a freezing cabin with Doctor Thomas, in fur cap and arctic overshoes, tending him. Bill pondered the ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... case wider than ever. In short, it was the will of the nation that caused Frere to be arrested midway in the accomplishment of his task, and gave a mandate in 1880 to the Liberal party to administer South Africa upon the lines of a policy shaped in contemptuous indifference of the profoundest convictions and most solemn warnings of a great proconsul and most loyal servant ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... beginning of February, and on the 14th, Thirlby and Bonner went down to finish the work at Oxford. The court sat this time in Christ Church Cathedral. Cranmer was brought to the bar, and the papal sentence was read. The preamble declared that the cause had been heard with indifference, that the accused had been defended by an advocate, that witnesses had been examined for him, that he had been allowed every opportunity to answer for himself. "O Lord," he exclaimed, "what lies be these! that I, being in prison and never suffered to have ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... here?" The voice cries to us when we linger in the neighbourhood of any sin, or when we waste our opportunities in some form of idleness, or when we stand by in cold or timid indifference, refusing help or consolation to any soul which seems ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival

... rendering his familiarity exceedingly disagreeable. That he should present himself at such an untimely hour was strange, beyond Marston's comprehension. It was, indeed, most inopportune; but knowing him, he feared him. He could not treat him with indifference,—there was his connection with Graspum, his power over the poor servile whites; he must be courteous-so, summoning his suavity, he orders Dandy to ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... death. He looked with strained eyes into the darkness, and it seemed to him that through the thousand miles of that mist he could see home, could see his native province, his district, Progonnaya, could see the darkness, the savagery, the heartlessness, and the dull, sullen, animal indifference of the men he had left there. His eyes were dimmed with tears; but still he gazed into the distance where the pale lights of the steamer faintly gleamed, and his heart ached with yearning for home, and he longed to live, to go back ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... character and customs of the people. Some are employed in inspection and others as professors, and the latter especially are apt to lose heart when they realize the thanklessness of their task and their social isolation. In some cases indifference is the worst result, but in others—happily rare—they themselves, I am assured, catch the surrounding contagion of discontent, and their influence tends rather to promote than to counteract the estrangement of the rising generation committed to their charge. Some men, no doubt, ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... the complete indifference of a person not afflicted with a sensitive skin. "You will get over that in an hour or two. If you don't think about it you won't notice anything. Try them on at once. I want ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... unless away from home. These were the cows that milked hardest of all; for his journey-milkmen being more or less casually hired, he would not entrust this half-dozen to their treatment, lest, from indifference, they should not milk them fully; nor to the maids, lest they should fail in the same way for lack of finger-grip; with the result that in course of time the cows would "go azew"—that is, dry up. It was not the loss for the moment that made ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... sorry that he should undertake for me to his own disadvantage, or that my volume should be in any degree prest upon him. I make him the offer merely because I think he would have reason to complain of me if I did not." But that punctilio once satisfied, it is a matter of indifference to me what ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... still on the boy's lips as he looked into the convulsed face of Braddock. The power to dodge the blow aimed at his face had gone with his wits. He only knew that Christine's father was striking; he could only wait, with hazy indifference, for the ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... wrong; he musters up courage to lift it—it is a mere song, not much more than a frasilah. "Come," he will say, "close, man, take the money and go thy way. Art thou mad?" If the native hesitates, he will scream in a fury; he pushes him about, spurns the ivory with contemptuous indifference,—never was such ado about nothing; but though he tells the astounded native to be up and going, he never intends the ivory shall ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... malicious glance at old Douglas. Then with an assumed indifference, and shrug of his shoulders as he started to walk ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... the voice of Savonarola at the close of the period uttering his lamentations. The great Italian reformer saw and felt that in his own day and in his own country the glory and beauty of the movement had vanished in sensuality; that hardness of heart and indifference to primary human needs had diverted the waters of the Renaissance from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... home fatigued him greatly. When home I told him I thought he looked ill. 'Yes,' said he,' I suffer greatly from my foot; it can hardly be conceived how much I suffer at times from that pain,' and he continued to speak to me about this defect with great simplicity and indifference." ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... house, there is room for much improvement in the treatment and furnishing of servants' bedrooms; and this is not always from indifference, but because they are out of daily sight, and also from a belief that it would add seriously to the burden of housekeeping to see that they are kept up to the standard ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler

... man on whom she looked with indifference, but wed him she must; it was written. A toy of ambition, she was neither more nor less. Ah, to be as her maids, not royal, but free. Of the three new faces one belonged to the man whom she was to wed; another was a tall, light-haired ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... see more and more people in old garments which had not originally belonged to them, and in still stranger foot-gear, people with a peculiar, unhealthy hue of countenance, and especially with a singular indifference to every thing around them, which was peculiar to them all. A man in the strangest of all possible attire, which was utterly unlike any thing else, walked along with perfect unconcern, evidently without a thought of the appearance which he must present to the eyes of others. All these people were ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... him a great man," said Mary, but still with that note of complete personal indifference in her voice. "He not only has immense brain power and personality, but farsight and a thorough understanding of the people, and sympathy with them. Even the Social-Democrats liked and trusted him. And he has more than the ordinary politician's astuteness ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... difficult to stir, he had in the main just talked with them by the way and gone on forgetfully: and when any one had turned and walked a little of his road beside him, she had brought to him no thought that here might be a companion for all the way. His indifference roused Michel to repeat, and this time unmistakably, the ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason

... characteristic qualities of the Malays is their contempt of death. They have transmitted it with their blood to the Polynesians, who see in it only one of the multiple phenomena and not the supreme act of existence, and witness it or submit to it with profound indifference. Travellers have often seen a Canaque stretch his body on a mat, while in perfect health, and without any symptom of disease whatever, and there wait patiently for the end, convinced that it is near, and refuse all nourishment and die without any apparent suffering. ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... while his sister instinctively pressed close to him, gratefully. After the symphony he applauded loudly by way of protest against the ironic indifference of the rest of the audience. When it came to the great fiasco, he was beside himself: he stood up, shouted that Christophe was right, abused the booers, and offered to fight them: it was impossible to recognize the timid Olivier. His voice was drowned in the uproar: he was told to shut ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... can't do things like that," she said with gentle indifference, her eyes wandering off in search ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston

... partial destruction by an unrestrained mob of one of the school buildings of Anatolia College, established by citizens of the United States at Marsovan, and the apparent indifference of the Turkish Government to the outrage, notwithstanding the complicity of some of its officials, called for earnest remonstrance, which was followed by promise of reparation and punishment ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland

... between occult science and those who would know more of it, without making any distinction between the simply curious profane, and the earnest, ardent seeker after truth. Wrong and unjust are those who think so; who attribute to indifference for other people's welfare a policy necessitated, on the contrary, by a far-seeing universal philanthropy; who accuse the custodians of lofty physical and spiritual though long rejected truths, of holding them high above ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... the same caprices of jestings and conceits; the same comminglings of mirth and melancholy; the same many-sided conception of existence; the same embracing catholicity of tastes and tendencies; the same indifference to sects and factions; the same freedom from jealousies, asperities, and spites; and in the lower scale of his genius, he resembled the mighty dramatist in subtile perception of life and Nature, in his mental and moral independence, and in his intuitive divinations ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... are legitimately ranked as second-rate. Among such, Clementi holds high place. Beethoven over-shadowed the Italian composer; but the harsh judgment expressed by Mozart[77] has contributed not a little, we imagine, to the indifference now shown to the Clementi sonatas.[78] The judgment was a severe one; but Otto Jahn relates how Clementi told his pupil Berger that, "at the period of which Mozart writes, he devoted his attention to brilliant ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock

... indifference to transatlantic facts could not always be met in a laughing mood. It was too serious, too unfortunate, too obstinately persisted in to excite only ridicule. It was deplorable, upon the very verge of war, and incredible too, after all the warnings that had been had, that there should ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... from long acclimatization, the Portuguese might almost count as African. This man of a superior race came and set himself up in authority over them, in defiance of all precedent, law, everything; and they submitted with dull indifference. The sweets of freedom are not always appreciated by those who have known the easy luxury of ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... the Presidency of Mr. Archdeacon, and which had been much talked of in 1899 at the time of the Auteuil manifestation, when President Loubet was hit with a stick by Baron Christiani, passed off amidst complete indifference. No disturbance of any kind occurred on the ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot

... decide by this rule whether actions are morally good or evil. Thus, people say: "If everyone permitted himself to deceive, when he thought it to his advantage; or thought himself justified in shortening his life as soon as he was thoroughly weary of it; or looked with perfect indifference on the necessity of others; and if you belonged to such an order of things, would you do so with the assent of your own will?" Now everyone knows well that if he secretly allows himself to deceive, it does not follow that everyone else does so; or if, unobserved, ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant

... Thomas, too, feigned indifference to the rat! tat! tat! of heels. He bent above the table attentively. And to Gwendolyn was wafted down a ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... his best parts, perhaps because in them his beautiful diction had full scope and his limitations were not noticeable. But it is more as a stage reformer than as an actor that he will be remembered. The old happy-go-lucky way of staging plays, with its sublime indifference to correctness of detail and its utter disregard of archaeology, had received its first blow from Kemble and Macready, but Charles Kean gave it much harder knocks and went further than either of them ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... particular," rejoined Peggy, with assumed indifference, "except that we've just solved the problem of what to do with the ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham

... one great point that all mothers should observe and that is not to punish children when reasoning would bring the same results. For needless correction blunts a child's sensitiveness. To state that it brutalizes him is putting it too positively, but it tends to develop indifference and hardness that one does not ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... what you mean, Middleton," the lawyer asked, with ill-assumed indifference, "when you spoke of the howling of ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and as he seemed inclined to listen, Margaret continued talking to him kindly but gravely, bringing many things before his mind as duties which he had hitherto considered to be matters of indifference. But Margaret would not allow any thing to be a trifle in which one person could give pain or pleasure, trouble or relief, annoyance or comfort to another, or by which any one's own mind or habits could ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown

... another, as a matter quite within its own control. This consequence was foreseen by the writer, and foretold, in a letter that was written in 1832, and published as far back as the year 1833. It was only necessary to be on the spot, and to witness the contempt and indifference engendered by this miserable policy, to predict the events which have since occurred. The accidental situation of Europe has favoured us, and we owe the tardy reparation that has been received more ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the outspoken candor of the President. Reticence had no place there. Every one in America saw that, whether Russia or Japan were victim, one of the decisive struggles in American history was pending, and any presence of secrecy or indifference was absurd. Interest was acute, and curiosity intense, for no one knew what the Russian Government meant or wanted, while war had become a question of days. To an impartial student who gravely doubted whether the Czar himself acted as a conscious force or an inert weight, the straight-forward ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... sometimes accused of not sufficiently realizing the importance of a frank expression of the whole truth about things; the man of science, whose duty it seems to be to peer into the mysteries of the universe, and to tell what he sees or what he guesses, is accused of an indifference to the effect which his utterances may have upon the less enlightened who hear him speak; many criticise the lawyer for a devotion to the interests of his client which is at times in doubtful harmony with the interests of justice in the larger ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... close cropped thick brown hair displays a well shaped head, the forehead is broad and full, the eyes large, dark gray, and capable of almost any expression; usually they look out from his handsome face with a half contemptuous indifference to all things, that leads one to fancy those eyes may have a history; this may or may not be the case. Doctor Heath came to W—— less than a year ago, armed with a personal certificate of merit from the first ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... Tiberius, ever keeps such strict fast upon the Sabbath [228], as I have to-day; for while in the bath, and after the first hour of the night, I only ate two biscuits, before I began to be rubbed with oil." From this great indifference about his diet, he sometimes supped by himself, before his company began, or after they had finished, and would not touch a morsel at ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... against the wall and half closed his eyes. His manner expressed the utmost indifference. Alvarez frowned, but he remembered that they were wholly in his ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... "Too much sleep stupefies a fellow!" Friedrich Wilhelm was wont to say;—so that the very doctors had to interfere, in this matter, for little Fritz. Frugal enough, hardy enough; urged in every way to look with indifference on hardship, and take a ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... passed, and into others still before him, so that his progress down the town was to run a gauntlet of jeers. But he paid no heed; he was of that gifted nature that at times can treat the most bitter insults with indifference, and his mind was taken up with ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... wasted features of her youngest girl, a child eleven years old, sinking in death. 'God knows she'll be better in heaven, and herself won't be long out of it,' Mrs. McCarty twice repeated, maintaining a singular indifference to the hand of death, already upon the child. The gentleman left some money to buy candles for poor English, and with Mr. Fitzgerald took ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... Union, when threatened with its loss. 'Blessings brighten as they take their flight.' Benefit's daily enjoyed, with hardly a care or effort on our part, are not prized as they should be. When, however, we are threatened with their loss, we awaken from indifference. A new sense of their value springs up, and a severe contest for their preservation stamps their true worth indelibly on the heart. Threaten to cut off the air a man breathes, the food and drink that sustains him, and you rouse all his energies into new ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... a neat show aloft!" he said, as his understanding eye scanned the rigging of the royal cruiser, taking the tiller at the same time, with all his former indifference, from the hands of the schipper. "Her Majesty should have good service from such a racer, and no doubt the youth in her rigging is a man to get most out of his craft. We'll take another observation. Draw away your ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... with consequent tendency to hasty generalisation and undue neglect of deep-seated instincts and intuitions. The discovery of some new cosmic law may change the whole face of nature, and set in a new light its apparent remoteness or indifference. Again, as has just been shown, natural phenomena are in definite relationship to human reason. They are comprehensible— therefore not alien. By their aid we can organise our conduct, and even our ideals—therefore they are factors in our self-realisation. Thus, underlying their ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... fierce desire of triumph mingling, it must be confessed, with his love and admiration, and heightened by them; for now pride was touched, and some other feeling which he did not analyse. He had nobody to be jealous of, that he knew; unless it were Eleanor herself; yet her indifference piqued him. He could not brook to be baffled. He shewed not a symptom of all this; but every line of her fine figure, every fold of her rich, beautiful hair, every self-possessed movement, at times was torment to ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... with such an air of renunciation and apparent indifference, prompted Smith to speak on—perhaps with a little complacency—of his old secret engagement to Elfride. He told the details of its origin, and the peremptory words and actions of her father to ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... is complete. The physical object is the butterfly; on its wings the tale moves, and perishes in its destruction. The moral idea lies in the exposition of achievement as a freeing of the artist's soul so that his work has become a thing of indifference to him, let its fortunes be what they will,—it is the dead chrysalis from which he has escaped; and the isolation of the artist's life is set forth pathetically but with no suggestion of evil in it, for though the world has rejected him he lives in his own world in the ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... the survey, taxes; the bastinado, the corvee—Administration of justice, the relations between peasants and their lords; misery of the peasantry; their resignation and natural cheerfulness; their improvidence; their indifference ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... phenomena of America has always been the indifference of the German to active participation in politics. Efforts to persuade him to organize with any political party have never succeeded except in isolated cases. The German-American has been regarded as ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... became corrupted by the lust of dominion and power, and with great force ruled the Christian world in times of ignorance and superstition. It is sad to think that the decline of sacerdotalism is associated with the growth of infidelity and religious indifference, showing how few worship God in spirit and in truth even in Christian countries. Yet even that reaction is humanly natural; and as it so surely follows upon epochs of priestcraft, it may be a part of the divine process of arousing men to the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... people were inclined to look coldly on the new- comers, but it was impossible to keep up an unfriendly attitude towards Mr and Mrs Chester. They were utterly free from affectation, and, so far from apeing that indifference to wealth adopted by most nouveaux riches, were so frankly, transparently enchanted with their new possessions that they were more like a couple of children with a new toy than a steady-going, middle-aged couple. They won first respect, and then affection, and were felt to be a decided ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... cross?" inquired I, in a tone meant to be tenderly reproachful,—in the mean time attempting to possess myself of her hand; for, to be honest, Polder, I had been a little sweet to the girl before Kate drove her out of my head. The hand was snatched away. I tried indifference. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... between a foreign invasion and a civil war. Then all the people were in the same fright, but now the panic was confined to the well-to-do families and those conscious of being considered friendly to the courts. The poorer people looked on their agitation with indifference, while some ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... endured, and dangers incurred, every thing which the public had to bestow was sold at Carthage, and every service rendered by individuals was paid by the state. The tyranny of a prince does not bring a despotic state nearer its ruin than indifference to the public good does a republic. The advantage of a free state consists in this, that its revenues are in general better administered; and even where this is not the case, it has at first the advantage of not being governed by court favourites. But, on the other hand, the corrupting power ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... imposing troop of worldly grandeur is now remembered but with indifference or contempt? If I except Gustavus Adolphus, it is because he revealed a superior character. Confront the Mayflower and the Pilgrims with the potentates who occupied such space in the world. The former are ascending ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... other, the little boy could see it all plainly. One glory eclipsed another; yet there was one picture that fixed itself on the little boy's memory, more especially because of the happy children it represented, for these the little boy had seen in daylight. Many pass this picture by with indifference, and yet it contains a treasure of poetic feeling; it represents Christ descending into Hades. They are not the lost whom the spectator sees, but the heathen of olden times. The Florentine, Angiolo Bronzino, painted this picture; most beautiful is the expression ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... arms to embrace and hold them fast, or as vainly seek to intrench ourselves by thoughts of this world against their visitation? The soul in its sickness knows not whether it be the duty of love to resign itself to indifference or to despair. Shall it enjoy life, they being dead! Shall we the survivors, for yet a little while, walk in other companionship out into the day, and let the sunbeams settle on their heads as they used to do, or cover them with dust and ashes, and show to those in ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... exalting its kings into demi-gods, nor its saints into archangels, but giving what kingliness and sanctity was in them, to the full, mixed with due record of their faults; and this in the most part with a great indifference like that of Scripture history, which sets down, with unmoved and unexcusing resoluteness, the virtues and errors of all men of whom it speaks, often leaving the reader to form his own estimate of them, without an indication of the judgment ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... the Guerriere is taken from the Constitution's muster-book (in the Treasury Department at Washington), which contains the names of all the British prisoners received aboard the Constitution after the fight. The various writers used "larboard" and "starboard" with such perfect indifference, in speaking of the closing and the loss of the Guerriere's mizzen-mast, that I hardly knew which account to adopt; it finally seemed to me that the only way to reconcile the conflicting statements was by making the mast act as a rudder, first ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... peculiar wilfulness—the unkind called it wrong-headedness—which flecked and veined Mr. Ruskin's genius, had, owing to his wealth and to his entire indifference to any but his own opinion, opportunities of displaying itself in all his work, public as well as private, which are not common. Naturally, it showed itself nowhere more than in letters, and perhaps not unnaturally he often adopted the epistolary form in books which, had he chosen, might as well ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... years, so learning to speak the language of the country, while keeping his master's sheep by the Mountain of Slieve Miss. Thoughts of home and of its Christian life made the youth feel the heathenism that was about him; his exile seemed to him a punishment for boyish indifference; and during the years when young enthusiasm looks out upon life with new sense of a man's power—growing for man's work that is to do—Succath became filled ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... naturally a strong endowment of religious feeling. At no period of his life, as is well known to his friends, have the sacred relations of the human soul been a matter of indifference with him; and, of more recent years, whatever circumstances of good or evil fortune may have befallen him, they have alike served to deepen this powerful sentiment. Whether in sorrow or success, he has learned, in his own behalf, the ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Slatees agreed to remain in their present quarters, until the fast moon was over. And here I may remark, that loss of time is an object of no great importance in the eyes of a Negro. If he has any thing of consequence to perform, it is a matter of indifference to him whether he does it to-day or to-morrow, or a month or two hence; so long as he can spend the present moment with any degree of comfort, he gives himself very ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... her state of some months before, had measureably more to relinquish. He easily saw how their meeting at Lancaster Gate gave more of an accent to that quantity than their meeting at stations or in parks; and yet on the other hand he couldn't urge this against it. If Mrs. Lowder was indifferent her indifference added in a manner to what Kate's taking him as he was would call on her to sacrifice. Such in fine was her art with him that she seemed to put the question of their still waiting into quite other terms than the terms of ugly blue, of florid Sevres, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... a state of prostration. He is roused from his condition of indifference with difficulty, but answers questions intelligently, if only in a whisper. The face is pale, beads of sweat stand out on the brow, the features are drawn, the eyes sunken, and the cheeks hollow. The lips and ears are pallid; the skin of the body of a greyish colour, cold, and clammy. The pulse ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... a few hours to live,—let me spend them in atonement and in prayer, less for myself than thee. Thou knowest not how madly I adored thee; and how thy hatred or indifference stung every passion into torture. Let this pass. When I saw thee again—the forsaker of thy faith—poor, obscure, and doomed to a peasant's lot—daring hopes shaped themselves into fierce resolves. ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... towards the poacher. He was quietly plucking the top off a fresh turnip, but under the air of icy indifference which pervaded his whole exterior I detected a sarcastic smile, which fully convinced me that I was the laughing-stock of man and beast. I took my resolution, and Pere Seguin, who had followed my movements with his eye, ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... his journeyings among the then unspoilt valleys and mountains of Switzerland as the warm, greasy, indigestible fare of the elaborate table-d'hotes at Lucerne and Interlaken serve us now. But we, in our "superior" condition, pooh-pooh the Byronic spirit of indifference to events and scorn of trifles,—we say it is "melodramatic," completely forgetting that our attitude towards ourselves and things in general is one of most pitiable bathos. We cannot write Childe Harold, but we can grumble at both bed and board in every hotel under the sun; we can ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... a prime favorite with the authors of the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and Childe Harold, is recorded by his biographer—his own son—to have exhibited "a remarkable indifference to all the proper objects of taste;" to have had "no real love for painting, or music, or architecture or for what a painter's eye considers as the beauties of landscape." "In botany, grasses, the most useful but the least ornamental, were his ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... Queen said in excuse for the indifference of her son, the stronger was the purpose that grew up in the heart of the daughter, while fresh commissioners arrived every day, and further conversations were held with the Queen. Lord Shrewsbury was known to be summoned, and Cicely spent half her time in watching for some well-known ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... woman in the sorest need of all that kindness and consideration could offer, and to leave her as helpless as he had found her, would have been an act of brutal indifference revolting to any man possessed of even ordinary sensibility. The Captain had only followed his natural impulses, and had only said and done what, in nearly similar cases, he had said and done on ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins



Words linked to "Indifference" :   withdrawal, distance, passiveness, unemotionality, phlegm, aloofness, carefreeness, passivity, spiritlessness, detachment, indifferent, nonchalance



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