"Nonchalance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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, ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... was in her nature. Neither her grandfather nor her mother had in the least comprehended her during the few months she had lived with them. A certain gentleness of nature, which was far more physical than mental, far more an idle nonchalance than recognition of relations to others, had blinded them to her real capriciousness and selfishness. They rarely interfered with her, or observed her with any discrimination. Their love was content with ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... was the conflict in him that his outward nonchalance gradually gave way. As dinner drew to its close, his conversation with the wife of the Oriel don flagged and halted. He sank, at length, into a deep silence. He sat with downcast eyes, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... body dancing. An accompanying piece, however, was lacking to this little deity so full of spring and vigor, and that piece has been exhumed by recent excavations, in quite an humble tenement. It represents a delicate youth, full of nonchalance and grace, a Narcissus hearkening to the musical echo in the distance. His head leans over, his ear is stretched to listen, his finger is turned in the direction whence he hears the sound—his whole body listens. Placed near each other ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... he 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 ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... young, thronged the footpath leading from the stiles to the tent. A few were smoking; all were waiting for the pretty girls to come forth from the Christian camp. Fran pushed her way among the idlers with admirable nonchalance, her sharp elbow ready for the first resistive ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... question was put. Gashed, bleeding, strung up by his thumbs to the crossbeam; every blow of the extemporized whips extorting from him a howl of agony; no rescue at hand; Lysander looking on with a merciless smile; the brothers doing their assigned work with merciless nonchalance; well might poor Toby cry out, in the ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... left. All three looked so miserable, so ashy-grey and worn out, that never did human greatness appear to me so little worth.... In spite of his feebleness, George IV. read his banale speech with great dignity and a fine voice, but with that royal nonchalance which does not concern itself with what his Majesty promises, or whether he is sometimes unable to decipher a word. It was very evident that the monarch was heartily glad when ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... Westray's nonchalance had been in part assumed. He was anxious to show that he, at any rate, could rise superior to artificial distinctions of rank, and was no more to be impressed by peers than peasants. He kept up this philosophic indifference ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... answered Jake with great nonchalance, apparently giving but little thought to the little craft whose broken timbers were now floating away, ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... From the nonchalance of this question it will be seen that Sally herself thought nothing of the fact that items concerning her garden should have seemed of sufficient importance to go into the letters of a brother whose time was ordinarily occupied with affairs ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... do that In her father's house, she desired us to arrange a meeting on the neutral ground of the Legation. On the day fixed they met here In the afternoon. I remained out of the salon, and only returned when the tea-table was brought in. The President partook of his tea with graceful nonchalance. ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... half," from the man below, a tall, lean fellow, casting the sounding-pole. With a rhythmic nonchalance he plants the long black and white staff at the ship's side, draws it up dripping, plunges it down again, draws it up, and sends it down hour after hour. He never seems to tire; he never seems to see anything but the water-mark, never to say anything but what he is chanting now, "Twelve and ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... well as men, commit nuisances of a kind I need not particularize but which seemed to excite neither wonder nor disgust in the by-passers. Indeed I saw they were quite accustomed to such sights, and their nonchalance was only equaled by that of the well-dressed gentlemen who were the guilty parties. I very soon learned more of Paris, and found that not in this matter alone were its citizens deficient in refinement, but ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... 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 ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... to him, apparently rising from the earth rather than falling towards it. Instead of running away, like a practical man, the intrepid doctor held his ground quietly and observed the fiery monster with scientific nonchalance. After continuing its course for some time in a peaceful and regular fashion, however, without attempting to assault him, it finally darted off at a tangent in another direction, and turned apparently into forked ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... smile. He sat down. He nodded across the room to Harlan with as much nonchalance as though he had ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... accomplished at the instigation of the French was highly resented. And all the mortification of the French contempt for Greece was vented upon him. Although Greece won such a goodly share of the booty of the war, she was treated throughout the war with a brutal nonchalance. Venizelos had much respect, but Greece had none. A comparison is often made between the machinations of the Allies in Petrograd in 1917 for the deposing of the Tsar, and the intrigues which forced Constantine to flee. Venizelos nevertheless was one of the cleverest statesmen of Europe—granted ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... snatching them away from his lips. At this critical moment I appeared around the corner considerably out of breath, my heart beating like a watchman's rattle. I tried to feign nonchalance. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... huge suite of offices of President Mallowe of the Street Railways, a very curious scene took place. The stolid watchman who had been on uneventful duty there for twenty years had made his rounds for the last time. With superb nonchalance, he settled himself for his accustomed nap in his employer's chair. From the stillness and gloom of the semi-deserted office-building two stealthy figures descended swiftly upon him, their feet sinking noiselessly into the rich pile of the rugs. A short, silent struggle, ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... style in which this hereditary song of the French camp was given by "Colonel Alexandre Jules Caesar" of the "brave battalion of the Marais," his capitally awkward imitation of the soldier of the old regime, and his superb affectation of military nonchalance, were so admirable, that his song excited actual raptures of applause. His performance was encored, and he was surrounded by a group of nymphs and graces, among whom his towering figure looked like a grenadier of Brobdignag in the circle ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... certainly brought himself to the point, but he seemed actually further from it than at first, and he made a desperate plunge, trying at the same time to keep something of his habitual nonchalance. "But that doesn't account for my being here. Imogene accounts for that. She has allowed me to stay ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... you, though," said Vernon, with a nonchalance which provoked Maxwell, whose temper was not ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... 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 one is so burdened at times by the all-surrounding and overwhelming mystery ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... strange persistence in running down all the words of a given class before launching out upon a new series. Occasionally, too, an intelligent subject wastes time in thinking up a beautiful list of big or unusual words. As stated by Bobertag, success is favored by a certain amount of "intellectual nonchalance," a willingness to ignore sense and a readiness to break away from a train of associations as soon as the "point of diminishing returns" has been reached. This doubtless explains why adults sometimes make such a surprisingly poor ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... critique francais, nous a raconte dans un de ses livres l'anecdote suivante, qui donne une impression frappante de l'independance et de la nonchalance d'un hotelier espagnol. La scene se ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Sheba, notwithstanding her natural assurance, was disconcerted by the composure of Miss Gray's manner, and left the room, apparently in displeasure. Menie turned back to the door which opened into the garden, and said in the same manner as before, but with less nonchalance,— ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... trappings, pushed a button, and the world was illumined. There were years of unremitting toil behind this achievement, years of discouragement bordering on despair, but years in which the light of hope was kept burning. We accept his gift with the very acme of nonchalance and with little or no feeling of gratitude. Perhaps he would not have it otherwise. We do not know. But certain it is that his marvelous achievement has made life more agreeable to millions of people and he must be conscious of this fact. At some time in his life he must ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... can make even a uniform distinctive and striking and altogether costly. In short they went into the war with the same superficial flightiness formerly employed in the social realms. They went dashing here and there in their high-power cars on solemn errands, with all the nonchalance of their ignorance and youth, till one, knowing some of them well, trembled for the errand if it were important. And many of them were really useful, which only goes to prove that a tremendous amount of unsuspected power is wasted every year and that unskilled labor often accomplishes almost ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... keen shaft of irony, father and son allowed this 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, ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... of Harold Hervey, Bentley found himself unable to walk slowly, with the air of nonchalance, which the other police officers wore ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... that night, his face wore a look of satisfaction very imperfectly concealed beneath a mask of nonchalance. ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... of nonchalance, replied to the effect that Dr. Sampson was not her offspring, and so she was not bound to correct his eccentricities. "And I suppose," said she, languidly, "we must accept these extraordinary people as we find them. But that is no reason why ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... surrender all the former Church property which had been stolen, which meant that the ownership of seven-tenths of the entire soil of England would have changed hands; the horror of the trading and industrial middle class at Catholicism, which by no means suited its commerce; the nonchalance with which the Stuarts had sold, for their own advantage and that of the Court nobility, the whole of English industry and commerce, that is, had sold their own country, to the Government of France, which was then maintaining a very dangerous, ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... departing back. She felt a great need of help in this crisis, and Fairy's nonchalance was sometimes very soothing. Aunt Grace was a darling, of course, but she had long ago disclaimed all responsibility for the rearing ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... communication" by which, through painful delays, the immense 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 times proposed. They wronged ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... Durkin, with assumed nonchalance, walked quietly away. She waited to turn the key in the door, and withdrew it from the lock. Then she followed her husband down the corridor, and a minute or two later rejoined him in the fragrant and balmy midnight ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... glow of simple, friendly intercourse into the romantic lights of the poetic, historic, or tragic past. There were splendid Catholic processions and ceremonials that seemed organized as a part of the stage scenery that ensconced itself, also, with the nonchalance of easy possession, in the vast salons of historic palaces where tapestried walls and richly painted ceilings, arched high overhead, with statues dimly seen in niches here and there, and the bust of some crowned Antoninus, or radiant Juno, gleaming from a shadowy corner, ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... was 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 clue ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all said with a sort of nonchalance, which Corny did not at all like. But Mademoiselle, who was summoned to Corny's private council, gave it as her opinion, that M. de Connal was already quite in love—quite as much as a French husband ever was. She was glad that her brother-in-law ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... 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 so much worried by what explanation she could give as to ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... generally on these occasions that under the great carriage gateway Lady Ded—I mean Madame Delestang—catching sight of my raised hat, would beckon me with an amiable imperiousness to the side of the carriage, and suggest with an air of amused nonchalance, "Venez donc faire un tour avec nous," to which the husband would add an encouraging "C'est ca. Allons, montez, jeune homme." He questioned me some times, significantly but with perfect tact and delicacy, as to the way I employed my time, and never failed to express the ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... there silent, with no one at hand but the owner of the shop, who was busy upon the keel of a new boat, a fisherman came in and took a seat, with an affectation of ease and nonchalance; in a moment another followed; two or three more came ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... 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
... loads, plunged again into a forest path, walking single file, a tatterdemalion crew. And yet a philosophic observer might have caught a certain nonchalance, a faint superiority of bearing on the part of these scarecrows; ridiculous when considered against the overwhelming numbers, the military spruceness, the savage formidability of the wild hordes that surrounded them. And if he had been an experienced ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... ran his forefinger dexterously around the inside of a jelly glass and licked the finger with the nonchalance of a two-year-old. "Hunh. Got heap big gol' mine, me. No can go ketchum two year, mebby. I dunno. Feet no damn good for walk. Back no damn good for ride. No ketchum ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... girl in a trig outing suit and little patent-leather shoes, toss a bundle, done up in a sheet, over her shoulder and walk away in the procession with the most fascinating nonchalance. ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... the most disconcerting manner. And you feel that all these shells, all these other devices, are simply straining to go off. They are like things secretly and terribly alive, waiting the tiny gesture which will set them free. Officers, handling destruction with the nonchalance of a woman handling a hat, may say what they like—the ammunition train is to my mind an unsafe neighbour. And the thought of all the sheer brain-power which has gone to the invention and perfecting of those propulsive and explosive machines causes you to ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... of the occupiers of the pews, who appeared to consist almost entirely of farmers, with their wives, sons, and daughters, opened a door to admit us. Mrs. Petulengro, however, appeared to feel not the least embarrassment, but tripped along the aisle with the greatest nonchalance. We passed under the pulpit, in which stood the clergyman in his white surplice, and reached the middle of the church, where we were confronted by the sexton dressed in long blue coat, and holding in his hand a wand. This functionary motioned ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... their book, pushed back their chairs, and crossed the room to say good-night to the two who were seated in the shadow. The boy came first, with hands thrust into his trousers pockets in a kind of grave nonchalance. The little girl fluttered along behind, but broke her journey across the room by stepping into the opening of the long window and looking out into the night. Ford stood breathless and motionless, expecting her to see him and cry out. But she turned away ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... 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 ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... by 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 ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... he agreed with the slightly weary nonchalance of a man well used to these passages. "But is it perhaps that you have not discovered yet what is the God of my worship? It was an ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... 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 of urban ways ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... he moved up to the fire in nervous haste, and with a deprecating smile; dropped suddenly into a chair, and tilted it back in imitation of Callum's easy nonchalance; but finding the character difficult to maintain in view of his feet, he suddenly came down to the horizontal once more, and in so doing descended upon poor Bruce's tail. That unoffending canine uttered a yelp of pain, echoed by ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... gowns of coarse cloth of different colors, and each had a shawl over her head. Some wore coats of sheepskin like those of the men, and several were barefooted. Two women walked into the river and stood with utter nonchalance where the water was fifteen inches deep. I immersed my thermometer and found it ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... 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, ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... dismal fact with a strange nonchalance—as if the thing could no more be helped, and needed no more be wondered at, than a rainy day. Yet the sigh she gave indicated trouble because ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... said Marguerite Blakeney, with the pretty nonchalance peculiar to herself, and with the most winning of smiles, "will you venture to excite the jealousy of your fair lady by asking me ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... the house, to the accustomed inquiry, "Why, where have you been? We've been calling you, and hunting everywhere for you," he would reply, with the utmost nonchalance, "O, only out here;" at which Sarah would retort, impatiently, "I know better than that; for I hunted all round for you, and you wasn't anywhere to be seen;" and Charlie respond, with compassionate condescension, "Pooh! girls are great ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... greet me. He was now nearly nineteen, and had lost none of the beauty of his boyhood; a small brown moustache which fringed his upper lip being, to my eyes, almost the only sign of his advancing years. He introduced me to his friend, a young Eton man, possessed of that frank nonchalance which it is the privilege of that institution to bestow. I inquired where Arthur was. Edward told me that he had gone down to the stream for a stroll. "We'll go down and find him," he said, putting his arm in mine, with that same demonstrativeness that had always characterized him, and that ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... 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 ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... no time given to vacillation. All his methods were, as a rule, very direct. Underneath his easy nonchalance he was of a very decided nature. His thin face at times could suddenly become very keen. His true character was hidden by the cultivated lazy expression of his eyes. Bunning-Ford was one of those men who are at their best in emergency. At all other times life was a thing ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... the boy is the only true lover of Nature, and that we, who make such a dead set at studying and admiring her, come very wide of the mark. "The nonchalance of a boy who is sure of his dinner," says our Emerson, "is the healthy attitude of humanity." The boy is a part of Nature; he is as indifferent, as careless, as vagrant as she. He browses, he digs, he hunts, he climbs, he ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... of 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 which ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... be thrown away to wider waters, and so escape to live ... after I am dead, after my masterpieces are forgotten, after our Empire has passed away, after the human animal has passed through I know not what vicissitudes. It may be he will still, with the utmost nonchalance, be pushing out his pseudopodia, and ingesting diatoms when the fretful transitory life of humanity has passed altogether from the earth. One may catch him in specimen tubes by the dozen; but still, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... promised him just enough to bring her a taxi or something on wheels, into which she would have got if it had materialised, and been whirled away to safety and bed after adieux to her host uttered with the nonchalance necessary to allay the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... this time 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. ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... 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 ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... 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
... from this discussion," he observed with a certain well-bred nonchalance. "It's a subtle question, too. Here Ivan Fyodorovitch is smiling at us. He must have something interesting to say about ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... touched the 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
... is long and the colder spring has sudden shadows in a sun. All the stain is tender and lilacs really lilacs are disturbed. Why is the perfect reestablishment practiced and prized, why is it composed. The result the pure result is juice and size and baking and exhibition and nonchalance and sacrifice and volume and a section in division and the surrounding recognition and horticulture and no murmur. This is a result. There is no superposition and circumstance, there is hardness and ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... 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 ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... displayed very bad wounds. This spectacle, so revolting to a person unaccustomed to such sights, produced no impression whatever upon the advancing troops, who certainly go under fire with the most perfect nonchalance: they show no enthusiasm or excitement, but the most complete indifference. This is the effect of two years' ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... clump of uniforms in relief on the grass must present a blur that will be an enticing target for them. I dare not go back to the wall, but it might be discreet to lie down. There is no disgrace in offering them a small elevation of corpus." I stretched myself on the sward, acted nonchalance, and lit a cigar. ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... JINNY. [With affected nonchalance.] I didn't care to go downstairs for dinner, so I have had a tray up here. Maggie brought up something for you, too; would you like ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... rose and went into the "front" room, or parlor, where, from a large mantelpiece ranged with sugary-looking vases stuffed with brilliantly dyed grasses she plucked the recently arrived letter. Looking at it upside down and with nonchalance of disapproval, she put the letter before the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 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," thought Wolzogen, and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and entered. Just what he had expected to find he could not have told; his brain was whirling, partly from his aching head, partly from his desperate effort to conceive some way of escape from the peril which, for all his nonchalance, he knew only too well was the gravest he had ever faced; but what he saw was simply a cozily furnished bedroom. There was nothing peculiar about it; nothing out of the way, except perhaps that it ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Warren?" he asked, mentioning the name with a nonchalance remarkable, considering that he had not done so before for weeks. "She ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... 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; troubled in the present, and ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... she flicked the matter from her with the utmost nonchalance. Since her father had undertaken to explain things, she did not even trouble herself to write an answer to her husband's letter. That letter had, in fact, very deeply wounded her pride. It had been a command, and Nan was not accustomed to such treatment. Never, ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... waiters and speaking-tubes, were things that filled her with astonishment. For weeks she felt that she had moved out of the world into a fairy book. But, being a high-spirited girl, she carefully concealed her wonder, moving about with apparent nonchalance, as though she had lived in the enchanted ground all her life. Secretly she carried on experiments upon water works, gas fixtures, and plate-glass mirrors, using the inductive method of reasoning, as all intelligent people have from the beginning, without any of the cumbrous and pedantic ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... He put his hand in his pocket to give her some money, but changed his mind. Her eye stopped him. He shook hands with the man, then turned to her again. Her eyes were on him—hot, shining. He felt his blood throb, but he returned the look with good- natured nonchalance, shook her hand, raised his hat, and walked away, thinking what a fine, handsome creature she was. Presently he said: "Poor girl, she'll look at some fellow like that one day, with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... be presumptuous for a mere idler, an individual whose enterprise and industry have been sapped by the insidious nonchalance of the Beachcomber, to tell of practical details of cultural pursuits—the enthusiasm, the disappointments, the glowing anticipations, the realisation of inflexible facts, the plain emphatic truths which others have reason to know ever so ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... in my opinion and liking. He is sensible, rational, 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
... 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 ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... 'Morning Breakfast Table' would be powerful for all things, 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 like ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... at her easel, trying bravely to disregard the collapse of her happy omen; Michael lounging in a cane chair, with Shelley and a cigarette. He had returned from Jundraghat in a mood of skin-deep nonchalance, beneath which irritation smouldered, and Quita's news had set the sparks flying. Behold him, therefore, doubly a martyr; ready, as always, to make capital out of his crown of thorns. A renewed pattering on the verandah slates roused him from ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... down her hair—a nonchalance that Molly had not been guilty of. This woman's hair was no more than a wisp. It stood out thin, wiry, almost invisible in the semilight. This was the extent of her toilet. She slipped out of her shoes, but she did not even take off her dress. Then she turned in by her child. ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... 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 ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Michael did not hesitate an instant in obeying that imperative summons. An expression of annoyance flitted across his florid features when he found Poluski standing near the trembling waiter; but he tackled the situation with nonchalance. ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... snare is more worthy of a writer of begging-letters than of a genuine artist. Balzac occasionally indulges in somewhat similar devices; little indirect allusions to his old characters are thrown in with a calculated nonchalance; we have bits of antiquarian information as to the history of buildings; superfluous accounts of the coats-of-arms of the principal families concerned, and anecdotes as to their ancestry; and, after he has given us a name, he sometimes takes care to explain that the pronunciation ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... customs officers. Here again she had defied recognized authorities and got into trouble over it; indeed, had become mildly notorious in the newspapers. The only way she could carry off her mistake and her notoriety was, like a child, by exaggerating her nonchalance. Thus she had met President West and the other officers of the trust company. Alone—for as usual Archie had evaded the disagreeable—she had met them in their temple and felt their frigid disapprobation of her and all her ways. She ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... 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 of Australian circles, while the poor reformer cannot ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... Rachel in the garden for social intercourse. The Gresleys liked Rachel. Listeners are generally liked. Perhaps also her gentle, unassuming manner was not an unpleasant change after the familiar nonchalance ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... came down the chimney and drowned Bagheera," Phillida bravely tried to summon nonchalance. "Isn't it lucky you and Desire could not get started in the car, after all? Fancy ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... 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, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... 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
... Nicolete in certain tricks of 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
... The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit is in the playhouse; independent, irresponsible, looking ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... cotton. But at Canada it comes out all wool. The hot South opens like a double rose, red and full. The English article is cooler and supercilious. I say nothing, for my role is to see; but Halicarnassus and the Anakim exchange views with the greatest nonchalance, in spite of pokes and ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... who had masqueraded as Gogol rose to his feet without a word, and walked out of the room with an air of perfect nonchalance. Yet the astonished Syme was able to realise that this ease was suddenly assumed; for there was a slight stumble outside the door, which showed that the departing detective ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... hard saying if you choose: it is true. Could a man be happy long away from a hobby so entrancing, a toy so intricate and marvelous, a setting so splendid? Is it strange that, absorbed in that wondrous satisfying hobby, he should make love with the nonchalance of an animal? At which point I seem to have come dangerously near to the topic of the singular position of the American woman, ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... king in vain to visit it in state, which would have given a sort of prestige. Coldly received by the dauphin, the queen, and the princesses, he could not, as the friend of Madame de Pompadour, obtain from the nonchalance of Louis XV. the visit which he so much desired, when the idea struck him, in his despair, of having recourse to the young harpist, who appeared to be so assiduous in his attendance on the princesses, and who directed their concert every week. Beaumarchais understood at once the ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... of this nonchalance, the situation was serious. His money was at a low ebb. All his regular income was diverted to the support of the large household in the country. He was too proud to appeal to his wealthy uncle. He hated also to think of Mrs. Purp's mortification if she ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... The nonchalance[160] of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit is in the playhouse;[161] independent, irresponsible, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... lounged into the editorial office, carrying with affected nonchalance that weight of the irremediable he had felt laid on him suddenly in the small hours of the night—that consciousness of something that could no longer be helped. His patronising friend informed him at once that he had made the acquaintance of the Moorsom party last night. At the ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... bat. 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 ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... hurrying across the park space in the furtive manner of one going to a shameful rendezvous, and upon my hailing him he at first essayed to sheer off. When he saw who it was he came up with a rather swaggering and nonchalant effect. I may observe here that nobody has a monopoly of nonchalance in this world. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... 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 man" would not do. But it was also evident ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... as soon as it is received; many individuals defer so doing for some days, which certainly shows fashionable ease and nonchalance, besides allowing time for the arrival of another and preferable one; but, by those who are absolutely bent upon advancing themselves in society, this practice is to be eschewed, since by perplexing, it so annoys the donor of a fete, that the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... only said, with apparent nonchalance, 'Twenty-seven is not very old.' He added, however, 'Anyhow, you're five minutes older, and I've published a book, if you have ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... accomplished nothing—and 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
... 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 this ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... had returned to our crouching-place under the shadow of the wall, the woman detached herself slowly from the group, and began strolling with almost overdone nonchalance along the road to Geergeh. We could see the little girl was frightened and seemed to expostulate with her mother: fortunately, the Arabs about were too much occupied in watching the suspicious strangers to ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... point of exhaustion. The letters she had written John Markham, one from New York telling of her immediate departure, another from Paris hoping to see him at her hotel, a third from Trouville, assuming the miscarriage of the other two—cool, friendly notes, tinetured with a nonchalance she was far from feeling, had failed of their purpose, and save for a brief letter telling of his departure form Rouen, he had not given the slightest evidence of his appreciation of her efforts toward a platonic reconciliation. She had not despaired of ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... Billie, with exaggerated nonchalance, "meanwhile, what about the bees? Are they going to be permitted to show their superiority or not?" Van Emmon took this to be aimed at him. "Of course not! We can't allow a race of human beings to be ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint |
