"Nonchalance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over the North Sea, keeping their stations accurately apart. At a given signal all the guns are trained on a target which (the master gunner counts the seconds, watch in hand—at the sixth he looks up) flames into splinters. With equal nonchalance a dozen young men in the prime of life descend with composed faces into the depths of the sea; and there impassively (though with perfect mastery of machinery) suffocate uncomplainingly together. Like blocks of tin soldiers the army covers the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... been waiting for that question. He delivered his answer with all the nonchalance of a man dropping a burnt match ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a deductive guess: but the shot struck the center of the bull's-eye. Warren, alias Count Laschlas, staggered back, and his nervous fingers touched the chilling surface of the stone wall. He dropped his eyes, and then strove to regain his nonchalance. ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... up also, and now wheeling "half-left" and lolling lazily in his saddle with shortened leg stared back at his enemy with an expression there was no mistaking. His debonair young face had altered in an incredible fashion. Although his lips were pursed up with their whistling nonchalance his eyes had contracted beneath scowling brows into mere pin-points of steel and ice. He looked about as docile ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... these the landau stopped to await, as we afterward ascertained, Count Bismarck, with whom the diplomatic negotiations were to be settled. Some minutes elapsed before he came, Napoleon remaining seated in his carriage meantime, still smoking, and accepting with nonchalance the staring of a group of German soldiers near by, who were gazing on their fallen foe with curious and ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... for a good-night, Letty, with the red volume of Hans Andersen under her arm, passed out into the hall. It was not easy to carry herself with the necessary nonchalance, but she got strength by saying inwardly: "Here's where I begin to walk on blades." The knowledge that she was doing it, and that she was doing it toward an end, gave her a dignity of carriage which Allerton watched with ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... McGrath, the youngest champion of reform in the building, was putting on a bold front. He laughed and he talked and he whistled. He took people up and down with as much nonchalance as if he did not know that up at the top of that shaft angry eyes were straining themselves for a glimpse of the car, and terrible curses were descending, literally, upon his stubby ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... was hurry and anxiety. The clerks seemed trying to brazen out their own terror, and shovelled the rapidly lessening gold and notes across the counter with an air of indignant nonchalance. The vicar asked ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... were sunken, and encircled by dark halos, telling of night revels and morning headaches. But that wonderful beauty that had magnetized Rose Danton was there still; the features as perfect as ever; the black eyes as lustrous; all the old graceful ease and nonchalance of manner characterized him yet. But the beauty that had blinded and dazzled her had lost its power to charm. She had been married to him a year—quite long enough to be disenchanted. That handsome face might fascinate other foolish moths; it had lost its power to dazzle her long, long ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... into the shop, and affecting nonchalance, inquired how long the printing-press had been in Rome. The man said he believed there was no such thing in the city. "Oh, the Lactantius; that was printed on the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... 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 ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... said that these men who conduct church work and missionary work do not know much about dollars; that a dollar, a thousand dollars, or a million dollars, is a very indefinite thing; and that they ask for a million dollars, or half a million dollars, with a great deal of nonchalance, as if it were merely a matter of asking. It is not so. When this Finance Committee indorse the recommendation of the National Council that half a million of dollars be raised for the work of this Association during the coming year, they do it from a business point of view, and when ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... woman scanned the dreadful pathway with eyes deep-set and burning, resolute, vigilant, and yet defiant, too, as though she had been trapped into this track of danger, and was fighting without great hope, but with the temerity and nonchalance of despair. Her arms were bare to the shoulder almost, and her face was again and again drenched, but second succeeded second, minute followed minute in a struggle which might well turn a man's hair gray, and now, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... startled Tunnygate, forced under the circumstances to assume a nonchalance that he did not ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... thoroughly astounded—astounded only—not offended or disgusted in the slightest degree; although an action so bold in any other woman would have been likely to offend or disgust. But the whole thing was done with so much quietude—so much nonchalance—so much repose—with so evident an air of the highest breeding, in short—that nothing of mere effrontery was perceptible, and my sole sentiments were those ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... 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
... nor would the bystander have detected that I took notice of him, but my eye was watching him with anxiety. It may have been that he was in a contented mood, or it may have been that he was arrested by the nonchalance of my bearing, but he made no movement in my direction. Reassured, I fixed my eyes upon the open window of Marie's bed-chamber, which was immediately over the back door, in the hope that those dear, tender, dark eyes, were surveying me from behind ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... driver, seated on a narrow bench, jutting over the backs of his wheelers, as he contentedly whiffs from his small red clay pipe—at intervals dropping off in a dose, with his cur on his lap. At such a time, with what perfect nonchalance would he open his large grey eyes, when recalled to the sense of his duties, by the volubly breathed execration of some rival whip—and with what a silent look of ineffable contempt, would he direct his horses ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... 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 ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Ghetto, but by order of Napoleon, his soldiers were never severe upon the Jews. The Jews had little or nothing to do with politics, and Napoleon, with his usual nonchalance, said, "They have suffered enough!" Napoleon called himself "The Protector of the Oppressed," and tried occasionally to live up to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... of Turkish pastilles, not such as are sold here on the streets, but those of Constantinople, which are more powerful and more dangerous. She rang, and a maid appeared. She entered an alcove without a word, and a few minutes later I saw her leaning on her elbow in her habitual attitude of nonchalance. ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... and erring by partiality rather than prejudice; while Carlyle completes the description by stating that when any one challenged or disputed his opinion of a character, he would retrace his steps with the greatest ease and nonchalance and contradict every word he had been saying. Carlyle's statement is confirmed by the remarks of certain of Smith's other friends who speak incidentally of the amusing inconsistencies in which he indulged in private conversation. ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... 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 ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... 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, ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... said Captain Everard, with attempted nonchalance, "that that is strange doctrine for ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... goes to show that it was so. Whether, however, Diderot is really responsible for the perverse direction of Rousseau's argument is a question of fact, and the evidence is not decisive.[88] It would be an odd example of that giant's nonchalance which is always so amazing in Diderot, if he really instigated the most eloquent and passionate writer then alive to denounce art and science as the scourge of mankind, at the very moment when he was himself straining his whole ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... that Margaret's quiet nonchalance was much more suited to Fontenelle's habitual taste, than the imposing scene of Cato's death. Indeed, the French satirist was so averse to scenes of all kinds, that he has contrived to find a ridiculous side in this last ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... saw a fire-ball come quietly gliding up 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 lightning. A fire-ball, noticed among the Glendowan ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... the event, he recorded it with a vividness well set off by his own nonchalance. Again and again he was to repeat this triumph of depicting the wild, and the wild in a condition of activity ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... Then she added, touching my arm as with a touch of honeyed fire: "O I'm so glad! He did it delightfully—quite en prince. Just the right nonchalance—and perhaps, poor ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... He did so, to humour her. 'Miss Chaworth is married.' An expression very peculiar, impossible to describe, passed over his pale face, and he hurried his handkerchief into his pocket, saying, with an affected air of coldness and nonchalance, 'Is that all?'—'Why, I expected you would have been plunged in grief!'—He made no reply, and soon began to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... 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 ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... carrying its 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 as well ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... discreet-looking little man who, descending at the Golden Lion, was shown to a private sitting-room on the second story. Calling for a half-pint from the best tap and casually surveying the room, he settled himself in a chair with an air of nonchalance, which a certain eagerness in his eyes ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... the young Father came out in his black cassock, and taking up his vestments which lay upon the altar-steps, he proceeded with the utmost nonchalance to put them on, not hesitating to display a long rent in his surplice, and ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... spoke, a lambent, sparkling liquid began to flow through the pipette, into the flask. At sight of it, the Billionaire's eyes lighted up with triumph. Waldron, despite his assumed nonchalance, felt the hunting thrill of Wall street, the quick stab of exultation when victory ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... detection. But they had never succeeded in making Charlie take this view; he never would adopt the change of language by which they altered the accepted meaning of words in accordance with their own propensities and dispositions, and to him this particular act which Penn committed with perfect nonchalance, appeared to be not only a theft, but a theft accompanied by a cruelty and deadness to all sense of pity, which dipped it in the very blackest and most revolting dye. He could not restrain, and did not attempt to restrain, the passionate contempt ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... recovered all his customary nonchalance. Eveline remained stretched on the Divan of the Favourite in an attitude of ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... announced, Mr. Davlin promptly offered his arm to Madeline, who accepted it with perfect nonchalance. They followed Cora to the dining-room, themselves followed by Miss ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... might have heard from her or about her, through some mutual friend," remarked Kennedy, carefully concealing under his nonchalance what I knew was working in his mind - a belief that, after all, the old attachment had not been so dead as ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... heavy frown on his face. Everyone else was standing, save that impudent young dog Fritz, who was lounging easily in an armchair, and flirting with the Countess Helga. He leapt up as I entered, with a deferential alacrity that lent point to his former nonchalance. I had no difficulty in understanding that the duke might ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... 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 easier task with ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... their dear daughters to the richest youths, and the richest youths affecting a "jolly" and "stunning" life,—reputed to know the world because they are licentious, and to have seen life because they have tasted foreign dissipation. We should hear insipidity praised as good-humor, and nonchalance as ease. We should have boorishness accounted manliness, and impudence wit. We should gradually lose faith in man as we associated with men, and soon perceive that the only safety for the city ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... aught else in which I may serve the Dama de Montferrat?" the Bernardini asked with assumed nonchalance, partly to gain time to decide upon his own course of action, yet hoping to throw some little ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... appears to me that the situation resolves itself thus: The mutineers have expressed their determination to go ashore, and until they have done so we can do nothing beyond holding ourselves ready for action at a moment's notice. And meanwhile we must all wear an air of the utmost nonchalance and unconcern; for if we were to manifest any symptoms of excitement or interest in their movements, there are, no doubt, some among them who would be astute enough to observe it, and thereupon to become suspicious. Let them leave the ship, as many as may please to go—and the ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... dispositions which is thoroughly antagonistic to trouble of every description; he absolutely refused to entertain the black demon under any pretext whatever, and after spending a small fortune with the easy grace of a prince, he settled down to doing without one with equal grace and nonchalance, in a manner more creditable to himself than satisfying to his creditors. Did his hatter or tailor present an untimely bill, the gay debonnaire Eugene would scribble on the back thereof an impromptu rhyme expressive of his deep regret ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... she would seek to extract from such a situation all the fun it promised. Taken off her guard, for the span of ten heart-beats she sat up straight and stared; but with the eleventh her attitude relaxed. She had regained her outward nonchalance, and resolved upon ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... white, but he smiled and knit his fingers together behind his head with an air of nonchalance that he did not feel. He knew that Thatcher meant to drive Bassett out of politics, but he had little faith in Thatcher's ability to do so. He discredited wholly the story Allen had so glibly recited. By Allen's own admission the tale was deficient ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... pausing to stare or run wildly from this big, black, bullockless carriage tearing madly through their village. The women merely peep from the shadows, while the men lazily loll beneath the trees along the roadside, curious beneath their nonchalance. In one place, all the villagers were gaily bathing in the large tank (in their garments, changing by draping dry cloths around their bodies, dropping the wet ones). Women bearing water to their ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... decanter of whiskey and glasses from a cupboard. The captain filled his glass, and continued with the same gentle but exasperating nonchalance, "Mind my smoking?" ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... strode to 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 first base. Score ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... as shrilly and rapidly as any of his playmates of the Chinese quarter, and with his young friends of the white race he could reel off amazing vocabularies of American slang. And he could swear, and frequently did so, with all the nonchalance of a Chinaman and the intensity and picturesqueness of an American. He could, if the occasion seemed to demand it, drop his eyelids and "No sabe" as stupidly as any Celestial who ever entered the Golden Gate. But with any man, woman, or child whom he chose to favor with his conversation ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... press of business and I had to stay," said Ellen with masculine nonchalance. "A most interesting client ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... much longer than the tree, with not twenty-five cents worth of clothing on him, and in five minutes takes off every pear, and retires into safe obscurity. In five minutes the remorseless boy has undone your work of years, and with the easy nonchalance, I doubt not, of any agent of fate, in whose path nothing is sacred ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... salt here pulled out an enormous double-case silver watch with an air of perfect nonchalance, and awaited the result. For a few seconds the gypsy was overwhelmed by the lad's coolness; then he burst into a gruff laugh and rushed at him. He might as well have run at a squirrel. The boy sprang to one side, crossed the road ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... any more. "As to Bears." All, me! How engaging, simple, gracious, and at ease; what perfection of literary breeding; what an amused and genial wave of the finger tips; how marked by good-humoured acuteness, and animated nonchalance; how saturated with a distinguished, humane tradition ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... out. The lake was glass, and the sail hung lifeless. It was near lunch-time, and charity prompted me to head for the boat and give it a tow homeward. As I drew near, Farrar himself emerged from behind the sail and asked me, with a great show of nonchalance, what I wanted. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "Pray step into the next room, madam, where the wife of one of our staff will attend you," or "Pray allow me to slip this penknife of mine into the lining of your coat" (after which he would extract thence shawls and towels with as much nonchalance as he would have done from his own travelling-trunk). Even his superiors acknowledged him to be a devil at the job, rather than a human being, so perfect was his instinct for looking into cart-wheels, carriage-poles, horses' ears, and places whither ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... of boys drew closer. Perry Alford lagged with seeming nonchalance, a step in the rear of his more eager play-fellows. Sid DuPree picked up a pebble and threw it unerringly toward a railroad fence post as ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... say to her?' he asked jealously. He was quite unlike himself. His airy nonchalance, his careless gaiety ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... have news, really important news for you. If I have not been discussing your future," said Tewfick Pasha, staring with stern nonchalance ahead and determinedly unaware of her instant stiffening of attention, "I have by no means been neglectful of it.... To-day—indeed to-night—there has been a consummation of my plans.... It is not to every daughter that a father may hurry ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... amused by M. Wilkie's nonchalance. "The young fellow won't be in so much of a hurry when he learns my business," he thought. And he replied aloud: "I can explain what brings me ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... love into her ears, and almost lost the impediment in his speech. The woman pretended to be cooler, but she half turned her head toward him, and her half-closed eyes and heightened color showed she was drinking every word. Her very gayety, though it affected nonchalance, revealed happiness to such as can read below the surface of her sex. The Colonel's treacherous ally, after gazing at them with marked approval, and saying, "I couldn't do it better myself," which was surely a great admission for a lover to make, slipped quietly into Hope's workshop ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... the unnatural brightness nor the unnatural dullness of the eyes about him: they were ordinarily clear eyes, of an ordinary gray. His very age was moderate: a putative thirty-six, not more. ("Not less," I would have said in those days.) He assumed no air of nonchalance. He did not deal out the cards as though they bored him, but he had no look of grim concentration. I noticed that the removal of his cigar from his mouth made never the least difference to his face, for he kept his lips ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... received this summons with outward nonchalance but tremendous secret apprehensions, and immediately fled for advice to no less a person than ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... had said. Of course, there could be nothing in it; certainly not, from such a source. It was the old John M. Hurd who turned again to face his visitor, who with but one card left to play awaited breathlessly but with outward nonchalance the effect of ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... in darkness and silence. "Downers," the men called them; and the packing house had a special elevator upon which they were raised to the killing beds, where the gang proceeded to handle them, with an air of businesslike nonchalance which said plainer than any words that it was a matter of everyday routine. It took a couple of hours to get them out of the way, and in the end Jurgis saw them go into the chilling rooms with the rest of the meat, being carefully scattered here and there so that they ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... 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
... meditative life, I had observed a great deal, and had understood the various characters which Fate had put in my way, so that I really knew enough of human nature to be able to depict it." She now had that facility, that abundance of matter and that nonchalance which were such characteristic features ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... 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
... you wanted?" he said easily, stooping to a little table to light a cigarette. The coolness of his words and manner were like a dash of cold water. She had been prepared for anything but this calm nonchalance in a situation that was intolerable. His tone conveyed the perfunctory regret of a host for an unavoidable absence. Her fear gave way to rage, her body ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... the street door shut Arithelli sat down, hiding her face in her hands. Once she shivered involuntarily. Directly she found herself alone the mask of her assumed nonchalance had fallen suddenly. As long as there was an audience she had worn a disguise on her soul as well as her body. She had been feeling moody and depressed all day, and this last episode was the climax. Everything she had was to be her own no longer. ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... believe that. She must remember quite well that he never took sugar in his tea. He accepted the incident as a sign that her nonchalance ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... receives a salutation from the actress haughty and cold enough to check the forwardest; puts on the air of languid nonchalance which is considered (or was before the little experiences of the Crimea) fit and proper for young gentlemen of rank and fashion. So he sits down, and feasts his foolish eyes upon his idol, hoping for a few words before the evening is over. Did I not say well, then, that there was as ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... week-day evening, had certainly been drawn thither at this time. Sadie Ried sat beside Ester in their mother's pew, and Harry Arnett, with a sober look on his boyish face, sat bolt upright in the end of the pew, while even Dr. Douglass leaned forward with graceful nonchalance from the seat behind them, and now and then addressed a word ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... and he pushed up a twenty-dollar bill in payment, much to the surprise of the man behind the counter. The change pocketed, we strolled out leisurely, picking our teeth with easy nonchalance. ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... visitors to Tallyn, tall, wiry, red-haired, the embodiment of all things shrewd and efficient; and two or three more. A young London member was holding forth, masking what was really a passion of disgust in a slangy nonchalance. ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... technical staff needed in the taking of the scenes in the library. The camera men I guessed, and a property boy, and an assistant director. The last, at any event, of all those in the huge room, had summoned up sufficient nonchalance to bend his mind to details of his work. I saw that he was thumbing a copy of the scenario, or detailed working manuscript of the story, making notations in some kind of little book, and it was that which enabled me to establish his ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... nearer to him, perceiving that my prospects bid fair to improve. For very few people can feel out of it without drifting into a self-regarding mood, and then they are the easiest prey imaginable. Undoubtedly a man like Zaluski, with his easy nonchalance, his knowledge of the world, his genuine good-nature, and the background of sterling qualities which came upon you as a surprise because he loved to make himself seem a mere idler, was apt to eclipse an ordinary mortal like James Blackthorne. The curate perceived this and did not like to ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... would not be at peace until he had had that talk—and yet in spite of himself he had carefully kept out of his father's way during all the afternoon, save for a moment when, strolling with affected nonchalance up to Darius's private desk in the shop, he had dropped thereon his school report, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... came her answer, in a voice which lacked the nonchalance she tried to give it. "I daresay I'll be as friendly ... ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... might affect nonchalance before her schoolfellows, her heart thumped in a very unpleasant fashion as she tapped at the door of Miss Norton's study. The teacher sat at a bureau writing, she looked up and readjusted her pince-nez ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... by no means always what they seemed, those of other wild animals; they were often hut imitations by Bob of the Angels. I fear the animal grew somewhat bolder and less careful from the assurance thus given him that he was watched over, and cultivated a little nonchalance. Not a moment, however, did he neglect any warning from quarter soever, but from peaceful feeder was instantaneously wind-like fleer, his great horns thrown back over his shoulders, and his four legs just touching ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... opinion of the Germans?' said Pavel Petrovitch, with exaggerated courtesy. He was beginning to feel a secret irritation. His aristocratic nature was revolted by Bazarov's absolute nonchalance. This surgeon's son was not only not overawed, he even gave abrupt and indifferent answers, and in the tone of his voice there ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... learned to raise chickens, it is a hard and slow struggle to get any killed. I say in an off-hand manner, with assumed nonchalance: "Ellen, I want Tom to kill a rooster at once for tomorrow's dinner, and I have an order from a friend for four more, so he must select five to-night." Then begins the trouble. "Oh," pleads Ellen, "don't kill dear Dick! poor, dear Dick! ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... 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 ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... text slowly and with heavy heart. Then he paused, and, glancing once more round the little building, met again the soft, languid fire of those full dark eyes. This time he did not look away. He saw a faint interest, a slight pity, a background of nonchalance. His cheeks flushed, and the fire of revolt leaped through his veins. He shut up the Bible and abandoned his carefully prepared discourse, in which was a mention of hellfire and many gloomy warnings, which would have brought ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... about it. On the other hand there was a chance—it might be worth while—to discover how much Rat-it-all knew. Forewarned is forearmed. Moreover, when your country is at war, and silence holds the city, there is great comfort in a chat. Nicky-Nan advanced with a fine air of nonchalance. ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... 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
... herself with cheerful nonchalance, "Elizabeth always has her way. I was hungry for a sight of the place, and the more the old house is in danger, the more I love it. I'm here for a week, and that ends it. The place doesn't seem to have suffered any. They haven't even ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... was ready, he drew some arabesque forms with his pencil on the board. He then took an exquisite little saw he had invented for this work, and fell upon the board with a rapidity that, contrasted with his previous nonchalance, looked like fury. But he was one of your fast workmen. The lithe saw seemed to twist in his hand like a serpent, and in a very short time he had turned four feet of the board into open-work. He finished the edges off with his cutting tools, and there was ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Nonchalance sat well upon the Kid. "Just a case of raising hell and putting a chunk under. See that bend down there? That's where she'll jam millions of tons of ice. Then she'll jam in the bends up above, millions ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... her treasure, and handed it with an assumed nonchalance for Raymonde's inspection. On the gold band was engraved: "To Cynthia Greene, a token ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... that, Ellis pocketed the purse with nonchalance. He stood leaning on his boar-spear, and looked round upon the rest. They, in various attitudes, took greedily of the venison pottage, and liberally washed it down with ale. This was a good day; they ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Bunyip, and caught Cleopatra from his back. Then dismounting, I arranged the new saddle with ostentatious offhandedness, though in a prayerful frame of mind, and presently climbed on as if nothing was the matter. I certainly anticipated Westminster Abbey rather than a peerage; but the horse, with a nonchalance greater than my own, inasmuch as it was genuine, turned quietly round as I pressed the rein against his neck, and sailed away across the plain at his own inimitable canter. Then I looked back to see the bullock ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... guessed, from the young editor's bearing, on his return, that he knew himself to be facing a crucial situation. With the utmost nonchalance he insisted that he must have time for consideration. Influenced by Pierce, who was sure he had Hal beaten, the committee insisted on an ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the first time that he goes on any of these dangerous duties. I can frankly say I disliked the listening-post duty that first time. Nothing happened of course. There was no killing, but it was nervy work. Later, in common with other fellows, I was able to go on listening-post with the same nonchalance as my first coster friend. It lies in whether one is used to the thing or not. Nothing comes easy at first, especially in the trenches. Later on, it is ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... had loved the theatre, and old Jolyon recalled how he used to sit opposite, concealing his excitement under a careful but transparent nonchalance. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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 in him was ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... much to his surprise, Prince 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
... 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 ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... a single chair or lounge of any description. Some fifteen young fellows were painting. All wore workmen's blouses. All had mustaches, and most of them had long hair. They appeared intent on their work, but smiles and winks were furtively exchanged, and the careless nonchalance of this tall young Englishman evidently amused them. In four or five minutes M. Goude turned round and walked towards the easels. Cuthbert stepped to them and removed the cloths. The master stopped abruptly, looked ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... electric. It was, in the country, a word of opprobrium, but at Beaumanoir it was laughed at with true Gallic nonchalance. Indeed, to show their scorn of public opinion, the Grand Company had lately launched a new ship upon the Great Lakes to carry on the fur trade, and had appropriately and mockingly ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... 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
... freshness of many of Mr. White's observations struck us with very agreeable surprise. We are not fond of off-hand opinions on any subject, much more on one so multifarious and complex as this,—we are a great deal too ready with them in America, and pronounce upon pictures and poems with a b'hoyish nonchalance that would be amusing, were it not for its ill consequence to Art,—but we love the expression of honest praise, of sifted and considerate judgment, and we think that a laborious collation justifies us in saying that in acute discrimination ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... vague and instinctive antipathy, avoided all contact and intercourse with Mrs. Marston, or as, for distinctness sake, we shall continue to call her, "Mademoiselle," since her return; and she on her part had appeared to acquiesce with a sort of scornful nonchalance, in the tacit understanding that she and her former pupil should see and hear as little as might be of ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... sense an incident too small to be chronicled, in another this was of historic interest and import. These rags of tattered bunting occasioned the display of a new sentiment in the United States; and the republic of the West, hitherto so apathetic and unwieldy, but already stung by German nonchalance, leaped to its feet for the first time at the news of this fresh insult. As though to make the inefficiency of the war-ships more apparent, three shells were thrown inland at Mangiangi; they flew high over the Mataafa camp, where the natives could "hear them singing" as they ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... assumed a dogged expression, which showed that the old Jewish blood still heat true, under all its affected shell of Neo-Platonist nonchalance; and there was a quiet unpleasant earnest in his ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... she repeated, with almost insolent nonchalance. "Why should it affect me in any way? My father's friends come and go. I have no interest ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the room there is a patent stove in which several irons were heating, not for torture, but for the improvement of hats. Several aproned attendants were bustling about, and one or two customers with bare heads were eyeing one another with an exaggerated air of haughty nonchalance, as who should say, "Observe, we do not wear white aprons. We do not belong to the shop. We are genuine customers. We ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... His only retort was a gradually spreading smile. "Partner," he said at length, while Fernand was flushing with anger at this nonchalance on the part of the Westerner, "they might of grabbed me, but they would have ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... Hawkins' drawing-room—or what remained of it. Our family physician was diligently winding a bandage around my right ankle. An important-looking youth in the uniform of an ambulance surgeon was stitching up a portion of my left forearm with cheerful nonchalance. ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... Sylvia, her gaze turned on the elegant nonchalance of a handsome, elderly woman ahead of her. Her mother looked at her askance, and thought ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... revelry and gambling in one of these drinking-shops, which will scarcely be credited. A party of negroes were seen around a card-table, with money beside them, engaged in betting; glasses of liquor were on the table, from which they ever and anon regaled themselves with all the nonchalance and affected mannerism of the most fashionable blades ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... not exactly remarkable," Marlow answered with his usual nonchalance. "In a general way it's very difficult for one to become remarkable. People won't take sufficient notice of one, don't you know. I remember Powell so well simply because as one of the Shipping Masters in the Port of London he dispatched me to sea on several long ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... dressed in clothes borrowed from his new tailor, and he showed not the slightest signs of strangeness or gaucherie amongst his unfamiliar surroundings. He looked about him always, with the cold, easy nonchalance of the man of the world. Of being recognized he had not the slightest fear. His frame and bearing, and the brightness of his deep, strong eyes, still belonged to early middle age, but his face itself, worn and hardened, was the face of an elderly man. The more Aynesworth watched ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of fact, Gurnard was making toward her—a deliberate, slow progress. She greeted him with nonchalance, as, beneath eyes, a woman greets a man she knows intimately. I found myself hating him, thinking that he was not the sort of man she ought ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... drilled every day in the open place in front of the hotel. His steed, artfully stimulated by the spur, caracoled, danced, and lashed out with his hind feet, and Monsieur Dorn, with one fist stuck against his own fat ribs, swayed to the motion with admirable nonchalance. His voice, which has the barky tone inseparable from military command, would ring about the square like the voice of a commander-in-chief, and by the exercise of a practised imagination, I could almost persuade myself that I stood face ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... them, and held it between his face and the lamp, so that whatever his features might have betrayed was hidden from his companion. At length he dropped the letter with an affected nonchalance, and said,— ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... may be well to commend nonchalance, but there are bounds that should not be passed. Had this man no reverence toward the mystery of his own life that he jested on the edge of it? I had rather have seen him with a rosary in his hand than with ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... conversation had been carried on in a somewhat stiff and irrelevant manner; this more especially on the side of the squatter, who—notwithstanding his endeavours to assume an air of easy nonchalance—was evidently labouring under suspicion and constraint. From the fact of Stebbins having sent a message to forewarn him, of this visit, he knew that the schoolmaster had some business with him of more than ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... even from her father and uncle, by the Duke's command; but she has now writ her father so pretty a letter that 'tis the town's talk, Horry Walpole having shewed it about. But Horry—have you forgot his pride, hid always under a nonchalance as if't was nothing? I was at Gloucester House, where she received en princesse, two nights ago; and to see Horry kiss her hand and hear him address her with, "Madam, your Royal Highness," at every word—sure no wit of Congreve's could ever ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... skeptical, and betrayed signs of a peeve at having his machine hired for a hoax; but money was money and he agreed to obey our instructions meticulously. His tone was perfunctory, however, despite my desperate attempts to impress him with the seriousness of the matter; and that nonchalance of his came ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... unhappily—amused the languid Anglo-Indian: and by the time the travellers reached Winchester, they were on excellent terms with each other. Joseph Wilmot was thoroughly at home with his patron; and as the two men were dressed in the same fashion, and had pretty much the same nonchalance of manner, it would have been very difficult for a stranger to have discovered which was the servant ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... 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
... meanings, my dear," replied Mrs Latrobe, with that calm nonchalance so provoking to an angry person. "I desired you to call me Madam, as ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... the play was at its height a servant appeared with a telegram on a silver tray. He handed it to Count Cavour. The Count paused in his play, opened the telegram, read it and then with the most inconceivable nonchalance, put it in his pocket. We stared at him in amazement for a moment, and then the Duc, with the infinite ease of a trained ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... she assisted a hospital steward to dress the hand of a little recruit, a lad of twenty, who had had his thumb shot away and come in on foot from the battlefield; and as he was jolly and amusing, treating his wound with all the levity and nonchalance of the Parisian rollicker, she was soon laughing and joking as merrily ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... never heard that silly story before." And he went on eating his dinner with extraordinary nonchalance and an unusual, almost ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... would blush. I saw men in open day, in the open walk, which was crowded with women as 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
... the storm overtook him with a rush which straight-way reduced the roads to the consistency of cream. He looked about for shelter; but no shelter was at hand, and the road meandered along before him uphill and down again with an easy nonchalance which appeared to take no account of the pelting rain. It was hard riding and dangerous, but he pushed on manfully, while the streams of water trickled down his neck and along the bridge of his nose. As he reached the crest of the hill, ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray |
