"Aplomb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for while the former could dress as he pleased, the latter was often obliged to dress as he could, and in this lay an element of danger. So long as his clothes were as good as the blood he boasted, and he wore them with an aplomb suggestive of position and influence, the gentleman was safe; but let his pretensions to gentility lie more in the past than in the suit on his back, and woe betide him! In spite of his protestations ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... — N. stability; immutability &c adj.; unchangeability, &c adj.; unchangeableness^; constancy; stable equilibrium, immobility, soundness, vitality, stabiliment^, stiffness, ankylosis^, solidity, aplomb. establishment, fixture; rock, pillar, tower, foundation, leopard's spots, Ethiopia's skin. permanence &c 141; obstinacy &c 606. V. be firm &c adj.; stick fast; stand firm, keep firm, remain firm; weather the storm, stay the course, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... friend who could have recorded his wise sayings and valuable criticism of men and things. He was more of an idealist than Doctor Johnson, and at the same time like Doctor Johnson in personal solidity, his English aplomb of character. They were both men of sterling quality. He was in all things especially human. His sympathies equalled the breadth of his mind. There was scarcely a subject in which he did not take an interest, and was not ready to converse on. As ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... walked, she told him, with the simple aplomb of a well-bred woman of the world, that she had just arrived by the train from Buluwayo and was going on to a place called Selukine for a week or two. It was not necessary for her to tell him that she was recently from home, for he knew it by her air, her voice, her accent, her rustly garments, ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... George tried to prepare himself to meet her with some remnants of aplomb. He decided that he would keep on looking straight ahead, and lift his hand toward his hat at the very last moment when it would be possible for her to see him out of the corner of her eye: then when ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... la Reine deux fois, je l'ai vue seule, et je l'ai vue dans la societe du soir, et avec son Premier Ministre. Elle a un aplomb, un air de commandement, de dignite, qui avec son visage enfantin, sa petite taille, et son joli sourire, forment certainement le spectacle le plus extraordinaire qu'il soit possible de se figurer. Elle est d'une extreme reserve dans son discours. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... a motor car; you couldn't get around that. Maybe Bulger wouldn't open his eyes if he knew it. Bulger was an authority on cars, and spoke in detail of their strange insides with the aplomb of a man who has dissected them for years. He had violent disputes with the second bookkeeper about which was the best car for the money. The bookkeeper actually owned a motorcycle, or would, after he had paid five ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... recovering his aplomb, and taking the extended hand of the professor, "you certainly know the truth when ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... longer of them," said Diggle with consummate aplomb. "Dismiss him now; I shall do my best ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... Jocelyn came into the drawing-room, where he was waiting with a brazen face and a sinking heart. Somehow the very room had power to bring him down towards his own level. When he set eyes on Jocelyn, in her fair Saxon beauty, he regained aplomb. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... powerfully to affect the result of the war for independence. As to his fitness for conveying such a message, Lafayette attested thus: "To captivate the French fancy, Captain Jones possesses, far beyond any other officer in your service, that peculiar aplomb, grace of manner, charm of person, and dash of character," a compliment better understood when it is remembered that an alliance with France against Great Britain was then ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... and brushed the front hair to one side, I took my hat and gloves in my hand and came out. M. Paul was waiting, and so were the others. He looked at me. "That may pass in a pensionnat," he pronounced. Then added, not unkindly, "Courage, mon ami! Un peu de sangfroid—un peu d'aplomb, M. Lucien, et ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... is said that the more distinguished a man is the shorter is his title, and the name of a very victorious general is a mere click or gasp. On this principle, the trisyllabic Tin-tun-ling must have been without much honour in his own country. In Paris, however, he has learned Parisian aplomb, and when confronted with his judges and his accusers, his air, we learn, "was very calm." "His smile it was pensive and bland," like the Heathen Chinee's, and his calm confidence was justified by events. It ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... Without paying any attention to the awkwardness which had succeeded the former military aplomb of his nephew, the count exercised during the whole evening his full powers as a charming conversationalist. I had never before seen him so brilliant or so gracious. We spoke a great deal about women. The witticisms ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... may escape him. Yet he should be absorbed in the other world to such a degree that blindness, even, is a blessing to him, enabling him to "see, no longer blinded by his eyes." The question of the poet's health arose. He should have the exuberance and aplomb of the young animal; no, he should have a body frail enough to enable him, like the mediaeval mystic, to escape from its importunatedemands ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... net. Mon regard lui cloua ses phrases menteuses sur les lvres. Et dans ce regard qui le fixait d'aplomb, en face, le misrable dut lire bien des choses, car je le vis tout coup plir, balbutier, perdre contenance; mais ce ne fut que l'affaire d'un instant: il reprit aussitt son air flambant, planta dans mes yeux deux yeux froids et brillants comme l'acier, et, fourrant ses mains au fond de ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... The lad's aplomb and dignity deserted him. He blushed furiously, and hung his head in shame of his ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... she would have failed to catch Wilfrid, whose soul thirsted for poetical refinement and filmy delicacies in a woman. What she had, and what he knew that he wanted, and could only at intervals assume by acting as if he possessed it, was a victorious aplomb, which gave her a sort of gallant glory in his sight. He could act it well before his sisters, and here and there a damsel; and coming fresh from Lady Charlotte's school, he had recently done so with success, and had seen the ladies feel toward him, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Then he was back at the table again amidst a storm of crockeryware, cutlery, and provisions, and each article as it descended was caught with an astonishing dexterity and set in its proper place with a swift exactness which looked like magic. The artist had a perfect aplomb, and he put off the catching of each article till the last fraction of the inevitable second, so that he seemed secure in perfect triumph and yet on the edge of instant failure. The house howled with excited laughter and applause, and Paul roared ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... intimated, Clem was impressive. He was low-toned, easy of manner, with a flawless aplomb. As he served me those mornings in late summer, wearing a dress-coat of broadcloth, a choice relic of his splendid past, it was not difficult to see that he had ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... melody, I can see. Your name, my dear? Ladies and Gentleman, I have the pleasure to announce that Miss CONNIE COCKLE will now appear. Don't curtsey till the Orchestra gives the chord. (Chord from the harmonium—the Child advances, and curtsies with much aplomb.) Oh, lor! call that a curtsey—that's a cramp, that is! Do it all over again! (The Child obeys, disconcerted.) That's worse! I can see the s'rimps blushin' for yer inside their paper bags! Now see Me do it. (Bones executes a caricature of a curtsey, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... cramped side pavements of the town failed to accommodate the ceaseless promenade of those whose sole business lay in criticising the companion promenade of horses in the narrow street. They haled horses before them with the aplomb of a ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... is a kind of French Arthur Roberts, but without any of that extravagant energy which carries the English comedian triumphantly through all his absurdities. M. Brasseur is preposterously natural, full of aplomb and impertinence. He never flags, never hesitates; it is impossible to take him seriously, as we say of delightful, mischievous people in real life. I have been amused to see a discussion in the papers as to whether "La Veine" is a fit play to be presented to the English public. ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... adopted country. His plans were grandiose, and included Constantinople as capital. "Pourquoi pas?" he asked. It would prevent the Great Powers from quarrelling over it, and therefore make for peace! His curled mustachios, his perfumes, his incomparable aplomb, his airs of a "Serene Highness" formed a magnificent stock-in-trade. But even the fact that he offered me a magnificent salary to be Maid of Honour or Lady-in-Waiting (I forget which) at the Court of Albania did not persuade me to espouse ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... authors of them have most enjoyed writing, the books that have the thrill of excellent pleasure on every page, then "Candide" certainly bears away the palm. One would like to have watched Voltaire's countenance as he wrote it. The man's superb audacity, his courage, his aplomb, his god-like shamelessness, appear ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... did not refuse, and even sang most of the evening. There was a charming Baron Hochschild, the Swedish Minister, who sang delightfully. He is a thorough musician, and accompanied himself perfectly with all the aplomb of an artist. He has a deep, rich barytone, and his repertoire consisted of all the well-known old Italian songs. Lady Molesworth is a beautiful old lady, who must have been a great beauty in her youth. She wears curls just like yours, dear mama, which made me love her. I met here Arthur ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... Dan possessed the aplomb which only years of work on a great paper can give a man; he had wormed interviews from many reluctant and exalted personages; he had asked questions which the other man was certain to resent, often quite justly; he had drilled himself to believe that, when he was on the trail, all mankind ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Lady Fulkeward; she smoked cigarettes; she laughed like a child at every trivial thing—any joke, however stale, flat and unprofitable, was sufficient to stir her light pulses to merriment; and she flirted—oh, heavens!—HOW she flirted!—with a skill and a grace and a knowledge and an aplomb that nearly drove Muriel and Dolly Chetwynd Lyle frantic. They, poor things, were beaten out of the field altogether by her superior tact and art of "fence," and they hated her accordingly and called her in private a "horrid old woman," which perhaps, when her ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... my infancy," replied Mueller, with admirable aplomb. "I was born at sea, brought up in an undiscovered island, twice kidnapped by hostile tribes before attaining the age of ten years, and have lived among savage ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... a compress of sterilized cotton bound on with surgical bandages completed the operation. Then, when it was all over with, the young mother, who had gone through everything with the aplomb and deftness of a surgeon, quietly sank back in a faint. On the instant Blake was reaching ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... aplomb by the time he returned accompanied by the Duke. If Angus had ever lost his, he gave no indication of it. The effect on everybody else was literally seismic. The generally accepted view was that Lord Trask's reason had been unhinged by his tragic ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... coign of vantage for the men with trays, who were very persecuting there. Lindsay and Alicia stood together beside the roses, her hands were deep in them; he perceived with pleasure that their glow was reflected in her face. "No," she exclaimed with dainty aplomb to the man who sat cross-legged in muslin draperies on the table. "These are certainly of yesterday. There is no scent left in them—and look!" she held up the bunch and shook it. A shower of pink petals and drops of water fell upon the round of her arm above the wrist, where the laces ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... question miraculously restored all Mr. Prohack's vanished aplomb. That at the end of the greatest war in the history of the earth, amid decapitated empires and cities of starvation, braces should be made to measure,—this was too much for Mr. Prohack, who had not dreamed that braces ever had been made ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... you to hear," she said, with all the aplomb she could muster. "These things will happen. I've often told him he ought to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... my uncle. "Just look! he has made his little flourish and thinks he's a very clever fellow! I do like that—upon my soul I do! What youthful aplomb, what life in that foolish flourish! And what boy is this?" he asked, suddenly turning and ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... anything can equal the aplomb of a child that has always had his own way and has developed normally. The Kid, for instance, had been wandering in the wild places—this was the morning of the sixth day. The whole of Northern Montana waited anxiously for news of him. The ranch ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... straight to Michener). Pray how much longer is the Anti-Suffrage League to be kept waiting? (She passes him contemptuously and sits down with impressive confidence in the chair next the fireplace. Lady Corinthia takes the chair on the opposite side of the table with equal aplomb.) ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... standing with her back to the door, and did not see her come in; but she felt the sudden silence and turned to ascertain the cause. For a moment she was rooted to the spot, and the color left her face. It says much for her aplomb that she did not cry out. Her confusion lasted only for a moment, then she went toward ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... driving four horses and the "grub-wagon," and leading the procession. He handled the lines with an aplomb reminiscent of the coaching days of Reginald Vanderbilt, together with the noble bearing of the late Ben Hur tooling his chariot. Mr. Hicks dignified the "grub-wagon" to such an extent that it was a treat to ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... ridiculously deceived. The mystery of his fair companion's costume, which he had accepted as part of the "show"; the inconsistency of her manner and her evident occupation; her undeniable wish to terminate the whole episode with that single interview; her mingling of worldly aplomb and rustic innocence; her perfect self-control and experienced acceptance of his gallantry under the simulated attitude of simplicity—all now struck him as perfectly comprehensible. He recalled the actress's inimitable touch in certain ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... have pondered much over her brother's meaning—here she had no leisure. Not only was she fully occupied with the new scenes around her, but her Scottish cousin took up every moment open to conversation. He was older than Norman, and had just taken his degree, and he talked with that superior aplomb, which a few years bestow at their time of life, without conceit, but more hopeful and ambitious, and with higher ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... event took place even while it seemed most impossible. The Prime Minister took it with his usual aplomb. I asked him what he thought of the matter a week later, at a house party in Hertfordshire. He said, 'I consider it most unfortunate. This Leader of theirs is an inherently nasty individual. Therefore he'll make nastiness the avenue to distinction so long as he's in power. The results will ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... so like each other in verbal form, were utterly dissimilar in the manner of their utterance. Suddenly, and for the first time in all her knowledge of him, his cynical aplomb had fallen from the man like a garment. One moment he was brazening past deceit with a smiling face; the next, he was in earnest, even he, and that mocking voice vibrated ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... found a seat with easy aplomb, put up her bejewelled fingers to draw off her veil, and smilingly prepared herself for tea. She enquired of Betty how she was enjoying herself, and of Lady Ermyntrude how her husband and baby in the country were getting on without ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... walked by her side that May morning, I was only conscious of her voice and her exquisite girlhood; for though she talked with the APLOMB of a woman of the world, a passionate candour and simple ardour in her manner would have betrayed her, had her face not plainly declared her the incarnation of twenty. But if she were twenty years young, she was equally twenty years OLD; and twenty years old, in some respects, is the greatest ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... bewigged, begowned, bejewelled and—(I was about to say be-dabbed)—for all the world like a real duchess, and she smoked a long cigarette in a still longer holder, and blew smoke through her nostrils with great APLOMB and but ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... ground, until, having won her way with a quivering lip and chattering chin to the very topmost note, she tosses back her head and all its nodding feathers with an air of triumph; then suddenly falls to a note two octaves and a half lower with incredible aplomb, and smiles like a victorious Amazon over a conquered enemy." A throng of flatterers joined in encouraging her in all her defects. "No sooner does Catalani quit the orchestra," says the same writer, "than she is beset by a host of foreign sycophants, who load her with exaggerated praise. I was ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... a man in a world of pantomime tricks; the cause of any result, and the probable result of any action, equally concealed from him. He was the more careful not to shake the nerve of his amateur assistants. He stood there with a face like a torch; but he gave his orders with aplomb; and indeed, now the ship was under ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... moment of his deepest bereavement. Juliana calmed. Paquita diminished her angle of aversion, and then Sir Chim, advancing quite close to the division, began what appeared to be a recollection of a minuet. He executed marvellous gestures with a precision and aplomb which were quite enchanting, and when at last he broke out into a quick movement with loud smacking stamps, the ladies were completely carried away, and gave him all attention. Friendship was established, refreshments were served, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... arouse."—"The sixth hour!" grumbled Dentatsu. He rubbed his eyes as one who had just gone to sleep. Jimbei carried him off to the cleaning processes of early morn. The return found the table laid with the meal. With quietness and despatch Jimbei settled all matters with the aplomb of the practised traveller. Before he was well awake Dentatsu found himself following after through the dark streets. "Surely the maid has mistaken the hour.[23] 'Tis yet the darkness of night."—"Not likely," interjected ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... chair, with his feet on the mantel shelf. They had once or twice met on the staircase, on which occasion Thatcher had greeted her with a word or two of respectful yet half-humorous courtesy,—a courtesy which never really offends a true woman, although it often piques her self-aplomb by the slight assumption of superiority in the humorist. A woman is quick to recognize the fact that the great and more dangerous passions are always SERIOUS, and may be excused if in self-respect she is often induced to try if there be not somewhere under the skin of this ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... his aplomb, his lack of self-consciousness, seemed to be gone; and Neeland made some reply which seemed to him both obvious and dull. And hated himself because he found himself so unaccountably abashed, realising that he was afraid of ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... presented to Mr. Sam a weather-ruddied cheek, receiving his kiss on what, in so round a face as hers, might pass for the point of the jaw. In saluting Master Calvin she had perforce to take the offensive, and did so with equal aplomb. After a rapid survey of some three seconds she picked off his velveteen cap and kissed him accurately in the centre of ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in America," returned the colonel, with an aplomb that might have done credit to Vidocq himself; "in our republican country the ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... and a morbid feeling for the ridiculous, would have been death to Whitman's undertaking. He would have faltered, or betrayed self-consciousness. He certainly never could have spoken with that elemental aplomb and indifference which is so marked a feature of his work. Any hesitation, any knuckling, would have been his ruin. We should have seen he was not entirely serious, and should have laughed at him. We laugh now only for a moment; the ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... to her to warrant a certain similitude between the two nations; and secondly, her intimacy with the English people was practically confined to us three, who had been in America nearly seven years, and who, in consequence, had shrouded our more salient insularities beneath a cloak of cosmopolitan aplomb. Neither our speech nor our outlook upon life could be taken as typical of our great and noble-hearted nation. Yet she did take us in that sense, with the result that in her conception of the United Kingdom ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... moment, however, there was no jury at hand—only Pixie O'Shaughnessy, feeling very small and snubbed in her corner of the sofa, and robbed for the moment of her accustomed aplomb by the blighting consciousness that ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... was quite enough self-assertion for him, . . and if any one ever urged him to display his talent, he would elude the request with such charming grace and diffidence, that many people imagined he must really be a great musical genius who only lacked the necessary insolence and aplomb to make ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... for bed, the elder man instructed his companion in all the details of duelling, that he might be prepared to play his part on the morrow with confidence and aplomb. ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green |
