"Complacently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arranged," said he complacently. "I have taken the porter who will roll you into the secret. He promises to be as careful of you as he can. An officer on board is likewise in my confidence: he engages you shall be released as soon as the vessel is fairly under weigh. So take heart; it will be but a short trial compared ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... Selfishness may so control the conscience, that it will utter no upbraiding accents; and so bewilder the keen-sightedness of reason, that one may put darkness for light, and bitter for sweet, and sin for holiness, while complacently feeling that he is standing on the everlasting hills of truth. Neither the natural sympathies, nor conscience, nor reason, then, can form the substantial basis of a system of action which is to battle with the selfishness of the human heart. It must be informed with a higher ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... a hat manufactory as a favourable nursery for romance; but as the lady praised his song, he listened complacently to her hatting. ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... will be no actual trouble tonight," said the general, removing his cap and stroking his bald head complacently. "I have assured the boys that there will be no trouble. But this experience is excellent military training for them, and I'm pleased to note that they're thoroughly on ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... he said, complacently, 'and I have been patient. But now, when my work is done, and my place in the world fixed, I begin to find life somewhat barren. A man ought to reap some reward—something fairer and sweeter than pounds, shillings, and pence, for a life ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... the rogue said, complacently wagging his head at me, "there are some things of which even you ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... were loaded to their full capacity with common people—four, five, or even six, in one; in one were four brawny, young cargadors; in another an old grandmother, her two daughters, and some grandchildren, pure indians, rode complacently, enjoying the admiration which they knew their best clothes must attract; in some of the fine private coaches, no one but indian nurses or favored servants rode. Even here, few of the parties were really dashing, lively or beautiful. The whole thing was constrained, artificial ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... merino, which seems of exaggerated amplitude, although it fits admirably on the contours of sculptural richness, allows a glance at the charming leg of the Creole, in the scarlet stockings with blue clocks, just as it is met with among the old Flemish painters, who show so complacently the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... high an office to give his language all the precision and exactness which science requires when monopoly is in question. What he so complacently calls a MODIFICATION OF ECONOMIC FORMULAS is but a long and odious violation of the fundamental laws of labor and exchange. It is in consequence of monopoly that in society, net product being figured over and above gross ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... the latter, complacently, "if it interests you at all I can tell you that whales, wounded in Davis Strait, have been found afterwards on the coast of Tartary, still carrying a European harpoon in ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... have a peaceful game, anyhow," Husky called after him, smiling complacently at getting ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... was quite a brilliant affair," said Solon Talbot complacently. "I am glad to have you invited to such a swell house. Did Stanley Rayburn take you up to ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger
... beautiful wrought-iron fountains continued to gurgle and murmur complacently, prattling with soothing insistence of the days of their youth, when men still had the time and the care for noble lines and curves, and war was the affair of princes and adventurers. Legend popped out ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... smiled complacently in the superior wisdom of the Shorter Catechism. 'There is neither marriage nor giving in marriage,' said she, shaking her head. 'This is the spare bedroom, sir, where Mr. Emerson slept when he was here. And now if you will step this way I will ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... in that particular," said Blake complacently, "that I shall differ from them." He turned to Ruth, eager to engage her in the conversation, to flatter her by including her in the secret. Knowing the loyalist principles she entertained, he had no reason to fear that his plans could other than meet her approval. "What do you say, ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... traveller makes himself at home and comfortable in the bush, he will never be quite contented with his lot; but will fall into the bad habit of looking forwards to the end of his journey, and to his return to civilisation, instead of complacently interesting himself in its continuance. This is a frame of mind in which few great journeys have been successfully accomplished; and an explorer who cannot divest himself of it, may suspect that he ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... which is filled with lukewarm water, and, squatting down before it, lathers himself with a vegetable, soapy material, which is sewn up in a small bag. At this stage of the proceeding he will probably enter into conversation with his neighbours, complacently rejoicing in his soapiness until the remonstrances of the bathing-house man, or of some would-be possessor of his tub, compel ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... America cannot complacently lean back upon victories won, as he can in the older European countries, and depend upon the glamour of the past to sustain him or the momentum of success to carry him. Probably the most alert public in the world, it requires of ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... too often neglected by our painters, some of them even complacently confessing their ignorance of it; while the ordinary student either turns from it with distaste, or only endures going through it with a view to passing an examination, little thinking of what value it will be to him in working out his pictures. ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... class of people scarcely ever get enough to eat or drink, and thus so many of them die of decline brought on from insufficiency of nourishment. I will send a bag of flour up to the hut to-morrow," said Mrs. Brudenell complacently. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... man and, I suppose, his wife passed by. He had a letter in his hand for the post; but as the pathway to the receiving-box looked very muddy, he made his companion take it to the box, whilst he himself, from beneath his umbrella, complacently watched her getting wet through. "Colonial politeness," thought I, as the happy ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... ice cream freezer with the thermometer at 112 degrees, and the millionaires' sons call Belle "Miss Hadley," and I make bows for her organdie dress, while she curled her hair for a dance to be held that evening ten miles away, and to which she went complacently with her pick of the cowboys and her employers' two best horses, while they stayed at home and did her work! Else why did this one fetch wood for her, that one peel the potatoes, another wash the dishes? And when she and the rest of us were seated at ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... description and it was contended that the passage of this measure would give employment to thousands of people; that the rumbling of the locomotive would soon be heard in every corner of the state, and that the dealer in town lots and broad acres would again be able to complacently inform the newcomer the exact locality where a few dollars would soon bring to the investor returns unheard of by any ordinary methods of speculation. The campaign was short and the amendment carried by ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... smiling plantations. What has become of the tens of thousands of peaceful agriculturists, their wives and their innocent children? Gone; converted, after Samadu's manner, to the 'True Faith.' And thus the conversion of West Africa to Islamism goes merrily on, while dilettante scholars at home complacently discuss the question as to whether that faith or Christianity is the more suitable for the Negro; and the British people, dead to their generous instincts of old, make no demand that such deeds of cruelty and horror shall be ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... watched Brummell to imitate him, and order their clothes of the tradesman who dressed that sublime dandy. One day a youthful beau approached Brummell and said, "Permit me to ask you where you get your blacking?" "Ah!" replied Brummell, gazing complacently at his boots, "my blacking positively ruins me. I will tell you in confidence; it is made ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... this piece, and its nicety of workmanship, made every one say that I had surpassed the great Lautizio, who ranked alone in this branch of the profession. The Cardinal was so proud of it that he used to compare it complacently with the other seals of the Roman cardinals, which were nearly all from the ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... shoulders and obeyed in silence. Young Si was not a person to be trifled with. The catch was large and it was late before they finished. Snuffy surveyed the full barrels complacently. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was not ideal for a circus performance. However, the showmen uttered no protest, going about their business as methodically as if the air were warm and balmy, the moon and stars shining down over the scene complacently. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... thought you were sorry and wanted to tell Miss Kerr so," said Bunny complacently, as she shook out her frock and admired herself in the long glass. "It's very greedy to talk so much ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... up in her talk—all quite ostensibly about her impressions and her intentions. She tried to put Densher again on his American doings, but he wouldn't have that to-day. As he thought of the way in which, the other afternoon, before Kate, he had sat complacently "jawing," he accused himself of excess, of having overdone it, having made—at least apparently—more of a "set" at their entertainer than he was at all events then intending. He turned the tables, drawing her out about London, about her vision of life there, and only too glad to treat her as ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... Ah! poor Fido! although your master seems evidently out of humor, he would not have kicked your beautiful spotted coat had he seen you! There, he caresses you—so fold back your long ears, and wag your tail complacently, while we hear what this impatient youth has to say, as he strides so ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... idea," said Henderson complacently. "That's what you're supposed to find out. Oh, there's ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake
... puzzled my brain in waking hours were made clear to me in sleep, and I frequently felt myself blindly impelled to do or to avoid doing certain things. The members of my family, who found it impossible to understand my motives of action,—because, in fact, there were no motives,—complacently solved the difficulty by calling me "queer." I presume there are few persons who are not occasionally visited by the instinct, or impulse, or faculty, or whatever it may be called, to which I refer. I possessed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... with his left arm well up, and his right in for defence, a style so unusual at that date as to provide a little derision amongst the onlookers. Mike, standing with his arms outspread and his shoulders to the crowd, keeping the ring, smiled complacently. Pete, confident in his height, weight, and strength, was determined to make a short, hot fight of it, and went straight at Jim, both hands up, and launched his right for the young man's face with terrific force. This must have been a ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... future state. A great excitement is visible among his hearers, a scream is heard, and some young girl falls senseless on the floor. There is a momentary rustle, but it is only for a moment—all eyes are turned towards the preacher. He pauses, passes his handkerchief across his face, and looks complacently round. His voice resumes its natural tone, as with mock humility he offers up a thanksgiving for having been successful in his efforts, and having been permitted to rescue one sinner from the path ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... to Fremin, who accompanied him to the door; and, when seated in his carriage, he read again the paragraph of Puck—that Puck, who, in the course of the same article, referred many times to the brilliancy of "our colleague Jacquemin," and complacently cited the witticisms of "our ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... have to ask your advice when the time comes," went on Anne, complacently. "You must assist me in selecting the most ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... temporary commercial triumph at the enormous sacrifice of the natural development of the individual, would be a fatal and short-sighted policy that could only end in national ruin. We have not yet reached the worst depths of the education fallacy, but we are complacently drifting ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... my dear," he replied complacently. Then he added, "If I were commissioned to draw up a new legal code, and had previously enjoyed the privilege, as I have been doing lately, of listening to the conversation of you three young ladies, I should make precisely ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... up-to-date mind might say complacently that such characters must have been so weak that they would probably have gone that way, anyhow. But that is merely to close one's eyes to the understanding of a vital principle, the inner feelings of heart and soul which play such a large part in the ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... fights and rests by turns till within a few years he finds himself triumphant. Eventually, beneath his own orchard trees laden with fruit, and in the comfort and delight of his big home fireplace, he contemplates the rewards of his struggle, as he sees his cows complacently chewing their cuds in his green pastures and listens to the neigh of his fat horses, and at his table, laden with all the bounty of his rich lands, thanks his Maker for the successful completion of a ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... a few in my time," assented the old gentleman, complacently. "And I hope to catch a few more yet. You folk who don't get up till the morning's half over ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... German and moonstruck. I mean that piece of peculiarly American enterprise a premature engagement—to take effect, but too complacently, at the end ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... 'twas goin' to do well," she said complacently as we went on again. "Last time I was up this way that tree was kind of drooping and discouraged. Grown trees act that way sometimes, same's folks; then they'll put right to it and strike their roots off into new ground and start all over again with real good courage. Ash-trees ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... pipe, shared out the remainder of the wine between his host and himself, and, raising his glass, said, in a somewhat solemn tone, "To our youth, Hermann!" After emptying his glass at one draught, be replaced it on the table, and said complacently, "It is long since I have drunk with so much pleasure; for this time I have not drunk to forgetfulness, but ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... a very remarkable instance of the uncommon strength of Dr. Johnson's memory. When I received from him the MS. he complacently observed, "that the criticism was tolerably well done, considering that he had not read one of Rowe's plays for thirty ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... when the sheikh proudly replies that he will not take one para less. The Turk sulkily throws him the money saying that thirty thousand piasters are an unheard of price for a horse. The Arab looks at him in silence, and ties the money very complacently in his cloak. Then he descends to the courtyard to take leave of his mare. He mutters some Arabic words in her ear, strokes her eyes and forehead, examines her hoofs, and walks all around her, carefully studying the attentive horse. Suddenly he jumps on her bare back, and, in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... remained in the mighty palaces his constructive energy had planned, the bridges and fortresses and factories which he had held necessary for France's future greatness as a nation. Louis paid scant tribute of regret to the memory of one who had toiled indefatigably in his service; but he looked complacently on Versailles and reflected that it would survive, even if the laurels of glory should be wrested ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... initiation has been too much for her unformed mind," she murmured complacently, pleased with herself for having secured a disciple. "The path is narrow and rugged at the beginning, but it will broaden out before her as ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... Levering had the reputation of being a conscientious, high-minded man. He knew that he was thus estimated, and self-complacently appropriated the good opinion as clearly ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... for a title of nobility and failed, though she gained in the end a greater title. Her works are insufferably and complacently conceited, and yet I always look at their bindings with respect. Mrs. Blashfield, who died too soon, has given us, in her first volume—unfortunately the only one—a new view of this Empress of Didacticism. ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... received respecting them from my slave-holding acquaintance, made my flesh creep as we steamed onwards, the more so as, in many of the grounds skirting the river, where these sombre murky-looking objects presented themselves to the gaze of the traveller, gangs of negroes were at work, looking up complacently for a moment as the vessel glided by. I was subsequently told by a gentleman who had been long resident in the state of Louisiana, that no punishment so effectually strikes with terror the negro mind, as that of hanging, the very threat being ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... his future wife, her eyes were given her to see with, nothing more. "And she looks out with them, never in," he reflected complacently. For he had come by this time to regard her as his future wife. It seemed quite natural when Maria presently took Kitty in hand as one of the family, and began to manage for her as she did for them all, from Grandfather Hicks down ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... girl so flustered," Mrs. Camden would remark, complacently. "Perhaps our city style rather oppressed her; and as for Mr. Walton, he put on so much dignity that he leaned over backward. They evidently don't belong ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... saying," Kelson went on complacently, "I could have kissed her and I felt downright mean for upsetting ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... few of us left in the world," Dick retorted complacently. "But you, Dexter, you wouldn't care whether it was money or slime, as long ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... of forces was effected within a mile of the lead herd. It was a unique posse. Old frontiersmen, with patriarchal beards and sawed-off shotguns, chewed their tobacco complacently as they rode forward at a swinging gallop. Beardless youths, armed with the old buffalo guns of their fathers, led the way as if an Indian invasion had called them forth. Soldiers of fortune, with Southern accents, who were assisting in the conquest of a new empire, intermingled ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... a true son of Israel,' he murmured complacently to himself. 'He will trust his gold only to his ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... In the vestibule he came upon a figure which had halted before a large pier-glass. He recognized M. Delfosse, the French visitor, complacently twisting the peak of his Henri Quatre beard. He would have passed without speaking, but the Frenchman glanced smilingly at the consul and his buttonhole. ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... death, when it became Mr. Langton's property, he made the inscription be defaced. Johnson said complacently, 'It was kind in you to take it off;' and then after a short pause, added, 'and not unkind in him to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... now a new and very tempting field inviting some bold Calvin or Luther in the ranks of positivism to write an immortal book, with the original and attractive title, Ethics of Atheism. The great offense of the scientific (sciolistic) atheist is his lofty arrogance. He complacently assumes the name of Infallible Wisdom. He "understands all mysteries;" his mental telescope sweeps eternity "from everlasting to everlasting;" his microscopic vision pierces the secrets of creation,—sees the beauty and order of all celestial worlds emerge from fiery chaotic dust,—by the fortunate ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... the Boer-woman as he went out at the door. "If he's ugly, did not the Lord make him? And are we to laugh at the Lord's handiwork? It is better to be ugly and good than pretty and bad; though of course it's nice when one is both," said Tant Sannie, looking complacently at ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... consent), and Charles Sheridan, their younger brother, a sort of younger brother of the Apollo Belvedere. Certainly I never saw such a bunch of beautiful creatures all growing on one stem. I remarked it to Mrs. Norton, who looked complacently round her tiny drawing-room and said, "Yes, we are rather good-looking people." I remember this evening because of the impression made on me by the sight of these wonderfully "good-looking people" all together, and also because of my having had to sing with Moore—an honor and glory hardly ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... that the face of an old man, who had like others been called to the heights by the rising flames, was not really the mere nose and chin that it appeared to be, but an appreciable quantity of human countenance. He stood complacently sunning himself in the heat. With a speaker, or stake, he tossed the outlying scraps of fuel into the conflagration, looking at the midst of the pile, occasionally lifting his eyes to measure the height ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... noticed that she did not refuse outright to consent to the early marriage and drew her complacently to him. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... you'd be pleased!' he said complacently; 'but I mustn't take all the credit myself. It was like this, you see: I felt all right enough about the other rooms, but the drawing-room—that's your room, and I was awfully afraid of not having ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... mat over the wheel to save my dress, Adolphe," said the old lady; and as the little boy obeyed her order she stepped nimbly into the carriage, assisted by the Major. "The silk is old," she observed complacently; "but it is my best, of course, or it would not have been worn to-day," and she gave a graceful little bow towards Aunt Theresa; "and I hope that, with care, it will serve as such for the rest of my life, which ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the ships; yet others gave themselves up to continual idleness, trotting half-naked along the beach, begging with loud pertinacity in the harbour, or shamelessly basking in the sun. Look! the lepers are limping about, complacently exhibiting their sores. One of the disciples looked questioningly at the Master, wondering if He would heal them? Then, perhaps, they ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... painful. How serious, then, is the danger to a young girl, at the age in which imagination is most active, most intense, if you force upon her a belief that she is in danger of a mortal disease! It is a peculiarity of youth to brood over the thought of early death much more resignedly, much more complacently, than we do in maturer years. Impress on a young imaginative girl, as free from pulmonary tendencies as you and I are, the conviction that she must fade away into the grave, and though she may not actually die of consumption, you instil slow poison into her system. ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the room, smoking, drinking beer, and laughing over some not very brilliant joke; we three were a little apart. Courvoisier, stately and imposing-looking, and with that fine manner of his, politely answering his interrogator, a small, sharp-featured man, who looked up to him and rattled complacently away, while I sat upon the table among the fiddle-cases and beer-glasses, my foot on a chair, my chin in my hand, feeling my cheeks glow, and a strange sense of dizziness and weakness all over me, a lightness in my head which I could not understand. ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... the right, and a weeping family gathered in front of it. The mortgage was depicted as a cross between a fiend and an ogre, and held an axe uplifted in his red right hand. A figure with streaming black locks was staying the blow, and this, Rebecca explained complacently, was intended as a likeness of herself, though she was rather vague as to the method she should ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... descriptions of the last Grand Assize must no more be taken literally than the golden crowns, which we do not expect or want to wear on our heads, or the golden harps, which we do not want or expect to hold in our hands. Is it not too true that many religious sectaries think of the last tribunal complacently, as the scene in which they are to have the satisfaction of saying to the believers of a creed different from their own, "I told you so"? Are not others oppressed with the thought of the great returns which will be expected of them as the product of their great gifts, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... homely feathers as peacock of his magnificent plumes? And after the battle fought, which leaves him but the tattered rag of a tail to display to the sun, will not turkey-cock spread that tattered rag of a tail as self-complacently, and strut as grandly and gobble as obstreperously as ever? Aye, that will he! And why? Because his tail—tag-rag or not—is all his own and nobody else's; though almost anybody else may have one which the sun would rather shine on. As with turkey-cock, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... same graceful position in his easy chair that he would have assumed in bed, and complacently examining his hand, which was as white and plump as that of a woman, and which he held in the air to cause the blood to descend, "now, as you have heard, d'Artagnan, Monsieur the Principal is desirous that my thesis should be dogmatic, while I, for my part, would rather it should be ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in town, she had served fine mistresses, she had been given many a guinea for carrying a note or contriving an interview, and in changing her estate she had not changed her code of morals. "We must oblige Mr. Haward, of course," she said complacently. "I warrant you that I can give things an air! There's not a parlor in this parish that does not set my teeth on edge! Now at my Lady Squander's"—She embarked upon reminiscences of past splendor, checked only by her husband's impatient demand ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... in which a thing is done," she said to herself complacently, as she composed herself for slumber; "of course I shall act with the most extreme delicacy. But it would never do for my sister's chances in life to be ruined for want of a ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... of the young man were vaguely thrilled with the coming of spring, and so he complacently took in the never-ceasing tide of eager women, on the street's shady side, with one ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... afore supper," explained Mrs. Lem, "but to-day she couldn't very well." She looked complacently at her child's toilet. "You needn't ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... complacently Lois's protestations of joy and gratitude that she was no longer, as she expressed it, in immediate danger, but she did not apparently feel that that altered at all the conditions of the promise ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... man comes a day when his favourite sins all forsake him, And he complacently thinks he has ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... mountains, with the loved husband of her choice, and with her children, in whom she had complacently centred all the pride of her maternal heart, she had regretted nothing. She closed the fair book of youth at these three words,—"God, husband, children." Raphael especially was her best beloved. She would have purchased for him a kingly destiny, but, ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... to be silent, to think, to meditate, to pray "Thy kingdom come." Nigh by in the same grotto is what they call the tomb of a relation of ourn on both sides. Yes, they say Adam, our grandpa (removed) wuz buried here. I felt considerable sceptical about that, but Josiah beheld it complacently, and I hearn him ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... Seventh side. Vanity. She is smiling complacently as she looks into a mirror in her lap. Her robe is embroidered with roses, and roses form her ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... which are physical, and to call attention to a pestilence, latent, as it were, which incessantly acts upon the faces of the porter, the artisan, the small shopkeeper; to point out a deleterious influence the corruption of which equals that of the Parisian administrators who allow it so complacently ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... a column about it," remarked Jamieson, complacently. "A pretty good story." Then suddenly: "You ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... the revelations at Marketstoke, Mr. Pawle suddenly realized that here, at last, was something material and tangible which opened out all sorts of possibilities. And he voiced the thoughts of his two companions as he turned in amazement on the fat little man who sat complacently ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... when a drunken soldier is flogged; but he trims his paletots, and adorns his legs, with the flesh of men and the skins of women, with degradation, pestilence, heathendom, and despair; and then chuckles self-complacently over the smallness of his tailors' bills. Hypocrite!—straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel! What is flogging, or hanging, King Ryence's paletot, or the tanneries of Meudon, to the slavery, starvation, waste of life, year-long ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... to them, "that was well done. One would easily be telling that I was an ex-trooper of the king." He rode out to us complacently. "'Tis a good horse, if only he steered with a tiller instead of these straps," he remarked, "and he goes ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... are some unusual features in the case," said M. Fuselier complacently: "this, for instance: why do you suppose the fellow stayed such a long time with the Princess and went through all that comedy business in the bathroom? Don't forget that she came in late, and ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... earnestly over their Latin grammars by the side of the kitchen fire, and did not raise their eyes as the Seeker burst into the room. Constance sat down, and gasped and quivered for a while. Then she looked down complacently at the little black bow with its smudge of red ink, and ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... and apologies. Of course only ladies were present. The great covered court was converted into a large shrine. One could imagine they were looking into the main hall of a temple, only that everything was so clean and beautiful. From the centre of the shrine a Goddess of Mercy looked down complacently upon the array of fruit, nuts, sweetmeats and cakes spread out before her. Many candles in their tall candlesticks were burning on every side. Before her was a great bronze incense-burner, from which many sticks ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... is near Bury St. Edmunds—on Sir Geoffrey Manning's grounds—on September 1st, 1830, or 1827, whichever Boz pleases, when "many a young partridge who strutted complacently among the stubble with all his finical coxcombry of youth, and many an older one who watched his levity out of his little, round eye with the contemptuous air of a bird of wisdom and experience, alike unconscious of their approaching doom, basked ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... rising that you enjoy him, and only when he reaches the climax and explodes, that you fall back and ask for water and a fan. Taking him in the aggregate we are of opinion that he is a good preacher; that he goes through his ordinary duties easily and complacently. He gets well paid for what be does—last year his salary exceeded 340 pounds; and our advice to him is—keep on good terms with the bulk of "the brethren," hammer as much piety into them as possible, tickle the deacons into a genial humour, and look regularly after ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... few hens. The home farm was five miles from the station. The outlying farms were scattered in five villages—"there are always spendthrift lazy fellows willing to sell their land." "I have a firm belief," the speaker added complacently, "that agriculture is the most honest, the most sincere, the most interesting, the most secure and the ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... After watching complacently as poor Ponto gnawed away with somewhat languid jaws, till the bone was scraped almost clean, he again set out in search of another. After he had brought in several, he lay down as before by his friend's side, just playing with one of the bones to keep him company. Thus day after day Dick continued ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... complacently in his half-witted way. "That's a joke, too," said he. He knew himself to be ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the hedge behind them, Lionel had caught sight of a human face, its stealthy ears complacently taking in every word. It was ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... rather nice to be able to help yourself," remarked Lottie complacently. "There! mine's done; what do you ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... we're fairly comfortable 'ere, sir," nodded Mr. Brimberly complacently, "yes, fairly ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... was young. An', by Jings, she was pleased an' prood! She stood me ma tea, includin' twa hot pies, an' she gi'ed me a packet o' fags—guid quality, mind ye!—an' she peyed for first-class sates in a pictur' hoose! That's hoo to dae it, ma lad!' he concluded complacently. ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... Duval or Mr. Turpin in the pen, but we've one or two others almost as celebrated in their way. There's Billy Burke, as desperate a cracksman as the country can produce, with," complacently, "a record second to none in his class. He"—and Mr. Gillett, with considerable zest entered into the details of Mr. Burke's eventful and rapacious career. "Then there's the ''Frisco Pet,' or the 'Pride of Golden Gate,' as some of ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... be nobler, purer, and stronger than Eve when she came from the hands of her Divine Creator? But how quickly she fell when she gave ear to the seducing voice of the tempter! How irreparable was her ruin when she complacently looked on the forbidden fruit, and believed the lying voice which told her there was "no sin" ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... when you are a few years older, and I bring you out in society, that I always have been so particular," observed Mrs. Vanderburgh, complacently, lifting her head in its dainty ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... communities, commonly gets to be the cause of a somewhat fallacious gauge of merit among the population of entire countries. The chatelain, Melchior de Willading, and the Prior, all of whom came from the same Teutonic root, received the remark complacently; for each felt it an honor to be descended from, such ancestors; while the more polished and artificial Italian succeeded in concealing the smile that, on such an occasion, would be apt to play about the mouth of a man whose ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... let us not despise those generous souls, who in the excitement of their patriotism are always prompt to identify the voice of their chiefs with the truth. Let us encourage rather their simple credulity, enlighten complacently and tenderly their precious sincerity, and reserve our shafts for those vain-glorious spirits who are always admiring their genius, and, in different tongues, caressing the people in order to ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon |
