"Indifferent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... portmanteau comfortably in the canoe, my back is against the trade box, and behind that is the usual mound of pillows, sleeping mats, and mosquito-bars of the Igalwa crew; the whole surmounted by the French flag flying from an indifferent stick. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... that winter—a handsome, spoiled little boy. He looked like Maurice—the same friendly, eager, very bright blue eyes and the same shock of blond hair. Lily's ideas of discipline were, of course, ruining him, to which fact Maurice was entirely indifferent; his feeling about Jacky was nothing but a sort of spiritual nausea; Jacky was not only an economic nuisance, but he had made him a liar! He said to himself that of course he didn't want anything to happen to the brat ("that would break ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... persons, and his argument is still that which should be antecedent; as,—he is in high place, therefore virtuous;—he is preferred, therefore worthy. Never ask his opinion, for you shall hear but his faction, and he is indifferent in nothing but conscience. Men esteem him for this a zealous affectionate, but they mistake him many times, for he does it but to be esteemed so. Of all men he is worst to write an history, for he will praise a Sejanus or Tiberius, and for some petty respect ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... prisoner. At her side was the prisoner himself, grave in mien, courageous in bearing, collected in deportment. Back of them were Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey. Among the witnesses for the defense was Dr. Morris, saturnine, mocking, indifferent. ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... might name, proffered inducements from publishers to write a new book and to take advantage of the occasion to make a volume of his short stories with the assurance of a magnificent sale,—to all this he was strikingly indifferent. Two or three public addresses, a few articles in the reviews, and for a while the editorship of 'The New Nation,' a weekly periodical which he established in Boston,—this was the sum of his public activity until he should have made himself ready for a second sustained ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... enormous flounces. In the mountains, he was to the manner born; in the village, he was keenly alive to the presence and pressure of the exclusiveness that is the basis of all society, good, bad, or indifferent; and it stirred his venom. His revolt was less pronounced and less important than that of his ancestors; but it was a revolt. Gerard Petit left France, and Teague Poteet remained away from Gullettsville. Otherwise ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... "I do but indifferent well, Sir. As well as a damsel may do in a world where gentlemen keep not their promises," she answered, with a curtsey, so saucily deep, that the crisp crimson silk of her skirt rustled on ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... other near it; what will occur? The red component of the strip you hold in your hand will repel the red component of your suspended strip; but then it will attract the green, and, the forces being equal, they neutralise each other. In fact, the least reflection shows you that the strips will be as indifferent to each other as two unmagnetised darning-needles would be ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... should make her own choice of husband, for his only wish was to please her and make her happy. With this answer the prince was well satisfied, for he was already aware that the princess was not indifferent to him. He offered her his hand, and she declared that if he were not to be her husband, then no other man should be. Prince Moufy threw himself in rapture at her feet, and exacted, lover-like, a promise that she would keep her word ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... the most significant, the well known Battle Song of the Confederation. In this poem the poet has striven to collect everything that could serve to make the soldiers who were to take part in the battle of Danneberg more indifferent to the bullets. I should not, however, have liked to advise the commanding general actually to use it for this purpose. Mr. Koerner quite forgets with what sort of people he is dealing when, in the third strophe, he expects the soldiers to let themselves be slaughtered for ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... years were a period of silence in the Russian-Jewish press. [1] The rank and file of the Russian Jewish intellectuals, who formed the backbone of the reading public of this press, became indifferent to it. Living up conscientiously to the principle of a "fusion of interests," they failed to recognize the special interests of their own people, whose only duty they thought was to be Russified, i.e., obliterated and put out ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... in a nation. Most all Macedonian calls are like that. The few, comparatively speaking, rise to utter such calls and these few are the keys of opportunity which may be used to unlock whole Empires. The great body of the people in Brazil (and this is especially true of the educated classes) are as indifferent to the gospel as people are most anywhere else. It is the weight of this stolid indifference which tries the endurance of the missionary. It fills the very atmosphere he breathes and hangs a dark cloud over his horizon, which only his faith in God and the winning of occasional converts ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... may be said in his defence, as bad reasons are always at hand in an indifferent cause; that he was not sure the money would be applied as he thinks it ought to be, by the present ministers. I think as ill of them as he does to the full. They have done very near as much mischief as they can do, to a constitution so robust as this is. Nothing can make them more ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of playing, intelligence, and knowledge are generally sufficient to produce an interpretation in most respects satisfactory. The music usually compensates for a style which may be, according to circumstances, either dry, cold, too monotonous or too strongly shaded, and even for an indifferent or careless touch. Interest in the composition frequently diverts the attention of even the best player from a thoroughly correct and delicate mode of execution, and from the effort to enhance the ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... ago that, although he is more quiet, the King is not at all reconciled to the Catholic question. His Majesty was very much annoyed at his speech the other day, having always hoped that he was at heart too indifferent about it to take a decided line or express publicly a strong opinion. It is supposed that either Sugden or Alderson will be Solicitor-General. O'Connell has done himself great credit by his moderation in the Committee. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... La Tuna, General Benevides proved himself worthy of his lineage. No general could have done more to rally his troops, or have been more indifferent to danger. He scorned to turn his back upon an enemy, and while trying to rally his scattered forces, he ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... called Oregon, is a strip of indifferent territory betwixt the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. It is separated from both the American and British possessions by an arid wilderness of great extent, or by many thousands of miles of tempestuous navigation, via Cape Horn. Since 1818, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... anticipated, he prayed thus: "O Lord God, my Beloved, if You would be so good as to take the care of Mary and Jessie, my daughters; but that She-Devil, my wife, the daughter of Peter Macpherson, I am indifferent about her: she will have another husband before I am eaten ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... expedition, on horseback, taking with us a native boy, and a pack-horse loaded with flour, tea, and sugar, and other necessaries. It will be sufficient to state that we pursued a south-east course, crossing the Hotham, the Williams, and the Arthur rivers, and traversing an indifferent country, but in many places fit for sheep-grazing, before we came to the lake, or sea, of which we were in search. When we arrived at it, we were disappointed to find it not more than six miles long, although the natives, with their usual amount of exaggeration, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... occurred here in resupplying our men with ammunition. Three mules loaded with boxes filled with cartridges were conducted by an ordnance sergeant through the interval on my right in open view of both armies, and with indifferent leisure to and behind the stone wall occupied by the Confederates. The sergeant and his party were not fired on. Word was passed along the line for my division to make a charge on a given signal, and all subordinate officers were instructed to use the utmost exertion to make it a success. The ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... leaden gross, That with their weight they make the balances To crack beneath them. Joyous friars we were, Bologna's natives, Catalano I, He Loderingo nam'd, and by thy land Together taken, as men used to take A single and indifferent arbiter, To reconcile their strifes. How there we sped, Gardingo's vicinage can best declare." "O friars!" I began, "your miseries—" But there brake off, for one had caught my eye, Fix'd to a cross with three stakes on the ground: He, when he saw me, writh'd himself, throughout Distorted, ruffling ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... humour. She made few friends among the students. Her scarlet dress grew shabbier. Her gloves and boots were pitiful to Ambroise, who recalled her former splendours, her outrageous extravagances. Why had fortune flouted her! Why had she let it, like water, escape through her jewelled, indifferent fingers! He made no inquiries. She vouchsafed none. They were now on a different footing. Tantalizingly she dangled the purse under his nose as he brought her absinthe—always this opalescent absinthe. She ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... natural than humans. They just sets there serene and indifferent not caring whether you likes their looks or not, and they let 'er blow and let 'er snow, it's all one to them. I reckon when we've been dead so long that nobody could raise a dispute as to whether we'd ever lived or not, that there same boulder what they calls Rocking Stone will still ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... business for a long while. Luckily, I am free now, and able to attend to it. But you must give your attention to it as well. The workmen and clerks have followed the example of their employers to some extent. Indeed, they have become extremely negligent and indifferent. This morning, for the first time in a year, they began work at the proper time. I expect that you will make it your business to change all that. As for me, I shall work at my drawings again. Our patterns ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... am indifferent to the great ideas of freedom, people, fatherland. No! These ideas are in us, they are a part of our being, and no one can cast them from him. I too have a warm heart for Germany. I have often felt bitter pain in thinking of the German people, so worthy of respect in some ways, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Bell to Boston in 1871. And he had been for years a most restless agitator for improvements in telegraphy and the post office. So, as a promoter of schemes for the public good, Hubbard was by no means a novice. His first step toward capturing the attention of an indifferent nation was to beat the big drum of publicity. He saw that this new idea of telephoning must be made familiar to the public mind. He talked telephone by day and by night. Whenever he travelled, he carried a pair of the magical ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... hand away, and, forgetting all about her request and the promise she had sought to extort, ran at the top of her speed, and without turning, till she was out of sight. And then I knew that I loved her, and thought in my glad heart that she—she herself—was not indifferent to my suit. Many a time she has denied it in after days, but it was with a smiling and not a serious denial. For my part, I am sure our hands would not have lain so closely in each other if she had not begun to melt to me already. And, when all is said, it is no great contention, ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... anything that turns up is, in the infinity of knowledge, to know nothing. To read the first book we come across, in the wilderness of books, is to learn nothing. To turn over the pages of ten thousand volumes is to be practically indifferent to all that ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... us Homer, however, and on the rank and file of facts they may do their worst; we can be indifferent to, or even thankful for, what slaughter they may make. In the legends of the Theogonia, in that of Zeus and Cronus, for instance, there is evidently a metaphysical allegory; in the legends of Persephone, or of the Dioscuri, a physical one; in that of Athene, a profoundly philosophical ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... violently in the sticky clay. When he was safely taken across to an island on which we sought refuge, Omerod was attended to. There he lay, half buried in salt mud, chewing his cud unconcernedly; either he had perfect confidence in us, or was indifferent as to his fate—he looked rather as if he were saying "Kismet." We had some trouble in digging him out, during which operation Luck fared as I had done before; he was pinned beneath the camel, waist deep in clay, and ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... and the grim blind idols muse in their shady groves to exactly the same purpose as the priests and chiefs. And possibly the parrots don't know, possibly they do, that the noble savage is a wearisome impostor wherever he is, and has five hundred thousand volumes of indifferent rhyme, and no reason, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... They will never tell us, for this world is too new and strange for facile description; they are always bashful about their hunger for persons until they find the same hunger and joy in us. We imagine that they are indifferent to us; the trouble is we are hidden from them. We seldom give them a chance to talk as friend to friend, not about trifling things, but about life itself and what it means. Perhaps at no point do parents exhibit less ability for sympathetic reconstruction ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... She knew it was owing to Aunt Jennie's influence that her mother had put forth this extra exertion, and though it was Sunday, Dexie felt like dancing a jig around the floor, for her mother had become even more indifferent than her easy-going father in ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... the first point, especially for those who are cold and indifferent, that they may reflect upon and rouse themselves. For this is certainly true, as I have found in my own experience, and as every one will find in his own case, that if a person thus withdraw from this Sacrament, he will daily ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... degree in the mind of the idiot. We know from daily life the timid, undecided man who cannot come to a will impulse; the hasty man who rushes towards decisions; the inattentive man who can never focus his consciousness; and the overattentive man who can never dismiss any subject; the indifferent man on whom nothing produces evident impression and feeling; the over-sensitive man who reacts on slight impressions with exaggerated emotion; and yet every one of such and a thousand similar variations, needs only the projection on a larger scale to demonstrate a mental life which is self-destructive. ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... light, and vain, whom adversity had not broken, and could not sour; an Abbe, bland and double, but gentle and kindly in his way; a soldier, volatile, hot-headed, brave as a lion, simple as a child; an older man, sad, sneering, indifferent to this world and the next, but with the wrecks of a noble head, and, God help ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... liberals. The religious zeal as well as the moral earnestness of the age was naturally drawn to the Protestant side. As the sect was persecuted, no one joined it save from conscientious motives. Against the laziness or the corruption of the prelates, too proud or too indifferent to give a reason for their faith, the innovators opposed a tireless energy in season and out of season; against the scandals of the court and the immorality of the clergy they raised the banner of a new and stern morality; to ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... generations. The very individuals who conduct these changes disclaim all intention of innovation, and they had rather resort to absurd expedients than plead guilty of so great a crime. This spirit more especially appertains to the English lawyers; they seem indifferent to the real meaning of what they treat, and they direct all their attention to the letter, seeming inclined to infringe the rules of common sense and of humanity, rather than to swerve one tittle from the law. The English legislation ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... found diverse cornfeilds & little running brooks, a place fitt for situation: at least it was y^e best they could find." The Pilgrims, then, were quite oblivious of the rock, the historians are entirely skeptical concerning it, and the following generation so indifferent to the tradition which was gradually formulating, that in the course of events it was half-covered with a wharf, and used as a doorstep ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... aisle to lift up a piece of paper, say, that had floated there. After the first psalm had been sung it was Hendry's part to lift up the plate and carry its tinkling contents to the session-house. On the greatest occasions he remained so calm, so indifferent, so expressionless, that he might have been present the night ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... us down at Villeneuve, among railway people as indifferent as our own at country stations, and much crosser and more snubbing, the demand for grapes began with the party who remained with the baggage, while a party of the second part went off to find the pension where we were to ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... wiser to permit the blind child to remain with its parents, to attend school each morning with its brothers and sisters. In this way there is no break in the family relation and the child does not grow indifferent to home ties, as so often happens when he is sent to a residential school. Mr. Irwin says "the special class is the twentieth century emphasis on ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... for the Murder of Robert Nutter, vpon so small an occasion, as to threaten to take away his owne land from such as were not worthie to inhabite or dwell vpon it, is now made by that which you haue alreadie heard, so apparant, as no indifferent man will question it, or rest vnsatisfied: I shall now proceede to set forth vnto you the rest of her actions, remaining vpon Record. And how dangerous it was for any man to liue neere these people, to giue them any occasion of offence, I leaue it ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... an engine must date back far in the past. The old fellows who brought it and put it up with slow deliberative motions were far, far past the joy with which all the children about the farm hailed its arrival. With grave faces and indifferent manner they ground the apples, and departed as slowly and deliberately as they came; verily men of the autumn, harbingers of the fall ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... in stolid silence, for once indifferent to her husband's dumb command; then tears welled into her tired eyes. She pocketed her pride for her child's sake. It had been her hopeless longing for years to give her darling's splendid abilities ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... large Gladstone bag, and a strap of rugs. He carries them into the inner room. He is a respectable valet, old enough to have lost all alacrity, and acquired an air of putting up patiently with a great deal of trouble and indifferent health. The luggage belongs to Broadbent, who enters after the valet. He pulls off his overcoat and hangs it with his hat on the stand. Then he comes to the writing table and looks through the letters which are waiting for him. He is a robust, ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... accomplished, some of which may perhaps endure, and some of which are good in themselves, while some are indifferent and some distinctly bad. The great experiment of Italian unity is in process of trial and the world is already forming its opinion upon the results. Society, heedless as it necessarily is of contemporary history, ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... from himself the fact that the mission on which he had despatched Jem Agar was what the life insurance companies call hazardous. But he had lived by the sword, and that mode of gaining a livelihood makes men wondrously indifferent to the lives of others. Moreover, this was in a sense a speciality of his. He was getting hardened to the game, and played it with ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... Miss Fanny, who saw that a good start on a foreign missionary meeting had been made, and was not willing to let the opportunity be lost, "when you were in India did you meet many persons who were anxious to hear the gospel, or were they mainly indifferent?" ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett
... expression as frank and fearless as the morning itself. In contrast, Young Pete was lithe and dark, his face was more mature, more serious, and his black eyes seemed to see everything at a glance—a quick, indifferent glance that told no one what was behind the expression. Andy was light-skinned and ruddy. Pete was swarthy and black-haired. For a second or so they stood, then White genially thrust out his hand. "Thanks!" he said ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the news?" said Marian Barber good-naturedly. "You have a mysterious, newsy look in your eye. Is it good, bad or indifferent?" ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... Bragadin weeping, and perhaps I might have granted to his tears that which I had obstinately refused to his arguments and entreaties. "For Heaven's sake!" said I, "spare me the harrowing sight of your tears." In an instant he summoned all his strength to his assistance, made some indifferent remarks, and then, with a smile full of good nature, he embraced me, saying, "Perhaps I may be fated never to see you ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... men are not working well, that they loaf and kill time on every possible occasion. The men are not trying and are indifferent to results. Under such circumstances a new foreman, the dismissal of the poorer workmen, modification of the wage scale or method of payment, or some other device may correct the evil and induce ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... my superior to say that I am a wonder when he knows better than I? In Addison's days you could scarcely show him a literary performance, a sermon, or a poem, or a piece of literary criticism, but he felt he could do better. His justice must have made him indifferent. He didn't praise, because he measured his compeers by a higher standard than common people have.(75) How was he who was so tall to look up to any but the loftiest genius? He must have stooped to put himself on a level with most men. By that profusion of graciousness and smiles, with which ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... spirituality, the poor infant, whose mental restlessness began in the cradle, although his character and destiny seem to have been comprehended by the father. The priest, however, remains cold and indifferent throughout, never once seeking to render the two beings, whom he had himself united in a sacramental bond, intelligible to each other, nor to save the unfortunate boy brought to him for baptism, the sole fruit ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... by no means displeasing. I then produced another note, which I said he had prevailed upon me to deliver. After this, affairs went on successfully. I repeatedly met her in the evening; and although I at first was indifferent, yet I soon became attached from the many amiable and endearing qualities which love had brought to light. She one day observed that there was a strong resemblance between Don Pedro and me, but the possibility of a serious shaven monk, and a gay cavalier with his curling ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... English Bible is an education of itself, and a correspondence in the Times in August 1888 shows the value of a knowledge of the Liturgy of the Church of England. In a leading article occurred the passage, "We have no doubt whatever that Scotch judges and juries will administer indifferent justice.'' A correspondent in Glasgow, who supposed indifferent to mean inferior, wrote to complain at the insinuation that a Scotch jury would not do its duty. The editor of the Times had little difficulty in answering this by referring to the prayer for the Church militant, where are ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... interference in the latter. I have always considered marriage as the most interesting event of one's life, the foundation of happiness or misery. To be instrumental therefore in bringing two people together, who are indifferent to each other, and may soon become objects of disgust; or to prevent a union, which is prompted by the affections of the mind, is what I never could reconcile with reason, and therefore neither directly nor indirectly have I ever said a word to ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... class of from thirty to forty children in the public schools, one inevitably finds in the same group those with musical ability and those without it; those who are interested in the music lesson and those who are indifferent or even openly scornful; those who are full of energy and enthusiasm and those who are lazy and indifferent and will do only what they are made to do; those who have had lessons on piano or violin and have acquired considerable proficiency in performance, and those who have just come in from an ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... not even imagined by the children of a few generations ago. The book the title of which begins with the words "How to Make" is perhaps the most distinctive product of the present-day publishing house. No other type of book can so effectively win to a love for reading a child who seems indifferent to books; who, as a boy friend of mine used to say, "would rather hammer in nails than read." The "How to Make" books tell such a boy how to hammer in nails to some purpose. I happened to see recently a volume called "Boys' Make-at-Home Things." With much curiosity I turned its pages,—pages illustrated ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... with the Queen, the following Sunday, to Marly, where our King was. The two Kings embraced each other several times, in the presence of the two Courts. But the visit altogether was a sad one. The Courts, which met in the garden, returned towards the Chateau, exchanging indifferent words ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... give consent, and Prulliere, still greatly agitated and discontented despite everything, put his part back into his pocket. Bosc and Fontan had appeared profoundly indifferent during the course of this explanation. Let each man fight for his own hand, they reflected; the present dispute had nothing to do with them; they had no interest therein! All the actors clustered round Fauchery and began questioning ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... 'Tis the torch lit up in his soul by the omnipotent hand of Deity Himself." The true and tried hosts of freedom, represented and led by Garrison, Douglass, Lovejoy, Phillips, Garnet, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Frances Ellen Harper, and others—few compared to the indifferent and avowed defenders of slavery, welcoming outrage and ostracism, by pen and on forum, from hilltop and valley, proclaimed emancipation as the right of the slave and the duty of the master. The many heroic efforts of the anti-slavery phalanx were not without effect, and determined ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... teach them to be good. He preaches just as I wants him to. My boys think him a little man, but a great divine. You would like to hear the Elder on Sunday; he's funny then, and has a very funny sermon, which you may get by heart without much exertion." The young man seems indifferent to the conversation. He had not been taught to realise how easy it was ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... temper both impetuous and obstinate; and having proceeded so far in throwing off the papal yoke, he never could again have been brought tamely to bend his neck to it. Even at the time when he was negotiating a reconciliation with Rome, he either entertained so little hopes of success, or was so indifferent about the event, that he had assembled a parliament, and continued to enact laws totally destructive of the papal authority. The people had been prepared by degrees for this great innovation. Each preceding session had retrenched somewhat from the power ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... man sings!) The golden wine is drunk, the dregs remain, Bitter as wormwood and as salt as pain; And health and hope have gone the way of love Into the drear oblivion of lost things. Ghosts go along with us until the end; This was a mistress, this, perhaps, a friend. With pale, indifferent eyes, we sit and wait For the dropt curtain and the closing gate: This is the end of all the ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... away an unwelcome visitor, but we announce that we are not at home; or we slander him behind his back. When we love we pretend to be modest and indifferent, while, in an indirect way, we attempt to build walls around the person we love. There is nothing free in the expression of our emotions, for we are subdued, crushed; we ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... it? In the same way it does not at all follow, even if it were difficult to find out at what age Baptism should be administered, that therefore one time is as good as another. Difficulty is the very attendant upon great blessings, not on things indifferent. ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... was an involuntary smacking of lips all round, although no one was conscious he had exhibited any emotion. The Sergeant was perfectly easy and indifferent to everything. He smoked, looked at the fire, sipped his grog, spread out his legs, folded his arms; then rose and turned his back to the fire, everyone thinking how thoroughly he ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... queer little brain forgot its grief in sudden speculations as to what she would think if her four and sevenpence halfpenny came back. She had never yet doubted the existence of the Unseen Power; only its workings seemed so incomprehensibly indifferent to human joys and sorrows. Would she believe that her father was right in holding that a special Providence watched over him? The spirit of her brother Solomon came upon her and she felt that she would. Speculation ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... what lay behind; those days when he knelt before her, swore that his only dream was to save her from all pain. Passion lies dead; it is a flame that burns out quickly. The most beautiful face in the world grows indifferent to us when we have sat opposite it every morning at breakfast, every evening at supper, for a brief year or two. Passion is the seed. Love grows from it, a tender sapling, beautiful to look upon, but wondrous frail, easily broken, easily trampled on during those first years of ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... indifferent. He could pile up fresh glories every minute by bowling the little pilgrim on his back and walking on his chest to lap his ear. This he proceeded to do, in his clumsy way of being friendly, with a regularity ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... Primate of Ireland made a strong speech, his manner admirable. Both these against. The Bishop of Oxford had placed himself at our disposal to be used when wanted. We put him into the debate here, wanting him very much. The first part of his speech was very indifferent, the latter excellent. Lord Lansdowne spoke better than he has done for some time, indeed for two years. The Bishop of London against us; but he made a speech more useful than ten votes, in admirable taste, looking to the measure as one ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... of his two audiences (who were perhaps hardly aware of the extent of his labours), but with very considerable strain upon his nervous system. For to add to the difficulties of his task, his coachman, indifferent to the counsel that the more haste often signifies the worse speed, turning a corner too sharply, ran his forewheel against a post, and upset coach, actor, dresser, candles, costumes, and all. This untimely accident notwithstanding, the actor, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... of the much-desired boy had been a keen disappointment to both parents. The mother had been doubly tender to the child, as if to compensate for that passing pang; but Mr Vane recalled with contrition that he himself had remained indifferent and neglectful until two or three years later, when at last Ronald had made his tardy appearance. Then ensued constant visits to the nursery, to examine the progress of the son and heir; and after the daily questioning and inspection it was impossible to resist ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... open contained a tolerably well-preserved Cheiracanthus; the second, an indifferent specimen of Glyptolepis; and three others, in succession, remains of Coccosteus. Almost every nodule of one especial layer near the top incloses its organism. The coloring is frequently of great beauty. In the Cromarty, as in the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... during the insanity of his cousin Charles VI. He occupied himself little with the affairs of the Netherlands, from which he only desired to draw supplies of men. But the Flemings, taking no interest in his personal views or private projects, and equally indifferent to the rivalry of England and France, which now began so fearfully to affect the latter kingdom, forced their ambitious count to declare their province a neutral country; so that the English merchants were admitted as usual to trade in all the ports of Flanders, and the Flemings equally ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... she repeated. Did that mean it was indifferent to her what became of him now that his improvement could no longer save the child? The man half raised himself; he gripped her hand with a strength full of fear and held ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... final survey, Marie ran downstairs and summoned a cab. It did not occur to her to ask him to do it. Marie's small life was one of service, and besides there was an element in their relationship that no one but Marie suspected, and that she hid even from herself. She was very much in love with this indifferent American, this captious temporary god of her domestic altar. Such a contingency had never occurred to Stewart; but Peter, smoking gravely in the little apartment, had more than once caught a look in Marie's eyes as she turned them on the other ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... he also had been in much scrapping with hostile Indians in the vicinity of the Pacific Coast. He looked old to me, but really he was, at this time, only about forty-four years of age. He certainly was indifferent to his personal appearance, as his garb was even plainer, and more careless, than Grant's. He wore an old battered felt hat, with a flapping brim, and his coat was one of the old-fashioned, long-tailed oil-cloth "wrap-rascals" then in vogue. It was all splattered with mud, with several big torn ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... ruffled and settled her feathers, and opened her bill in a human-like yawn. The Harvester smiled. The notes swelled closer in renewed pleading. The cry was beyond doubt a courting male and this an indifferent female. Her beady eyes snapped, her head turned coquettishly, a picture of self-possession, she hid among the dense twigs of the spice thicket. Around the outside circled ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... would set him right, did make a great impression on him. But he never told me when or where he was reconciled. He suffered me to say a great deal to him on all these heads. I shewed the difference between submission and obedience in matters of order and indifferent things, and an implicite submission from the belief of infallibility. I also shewed him the difference between a speculation of a mode of Christ's presence, when it rested in an opinion, and an adoration founded on it: Tho' the opinion of such a presence was ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... but unhappily we found ourselves unable to bear the sun's heat; many of us suffering a languor and faintness, which made life indifferent. We were, however, so fortunate as to catch two boobies to-day; their stomachs contained several flying-fish and small cuttlefish, all of which I saved to be divided ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... of such things in the columns of a daily paper had meant little to her except to repell her; to hear it mentioned among people of her own sort had left her incurious and indifferent. But now she saw it in a new light, with the man who had figured in it seated beside her. Did such men as he—such attractive, well-bred, amusing men as he—do ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... after all, for you to ask me," Tai-y rejoined with an indifferent smile, "but I myself don't know why! But am I here to afford you people amusement that you will compare me to an actress, and make the whole lot have a laugh ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... earned at the expense of his guests; but he forbad them "to continue this sort of life," under penalty of being hung, and he had them enrolled in the army, in order to recompense them for their clever feats. We may safely assert that they made but indifferent soldiers. ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... intrepid Childe should not be able to follow in their steps? As might be expected, he took the wrong door, and wandered for at least three hours about the dark enormous solitary castle, calling out Wolfgang's name to the careless and indifferent echoes, knocking his young shins against the ruins scattered in the darkness, but still with a spirit entirely undaunted, and a firm resolution to aid his absent comrade. Brave Otto! thy exertions ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... win followers;—in other words, murders such as those of Humbert, Carnot, and President McKinley were mere advertisements of anarchism. In the words of Brousse, "Deeds are talked of on all sides; the indifferent masses inquire about their origin, and thus pay attention to the new doctrine and discuss it. Let men once get as far as this, and it is not hard to win over ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... year of experience has added ten years to my age, dear Grace and dearest wife that ever erring man undervalued. You may be absolutely indifferent to what I say, but let me say it: I have never loved any woman alive or dead as I love, respect, and honor you at this present moment. What you told me in the pride and haughtiness of your heart I never believed [this, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... to reconcile the ideal with the real. The ideal was agile, yet powerful, with Greek features and an eagle-eye, capable of enduring long fasting, and indifferent as to what he ate. The real was almost effeminate in movement, though not in figure; he had the Greek features, but his blue eyes had a cold, weary expression in them. He was dainty in eating, and had anything but a Homeric appetite. However, Molly's hero was not to eat more ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... I lay on my counter unnoticed, except by the shopwoman who covered us up at night, and re-arranged us in the morning; and even this she did with such an indifferent air, that I could not flatter myself I was of the smallest use to her. Every necessary care was bestowed upon me in common with my companions; but I sighed for the tender attentions that I sometimes saw lavished by children upon their dolls, and wished that my mistress would nurse and caress ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... nay as the million thought, already in possession of it; and if a sense of his own dignity had withheld him from offering obstructions, or uttering any whisper of discontent, there is none but a truly patrician spirit that would cordially have offered aid. To being secretly hostile and openly indifferent, the next resource was to enact the patron; to solace vanity, by helping the rival whom he could not hinder, and who could do without his help. Goethe adopted neither of these plans. It reflects much credit on him that he acted as he did. Eager to forward Schiller's views by exerting ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... favourites; and crowds of small boys were seated around, flourishing elephants' tails curiously mounted. The warriors sat on the ground close to these, and so thickly as not to admit of our passing without treading on their feet, to which they were perfectly indifferent; their caps were of the skin of the pangolin and leopard, the tails hanging down behind; their cartouch-belts (composed of small gourds which hold the charges, and covered with leopard's or pig's skin) were embossed with red shells, and small brass bells thickly hung to them; ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... They disengage themselves as suddenly, yet keeping their hold of each other's hands during all the different revolutions and changes in the dance, which, as they explain it, represents the chain of friendship." This writer, who is in general very indifferent authority for what concerns the Indians, and must have made up his book from the relations of very careless or very stupid observers, never, I think from his own observation, differs very much in his account ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... the house, a formal man-servant, with indifferent face, transferred me to the guidance of a hired nurse, who led me up the stairs, and, before I was well aware of it, into the room in which Dr. Lloyd had died. Widely different, indeed, the aspect of the walls, the character of the furniture! The dingy paperhangings were ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... desire you do me right and justice, And to bestow your pity on me; for I am a most poor woman, and a stranger, Born out of your dominions, having here No judge indifferent, nor no more assurance Of equal friendship and proceeding. Alas, sir, In what have I offended you? What cause Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure, That thus you should proceed to put me off And take your good grace from me? Heaven witness, I have been to you a ...
— The Life of Henry VIII • William Shakespeare [Dunlap edition]
... as she stole a few glances at him from behind the coffee-urn. It piqued her pride a little, and she was disappointed in him, for she had hoped for a pleasant addition to their society for a time. But she was so supremely indifferent to him, and had so much to fill her thoughts and days, that his slight promise to prove an agreeable visitor caused but momentary annoyance. Yet the glimmer of a smile flitted across her face as she thought: "He may find himself slightly mistaken in me, after all. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... above our heads; and looking up, we saw several monkeys, which had descended from the topmost boughs, gazing down on us,—some inspecting us with all the gravity of Turks, others swinging backwards and forwards on the pendent vines, as if they felt themselves at home, and were perfectly indifferent to our presence. While we remained quiet, they held their posts. One big fellow, especially, with a long tail and huge bushy whiskers, was unusually bold; and having crept along a bough, sat himself down not ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... you don't know," the colonel went on, still in that cold, indifferent tone; "I merely asked what ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... hundred and forty-four pounds, and of spun silk eighteen pounds. Early in this year a machine for winding, and coppers for baking, together with appropriate treatises on the art, were sent over by the Trustees, but the people were indifferent ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... hadn't meant just now,—any time would do,—but Bell chose it should be just now; and slightly lifting his eyebrows, Mr. De Forest took his handsome person slowly back to Bell to make an almost impertinently indifferent bow to the ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... it was, nor when it was, that Joseph Chestermarke came. But when he came, he brought his true character with him. I could not have believed that any human being could be so callous, so brutal, so coldly indifferent to another's sufferings. I thought as I listened to him of all I had heard about that ancestor of his who had killed a man in cold blood in the old house at the bank—and I knew that Joseph Chestermarke would kill me with no more ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... said, as if just finishing a sentence, "you are indifferent to social rank. And yet it will be no slight advantage to you that Catharine has no swarm of needy kinsfolk. Her own father died when she was a baby. Mr. Guinness is the only near friend she has ever known except myself. He had a son when I married him—" The boy's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... sons of God—and at our best value freedom in every department of our being—spirit as well as mind and body. George Adam Smith says: "The great causes of God and humanity are not defeated by the hot assaults of the Devil, but by the slow, crushing, glacier-like mass of thousands and thousands of indifferent nobodies. God's causes are never destroyed by being blown up, but by being sat upon. It is not the violent and anarchical whom we have to fear in the war for human progress, but the slow, the staid, the respectable; and the danger of these lies in their real skepticism. Though it would abhor ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... slavery to the realm of grace. Women have tried to prove that in the building up of social life they are artists and not artisans. But all expressions of beauty lose their truth when compelled to accept the patronage of the gross and the indifferent. Therefore when necessity drives women to fashion their lives to the taste of the insensitive or the sensual, then the whole thing becomes a tragedy of desecration. Society is full of such tragedies. Many of the laws and social regulations guiding the ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... watching him hour after hour, vainly trying to think out some plan, and when I was quite in despair the black boy, whom I had not seen for many hours, came sauntering up in an indifferent way to stand talking to my guard for some minutes, and then entered the hut to stand ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... a certain je ne sais quoi in M. de La Rochefoucauld. He has always ever since his childhood wanted to be taking part in some plot, and that at a time when he was indifferent to small interests, which have never been his weakness, and when he had no experience of great ones, which, in another sense, have never been his strong point. He has never had any skill in conducting business, and I don't know why; for ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... favorable to their development. Competition is merely the means through which conformity to these external conditions is enforced. It eliminates alike that which is better than the environment and that which is worse. It is indifferent to good or bad, to high or low. It simply picks out, preserves and perpetuates those types best suited to environing conditions. Both progress and retrogression are a process of adaptation, and their cause must be sought, not in the principle of competition ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... because persons in authority believed they were needed to do the work of the British Navy and defend our shores against a German invasion. Throughout the war loquacious generals, who were not employed at the front, harped at home on that alarm, supremely ignorant of and indifferent to the unbroken experience of the world and the teaching of naval history, that military invasion across an uncommanded sea is an utter impossibility. But there was no one to teach the War Cabinet this elementary truth, and least of all could it be taught ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... foul, wanton and obscene books found so good a market as to encourage the publishing of them. Immorality of every kind was so hardened as to be defended, yes, justified on principle. The rich were debauched and indifferent; the poor were as miserable in their labor as they were coarse and cruel in their sport. Writing in 1713, Bishop Burnet said that those who came to be ordained as clergymen were "ignorant to a degree not to be comprehended by those who are not obliged to know it." Religion seemed dying or dead, and ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... dwell on it had to be put aside in favour of commonplace things that must be done immediately. As Ingram had pointed out to him, he might be as indifferent to money as he pleased, yet he must give it his first attention. Though ready cash was exhausted, he remembered almost with surprise he had several possessions that might ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... He was himself indifferent to advancement, and he did not seek it for his family. A London merchant offered to take his son into his house. 'God,' he said, 'did not send me to advance my family, but to preach the Gospel.' He had no vanity—an exemption extremely rare in those who are personally ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... astonishment of the company was universal, when the bellows were cut open, and the simple contrivance was revealed to view; probably, more was learnt from this cuckoo, than was ever learnt from any cuckoo before. So far from being indifferent to the destruction of this plaything, H—— the little girl of four years old, to whom it belonged, remembered, several months afterwards, to remind her father of his promise to repair the mischief he ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... much inclined to answer 'Nothing,' and to turn her back on him, but somehow her pride found a voice for her, as indifferent as his own, though she avoided his eyes and looked out ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... live. I had killed men who never harmed me—I was not fit to die.... I tried to live. So I fought out my battle alone. Alone!... No one understood. No one cared. I came West to keep from dying of consumption in sight of the indifferent mob for whom I had sacrificed myself. I chose to die on my feet away off alone somewhere.... But I got well. And what made me well—and saved my soul—was the first work that offered. Raising and ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... evening she scarce knew what passed, for she attended to nothing; Mr Monckton might watch, and Mr Briggs might exhort her, Sir Robert might display his insolence, or Mr Marriot his gallantry,— all was equally indifferent, and equally unheeded; and before half the company left the house, she retired to her ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... days, and long for sweet rest in Heaven and sigh for mansions in the skies. And the people about us seem so indifferent, and our friends so lukewarm; and really no one understands us, and our environment queers our budding spirituality, and the frost of jealousy nips our aspirations: "O Paradise, O Paradise, the world is growing old; ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... chappell, where one Dr. Crofts made an indifferent sermon, and after it an anthem, ill sung, which made the King laugh. Here I first did see the Princesse Royall since she came into England. Here I also observed, how the Duke of York and Mrs. Palmer did talk to one another very wantonly through ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... failures to carry the line across, nothing remained to be done but to attempt a crossing at the rapids. This we succeeded in doing, but the attempt nearly cost MacLean his life. He was an indifferent swimmer. The day was blazing hot. I stripped, but MacLean, disregarding every one's advice, insisted on swimming in his shirt. We had to creep slowly from rock to rock, through tumbling water, with an occasional short swim through a deeper channel. The river ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... little charge for the rights of motherhood among the wealthy indifferent, and from a most important viewpoint. Price . . . . . . ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... to turn in, for I may be called before I have had my snooze out;" and Tremere, yawning as if he were bored and very indifferent, walked into the ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... into, through the Spirit; which things, if you do, the Lord will be with you, and you will convince others that Christ is your head, and your dependency is not upon man; but if you do the work of the Lord negligently, if you mind your own things and not the things of Christ, if you grow of indifferent spirits, whether you mind the work of the Lord in his church or no, I fear the Lord by degrees will suffer the comfort of your communion to be dried up, and the candlestick which is yet standing to be broken in pieces; which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... with his laugh of easy, indifferent tolerance for everything outside the profession of the law, "Oh, I never said I didn't like him; I only said he struck me ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... Imperial. In the end he had quite destroyed it, wilfully, wantonly killed it. As Turner herself had said, she could only be in love with being loved; her affection for him had dwindled as well; at last they had come to be indifferent to each other, she no longer inspired him to be better, and thus he had shaken off this good influence ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... back again, Denas nevertheless heard Roland's whole sweet confession. She was taught to believe that he had loved her from their first meeting; taught to believe and half-made to acknowledge that she had not been indifferent to him. She was under almost irresistible influences, and she did not think of others which might have counteracted them. Even Elizabeth's revelation to her of her own splendid matrimonial hopes was favourable to Roland's arguments; ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... began MacIan, uneasily; and that paralysing shyness which is a part of romance induced him to make a backward movement as if leaving her to herself. But Turnbull was more rational than he, being more indifferent. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... seductive eyes and foot, and talk about love, though, perhaps she would prefer to think of one who is far away. Men do not live under such restraint. A man may reserve all his thoughts for his mistress, but the moment he leaves, his mistress must begin to cajole the new-comer, however indifferent he may be to her. The habit of her life is to cajole, to please, to inspire, if possible, and if she be not a born coquette she becomes one, and takes pleasure in her art, devoting her body and mind to it, reading only books about love and lovers, singing songs of love, and seeking always ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... comptroller-general; "deign to come to our assistance with a sum which is absolutely necessary." On ceasing to be a banker, Necker soon gave indications of the direction in which his thoughts turned; he wrote an indifferent Bloge de Colbert, crowned by the French Academy, in 1773. He believed that he was destined to wear the mantle ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... looked down on Peter. He jingled things in his pockets and swayed to and fro on his heels like his uncle Evelyn, and he was slim in build, and fair and pale and clear-cut of face, and gentle and rather indifferent in manner, and soft and casual in voice, and he was in his fourth year, and life went extremely ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... to herd with his fellows that makes a man intensely loyal to his own group may operate to make him indifferent to the difficulties or jealous and suspicious of the aims of others Gregariousness is the basis not only of patriotism, but of chauvinism, not only of civic pride, but of provincialism. The narrowness and parochialism of group attachments is most ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... the mirror and shook a disapproving head. "You're no knight-errant," I told my impassive image. "You're too correct, too indifferent-looking altogether. Better not get beyond your depth!" I decided for luncheon, followed by a leisurely knotting of the threads of my Parisian acquaintance. Then, as if some malign hypnotist had projected it before me, I saw ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... ravine opened on the right and left, with its stream, and its crags, and its olives, and its castles. What would we have given for but a minute's pause, to admire the finer points! But the engine held its onward way, as if its course had been amidst the most indifferent scenery in the world. It made amends, however, for the enchanting views which it swept into oblivion behind, by perpetually opening in front others as lovely and fascinating. The twilight had set, and the moon was shining brightly, when we reached ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... the endless strength of the earth. And today she could approve of one cloud, but object to its fellow. As for Miss Pembroke, she was not approving or objecting at all. "A hero?" she queried, when the interval had passed. Her voice was indifferent, as if she had been thinking of ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... clay. If, from the loftiest epic to the tritest novel, a heroine is often little more than a name to which we are called upon to bow, as to a symbol representing beauty, and if we ourselves (be we ever so indifferent in our common life to fair faces) feel that, in art at least, imagination needs an image of the Beautiful—if, in a word, both poet and reader here would not be left excuseless, it is because in our inmost hearts there is a sentiment which links the ideal ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of that place, while not positively bad, were for the most part indifferent in the matter of their eternal welfare. Daily Mass was attended by only two or three elderly women. For the most trivial excuse, men neglected Sunday Mass. Not one of them attended Vespers, although at the same time the ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... tried to seem indifferent to money and that yet were remarkably prompt, took the bills Matilda held out and thrust them into the ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... thought is like the presence of a woman we love. We fancy we shall never forget the thought nor become indifferent to the dear one. But out of sight, out of mind! The finest thought runs the risk of being irrevocably forgotten if we do not write it down, and the darling of being deserted if we do not ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... rooting of small slips, the repotting and watering and watching, as new growth develops, and buds unfold. Some have the magic gift, that everything they touch will break into blossom; others strive—perhaps too hard—only to gain indifferent results. It is hoped that this book will aid those of the second class to locate past mistakes and progress to future success; and further that it may indicate to those more fortunate ones of the first class the way to more extensive achievements ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... arose the difficulty about the money; but as it occurred to me that I could leave my watch in charge of the landlord as security for the payment of my expenses, I decided to accompany him to an inn in the neighborhood, to which he undertook to guide me. It was an indifferent place, being one of the gin-palaces for which London is famous, but I was content, under the circumstances, to remain there. The landlord, having examined my watch, and being satisfied that it would cover all reasonable charges, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... indifferent not only to sheets, but also, in certain circumstances, to the usual habiliments of night. Indeed, while travelling in out-of-the-way regions he held it to be a duty to undress but partially before turning in, so that he might be ready ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... struggle took place between the Trojans and the Greeks for the possession of Patroclus' body. The news of his friend's death had quickly been carried to Achilles, and had roused him from his indifferent state. Springing upon the wall that stretched before the camp, he gave a mighty shout, at the sound of which the Trojans fled, while Ajax and Ulysses brought back the ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the Public should consider me as owing that to a Patron, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... the Universe at tea, and one of our company declared that he at least was entirely without illusions. He had long since faced the fact that Nature had no sympathy with our hopes and fears, and was completely indifferent to our fate. The Universe, he said, was a great meaningless machine; Man, with his reason and moral judgments, was the product of blind forces, which, though they would so soon destroy him, he must yet despise. To endure this tragedy of our fate with passionless despair, never to ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... the pleasures of my second visit to Christiansund, which has a charm of its own, independent of its interest as the spot from whence we really "start for home." But though strange lands, and unknown or indifferent people, are legitimate subjects for travellers' tales, our FRIENDS and their pleasant homes are NOT; so I shall keep all I have to say of gratitude to our excellent and hospitable Consul, Mr. Morch, and of admiration for his charming wife, until I can tell you viva ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... indifferent manner in which he voiced his villainous purpose, would have crazed any man. Perhaps he intended that it should, although it was my belief that he merely expressed himself naturally, and with no thought of consequences. The man was ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... the news from the court affects them; the reign is indifferent to them. . . . . the distance between the capital and the province daily widens. . . . Here they are ignorant of the striking occurrences that most impressed us at Paris. . . .The inhabitants of the country side are merely poverty-stricken slaves, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... think of that awful descent without a sinking of the heart. For three days more he made his camp by the lake, recovering strength and nerve before resuming his journey down the wild river to the settlements. And many times a day his salutations would be waved upward to that great, snowy-headed, indifferent bird, wheeling in the far blue, or gazing at the sun from his high-set watch-tower of ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... as a wild Indian, enjoying myself at liberty amid the grandest scenes of nature; while during my winters and springs I am not only cabined, cribbed, and confined in a miserable garret, but condemned to as intolerable subservience to the humour of others, and to as indifferent company, as if I were a literal galley slave." I have promised him your acquaintance, Delaserre; you will be delighted with his specimens of art, and he with your Swiss fanaticism for mountains ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... The former by Barrett, the latter by Gilpin. Cunningham calls Barrett "an indifferent dauber;" rather a harsh term in connexion with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... it is the only thing that concerns the dead—or the living either. Men write voluminous biographies of each other. How little their judgments matter to the dead men! Praise or blame are equally indifferent to them. But what matters is, whether God will have to record of us what is recorded of these two wretched kings, or whether He will recognise that the main drift of our poor lives was to serve Him and do His will. He was a great scholar; he made a huge fortune; he rose to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... one more to fetch. Tess began to perceive that a man in indifferent health, who proposed to start on a journey before one in the morning, ought not to be at an inn at this late ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... a quotation was an excellent method, in Eleanor's eyes, for withdrawing it from discussion, just as you could always defend indifferent lamb late in the season by saying ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... come over Irene?" said Mrs. Hardy to the doctor one evening when their daughter had been particularly indifferent to a theatre invitation. "She hasn't been the same since she came home. I should not have let her ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... communication—really copious for the occasion—between the strangers and the unknown gentleman whom they found in possession, hat and stick in hand. This was not my doing—for what had I to go upon?—and still less was it the doing of the younger and the more indifferent, or less courageous, lady. She spoke but once—when her companion informed me that she was going out to Europe the next day to be married. Then she protested "Oh mother!" in a tone that struck me in the darkness as doubly odd, exciting my curiosity ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... acts of heroism. Other girls may have ways of stimulating their loves to high deeds that I know not of. Possibly I applied the lash too severely, and instead of rousing him up I killed all the hope in his heart, and made him indifferent to his future. Possibly, too, this story may not be true. The feeling in Sardis against him is strong, and they are hardly willing to do him justice. No doubt they misrepresent him in this, as they are ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... eyes, only to discover that this was no remedy. Then a piano began to play near by, very plainly; and he put his fingers to his ears with no better effect. It was not to be borne—not in solitude. He bolted out of the chartroom, and talked of indifferent things somewhat wildly with the officer of the watch on the bridge, to the mocking ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... her now for farewell, and she submitted as if it was absolutely indifferent to her to whose bosom she was pressed. "You do, dearest," he laughed, "say such sweet things!" And with that he reached the door, on opening which he pulled up at a sound from below. "The Duchess! She's ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James |
