"Indifference" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me more, on a first view of the matter, than the utter indifference with which the Americans look upon the exceedingly unworthy condition of their capital, when considered in relation with the magnitude, the greatness, and prosperous condition of their common country. During months of every session, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... the violations of law, the treason and the criminal indifference to human rights shown by the rulers of the Church, if an early vote had been taken by the committee and by the Senate itself, the antagonism of the nation would have forced the exclusion of the Apostle from the upper House. Delay was his salvation. More to the President's ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... this rich lawyer did not learn to be contented with the moderate interest of the Three per Cents. until he had sustained losses from bad speculations. Notable also is it that this rich lawyer—whose notorious satisfaction with three per cent. interest has gained for him a reputation of noble indifference to gain—was inordinately fond ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... The reason for this indifference became apparent when the two prisoners were arraigned in the magistrate's court, and their counsel demanded their instant discharge on the ground that they had committed no crime for which they could be prosecuted. He cited an old New York case, McCord vs. The People,[2] which seemed in a general ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... had received; and yet I could scarcely have ventured to remain under the same roof with a man, to whom my appearance was as a guilty conscience, perpetually reminding him of his own offence, and the displeasure of his leader. His profession accustomed him to a certain degree of indifference to consequences, and indulgence to the sallies of passion; and he might easily have found his opportunity to insult or injure me, when I should have had nothing but my own debilitated exertions to ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... love women and I have some reasons for believing that women do not love me. I have never had any money and my particular kind of pulchritude doesn't appeal to them. Hence their indifference. Hence mine. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... at me. He was saving himself until he reached the brow-beating stage. But I was watching him—we were walking a yard or two apart—and I noted his expression of simulated indifference and forbearance, as he condescendingly admitted my claim to demand evidence ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... auctions. The collectors of books, whose early avidity to amass libraries of fine editions was phenomenal, rarely persist in cultivating the passion through life. Sometimes they are overtaken by misfortune—sometimes by indifference—the bibliomania not being a perennial inspiration, but often an acute and fiery attack, which in a few years burns out. Even if the library gathered with so much money and pains descends to the heirs of the collector, the passion for books is very seldom ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... leaves, and the delicacy of its fruit; but never have they sufficiently praised the utility of this tropical product. Those who have never lived in southern countries are unable to fully appreciate its value. Some look even with indifference upon the gigantic clusters of this fruit, as they are unloaded from the steamers and sailing vessels; and yet they deserve special attention and admiration, for they are to the inhabitants of the torrid zone, what bread and potatoes are to those of ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... readers have by this time become sufficiently acquainted with me to interest themselves in my affairs, they will not learn with indifference, that my most gracious Sovereign the Emperor has honoured me by the most condescending testimonials of his satisfaction, and that after our long separation, I had the gratification of finding my wife and children well ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... considered eating and drinking to excess, amusements of all descriptions, the indulgence of every gratification, and an indifference to what was passing around them as the best medicine, and acted accordingly. They wandered day and night from one tavern to another, and feasted without moderation or bounds. In this way they endeavored to avoid all contact with the sick, and abandoned ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... a blockhead," replied the monarch shrugging his shoulders contemptuously. Then he added calmly, with dignity—almost with indifference: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... taking the risk on what the church calls "science falsely so called", fall back on ignorance rightly so called. No one denies that Intelligence is the light of the world and the chief glory of man, but, as Bertrand Russell says, we dread its indifference to respectable opinions and what we deem the well-tried wisdom of the ages. "It is," as he truly says, "fear that holds men back; fear that their cherished beliefs should prove harmful, fear lest they themselves should prove ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... taking up the cudgels to fight against Sulla, Pompey had already won his spurs, in spite of Sulla but by means of Sulla. Men in these modern days learn, as they grow old in public life, to carry themselves with indifference among the backslidings of the world. In reading the life of Cicero, we see that it was so then. When defending Amerinus, we find the same character of man as was he who afterward took Milo's part. There is the same readiness, the same ingenuity, and the same high indignation; but there is not ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... our Rulers was not calculated to improve the morale of a civilian, or any, army. It did not bespeak the early relief of Kimberley. Actions like Kekewich's and Gorle's in the matter of bread fostered feelings of indifference. They would not stimulate the town's defenders to shoot better or to fight the more tenaciously in a crisis. With troops pouring into the country, wherefore the need of so much supererogation? A hungry man capable of ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... visitor in the family. When the marchioness first saw him, she treated him with great distinction, and at length made such advances, as neither the honor nor the inclinations of the count permitted him to notice. He conducted himself toward her with frigid indifference, which served only to inflame the passion it was meant to chill. The favors of the marchioness had hitherto been sought with avidity, and accepted with rapture; and the repulsive insensibility which she now experienced, roused all her pride, and called ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... so, and after listening to several of his discourses, was so pleased with the doctrines of the Cynics, that he became a disciple. He did not long remain attached to the Cynic school—their peculiar manners were too gross for him; and his energetic and inquiring mind was too much cramped by that indifference to all scientific investigation which was one of their leading characteristics. He therefore sought instruction elsewhere, and Stilpo, of Megara, became his teacher, from whom he acquired the art of disputation, in which he afterwards became so proficient. ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... word came faintly, unexpectedly. The enticement of the appeal went to his head. He had shaken her out of the indifference that was her pride. One arm slipped round her waist. His other hand tilted back her head until he could look into the eyes in which a new ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... ago formed an important article of commerce, so plentiful were they. But at least I had the fun of bartering with the people, whom I found much the most interesting thing in Tachienlu, and thanks to the indifference or the politeness of the Tibetan I was able to wander about freely without being dogged by a throng of men and boys. Chinese soldiers were much in evidence, for this is naturally an important military post as well as the forwarding depot for the troops stationed ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... in great numbers, and my father stalked in with his axe, chipping and cutting the limbs, preparatory to chopping for the honey, and was as indifferent as if surrounded only by gnats. We stood at a safe distance. Soon he came out with a trifle less indifference than he went in with, picking the bees out of his hair with both hands. They had literally settled on his head and were stinging him furiously. He came running to us to fight them off. I grabbed up my coat, and with both hands struck him over the head. A large jack knife, very heavy, was in one ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... get those golden words which may well atone for many platitudes and some ill-judged display of learning: Religionem imperare non possumus, quia nemo cogitur ut credat invitus[30]. And this tolerant temper of mind is the more to be commended, because it did not proceed from any indifference on his part to the subjects of religious controversy. Cassiodorus was evidently a devout and loyal Catholic. Much the larger part of his writings is of a theological character, and the thirty-five years of his life which he passed in a monastery ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... as 1840, restored in the churches of its jurisdiction the Confession of La Rochelle in its full vigour. Little by little, however, under the influence of the naturalistic philosophy of the 18th century, the negative criticism of Germany, and above all the religious indifference which followed the repose which the Church was enjoying after two centuries of persecution, the Confession of Faith as well as the discipline fell into disuse. It was never really abrogated.... However, it is a practical fact that the partisans of one of the ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... treated the whole affair with the utmost indifference, and when the key was turned upon them had thrown himself heavily upon a bench, and immediately gone off into a drunken slumber. There were a few other prisoners besides themselves, bearing such a villainous, cut-throat appearance that Arthur shuddered ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... of indifference as she walked slowly away, but Grace burst into tears, crying, "Oh, Grandpa Dinsmore! you won't keep me, her own sister, away from her, will you? oh, please don't. I can't do ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... Winnie admitted that Rosemary seemed to have absolved herself from any responsibility toward her sisters. "Left them to shift for themselves," was the way Winnie put it. She was puzzled and also disappointed in her favorite, for indifference of any kind had never been a ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... Mrs. McCarty, turning down the rags and revealing the wasted features of her youngest girl, a child eleven years old, sinking in death. 'God knows she'll be better in heaven, and herself won't be long out of it,' Mrs. McCarty twice repeated, maintaining a singular indifference to the hand of death, already upon the child. The gentleman left some money to buy candles for poor English, and with ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... be a preacher; for he does work with people who are interested and come to hear him of their own free will. The teacher has to fight continually with indifference, and with the extremely dangerous rivalry of tops, marbles, and paper-dolls—not to speak of candy, scarlatina ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... faithful to his old friends, and bountiful in his charities; he was also a loyal servant of the state, with a genuine sense of public duty, a natural love of justice, an independent judgment, and a noble indifference to personal or selfish objects. His lot was cast in almost revolutionary times, and he was called upon to reign at an age when few men are capable of shaking off old prejudices, yet he deserved well of his people ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... people. Logic never will decide the matter, or will seem to decide it their way. He who traces nothing of God in his own soul, will never find God in the world of matter—mere circlings of force there, of iron regulation, of universal death and merciless indifference.... Matter itself is either Nothing or else a product due to man's mind. ... The fast-increasing flood of Atheism on me takes no hold—does not even wet the soles ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... elder men to pass and precede him. The smile upon his lip was half bitter, half philosophic, and as they passed, he regarded them aslant but freely. The burly, heated figure of the Colonel was trembling with anger, while Major Edward, striving for indifference, achieved only a wonderful, grey hauteur. They had been talking of the drouth, and they talked on while they went by Rand, but their voices sounded hollow like drums in a desert. They took as little outward notice of the living man whose fate ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... commotion, from the disorganised condition of the moral body, there are observed signs of discontent, murmurings, and complaints, fierce looks and threats—these, at length, disappear, and people seem to be seized with a sudden apathy and indifference, which is as quickly cast aside, and all is rage, havoc, and confusion. So, likewise, before the coming of a storm, clouds are seen gathering in the horizon, murmurs and growls are heard, then the wind dies away, and a perfect calm, for a short time, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... craft, I admit, but the Francesca can beat her upon any point of sailing, and in any breeze that blows; and, that being the case, the distance that we may have to run to leeward before getting alongside her is a matter of indifference to me, since it will be so much ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... at Morpeth, he had always looked forward, as the only chance of emancipation from the distressing scene that surrounded him. He had been brought up with a due sense of his future position, and although he had ever affected a haughty indifference on the subject, from his disrelish for the coarse acquaintances who were perpetually reminding him, with chuckling self-complacency, of his future greatness, in secret he had ever brooded over his destiny as his only consolation. He ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... has my felicitations," said Count Victor, with a good humour unfailing. Indeed he could afford to be good-humoured if this were true. So here was the explanation of Olivia's condescension, her indifference to her lover's injury, of which her father could not fail to have apprised her even if Mungo had been capable of a miracle and held his tongue. The Chamberlain, then, was no longer in favour! Here was joy! Count Victor could ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... then that Tish saw the policeman crossing a field toward the Knowles farm and she tried to reason with the young man. But he dropped his pretence of indifference, and would not even listen ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the thought of Ktaadn and to fathom the meaning of the billows on the back of Cape Cod, in their indifference to the shipwrecked bodies that they rolled ashore. "After sitting in my chamber many days, reading the poets, I have been out early on a foggy morning and heard the cry of an owl in a neighboring wood as from a nature behind the common, unexplored by science or by literature. None of the ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... It was the regime of the dance-hall girl, and the taint of the tenderloin was over the town. So far there were few decent women to be seen on the streets. Respectable homes were being established, but even there social evils were discussed with an astonishing frankness and indifference. In the best society men were welcomed who were known to be living in open infamy. A general callousness ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... humanity's reach, I must finish my journey alone, Never hear the sweet music of speech,— I start at the sound of my own. The beasts that roam over the plain My form with indifference see; They are so unacquainted with man, Their tameness ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... Melinoff's stock in trade might be expected to be deposited wherever convenience and not system dictated, but a disorder that seemed to hold within itself something of ominous promise. Old clothes, for instance, that might at least have been expected, even with the most profound carelessness and indifference, to have received better treatment, were strewn and scattered about ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... was seen plainly as well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest, disproportionate almost to his length of limb. I am sure most people would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference, and, even in a blind, imperfect ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... gift that a woman can bestow. Ralph Brandt was a fine type of young vigorous manhood; and we might easily fancy that his strong, resolute face, now eloquent with deep feeling, was not one upon which a girl could look with indifference. Clara's words, however, revealed the ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... time had not been cheering. The late incumbent had been a man whose trust lay chiefly in preaching, and who, as his health failed, and he became more unable to cope with the crying evils around, had grown despairing, and given way to a sort of dismal, callous indifference; not doing a little, because he could not do much, and quashing the plans of others with a nervous dread of innovation. The class of superior persons in trade, and families of professional men, who in Mr. Charlecote's time ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her with his anxieties concerning it, and she attributed his silence to his preoccupation and interest in Marion. So the two grew apart, each misunderstanding the other and each troubled in spirit at the other's indifference. ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... say all this to myself a thousand times; I can bring myself to believe honestly that it is all a matter of indifference to me; but none the less my spirits change like the clouds of heaven according as the wind blows from this direction or from that, or the soundings show the depth to be increasing or not, or the observations indicate ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... entire indifference or passivity of her companion restrained her from any further expression. The train stopped, and she descended to the platform of a small country station, alive ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... listened to these and similar speculations with utter indifference; probably to many of them the geographical question was a difficulty that stopped any further inquiry, while others felt no further interest than what a campaign promised. All the enthusiastic narratives, then, of high rewards ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... excesses of zeal, even rather fearing them, not wishing to hear of holy personages or of innovators, for it profited from the established routine. These epicurean priests had not the violence of the Pharisees; they only wished for quietness; it was their moral indifference, their cold irreligion, which revolted Jesus. Although very different, the priests and the Pharisees were thus confounded in his antipathies. But a stranger, and without influence, he was long compelled to restrain ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... Ruth strangely quiet, with a manner which was not indifference to her imminent marriage, but which ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... different. They were efficient enough, but one could see that their hearts weren't in their work. Most crews preparing to go out are nervous and high tempered. There was none of that here. The men went through the motions with a mechanical indifference that was frightening. I had the feeling that they didn't give a damn whether they went or not—or came back or not. The indifference was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Yet there was nothing you could put your hand on. You can't touch people ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... the sensation familiarly described as "uncomfortable." His morality has been fiercely attacked and valiantly defended, but it is absolutely certain that he wrote with no immoral intention, and with no indifference to morality. In the same way there has been much discussion of his style, which seldom achieves beauty, and sometimes falls short of correctness, but which still more seldom lacks force and adequacy to his own purpose. On the whole, to write with the shorthand necessary here, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... charm was, that beguiled Mr Greenleaf into spending so many hours in the minister's study, the good people of Merleville found it difficult to say. The squire's ill-concealed indifference to the opinions of people generally, had told against him always. For once, Mrs Page had been too charitable. He was not in a hopeful state, at least, in her sense of the term, and it might be doubted, whether ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... Washington were not unhappy about the state of things, as I had seen men unhappy in the North and in the West. They were mainly indifferent, but with that sort of indifference which arises from a break down of faith in anything. "There was the army! Yes, the army! But what an army! Nobody obeyed anybody. Nobody did anything! Nobody thought of advancing! There were, perhaps, two hundred thousand men assembled round Washington; and now the effort of supplying them ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... Lionel. Her own connection and association with the aristocracy had never destroyed that deep unswerving reverence for them with which she had set out in life; and to find Wiggins treating the mention of Sir Lionel with such cool indifference was to her an incomprehensible thing. But there was nothing more for her to do at this place, and feeling the necessity of immediate action, she at once drove back ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... late, alas, I must Confess" John Wilmot Song, "Come, Celia, let's agree at last" John Sheffield The Enchantment Thomas Otway Song, "Only tell her that I love" John Cutts "False though She be" William Congreve To Silvia Anne Finch "Why, Lovely Charmer" Unknown Against Indifference Charles Webbe A Song to Amoret Henry Vaughan The Lass of Richmond Hill James Upton Song, "Let my voice ring out and over the earth" James Thomson Gifts James Thomson Amynta Gilbert Elliot "O Nancy! wilt Thou ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... at a loss. There was battle royal this morning after breakfast, and my father was extremely rude to my aunt, acting apparently from quite selfish motives. I want to look at it fairly, but I can, honestly, see it in no other light. My aunt accused him of indifference with regard to the family good name. She, quite rightly, I think, pointed out that his behaviour from first to last had been the reverse of courteous to herself and her friends, and she suggested that he had, ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... acerbity of my coming misery, through Miss Dodan's absence, fully realized by me, seemed now only to add a desperation of assumed indifference and gayety to all my actions. I argued against delay, and dwelt with excellent effect upon the charms of the visit. I assumed that Miss Dodan needed the change, that the educational value of such an experience ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... Roden had come, and she had seen him. She might have refused him admittance, no doubt; but then again she thought that it would have been impossible to do so. How could she have told the man to deny her, thus professing her indifference for him in regard to whom she had so often declared that she was anxious that all the world should know that they were engaged to marry each other? It would have been impossible for her not to see him; and yet she felt that she had been treacherous to her ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... friend, Mademoiselle Pictet, accused him of being hard to please, and disposed to ennui; and again, as late as 1787, repeats to him, in a tone of sorrow, the reports brought to her of his "continuance in his old habit of indolence," his indifference to society, his neglect of his dress, and general indifference to everything but study and reading, tastes which, she added, he might as well have cultivated at Geneva as in the new world; and he himself, in the letter to Badollet just mentioned, considers that his habits and his ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... between church and state, and leave the church in her normal position in society, in which she can, without let or hindrance, exert her free spirit, and teach and govern men by the Divine law as free men. She may encounter unbelief, misbelief, ignorance, and indifference in few, or in many; but these, deriving no support from the state, which tends constantly to eliminate them, must gradually give way before her invincible logic, her divine charity, the truth and reality of things, and the intelligence, activity, and zeal of her ministers. The American ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... existence, and for which as yet she knew no remedy. The fervor of Catholic devotion had, as we have seen, long forsaken her; her studies did not satisfy her; her children—she had by this time a daughter—were yet in infancy; her husband was not unkind, but indifferent, and the object of indifference. She occupied herself with the business of her estate, and with the wants of the neighboring poor; but she was unsuccessful in administering her expenses, and her narrow revenue did not allow her to give large satisfaction to her charitable impulses. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... did not, however, for an instant, regret the step he had taken; his regard for Elinor was too sincere to allow of any other feeling than that of satisfaction, in remembering their engagement. But it had now become a matter of indifference whether Jane were to join the ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... capsule, a new joint results. The occurrence of these changes in the direction of a new ball-and-socket joint is largely dependent on the behaviour of the patient: a vigorous man, anxious to recover the use of the limb, will employ it with a degree of determination and indifference to pain that could not be expected in a sensitive elderly female. The most perfect example of a new ball-and-socket joint, following upon an unreduced dislocation at the hip, that has come under our observation, was in a hunting dog, given one of ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... a few threatening words, one of them pulled out a pistol from a leather bag that was fastened to the pommel of his saddle, and presenting it towards me, snapped it twice. He did this with so much indifference, that I really doubted whether the pistol was loaded. He cocked it a third time, and was striking the flint with a piece of steel, when I begged them to desist, and returned with them to the camp. When we entered Ali's ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... Holzschuher, (both in the Royal Gallery, Berlin,) and the eccentric and unpleasing medallion representing Johannes Kleeberger, at Vienna. With the exception of this last, this group is composed of masterpieces absolutely unrivalled for intensity and dignity of power. Van Eyck painted with inhuman indifference a few ugly grotesque but otherwise uninteresting people. All but a very few of Holbein's best portraits pale before these instances of searching insight; and, north of the Alps at least, there are no others which can be compared to them. ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... history and family, which he withholds even from you and me, and about which we should never dream of catechizing him. In a better cause, her bold effrontery would be sublime. Fortunately she was absent in Vermont for some months after the child came, and curiosity had subsided into indifference until she returned,—when lo! a geyser of righteous anxiety and suspicion boiled up in the congregation, and wellnigh scalded us. What do you suppose she blandly asked me one day, in the child's presence? 'Were not Mr. Hargrove's ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the whole performance was a waste of time. Arthur Herapath was particularly knowing in his tone, and accompanied his disclaimer with an embarrassing half-wink at his future kinsman. Felgate said "No" without the "sir," and swaggered back to his place with an ostentatious indifference which did not go unnoted. The baronet, who was nothing if not original, said nothing, but shook ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... cigarettes to the ground, scrambled to their feet. Johnny, sober-faced and round-eyed, was gazing intently up at the man; but Albert, feigning indifference, stood digging his toe into the earth. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... secretary of the convention, he recalled the scene; the unexpected and not over attractive appearance of the governor of Missouri; his not very pleasing yet ingenious speech; the stoical, almost lethargic indifference of Schurz. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... Treasury," made her imagine it of a religious tone; she was undeceived in glancing through it. Poetry had hitherto made no appeal to her; she did not care much for the little book. But one day Cecily caught it up in delight, and read to her for half an hour; she affected indifference, but had in reality learnt something, ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... searching eyes without a consciousness of inferiority. The little creature had loved her jolly, handsome, careless father at first, even though she feared him; but of late she had grown shy, silent, and timid, for his indifference chilled her and she flung herself upon her mother's love with an almost unchildlike intensity. This unhappy relation between the child and the father gave Susanna's heart new pangs. She still loved her husband, not dearly, but a good deal; ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... colossal iniquity as marked the decline of the Empire. Such, then, was the aspect of court life, while above the social and political horizon were gathering clouds which prophesied the greatest cataclysm civilization had witnessed. The wilful short-sightedness, the supreme indifference to the principles of justice, liberty, and fraternity; the conspicuous absence of the spirit of humanity, which characterized those who might have averted the coming baptism of blood, was the legitimate result of the anaesthetizing of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... for a decisive conflict. We have spoken of the extraordinary confidence of the men, in themselves and in their commander. This feeling now exhibited itself either in joyous laughter and the spirit of jesting among the troops, or in an air of utter indifference, as of men sure of the result, and giving it scarcely a thought. The swarthy gunners, still begrimed with powder from the work of the day before, lay down around the cannon in position along the crest, and passed the moments in uttering witticisms, ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... that they could come to terms respecting it. What would be his price for it? would he give Bacon the refusal of it? he would find our house a liberal house, and so forth. The delighted Pen assumed an air of indifference, and said that he was already in treaty with Bungay, and could give no definite answer. This piqued the other into such liberal, though vague offers, that Pen began to fancy Eldorado was opening to him, and that his fortune was ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of betrayal and ruin floated upon his sombre indifference as upon a sluggish sea of pitch. But he stepped out from under the wall, and, looking up, saw Dr. Monygham leaning out ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... in which, for one reason or another, men have been unusually excited about their souls and unusually indifferent about their bodies. Such ages, as often as not, have been superstitious and cruel. Preoccupation with the soul may lead to superstition, indifference about the body to cruelty. I never said that ages of great art were sympathetic to the middle-classes. Art and a quiet life are incompatible I think; some stress and turmoil there must be. Need I add that in the snuggest age of materialism great artists may ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... insomnia, lying awake at night in the woods is pleasant. The eager, nervous straining for sleep gives way to a delicious indifference. You do not care. Your mind is cradled in an exquisite poppy-suspension of judgment and of thought. Impressions slip vaguely into your consciousness and as vaguely out again. Sometimes they stand ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... Lina's talk with, it must be confessed, indifference, mingled with a little sullenness, and quieted my impatience by inward ejaculations—a vast deal of good do those inward conversations produce, such mollifiers of the temper are they. "So, so," said I to myself, "my Aunt Lina's paragon is a 'lady-help.' ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... anointed on the breast, in order to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, to cast off error and ignorance, and to acknowledge the true faith, since 'the just man liveth by faith'; while he is anointed between the shoulders, that he may be clothed with the grace of the Holy Ghost, lay aside indifference and sloth, and become active in good works; so that the sacrament of faith may purify the thoughts of his heart, and strengthen his shoulders for the burden of labor." But after Baptism, as Rabanus ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... year dragged, beginning in physical and intellectual indifference, but promised stormily as they became more accustomed to glimpses of an outside world—a world teeming with restless young people ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... electorate, paying its ransom at the peace, and indemnifying the inhabitants for the damage they might sustain; an expedient that would be productive of another good consequence, it would rouse the German princes from their affected indifference, and oblige them to exert themselves with vigour, in order to avoid the detested neighbourhood of such ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... hustings, to get the people to cheer the sentiments which were delivered by Mr. Wishart, but it would not do; a few of the powdered-headed gentry in the crowd certainly responded these hints, by a solitary cheer or two, while the great mass of the people listened more with astonishment than with indifference, and continually cast their eyes towards me with an inquiring look, as much as to say, "Hunt, will you tolerate all this humbug? Surely you will come forward and blow it into the air; we will support you." ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... without taking her arms from the tub, as Mary made her faltering inquiry for the old lady who made lace, and answered in some foreign tongue. Then she bent again to her rubbing, in stolid indifference to the stranger who had made a sudden descent on her home. Mary was too inexperienced to know that one cause of her indifference was that she was too underfed and overworked and mentally stunted by her hideous surroundings to care who came ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... seemed to Christoph to comprise the full extent of his responsibilities; but that Sebastian possessed genius which called for sympathy and encouragement at his hands appears only to have aroused in him a feeling of coldness and indifference, amounting at times to ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... lived with it all till I grew hard and indifferent—till I acquiesced in your 'nerves' as readily as the rest of the world that hadn't suspected and didn't know." Again she laughed nervously. "And I thought the indifference would last forever. If one lives in a groove for years, one gets frozen up; I never felt more frozen than on the night Mr. Fraide spoke to me of you—asked me to use my ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... on the countenance of Ithulpo, as the officer spoke of soon reaching a place of rest. Our attendant had, I found, managed to distribute a supply of the highly prized cacao among his countrymen; and while their features wore a look of sullen indifference as they received the ill-merited blows, I remarked that they seemed to bear up against the fatigue better than they had before done. As the sun rose higher the heat increased, till it became almost insupportable. The officers spoke earnestly ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... hindered from working out its legitimate results by the overpowering influence of the Irish clergyman; who, while pressing the authority of every letter of the Scripture with an unshrinking vehemence that I never saw surpassed, yet, with a common inconsistency, showed more than indifference towards learned historical and critical evidence on the side of Christianity; and indeed, unmercifully exposed erudition to scorn, both by caustic reasoning, and by irrefragable quotation of texts. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... qualities more incident to the frailty and corruption of human kind, than an indifference, or insensibility for other men's sufferings, and a sudden forgetfulness of their own former humble state, when they rise in the world. These two dispositions have not, I think, anywhere so strongly exerted themselves, as in the order of bishops with regard to the inferior ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... given; fresh troops are hurled into the trenches, already filled with dead and dying; and the hillock is carried by storm, swept over with fierce cries of "Allah! Allah!" which mingle strangely with Russian curses, and is then left behind and regarded with as much indifference as if it were the most insignificant mass of earth ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... overshadows the brow of my beloved, sweeps like a tempest over my own. I live upon her smile. A kind word falling from her lips makes me happy for days; and when she turns away from me with coldness and indifference, I feel like one driven about as Orestes ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... said Forrest, with a sublime air of indifference. "It will soon be over, one way or ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... indifference to alternatives. But in the angels on the part of their intellect there is no such indifference; because, as was observed already (Q. 58, A. 5), their intellect is not deceived as to things which are naturally intelligible to them. Therefore neither on the part of their appetitive ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... (during my first visit I saw the "Blind Chaplain," the Rev. W. H. Milburn) has delivered a few touching words about the floods in Minnesota, the reading of the "reakard" begins. The House buzzes with conversation and displays the utmost indifference while the minutes of the last meeting are read with extraordinary rapidity by a clerk with a grating voice. Every now and then a Member corrects a misprint in the "reakard" of what he has said, and then leave of absence is given to applicants for ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... proved her surmise regarding Mr. Brown's indifference to be perfectly well founded. That young man searched for his card, found it, and sat down on the chair opposite the young woman, who already occupied her chair, and was, in fact, the first one at table. Seeing there would be no unseemly dispute about places, she began ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... technical side alone costs a vast expenditure of time, patience, and industry. But since it is, in one manifestation or another, the most popular of the arts, and one the enjoyment of which is conditioned in a peculiar degree on love, it remains passing strange that the indifference touching its nature and elements, and the character of the phenomena which produce it, or are produced by it, is so general. I do not recall that anybody has ever tried to ground this popular ignorance ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the wood above the valley, where their tribe lived—in wretched huts, built of fallen branches and a few stones. Into one of these they pushed me, there threw me on the ground, and kicked me. A woman was present, who looked on with indifference. ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... thought-essence of common sense might seep out purifying year by year into men's minds; Theosophy the grand antiseptic was not; so such tomfoolery as this came in to take its place. You must react to this from indifference, and to indifference from this;—two poles of inner darkness, and wretched unthinking humanity wobbling between them;—so long as you have no Light. What then is the Light?—Why, simply something you cannot confine in a church or bottle in a creed: and this is a proposition that needs ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... her, so that his eyes were just on a level with hers as she sat and smiled down upon him, "for a woman, you have very little curiosity. Don't you want to ask me where I've been, why I went and what I've been doing every minute since I left you? Can it be indifference that makes you thus ignore your feminine prerogative of ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... matters of apparent consequence were taking place in the house to which he had himself directed the attention of the police, struck me as carrying stoicism to the extreme. Not very favorably impressed by this display of open if not insulting indifference on the part of the sole remaining Moore,—an indifference which did not appear quite natural even in a man of his morbid eccentricity,—I resolved to know more of this old man and, above all, to make myself fully acquainted with the exact relations ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... trying to become acquainted with his own voice. He hobbled across the floor and leant against the bar. He knew he must lie consistently; and while he maintained an appearance of careless indifference, his heart was beating and pounding furiously and irregularly, and he could not help looking hungrily at the three men by the stove. They were the possessors ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... early signs in him that his relation to his actual errand might prove none of the simplest. He was burdened, poor Strether—it had better be confessed at the outset—with the oddity of a double consciousness. There was detachment in his zeal and curiosity in his indifference. ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... bossism in his city if he does not himself pattern after his father on a wider scale and regard the city or the state as his private boarding-house and the treasury as his private manger? Where the mother is a petty parasite, what wonder the children regard with indifference, if not even with admiration, the whole system of civic and social barnacles, leeches, ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... everything; surely the woman must understand. Yet there was no response. The Baroness stood upright again, grasping her parasol and looking down with a sort of respectful indifference. Sabina said nothing, but took up the dead bird very tenderly, as if it could still feel that she loved it, and she pressed it softly to her breast, bending her head to it, and then kissing the yellow feathers. When it was alive it used to nestle there, almost as it lay ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... at the well-considered chronological distance of three minutes—an interval of non-appearance on the trapper's part not arrived at without some reflection. Four minutes had been found to express indifference to indoor arrangements, and simultaneousness had implied too great an anxiety ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... Ogareff the prisoners defiled, one by one, past Marfa, who remained immovable as a statue, and whose face expressed only perfect indifference. ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... time, and Haydon, who was a keen judge of character, recognised that here was a little Donna Quixote whose chivalry could be depended on in time of trouble. More than once, when threatened with arrest, he sent her paintings and manuscripts, of which she took charge with sublime indifference to the fact that by so doing she might be placing herself within reach of the arm of the law. One of the pictures that were placed in her guardianship was an unfinished portrait of 'Wordsworth musing upon ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... And it came to pass that Moroni was angry with the government, because of their indifference concerning the freedom ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... with all its tumult and its roaring passes clean over their heads, unheeded, unobserved: for them the noise and bustle do not matter, do not trouble: they do not hear, they do not listen, they do not even care. It is curious, this peace, this indifference, this calm: it does not seem reality; it is like a thing looked at in a picture, like a dream. And, somehow, as I gazed at it, mechanically there came into my mind, as it were of its own accord, a story I had read in some old navigator's "yarn," of the albatross, sleeping ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... have been truly edifying to young ladies living in the great and public world to have assisted in my place at the toilette of this exquisite Princess Augusta. Her ease, amounting even to indifference, as to her ornaments and decoration, showed a mind so disengaged from vanity, so superior to personal appearance, that I could with difficulty forbear manifesting my admiration. She let the hair-dresser proceed upon her head without comment and without examination, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... expected by a more worldly-wise person. After succeeding, almost, I was defeated by the selfishness and indifference of the man I had trusted to help me through with it. He sold out his property, including that bonded to me, when nearly the whole indebtedness was paid, without mentioning his design, or giving me an opportunity to complete the purchase. The new proprietor went immediately ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... things to think about; and I ate mine like a parting guest who was being anything but sped. When the postbag was brought in, the colonel unlocked it mechanically; distributed the letters; opened one with indifference, read a few lines, and with a groan fell back in his chair. We started up, and laid him on the sofa. With the privilege of an old friend, I glanced at the letter, and found that a certain speculation in which ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... said, and with so much indifference that she did not lift her eyes from her work. ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... or with but one passion, that of self-conceit. If indeed that can be called a passion, which, in its independent concentrated greatness, seems to have soared into transcendentalism; and to sit there with a kind of godlike indifference, and look down on passion! He is the man, and wisdom shall die with him. This is the Sieyes who shall be System-builder, Constitution-builder General; and build Constitutions (as many as wanted) skyhigh,—which shall all unfortunately ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... regards earnestness in religion as essential.—Indifference and lukewarmness it regards as hateful (Rev. iii. 15, 16). It calls us to a solemn choice and to a lifelong service. Its heroes are those who lived in the spirit of Brainerd's prayer, "Oh, that I were a flaming ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... thought so," she replied, in a tone of indifference, "he reckoned that he would catch you ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... gracious women dwelt, among the figures of the waltz and the lancers, with chat between about the last instalment of 'The Newcomes,' was good enough world for me; I was only afraid it was too good. There were, of course, some girls who did not read, but few openly professed indifference to literature, and there was much lending of books back and forth, and much debate of them. That was the day when 'Adam Bede' was a new book, and in this I had my first knowledge of that great intellect for which I had no ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Christ: a Spiritual death imposed on man by his fall from Grace, a penalty for having forgotten God, is unknown on this planet Mars. We are in harmony with the Father. Those who are spiritually dead are cut off from the Father as a result of their indifference and ignorance ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... benefit. We much regret the fact, that there are but too many of our brethren, who undertake to dabble in literary matters, in the shape of newspaper and book-making, who are wholly unqualified for the important work. This, however, seems to be called forth by the palpable neglect, and indifference of those who have had the educational advantages, but neglected to make ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... overpowering in its deep suggestion of mysterious and untold realms to come. On the first voyage it would have been easy to persuade oneself that the river was soon to become subterranean, but the Major having solved the enigma, we could look with indifference on the threatening prospect. Yet the walls nevertheless seemed to have a determination to close together overhead as we looked down the descending waters before us, with cliff mounting on cliff and the distance from ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... could never be expected by this country that England would pass with indifference a measure so seriously affecting the interests of British merchants; and Government will naturally expect some satisfactory explanation upon the subject. Those made to me by Count Rosen and Baron Tawast have been transmitted without delay, and I hope those in reply to the remonstrance ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... the hardest work of the world; but in his life an ever-flowing cheerfulness, and a genial welcome for any honest soul, showed the healthfulness of his busy walk. If anything shortened his three-score and ten years, it was the care and anxiety which insufficient appropriation and political indifference or chicanery crowded into ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... regretted, for many reasons, but it can hardly be done away with so long as the community is generally careless of both the theoretical and the practical—so long as the students and the practitioners alike feel themselves nearly isolated units, floating in a sea of good-humored indifference. This state of things only time can alter. Only time can civilize our new community in intellectual and perspective matters; but there are some other conditions which are more immediately in our power to ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... valuation of the roads that would show the extent of their real capitalization. He talked, often, to empty chairs in the Senate, but he prophesied that the people had a new interest in their affairs, and that many of the seats, vacant because of the indifference of their owners, would soon be filled with Senators of a new type. In vacations he spoke to public audiences on the same subject, reading his "roll-call," and telling the people how their representatives voted ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... means an autocratic faculty, entitled to override the criterion by its own authority. To appeal to 'motives' is to allow the individual to make his own feeling the ultimate test of right and wrong. If we follow Mill in this we are not really assuming the moral neutrality of motive or the indifference, but an impossible profession of character. Men are not governed by abstract principles but by their passions and affections. The emotions, as Mackintosh rightly said, cannot be resolved into the mere ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... Damoclesian dagger of which he spoke lightly, because fear of death never awed him. When a man walks in the manifest path traced out for him by Heaven, he does not tremble. But friends, more concerned by the strain in watching over his safety, expressing surprise at his indifference, he ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... hand, applied himself from the outset to watching the brother and sister, as though this were the only thing that mattered, and did not take his eyes off Frederic Astaing, who, with an air of indifference, began to make a minute inspection of the premises, examining the sitting-room, going into all the bedrooms, mingling with the various groups of persons present and asking questions about the manner in which the murder ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... on the indifference with which he could gaze on human torture, it was one of his enjoyments to witness criminals torn to pieces by wild beasts, and if criminals proved scarce he did not hesitate to order some of the spectators to be thrown into ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... are out of place in a general discussion. The student body is no longer composed of the rank and file, half of whom are driven, by some requirement or other, into work in which they have but a passing interest at best. It is no longer a problem of seeing how much can be made to adhere in spite of indifference, of how firm a foundation can be prepared for needs as yet unrecognized in the subject of the effort. A very limited number, comparatively, enter further work of senior college courses, and these ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... I quoted that saying of Seneca: "He is truly great who dines off earthenware as contentedly as if it were silver; but he is greater still who dines off silver with as much indifference as if it ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... sparkling waves. It was a phenomena worthy of the tallest submarine risks to witness. The full moon and the very repleteness of things aesthetic gave opportunity for those who were able to portray an attitude of indifference, to tell gravely how the radiance of the night fully exposed the convoy to the U-boats that were lurking ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... hereditary nobility, and the feud between the gentes in possession of the government and the commons rising in revolt against the gentes could not but begin afresh. And matters very soon reached that stage. The nobility was not content with its honorary privileges which were matters of comparative indifference, but strove after separate and sole political power, and sought to convert the most important institutions of the state—the senate and the equestrian order—from organs of the commonwealth into organs of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... holiness of nature, and not mere innocence; if it was a positive tendency to good, and not merely a state of indifference between good and evil; then, we ask, What produced the fall? What motive led to the commission of the first sin? If the nature of the first man was holy, there was nothing in it which could lead him to sin, and any external ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... decay, enlivened by the usual contentions between the "regular" clergy and the episcopal government. The white population increased, the Indian population dwindled. Religion as set forth by an exotic clergy became an object of indifference when it was not an object of hatred. In 1845 the Bishop of Durango, visiting the province, found an Indian population of twenty thousand in a total of eighty thousand. The clergy numbered only seventeen priests. Three years later the province became ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... and passion are the foes of popular morality, it must be confessed that moral indifference is the malady of the cultivated classes. The modern separation of enlightenment and virtue, of thought and conscience, of the intellectual aristocracy from the honest and vulgar crowd, is the greatest danger that can threaten liberty. When ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... were without leadership, save that which inevitably results from 'the survival of the fittest;' the woman's unions are regularly officered in the usual way. They first wrought their grand pioneer work in sublime indifference to prescribed forms of procedure—'so say we all of us' being the spirit of 'motions' often made, seconded and carried by the chair, while the assembled women nodded their earnest acquiescence; the second are possessed of good, strong constitutions (with by-laws annexed), and follow the order ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... passing through his mind, his companion looked about him with cool indifference, kicking the leaves and sticks at his feet, and whistling in a low tone some operatic air. Then he broke silence. "Which is it to be, Mr Huntingdon?" he asked. "Am I to keep little George, or do you wish to have ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... means of acting upon the minds of ignorant hearers. The next step was to pass to symbolical language and expressions; for a plain and literal exposition, even if understood at all, would at least have been listened to with indifference, as not corresponding with any mental demand. In such allegorizing way, then, the early priests set forth their doctrines respecting God, nature, and humanity,—a refined monotheism and theological philosophy,—and to this ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... be taken, lest out of this freedom there grow a lazy indifference about killing the wantonness of the flesh; for the roguish Adam is exceedingly tricky in looking for permission for himself, and in pleading the ruin of the body or of the mind; so some men jump right in and say it is neither necessary ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... mysterious whisperings. The dear, sagacious brute always understood what I wanted him to do, and in the course of perhaps an hour or two he would come and lay the article at my feet, and accept the flattering adulation of my black companions with the utmost calmness and indifference. Bruno never forgot what was required of him when we encountered a new tribe of blacks. He would always look to me for his cue, and when he saw me commence my acrobatic feats, he too would go through his little repertoire, barking and tumbling and ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... The indifference of Tisquantum on the subject of the religious opinions that his daughter might imbibe from her Christian companion, may seem strange. But the Sachem, though a heathen, was, in fact, no fanatic. He believed—or professed ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... to be this. The courage of the soldier is not really contempt for physical evils and indifference to danger. It is a more or less successful attempt to simulate these habits of mind. Most men aspire to be good actors in the play. There are a few who are so perfect that they do not seem to be actors at all. This is the ideal after which the rest are striving. It ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... and before the morning broke, the father confessor blessed the union of the affianced pair. Fernanda did not open her lips the whole way, and she preserved the same silence during the preparations for the ceremony. She appeared tranquil, in a state of absolute indifference, or rather of somnolence, like a person who having been violently awakened from a dream is hardly conscious of what is going on around. And this lethargy continued after pronouncing the "Yes" before the altar. Neither the affectionate, ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... voluntary exile, which Madelon could well appreciate, though she could not have defined it; for a child judges more by instinct than reflection, and it was through no long process of reasoning that she had arrived at the certainty that she would be met here by neither contempt nor indifference. Moreover, his generally lofty and slightly incomprehensible style of conversation, and the endless stores of learning with which she had innocently accredited him, had surrounded him with that vague halo ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... after a journey to Charleston in 1855: "The change to a Northerner in coming South is always a great one when he steps over the boundary of the free states; and the farther you go towards the South the more absolutely do shiftlessness and careless indifference take the place of energy and active precaution and skilful management.... The outside first aspect of slavery has nothing horrible and repulsive about it. The slaves do not go about looking unhappy, and are with difficulty, I fancy, persuaded to feel so. Whips and chains, oaths and brutality, ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... them, tall and elegant in figure, and with that air of affable dignity which becomes a noble, and which adorns a court; none of that affected indifference which seems to imply that nothing can compensate for the exertion of moving, and 'which makes the dandy, while it mars the man.' His large and somewhat sleepy grey eye, his clear complexion, his small mouth, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... it is a matter of perfect indifference to you; you never even see me! When I come near you, Henry, you turn your head away; and if I sit down beside you, you cover your face ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and those in need of companionship turn naturally to Wordsworth. He said that it was his aim "to console the afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight." His critics often say that he does not recognize the indifference, even the cruelty of nature; but that he chooses, instead, to present the world as a manifestation of love and care for all creatures. When he was shown where a cruel huntsman and his dogs had chased a poor hart to ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... enter the race," she answered with a kind of amused indifference. "I suppose Alice and I can row as well as your other friends. But we really must be getting back to the Point. Lieutenant Jimmy, we are sorry to interrupt you, but we have a long trip ahead of us." Her significant tone caused Phyllis and that young ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... left me when I first said 'No,' I could have looked down on his face to-day with contempt. But, no, he had a fancy that I was his destiny, and that he must possess me or die. Die? He would not even let me die when I found that my long-sought 'Yes' turned his worship into indifference, and his passion into constraint. But—" she suddenly cried, with a repetition of that laugh which now sounded so fearful in my ears— "all this does not answer your question as to how I dared publish the insinuations I tacked up on the mill-door ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... to fight. If war came to England it would be no war decreed by a few men. It would be a war proclaimed by the people themselves, demanded by them. The nation was stirring; it was casting off the proverbial lethargy and indifference of the English. Even here, in this usually quiet suburb of London, the home of business and professional men who were comfortably well off, the stirring of the spirit of England was evident. And suddenly the song of the scouts and those who had joined them ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... uneasily, fidgeting and twisting with an occasional groan until "Red" unbent sufficiently from his surly indifference to ask him "what was ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... to see the conversation of well-bred women rescued from vapid commonplaces, from uninteresting tattle, from trite communications, from frivolous earnestness, from false sensibility, from a warm interest about things of no moment, and an indifference to topics the most important; from a cold vanity, from the overflows of self-love, exhibiting itself under the smiling mask of an engaging flattery; and from all the factitious manners of artificial intercourse. We do wish to see the time passed in polished and intelligent society considered ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... the physically undeveloped and the morally weak he had no use whatever—none. In the West, his reserve with men had been labelled taciturnity or swollen-headeduess, which did not fit the case at all; whilst, in spite of his perfect manner towards them, his indifference to woman en masse or in the individual was ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... their work round the campfires and steaming kettles and grinned as the prisoner passed. The braves who were sitting upon their blankets and smoking their long pipes, or lounging before the warm blazes maintained a stolid indifference; the dusky maidens smiled shyly, and the little Indian boys, with whom Isaac had always been a great favorite, manifested their joy by yelling and running after him. One youngster grasped Isaac round the leg and held on until ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... alone, I have loved many women, but never a woman just like you. Your coldness, your haughty reserve, your refinement would intimidate most men and keep them at a distance, but not me. Your aloofness, your indifference only spurs me, only adds to the acuteness of my desire. I swore to myself that I would conquer you, overcome your resistance, bend you to my will. You turned me out of your home. I ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... himself chiefly with observing the effect of his dog on the various janitors. Some were frankly hostile; some covertly so. Some didn't mind dogs—but there was rules. And some defeated themselves by a display of over-enthusiasm that manifestly veiled indifference, ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... could you wish Jack to live all his life in indifference to such things—just idle and play, and spend the wealth that other people produce ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... it. Calvin believed that his conversion was a divine call to forsake Roman Catholicism and to become the apostle of a purer life. His heart, he said, was "so subdued and reduced to docility that in comparison with his zeal for true piety he regarded all other studies with indifference, though not entirely abandoning them. Though himself a beginner, many flocked to him to learn the pure doctrine, and he began to seek some hiding-place and means of ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... his leg across the saddle and sit down. Similarly when dismounting he would chirrup and the horse again went down on his knees. Any one else trying the same trick with the horse would be received with a stare of blank indifference; and woe betide the one ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... depression, to transfer themselves and their families to America or Australia, is a policy the net advantage of which is open to grave doubt. Of course by removing any body of workers you make room for others, but this fact does not make it a matter of indifference which class is removed. On the other hand, if we look exclusively to the interests of the whole mass of labour in England, we should probably be led to assist the emigration of large bodies of the lowest ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... got any further, for at this point Rudolph Musgrave took him by the coat-collar and half-dragged, half-pushed him through the garden, shaking him occasionally with a quiet emphasis. The colonel was angry, and it was a matter of utter indifference to him that they were trampling over flower-beds, and leaving ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell |
