"Debonair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... figure in the doorway wore velveteen trousers of green, old and faded, a black jacket rusty, with the sleeves patched, and a scarlet sash tied loosely about the waist. On the back of her cropped yellow curls was a velveteen cap, rakishly tipped, and she stood debonair beneath the folds of the curtain with ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... nymph (not much U.P.). Come, and sip it as you go, And let my not-too-gouty toe Join the dance with them and thee In sweet unrationed revelry; While the grocer, free of care, Bustles blithe and debonair, And the milkman lilts his lay, And the butcher beams all day, And every warrior tells his tale Over the spicy nut-brown ale. Peace, if thou canst really bring These ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... Charles Martel, was a prisoner in its dungeon in 830 for uttering some words too true for an age unaccustomed to the perpetual veracity of our newspapers. Count Wala, who was also an abbot, had the misfortune to speak of Judith of Bavaria as "the adulterous woman," and when her husband, Louis le Debonair, came back to the throne after the conspiracy of his sons, the lady naturally wanted Wala killed; but Louis compromised by throwing him into the rock of Chillon. This is what Wala's friends say: others say that he was one of the conspirators against Louis. At any rate, he ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... curtains, scenery, everything—was got up by the 1st Cavalry Division Supply Column, and most of the performers were A.S.C. men. The most popular vocalist turned up on his own, however, viz. Captain the Maclean, of Lochbuie (of the 19th Hussars), who is quite an artist in his way. This gay, debonair Scotsman is simply worshipped by the men. One of the latter (himself holding the D.C.M. and the French Medaille Militaire for conspicuous bravery at Landrecies) told me Maclean was the bravest man he had ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... time he reached the steps before the door every trace of disturbance had vanished, and he was once more the urbane, handsome, debonair gentleman who played such havoc ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... up all the social solecisms he had contrived to commit in the space of a single moment. He had remained seated, he reminded himself, throughout the interview; one. He had not raised his hat, that fascinating Homburg simply made to be raised with a debonair swish under such conditions; two. Call it three, because he ought to have raised it twice. He had gaped like a fool; four. And, five, he had not uttered a single word of acknowledgement ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... now is honour on earth so high, which Nicolette my sweet friend would not grace if it were hers? Were she Empress of Constantinople or of Germany, were she Queen of France or of England, there were but little in it, so noble is she and gracious and debonair and endued with all ...
— Aucassin and Nicolette - translated from the Old French • Anonymous
... which three of them were Governors, and which of them had served as officers of the State Line in the Revolution; and, in fine, was more than satisfied to have his daughter play Penelophon to Colonel Musgrave's debonair mature Cophetua. ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... Minstrel stands on a marble stair, Blown by the bright wind, debonair; Below lies the sea, a sapphire floor, Above on the terrace a turret door Frames a lady, listless and wan, But fair for the eye to rest upon. The minstrel plucks at his silver strings, And looking up to the lady, sings: — Down the road to Avignon, ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... smile that seemed all brilliant color—white teeth, ocean-blue eyes, and poppied cheeks. His square little figure was very boyish in the thin silk shirt and baggy knickerbockers, and a wide hat, slipping from his yellow mane, added a last debonair touch to his picturesque little person. He was flushed, ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... to dispel the growing uneasiness. Sir Chester himself, apparently oppressed by the weightiness of the occasion and the responsibility of offering an unfamiliar brand of goods to his public, had dropped his customary debonair method of delivering lines and was mouthing his speeches. It was good gargling, but bad elocution. And, for some reason best known to himself, he had entrusted the role of the heroine to a doll-like damsel with ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... strangled." Thus exasperated were the most gentle tempers in these times of doubt and peril. The rigorous tone adopted, confirms the opinion of those historians who observe, that, after the discovery of the Rye-house Plot, Charles was fretted out of his usual debonair ease, and became more morose and severe than had been hitherto thought ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... too." Eva, the expert, wrestling with Carrie over the problem of the new spring dress. They never guessed that the commonplace man in the frayed old smoking-jacket had banished them all from the room long ago; had banished himself, for that matter. In his place was a tall, debonair, and rather dangerously handsome man to whom six o'clock spelled evening clothes. The kind of a man who can lean up against a mantel, or propose a toast, or give an order to a man-servant, or whisper a gallant speech in a lady's ear with equal ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... somberness of the reign of Louis, all France went to the extreme of levity. Costumes changed. Manners, but late devout, grew debonair. Morals, once lax, now grew yet more lax. The blaze and tinsel, the music and the rouge, the wine, the flowing, uncounted gold—all Paris might have been called a golden brothel of delirious delight, tenanted by a people ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... blushing Claire? Maid of the sylph-like air, Blooming and debonair, Whither so early? Chasing the merry morn, Down through the golden corn? List'ning the hunter's horn Ring through ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... (as some sager sing) The frolic wind that breathes the spring Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-Maying— There, on beds of violets blue And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... had been awakened from a nightmare. He never forgot that single moment of revelation on the part of the man who sat now smiling and debonair ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... statements as they silently thought over the impression he had made. He was the same handsome, confident Tom Endover, but there was something gone,—and was there not something in its place? Had that gay courtesy, that debonair good fellowship, changed into something more finished, but harder and more conscious? Was there a suggestion that his old careless charm had become a calculated and a clearly appreciated facility? Lucy Eastman did not formulate the question, and it did not even vaguely ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... and they were keeping very quiet, indeed—Oh! it was joy! There was gallant Morgan himself swinging from Black Bess to kiss his mother, who stood waiting for him at her gate, and there was Colonel Hunt, gay, debonair, jesting, shaking hands right and left, and crowding the streets, Morgan's Men—the proudest blood in the land, every gallant trooper getting his welcome from the lips and arms of mother, sister, sweetheart, or cousin ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... looking at the horses being rubbed down and prepared for the afternoon's races. In a generous mood he bought his employee's lunch and took him to a seat in the grand stand. All afternoon the two men watched the races, smoked and quarreled. Tom contended that Bud Doble, the debonair, the dramatic, the handsome, was the greatest of all race horse drivers, and Jim Priest held Bud Doble in contempt. For him there was but one man of all the drivers he whole-heartedly admired, Pop Geers, the shrewd and silent. "That Geers ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... into the little drawing-room, where Hermione was waiting to receive him, he looked young and debonair, though still pale from his recent ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... came a squire so debonair His dress was rich, his words were fair, He sweetly sang, he deftly played: He could not ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on his back, staring at the roof of the berth. By lying absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inland scenes and objects, he had contrived to reduce the green in his complexion to a mere tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth to say that he felt debonair. He received Sam with a ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... with an expression of woebegone regret. Beatrice Cary was the next in line, and his search went no farther than her flushed, eager face. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "I have found the enchantress herself! Miss——" He hesitated, for an instant unaccountably shaken out of his debonair self-possession. Webb sprang to the rescue with a formal introduction, and Travers proceeded, if not entirely with his old equanimity. "I beg your pardon, Miss Cary," he apologized. "Your face is, strangely ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... found a considerable sprinkling of photographs; for the most part either of very debonair-looking young ladies or old women of the lodging-house persuasion. But one among them was the means ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... bishops and teachers. Rheims was chosen as the seat of an episcopal primacy, and it was in the church built by St. Nicaise, or Nicasius, in 401, that Clovis was baptized and crowned in 496. This ancient building, doubtless of simple Roman proportions, was rebuilt in the reign of Louis the Debonair in 822, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... are right," said the cure. "But, que voulez-vous? the saints are debonair, and have been flesh themselves, and know man's frailty and absurdity. 'Tis the Bishop ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... a third reason: that this same Danny O'Rourke, red-haired, smiling, and debonair was listed on the Air Fire Force of the United States with the highest rating that the A. F. F. has to give its pilots. But Danny would have grinned at such a suggestion and would have countered ...
— The Hammer of Thor • Charles Willard Diffin
... streets of Paris and Toby shopped. At first she was shy, halting here and hesitating there, till Saltash, looking on, careless and debonair, made it abundantly evident that whatever she desired she was to have, and then like a child on a holiday she flung aside all indecision and became eager and animated. So absorbed was she that she took no note of the passage of time and was horrified when at length he called her attention to the ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... Bellaroba with all his heart: no debonair Lionella could decoy him to be untrue. But he was debonair himself, of high courage, and mettlesome; and he may have gone a little too far. He was now become her confidant, secretary, bosom friend. Whence came the shock ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... because she saw it liked him not ill to be mocked in friendly fashion; though forsooth betwixt the laughter he looked on her somewhat ruefully. And ever, ere he parted from her, he made occasion to kiss her hands; and she suffered it smiling, and was debonair to him; whereas she saw that he was of good will to her. In such wise then wore the hours and ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... a free, debonair, and courtly sort of behaviour, which we formerly had found them in, to so strict a gravity as they now received us with did not a little amuse us, and disappoint our expectation of such a pleasant visit ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... length, the dinner was in full swing. It would have been hard for any onlooker to have guessed that so much misery and heart-burning were there. Sir Charles, smiling, gay, debonair, chatted with his guests as if quite forgetful of the silent watchers by the railings outside. He might have been a rich man as he surveyed the tables and ordered the waiters about. True, somebody else would eventually pay for the dinner, ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... light-hearted, witty—even volatile—fond of society, dancing, and a good time generally; not of the strongest intellectual power, judged by modern standards, but, as shown by his marvellous dramatic insight, by no means the debonair light-weight he is often represented. Yet whenever music was under consideration he was a changed being; he became instantly serious, and would suffer no disrespect to himself or to his art. During the last sad years of his career in Vienna, ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... Cushioned in easy chair, Methought a troupe of fairies bright, So blithe and debonair, Trooped gaily in the dim lit hall, With buzz of tempered joy. Four little fairy maiden forms Led by a merry boy, In robe of ermine, crown of gold, Dove-eyed Dora as Britain's Queen, Whose brown hair sprayed o'er shoulders fair, ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... himself appeared. He looked years older than the strong, debonair man to whom I had told my story a few hours ago, but in his face was none of the despair which I had feared. He was pale, and his eyes were shining with suppressed excitement, but he had by no means the air of a beaten man. He came over to ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a damsel at the place, Who was (though mean and rustic was her wear) Of royal presence and of beauteous face, And lofty manners, sagely debonair: Her have I left unsung so long a space, That you will hardly recognise the fair. Angelica, in her (if known not) scan, The lofty daughter of Catay's ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... His visitor smiled. Debonair in dress and deportment, there seemed nothing to inspire alarm in the air of gentle concern with which he regarded the man whom he had come to visit. Yet Spencer cursed the languor which had kept him from recovering ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the circumambient air Seeking in azure what it lacks in space, And sees a young and finely chiselled face Filled with foretastes of wisdom yet more rare; Touching and yet untouched—unmeasured grace! A breathing credo and a living prayer— Yet of the earth, still earthy; debonair The while in heaven it ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... sibilant cry she fell into his out-stretched arms. "Mio, mio," she echoed in ecstasy, "I am yours and you are mine!" So lightly was the first stepping-stone passed on her reckless path of immorality and vice. Her fickle heart soon tired of the debonair Vibrato, and in a fit of satiated pique she had his ears cut off and his tongue removed and tied to his big toe. Thus was her ever-increasing lust for bloodshed apparent even at that early age. Her next ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... on, easy, careless, unperturbed. His stories were amusing Pasquale, and the old ruffian had a fondness for anybody that could entertain him. But back of his debonair gayety Steve nursed a growing unease. He was no longer dressed in the outfit of a cowpuncher, but wore a gray street suit and a Panama straw hat. Culvera had caught only a momentary glance at him the night they had faced each other revolver ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... the house was less gay than the visit to the oak. The baronet himself made a feverish effort to appear blithe and debonair as before; but it was not successful. Fortunately, the carriages were all at the door as they reached the house, and luncheon being over, nothing delayed the parting compliments of the guests. As the last carriage ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... And yet if she will set her teeth and read the first fifty pages without skipping she will discover that she is being let into real secrets of real human hearts; that handsome Rachel (penniless companion to a benign old lady), and her debonair Louis (who somehow never can run straight where money is concerned), are becoming known to her as she knows few, if any, of her friends; and that, because known, they are extraordinarily interesting. She will see Rachel drawn out ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... prior knowledge of the fact, would have guessed that he had the slightest personal interest in the affair. There was danger of his even over-doing the attitude of indifference. But he escaped it, and was exactly as smiling, debonair and courtly as if he were in his box at the theatre watching the development of some quite other dramatic performance. He has all the courage of his race, and his long training has ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... Convention who were fighting desperately and against great odds the effort of the state machine to nominate President Wilson. Across the aisle from me sat "Plank-Shad" Thompson, of Gloucester, big and debonair, a thoroughly fine fellow socially, but always ready to act upon and carry out every tip that came to him from the master minds ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... the debonair spirit, rather carelessly—while Laurence Varney, off in another world, clutched at the invitation, fought for it, lied, thieved, prayed, lived and died for it—"I'm afraid I ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... passengers accompanying Mrs. Craigie on the long voyage to Southampton was a Lieutenant Thomas James, a debonair young officer of the Bengal Infantry, who made himself very agreeable to her and with whom he exchanged many confidences. He was going home on a year's sick leave; and at the suggestion of his ship-board acquaintance he decided ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... quite a picture as he came in—a fashion-plate, and as such I coolly regarded him—fresh, fair, and smiling, looking younger, if possible, than when we parted a year before, and handsome, as that much-abused word goes, in his debonair, off-hand style ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... With emerald stars on his glittering breast And eyes that shone with a diamond light: They made you feel sure it would always be best To tell him the truth: he was not perhaps quite So polite as Pease-blossom, but then who could be Quite such a debonair fairy as he? ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... caused him to be feared as a demon. His glance, more penetrating than his bistouries, looked straight into your soul, and dissected every lie athwart all assertions and all reticences. And thus he went along, full of that debonair majesty that is given by the consciousness of great talent, of fortune, and of forty years of a labourious ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... rise, winding the sarong about his lean waist twice, allowing one end to dangle down on his left side in a debonair and striking fashion. If set off his slim figure ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... the Vice-gerent of Heaven.—Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.—Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.—Very weel enacted—whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,—and motion to you to rise;—whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Alb was looking particularly debonair, and taking pattern by him, I turned away from my aunt's husband, pretending that I had neither seen nor ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... This debonair gentleman, as presently transpired, was Colonel von Scheller, for four years consul to the German Embassy at Washington, more lately minister for foreign affairs of the kingdom of Saxony, and now doing staff duty ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... he found it much easier to converse with men familiarly than solemnly. A celebrated incident of his career is that one winter's night he took off his wadded silk garment to evince sympathy with the poor who possessed no such protection against the cold. Partly because of his debonair manner and charitable impulses he is popularly remembered as "the wise Emperor of the Engi era." But close readers of the annals do not fully endorse that tribute. They note that Daigo's treatment of his father, Uda, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... 'and there'll be a vacant seat in the sergeant's mess;' and so the afternoon wears away and the landscape is littered wi' shell cases, but high in the air, glitterin' in the dyin' rays of the sun, sits the debonair scoot, ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... pause here, and see what the reminder means; if only because the debonair Mirza, with whom we have been well pleased, is now to become another person in name and character, commanding our sympathies as before, but for ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... He would take Darrow aside at the first opportunity and ask him——But—it! how could he do that? These were his intimate friends. He knew them well, more than well, with one exception, and he——Well, he was the handsomest of the lot and the most debonair and agreeable. A little more gay than usual to-night, possibly a trifle too gay, considering that a man of Mr. Blake's social weight and business standing sat at the board; but not to be suspected, no, not to be suspected, ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... Americo-African Mining Company was not looking his usual debonair self that evening. His manner was nervous and flustered, his face pale and drawn with anxious lines. His coat lacked the customary boutonniere, and his crumpled linen and unshaved chin suggested that he had come direct from his office after a strenuous day without stopping to go ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... John's much-occupied friends, who had their own asides about cases, and what So-and-So had said in court, but were much too well-bred before ladies to fall into "shop;" and Mr. and Mrs. Hudson, who were such as we know them; and the bride's mother, a little anxious, but always debonair; and Elinor herself, in all the haze and sweet confusion of the great era which approached so closely. The three men made the strangest addition that can be conceived to the quiet guests; but things went ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... the door of his own particular den on the right of the landing, stepped inside, closed the door, switched on the light—and Jimmie Dale's debonair nonchalance dropped from him as a mask instantly—and it was another Jimmie Dale—the professional ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... nod and a bright smile from him on Sundays, and sometimes on week days when she went down into the village. And he was always as gay and as debonair and handsome as anybody could wish a Dream Knight ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... was debonair and attractive of countenance to a degree. His eyes, which were grey, were extraordinarily mirthful, mischievous. A supremely airy and careless and bold spirit looked through those eyes and shone through their flashes and glints ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... end I see In his old place our Poet's vis-a-vis, The great PROFESSOR, strong, broad-shouldered, square, In life's rich noontide, joyous, debonair. His social hour no leaden care alloys, His laugh rings loud and mirthful as a boy's,— That lusty laugh the Puritan forgot,— What ear has heard it and remembers not? How often, halting at some wide crevasse Amid the windings of his Alpine pass, High up ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... him a capable staff and a goodly number of young officers, gay, debonair, thinking not of great political designs about America but chiefly of their own future careers in France, and facing death lightheartedly enough. Next to Montcalm in command was the Chevalier de Uvis, a member of a great French family and ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... would be merely pained at their helplessness before the tears of the grief that kills and the woe of mothers sorrowing for their sons. But when the black-eyed maiden knelt before the priest, courtly and debonair, begging him to send a husband quickly, his lips surely would control themselves no longer, and his smile would set the damsel's cheek a-blushing. And if a youth knelt before Saint Catherine in her dainty mantilla, and vowed his heart was breaking because his love gave him stony ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... thus! and let a Sabbath song Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong! The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside, Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies, The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes— The life still there, upon her hair—the death upon her eyes. "Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven— "From Hell unto a high estate ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... meant to be debonair, but his thought was divided and uncontrollable impulse drew his glance shiftily ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... between the lawyer and one of the racing-men, Banneker, as the dinner progressed, found himself watching Delavan Eyre, opposite, who was drinking with sustained intensity, but without apparent effect upon his debonair bearing. Banneker thought to read a haunting fear in his eyes, and was cogitating upon what it might portend, when his attention was distracted by Ely Ives, who had been requested (as he announced) to exhibit his small skill at some minor sleight-of-hand tricks. The skill, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... many knights of the two parties in contest, and with the knights came their esquires in attendance. Now these knights were all in full armor, shining very bright, and the esquires were clad in raiment of many textures and various colors, so that they were very gay and debonair. So, with all this throng moving along the highway toward the meadow of battle, it seemed as though the entire world was alive with ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair, His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease, His lack of all we prize as debonair, Of power or will to shine, of ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... virtues," said Burke, "are almost too costly for humanity." Who wishes to be severe? Who wishes to resist the eminent and polite, in behalf of the poor and low and impolite? and who that dares do it can keep his temper sweet, his frolic spirits? The high virtues are not debonair, but have their redress in being illustrious at last. What forests of laurel we bring, and the tears of mankind, to those who stood firm against the opinion of their contemporaries! The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... to go the little shepherd maid, Watering some strange fair plant, poorly displayed, Ill thriving in unwonted soil and air Far from its native springtime's genial care; So on my ready tongue hath Love assayed In a strange speech to wake new flower and blade, While I of thee, proud yet so debonair, Sing songs whose sense is to my people lost— Yield the fair Thames, and the fair Arno gain. Love willed it so, and I, at others' cost, Already knew Love never willed in vain: Would my heart ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... exultant joy. An intoxication seized him that lifted him at once over all his sorrow, and placed him almost in that very spot wherein he stood ten days ago; gay, debonair, light of heart as a boy, untouched by grief or the dread of grief. It was a divine madness. He threw off his clothes, admired his shapely body for a moment as he poised on the bank, and flung himself in headlong with a shout. He felt as he slipped through the water but he did not utter the thought, ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... his former self, Monty was now almost a physical wreck, haggard, thin and defiant, a shadow of the once debonair young New Yorker, an object of pity and scorn. Ashamed and despairing, he had almost lacked the courage to face Mrs. Gray. The consolation he once gained through her he now denied himself and his suffering, peculiar as it was, was ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... was there to witness Matters' discomfiture. He did not put in appearance until the sheriff and his friend were climbing anxiously and sadly into the light wagon to return home empty-handed. Then he sauntered from behind a hedge and lifted his hat in his usual debonair manner. ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... anniversary of her accession. The poet George Peele pictured in blank verse the gorgeous scene, and likened the Earl of Southampton to that ancient type of chivalry, Bevis of Southampton, so 'valiant in arms,' so 'gentle and debonair,' did he appear ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... of her sweetness comforted the knight, and assured him of all the good that she was able. So courteous and debonair ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... off in his eagerness to greet Hildebrand. "No, no, have no fear—" he promised, hurriedly, pressing forward towards the entrance. The hangings parted and Hildebrand entered, exquisite, debonair, radiant. ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and try this temper, sirs; Mood it and brood it in your breast; Or if ye ween, for worldly stirs, That man does right to mar his rest, Let me be left, and debonair; I am content; I ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... monsieur," I said briskly. "Singing Arrow will come to the window, and you are to make love to her. After a time—not too long—you are to beguile her inside. I think the guards will be complaisant, if you play your part well. Be as debonair as possible. A soldier is always tempted to be lenient to ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... but it has lost its silky curl and stands straight out now from the corners of his mouth, its points reaching almost to the line of his ears. There is, too, beneath it a small imperial, giving to his face the debonair look of a cavalier, and which accentuates more than any other one thing his Southern birth and training. As you follow the subtle outlines of his body you find too, that he is better proportioned than he was in his early manhood; thinner around the waist, broader across the shoulders; ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... had this effect, that he brightened visibly, and for the rest of the morning was almost normal. His spirits took a quick downward turn at five minutes to one, when the debonair Mr. Hyane ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... approaches of any strange face, whose motion he would most fixedly attend," writes James Heath, gentleman, in his "Chronicles," published in 1675. "Above all, he very carefully observed such whose mind or aspect were featured with any chearful and debonair lineaments; for such he boded were they that would despatch him; to that purpose he always went secretly armed, both offensive and defensive; and never stirred without a great guard. In his usual journey ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... of Lyons, who lived under the Emperor Louis the Debonair, wrote a treatise against certain superstitious persons in his time, who believed that storms, hail, and thunder were caused by certain sorcerers whom they called tempesters (tempestarios, or storm-brewers), ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... bed, still furious. After a while she was able to understand something of this fury. The world was upside down, wrong end to. Dennison, not Cunningham, should have acted the debonair, the nonchalant. Before this adventure began he had been witty, amusing, companionable; now he was as interesting as a bump on a log. At table he was only a poor counterfeit of his father, whose silence was maintained ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... bold eye, the ready tongue; kneel to her, and she will scorn and contemn you. What woman, think you, would prefer the solemn, stern-eyed purity of a Sir Galahad (though he be the king of men) to the quick-witted gayety of a debonair Lothario (though he be but the shadow of a man)? Out upon thee, pale-faced student! Thy tongue hath not the trick, nor thy mind the nimbleness for the winning of a fair and lovely lady. Thou'rt well enough in want of a better, but, ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... heightened by the letter regarding Sadie Burch. There was something even more offensively plebeian about them than that of the vulgar Weng. It would have been bad enough to have had to consider the propriety of paying over a large sum to a lady calling herself by an elegant or at least debonair name like Claire Desmond or Lillian Lamar,—but Sadie! And Burch! Ye gods! It was ignoble, sordid. That was a fine discovery to make ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... Dutch, and his sigh evokes a procession of marvelous ghosts tattooed from head to toe and capering like a company of debonair totem poles over the cobblestones of another South State Street. But the macabre days are gone. The Barnum bacchanal of the nineties lies in its grave with a fading lithograph for a tombstone. Along with the fall of the Russian empire, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... pyrotechnics, and at its touch, the latent floods of pity gushed; people sprang to their feet, and somewhere in the wide auditory a woman sobbed. Habitues of a celebrated Salon des Etrangers recall the tradition of a Hungarian nobleman who, apparently calm, nonchalant, debonair, gambled desperately; "while his right hand, resting easily inside the breast of his coat, clutched and lacerated his flesh till his nails dripped with blood." With emotions somewhat analogous, Mr. Dunbar sat as participant in this judicial rouge et noir, where the stakes were a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... it humorously man-about-town to say to a smoking friend, "Well, I'll tackle one o' your ole coffin-nails," he had never made a purchase of tobacco in his life. But it struck him now that it would be rather debonair to disport himself with a package of ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... not help wishing that Tom's name could have been Jerome. That did sound so splendid! But Tom in her eyes was just as nice as Jerome Vane, even if he was solemn and shy while Jerome was laughing and debonair. ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... one very vivid impression of that most charming of debonair noblemen, Lord Melbourne. I had the honor of dining at his house once, with the beautiful, highly gifted, and unfortunate woman with whom his relations afterwards became subject of such cruel public scandal; and after dinner I sat for some time opposite a large, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... a sharp recall of wandering thoughts, and Haward had the situation in hand. An easy greeting to the gentlemen, debonair compliments for the ladies, a question or two as to the entertainment they had left, then a negligent bringing forward of Audrey. "A little brown ward and ancient playmate of mine,—shot up in the night to be as tall as a woman. Make thy curtsy, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Coal-trucks!"—with a debonair reference to the fact that Leigh pere was a wealthy coal-owner. "But, you see, when I was having my fling, which came to such an abrupt end at Monte, the governor got downright ratty with me—kicked up no end of a shine. Told me not to darken his doors again, and that I might take my own ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... palmiest days of Washington society have I seen more elegant and becoming a toilet, and as for your singing,—it was simply divine." The doctor looked, as well as spoke, his well-turned phrases. He was gallant, debonair, dignified, impressive,—"a well-preserved fellow for forty-five," as he was wont to say of himself. He anxiously inquired for her health, deplored the state of anxiety and excitement in which they were compelled to live, thanked heaven that there were ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... gallant bearing of the other; considering, from the standpoint of her own personal knowledge in the premises, the Notary's disposition toward a secretive reticence that bordered upon severity, in contrast with the cordially frank and debonair temperament of the Major; and, at the back of all, keeping well in mind the fundamental truths that opportunity ever is evanescent and that time ever is on ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... second button-hole thereof was a moss rose. The vest was white, and the trowsers a pearl-gray, with what tailors style "a handsome fall over the boot." A blue and white silk cravat, tied loose and debonair; an ample field of shirt front, with plain gold studs; a pair of lemon-colored kid gloves, and a white hat, placed somewhat too knowingly on one side, complete the description, and "give the world assurance of the man." And, with his light, firm, well-shaped ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... sight of my figure in the antechamber beyond, and resuming in an instant his former debonair manner, he bowed very low and opened his lips as if about to ask a question. But he evidently thought better of it, for he strode by me and made his way to the front door without a word. Being an intruder myself, I did not like to stop him. But I am sorry now for the consideration ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... nothing rude in it: these French folk are gentle and courteous in their gayest frolics) the chevalier was forgotten. When he came in, late (somewhat flushed, as if he might have been running when no man was looking, but debonair and smiling, with many apologies), there was no place for him near mademoiselle, and I was not sorry. Neither, I confess, did he seem to be, for he devoted himself pointedly to Mademoiselle Chouteau, as fascinating a little coquette as ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... tear-compelling Calvary was at the opposite pole from those debonair Golgothas adopted by the Church ever since the Renaissance. This lockjaw Christ was not the Christ of the rich, the Adonis of Galilee, the exquisite dandy, the handsome youth with the curly brown tresses, divided beard, and insipid doll-like features, whom the faithful ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... with which the young man spoke filled Adrienne with fresh wonder and something like fear. She glanced from Calvert's face, with its look of calm authority, to St. Aulaire's convulsed countenance. The nobleman's face, usually so debonair, was now white and seamed with anger. All the hidden evil traits of his soul came out and stamped themselves visibly on his countenance, in that heat of passion, like characters written in a secret ink and brought ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe |
