"Flippantly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instance, "Moon's just a word to swear by," in which he expresses his conviction that all beauty and romance are fled from the world. At the end of the play the line, "Yes, and yet I dare say he is just as dead," must not be said flippantly or cynically, but slowly and with much philosophic concentration on the thought. From the moment when Columbine cries, "What's that there under the table?" until Pierrot calls, "Cothurnus, come drag these bodies out of here!" they both stand ...
— Aria da Capo • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... the K——s, one of those families of women which, if I did not value their delicacy more than my own inclination, I should like to describe, in contradiction to those who, viewing only the surface of American society, have so flippantly passed ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... fashion among our younger writers to speak slightingly and flippantly of Emerson, referring to him as outworn, and as the apostle of the obvious. This view is more discreditable to the young people than is their criticism damaging to Emerson. It can make little difference to Emerson's ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... that tender regard and that careful respect that they did in the times of the fathers. In politics, it is the habit to speak in light and disrespectful terms of those whose experience gives them the right to counsel and command. Young men talk flippantly of "fossils," and "old fogies," and wonder why men who have been buried once will not remain quietly in their graves. Of course, when such a spirit as this prevails, there can be no reverence for authority, no respect for place and position, and no genuine ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... mean that absolute perfection should be required, as this would interdict marriage altogether; but we wish to warn every young man against marrying a young woman who treats lightly or contemptuously matters which should be treated with profound respect; who uses the name of Deity flippantly or rudely; who treats her parents disrespectfully; who never cares to talk of subjects of a spiritual nature; who is giddy, gay, dressy, thoughtless, fickle. Such a young woman will never make a loving, patient, faithful, ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... phrase is not to be taken flippantly, but when two young people talk with the primary object of concealing their respective thoughts, the conversation is apt to partake of futility. In this case, at all events, it led to ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... do to please her. She listens willingly and replies gaily to the gallant speeches and bold conversation of a certain Chevalier, a professional coxcomb, but to you she speaks seriously and with a preoccupied air. If you take on a tender and affectionate tone, she replies flippantly, or perhaps changes the subject. All this intimidates you, troubles you, and drives you to despair. Poor Marquis!—and I answer you, that all this is love, true and beautiful. The absence of mind which she affects with you, the nonchalance she puts on for a mask, ought ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... me hear you speak so flippantly of matrimony," she began severely; "and for your future edification, it is not the man but the ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... ancestor—the Pelasgian. What, then, was the parent tongue of the latter unless it was the language "spoken at one time by all the nations of Europe—before their separation?" In the absence of all proofs, it is unreasonable that the Rik-Brahmanas, the Mahabharata and every Nirukti should be treated as flippantly as they now are. It is admitted that, however inferior to the classical Sanskrit of Panini, the language of the oldest portions of Rig Veda, notwithstanding the antiquity of its grammatical forms, is the same as that of the latest texts. Every one sees—cannot fail to see and to know—that ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... head. "You have done everything in your power. Dysart has been fairly warned. Besides, who knows?" he added rather flippantly. "They may strike a hundred inches of water, ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... may be as clearly laid down, if we but attend to the usage of the great Poets, as are the laws of our syntax."—Preface, p. 7. But this critic, of the American Review, ingenious though he is in many of his remarks, flippantly denies that our English Prosody has either authorities or principles which one ought to respect; and accordingly cares so little whom he contradicts, that he is often inconsistent with himself. Here is a sample: "As there are ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Love is always beautiful. Not even marriage can always spoil it, though it very often does. Well, Joan," he went on flippantly, though the tickle of her lashes against his palm somehow disturbed his flippancy, "I'll go into the subject with you one of these days, when the weather isn't so beautiful. It's really a matter of law, property rights, and so forth; a practice variously ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... due to this interesting young woman to say that she coyly urged me not to forget my other friends, since I was to leave so soon, and it pleased me to fancy that she was not altogether offended when I spoke somewhat hastily and rather flippantly of those of my former companions who had lapsed into tediousness. I reminded her also that as the happiest memory of my childhood was associated with her mother, so it was sweet to me to be with her and live again, in a pleasant ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... It was flippantly spoken, but Muriel realised that it would be better to obey. She turned about slowly, and began to make her ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... came seeking, boyish, eager, contemptuous of any barrier so illusory as the fact of her trances, which she confessed to him. Her words hardly impressed themselves on his mind, and he replied, flippantly: "That cuts no ice with me. You couldn't be anything I wouldn't like. You're living too close and your nerves are sort of frazzled. What you need is a jolly good time. Come back to Boston and forget all about this business. Come, I want folks to meet you. My mother knows how I feel about ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... remonstrance a little flippantly, I thought, evidently feeling that too much had been made out of very little; for he averred that his 'attentions' to Hesper had been of the slightest character, hardly more than occasional looks and whispers, which, from her cold reception ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... brought a mocking little smile to the other girl's face; her quick comprehension evidently detected the rebuke, but she only answered flippantly: ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Corinna. "But, dear boy, the way to make you human—and you've never been really human all through, you know—was not with a uniform and glory." She was talking flippantly, for they made a pretence now of alluding lightly to his years in France—he had gone into the war before his country—and to the nervous malady, the disabled will, he had brought back. "What you need is not to win ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... restrain the madness of those who urge a coercive policy against the seceding States, then, indeed, I see no escape from that most dreadful of all calamities which can befall a nation—civil war. If those in this Chamber who talk so flippantly of war, had seen, as it has been my lot to see, some of its actual horrors, they might, perhaps, heed the warnings and respect the counsels of the sages and patriots whose language I have quoted. They would at least refrain from ungenerous insinuations against the patriotism of those ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... talk and eat at the same time, I see. So tell me what you've been doing all this while." Billy Louise spoke lightly, even flippantly, but her eyes were making love to him shyly, whether ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... When he realised that these were not the masked mutes at a very grisly funeral, but merely ladies literally obeying a convention of wearing veils in public, he would probably have a reaction of laughter. He would be disposed to say flippantly that it must be, a dull life, not only for the women but the men; and that a man might well want five wives if he had to marry them before he could even look at them. But he will be wise not to be satisfied with such flippancy, for the complete ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... I'm much mistaken, and plenty of spirit, too, when she's roused, I should anticipate. But at present, in her childish ignorance, she's yielding where she should resist, and she'll be brutalised if no one comes to the rescue. I don't trust that man Maclure. A man who speaks flippantly of things that should be respected is not a man who will be scrupulous when his own interests are concerned; and such a man has it in his power to make the life of a girl a hell upon earth in ways which she will not complain of, if she has no knowledge ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... This, I say, is not fair play, and those guilty of the unfairness need not find fault if lovers of justice refuse to follow them in their raid on men and characters, or by silence lend strength to the unwarranted assumption that each and every one of those so flippantly accused are guilty from the word 'go,' and must be pilloried in public and private, and subjected to the shame and embarrassment arising from these attacks on their character, as law-abiding citizens and legal subjects ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... reputation for a disregard of the rights of others, which makes them obnoxiously uncivil. They enter a church where worshipers are kneeling and audibly criticise the architecture and decorations, or the faith to which it is consecrated. They comment flippantly on great pictures in art galleries, and snicker over undraped statues, evincing the commonness of their minds and their lack of knowledge of art. But one of the worst lapses of decorum is to sit in a theatre ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... French society. German Rationalism, empirical or spiritual,(72) in two parallel developments, the philosophical and the literary, neither coldly denied Christianity with the practical doubts of the English deists, nor flippantly denounced it as imposture with the trenchant and undiscriminating logic of the French infidels; but appreciating its beauty with the freshness of a poetical genius, and regarding it as one phase of the religious consciousness, ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... you're smart!" exclaimed Barber, sarcastically. "You can understand plain English!—Yes, dear Mister Perkins, I mean that I don't want y' round." With that he continued on to the hall door, and opened it. "This way out," he said flippantly. The brown teeth ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... E. R. Coglan, flippantly. "The terrestrial, globular, planetary hunk of matter, slightly flattened at the poles, and known as the Earth, is my abode. I've met a good many object-bound citizens of this country abroad. I've seen men ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... please by the divine right of—well, of just doing it. But, even so, a lot of the men are rather afraid of me in their hearts. They suspect the bluestocking. Let 'em suspect! The market is plenty good enough," declared Io flippantly. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... people to the stress and strain of life, has without a doubt increased. The most casual of observers will tell you that the generation of the Great War is a neurasthenic generation. It takes its pleasures too intensely, its pains too seriously, its troubles too flippantly. But what is neurasthenia? Beard himself regarded it as a chronic fatigue and loss of tone of the nervous system, a literal interpretation of his term. That the conception, as far as it goes, is valid is proved by the fact that it ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... when be writes nonsense, we generally read it with pleasure except indeed when he tries to be droll. A more insufferable jester never existed. He very often attempts to be humorous, and yet we do not remember a single occasion on which he has succeeded further than to be quaintly and flippantly dull. In one of his works he tells us that Bishop Sprat was very properly so called, inasmuch as he was a very small poet. And in the book now before us he cannot quote Francis Bugg, the renegade Quaker, without a remark on his unsavoury name. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with his woman from Shyuamo," flippantly observed Shotaye; "it will make Turquoises cheaper." She turned away with an indifferent air. Her careless manner struck the young man, and when he saw that she would not speak, but only gazed at the sky, he went off with the present he had received. He felt differently; he took the matter ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... but flippantly. "You subjugated Eric Stanford in half that time, and his gray matter has been in ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... know what that 'thorough talk' of yours is going to be about. You and I, in our briefly connected careers, have discussed every subject on earth, gravely or flippantly, and what in the world this 'thorough talk' is going ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... father's sermons and parish talks, come to mind. Most of these are approved, but some seem strangely grotesque. To Oswald's tense perception the general tenor is along severely orthodox lines, but as to occult verities the style appears flippantly superficial. Many comments upon "rewards of virtue" and "refined craft in uprightness" seem gayly ironical. Such jar ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... whither he had followed her without pausing to remove the stains of travel, Strefford showed himself immensely interested in the last chapter of her history, greatly pleased at its having been enacted under his roof, and hugely and flippantly amused at the firmness with which she refused to let him see Nick till the latter's daily task ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... deny it flat. When I sit in the company of ladies at dinner, I dissemble my true nature, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat. If then, you taunt me, for want of a better escape, I shall turn it to a jest. I shall engage the table flippantly: Hear how preposterously the fellow talks!—he jests to satisfy a grudge. In appearance I am whole as the marble, ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... in his flippantly gallant way, "but I'm inclined to think you are very selfish; you are having your enjoyment all to yourself. To judge by the face which you have worn all day your heart is bubbling over with it, and yet you think about it instead of giving ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... to hear him speak so lightly. She would have been surprised if she could have known the desperate unhappiness in his heart, the bitterness that drove him to speak so flippantly of all that he held best ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... carelessly, rather flippantly, perhaps, "Tell the captain I'm going to dine in the ward-room." I meant no disrespect, for I felt none. Perhaps the fellow who took back my answer worded it maliciously. I had totally forgotten, as soon as I had uttered my excusal, whether ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... and experts in every art and science, only on matters of theology and Holy Scripture, the foundations of all arts and sciences, can few be found to speak well. Yet questions relating to them are discussed most flippantly at table, and in public places; the hare-brained youth, the uneducated labourer, and the dotard, give their opinions freely on the highest mysteries of ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... to leave that out?" Schnitzel answered flippantly. "What about Coleman, the foreman at Bahia, and that German contractor, Ebhardt, and old Smedburg? They talked too much, and they died of yellow-fever, maybe, and maybe what happened to them was they ate knockout drops in ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... other woman, it might have been the stoicism of her race would have saved her from further humiliation, but when she saw him walking with Nellie Shuter, saw the love-light in his eyes when he looked at her, and noted how flippantly, in return, Nellie treated him, her love swept away all feelings of pride, and she seized every opportunity of speaking to him. Naturally such a course only added to his distaste ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... respect due to that most significant monosyllable, which, as the old Rabbi spoke it, with its targum of tone and expression, was not to be answered flippantly, but soberly, advisedly, and after a pause long enough for it to unfold its meaning in the listener's mind. For there are short single words (all the world remembers Rachel's Helas!) which are like those Japanese toys that look like nothing of any significance as you ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... before. It was the first Socialist publication he had ever seen, and it had repelled him because its editor had printed his own picture in a conspicuous place, and also because in his leading editorial he had dealt flippantly with an eminent reformer and philanthropist for whom Thyrsis ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Mirabel was always a theatrical man, sir," the Major said, annoyed that his nephew should speak flippantly of any person of Sir Charles's rank and station. "He has been occupied with theatricals since his early days. He acted at Carlton House when he was Page to the Prince; he has been mixed up with that sort of thing: he could afford to marry whom he chooses; and Lady Mirabel ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was setting by the time Charley was ready to leave his office. Never in his life had he stayed so late in "the halls of industry," as he flippantly called his place of business. The few cases he had won so brilliantly since the beginning of his career, he had studied at night in his luxurious bedroom in the white brick house among the maples on the hill. In every case, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "the dead bury their dead," while all the strange, mysterious, inner powers of nature, which the philosophers of the Middle Ages, as Psellus, Albertus Magnus, Trithemius, Cardanus, Theophastus, &c., did so much to elucidate, are at once flippantly and ignorantly placed in the category of "Superstitions," ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... tell it from her letter. She seemed to write flippantly about things—but that was just because she hates insincerity and flummery, and the world she lives in doesn't satisfy her. Why, it was as if I read slick through to her soul. That woman would go through anything for ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... along and stared, wondering what had sent this usually tardy boy so far in advance of the bell. Little girls tittered. Phrony Walker tossed her braid flippantly over her shoulder, casually displaying a new hair ribbon with which she meant to impress the city girl who wore and needed none. Sophronia's hair did not kink and curl as Katharine's did, but it was "a hunderd times as long and a great deal prettier colored." Kate had ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... Sevier, said the Doctor, "That chap's working himself to death, Anna," and gave his fair guest such a stern white look that she had to answer flippantly. ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... artists like you, in the service of beauty and the faith in freedom. Prussia, at least cannot help me; Lord Palmerston, I believe, called it a country of damned professors. Lord Palmerston, I fear, used the word "damned" more or less flippantly. ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton
... "Into Heaven!" flippantly interjected Lazenby. "Into Heaven, say I, and be choked to you! for there's no other place for it; and I'll stand by that, till I go there myself, and know the truth o' the thing." Pierre here spoke. "Heaven gave you a fine trick with words, Shon McGann. I sometimes think Irishmen have gifts ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pleasure, except when he tries to be droll; that a more insufferable jester never existed; and that, often as he attempts to be humorous, he in no single occasion has succeeded further than to be quaintly and flippantly dull. Another reviewer warned the author of the Doctor, that there is no greater mistake than that which a grave person falls into, when he fancies himself humorous; adding, as a consolatory ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... he thought it was a ham he grabbed hold of," remarked Steve, flippantly, as he pointed to Bandy-legs' rather plump lower limbs, of which he was rather vain, ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... thought Diane with burning cheeks as she seated herself upon the cot by the window and loosened the shining mass of her straight black hair, "who ramble flippantly through a conversation and turn suddenly serious when one ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... said the Admiral, flippantly. "He never went down at all. He floated, just like a ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... at once accusing me of avoiding him, and keeping out of his way on purpose when he tried to speak with me alone, ever since he came back from Scotland; and I retorted flippantly: "Oh, have you only noticed ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... it as my humble opinion that for an American woman an English husband was at least an experiment; Salemina declared that for that matter a husband of any nationality was an experiment. Francesca ended the conversation flippantly by saying that in her judgment no husband at all was a much more ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... in her face was quizzical, yet there was a strange, elusive gravity in her eyes, an almost pathetic appealing. "If you were going to operate on me, what would it be for?" she asked more flippantly than her face showed. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that's all right. (He sits down again and throws his hat flippantly aside with the air of a man who has no longer anything ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... different person in the days before the war! In those days you didn't have to be in earnest about anything. You didn't even to have any principles that showed. Life wasn't real and earnest a bit. People just went to tea-dances and talked flippantly, and some of the men had drinks. And everybody laughed a great deal, and it was decadent, and the end of an era, and a lot of shocking things—but it wasn't half as hard as living now, because there ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... it appeared, was back in Paris, but was living in great seclusion—a fact for which gossip found no difficulty in accounting. Did not all the world know of the treachery and death of Duke Michael? Nevertheless, George bade Bertram Bertrand be of good cheer, "for," said he flippantly, "a live poet is better than a dead duke." Then he turned on ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... limits permit; but we have only to refer to what is daily occurring in Ireland, to show the utter impossibility of the gentry making any efforts to improve their own estates, or the condition of the tenantry, under existing circumstances. Men here talk flippantly of the evils of absenteeism, while they are the very first to object to measures which would render it possible for landlords to reside at home. A coercion act is opposed, while Sir Francis Hopkins, a resident and admirable landlord, is fired at at his own hall door, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... Davis flippantly, "as long as we delay our decision, we shall continue to be persons of importance in the eyes of the faculty. It's comical to see how deferential they all are. I took dinner at the Burton Sunday, and afterward Miss Raymond invited a few of us into her ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... The mouth harmonized with this stormy look, and trembled into half sarcastic smiles, as if each feature reviled the other. Now I was larger, taller, more pronounced in face and person than the pretty fairy who could entertain him so flippantly, while I sat dumb and silent in his presence. No wonder I hated myself, yet many persons had thought me good looking, and I could recollect a thousand compliments on my talents and powers of pleasing, which came to me then like ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... required some measure of specious ingenuity to explain his errand as he wished; but Mr. Carruth, being used to squirming legatees, understood and came to the point with a candor which made Pelgram wince. After first flippantly suggesting that the plumbing business would at least afford Pelgram the chance to indulge his taste in porcelains, he eased the artist's mind by a phrase as soothing as ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... Mrs. Guthrie Brimston, and she only delights in it so long as it is made a jest of. But they are all alike in that set she belongs to. Their ideas of propriety are bounded by their sense of pleasure. So long as you talk flippantly, they will listen and laugh; but if you talk seriously on the same subject, you make the matter disagreeable, and then they ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... no joke to jest with an able woman," he returned. "Seriously, I have considerable sympathy with your view, and no wish to treat it flippantly. But if I am to treat it seriously, I must admit frankly that I think you forget that, after all, Nature has something ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... feelings are towards me. After injuring me as he has, he can afford to be magnanimous. After robbing me of my hopes and my reputation, he can talk very flippantly about burying the hatchet. I tell you again there must be no relations of any kind between his family and mine. I am astonished and indignant, Edward, to think that you should allow yourself to be caught ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... faith. Unbelievers are ignorant of this happy knowledge. When Cain was first shut up in the prison of the Law he felt no pang at the fratricide he had committed. He thought he could pass it off as an incident with a shrug of the shoulder. "Am I my brother's keeper?" he answered God flippantly. But when he heard the ominous words, "What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground," Cain began to feel his imprisonment. Did he know how to get out of prison? ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... therefore belongs somewhere in the literature of the day. Perhaps it would have been for the good of some of our readers, if we had done this sooner. But, indeed, to treat with entirely condign justice a book which deals very freely and flippantly with the literary and even the personal character of one who, though an eminent and to some extent a public man, was still only yesterday a private gentleman among us, a neighbor and a friend, is a matter of some delicacy. By the extraordinary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Then we forget it. The habit of material trust is too strong for us. Kings, queens, presidents, princes, prime ministers, congresses, parliaments, and all other representatives of material strength, may repeat for formal use the conventional clause; but there is always what we flippantly know as a "joker" in the lip-recitation. "Kingdom, power, and glory," we can hear ourselves saying in a heart-aside, "lie in money, guns, commerce, and police. God is not sufficiently a force in the affairs of this world ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... York Edith had fought shy of them, mainly because Chip didn't do them justice. He spoke of them flippantly as "those two old flyaways," and would never go to their house. For this reason she herself went rarely, though when she did she got a perception of broad social inclusiveness which Chip could hardly appreciate. It was the only house she ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... the smile of gallantry upon his lips, "I have no doubt that you deserve the richest blessings of earth and heaven. For myself——" He shrugged his shoulders, just about to say conventionally, flippantly, that he was a sad, worthless fellow, but in some way her sincerity made him sincere, and he finished: "I do not know that I have done anything to ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... distinguished Moor now?" asked Captain Ringgold, carelessly and flippantly, as though it was of no consequence to him where ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... officiously opening them before her sister, and exhorting her not to give way to sullenness—she ought to like to read the Bible—which of course made Sophy look crosser. The desire to establish her authority conquered the scruple about reverence. Albinia set them to read, and suffered for it. Lucy road flippantly; Sophy in the hoarse, dull, dogged voice of a naughty boy. She did not dare to expostulate, lest she should exasperate the ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pointblank,' said Lady Kelsey, smiling with relief because he took so flippantly the news she had lately poured into his ear. 'But it's excessively rude of you to ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... infatuated players have put a valuation of five (5) cents per bean, on beans that did not cost more than $1 quart in Helena, and Jake Smith exhibits a marvelous lack of veneration for his kinswoman, by referring to each bean, as he places it before him upon the table, as his "aunt," or, more flippantly, his "auntie." Walter Trumbull has been styled the "Banker," and he says that at the commencement of the game he sold forty of these beans to each of the players, himself included (200 in all), at ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... meekly spoken by the voice that sounded in other years amid harmonious surroundings of refined luxury, the voice of a queen of fashion in Paris. Such words from the lips that once spoke so lightly and flippantly struck the ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... my paper Mr. Bellamy thus flippantly dismissed this case: "Of this it may be remarked that had it happened two centuries ago it would have been symptomatic; to-day it is a curiosity." It will be observed that in order to minify the dangers of Paternalism, Mr. Bellamy ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... itself of course," said Lewis, flippantly, as he came up and sat down on the end of the sofa, being out of humour with himself and everybody in consequence of having utterly failed to gain the attention of Nita Horetzki, although he had made unusually earnest efforts to join in conversation ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... in three months' time. There are men just as learned and just as honest who have examined their guesses, and find them poor inventions indeed. And we have a right to deny point blank the assertions so flippantly made by men like M. Renan. 'It is universally acknowledged that this book was never written by Daniel or Isaiah or Jeremiah,' 'It is certain this chapter is an addition of such and such a date,' etc. It is not universally acknowledged. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... before he sailed for South Africa there was a service in St. Paul's Cathedral, for which each volunteer had two tickets. Simon sent his to his father. 'The Lord Mayor will attend in state. I dare say you'll like to see the show,' he wrote flippantly. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... and hers alone. Neither spoke. They passed a crowd of natives returning to the Bazaar. They salaamed, but Nehal Singh made no response, as was his wont. He did not seem to see them. Mechanically he guided his horse through the bowing crowd. The silence became unbearable. She had flippantly told herself that as long as he did not make a "scene" she would be satisfied. He had not made a "scene." From the moment that she had made her final declaration he had not spoken, and now she was praying that he would say something ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... to compare it with the Vatican, Millicent?" asked Anna, flippantly. Millicent turned a distant, starry gaze ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... hospitality for which it was eminent. Dr. Johnson esteemed him much. He hung up in the counting-house a fine proof of the admirable mizzotinto of Dr. Johnson, by Doughty; and when Mrs. Thrale asked him somewhat flippantly, 'Why do you put him up in the counting-house?' he answered, 'Because, Madam, I wish to have one wise man there.' 'Sir,' (said Johnson,) 'I thank you. It is a very handsome compliment, and I believe you speak ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... not only in the tropical isles of the Orient, but in the Western world, in the lagoons and forests of Equatorial America. Many of the "sailors' yarns" of past times, which we have been accustomed so flippantly to discredit, on account of their appearing rather tough, have under the light of recent scientific ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... memory in solitude?" hazarded Sara flippantly. She was still nervous and talking rather at random, scarcely heeding ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... thrown to me by our railroad friends who own this State. More and more after I've said them over in campaigning next fall, and pretty soon I'll be so sure I believe them that I really will believe them—and that," he concluded, flippantly, "is the new brand of American honesty. Why, any smart man can persuade himself ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... freedom of the young girl has its drawbacks. She is—I say it with all reluctance—irreverent, from her forty-dollar bonnet to the buckles in her eighteen-dollar shoes. She talks flippantly to her parents and men old enough to be her grandfather. She has a prescriptive right to the society of the man who ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... accompany me, that before we slept to-night I would explain my singular request. I hardly thought that I should have to do it, whether I would or not, under these circumstances. Indeed, it appears that you have the right to demand of me the explanation I so flippantly offered you an hour ago. I am bound to own that, had I dreamed that you knew this lady—that a relation so intimate existed between you—I should surely never have done of my own will this which Fate has presumed to do for ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... Laura suggested, a severe strain; the machinery of his nature was out of adjustment and demanded a violent reaction before it could get to running again at average speed. Also, it is evident that his destruction had been planned on high, for he was mad enough to answer flippantly: ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... flippantly, "is something little girls can't understand. They'd better not try. This isn't a woman's problem, to be solved by argument. ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... things by laughing at the wrong time, for which she scolded him duly and without mercy, she knew he meant to do his best. His impending retirement had been one of her greatest triumphs. She was sick to death of the circle of City people, of what she flippantly called "Square milers," and that had been the main reason she had given to her husband in urging him to give up business ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... Mass in an unknown tongue, are not the people thereby kept in ignorance of what he says, and is not their time wasted in Church? We are forced to smile at such charges, which are flippantly repeated from year to year. These assertions arise from a total ignorance of the Mass. Many Protestants imagine that the essence of public worship consists in a sermon. Hence, to their minds, the primary duty of a congregation ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... should not only importune your Home Secretary to pardon him, but I should recommend him for a pension," he said flippantly. ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... I was a shallow farceur. My work lacked depth. I wrote flippantly simply because I was having a thoroughly good time. Then I took up golf, and now I can smile through the tears and laugh, like Figaro, that I may not weep, and generally hold my head up and feel that I am entitled ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... flippantly, at which Squire Boatfield frowned deprecation. Lambert, without a word, had brought a chair near to Lady Sue, and with a certain gentle authority, he forced her to ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... Summoned to Germany by the Protestant princes who were being oppressed and despoiled, and assured of assistance and subsidies from the King of France, Gustavus Adolphus had, no doubt, ideas of a glorious destiny, which have been flippantly taxed with egotistical ambition. Perhaps, in the noble joy of victory, when he "was marching on without fighting," seeing provinces submit, one after another, without his being hardly at the pains to draw his sword, might he have sometimes dreamed of a Protestant empire and the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... about to say. The committee feels that Mr. McGowan holds ideas that are too far advanced for our humble little church. We must not overlook the fact that we hold sacred some of the things to which he flippantly referred to-night, and it is our duty to protect—er—the sacred doctrines which have been handed down to us from the more sacred memory of our fathers and martyrs of ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... marriage in which the hunger of the woman for love was a greater factor than the not deeply stirred passion of the man. Then, with the appearance of the destined mate, beauty and youth and desire carry the day against duty, but neither callously nor flippantly. The insight and sympathy displayed in the analysis of motive are remarkable. The author has a real gift for portraiture. In particular he touches in his minor folk with extraordinarily deft defining lines. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... Executioner!" said Piers flippantly. "Well? Who is the latest victim? And what have ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... answer and spoke flippantly from nervousness. "Because it's rather soon to become a grass widow, and I want you to be seen with me ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... to keep away, Paula became less reasonable in her desires, and proceeded to wish that Somerset would arrive; then that anybody would come; then, walking towards the portraits on the wall, she flippantly asked one of those cavaliers to oblige her fancy for company by stepping down from his frame. The temerity of the request led her to prudently withdraw it almost as soon as conceived: old paintings had been said to play ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... earl had literally nothing more to say, and Lord Kilcullen was so irritated that he told his father he would not stand it any longer. Then they went into money affairs, and the earl spoke despondingly about ten thousands and twenty thousands, and the viscount somewhat flippantly of fifty thousands and sixty thousands; and this was continued till the earl felt that his son was too deep in the mire to be pulled out, and the son thought that, deep as he was there, it would be better to remain and ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... out one of the survivors, who hums as he goes, and steps in time with it flippantly, as hussars of the stage do. It ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... answered Madelene flippantly. "I was wondering how long it would take that Skinner girl to earn enough money to pay for a ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... think so,' answered my unhappy colleague flippantly. 'I think you and I are bigger blackguards than he is, ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... chattering flippantly with a group of the dispersing audience, while her heart was in throes of dismay at her own feelings ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... still attended to the menial functions, and two mulatto children remained to relieve them of light labor. She was a dignified, matronly young lady, and, as one of the sisters informed me, plighted to a Major in the Confederate service. The others chattered flippantly for an hour, and said that the old place was dreadfully lonesome of late. Miss Bell was sure she should die if another winter, similar to the last, occurred. She loved company, and had always found it so lively in Loudon before; whereas she had positively ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... had literally been blown to fragments. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, were splotched with—well, it's enough to say that that woman's remains could only have been collected with a shovel. In saying this, I am not speaking flippantly either. I have dwelt upon these details, revolting as they are, because I wish to drive home the fact that the only victims of this air-raid on Antwerp were ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... the little star, with her pert, upturned face, seemed more anxious to have Kennedy go along than she was to meet the mysterious individual mentioned without name by Manton. For an instant she was on the point of addressing him, flippantly, no doubt. Then, I think she was ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... officers was beyond any thing I ever could have supposed would have proceeded from the mouth of a human being. The master, one day, incurred his displeasure, and he very flippantly told the poor man to go ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in his company was wont to enter a fray with a leg perched flippantly about the horn of his saddle, a cigarette hanging from his lips, which emitted smoke and original slogans of clever invention. Buckley would have given a year's pay to attain that devil- may-care method. Once the debonair youth said to him: "Buck, you go into a ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower, and they fell upon him without mercy, his English teacher leading the pack. He stood through it smiling, his pale lips parted over his white teeth. (His lips were continually twitching, and he had a habit of raising ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... speechless, frozen with terror. Ali raised his whip to strike the ruffian who had spoken so flippantly of Monte-Cristo's daughter, but the indignant mute was instantly overpowered and dragged ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... futile to attempt to draw a comparison between the two men. The one was a colossal human genius, and the other, extraordinary in the art of his profession, was entirely without the faculty of understanding or appreciating the distinguished man he flippantly raged ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... for him; Nature gave out her cry, and significance was on all sides of the universe; no dead stuff, no longer any afflicting lumpishness. His brain was vivifying light. And how humane he was! how supremely tolerant! Where she had really thought instead of flippantly tapping at the doors of thought, or crying vagrantly for an echo, his firm footing in the region thrilled her; and where she had felt deeper than fancifully, his wise tenderness overwhelmed. Strange to consider: with all his precious gifts, which must ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that would go on the rocks for some man," Nina had said once, rather flippantly, "and never know she was shipwrecked. No man in the world could do that ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... good deal to be out of that room. There was something in Mr Smith's voice and manner and frightened eyes which made the question, coming from him, very different from the same inquiry flippantly thrown out by one of my old comrades. And yet I would not—I ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... joined twenty-four hours later. But, in the meantime, there was an early-evening lull which enclosed a delightful cricket match. A team of junior Kensingtonians, that included Doe and myself, was going across Kensingtowe High Road to play the First Eleven of the Preparatory School, an academy flippantly known as the "Nursery," its boys being "Suckers." Edgar Doe had been a certain choice. Brought up in the midst of a great cricketing family, the Grays of Surrey tradition, in his beautiful Falmouth home which boasted cricket pitches of its own, he was as polished a bat as the ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... tailoring), Mr. Silk Buckingham and Lord William Lennox, Mr. Samuel Carter Hall and Mr. Harrison Ainsworth. Tennyson once, and once only, wrote for Punch, a reply to Lord Lytton (then Mr. Bulwer), who had coarsely attacked him in his "New Timon," where he had spoken flippantly of ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... I must not reply flippantly, Make them all Wards in Chancery; yet that would be enough to put any sensible person on the track of the reply. One would think, to hear the way in which people sometimes ask the question, that not only does marriage prevent the difficulty ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... long interval there occurs the inevitable reflection that the realities out of which it was spun were material for another kind of study of this little group of church musicians than is found in the chapters here penned so lightly, even so farcically and flippantly at times. But circumstances would have rendered any aim at a deeper, more essential, more transcendent handling unadvisable at the date of writing; and the exhibition of the Mellstock Quire in the following pages must remain the only ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... tin cans?" enquired Stefan, flippantly. "In Michigan I remember them as the chief ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... people all over the world belong to it so as to appear as though they held death in scorn. Then, once they get here, they feel obliged to be cheerful that they may not appear to be afraid. So they joke and laugh and talk flippantly, they are witty and they become so. At present it is certainly the most frequented and the most entertaining place in Paris. The women are even thinking of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... eyes, which were blue, and watching heavily. He could not understand them. 'Am I my brother's keeper?' he said to himself, almost flippantly. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... speak so flippantly of it! How can you? And don't think for one instant. that I doubted your word. I didn't. But it didn't seem possible that such a thing—Mr. Brice!" she broke off earnestly. "You mustn't —you can't—think that Milo knew anything of this! I mean about the—the ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... pensive and anxious. Her friends were voluble, and prodigal of sly intimations. The young gentleman was very lavish of his powers of pleasing, loaded Jane with flippant compliments, devoured confectionary with high relish, and chattered most flippantly in the most approved style of fashionable inanition. The high-spirited girl had no idea of being thus disposed of in the matrimonial bazaar. The profession of the doctor was pleasing to her, as it promised an enlightened mind, and she was willing to consent to make his acquaintance. ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... messenger of the coming change of weather entered by way of a lowered window. It was a smart little breeze and it flippantly sent the ashes flying on the hearth and several sheets of paper broadcast in the room. Truedale sprang to recover his treasures; he caught four or five, but one escaped his notice and floated toward the door, which ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... flap over you shelteringly, madame," I rejoined, somewhat flippantly, I fear, "and will to the end, no doubt; for, in its very organization, our country can never be subjected to the fluctuations ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... have been so silent, when I had announced a war between the House of Commons and the City—nay, when hostilities were actually commenced; but many a campaign languishes that has set out very flippantly. My letters depend on events, and I am like the man in the weather-house who only comes forth on a storm. The wards in the City have complimented the prisoners,[1] and some towns; but the train has not spread much. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... "We should worry," flippantly replied Tessie. "I guess they are too busy thinking about their old wigwagging to ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... not flippantly disposed, or I would have said I had thought the time he spent away always short, by his avowed eagerness to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... so limited—poor damp, sloppy things!" said Laura flippantly, as she brushed her stepmother's hair. "Do you suppose this nonsense will be all over the ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... loud applause; much laughter," interrupted the delegate flippantly. "Well, we were yarning and laughing over Mrs. Beaudesart's simplicity; and it came out that Nelson and Mooney knew there was some reason why you dare n't go back to where you were known; but they had never heard the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... stealing hens and chickens for any chaplain that ever lived, and he could put that in his pipe and smoke it. It was pretty sassy talk for a private soldier to indulge in towards a chaplain, but I was so disgusted to hear a man who should discountenance anything unsoldierly, talk so flippantly about taking from the women and children of the country what little they had to live on, because we had the power, their men folks being away in the army, that I got on my ear, as it were. I told him that I was not much ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... are incorrigible!" laughed Miss Crawford, fairly carried away by the irresistible current of the wild girl's humor. "How can you talk so flippantly of ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Our method was simply one of question, by one of ourselves, and of answer by Miss Jeremy. These replies were usually in a querulous tone, and were often apparently unwilling. Also occasionally there was a bit of vernacular, as in the next reply. Herbert, who was still flippantly ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... is the man, so easily scared at the very shadow of trickery, who is so flippantly pronounced to ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... listen to Charteris on the subject, one might have thought that he considered the matter rather amusing than otherwise. This, however, was simply due to the fact that he treated everything flippantly in conversation. But, like the parrot, he thought the more. The actual casus belli had been trivial. At least the mere spectator would have considered it trivial. It had happened after this fashion. Charteris was a member of the School corps. The orderly-room of ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... Walpole flippantly, 'the female nature was an omitted part in your education, Lockwood, and you take small interest in those nice distinctive traits which, to a man of the world, are exactly what the stars ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... prospects of gaiety which it opened to her view; but by these finding her unmoved, he changed his theme, and expatiated upon the delights of the spot she was quitting. Studious to recommend himself to her notice, and indifferent by what means, one moment he flippantly extolled the entertainments of the town; and the next, rapturously described the charms of the country. A word, a look sufficed to mark her approbation or dissent, which he no sooner discovered, than he slided into her opinion, with as much facility ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... before it understood the self-interest which chilled for her so many opening friendships. In her eyes love was a very sacred thing, hardly to be thought of till it came, reverently received and cherished faithfully to the end. Therefore, it is not strange that she shrank from hearing it flippantly discussed and marriage treated as a bargain to be haggled over, with little thought of its high duties, great responsibilities, and tender joys. Many things perplexed her, and sometimes a doubt of all that till now she had believed and trusted made her feel as if at sea without a compass, ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... conscientiousness. But her efforts were forestalled by an event, or rather a condition of the national temper, of which too little notice has been taken by literary historians. The attacks on the stage for its indecency and blasphemy had been flippantly met by the theatrical agents, but they had sunk deeply into the conscience of the people. There followed with alarming abruptness a general public repulsion against the playhouses, and to this, early in 1699, a roughly worded ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... days—more so than they were to again. As the days went on Georgie, whom marriage had taken completely away from the old artistic set, found herself feeling that after all she was a married woman and Judy was still only Miss Parminter.... Judy, scenting this, told her flippantly that a miss was as good as a mother, and Georgie laughed, but warned her to remember the children were in the room.... Judy was inclined to be hurt by the needless reminder, and, as she considered it foolish to be hurt and still ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the corridor toward the desk when she saw something that caused her to change her mind. There was the young lady who had been talking so flippantly to the woman with a grievance, and she was now talking, of all ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve |
