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Instead, the Captain extended the hand of friendship to the General as he approached. The look of nil admirari boredom slowly faded from the face of the smart and dapper Brigade-Major, and for a while it displayed quite human emotions. Up and down and between the ranks strode the trio, the General making instructive and interesting comments from time to time, such as:
A Boorah boy must give no evidence of curiosity; the NIL ADMIRARI attitude then begun clings to a black man through life. The women of the tribe express voluble surprise, but a black man never except by the dilation of his eyes. Every night after this a corroboree was held.
While the young man fancies that there is a vast amount of good things in the world, if he could only come at them, the old man is steeped in the truth of the Preacher's words, that all things are vanity knowing that, however gilded the shell, the nut is hollow. In these later years, and not before, a man comes to a true appreciation of Horace's maxim: Nil admirari.
Solomon's court fool would have scoffed at the thought of the young Galilean who dared compare the lilies of the field to his august master. Nil admirari is very well for a North American Indian and his degenerate successor, who has grown too grand to admire anything but himself, and takes a cynical pride in his stolid indifference to everything worth reverencing or honoring."
The latter, faithful to the principle of Horace, nil admirari, had contented himself with showing his knowledge by declaring in what lake the best lampreys were caught.
"No; what should I do with them? 'Nihil admirari. That is my motto. If there are gods who guide the destinies of men and nations, why should I interfere and wear myself out in a useless struggle? Think of Demosthenes, who for thirty years delivered speeches against the Macedonian, and warned his countrymen, who would not listen to him!
The girl was moody and unusually silent; her gay good spirits had entirely vanished, and more than once Joan had caught her regarding her husband with a curious mixture of resentment and contempt in her eyes. Joan was frankly worried over the state of affairs. "Why this nil admirari attitude?" she asked. "Have you and Adrienne quarrelled?" "Quarrelled?" Diana raised her brows ever so slightly.
They are not likely to infect you with their pestilent doctrines and principles; but they may, in an unguarded moment, make you do violence to your favorite maxim Nil admirari. With all his strong common sense, Mark was lamentably deficient in worldly wisdom. He never saw the obstacles that would have daunted others.
Through historical consciousness, they saved themselves from enthusiasm; for, in opposition to Goethe, it was maintained that history would no longer kindle enthusiasm. No, in their desire to acquire an historical grasp of everything, stultification became the sole aim of these philosophical admirers of "nil admirari."
The vivid descriptions of scenes yet fresh in their memory, or of pictures they treasured, the "thoughts" as they used to be called, allusions to sincere beliefs and cherished hopes, never failed to win the praise that pleased the young writer most, in happy tears of unrestrained emotion. These old-fashioned folk had not learnt the trick of nil admirari.
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