Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 2, 2025
Symes was convinced that his was the hand, so he lost no opportunity of widening his circle of desirable acquaintances. In his wide-brimmed Stetson, with his broad shoulders towering above the average man, his genial smile and jovial manners, he was the typical free, big-hearted westerner of the eastern imagination. And he liked the rôle; also he played it well. Symes was essentially a poseur.
I had to exercise all my self-control to keep from laughing in his face. He was such a poseur, his simulation of emotion was so melodramatic that I wondered if he really imagined I would be impressed by it. A spirit of mischievous daring stirred in me. "Don't tell me just now," I said softly. "Wait till after dinner." "Afraid?" he challenged. "Perhaps," I countered.
I suspect him of being a good deal of a poseur and a fakir. All those revolutionary chaps are. But I honestly think that he really doesn't care a rap for classes or for money or for any of the substantial things." "He sounds common," said Miss Hastings. "I've lost interest in him." Then in the same breath: "How does he live? Is he a carpenter?" "He was for several years.
There was nothing of the poseur in Callender; his childlike simplicity of manner invested him with a touching dignity even though he owned himself vanquished, where another man would have faced life more bravely, nor have held it entirely worthless because of one narrow grave which shut forever from the light a woman who had never loved him.
To perceive the moral attitude and gesture specially characteristic of himself, to artificially correct and improve and isolate them in his own reality, and then to multiply their likeness for all the world; to know himself to be Alfieri, to make himself up as Alfieri, and to write plays whereof the heroes and heroines were mere repetitions of Alfieri; such was the mission of this powerful and spontaneous nature, of this self-conscious and self-manipulating poseur.
He must put himself in opposition to the overwhelming body of public opinion, and resign himself to being regarded either as a poseur, a crank, or a fool. The public is in search of happiness now, as it was a million years ago. Money is not the principal factor in happiness. It may be argued whether, as a factor in happiness, money is of twentieth-rate importance or fiftieth-rate importance.
Caligula was a poet in love with the moon. The kaiser is a poseur in love with himself. One of Caligula's many diversions was killing his people. Such slaughter as the kaiser has effected consists in twenty-five thousand head of game. The career of Caligula is horrible, yet in the horrible is sometimes the sublime.
"Farewell, Ridel, don't remember evil against me.... And don't forget Semyon...." And the blur itself vanished. This was too much. "Oh, the damned poseur," I thought. "You must always be straining after effect!" I felt uneasy, however; an involuntary fear clutched at my heart. I flung on my great-coat and ran out into the road. Yes; but where was I to go? The fog enveloped me on all sides.
I shall have old Lord Lackington who behaved like a brute to his daughter while she was alive, and is, all the same, a poseur from top to toe walking in here one night and demanding his granddaughter spreading lies, perhaps, that I have been ill-treating her. Who can say what absurdities may happen if it once gets out that she is Lady Rose's child?
It was the McClellan of the old days, the gallant gentleman of the year 1860, not the poseur of 1861, who wrote at once to Lincoln making no complaint, saying that his services belonged to his country in whatever capacity they might be required. Again a council of subordinates was invoked to determine the next move.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking