True, the slavery and abasement in which she held me might have given me (such things often do so) the power to question her with abrupt directness (seeing that,, inasmuch as I figured in her eyes as a mere slave and
nonentity, she could not very well have taken offence at any rude curiosity); but the fact was that, though she let me question her, she never returned me a single answer, and at times did not so much as notice me.
It was as if she enjoyed looking forward to something in which nothing, neither an unsympathetic mother, nor the cruel fate which had made her a colourless little
nonentity, could prevent her from being the chief performer.
"A
nonentity, sir?" said Richard with a droll look.
In the dialogue between master and servant the latter had appeared to him in the light of a
nonentity; and although he regretted the fact, this revelation had lessened the high opinion that he had formed of the man whose persistent efforts to save the district from the horrors of cretinism had won his admiration.
Miss Millward was there, it is true, but she, of course, would be little better than a
nonentity. However, I resolved to make my visit a short one, and to talk to Eliza in a brotherly, friendly sort of way, such as our long acquaintance might warrant me in assuming, and which, I thought, could neither give offence nor serve to encourage false hopes.
It is the name of a
nonentity, and has no right to a place among first principles.
It needed the utmost delicacy, the greatest nicety, but she has managed things so that that fool, that conceited baggage, that provincial
nonentity, simply because she is the widow of a major, and has come to try and get a pension and to fray out her skirts in the government offices, because at fifty she paints her face (everybody knows it) .
He clearly counted the latter as a
nonentity. But suddenly he seemed to have an idea, and recollected himself.
Perhaps before he exterminates that unfortunate
nonentity he will condescend to give some reasons for the adverse views which he has formed."
You are a vulgar, silly
nonentity, and you shall go back to where you belong, whatever low place you have sprung from, and beg your bread--that is if anybody's charity will have anything to do with you, which I doubt--"
"Intellectually a
nonentity," Ossipon pronounced aloud, abandoning suddenly the inward contemplation of Mrs Verloc's bereaved person and business.
She was a
nonentity. It was easy to see that she was passionately devoted both to her husband and to her little son.