"Impudence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... O'Brallaghan; the cause: impudence on various occasions, and slanderous reports relating to cabbaged cloth since the period of their dissolving all ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... form of letters, disquisitions, rhapsodies, conversations, etc., each with a more or less suggestive heading. Two of these sections—one cannot call them chapters—are omitted in the translation, namely, "Allegory of Impudence" ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... good terms with old Sperber, because he too had a strong objection to the way things were going down in the town. "That's all silly impudence down there," he would say. "Well, we'll see how far they'll go with it—we'll see. Those fellows in the town might give over scribbling; no cock would crow the louder, nor would loaves of bread get any smaller. But we ...! Suppose we up there, and people like us ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... pure, clear water in it. He thought he would rest on the edge and take a drink. Imagine his delight when he saw reflected in the water a perfectly beautiful cock robin, as charming a bird as any one could desire to see. After such a vision, what cared he for Jenny Wren and her impudence? Away he went, flying up and down the garden, quite sure that no Miss Robin in her senses ...
— The Story of a Robin • Agnes S. Underwood
... printed at Bristol, and reprinted here, reports Mr. Wood to say 'that he wonders at the impudence and insolence of the Irish, in refusing his coin.' When, by the way, it is the true English people of Ireland who refuse it, although we take it for granted that the Irish will do so too whenever they are asked."—SCOTT'S Swift, vol. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... delayed too long to express his mind. A messenger arrived at Stockholm bearing despatches which emphatically disavowed the declarations of the partisans of Bernadotte. "I cannot think," said Napoleon, "that these individuals could have had the impudence to assert themselves to be charged with any mission whatever." The official announcement of the elevation of the Prince of Pontecorvo was already on its way to Paris. "I was little prepared for this news," replied Napoleon ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... and stores were transferred from the Hitachi to the Wolf, and the work went on day and night with just as much prospect of interference as there would have been if the Wolf had been loading cargo from a wharf in Hamburg in peace-time. The coolness and impudence of ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... as well—something elfin, wayward, mischievous. They peep and whisper. It is said they can cast spells. To sleep upon a daisied lawn is to run a certain risk. There is this hint of impudence in their attitude, half audacity, half knavery, that shows itself a little in the way they stare unwinkingly all day at everything above them—at the stately things that tower proudly in the air—then just shut up at sunset without a word of explanation or apology. They see everything, but ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... to say,—one word, sir, and that is to state a fact. The measure to which the gentleman has just alluded originated in a dirty trick!' These were his precise words. The subject to which he referred I did not gather, but the coolness and impudence of the speaker were admirable in their way. I never saw better acting, even in Kean. His look, his manner, his long arm, his elvish fore-finger,—like an exclamation-point, punctuating his bitter thought,—showed the skill of a master. The effect of the whole was to startle ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... can make it noble, too, of exquisite shape and colour, possessing a voice capable of we know not what compass and expression; just as we can turn it out by the thousand, degrading the name of art to which it has the impudence to lay claim, on every feature of its brazen face stamped that nationality which, so far from seeking, it in vain tries to ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... national scale and at the common expense,—followed next in the march of events. Then Texas loomed in the distance, and, after years of gradual approach and covert advances, was first wrested from Mexico. Slavery next indissolubly chained to her, and then, by a coup d'etat of astonishing impudence, was added, by a flourish of John Tyler's pen, in the very article of his political dissolution, to "the Area of Freedom!" Next came the war with Mexico, lying in its pretences, bloody in its conduct, triumphant in its results, for it won ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... often turns into impertinence and impudence, which one does well to resent with indignancy; or, if not, to answer him ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... precious young puppy, Poole," said the skipper, with a twinkle of the eye.—"Ah! No impudence now! If you dare to say that it's no wonder when I am such a rough old sea-dog, ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... well paid for his services, and succeeded in acquiring, partly by the sale of his influence, partly by gambling, and partly by pimping, an estate of three thousand pounds a year. For under an outward show of levity, profusion, improvidence, and eccentric impudence, he was in truth one of the most mercenary and crafty of mankind. He was now no longer young, and was expiating by severe sufferings the dissoluteness of his youth: but age and disease had made no essential change in his character and manners. He still, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was reached when Charles II made Jeffreys Chief Justice of England in order to kill those who were prominent in opposition. Charles knew what he was doing. "That man," said he of Jeffreys, "has no learning, no sense, no manners, and more impudence than ten carted street-walkers." The first object was to convict Algernon Sidney of treason. Jeffreys used simple means. Usually drunk, his court resembled the den of a wild beast. He poured forth on ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... and expects from his servants the same respect that a baron of the Middle Ages received from his hinds. It is a dream of most baseless fabric. John and Thomas, with their dislike of the word servant, their surliness and their impudence, swing too far, perhaps, in the other direction, but they are more in unison with the spirit of the age than their masters. I have seen an ardent democrat, who had roared equal rights from many a stump, furious with the impertinence of a waiter, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... indignation of the master, to turn himself inside out, and to put into harsh, ugly words the half-conscious thoughts which had guided his life and caused his unfaithfulness. 'Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.' The unabashed impudence of such an excuse for idleness as this is but putting into vivid and impressive form this truth, that then a man's actions in their true character, and the ugly motives that underlie them, and which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... laws, 'furious frenzies,' and 'madness'; all Protestants are 'to detest and persecute them'; 'these Anabaptists raged most in their madness'; 'the scandal of their frenzies'; 'we are amazed at, and aggrieved at their horrible impudence'; 'we do abhor and detest them all as rebellious and treasonable.'[135] This whole volume is amusingly assuming. The king claims his subjects as personal chattels, with whose bodies and minds he had a right to do as he pleased. Bunyan ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... one story to shew the impudence of the rebel soldiers, which occurred at this time. The very next day after the flight of Francisco Hernandez Giron, as my father Garcilasso de la Vega was at dinner with eighteen or twenty soldiers, it being the custom ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... and some day you may tell your friends, modestly disclaiming any special credit. But you will be a liar, for you know you are afraid. You are running away when the work is scarcely begun, and leaving it to a few boys and a poet whom you had the impudence the other day to despise. I think you are worse than a coward. I ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... England, I am training to fight for that deliberate hypocrisy, that terrible middle-class sloth of outlook and appalling "imaginative indolence" that has marked us out from generation to generation.... And yet we have the impudence to write down Germany (who with all their bigotry are at least seekers) as "Huns," because they are doing what every brave man ought to do and making experiments in morality. Not that I approve of the experiment ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... me opposite to a fine turkey. I asked my partner if I should have the pleasure of helping her to a piece of the breast. She looked at me indignantly, and said, 'Curse your impudence, sar; I wonder where you larn manners. Sar, I take a lilly turkey bosom, if you please.'" (Peter Simple, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... creature,—an object of awe and wonder. He was actually afraid of her; her glove, her shoe, her needle, thread, and thimble, her bonnet-string, everything, in short, she wore or touched, became invested with a mysterious charm. He wondered at the impudence of men that could walk up and talk to her,—that could ask her to dance with such an assured air. Now he wished he were rich; he dreamed impossible chances of his coming home a millionnaire to lay unknown wealth at Katy's feet; and when Miss Persimmon, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... in the cupboard. In return for these we entertained her with marvellous "tales of school," rousing her indignation by terrible narratives of tyrannous and cruel fagging, and taking away her breath by tales of reckless daring, amusing impudence, or wanton destructiveness common to boys. Some of these we afterwards confessed to be fables, told—as we politely put it—to "see how much ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... worse fate would overtake you than any that you anticipate, for your minds are not advanced enough to imagine the horrors that assail all those who lack courage. This is the testing place for aspirants, and more win their way across it than you might suppose, impudence of ambition adding skill to recklessness. All must make the attempt, alone and at night, who seek the inner shrines of Knowledge, and those creatures in the tank have no other food than is ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... self-sufficient cavalier I ever met with—Virgen Santa!—What a disturbance he has raised in the house. Then there's that most impudent rascal of a valet; he is the principal cause of the commotion, and I humbly crave and hope your honor will give him ample reason to repent his impudence." ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... y'r impudence with patience, and on any other 'casion would be happy to see y'all safe home. At present, however, Mr. BENTHAM and I desire to be left alone, if 'ts all th' same t' you. You can come for the bodies in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... the Count, with rare impudence, 'my affairs are no concern of yours,' and he looked the old man up and down. 'A man has no debts till payment ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... and that the will of the people, manifested by public opinion (as it is called), or by other means, constitutes a supreme law, independent of all divine and human rights." It denies the right of parents to educate their children outside the Catholic Church. It denounces "the impudence" of those who presume to subordinate the authority of the Church and of the Apostolic See, "conferred upon it by Christ our Lord, to the judgment of the civil authority." His Holiness commends, to the venerable brothers to whom the Encyclical is addressed, incessant ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... wondered, as I stared at the worn brass knob, now broken into beads of cold sweat with the weather, whether or not I might venture some persuasion upon my perverse uncle, but was all at once plucked by the tail of my coat, and turned in a rage to resent the impudence. 'Twas but a scrawny, brass-buttoned boy, however, with an errand for the lad with the rings, as they called me. I followed, to be sure, and was by this ill-nourished messenger led to the crossing of King Street with Water, where my uncle was used to tap-tapping the pavement. ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... know him," she retorted with spirit, "and what's more, I don't want him coming here. One evening he was so insulting that I had to show him the door. He had the impudence to come again. So I had my servant put him out. You won't invite him ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... 'D—- your impudence!' said Undy; 'how do you dare to league me with your villany? Have I been the girl's trustee? have I drawn, or could I have drawn, a shilling of her money? I tell you, Tudor, you are in the wrong box. You have one way of escape, and one only. I don't want to ruin you; I'll save you if I can; ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... a European Power," he declared, "has ceased to exist. A few Dutch farmers have pricked the bubble of her military reputation. If she should have the sublime impudence to lift her voice we should treat her with the contempt she has earned. No, Reist, there will be no intervention. Your brave Thetians will be cut to pieces, your country will be pillaged and burned, your women will become the consorts of the Turkish soldiery, your ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... immense advantage it would be to our own country if we should adopt this institution of China! Instead of making offices the prize of impudence, political management, and party services, let them be competed for by all who consider themselves qualified. Let all offices now given by appointment be hereafter bestowed on those who show themselves best qualified to perform the duties. Each class of offices would of course require a different ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... are mistaken. I don't think the fellow would have the bare-faced impudence to come through ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... Mrs. Bertrand, "here she had the impudence to pretend not to know them. She takes up her glass—my Lady Di. herself couldn't have done it better, and squeezes up her ugly face this way, pretending to be near-sighted, though she can see as well as you or ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... hour, each week, month, and year of the great ecclesiastical computation, commenced at a time when the sun could scarcely see, and the moon waited to be shown her way. These seventy subjects, which he gives you leave to call bad subjects, full of tricks and impudence, lust, lies, jokes, jests, and ribaldry, joined to the two portions here given, are, by the prophet! a small ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... could not fail of success; it had a prodigious fame. Some historians lodged protests; they might as well have protested against Dares. Gerald de Barry cried out it was an imposture; and William of Newbury inveighed against the impudence of "a writer called Geoffrey," who had made "Arthur's little finger bigger than Alexander's back."[183] In vain; copies of the "Historia Regum" multiplied to such an extent that the British Museum alone now possesses thirty-four ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... American society, especially in the West," said the young aristocrat. "Stepping-stones lie low, as my reverend friend suggests; impudence ascends; merit and refinement scorn such dirty paths,"—with a mournful remembrance of the last ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... for your impudence yet, young fellow. You're a high and mighty, you are, breaking the rules giving your friends a ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... blindness of one that nature sent on earth to deal in cheeses!"—The Herr Von Willading and his friends smiled among themselves at the cool impudence of the mountebank—"Thou fanciest it is so; and at this moment, a heavily laden bark is driving before a favorable gale, near the upper end of the lake of the four cantons, while a long line of mules is waiting at Flueellen, ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... fables; his fictions are not probable; he brings real characters upon the stage too coarsely, and too openly. Socrates, whom he ridicules so much in his plays, had a more delicate turn of burlesque than himself, and had his merriment without his impudence. It is true, that Aristophanes wrote amidst the confusion and licentiousness of the old comedy, and he was well acquainted with the humour of the Athenians, to whom uncommon merit always gave disgust, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... of impudence on Irving's part occurred when looking with greedy eyes on the eight-carat diamond Mac wore on his finger, he said: "My God, Mac, I wish I had brought along a paste diamond. You could wear the ring and give me yours in exchange." The ring having been seen by so many he feared ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... chance to explain who we were," replied Ned. "You spoiled that for me by your impudence. I have no doubt the man was fair enough at heart. If we get in any more scrapes of that kind you must keep your temper down. I'm speaking for your own good, Randy. This isn't the first time your tongue has got you ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... were of about the same height, and equals in vulgar puppyism of manners, dress, and appearance; but Titmouse was certainly the better-looking. With equal conceit apparent in their faces, that of Huckaback, square, flat, and sallow, had an expression of ineffable impudence, made a lady shudder, and a gentleman feel a tingling sensation in his right toe. About his small black eyes there was a glimmer of low cunning;—but he is not of sufficient importance to be painted any further. When Titmouse ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... shadowy blue, long dark lashes, dark scimitars of eyebrows, a full, firm mouth, a nose with just the right tilt to it—all effective points for Hunt in what he wished to do. But what had attracted him most and given him his idea was her look; hardly pertness, or impudence—rather a cynical, mature, ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... time to prepare and eat their simple meal; and afterward there could no longer be any doubt, from the way they loafed about, that they were soldiering, as a result of Hooliam's low-voiced encouragement. They grinned with childish impudence at the scowling moon-i-yas. At last Hooliam produced a pack of cards and a game of "jack-pot" was started on the shore. This constituted frank defiance; and ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... hire as many more quite readily, by offering a bounty equal to the pay which would be due us now; that it cost only a few hundred dollars to bring over a shipload of Irish, "Dutch," and French, who were only too glad to agree to fight or do anything else to get to this country. [The peculiar impudence of this consisted in Bradley himself being a foreigner, and one who had only come out under one of the later calls, and the influence of a ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... the Cecil of that little state), by praising Pigna's mistress, Lucrezia Bendidio, in terms of imprudent warmth, it was Leonora who warned him to appease the great man's anger. This he did by writing a commentary upon three of Pigna's leaden Canzoni, which he had the impudence to rank beside the famous three sisters of Petrarch's Canzoniere. The flattery was swallowed, and the peril was averted. Yet in this first affair with Pigna we already hear the grumbling of that tempest which eventually ruined Tasso. So eminent a poet and so handsome a young man was insupportable ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Littimer said, irritably. "Do you suppose I am going to allow that scoundrel under my roof again? The amazing impudence of the fellow is beyond everything. He will probably reach Moreton Station by the ten o'clock train. The drive will take him an hour, if I choose to permit the drive, which I don't. I'll send a groom to meet the train with a letter. When Bell has read that letter ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... and support, will endeavour to damp it by premature censure, ascribe the undertaking to vanity, or unworthiness, and if it should fail, be ready to aggravate the disappointment of the projectors with the galling imputation of temerity, impudence, or overweening self-conceit. The sympathy which mankind in general think it handsome to feel for unassuming merit, stumbling in its way through life by incautiously venturing upon ground untrodden before, will be gladly withheld from persons who are supposed wilfully to rush ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... if it were possible that the Frenchmen did not know the weakness of the land. Our Uhlans and infantry were manipulated dexterously to make a battalion look like a brigade; but we had an army corps in front of us. We held the place by sheer impudence." ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... of this sort of thing must have settled the question one way or another,' I argued; 'there is no use in my putting up any longer with this bewitched town, and my empty slate, Phil's nonsense, and Tom Hayes's impudence, my aunt's sermons, and my uncle's lectures, and Miss Dora's caprices; she has either flirted with me, or she has loved me from her cradle.' I have sometimes thought the latter, but I greatly suspect it is the former. Grand query, which is it? and I ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... trivial, but important. You may see, in our christian example, chastity overcoming immodesty. You may see faithfulness giving a death-wound to perfidy. You may see mercy getting the better of cruelty. You may see modesty and delicacy of sentiment overcoming impurity and impudence. These are the contests in which it becomes us christians to be concerned, and where we ought to endeavour ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... a lustration of near an hour, before he could be put to bed. He was just risen, when the message was delivered. "Zounds!" cried the peer, "he is, is he? And so this fellow, whom nobody knows, has the impudence to snub me! By my title, and all the blood of my ancestors, he is not worthy of my sword. I will have him assassinated. I will hire some blackguards to seize him, and bind him in my presence, and I will bastinado ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... the Man, eagerly; and he was about to grasp the treasure, when Mercury, to punish his impudence and lying, not only refused to give him that, but would not so much as restore him his ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... a year!" ejaculated the archdeacon militant, defying the impudence of these claimants with one hand stretched out and closed, while with the other he tightly grasped, and secured within his breeches pocket, that symbol of the church's wealth which his own loose half-crowns not unaptly represented. ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... coalition arrived, though it was a matter of no concern to I felt it as a man. It had something in it which shocked, by publicly sporting with decency, if not with principle. It was impudence in Lord North; it was a want of ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... coward, but it still remains to be seen whether you are not the worst of fools. Perhaps," he continued, leaning back upon his seat, "perhaps you would oblige me with a few particulars. I must suppose you had some object in the stupefying impudence of your proceedings, and I confess I have a curiosity to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said, did not tend to make his life happy. Though he had impudence enough, and callousness of conscience enough, to get his bills paid by Mr. Wharton as often as he could, he was not quite easy in his mind while doing so. His ambition had never been high, but it had soared higher than that. He had had great hopes. He had lived with some high people. He ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... being possessed of a superabundance of supercilious impudence, also possessed a set of digging tools, the handles of which were made of polished oak and walnut, with bright brass ferrules. With these he proposed to dig his fortune in a leisurely way; meanwhile, finding the weather rather hot, he had made up his ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... happened to be afflicted with an impediment in their speech, an accidental lameness, or the like; he had the mean barbarity to endeavour to aggravate the misfortune by a coarse imitation, which generally turned the whole ridicule upon himself. He once had the impudence to practise his mockery upon a worthy gentlemen in the neighbourhood, who was so unfortunate as to be unable to speak without stuttering. The gentleman happening to pass by Mr. Fribble's door, at which our little ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... drawing-room to hear the great author read from his amusing work. The best feature of the book, and probably the saving feature, is that the central figure in the plot is Disraeli, himself, and upon his own head the author plays his shafts of wit and ridicule. The impertinence and impudence which he himself manifested were parodied, caricatured and played upon, to the great delight of the uninitiated rabble, who gave themselves much credit for having ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... policy under Alexander III is well illustrated by the ukase of 1884 closing the Jewish school of handicrafts in Zhitomir which had been in existence for twenty-three years. The reason for the enactment is stated with brazen impudence: ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... talked with him and [Sir] J. Minnes, who are mighty hot in Carcasses business, but their judgment's not to be trusted. However, I will go through with it, or otherwise we shall be all slaves to my Lord Bruncker and his man's impudence. So to the office a little, and then home to supper and to bed, after hearing my wife sing, who is manifestly come to be more musical in her eare than ever I thought she could have been made, which rejoices me to the heart, for ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... rangy young fellow with a face so tanned by wind and sun you had the impression that his skin would feel like leather if you could affect the impertinence to test it by the sense of touch. Not that you would like to encourage this bit of impudence after a look into his devil-may-care eyes; but you might easily imagine something much stronger than brown wrapping paper and not quite so passive as burnt clay. His clothes fit him loosely and yet were graciously devoid of the bagginess which characterises the appearance of extremely young ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... did his best to confirm the good people in their belief, while affecting to reprove them. He gave me a very comical account of the matter; and, seeing that I was amused by it, actually endeavored to make a merit of his impudence. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... the pettiest vanity you expose your sincerity to publicity and ignominy. You doubtlessly mean to say something, but hide your last word through fear, because you have not the resolution to utter it, and only have a cowardly impudence. You boast of consciousness, but you are not sure of your ground, for though your mind works, yet your heart is darkened and corrupt, and you cannot have a full, genuine consciousness without a pure heart. And how intrusive you are, how you insist and ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... saw the Lion, he fell down at his feet, and was ready to die of fear. The second time, he took courage and could even bear to look upon him. The third time, he had the impudence to come up to him, to salute him, and to enter into familiar ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... been imagined, that such audacious impudence could have put itself forth in any mortal man, in his approach unto God by prayer, as has shewed itself in thee? "I am not as other men," sayst thou! But is this the way to go to God in prayer? "The ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... and distinguishing quality of assurance and vulgar pretension, which it is difficult to describe, by any word short of impudence, Mr. Joseph Hanson was by no means calculated to please the eye of a damsel of seventeen, an age at which a man who owned to five-and-thirty, and who looked and most probably was at least ten years farther advanced on the journey ...
— Mr. Joseph Hanson, The Haberdasher • Mary Russell Mitford
... this impudence, and promptly proceeded to put Lloyd George in his place. "If," said he, "that remark is intended as a reflection on any magistrate sitting on this bench I hope Mr. George will name him. A more insulting and ungentlemanly ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... were published, thus gaining much more extensive currency than he proposed to give to the imitation greenbacks. It was supposed that the noisy fellow would slink away to some cave in his native mountains, and never show his brazen face among honest people again. But the impudence of "Hon." John Whimpery Brass rose to the level of the emergency. Instead of hiding or hanging himself, he published a card representing that he embarked in the scheme for the purpose of entrapping Wogan & Co. and bringing them ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... his sarcastic impudence, summed up the situation. "When Anarchism flourishes, everything flourishes, eh? That bomb has helped on the affairs of a good many fine fellows that I know. Do you think that my governor Fonsegue, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... that they will have to put up with the little republic's impudence for so long a time, and one political party in Germany is taking advantage of the opportunity to urge the necessity of ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 56, December 2, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... and pleased Farmer Jennings so much by his cheerful industry in the hay-field, that he took him on trial for a month as farm-lad, and finding him tolerably satisfactory in that capacity, gave him permanent employment. His impudence was not at once conquered, and brought him into some trouble; but when he found that the farmer and his men would not put up with it as his mother had, he learned to put a check on it, and others besides the seven Campbells ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... No.—I am what your theologians call Hardened;—which they must be in impudence, So to revile a man's peculiar taste. 95 True, I was happier than I am, while yet Manhood remained to act the thing I thought; While lust was sweeter than revenge; and now Invention palls:—Ay, we must all grow old— And but ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... time. Nicky (though he shook with laughter) owned it very handsomely. And Anthony had handicapped himself again by doing it through the cloth. He drew the line at shaming Nicky. (Yet—could you have shamed his indomitable impudence?) ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... Spartan minority did not make such a stand at Thermopylae, as we did. Do you know, we had like to have been the majority? Xerxes[1] is frightened out of his senses; Sysigambis[1] has sent an express to Luton to forbid Phraates[1] coming to town to-morrow; Norton's[2] impudence has forsaken him; Bishop Warburton is at this moment reinstating Mr. Pitt's name in the dedication to his Sermons, which he had expunged for Sandwich's; and Sandwich himself is—at Paris, perhaps, by this time, for the first thing that I expect to hear to-morrow ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... living so long in Spain, he vows he'll spend half his Estate, but he'll be a Parliament-Man, on purpose to bring in a Bill for Women to wear Veils, and the other odious Spanish Customs—He swears it is the height of Impudence to have a Woman seen Bare-fac'd even at Church, and scarce believes there's a true begotten ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... impudence of the rogue intensified the atmosphere of unreality, which was most distracting. Doggedly my bewildered brain was labouring in the midst of a litter of fiction, which had suddenly changed into truth. The impossible ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... mankind, Who, from a sneaking bashfulness, at first Dare not refuse; but when the time comes on To make their promise good, then force perforce Open themselves and fear: yet must deny. Then too, oh shameless impudence, they cry, "Who then are you? and what are you to me? Why should I render up my love to you? Faith, neighbor, charity begins at home." —Speak of their broken faith, they blush not, they, Now throwing off that shame they ought to wear, ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... fount; when it slept she lifted up a finger or her grave eyes at the very passers-by; her lips moulded a "Hush!" at them lest they should dare disturb her young lord's rest. The saucy jade! Was ever such impudence in the world before? It drew her, too, to old Baldassare in a remarkable way. This the neighbours—busy with sniffing—did not see. She had always had a sense of the sweet root under the rind, always purred at his stray grunts and pats, taking them by instinct ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... deep-seated, tried to smooth matters, he replied that there was nothing strange in two senators disagreeing on a question of public policy: he himself had often opposed even such a man as Thrasea. Most people laughed at the impudence of this comparison; others were gratified that he had selected Thrasea, and not some court favourite, as an example ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... heard more. But the self-disclosure of Major Milroy's domestic position had not reached its end yet. As Midwinter turned the corner of the garden fence, a tradesman's boy was handing a parcel in at the wicket gate to the woman servant. "Well," said the boy, with the irrepressible impudence of his class, "how is the missus?" The woman lifted her hand to box his ears. "How is the missus?" she repeated, with an angry toss of her head, as the boy ran off. "If it would only please God to take the missus, it would be a blessing ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... like his master's method entirely, choosing rather to strike out a new one of his own, which he fancied might as little mischief him as that audacious impudence of the other did in his several adventures. For which reason, he was very cautious of associating with this fellow who was very dextrous in his art, but was more ready in undertaking dangerous exploits than any of the crew at that time about town. John's way was by a certain ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... the breasts of his listeners by the cool impudence of the king soon subsided under the influence of the interesting news that four white women were captives in the village; and when M'Bongwele closed his explanation and proffered his request, the professor, instead ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... that he reminds me constantly of champagne. If there's anything on earth or in a cellar that I do detest, its champagne; such smiling, brilliant-looking impudence, that comes out fizz—bang! and that's the end of it; there's not so much as the quaver of an echo. You drink it, and instead of seeing cool vineyards and purple waters and cataracts of icicles in your glass, you find a pale, gaunt spectre, or a poor, half-drowned Bacchus, staring at you. It's just ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... tersely, striving to hold his temper in check at the impudence of Mascola's proposal. Any one of the four clauses he realized would be amply sufficient to throw him into bankruptcy. The first would place him in the hands of his local competitor, a Slavonian. The last would deliver all that was left to the fisherman's union, also foreigners. By the second ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... Turnkey, and all that oppos'd them, and in Triumph carried off the Fellow who pick'd General Sinclaire's pocket of his watch as he was going into Leicester House." Surely, cries the indignant newspaper, "this instance of Daring Impudence must rouse every Person of Property to assemble and consult means for their own Security at least; for if Goals can be forc'd in this manner, private Houses can make but little resistance against such Gangs of Villains as at present infest this Great Metropolis." It was admitted ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... what the waiter confessed to Father Brown we are not concerned, for the excellent reason that that cleric kept it to himself; but apparently it involved him in writing out a note or statement for the conveying of some message or the righting of some wrong. Father Brown, therefore, with a meek impudence which he would have shown equally in Buckingham Palace, asked to be provided with a room and writing materials. Mr. Lever was torn in two. He was a kind man, and had also that bad imitation of kindness, the dislike of any difficulty or scene. At the same time the presence of one unusual stranger ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Excellency's marked reception by his Majesty? By Jove though, it was the rarest piece of impudence I ever heard of; hoaxing a crowned head, quizzing one of the Lord's anointed ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... them all to Peace and Union, but 'twas in vain; nay, one had the Impudence to publish that to procure Peace and Union it was necessary to suppress all the Crolians, and have no Party but one, and then all must ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... upon this prudish speech. When Biagio complained, Paul wittily answered that, had it been Purgatory, he might have helped him, but in Hell is no redemption. Even the foul-mouthed and foul-hearted Aretino wrote from Venice to the same effect—a letter astounding for its impudence.[328] Michael Angelo made no defence. Perhaps he reflected that the souls of the Pope himself and Messer Biagio and Messer Pietro Aretino would go forth one day naked to appear before the judge, with the deformities of sin upon ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... belief, as he clearly did, that certain plants were produced without seed by the vegetative power of the sun acting upon the earth. He is particularly severe upon those Scotch gardeners, "Northern lads," who, with "a little learning and a great deal of impudence, know, or pretend to know, more in one twelvemonth than a laborious, honest South-country man does ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... members and sympathizers were standing in groups. Sterling Hopkins, the volunteer hangman of Casey, of the Vigilance police, came up and attempted the arrest of Reub. Maloney, a notorious politician, whose impudence of speech and reckless ways in partisan devices had made him an unenviable reputation. His bravery was in his mouth; his mouth beyond his own control. Judge David S. Terry, then of the State Supreme Court, interposed to prevent the lawless arrest, and ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... announced. Eugene gave the Bishop's wife his arm, whispering to Claudia as he passed, "Age before impudence"; and that young lady found that she had fallen to the lot of Stafford, whereat she was well pleased. Kate was paired with Haddington, and Mr. Morewood with Aunt Jane. The Bishop, of course, ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... desert, even daring to adduce various accusations against him. 'And takest thou all these things upon thyself,' he exclaimed, 'thou who art not unspotted thyself?' then he laid to the charge of our Lord, with infernal impudence, a host of imaginary crimes. He reproached him with the faults of his disciples, the scandals which they had caused, and the disturbances which he had occasioned in the world by giving up ancient ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... yet some crowning impudence to learn. Later, in the street, the officers and I met the prisoners, their witnesses, and their counsel emerging from a photographer's studio. The Territorial Delegate had been taken in a group with his acquitted thieves. The Bishop had declined to ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... of impudence. This white man actually defied him! Huh! Chief Black Fish vigorously applied the switch, and Simon took another threshing. His naked back and shoulders speedily were ribboned by bloody welts. Whew! Compared with this, his first beatings had been ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... all this does some heathen fable seem!' 'O'ermuch thou mind'st the throne he leaves above! Between unequals sweet is equal love.' 'Nay, Mother, in his breast, when darkness blinds, I cannot for my life but talk and laugh With the large impudence of little minds!' 'Respectful to the Gods and meek, According to one's lights, I grant 'Twere well to be; But, on my word, Child, any one, to hear you speak, Would take you for a Protestant, (Such fish I do foresee When the charm'd fume comes strong on me,) Or powder'd lackey, by some ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... speech were anything at all, it was surely a well-deserved reproof upon the stranger; and yet, so devilish was his impudence, he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cried Stefanello, joining in the laugh; "our cousin has had a loss. Know Adrian, that this base fellow, whom the Pope has had the impudence to create Senator, dared but yesterday to send us a varlet, whom ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... impudence, take that," cried Blackall, dealing a heavy blow with his fist on Ellis's head. "I allow no young jackanapes like you ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... has been a widow the saints may know; I don't—but anyway she has begun to "take notice," as people say about bright little babies. She has looked up Sir Lionel in Debrett, and marked him with a red cross for her own, I believe. Such impudence! A woman like that, to dare think of trying to grab a man of his position and record! She ought to know how unsuitable she ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... sensitiveness and vanity are patent, but they are pardonable. As the leader of the Conservative party in the Reichstag, Doctor von Heydebrandt, speaking at Breslau in October, 1911, anent the Morocco controversy, said, after, alluding to the "bellicose impudence" of Lloyd-George: "The [British] ministry thrusts its fist under our nose, and declares, I alone command the world. It is bitterly hard for us who have 1870 behind us." They feel that they should no longer ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... impudence, Madame d'Argeles remained speechless for a moment. "You confess it!" she cried, at last. "You dare to confess it! Were you not afraid that I might speak and state what I ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Deserte... his careful voice reading on and on... until the room disappeared.. .. She must do that for her German girls. Read English to them and make them happy.... But first there must be verbs... there had been cahiers of them... first, second, third conjugation.... It was impudence, an impudent invasion... the dreadful clever, foreign school.... They would laugh at her.... She began to repeat the English alphabet.... She doubted whether, faced with a class, she could reach the end without a mistake.... She reached Z and went ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... has the impudence to suggest that with the entry of Chang Hsun's troops into the Capital, and delay in the settlement of the question will mean woe and disaster. But to us, there need be no such fear. As the troops in the Capital have no mind to oppose the rebels, Tsao Kun and his troops alone will ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... dress becomingly, and where there are no Communists. Culture, like fine manners, is not always the result of wealth or position. When monseigneur the archbishop makes his rare tour through the Swiss mountains, the simple peasants do not crowd upon him with boorish impudence, but strew his stony path with flowers, and receive him with joyous but modest sincerity. When the Russian prince made his landing in America the determined staring of a bevy of accomplished American women nearly swept the young man off ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to close up your factory, Charles?" Cicily exclaimed, astonished and angry. "But you own the Hamilton factory. What have they to do with it? The impudence of them!" ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... a dog yapping," he said with consummate impudence, "but I thought he was in the next room. No wonder," he added coolly, "since he ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... words with a full compassionate air, as though he were seriously concerned for Dame Hilda's happiness; but she, marching up to the bed where Jack lay, dealt him a stinging slap for his impudence. ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... impudence! blood and murder!" thundered Lord Mortimer, interrupting the chevalier and springing toward him with blazing eyes and clinched fists, ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... must tell you that I gladly descend to bandy words with you; your monstrous impudence is a claim to rank I cannot ignore. But a lackey who has himself ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... in the air, at the monstrous impudence of the project. "A storm is coming on," he suggested, to divert her reading of his grimace; but she was speaking to the doctor, who readily answered her aloud: "If you are certain of what you say." The remark incited Wilfrid to be no ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... be forgiven the deceitfulness, and what I may call the impudence of it! I really did give father that same letter to post, and him believing me to be a better girl than I was, to my shame, posted it, not doubting that I had only ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit |
