"Bravado" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shrugged his shoulders. 'It's fairly simple,' he said. 'If, as I think, Germany is behind all this, Servia will appeal to Russia; and remember that the Great Bear is mother to all the Slavs. There will, of course, be jockeying for position, bluff, bravado, and all the rest of it; but France is bound to act with Russia, and with all that explosive hanging around it will be strange if some spark ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... and looked at her cousin, who, with uncertain bravado, advanced with Fanny to his mother, who was gazing at them in amazement, and said, in a ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... bent until it seemed as if it must snap under his weight. Then it shot upward, carrying the boy with it, he kicking his feet together as he was lifted and laughing out of pure bravado. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... sofa in the small, shelved breakfast-room, and she shot these words at Edwin Clayhanger, who was standing near her. The singular words were certainly uttered out of bravado: they were a challenge to adventure. She thought: "It is madness for me to say such a thing." But such a thing had, nevertheless, come quite glibly out of her mouth, and she knew not why. If Edwin Clayhanger was startled, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... and graphic description of his torments. A number of men signed the pledge at the close of the meeting, Among them was one man, who sat in front of the audience and kept drinking from a bottle he had, evidently in a spirit of bravado, but at the conclusion of the address he signed the pledge, crying like ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... papa had made her so, and that SHE ought to know it. I told her the question troubled me unspeakably, but that I had made up my mind it was my duty to initiate her." Adela paused, the light of bravado in her face, as if, though struck while the words came with the monstrosity of what she had done, she was incapable of abating a jot of it. "I notified her that he had faults and peculiarities that made mamma's life a long worry—a martyrdom that she hid wonderfully from the world, ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... good for nothing but writing; and if you take that resource away,—you know what the book says about mischief and Satan and idle hands! and you certainly will take it away, if you do not speak peaceably unto me. All that I said before was only bravado,—just to keep a bold front to the foe. I can confide to you under the rose, that, though without are fightings, within are fears. Pope, was it, who used to look around upon the missives hurled at him, and say, "These ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... a spirit of bravado, handled the sticks of dynamite with criminal recklessness, and finally managed to drop one of them close beside Peveril, the latter sharply commanded ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... was pale, but there was firmness in the glance of his bright eye, and a smile unclouded in its joyance on his lip. The frivolous lightness of the courtier, the mad bravado of knight-errantry, which was not uncommon to the times, indeed, were not there. It was the quiet courage of the resolved warrior, the calm of a spirit at peace with itself, shedding its own high feeling and poetic glory over all ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... where the shock had flung him. The exciting fumes of the wine he had drunk too recklessly evaporated, and only a dim recollection remained in his absolutely sobered brain of the idiotic wager, the ugly jest, the still more contemptible bravado that had sent him ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... some unpleasant incident must have occurred, we did not press her for the story of it. Then, you came, and without mincing your words you told the whole brutal truth; and you uttered it with a spirit of brutality and bravado that would be unbelievable under any other circumstances. And when, in your own self-abasement for what you had done, you confessed to the acts of which you were guilty toward Miss Langdon, you received, ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... cards that is demolished by the wayward hand of a child. Yet at that moment her principal feeling was one of compassion for the girl on the sofa, who alternately laughed and covered her eyes, and now with a pitiful attempt at bravado was attempting to light a cigarette, with hands ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... Bruce writhed and struggled a few moments; then hung as lifeless until his body was taken down. He was of medium stature, slight figure and light in weight. Hetherington's body swayed, but there was no perceptible motion of his limbs. He met death with placid firmness, without bravado. Henry H. Haight, his attorney for years, stated that he was one of the most upright and honorable men in his dealings and general conduct that he had ever known. These were the last that suffered death by sentence of the ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... retainers, and searched the woods and lower slopes of the hill, but could find no signs of Archie and his followers, and at nightfall returned to the castle in a rage, declaring that the defiance sent him was a mere piece of insolent bravado. Nevertheless, he kept the horses again saddled all night ready to issue out at the slightest alarm. Soon after midnight flames suddenly burst out at a dozen of the homesteads. At the warder's shout of alarm Sir John Kerr and his men-at-arms instantly mounted. The gate was ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... was raised at her suggestion; mass was celebrated, and hymns of thanksgiving chanted. While this was being done, the English turned and marched away, with banners flying. Their advance had been an act of bravado. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... that his own power might be enhanced, of his ruthless and crushing tyranny, not alone toward his employees, but toward all labor in its struggle for better conditions, we can but regard the girl who left her victim crushed and senseless in the gutter and sped on because, in the words of her own bravado, she 'had a train to catch,' as a striking example of the influence of heredity. If the law which she so contemptuously brushed aside is to be aborted by the influence and position of her family, the precept will be a bitter and dangerous one. Much arrant nonsense is vented concerning the ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... stumbled and fell, and a great cheer arose from Hatch and the pursuers. But they were counting their corn before the harvest. The man fell lightly; he was lightly afoot again, turned and waved his cap in a bravado, and was out of sight next moment in the margin ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Coeur de Lion, for the disrespectful manner in which his mediation had been received. Those whom this disturbance had assembled now drew off in different directions, leaving the contested mount in the same solitude which had subsisted till interrupted by the Austrian bravado. Men judged of the events of the day according to their partialities, and while the English charged the Austrian with having afforded the first ground of quarrel, those of other nations concurred in casting the greater blame upon the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... must pay the penalty of the crime they have committed;" and with that he gave orders to have the two Turks who had killed his two soldiers hanged at once at the yard-arm. The viceroy, however, begged him earnestly not to hang them, as their behaviour savoured rather of madness than of bravado. The general yielded to the viceroy's request, for revenge is not easily taken in cold blood. They then tried to devise some scheme for rescuing Don Gaspar Gregorio from the danger in which he had been left. Ricote offered for ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of himself. Crouching in his saddle, apparently mindful of but a single thing—escape—he lashed his horse brutally, swinging his quirt rhythmically, now and again darting cold eyes backward. Johnson, given by nature to bravado and bluster, was even more defiant in this supreme moment. He rode with a plug of tobacco in hand, biting off huge pieces frequently, more frequently squirting brown juices between lips white as the ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... scarcely be classed either as idyl or epic, though, in spite of its scenes being mainly rural, it perhaps approaches more nearly to the epic. There is an Homeric simplicity in its descriptions of half-drunken warriors with their superb physique, their bravado, their native dignity and singleness of character. Marianka, the beautiful heroine, passes from one picture to another in her quiet, regular toil. Whether, clad in a loose skirt of pink cotton, she drives the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... on the 24th of June, justifying to the letter his glorious bravado; his ill-humor was dissipated, and he remained entrusted with the chief command of the army of Italy. The First Consul had received at Milan the eager homage of the Lombards, but the Cisalpine Republic was not reconstituted; ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... daring Fate, without show or bravado or fear; rolling the honey under his tongue and drawing in its sweetness; youth, that lives for the moment, that can be blind to the threatening future, that can forget the mean past; youth slipping along with some chewing-gum ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... better" than "Une Vie," and that to this end it must be the life-history of two women instead of only one. Hence, "The Old Wives' Tale" has two heroines. Constance was the original; Sophia was created out of bravado, just to indicate that I declined to consider Guy de Maupassant as the last forerunner of the deluge. I was intimidated by the audacity of my project, but I had sworn to carry it out. For several years I looked it squarely in the face at intervals, and then walked away to ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... suddenly changed from bravado to pleading, but Alice was too angry and too frightened to be influenced. Moreover, she was suffering from a frequent elderly sister attitude. She felt herself called upon not only to examine Sally in regard to her proceedings but to condemn her without ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... was helping to load the "Magna Charter," and being half drunk, I fell into Hull harbour, with upwards of eight stones of coal on my back, but through foolish bravado I refused to let the bag drop into the water. After being in the water several minutes, I swam to the landing with the coals on my back, amid the deafening shouts of scores of spectators. I look back on this act of temerity with feelings ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... queenly Nora and her sprightly mother to feed the beautiful creatures with bread and buns, and to feel the suffusion of pleasure derived from the contact of their soft lips with the palm of the hand. After that they were scarcely astonished when, without bravado, but clearly with simple confidence and enjoyment, Julius put his hand within the bars of the lion's cage and scratched the ears of a lioness, murmuring the while in a strange tongue such fond sounds as only those use who are on the best terms with animals. The great brute rose to his touch, ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... high good humour, the braves recrossed the river, and, turning round on the farther shore, fired a volley to Wards the fort; but as the distance was at least 500 yards, this parting salute was simply as a bravado. This band was evidently bent on mischief. As they retreated south to their own country they met the carts belonging to the fort on their way from the plains; the men in charge ran off with the fleetest horses, but the carts were all captured and ransacked, and an old Scotchman, a servant of ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... little share of the freedom of election which they had left them, and although he got behind upon the poll every day, yet he solemnly declared that he would not resign as long as there was a man left to poll for him. This declaration, however, proved to be a bravado, for he resigned on the eighth day, when there were a considerable number of voters left unpolled in the city, and one half of the out-voters had not been polled. My friends, Williams, Pimm, Cranidge, Brownjohn, and others, stood firmly and staunchly ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... since, except on the occasion now referred to. I had thus provided myself with them, on an entirely different occasion, and took them with me, on a sudden thought, as I was about to proceed on my journey, more in the spirit of youthful bravado, than with any other motive; for the roads, at that period, were considered perfectly safe, by night as well as by day. As I have remarked, the thought of the shrewish and abandoned old woman, of her house and its evil companions, occurred to me, as my horse slowly ascended ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... wonder whether we had not been needlessly alarmed, and finally we set to wondering whether we had really seen a bear after all, and at length we grew to feel quite ashamed of ourselves. So we put on a little bravado, like the boy that whistled in the dark to keep his courage up, and went out, cautiously approaching the spot where we had left the seal. Arriving there, we had positive proof enough, if any were wanting, that we had ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... song of defiance, which they continued till the ship was distant from them about four hundred yards. As they seemed to have no design to attack us, I was not willing to do them any hurt; yet I thought their going off in a bravado might have a bad effect when it should be reported ashore. To show them therefore that they were still in our power, though very much beyond the reach of any missile weapon with which they were acquainted, I gave ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... calmer, the sheriff left her standing there and went back into the cell. The prisoner's arm was bleeding from a flesh wound. His bravado had given place to a stony apathy. There was no sign in his face of fear or disappointment or feeling of any kind. The sheriff sent Polly to the house for cloth, and bound up the prisoner's wound with a rude skill acquired during his ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... been youthful bravado, but Trooper Shannon laughed. "In the meanwhile," he said, "I'm wondering why you're wearing an honest man's coat and cap. Faith, if he saw them on ye, Winston ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... the food appeared, but he ate and drank out of sheer bravado. His enemies—Durfy, and the magistrate, and the victims of the Corporation—would rejoice to see him turn with a shudder from his food. He would devour ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... youth need to be told that the guess is immoral, that hypothesis is the servant of research, that the private impression instructs nobody, that presentiment is usually wrong, that science is the best antidote to the fear of ghosts, and that the reply "I guess so" betrays itself, whether it arise from bravado, from cowardice, or from literary finesse! I think that the great need of our life is honesty, that the bulwark of honesty in education is exact knowledge with the scientific habit of mind, and, furthermore, that the greatest hindrance to these things is the training which does not, with all ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... here? (SMITH and MOORE, confounded by the officer's presence, slouch together to right of door. HUNT, stopping as he goes out, contemplates the pair, sarcastically. This is supported by MOORE with sullen bravado; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... persistent vigour of Bonaparte's assaults. The little Corsican proved himself an expert in diplomatic wiles, now enticing the Imperialist on to slippery ground, and occasionally shocking him by calculated outbursts of indignation or bravado. After many days spent in intellectual fencing, the discussions were narrowed down to Mainz, Mantua, Venice, and the Ionian Isles. On the fate of these islands a stormy discussion arose, Cobenzl stipulating for their complete independence, while Bonaparte passionately ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... dream, for he seemed much older; the boyish bravado was gone. He was stout, settled, curiously deliberate in manner. But then she ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... chaps in Swede Olson's house were hard cases. They boasted of their hardness. But their hardness was the typical tough's hardness, nine parts bravado, a savagery not difficult to subdue with an oak belaying pin in the fist of a bucko mate. But the hardness of this big, scar-faced man was of a different sort. You sensed, immediately you looked at him, that he possessed ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... indeed whether humanity is a natural or innate quality. I was very fond of collecting eggs, but I never took more than a single egg out of a bird's nest, except on one single occasion, when I took all, not for their value, but from a sort of bravado. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... the rendezvous, that the Blackfeet were completely overmatched. They kept doggedly in their fort, however, making no effort to surrender. An occasional firing into the breastwork was kept up during the day. Now and then one of the Indian allies, in bravado, would rush up to the fort, fire over the ramparts, tear off a buffalo-robe or a scarlet blanket, and return with it in triumph to his comrades. Most of the savage garrison who fell, however, were killed in the first ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... of bravado, merely to show he wasn't scared of the Old Lady, for all her grand airs. The Old Lady made no answer, and he thought he had offended her. He went away, wishing he hadn't said it. Had he but known it, the Old Lady had forgotten the existence of all and any egg pedlars. He had blotted ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Kathleen herself. Her usually pale face became flooded with color as she met the steady light of Grace's scornful eyes. Rallying all her forces, she returned the disconcerting gaze with one of defiant bravado. "Oh, good afternoon," she said, setting her lips in a straight line, a veritable ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... was no air of bravado or insolence about that graceful pose and the quiet manner in which he was regarding them. Instead of that, the moonshiner was a living interrogation point, everything about him seeming to speak the question that fell ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... waste much time in getting started, but plunge very soon into the actual story. Let your hero tell how he fell among the pirates. Then go on with the conversation that ensued—the threats, the boasting, and the bravado. Make the hero report his struggles, or the tricks that he resorted to in order to outwit the sea-rovers. Perhaps he failed at first and got into still greater dangers. Follow out his adventures to the moment of his escape. Make your descriptions short and vivid; ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... business too. But for the moment listen to something that concerns you. The Count is not yet thirty, his eyes are large and dreamy, his hair long, he wears no moustache, his manner is melancholy, there is no air of bravado about him. ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... others if thou standest; fly not, therefore, as was said afore, out of a slavish fear; stand not, of a bravado. Do what thou dost in the fear of God, guiding thyself by his Word and providence; and as for this or that man's judgment, refer thy case to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... moment the poop was clear of water and the Malahini on an even keel. Narii made a bravado attempt to walk to the rail, but was flung down by the wind. Thereafter he crawled, disappearing in the darkness, though there was certitude in all of them that he had gone over the side. The Malahini ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... furtive bravado, I paced the length of the long, thronged tables. Here sat a little prince that captivated me, dipping his fingers into his cup with a sidelong glance at his mother. There a high officer, I know not how magnificent and urgent ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... Mustang, Whose clusters hang O'er the waves of the Colorado, And the fiery flood Of whose purple blood Has a dash of Spanish bravado. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... up at all. Then the parting! The chief, your father, stood up and addressed his people—for "his people" he still would call them. There was not a tremor in his voice, nor was there, on the other hand, even a spice of bravado. He spoke to them calmly, logically. In the old days, he said, might had been right, and many a gallant corps of heroes had his forefathers led from the glen, but times had changed. They were governed by good laws, and good laws ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... brush, over one of which some buzzards circled, lofty, yet intent as anglers watching their tackle. Hard as that home had been to Hulda, she regretted leaving it for this men's tavern, where her grandmother's saucy temperament found so many incentives to bravado, and her caution, that had to be exercised in Delaware, was quite unnecessary on the Maryland side ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... sympathy if you don't, Father," she added; "and besides you have nothing to fear. It's sheer bravado and impudence on ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... of bravado in my manner of talking about the plague. I have been more careful to describe the terrors of other people than my own. The truth is, that during the whole period of my stay at Cairo I remained thoroughly ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... spot where his crime was committed. No man can describe or define this resistless impulse, and yet all criminology records it, clear and unmistakable. It is no less than a form of curiosity. Driven by this irresistible force, David Cable, with bravado that cost him dearly, worked his uninterrupted way to the scene of his crime. By trolley car to Chicago Avenue and, then, like a homeless dog scenting his way fearfully, to a corner not far from the ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... to have his own way died hard, but something conquered. "I'll do it! Just watch me," he said at last, a certain bravado accompanying his words. ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... to no one," the plucky boy in the boat made answer, and with a parting shot and a laughing "Farval!" he leaped from the sinking boat into the dancing Maelar water. Striking boldly out, he swam twice round the boat in sheer bravado, defying the enemy; now ducking to escape the pursuing stream, or now, while floating on his back, sending a return shot with telling force against the men at the pump—for he still clung to ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Time—This is your night of triumph, and it seems only fair to pay you a little tribute. Some people, in a noble mood of bravado, consider New Year's Eve an occasion of festivity. Long, long in advance they reserve a table at their favorite cafe; and becomingly habited in boiled shirts or gowns of the lowest visibility, and well armed with a commodity which is said to be ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... sheathing of weapons at the king's command; for those who had hitherto been brandishing them in loyal bravado, began thereby to call to mind the extreme dislike which his Majesty nourished against naked steel, a foible which seemed to be as constitutional as his timidity, and was usually ascribed to the brutal murder of Rizzio having been perpetrated in his unfortunate mother's presence ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... indeed. In cold blood, he knew that Johnny Simms had left the ship in exactly the sort of resentful bravado with which a spoiled little boy will run away from home to punish his parents. Quite possibly he had intended only to go out into the night and wait near the ship until he was missed. But he'd found himself among ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Brass-button Man was suspiciously wondering what this person wanted of him; but they crossed to the adjacent saloon, a New York corner saloon, which of course "glittered" with a large mirror, heaped glasses, and a long shining foot-rail on which, in bravado, Mr. Wrenn placed ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... come on board me, sir," answers the Spaniard, in a clear, quiet tone; "bringing with you this answer, that you lie in your throat;" and lingering a moment out of bravado, to arrange his scarf, he steps slowly down ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Paul had endeavored to assume an air of bravado, but as soon as he was left alone he was seized with such mortal terror, that he sank in a half fainting condition into an easy-chair. He felt that he was not going to put on a disguise for a brief period, but for life, and that now, though he rose in life, wealth, title, ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... have some in your pocket?" said the little man, with a mixture of embarrassment and bravado that touched Braith, who saw what ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... not at his ease. He had come in something like a spirit of bravado to face Bonbright, and this turn to the event nonplused him. However, if he would save his face he ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... what he had kept back from motives I deplored when I made them out later—was the finer and braver part. It was his fate to make a great many still more "prepared" people than me not inconsiderably wince; but there was no grain of bravado in his ripest things (I've always maintained it, though often contradicted), and at bottom the poor fellow, disinterested to his finger-tips and regarding imperfection not only as an aesthetic but quite also as a social crime, had an extreme dread of scandal. There are critics ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... her song with a gay air of bravado; passing from one chanty to another in a voice fluty as a blackbird. Stane smiled to himself. He liked her spirit, and he knew that that would carry her through the difficulties that lay before them, even when the flesh was inclined to failure. But presently the springs of song dried ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... tail of the honey. Sentiment, cynicism, and satin impropriety and scabrous, are among those verses, where pure poetry has a recognized voice; but the lower elements constitute the popularity in a cultivated society inclining to wantonness out of bravado as well as by taste. Alvan, looking indolently royal and royally roguish, quoted a verse that speaks of the superfluousness of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... place came the herd that Milo drove before him; and not a man among the hardened crew was hardy enough to carry his bravado into the Grove. Blacks and whites alike, no matter what their inmost thoughts might be, yielded to the spell of the place the moment their feet trod the sward and the congregation settled into the ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... groom—it was Pottinger—had gained his mistress's side and got hold of the horse; then, with no thought of bravado but simply with the desire to get away from the spot, she put Rupert at the gate and leapt ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... no place. This integrity of the instinctive reactions, this freedom from all moral sophistry and strain, gives a pathetic dignity to ancient pagan feeling. And this quality Whitman's outpourings have not got. His optimism is too voluntary and defiant; his gospel has a touch of bravado and an affected twist,[42] and this diminishes its effect on many readers who yet are well disposed towards optimism, and on the whole quite willing to admit that in important respects Whitman is of the ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... Indians had been afraid to come. They called it 'The Devil's Valley,' and though the young bucks might come in and spend a night, just as a bit of bravado, they were frightened of it; but after I came they took ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... almost a profession, and the privacy with which it is of necessity conducted renders it always subject to suspicion (see plate); independent of which, the source of quarrel is too often beneath the dignity of gentlemen, and the wanton sacrifice of life rather an act of bravado ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... became clear to me, however, that personal considerations could rightly have but little part in the settlement of this problem. In no spirit of bravado, but in simplest recognition of the truth, I say to you that I believe I would have been betraying the profession which I have sworn to serve had I permitted conditions of personal affection, however lovely and precious, to determine ...
— A Statement: On the Future of This Church • John Haynes Holmes
... incessantly through her childhood. It was with astonished delight that she heard that her parents, who had never, in a financial sense, drawn a free breath since their marriage, who had worried and contrived, who had tried indifference and bravado and strictest economy by turns, had sold their ranch for almost two thousand dollars more than its accumulated mortgages, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... sleeve of his coat cut off, and his arm bandaged and supported by a sling. Both made a resolute effort to preserve a careless demeanor. The third, who was some years younger than the others, looked round with a smile on his lips, bowed to the magistrates with an air of insolent bravado when he was placed in the dock, and then leaned easily in the corner, as if indifferent to the whole business. A chair was placed between his comrades for the use of the man whose head was bandaged. Many among those present knew Arthur ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... have now come to believe, with Mr. Bailey, that poetry apart from 'le mot rare' is an impossibility. The beauties of restraint, of clarity, of refinement, and of precision we pass by unheeding; we can see nothing there but coldness and uniformity; and we go back with eagerness to the fling and the bravado that we love so well. It is as if we had become so accustomed to looking at boxers, wrestlers, and gladiators that the sight of an exquisite minuet produced no effect on us; the ordered dance strikes us as a monotony, for we ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... younger and less experienced men essay to doubt my word, and, on their own supposition that I am a Russian, begin to take unwarrantable liberties with my person; one of them steals up behind and commences playing a tattoo on my helmet with two sticks of wood, by way of bravado, and showing his contempt for a subject of the Czar. Turning round, I take one of the sticks away and chastise him with it until he howls for Allah to protect him, and then, without attempting any sort of explanation to ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... victims—rode howling around the camp. Their figures hideously marked with paint, were visible from time to time; their long hair streaming in the wind, their cloaks of skins floating in their rapid course, and their piercing cries of defiance and bravado, giving them the appearance of demons, to whom they have ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... time to the naming of your drink—for the fires are hot in you—but will take your bottle to a table. The braver spirits among you will scorn glasses as effeminate and will gulp the liquor straight from the bottle with what wickedest bravado you ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... considerably later that Ted betook himself homewards; the plan which he had at first proposed out of a mere spirit of bravado having now, owing to the gibes of Jack and the ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... approached, and as she passed along the coast so that we had a broadside view of her, I had no longer any doubt that she was the Mignonne. I observed that even the seamen, notwithstanding their bravado, kept so far among the rocks, that unless the privateer's men had been especially examining the shore there was not much probability of our being discovered. We watched the vessel from the highest point of ground we could reach, and we conjectured that she must have touched ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... presence their country somehow troubles, And so our cities receive them; Nor one of your make-believe Spanish grandees, Who ply our daughters with lies and candies, Until the poor girls believe them. No, he was no such charlatan, Count de Hoboken Flash-in-the-pan. Full of Gasconade and bravado, But a regular, rich Don Rataplan, Santa Claus de la Muscavado, Senor Grandissimo Bastinado. His was the rental of half Havana, And all Matanzas; and ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... their machetes. Jose, grinning like a death's-head, whirled the bush knife aloft and mockingly dared the Red Bones still fronting him to come and take it from him. Pedro and Lourenco indulged in no such bravado, but leaped like jaguars at their foes. Whereupon Jose, muttering a curse on them for getting the jump on him, dashed forward with ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... German institution in turn, the case is the same; and it is not a case of mere bloodshed or military bravado. The duel, for example, can legitimately be called a barbaric thing, but the word is here used in another sense. There are duels in Germany; but so there are in France, Italy, Belgium, Spain; indeed, there are duels wherever there are dentists, newspapers, Turkish baths, ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... house, and, with one look at the chest, set about preparing her supper. She was enjoying her life of perfect freedom with a kind of bravado, inasmuch as it seemed an innocent delight of which nobody approved. If the two aunts would come to live with her, so much the better; but since they refused, she scorned the descent to any domestic expedient. Indeed, ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... us that South Carolina has taken the initiative, and chosen the arbitrament of war. She has done it because her position was desperate, and because she hoped thereby to unite the Cotton States by a complicity in blood, as they are already committed by a unanimity in bravado. Major Anderson deserves more than ever the thanks of his country for his wise forbearance. The foxes in Charleston, who have already lost their tails in the trap of Secession, wished to throw upon him the responsibility of that second blow which begins a quarrel, and the silence of his ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... with a hundred and fifty Geraldines at his heels, he seized the Sword of State, marched into the council-room, and addressing the Council in his capacity of Vice-deputy, poured forth a speech full of boyish fanfaronade and bravado. "Henceforth," said he, "I am none of Henry's deputy! I am his foe! I have more mind to meet him in the field, than to serve him in office." With other words to the like effect he rendered up the Sword, and once more springing upon his ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... castle, a dark, square room was assigned them, and when the King said, "I hope that this torture against a crowned head will only last a few days," the jailer replied: "I grieve to say that the Queen's orders are to the contrary; anger not the Queen by any bravado, else you will be placed in the irons, and if these fail we can have recourse to sharper means." To the excessive self-love, intemperance, conceitedness, and want of foresight which had characterized all his actions, the unhappy Albert had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of the earlier volumes of American history, were not barbarities in the estimation of those who practised them. The scalp lock was an emblem of chivalry. Every warrior shaving his head for battle was careful to leave the lock of defiance upon his crown, as for the bravado, 'Take it if you can.' The stake and the torture were identified with their rude notions of the power of endurance. They were inflicted upon captives of their own race, as well as upon whites; and with their own braves these trials were courted, to enable the sufferer to exhibit the courage ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... become a bad dream. He did not care whether he lived or died. The courage of suicide helped him in some sort to carry things off with a dash of bravado before the spectators. He stood in his place; he would not take a step, a piece of recklessness which the others took for deliberate calculation. They thought the poet an uncommonly cool hand. Michel Chrestien came as far as his limit; ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... running fire kept up on both sides; but the distance was too great for the range of the guns on either side; and the pirates, who, in addition to sailing well, were propelled by from forty to sixty oars each, made their escape. It was not until nearly hull-down that they (probably out of bravado) ceased to fire their stern guns. As they went in the direction of the Natunas, our boats steered for those islands, and anchored under the south end of one of them. At daylight next morning, although in three fathoms water, the pinnace, owing to the great rise ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... devasting war. Others saw in this offer nothing more than a temporary stratagem of the Protestants by which they hoped to bind the court and keep it irresolute until they should have gained sufficient strength to confront it. Others again declared it to be a downright bravado in order to alarm the regent, and to raise the courage of their own party by the display of such rich resources. But whatever was the true motive of this proposition, its originators gained little by it; the contributions flowed in scantily and slowly, and the court answered the proposal with ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the strikers also, were determined that there should be no violence; but there was another party interested which was minded to the contrary—and that was the press. On the first day of his life as a strikebreaker Jurgis quit work early, and in a spirit of bravado he challenged three men of his acquaintance to go outside and get a drink. They accepted, and went through the big Halsted Street gate, where several policemen were watching, and also some union pickets, scanning sharply those who passed in and out. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Brown published a photograph of you and me in front of a Johnstown lunch place. There was a long caption, which said that you had always been proud that you were slum-reared and a woman hater. That you had persisted in keeping some of your early habits, perhaps out of bravado. That Miss Allen was an intimate friend, the only woman friend you had made and kept. ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the lips, which curled upward and were always twitching nervously. His face was pale with the pallor that nitric acid strong enough to eat copper gives to the complexion, and in his sharp, pert, bold features were mingled bravado, energy, recklessness, intelligence, impudence and all sorts of rascally expressions, softened, at certain times, by a cat-like, wheedling air. His trade of glove-cutter—he had taken up with that trade after two or three unsuccessful trials as an apprentice in ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... Mr. Keith?" he began boldly enough. But his assumption of something of his old air of bravado died out under Keith's icy and steady gaze, and he stepped only inside of the room, and, taking off his hat, ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... thought that now, at any rate, he had shown Hardy that he wasn't to be dragooned into doing or not doing anything. He had had a bad time of it all day, and his good angel had fought hard for victory; but self-will was too strong for the time. When he stayed behind the rest, it was more out of bravado than from any defined purpose of pursuing what he tried to persuade himself was an innocent flirtation. When he left the house some hours after he was deeper in the toils than ever, and dark clouds were gathering over ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... master's wrong. The Baron de St. Castin will soon return to vindicate his own honor, and whether or no, I vow to heaven, my Lady, that the traitor who has wronged that sweet girl will one day have to try whether his sword be sharper than that of La Corne St. Luc! But pshaw! I am talking bravado like an Indian at the war post. The story of those luckless New England wives has carried ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... were interested spectators of the scene. Through the padded swinging doors entered, as in a play, character after character. Each actor as he entered stopped for a moment and stared about him, and in this act revealed his character-his conceit, his slyness, his bravado, his self-importance. There was great variety, but practically one prevailing type, and that the New York politician. Most of them were from the city, though the country politician apes the city politician as much as possible, but he ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... fancy me a coward," he thought, "and that I dare not sleep here. They may not, of course, say so, but they will think that my appearing so bold was one of those acts of bravado which I have not ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... recklessly or out of bravado, but simply because it was of the utmost importance to gain some idea of their numbers, which he put at about five or six hundred; not more in the immediate neighbourhood. It was an uncomfortable position, being cramped up there, imprisoned ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... entirely unlike himself, as he did while strutting along with the weed in his mouth. The fact was, Eric didn't guess how much he was hurting Edwin's feelings, and he was smoking more to "make things look like the holidays," by a little bravado, than anything else. But suddenly he caught the expression of ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... term of enlistment most of his men had gone back to Kentucky or Virginia, and their places had been taken mainly by creoles, whose steadfastness was doubtful. Furthermore, the Indians were restless, and it was only by much vigilance and bravado that they were kept in a respectful mood. All this was well known to Hamilton, who now proposed to follow up the recapture of the Mississippi posts by the obliteration of all traces of American authority west of ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... throw aside his trappings and wash from his face the paint which was to show the passion that he played. The thing takes hold and will not be thrown aside; it seems to seek revenge for the light assumption and punishes the bravado that feigned without feeling by a feeling which is not feint. She was now, for the moment if you will, but yet now, in earnest. Some wave of recollection or of fancy had come over her and transformed her jest. She stole round till her face peeped into mine in piteous bewitching ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... about it. Says another twelve hours of observation may be of value. She and A rowed ashore over the runners trailing in the water and with great difficulty succeeded in hacking off a few runners of the sprayed Grass. I thought her undertaking this hazard an absurd piece of bravado—she might just as well have sent ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... bravado had vanished from the farmer by now. He seemed to fairly cringe before the girl. Afterwards the boys learned that there was good reason for this, since her father was Mayor Stephens, the richest man ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... note of bravado, and his attitude betrayed the self-conscious actor, but there was that in his countenance which could only have come of real misery. The thin cheeks, heavy-lidded and bloodshot eyes, ill-coloured lips, made a picture anything but agreeable ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... the Prince saw the aim, as well as heard the shot, on this occasion, and she stooped, he pulling her down that the ball might pass over her head. In another moment the man, who still leant against the railing, pistols in hand, with much bravado and without any attempt to escape, was seized by a bystander. In the middle of the consternation and wrath of the gathering crowd, the Queen and the Prince went on to the Duchess of Kent that they might be the first to tell her what had happened and assure ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... some of the money to which he clung, but a boastful spirit incited him to show the world that he at any rate had not been vanquished by the financial crisis, and that the Buongiovannis had nothing to hide and nothing to blush for. To tell the truth, some people asserted that this bravado had not originated with himself, but had been instilled into him without his knowledge by the quiet and innocent Celia, who wished to exhibit her happiness ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... high branch for his final jump—a bit of pure bravado because he felt nervous inside—discovered, with mingled terror and joy, that his vagrant foot had narrowly shaved Aunt Jane's neat hard summer hat: Aunt Jane—of all people—at such a moment, when you couldn't properly explain. He half ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... the custom of the Caffres, who never use surprise or ambush on great occasions, they sent a message to the commandant of Graham's Town, stating that they would breakfast with him the next morning. The commandant, who had supposed the message to be a mere bravado, was very ill prepared when on the following morning he perceived, to his great astonishment, the whole force of the Caffres on ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... and silent curse on himself for the mad bravado that led him to leave the palace with but thirty men; why had he not waited to assemble more? He could ride over the mob; to master Achillas's ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... throughout, but with a well-worn cushion on the seat of it, in which it was the miller's custom to sit when the work of the day was done. In this chair no one else would ever sit, unless Sam would do so occasionally, in bravado, and as a protest against his father's authority. When he did so his mother would be wretched, and his sister lately had begged him to desist from the sacrilege. Close to this was a little round deal table, on which would be set the miller's single glass of gin and water, which would ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... famous Lord Baltimore he left Naples a few days after my friends, and travelled about Italy in his usual way. Three years later he paid for his British bravado with his life. He committed the wild imprudence of traversing the Maremma in August, and was killed by the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... freebooters) the good old law of nature and possession, and regulate property by the mere conceits of men's brains. To some such purpose did Margaret argue against Will's allusions to the doings at Jedburgh; but, secretly, Will cared no more for the threat of a rope, than he did for the empty bravado of a neighbour whom he had eased of a score of cattle. He merely brought in the doings of the Justice-Ayr at Jedburgh, to screen his fits of laziness; those states of the mind common to rievers, thieves, writers, and poets, and generally all people who live upon their wits, which ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... position as a member of the noble house of Cigala, from which it seems the island had received many great benefits. Leaving Sicily he next came to Rome, into which he made a public entry, and was warmly received by Clement IX., before whom, in bravado, he drew and flourished his dreadful scimitar in token of his defiance of the enemies of the Church. At last, after touching at Venice and Turin, he arrived in Paris, where he was received by the king according to his high quality, and ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... party starts about nine o'clock, and the departure should be surrounded with joyous shouts of bravado. After you have mounted your mule, or been laboriously hoisted aboard, let your conscience guide you as to your actions up and down the trail. When you top out at the end of the day and it is your turn to be unloaded, weakly drag your feet out of the stirrups, make sure that the guide is planted ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... words of Dr. Acton, crime is sometimes involved of a terrible nature which the human tongue governed by training shrinks from describing. We justly or erroneously believe that we are doing our duty in putting this information in the hands of the people, and we contest this case with no kind of bravado; the penalty we already have to pay is severe enough, for even while we are defending this, some portion of the public press is using words of terrorism against the witnesses to be called, and is describing myself and my co-defendant in ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... himself at his gallant feeling of liberty: a feeling of bravado and almost swaggering carelessness which is Italy's best gift to an Englishman. He had crossed the dividing line, and the values of life, though ostensibly and verbally the same, were dynamically different. Alas, however, the ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence |
