"Impertinent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Lord Coke is well worth quotation: "And seeing we are to treat of matters of game, and hunting, let us (to the end we may proceed the more chearfully) recreate ourselves with the excellent description of Dido's Doe of the Forest wounded with a deadly arrow sticken in her, and not impertinent to our purpose: ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... in no impertinent tone, but in the low voice of one who "shall whisper out of the dust." He had not yet recovered from the first impression of his awakening, that the world in which he now stood ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... whole of it. At the rates they were selling, they must be receiving at least a dollar a quart, and that clear of the cost of the cream from their two cows. I suppose it might have been considered impertinent in us to be thus prying into our neighbors' concerns, wondering how they contrived to live and how much money they made by their business. But we had no idea of doing them any injury; I was only desirous of doing something better for myself than working all my life ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... thought when I told them they could not get him that they would go away, but when they asked me if he was not there, of course I could not tell them a story; so I said I declined to answer impertinent questions. You know poor Charlie was at that moment lying curled up under the bed in the boys' room with a roll of carpet a foot thick around him, and it was as hot as an oven. Well, they insisted on going through the ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... in the lighter parts of life, it is too late to get much intelligence. One of his answers to a boastful Frenchman has been related; and to an impertinent he made another equally proper. During his embassy he sat at the opera by a man who, in his rapture, accompanied with his own ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... these magical transformations, that the hero would be glad to let him go. If Hercules had relaxed his grasp, the Old One would certainly have plunged down to the very bottom of the sea, whence he would not soon have given himself the trouble of coming up, in order to answer any impertinent questions. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred, I suppose, would have been frightened out of their wits by the very first of his ugly shapes, and would have taken to their heels at once. For one of the ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... ask the gentleman himself," responded the duenna; "I know nothing of him, but that he is the most daring and impertinent man"—(Martha indulged in the privilege granted her by Don Lope); "the most unceremonious, head-strong, self-sufficient cavalier I ever met with—Virgen Santa!—What a disturbance he has raised in the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... looks on, tolerant and superior and smilingly attentive, upon the good and bad of our existence, it will go hardly if we do not catch some reflection of the same spirit to help us on our way. There is here no impertinent and lying proclamation of peace—none of the cheap optimism of the well-to-do; what we find here is a view of life that would be even grievous, were it not enlivened with this abiding cheerfulness, and ever and anon redeemed by a ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Wildschloss could be shaken off! But he only became constantly more friendly and intrusive, almost paternal. No wonder, when the mother and her uncle made him so welcome, and were so intolerably grateful for his impertinent interference, while even Friedel confessed the reasonableness of his counsels, as if that were not the ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... impudence, still held his tongue like a trembling lackey; in which the Hereditary Prince, despite his desire to find everything in the Castle ridiculous, still maintained a reserve sufficient to save him from being expelled from Berlin for his impertinent criticisms—or where the Princess was still proud and witty beneath her girlish simplicity. And still rarer is it to see a Seckendorf who, in spite of his clumsy "combinations," did not quite sink to the level of the Marshal von Kalb. At this point a dramaturgic hint ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... of them was opened and a white cloth waved from it by an unseen hand. He wondered was it a signal. He stooped to fasten a bootlace, and Rama, who was making for the gateway in the high wall forming the fourth side of the courtyard, called impatiently to him to hasten. The servant's tone was impertinent, and Dermot looked up ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... five! She furnishes dinner for the men on the six-thirty. I wonder what she is giving them to-day?" Jeff smiled when he remembered how Judith had satisfied Nan's impertinent curiosity concerning what was in her basket. "I've a great mind to find out. Foolishness! I'll do nothing of the sort." The young man tried to lose himself in the intricate plot of a detective story but he had to confess he was not half so much interested in the outcome of the tale as he was ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... just before you left the dining-room which made you look so haughty, dearest? He was not impertinent to you, I hope," and Henry frowned ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... you say, boy!" he returned fiercely. "When you have passed through as much hell-fire as I have and have rested as sweetly with a corpse for a pillow, you will learn to curb your impertinent tongue when you address ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... that is partly the source of her knowledge," replied the knowing one, with a great show of innocence in her manner. John was in no position to ask impertinent questions, nor had he any right to grow angry at unpleasant discoveries; but he did both, although for a time he ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... this rather impertinent comment, and 'repeats the story of his birth' with still greater improvements, till Hotspur gives him a piece of advice which will do for his whole race of the present day, viz., 'tell the truth, and shame ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... you to be friends with me again. I was very impertinent that night after your speech. I don't know what made me ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... would it be impertinent to ask for what purpose you have come to Poland? Believe me, I only put the question in order to see if I can in any way ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... been thinking," said he, "about what you told me"—this was a reference to an interview not recorded. "I am annoyed that Mrs. Harrop should have been impertinent to you." ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... anger, and if Shakespeare had been anything but a shade he would have fared ill, for the enraged Roman, poising his cue on high as though it were a lance, hurled it at the impertinent dramatist with all his strength, and with such accuracy of aim withal that it pierced the spot beneath which in life the heart of ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... meet Engineer Serko when my strolls take me in the direction of the Beehive. He always shows himself disposed to chat with me, though, it is true, he does so in a tone of impertinent frivolity. We converse upon all sorts of subjects, but rarely of my position. Recrimination thereanent is useless and only subjects ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... people, it is very unbecoming in speaking to them to turn one's back and shoulders to them. It is an impertinent action to knock against the table, or to shake the desk, which another person is using for reading or writing. It is uncivil to lean against any one, or to pluck his dress when speaking to him, or while ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... "It may not be impertinent to observe that in this wilderness we neither see nor hear any birds of music. These frequent only the abodes of man. There is one wood-bird, not often seen, but heard without any melody in his note, in ...
— A Sketch of the History of Oneonta • Dudley M. Campbell
... courtiers hailed me as greater than themselves, by reason of this woman's choice. There was method, too, in their salutation. Some rumour must have got about of my preference for the older and simpler habits, and there was no drinking wine to my health after the new and (as I considered) impertinent manner. Decorously, each lord and lady there came forward, and each in turn spilt a goblet at my feet; and when I called any up, whether man or woman, to receive tit-bits from my platter, it was eaten simply and thankfully, ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... of life. A novelist, therefore, who uses the imaginary facts, like Sterne and Dickens, as mere pegs on which to hang specimens of his own sensibility and facetiousness, becomes disgusting. When, he remarks, you have said of a friend 'he is dead,' all other observations become superfluous and impertinent. He, therefore, considers 'Robinson Crusoe' to represent the ideal novel. It is the life of a brave man meeting danger and sorrow with unflinching courage, and never bringing his tears to market. Dickens ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... yeller haythen, I'll cut off your pigtail in spite of that impertinent friend of yours—Dick Dewey. I'll show you that an O'Reilly ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... said Lily, 'and he is the last person to say anything impertinent of papa. And I myself heard papa call her Alethea, which he never used to do. Claude, ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... took it simply from the Bible, in the words that God's wisdom teacheth, and thus I argued: "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners: I am a sinner; I want to be saved: he will save me." There is no presumption in taking God at his word: not to do so is very impertinent: I did it, and I ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... you argumentative child," I said (you will find Rupert is impertinent enough in one place to suggest that I have a tendency to be rude and a tendency to hold forth). "Surely the ideal story must contain the maximum of Objective Incident with the maximum of Subjective Incident. Only give us the exciting events of your schooldays, and describe ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... not be allowed the expression—'tis impertinent, 'tis false. I never was unobserving or absent; I never had the fidgets; I never once mentioned the name of my adored Helen; and, heigho! I never sighed for ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... you will have the kindness to leave us to ourselves, and not to meddle with what does not concern you. If you were a brother or father of hers, the case might have been different. As it is, I can only consider you an impertinent meddler." ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... a word to you,' he said hurriedly. 'I have been trying for an opportunity these two days. I hope you won't think it strange or premature or impertinent——' ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... I have taken this Habit to free you from an impertinent Lover, and to secure the damn'd Rogue Daring to my self: receive me as sent by Colonel Surelove from England to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... action spring faster than thought. The Sicilians at vespers asked the Frenchmen to pronounce "cheecheree," and slew them when they said "sheesheree." So Easton snapped a fulminate in Davidge when his Prussian tongue betrayed him into that impertinent, intolerable alien "Vell?" ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... time and thought to paltry local matters, leaving a deplorably small portion of either to be devoted to national questions; while in the exercise of his functions as a legislator he is likely to be influenced by a variety of motives which ought to be quite impertinent and are often unworthy. These things however seem to be almost inevitable results of the national political structure. The individual corruptibility of the members of either House (their readiness, that is to be influenced ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... is the result of a mental egotism combined with love of admiration, and usually produces awkward diffidence or absurd affectation. Too often the first weakness is overcome, or covered up, most unwisely, by exchanging bashfulness for impertinent boldness; while the vanity and self-consciousness of the second very rarely result in manners or Conversation either sensible or agreeable. To overcome these defects, wisely, requires a strong effort. They should be radically subdued by learning to ask one's self, "Am I doing what is ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... cried Achelous, turning toward the hero, while his voice rose till it sounded like the thunder of distant cataracts, and his green garment changed to the blackness of night,—"impertinent stranger! how darest thou claim this maiden,—thou who hast mortal blood in thy veins! Behold me, the god Achelous, the powerful King of the Waters! I wind with majesty through the rich lands of my wide realms. I make all fields through which I flow beautiful with grass and flowers. ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... you do me a favour? If you refuse to dance or sing or laugh, if all that is tedious, then let me beg you, implore you, to summon all your powers, if only for this once, and make one witty or clever remark. Let it be as impertinent and malicious as you like, so long as it is funny and original. Won't you perform this miracle, just once, to surprise us and make us laugh? Or else you might think of some little thing which you could all do together, ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... wherever there was an opportunity of flouting an insolent Frenchman. Under these circumstances the streets were not altogether a pleasant promenade for well-born women; but Romola, shrouded in her black veil and mantle, and with old Maso by her side, felt secure enough from impertinent observation. ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... slavery in Martinique, Guadaloupe, and Cayenne: and that—(pray listen, young lady)—he declares to the English that he can do what he pleases in Saint Domingo. I wish he could see that angry blush. Pray look at her, Madame! I see she thinks Bonaparte a very impertinent fellow." ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... look of trying to discover the secret of his fascination. It was quite unlike the way any other girl had ever looked at him. Other girls looked at you side-wise or averted their eyes when they met yours. But this was different. It was mocking, impertinent, insinuating, but it did not displease him. He saw that he had made an impression, an instantaneous impression. He mystified her perhaps but he interested her intensely. For the first time he had conquered with ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... always doing nothing. To rush out indignantly, seize my box, defy the brigands, and carry it back myself, seemed the work of an instant. Drenched and gasping, I find myself once more outside; the Porter of the Grand Hotel Du Lac is at my heels, furious and impertinent. "Dis, not your loggosh: other shentleman's loggosh." He seized the portmanteau, and a struggle would certainly have ensued, when my own Hotel Porter appeared on the scene triumphant, with a regiment of station-men carrying one small tin box. "What you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... absence of the overwhelming sentiment which, sooner or later, works havoc in a woman's heart, she spent her young ardor in an immoderate love of distinctions, and expressed the deepest contempt for persons of inferior birth. Supremely impertinent to all newly-created nobility, she made every effort to get her parents recognized as equals by the most illustrious families of ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... disappointment felt by the royalist at this unsatisfactory result. "These bravadoes and impertinent demonstrations on the part of some of your people," wrote Richardot, ten days later, "will be the destruction of the whole country, and will convert the Prince's gentleness into anger. 'Tis these good and zealous ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... an old man for speaking, Mrs. Jardine, and not think me impertinent if I make free to say that if more young ladies started housekeeping with such ideas, homes would be happier. I make bold to say that you will not have trouble in keeping Mr. ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... Amusements; which altho' they are not capable of affording any great Pleasure, yet they give that serene Turn of the Mind, which I think much preferable to anything else Human Nature is made susceptible of." To this pleasant picture of "rural Amusements," and tranquillity, it is surely not impertinent to add this further passage, as a possible echo of Charlotte Fielding's thought, well acquainted as she must have been both with the "sweetly winding banks of Stour" and with the clamorous successes of political drama: "in all these various Changes I never enjoyed ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... Discourse) how men, barely by the use of their natural faculties may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate impressions; and may arrive at certainty, without any such original notions or principles. For I imagine any one will easily grant that it would be impertinent to suppose the ideas of colours innate in a creature to whom God hath given sight, and a power to receive them by the eyes from external objects: and no less unreasonable would it be to attribute several truths to the impressions of nature, and innate ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... sharp work,' says Bulbo. 'Call my Chamberlain, he'll be my second, and in ten minutes, I flatter myself, you'll see Master Giglio's head off his impertinent shoulders. I'm hungry for his blood Hoooo, aw!' and he looked as savage as ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sir," proceeded the speaker, "I feel, as all present must feel, that it would be unnecessary—nay, almost impertinent—were I to weary the public ear by a halting recapitulation of deeds with which it is already so appreciatively familiar." At this he was interrupted by deafening and long-continued applause, at the end of which ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... one is tempted to adopt a certain tone and to use certain phrases, which may or may not be justified. I yielded to the temptation. I was wrong, but I was also victimised. This morning, with a moment's torture under the impertinent tongue of a rascally impresario, I paid for all the spurious confidence which I have felt and for all the proud words I have uttered. I came to-day in order to lay at your feet my thanks for the unique humiliation which ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... superfluous to multiply ad libitum quotations showing that the early Protestants referred everything to the general purposes of Providence and sometimes to the direct action of God, or to the impertinent but more assiduous activity of the devil. It is interesting to note that they were not wholly blind to natural causes. Luther himself saw, as early as 1523, the connection between his movement and ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... about them was, that although the most timid and cowardly creatures in the world, they seemed the most impertinent things that ever lived! Knowing that their holes afforded them a perfectly safe retreat they sat close beside them, and as the hunters slowly approached, they elevated their heads, wagged their little tails, showed their teeth, ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... heart was thumping with excitement and resentment. The apprehension of the untried is apt to be sharp at such moments, and I looked for them to turn their backs upon me for an impertinent provincial. Indeed, I think they would have, all save Comyn, had it not been for Fox himself. He lighted a pipe, smiled, and began easily, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... these shining bergs carried death with them if they should graze hard against the steamer's side, and, cautiously, steered with infinite pains, the little boat crept on, zigzagging between them. A frail little toy of man, it seemed, to venture here alone; small, black, impertinent atom forcing its way so hardily into this magnificence of colour, this silent splendour, this radiant stillness of the North. Into this very fastness of the most gigantic forces of Nature it had penetrated, and the sapphire sea supported it, the transparent light illumined ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... unexpectedly). No, Sir, I did not. I am not in the habit—whatever you may be—of discussing my private affairs with strangers. I consider your remark highly impertinent, Sir. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... ended, the first names with her will be these.' The prophecy is as little like to commend itself to the pious votary of Keats as to the ardent Shelleyite: there are familiars of the Tennysonian Muse, the Sibyl of Rizpah and Vastness and Lucretius and The Voyage, to whom it must seem impertinent beyond the prophet's wont; there are—(but they scarce count)—who grub (as for truffles) for meanings in Browning. But it was not uttered to please, and in truth it has enough of plausibility to infuriate whatever poet-sects there be. Especially ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... careful," he said. "We must place clearly before ourselves the risks that we are running before we come to any decision. For you the risk is simply that of unofficial banishment. They can hardly send you to Siberia because you are half an Englishman; and that impertinent country has a habit of getting up and shouting when her sons are interfered with. But they can easily make Russia impossible for you. They can do you more harm than you think. They can do these poor devils of peasants of yours more harm than ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... so, as Mr. Chillingworth says, the more exciting interest which that affair created drew off public attention, in a great measure, from my father's suicide, and we did not suffer so much from public remark and from impertinent curiosity as might have ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... said. "He has been very restless and rather impertinent lately, and has been looking for another job. What did you ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... afraid, but I had very bitter feelings in my heart. Why should I be called naughty, and disobedient, and impertinent, and all that, for the first time in my life? I knew I had sometimes a rather cross temper, but when mother had spoken to me about it, I had always felt sorry, and wished to be better. And since we had ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... looked upon as impertinent in me, who am about to give the life of another, to trouble the reader with any of my own concerns, or the affairs that led me into the South Seas. Therefore I shall only acquaint him, that in my return on board ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... to the method of treating the text may seem impertinent to some. The authors however merely wish to suggest a method which ...
— A First Spanish Reader • Erwin W. Roessler and Alfred Remy
... nothing, but to wander hungrily and vacantly through the city in the dinner-hour. He found no more varnish for the work of art, and his working comrade was less amiable than he had been. The week's end found him a little further in debt, in spite of abstention. His landlady, who thought he had been impertinent in that unconscious matter of the aspirate, was not disposed to ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... the bill of fare, and not observing any thing else which could be got for nothing, laid it down, and looking at Mr. Kornicker, who was gazing abstractedly at the table-cloth, said that he hoped he (Mr. Scrake) was not going to be impertinent; and as Mr. Kornicker made no other reply than that of looking at him, as if he considered it a matter of some doubt whether he was or was not, he elucidated the meaning of his remark, by inquiring ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... resultant edifice, like the cathedral of St. Peter's, is architecturally incoherent. He showed so little regard for unity that he did not hesitate to halt his novel for half a hundred pages while he set before the reader the totally extraneous novelette of "The Curious Impertinent," which he happened to find lying idle in his desk. How little he was a master of mere style may be felt at once by comparing his plays with those of Calderon. Yet these technical considerations ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... first time, finds himself among strangers, and his identity lost, in a world so much larger, so much colder, so much more indifferent to him than he ever imagined. Indeed, I think that what we often attribute to the impertinent familiarity of country-men and rustic travelers on railways or in cities is largely due to their awful loneliness and nostalgia. I remember to have once met in a smoking-car on a Kansas railway one of these lonely ones, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... to fidget with her fingers among the papers. She had never before encountered a clergyman so contumacious, so indecent, so unreverend,—so upsetting. She had had to deal with men difficult to manage;—the archdeacon for instance; but the archdeacon had never been so impertinent to her as this man. She had quarrelled once openly with a chaplain of her husband's, a clergyman whom she herself had introduced to her husband, and who had treated her very badly;—but not so badly, not with such ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... written to the church of Christ, by which it is exhorted to faith and prayer; but it speaks not a word of a woman's meeting, and therefore it is fooling with the word to suggest it. I cannot therefore, while I see this impertinent dealing, but think our argumentator dotes, or takes upon him to be a head of those he thinks to rule over. The woman's letter to me also seems to import the same, when they say, "Mr. K. would desire to know what objections you have against it (his arguments), and he is ready ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... greatly control her children in these matters; she can make them modest or impertinent, ingenuous or deceitful, fearful or intrepid. The germ of all these traits of character exist in childhood, and a mother can repress ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... and years. One gets so little encouragement. First you bolt away from my tears, then you send an impertinent message, and then when you come at last you pretend to behave respectfully, though you don't know how to do it. You should sit much nearer the edge of the chair and hold yourself very stiff, and make it quite clear that you don't know what ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... him for being tired with that for which all men envied him; and he never came home, but it was: "Was there no sot that would stay longer? Would any man living but you? Did I leave all the world for this usage?" To which he: "Madam, split me, you are very impertinent!" In a word, this match was wedlock in its most terrible appearances. She, at last weary of railing to no purpose, applies to a good uncle, who gives her a bottle of water. "The virtue of this powerful liquor," said he, "is such, that if the woman you marry proves a scold (which, it seems, my dear ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... was an effect of these things that from the very first, with every one listening, I could mention that my main business with her would be just to have a go at her head and to arrange in that view for an early sitting. It would have been as impossible, I think, to be impertinent to her as it would have been to throw a stone at a plate-glass window; so any talk that went forward on the basis of her loveliness was the most natural thing in the world and immediately became the most general and sociable. It was when I saw all this that I judged how, though it was the ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... round for a stone when one of them buttonholed me. He wasn't insolent, but he was impertinent. The two hawks and the blackbirds flew off as I came up; but the sparrows stayed. They were the only ones in possession as I moved away; and they will be the only ones in possession when I return. If that is next summer, then ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... in some amazement. She would have thought it rather impertinent in a stranger offering such familiar accommodation, but Bluebell availed herself of it with the frankest nonchalance, and, in the conversation that ensued, lost her place in the first rush of diners, who, at the ringing of the bell, instantly ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... impertinent questions." said Fitzgerald, desperately. He began to entertain, for the first time, the horrible suspicion that the pedler's story might be true—that he might after all be his cousin. But he resolved that he never would admit it—NEVER! Where would be his pretentious ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... clinging to the basket and hammering away at the hard fat, head downwards, was a favourite pose; then, when any one else desired a share, he would make a stand with open beak and outspread wings and enact "king of the castle" in the most impertinent manner, considering his tiny dimensions. A guerilla warfare seems always going on amongst these Blue Tits. If one was in the basket and remaining perfectly still, I knew two or three others were meditating ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... lord, I saw you at the play last night. You seemed to be much interested. Don't think me impertinent, if I remind you of our conversation when we were riding home from Tusculum; and if I warn you,' said he, mounting his horse, 'to beware of counterfeits—for such are abroad.' Reining in his impatient ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... of flint pebbles commonly called Hertfordshire plum-pudding stone. These have usually a silicious matrix and were often used by the Romans and others for making querns for corn-grinding. It is, perhaps, not impertinent to mention here the opinion of geologists that during the Eocene Period a considerable portion of the land usually spoken of as S.E. England was ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend. To these two original diversities may be reduced all those impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, black men, red ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... parties, was to be done by myself. Edgerton was suffering from a guilty pursuit. That pursuit, if still urged, might be successful, if not so at present. The constant drip of the water will wear away the stone; and if my wife could submit to impertinent advances without declaring them to her husband, the work of seduction was already half done. To listen is, in half the number of cases, to fall. I must save her; I had not the courage to put her from me. Believing that she ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... came bowling along, keeping up her fiery steeds to a sort of curvetting gallop, like one deep in the science of the manege—now deranging the order of march of the troops, by breaking through the ranks, in spite of the impertinent remonstrances of the out-posts and videttes, at which she laughed, at once to show her teeth and her power;—and now scattering the humble crowd, "like chaff before the wind," as giving her horses ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... gathering goodies among the leaves and twigs, and perhaps piping a little aria at intervals, congratulating himself on having found a pleasant, quiet place, when, lo! a gang of English sparrows crowd around him, peering at him now with one eye, now with the other, canting their heads in their impertinent way, bowing and scraping and blinking, and for all the world seeming to make such derisive remarks as, "Oh, what a fine fellow! Quite stuck-up, ain't he? Isn't that a stylish topknot, though? He! he! he! Look! he wears a rose on his shirt bosom! Isn't he a dandy? ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... "You are impertinent, much too bold," she admonished. "I will not talk to you any more if you are not quite respectful; but the first part of your description was pretty. Let me, if I can, do even half so well. You, senor, are rather tall and quite ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... penetrated his heart; he only lived in her presence, away from her he hardly existed: the emotions she excited were rather those of adoration than of love, for he gazed upon her beauty till he thought her more than human, and hung upon her accents till all speech seemed impertinent to him but her own. Yet so small were his expectations of success, that not even to his sister did he hint at the situation of his heart: happy in an easy access to her, he contented himself with seeing, hearing and watching her, beyond which bounds he formed not any plan, ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... collect from the extreme west, passing in his course, and with impunity, the several American posts that lay in their way. In order more fully to comprehend the motives and character of this remarkable man, it may not be impertinent to recur summarily to events that took place prior to the declaration of war by the United States ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... general admiration excited by the stranger's appearance there were only two dissenting voices. One was that of an impertinent cur which, after sniffing at the heels of the glistening figure, put its tail between its legs and skulked into its master's backyard, vociferating an execrable howl. The other dissentient was a young child who squalled at the fullest stretch ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... be satisfied, but I am not. If you desire to transact business with this impertinent stranger, Mrs. Delancy, you'll have to do so under existing conditions. I do not approve of him or his methods, and my dog doesn't either. You can trust a dog for knowing a man for what he is. Mrs. Austin and I are going ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... a Plot Discovered, a Tragedy, acted at the Duke's Theatre, 1685, dedicated to the Duchess of Portsmouth. Of this we have already given some account, and it is so frequently acted, that any enlargement would be impertinent. It is certainly one of the most moving plays upon the English stage; the plot from a little book, giving an account of the Conspiracy of the Spaniards ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... this city—no need to look surprised, senor, one who is familiar with a town does not gaze and stare and ask the path of passers-by, nor does a native of Seville walk on the sunny side of the street in summer. And now, if you will not think me impertinent, I will ask you what can be the business of so healthy a young man with my rival yonder?' And he nodded towards the house of the ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... I'm sorry that I took even a moment's notice of it. Why should one be ruffled because others are unfeeling and impertinent; it is ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... discharge that boy before supper-time, there will be trouble," said the major when the steward presented himself. "He is stupid, careless, and impertinent. He had the presumption to tell me that he did not cook the onions, and it was not his fault that they were not ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... upon his sleeve for daws to peck at, his journey will not extend far! There is no use for any man's taking-up his abode in a house built of glass. A man always is to be himself the judge how much of his mind he will show to other men; even to those he would have work along with him. There are impertinent inquiries made: your rule is, to leave the inquirer uninformed on that matter; not, if you can help it, misinformed; but precisely as dark as he was! This, could one hit the right phrase of response, is what the wise and faithful man would aim to ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... themselves far handsomer, and saw themselves infinitely better clad, and wondered how people could be so vulgar. A shuddering came over Emilius; he looked round for Roderick, but the latter had already run away from him again. An impertinent coxcomb, with a head pilloried in his high starched neck-cloth, a servant to one of the visitors, eager to show his wit, pressed up to Emilius, giggling, and cried: 'Now, your honour, what says your honour to this grand couple? They can neither of them guess ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... observed Miss Campion, archly; but she took the girl's hand in hers, and her shrewd, clever face softened. "You must forgive an impertinent old maid, my dear. Perhaps she had her story too, who knows. And so you have your ideal, my poor, dear child; and the ideal has not made you a happy woman. It never ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... thought impertinent in thee to hazard a conjecture that, with the resources the Government of Demerara has, stones might be conveyed from the rock Saba to Stabroek to stem the equinoctial tides which are for ever sweeping away the expensive wooden piles round the mounds of the fort? Or would ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... Glenn; "and I have since felt so much anxiety to be acquainted with it that I have several times been on the eve of asking you to gratify my curiosity; but thinking it might be impertinent, I have forborne. It has more than once occurred to me that your condition in life must have been different from what it ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... Spain, nor all that was in Spain, could have deprived Donald of these for a moment. He was amazed, but not in the least awed. He was, in truth, looking rather fiercer than usual, at this particular juncture, in consequence of a certain feeling of irritation, caused by what he deemed the impertinent curiosity of the passers-by, who, no less struck with his strange appearance than he with theirs, were gazing and tittering at him from all sides—treatment this, at which Donald thought fit to take mortal offence. Having arrived, however, at the gate of Alcala, Donald thought it full time ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... flights of stairs which were the only escape from them—three long, steep flights, which left her breathless, her knees trembling under her great weight, and which led out on the narrow side street, full of noisy, impertinent children and clattering traffic. Beyond that, nothing—a city full of strangers whose every thought and way of life were foreign to her, whose very breath came in hurried, feverish gasps, who exhaled, as they passed her, an almost palpable emanation ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... good grammar; he conversed, which is a rare thing in a village; and the other peasants said of him: "He talks almost like a gentleman with a hat." Fauchelevent belonged, in fact, to that species, which the impertinent and flippant vocabulary of the last century qualified as demi-bourgeois, demi-lout, and which the metaphors showered by the chateau upon the thatched cottage ticketed in the pigeon-hole of the plebeian: rather rustic, rather citified; pepper and salt. Fauchelevent, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... those middle-class families which were called indifferently, in the impertinent language of the last century, the high bourgeoise or the petty nobility. This family had inherited from the brothers Paclet the fief of Tirechappe, which was dependent upon the Bishop of Paris, and whose twenty-one houses had been in the thirteenth ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... heathen papists, worshiping idols in the few moments unoccupied in breaking each other's heads with shillalahs. He had for me and mine a devotion at once touching and uncomfortable; but as he grew older he interfered in all manner of matters beyond his province, offered advices absurd and impertinent, and never once in the whole sixty years of our acquaintance can I recall his agreeing entirely with a statement made by any body except Nancy. If he couldn't contradict one flatly, and the uncongenial part of acquiescence was forced upon him by his love ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... should have a decided bearing on any theory of heredity. Does the occurrence of near-by cases have no significance? We are not yet in a position to state this as a fact. Does inquiry concerning religion seem especially impertinent? What if some future investigation should prove that cancer everywhere, is more prevalent among the Christians than the Jews? Does the social condition of the sufferer seem to have no relation to cause? What if we discover, that everywhere,—and not among the foreign ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... heaven from Mr. James—the true artist will vary his method and change the point of attack. That which was in one case an excellence, will become a defect in another; what was the making of one book, will in the next be impertinent or dull. First each novel, and then each class of novels, exists by and for itself. I will take, for instance, three main classes, which are fairly distinct: first, the novel of adventure, which appeals to certain almost sensual and quite illogical ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flower-covered head, or the indolent leaning figure framed in a doorway of a man in wide velvet trousers and crimson-barred serape, whose brown face was partly hidden in a yellow nimbus of cigarette smoke. Even in the semi-darkness, Ezekiel's penetrating and impertinent eyes took eager note of these facts with superior complacency, quite unmindful, after the fashion of most critical travellers, of the hideous contrast of his own long shapeless nankeen duster, his stiff half-clerical brown straw hat, his wisp of gingham necktie, ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... present day, but one of the best writers in the language. He speaks and thinks plain, broad, downright English. He might be said to have the clearness of Swift, the naturalness of Defoe, and the picturesque satirical description of Mandeville; if all such comparisons were not impertinent. A really great and original write sense, Sterne was not a wit, nor Shakespear a poet. It is easy to describe second-rate talents, because they fall into a class and enlist under a standard; but first-rate powers ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... a little further, 135 And then I'll bring thee to the present business Which now's upon 's; without the which, this story Were most impertinent. ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... them they looked, some of them, somewhat sourly on me, and asked me some impertinent questions, to which ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... whither are we running? It is high time that we should 'bout ship and haul off on the opposite tack, if we would not be regarded as impertinent intruders. Love-making is a most delightful pastime, particularly when it comes in at the end of a long period of suffering, hardship, and misunderstanding; but it loses all its piquant charm if it has to be performed in the presence of strangers, no matter how sympathetic. So we ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... sneaking eavesdropper!" cried Peterkin, laughing. "It is really too bad that a fellow can't have a little tete-a-tete with a friend but you and Ralph must be thrusting your impertinent noses in ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... the lady, changing her tone, "do you know you please me very much? For one person that shows herself well-bred in this matter there are a thousand, I think, that ask impertinent questions. I am very glad you are an exception to the common rule. But, dear Ellen, I am quite willing you should know my name—it is Alice Humphreys. Now, kiss me again and run home; it is quite, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... at him with the deepest interest. "You have come to Algiers to find a woman," she murmured, "and I, to find a man. Do you—oh, don't think me impertinent—do ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... are impertinent, sir, you will repent it. I shall take care to inform his lordship ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... too dim, Miss Jean, in spite of the impertinent toss of your head, to see in you the likeness of the maid that led me such a wild dance in the days of my youth. And I promise you, if you do not smile on young Dick Ringgold and stop your outrageous treatment of him, I will not leave you a ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... afraid you won't find Diana, Iris," answered Mrs. Dolman, "for the simple reason that she has been a very impertinent, naughty little girl, and I have been obliged ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... his own person, yet he projected, and very nearly effected it, for his son Gilbert, by intermarriage with the Lady Jane Grey, and so, by that way, to bring it into his loins. Observations which, though they lie beyond us, and seem impertinent to the text, yet are they not much extravagant, for they must lead us and show us how the after- passages were brought about, with the dependences on the line of a collateral workmanship; and surely it may ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... received his order of banishment, and had written in the notes of invitation—M. Le Comte de Lusace will be there. This Count was the brother of the Dauphine, and this mention of him was deservedly thought impertinent. The King said, wittily enough, "Lambert and Moliere will be there." She scarcely ever spoke of the Cardinal de Bernis after his dismissal from ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... mocking, and even laughing at the word "judgment," as if the providence of God had no concern in the inflicting such a desolating stroke; and that the people calling upon God, as they saw the carts carrying away the dead bodies, was all enthusiastic, absurd, and impertinent. ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... "that you will not think me impertinent, but it occurred to me that you have noticed some apparent interest of mine in your movements since you ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... What can the impertinent flirt want with me? She knows I hate her too for being of the other party: however, I'll be as civil to her as I can. [Enter Miss STITCH.] Dear miss! your servant; this ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... lover is supposed to be himself a poet) was written in my nineteenth year, and consequently contains nearly as many faults as words. That I deemed it not wholly unoriginal is my only apology for its publication—an apology lame and poor, and somewhat impertinent to boot: so that if its infirmities meet with more laughter than charity in the world, I shall not raise my voice in its defence. I am aware how deficient the Poem is in point of art, and it is not without considerable misgivings ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... children pie. She believes in oatmeal as a staple diet, but their grandmother indulges them when they visit her. For once, I fancy, it won't hurt, and in the future I'll—Oh! what a lot I shall have to learn; and how delightfully exciting it all is! Mary, don't stare at me like that. It's impertinent. I know you don't mean it so, and you think I'm a little flighty. Well, I am. Very flighty, indeed! But—fancy old Madame ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... was a healthy-minded young man at the time, and I confess that it was a blow. Before I could fully recover, however, two or three of these admirers ran up to me radiating indignation, and told me that a public insult had been put upon me in the next room. I inquired its nature. It seemed that an impertinent fellow had dressed himself up as a preposterous parody of myself. I had drunk more champagne than was good for me, and in a flash of folly I decided to see the situation through. Consequently it was to meet the glare of the company and ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... had very little to do; and as it never suited me to reside there, there was never any one to look after him. However, I make no complaint. Here they are intolerable—intolerable, self-sufficient, impertinent upstarts, full of crotchets of their own; and the bishop is a weak, timid fool; as for me, I never go inside a church. I can't; I should be insulted if I did. It has however gone so far now that I shall take permission to bring the matter before ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... he answered, putting on his hat and buttoning his befrogged surtout; "and should you," he continued, drawing on his gloves, "should you stare at me with those damned, impertinent fishes' eyes of yours, I should, most certainly, pull your nose for you—on the ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... upon me) I should be impertinent, should I say anything upon this subject, when we have heard you but now discourse so fully against those that would persuade us that Epicurus's doctrine about the soul renders men more disposed and better pleased to die than Plato's doth. Zeuxippus therefore ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... "It's impertinent to congratulate you, Pleydon. You know what you've done better than any one else could. You have all our admiration." Linda watched the tenderness with which the other covered Simon Downige's vision in clay. Later, returning home after dinner, Arnaud speculated about Pleydon's ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... said the old gentleman, 'education a great thing: a very great thing! I never had any. I admire it the more in others. A very fine thing. Yes, yes. Tell me more of your history. Let me hear it all. No impertinent curiosity—no, no, no.' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... deportment was not a whit less impertinent or objectionable now than heretofore. After making a profound salutation to Aveline, which he thought was executed in the most courtly style, and with consummate grace, he observed in a loud whisper to his partner, "'Fore heaven! a matchless creature! a divinity! ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... in the public character of an author, he does it with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhyming tribe, that even he, an obscure, nameless Bard, shrinks aghast at the thought of being branded as—an impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on the world; and, because he can make a shift to jingle a few doggerel Scotch rhymes together, looking upon himself as a poet of no small ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... to shoot at a moment's notice; so as to be ready when some impertinent bully draws a weapon as you have done—yes, I always go ready for impertinent fellows wherever I ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... avowedly exceptional) as Shakespeare. Now, though the personal interest may be not illegitimate and sometimes great, the impersonal is certainly greater. Thanks to industrious prying, not always deserving the adjective impertinent, we know a great deal about Balzac; and it is by no means difficult to apply some of the knowledge to aid the study of his creation. But in reading the creation itself you never need this knowledge; it never forces itself on you. The hundreds, and almost thousands, of persons who form the company ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... "You're very impertinent. We all have to pay for each other all the while and for each other's virtues as well ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... will think me impertinent if I continue to ask questions," said the stranger; "but I shall be glad to know to what ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... charity, and teach your children never to eat an apple without offering somebody else half of it. Is the family frailty combativeness, keep out of the company of quick-tempered people, and never answer an impertinent question until you have counted a hundred both ways, and after you have written an angry letter keep it a week before you send it, and then burn it up! Is the family frailty timidity and cowardice, cultivate backbone, read the ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... was less funny than impertinent. She would be angry. It was better. She would respond icily and put ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... the Gospel Covenants which seem to me to be founded on the expressions and practice of Christ himself. If I were writing thus to worldly men I know I should expose myself to the imputation of excessive vanity or impertinent intrusion. But of you and Dr. Carey I am far from judging as of worldly men, and I therefore say that, if we are spared to have any future intercourse, it is my desire, if you permit, to discuss with both of you, in the spirit of meekness and conciliation, the points which now divide us, ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... that she was deeply smitten, and that she had no time to think about the opinions of other people. She had not lost her little determined manner; but she was all sincerity and good nature; there was nothing impertinent in her success, nothing personal in her consciousness of her strength. I never saw such a sweet fiancee as she when she quickly answered some of her young friends who asked her if she was content: "Bless me! indeed I am! I don't complain of ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... lived through the last generation, he would not need to be told that, some thirty or thirty-five years back, Mr. Waterton, a distinguished country gentleman of ancient family in Northumberland, publicly mounted and rode in top- boots a savage old crocodile, that was restive and very impertinent, but all to no purpose. The crocodile jibbed and tried to kick, but vainly. He was no more able to throw the squire than Sinbad was to throw the old scoundrel who used his back without paying for it, until he discovered a mode (slightly ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... we ought to have been more sensible. Two or three nights later, as I was sleeping in a special bed one of the men then absent had made by a big rock some yards from the main camp, I was awakened by a wolf crunching bones by the fire not eight feet from my head. I wanted to shoot the impertinent wretch, but his form was indistinct and my rifle lying by my side had to be trained his way. This took some time, as I had to move cautiously, and in the midst of my effort my elbow slipped. Like a shadow he flitted into the deeper gloom and I went to sleep again. I ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... face, "only think of our Wenna being married to Mr. Trelyon, and how happy and pleased and pretty she would look as they went walking together! And then how proud he would be to have so nice a wife! and he would joke about her and be very impertinent, but he would simply worship her all the same, and do everything he could to please her. And he would take her away and show her all the beautiful places abroad; and he would have a yacht, too; and he would give her a fine house in London. And don't you think our ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... questions, sir," the confident girl replied; and though the lawyer appealed to the court several times to "silence the insolence" of this witness before she was through; the court protected the witness and rebuked the lawyer for impertinent questions, and the insolence ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... the clergyman felt himself enforced to withdraw from the public gaze. There were rough people who were impertinent and timid people who turned out of their road to avoid him, so that he found his out-door walks and meditations almost confined to the night, unless he chose the grave-yard for its seclusion or strolled on the beach and listened to the wallowing and grunting of the Black Boars—the rocks off ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... brought him to the conclusion that sausages and mashed potatoes, twopence a plate, were the best food. Now, sausages once or twice a week for breakfast are not unpleasant. As lunch, even, with mashed potatoes, they become monotonous. At dinner they are impertinent. At the end of three days Dick loathed sausages, and, going, forth, pawned his watch to revel on sheep's head, which is not as cheap as it looks, owing to the bones and the gravy. Then he returned to sausages ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... many who place abundance of merit in going to church, although it be with no other prospect but that of being well entertained, wherein if they happen to fail, they return wholly disappointed. Hence it is become an impertinent vein among people of all sorts to hunt after what they call a good sermon, as if it were a matter of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various
... "the state of the Union" to express my admiration for the diligence, the good temper, and the full comprehension of public duty which has already been manifested by both the Houses; and I hope that it may not be deemed an impertinent intrusion of myself into the picture if I say with how much and how constant satisfaction I have availed myself of the privilege of putting my time and energy at their disposal alike in ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and my point of view of girls was taken entirely from them. I can remember very well my pause of dawning doubt and surprise when a girl first informed me she thought a man who told her she was pretty was impertinent. What bewildered me still more on that occasion was that this particular girl was so extremely beautiful that to talk about anything else but her beauty was a waste of time. It made all other topics trivial, and yet she seemed quite sincere in what she said, and refused to allow me to bring ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... on the table and narrowed his eyes at Hollis. "Don't think my questions impertinent," he said gravely, "for I assure you that nothing is further from my mind than a desire to pry into your affairs. But I take it you will need some advice—which, of course, you may disregard if you wish. I suppose you don't make a secret of ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... his brows go up in surprise. He was about to speak, but she went on with more than a touch of embarrassment. "Perhaps it sounds impertinent, but I believe I could help him in some ways,—if I had the chance. Anyhow, I should like to try. Please let him come and see me as often as ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... in his own country, giving freely his impressions of our civilization. His letters from New York appear to have been especially full, and, in offering the present synopsis of these to the American reader, it will not be impertinent to note certain peculiarities of the Altrurian attitude which the temperament of the writer has somewhat modified. He is entangled in his social sophistries regarding all the competitive civilizations; ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... deliverance. It was not a merry existence for a young man who heard the brave currents of life sounding around and calling him vaguely to come and adventure himself with the rest. He knew that the sons of the men who laughed at his grandfather laughed also at him, and regarded him with a somewhat impertinent wonder, but he dared explain himself to none, and dared seek companionship with none. This is why he looked so listless as he lounged toward the sea that fine afternoon. There was enough all round him to please ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... Samuel Johnson, champion of the heavy-weights of English literature, the "Great Moralist," the typical Englishman of his time, wrote the pamphlet called "Taxation no Tyranny." It is what an Englishman calls a "clever" production, smart, epigrammatic, impertinent, the embodiment of all that is odious in British assumption. No part of the Old World, he says, has reason to rejoice that Columbus discovered the New. Its inhabitants—the countrymen of Washington ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... might perhaps seem very impertinent if it grew serious in the conclusion. I would, nevertheless, leave it to the consideration of those who are the patrons of this monstrous trial of skill, whether or no they are not guilty, in some measure, of an affront ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... pocket-money by becoming one of the contributors to the newspaper. And how had it ended? The editor had declared that his list of writers was full, and begged leave to suggest that Mr. Vimpany should wait for the next vacancy. A most impertinent proposal! Had Lord Harry—a proprietor, remember—exerted his authority? Not he! His lordship had dropped the doctor "like a hot potato," and had meanly submitted to his own servant. What did Mr. Mountjoy think of such ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... is not of the theoretical kind, but it is a constant, earnest, sincere practice. It is neither demonstrative nor loud, but manifests itself in a quiet, practical way, and is always at work. It is not aggressive, which sometimes is troublesome if not impertinent. In him religion exhibits its loveliest features; it governs his conduct not only toward his servants but toward the natives, the bigoted Mohammedans, and all who come in contact with him. Without ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... him among you, and examine him, gentlemen. Question him with all confidence, without fear of his troubling you with idle chatter or impertinent queries. Do not be afraid of his taking up all your time, or making it impossible for you to get rid of him. You need not expect brilliant speeches that I have taught him, but only the frank and simple truth without preparation, ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau |
