"Impudence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the black eyes of the short Frenchman, and the black eyes looked back as steadily. John was fast learning to read the hearts and minds of men through their eyes, and what he saw in the dark depths pleased him. Here were cunning and yet courage; impudence and yet truth; caprice and yet honor. Apache or not, ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Marcella and suddenly stopped dead. "All this looking after! What are we all up to? Is it impudence or vanity, or what is it? I don't know! Anyway, I'm going below," and she ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... moment I heard it, and I've got a tongue-lashing in store for him. 'Taint the first I've had to give him, either, and it won't be the last if he ever runs foul of me again. They tell me, what's more, that Escalante's agent has had the impudence to come here a dozen times threatening Mr. Loring. Next time he comes you have him kicked out and charge it to me. That man's a thief, and so is one of the Escalantes—if not more than one. As for Loring, he's head and shoulders above any of the young fellows that have sailed with me, and when ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... critic during the years when he is old enough to be cautious about accepting new ideas and young enough to be enthusiastic concerning them after careful consideration, when he is so mature as not to desire to stagger the orthodox by the impudence of his opinions, and sufficiently youthful to be willing to shock the conservative by the audacity of his views. He may then seem jaded because he is not easily moved, but will be quicker to give encouragement to sincere effort, to perceive talent imperfectly manifested, ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... some crowning impudence to learn. Later, in the street, the officers and I met the prisoners, their witnesses, and their counsel emerging from a photographer's studio. The Territorial Delegate had been taken in a group with his acquitted thieves. The Bishop had declined to ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... you ever hear such impudence?' asked Hannah, turning to a neighbour. 'Just see that frightful dwarf—would you believe that he wants me to think he is ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... to entrust their work in the first place to architects of good family, and next inquired whether they had been properly educated, believing that one ought to trust in the honour of a gentleman rather than in the assurance of impudence. And the architects themselves would teach none but their own sons or kinsmen, and trained them to be good men, who could be trusted without hesitation in matters ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... Lords until he was formally admitted as a peer. But when the Lord Chancellor left the woolsack to congratulate him, and with a smiling face extended his hand, the embittered young peer bowed coldly and stiffly, and simply held out two or three of his fingers,—an act of impudence for which there ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... European grapes, he had thriven in our soil, but turned out a coarser product than nature intended. He talked with oppressive brilliancy about everything under the sun, patronized me (as indeed he had always done), and behaved with a certain effusive amiability, the impudence of ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... with us," said George: "and you have the impudence to insult us, with what you term your good advice. Pray, Mr. Consequence, do you remember to whom you ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie
... the condolatory Address to Lady Jersey on the picture-abduction by our Regent, and have published them—with my name, too, smack—without even asking leave, or inquiring whether or no! Damn their impudence, and damn every thing. It has put me out of patience, and so, I shall say no more about it."—Letter to Moore, August 3, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 118. For Byron's letter to Lady Jersey, of May 29, 1814, and a note from her with reference to a lost(?) copy of the verses, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... the Marquise, taking the expression in her cousin's eyes for an answer, "drop him, I beg of you. Taking an illustrious name in that way!—Why, it is a piece of impudence that will meet with its desserts in society. It is his mother's name, I dare say; but just remember, dear, that the King alone can confer, by a special ordinance, the title of de Rubempre on the son of a daughter of the ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... subsequently it turned out that the Deb had, with infinite consideration, wished us to remain in order to rest ourselves after our long journey. This may have been merely said to shelter the Wandipore man, who had the impudence to send one evening to us saying, that the Deb and Durmah were coming to Wandipore next morning, and that we were to meet them there, and return the same evening to Punukha. This turned out untrue. Pemberton was at last compelled to write to the Deb, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... like the way ye looked at me. 'Twas wanting respect, and I bethought me I would lessen the impudence of your expression. Have ye any other foolish questions for me?" And he looked again from Green to Rotherby, including both in his inquiry. "No?" He rose. "In that case, if you'll ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... a challenge to Drouth, Cocked his flap-hat with the tosspot-feather, Twisted his thumb in his red moustache, Jingled his huge brass spurs together, Tightened his waist with its Buda sash, And then, with an impudence nought could abash, Shrugged his hump-shoulder, to tell the beholder, For twenty such knaves he would laugh but the bolder: And so, with his sword-hilt gallantly jutting, And dexter-hand on his haunch abutting, Went the little man, Sir ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... the manager; 'he sent his assistant down the river with a note to me in these terms: "Clear this poor devil out of the country, and don't bother sending more of that sort. I had rather be alone than have the kind of men you can dispose of with me." It was more than a year ago. Can you imagine such impudence!' 'Anything since then?' asked the other hoarsely. 'Ivory,' jerked the nephew; 'lots of it—prime sort—lots—most annoying, from him.' 'And with that?' questioned the heavy rumble. 'Invoice,' was the reply fired out, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... important personage. "Where did you get such courage? Where did you get such ideas? What impudence towards their chiefs and superiors has spread among the young generation!" The prominent personage apparently had not observed that Akaky Akakiyevich was already in the neighbourhood of fifty. If he could be called a young man, it must have been in ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... friend, and a first-class fighter, only takes a thousand men, and makes a clean sweep of the Pasha's army, which had the impudence to bar our way. Thereupon back we came to Cairo, our headquarters, and now for ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... be, Master Impudence," replied Mr Fosset, all genial again and laughing too; "but they'll soon ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... she glanced into her tent she saw the package Isbel had carried. It lay on her bed. Ellen stared blankly. "The—the impudence of him!" she ejaculated. Then she kicked the package out of the tent. Words and action seemed to liberate a dammed-up hot fury. She kicked the package again, and thought she would kick it into the smoldering camp-fire. But somehow she ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... cringed up to the table, with an embarrassed smile, which yet had a touch of impudence about the corners of ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "some one treads the laws of peace under his feet, forming projects which tend to my ruin, he could not, without the highest degree of impudence, (impudentissime,) pretend that after this I should consider him as a sacred person, who ought not to be touched; in other words, that I should betray myself, and abandon the care of my own preservation, in order to give way ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... prayed for his speedy recovery, because his life and presence were so necessary to divers things then of great moment to be despatched." When this Puritanical fanatic was presently disappointed, Bishop Burnet narrates "he had the impudence to say to ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... The colossal impudence of it! To dare to come to me with a tale like that, you shameless rascal! Why, if it's legal to clear yourself that way, we should be stripping ladies of their jewellery on the public highways ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... to look at him, steadily and quizzically, and his colour slowly rose and deepened under the glance, until not impudence itself could have denied that he was blushing. And at this Archie lost some of his control. He changed his stick from one hand to the other, and - "O, for God's sake, don't be an ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... event the Americans, it was generally agreed, would be sure to defeat us for they would find us worn out and short of ammunition owing to our struggle with the Spaniards. I concluded by asking the gallant Admiral to excuse me for an amount of frankness that night appear to border on impudence, and assured him of the fact that I was actuated only by a desire to have a perfectly clear understanding in the interest ...
— True Version of the Philippine Revolution • Don Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy
... the calamities of their house. You have seen that in this misery and distress the sons of the Nabob were involved, and that two of them were wounded in an attempt to escape: and yet this man has had the impudence to declare his doubts of the Nabob's having had any children in the place, though the account of what was going on had been regularly transmitted to him. After this, what is there in his conduct that we ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... came. He gave himself the effect of being in Mrs. Erwin's confidence, apparently without her authority, and he bestowed a share of this intimacy upon Lydia. He had the manner of a man who had been taken up by people above him, and the impudence of a talent which had not justified the expectations formed of it. He softly reproached Mrs. Erwin for running away after service before he could speak to her, and told her how much everybody ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... "you will have to suffer an inharmonious son of Satan who makes a discordant Hades out of an execrable piano. He had the impudence to tell me that he came from the Conservatoire. He, with as much ear for music as an organ-grinder's monkey! He said to me—Paragot—that I played the violin not too badly! I foresee a hideous doom overhanging that young man, my children. Before the week is out ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... two dastardly prisoners the impudence to mock me thus, and propose that I should wed such a loathsome creature as that? They shall die for it! Away with that hussy and her nurse, and the fellow who brought them here; cast them into ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... in Caesar's Praetorship,[465] but a disagreeable incident happened in his family. Publius Clodius,[466] a man of Patrician rank, was distinguished both by wealth and eloquence, but in arrogance and impudence he was not inferior to the most notorious scoundrels in Rome. Clodius was in love with Pompeia, Caesar's wife, and Pompeia was in no way averse to him. But a strict watch was kept over the woman's apartment, and Aurelia, Caesar's mother, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... ill-will to, and the Rakshasas chastise, that man who committeth aggression, be it ever so little. Beyond the summit of this Kailasa cliff, is seen the path of the celestial sages. If any one through impudence goeth beyond this, the Rakshasas slay him with iron darts and other weapons. There, O child, during the Parvas, he that goeth about on the shoulders of men, even Vaisravana is seen in pomp and grandeur surrounded by the Apsaras. And when that lord of all the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the vital fact. The vital fact is simply slavery. Most of these Dutchmen have always felt like slave-owners. Most of these Jews have always felt like slaves. Now that they are on top, they have a particular and curious kind of impudence, which is only known among slaves. But the Liberal journalists will do their best to suggest that the South African wrong consisted in what they call Martial Law. That is, that there is something specially wicked about men ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... their faction was of itself most damnable, but still it could be borne. To ask for money from America, to put in a claim for coppers which might have flowed into Anti-Parnellite pockets, shows a degradation, an unspeakable impudence for which the Freeman cannot find adequate adjectives. The priest-ridden journal speaks of its fellow patriots as caluminators and liars, tries to describe their "baseness," their "inconceivable insolence and inconceivable stupidity," and breaks down in the effort. A ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... to rouse himself a little from his passivity, stimulated despite himself by the impudence of this rogue. He stretched ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... to improve as we advanced farther into Bundelkhand in appearance, manners, and intelligence. There is a bold bearing about the Bundelas, which at first one is apt to take for rudeness or impudence, but which in time he finds not to ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... duty; to establish banks in connection with the mining enterprises, these to have the power to issue notes; to construct telegraphs and telephones; to organize auxiliary syndicates; and to establish its own police. It would seem that English impudence could hardly go further, though time was to prove that there were still other things to be borne. ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... strictest neutrality. If Schuyler at Albany knew they visited me, his dragoons would gallop into Varick Manor and hang me to my barn door! Here am I, I say, doing my best to keep 'em quiet, and there's Sir John Johnson and all that bragging crew from Guy Park combating me—nay, would you believe their impudence?—striving to win me to arm my tenantry for this King of England, who has done nothing for me, save to make a knight of me to curry favor with the Dutch patroons in New York province—or state, as they call it now! And now I have you to ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... masters of his arms, and tie his hands together, before he recovered his senses, when, learning his situation he affected surprise, demanded to know by what authority we used a gentleman in that manner, and had the impudence to threaten us with a prosecution for robbery. In the meantime, we perceived Strap coming up with a crowd of people, armed up with different kinds of weapons; and among the rest a farmer, who no sooner perceived the thief, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... an admirable essay in Plutarch, "On the manner by which we may praise ourselves without exciting envy in others." The sage seems to consider self-praise as a kind of illustrious impudence, and has one very striking image: he compares these eulogists to famished persons, who finding no other food, in their rage have eaten their own flesh, and thus shockingly nourished themselves by their own substance. ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Widow?' Rather a good title for an article, isn't it?" These sentences are bad because into an atmosphere of more or less naturalistic comedy they simply introduce a farcical exaggeration of Mr. Shaw's opinion of the incompetence and impudence of journalists. Mr. Shaw's comedies are repeatedly injured by a hurried alteration of atmosphere in this manner. Comedy, as well as tragedy, must create some kind of illusion, and the destruction of the illusion, ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... peace which is reported directly and indirectly from Germany—coming from Switzerland, from Rome, from Washington—has made the English and the French very angry: no, "angry" isn't quite the right word. It has made them very determined. They feel insulted by the impudence of the Germans, who, since they know they are bound to lose, seem to be turning heaven and earth to induce neutrals to take their view of peace. People are asking here, "If they are victorious, why doesn't their fleet come ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... faithful beast that he touched neither food nor drink. The cock, on the other hand, gaily appropriated the food intended for the dog, and he and his wives enjoyed a banquet. Outraged by such unfeeling behavior, the dog said to the cock: "How great is thy impudence, and how insignificant thy modesty! Thy master is but a step from the grave, and thou eatest and makest merry." The cock's reply was: "Is it my fault if our master is a fool and an idiot? I have ten wives, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... two hours the court retired, and I was left with a strong guard, to prevent the impertinence, and probably the malice of the rabble, who were very impatient to crowd about me as near as they durst; and some of them had the impudence to shoot their arrows at me, as I sat on the ground by the door of my house, whereof one very narrowly missed my left eye. But the colonel ordered six of the ring-leaders to be seized, and thought no punishment so proper ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... meet with what some call an interjective phrase; such as, Ungrateful wretch! impudence of hope! folly in the extreme! what ingratitude! ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... implements, stroked back the black hair that had fallen over his face, and removing the reed-pen from behind his ear, stuck in a sprig of dark blue larkspur. Then he tripped to the door, opened it, looked at the girl with the cool impudence of a connoisseur in beauty, bowed slightly, and pointing the way out said with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and the rest of you, have only half haltered the young colt. His training so far is no credit to you! The way that cool bully, Colonel Philibert, walked off with him out of Beaumanoir, was a sublime specimen of impudence. Ha! Ha! The recollection of it has salted my meat ever since! It was admirably performed! although, egad, I should have liked to run my sword through Philibert's ribs! and not one of you all was man enough to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... "Like his damned impudence!" broke out Sir Morton again, resuming with some reluctance his seat at the breakfast table, and chopping at the fried bacon on his plate till the harder bits flew far and wide,—"'Happy to reimburse me!'—the snivelling puppy! Why the ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... spoke the truth. When in his "club," in order to be thought a man of intrigue, he would steal out quietly, and then in disguise return and call for himself, or leave a letter for himself. He not unfrequently mistook impudence and malice for wit, and looked upon a modest blush in woman as a mark of "guilt or ill-breeding."—W. Congreve, The Way of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... vestibule two low passages led; I took one of them, and found it branch into many, all narrow and irregular. At a spot where was scarce room for two to pass, a page ran against me. He started back in terror, but having scanned me, gathered impudence, puffed himself ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... there rose an uproar of inhuman bawling. Lanyard went to the private door, hailed one of the husky authors of the din, an itinerant news-vendor, and disbursed a nickel coin for one cent's worth of spushul uxtry and four cents' worth of howling impudence. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... shop with her dancing skirts and smiled brightly at everyone. Her face looked fresh and creamy, and on one side her hair was coming down, loosened by the wind which blew through the markets. Gavard grasped her hands, while she with merry impudence resumed: "I'll bet that you were talking about me just as I came in. Tell me what you ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... honesty, that amused her companion greatly; "at least," she continued in a quieter tone, "I don't feel good, and the queen often tells me that I am very naughty, though I sometimes think she doesn't mean it. But when I think of that—that monster and his insult to my dear Hafrydda, and his impudence in wanting me. Oh! I could tear him limb from limb, and put the bits in the fire so that they could never come ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... dear old friend. I meant to have run up to town to see you the instant I set foot in England, but you must admit that my dear, long-lost mother had prior claims. Pardon, also, my impudence in now asking you to come and see me. You must come. I will take no denial, for I want you to rejoice at my wedding! Yes, as old Nell once said to me, 'God sends us a blessing sometimes when we least expect ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... my horse into a gallop, glad to escape from so strange a being. I could give you many instances of behaviour equally singular, and which betrayed a mixture of shrewdness and folly, of kindness and impudence, which justified, perhaps, the common notion that his intellects were unsound. Nothing was more remarkable than his impenetrability to ridicule and censure. You might revile him for hours, and he would listen to you with invincible composure. To awaken ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... of a feat, anyhow. On getting on to the pavement, I found myself in the presence of a sort of night watchman, who was bawling the hours through the street, and who asked me insolently what I was doing there. I thrashed him for his impudence, and the gentle exercise did me good, as it set my blood well in circulation again. Before getting back to the inn, I stopped under a street lamp, opened my pocket-book, and saw with pleasure that my million was not wet. The leather was thick, and the ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... induce the leader to keep his course straightforward, but an address on the part of the charioteer as nearly as can be supernatural.... And, for my own part, I think leaders of tandems are particularly apt to turn short round. And the impudence with which they do it, in some instances, is past all description, staring all the while full in the faces of those in the carriage, as much as to say, 'I must have a peep at the fools behind that are pretending to manage me'." —Thinks ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... who, if you belonged to my ship, instead of marrying Donna Agnes, I would marry you to the gunner's daughter, by G—d; two midshipmen sporting plain clothes in the best society in Palermo, and having the impudence to ask a post-captain to dine with them! To ask me and address me as 'Tartar,' and 'my dear fellow!' you infernal young scamps!" continued Captain Tartar, now boiling with rage, and striking his fist on the table so as to set ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... related by Hesychius, (de Viris Illustribus,) Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 13,) and Suidas, (tom. iii. p. 501.) Such flattery is incredible! —Nihil est quod credere de se Non possit, cum laudatur Diis aequa potestas. Fontenelle (tom. i. p. 32—39) has ridiculed the impudence of the modest Virgil. But the same Fontenelle places his king above the divine Augustus; and the sage Boileau has not blushed to say, "Le destin a ses yeux n'oseroit balancer" Yet neither Augustus nor ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... to-night did not tend to alter my determination. I then hurried out of the room, and by way of completely avoiding him, cross'd a very formal circle of old ladies, and went and seated myself between Lady Euston and Lady Beverly. He had the impudence to follow me, and in face of the whole circle to enter into a loud explanation of his conduct, begging my pardon for all the offences he had ever committed against me, either on this night or in former times, and assuring me that he had never ceased ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... fraudulent disguise, argued the case under false pretences, but actually took the words from the judge's own mouth, and decided her case on her own responsibility. I venture to say that such unparalleled impudence was never witnessed out of the court of a justice of the peace, and that even Judge —— (unless the editor of the —— had interfered) would have marched this false pretender out of court, or have deposited her in the Tombs on an ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... inconsequently: "So I was a fool, after all. Well, young man, you will never be as good-looking as your father, but I trust you have an honester nature. However, bygones are bygones. Is the old rascal still living? and was it he that had the impudence to send you ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... the governor, to which we were conducted, is situated three parts of a mile from the town, which I did not enter during my stay. It would not have done to expose myself to the familiar impudence of the people, who had known me during my visit under very different circumstances. Besides, my time was fully taken up with business matters; so fully, that I scarcely had time even to write one or two ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... various churches had sent missionaries to that benighted land to reclaim its inhabitants from barbarism and heathenism. These emissaries were not received with the enthusiastic gratitude which they deserved, and some of the Porsslanese had the impudence to assert that they were a civilized people when their new teachers had been naked savages. They proved their barbarism, however, by indulging in the most unreasonable prejudices against a foreign religion, and when cornered in argument they ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... and his editors supply no arguments or mottoes for his poems; while those printed by Adami in his edition of Campanella are, like mine, meant obviously to serve as signposts to the student. It may savour of impudence to ticket and to label little masterpieces, each one of which, like all good poems, is a microcosm of very varied meanings. Yet I have some authority in modern times for this impertinence; and, when it is acknowledged that the titles merely profess to ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... you do it. They are mistreated; they are made wretched, and by just such men as Brooks, too. What does he care for a woman's misery? And your father's so blind that he doesn't see it. But I see it. And I oughtn't to say it, but I will—he has the impudence to tell your father that I give too much money to the poor. It's none of ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... was closed with quiet decorum and the little sitting-room grew darker. Two big tears rolled over and Buz sniffed helplessly, for his handkerchief was in the pocket of the jacket lately worn with such gay impudence by Miss Elsmaria Buttermish. ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... he were almost astounded at the impudence of the proposition; but he replied to it by the excuse that he had made before. "Unless you speak Italian I'm afraid you would not get on very ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... pleasure about town, which we have in such perfection in Wycherly and Congreve, such as Sparkish, Witwond, Petulant, &c., both in the sentiments and the style of writing"; and Tharsalio in "The Widow's Tears," and Ludovico in "May-Day," have the hard impudence and cynical distrust of virtue, the arrogant and glorying self-unrighteousness, that distinguish another class of characters which the dramatists of the age of Charles and Anne were unwearied in providing with insolence and repartees. Occasionally we have a jest which Falstaff ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... table and put a pair of phones to his ears. Then he began to tune. First there came to him a discordant confusion of static and other noises, including an admixture of "ham impudence". ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... the rogue's impudence occurred on Easter Day in 1912. We were breakfasting with Madame Vyrubova's sister at her house just off the Nevski. With us was Boris Stuermer and two minor officials of the Court, and we were awaiting the coming of the Tsaritza's favourite lady ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... else. We don't do that style of business here,' said Mr Mould. 'Like their impudence to propose it. Who ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... he showed! And yet he was in deadly earnest, too. She canvassed her many suitors in her mind, she tried artfully to trap him into some betrayal; the game thrilled her with a keen delight. At last she realized there was but one who possessed such brazen impudence, and told him she had known him from the first, whereat he laughed with the abandon of a pagan and renewed the fervor of ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... Brazen impudence, unprincipled greed, ignorance, cruelty, are vices in him too; modesty, patience, obedience, cleanliness, and aspiration, are virtues in him too. If those vices were to receive a new development, these virtues a new check, by setting before women the higher industries and prizes of ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... tell you, Dalton, this Rosecouleur is a devil. Condescend to him! be haughty and—what do you call it?—urbane to him! I defy you to do it, with all your impudence. Why, his valet, that shadow that glides after him, is too much for me. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... after you had gone away ma'am," she said, with extreme severity of manner, and with excessive carefulness in her choice of words, "the Person you mention had the impudence to send a letter to you. The messenger was informed, by my master's orders, that you had gone abroad, and he and his letter were both sent about their business together. Not long afterward, ma'am, I happened, while drinking tea with Mrs. Macallan's housekeeper, to hear of the Person again. ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... of Christ 1200 he sent an embassy to Prester John, and desired to have his daughter to wife. But when Prester John heard that Chinghis Kaan demanded his daughter in marriage he waxed very wroth, and said to the Envoys, "What impudence is this, to ask my daughter to wife! Wist he not well that he was my liegeman and serf? Get ye back to him and tell him that I had liever set my daughter in the fire than give her in marriage to him, and that he deserves death at my hand, rebel and traitor that he is!" ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... weeks. On Monday we read of modern London, and of transports, fights, etc. (in the present war). We were engrossed in the news when the Boer guns began to play. Three shots were fired, and we had to admire the impudence of an enemy who acted as if the coming Column gave him no concern. The missiles hit nobody, although one was facetiously alleged to have winged a locust. These insects swarmed the land—it was difficult to avoid hitting them—and one was not missed. We got ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... precisely what our working-men object to doing here," said the manufacturer. "In that last interview of mine with the walking delegate he had the impudence to ask me why my men should work for my living ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... most thoroughly bestial creature that ever I set my eyes upon," said the archdeacon. "But what are we to do with him? Impudent scoundrel! To have to cross-examine me about out-houses, and Sunday travelling, too. I never in my life met his equal for sheer impudence. Why, he must have thought we ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... not bear the slightest mention of the incorrigible guilt of the nation without dissolving into tears; especially when he happened to advert unto the impudence of that hypocrisy which reconciled goodness and villainy, and made it possible for men to be saints and devils both together; whereby religion became ruinous to itself, and faith became instructed to ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... women who can resist the tyranny of fashion. I like introducing people. Sir John Drone—Father Benwell. Father Benwell—Doctor Wybrow. Ah, yes, you know the doctor by reputation? Shall I give you his character? Personally charming; professionally detestable. Pardon my impudence, doctor, it is one of the consequences of the overflowing state of my health. Another turn, Matilda—and a little faster this time. Oh, how I wish I ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... one Sosis, notorious in the city for his bad conduct and his impudence, yet a favorite with the people, for the very reason that they liked to see it made a part of popular privileges to carry free speech to this excess of license. This man, out of a design against Dion, stood up one day in an assembly, and, having sufficiently railed at ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Was ever a man before me expected to enter into formal, direct, and undisguised slavery? Did ever man before him confess an attempt to decoy a man into such an alleged contract, not to say anything of the impudence of regularly pleading it? If such an attempt be wicked and unlawful (and I am sure no one ever doubted it), I have only to confess his charge, and to admit myself his dupe, to make him pass, on his own showing, for the most consummate villain that ever lived. The ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... Your duty? Curse your impudence, sir. Your duty was to keep off my grounds. Talk of duty to me! Why—why—why, ye misbegotten poacher, ye'll be teaching me my A B C next! Roarin' like a bull in the bushes down there! Boys? Boys? Boys? Keep ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... ain't it? Good-bye to ye. Shan't see ye again very soon, I guess; unless it's before the Grand Jury." And with these cracked words he finally departed, leaving me, for the moment, in no small wonderment at his frantic impudence. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... for his impudence,' said the Captain; 'but never fear, Miss Brady, I shall not touch him; your FAVOURITE is safe from me.' So saying, he stooped down and picked up the bunch of ribands which had fallen at Nora's feet, and handing it to her, said in a sarcastic tone, 'When ladies make presents to gentlemen, it ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... inhabitants seemed more an eating and drinking sort of people than any thing else. Their ferries through the town are a very great nuisance, as one cannot always have a doit about them; and a surly, brown, Dutch rascal at one time had the impudence to stop me till I had to borrow from a friend. The statue of Erasmus is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... George, and of course everbody congratulated him, and there was a great shaking of hands, and giving of good wishes, and drinking his health in mavro tchai,—that's a horrid mess of eggs, and scraped cheese, and sour milk, and Moldavian wine, which these Danube fellows have the impudence to call 'black tea,' as if it was anything like the good old tea that we Russians drink at home! (I've always thought, for my part, that tea ought to grow in Russia; for it's a shame that those Chinese idolaters should have such grand ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... she will not be expected, in conventional households, to behave with equal deference to persons younger than herself. Such deception would be unpardonable. But it is anything but kind to allow a young girl to drift into careless and familiar habits of speech bound to lead to dismissal for "impudence" in her next "place." There is a type of person, for example, who seems to believe that, in order to show that he is "as good as anybody else," it is necessary to be rude and familiar. But good manners are not necessarily associated with servility. And it is no kindness to ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... cap jauntily on one side of his head, throwing an additional quantity of impudence into his face, and placing his hands on the hips, so that the elbows stuck out on each ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... impossible to regard him as he might have regarded another father-in-law. He had often heard the Duke spoken of as a man who could become awful if he pleased, almost without an effort. He had been told of the man's mingled simplicity, courtesy, and self-assertion against which no impudence or raillery could prevail. And now he ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... attenuation of the dogmas of Scripture was allowed at St. Sulpice; the fathers, the councils, and the doctors were looked upon as the sources of Christianity. Proof of the divinity of Christ was not sought in Mohammed or the battle of Marengo. These theological buffooneries, which by force of impudence and eloquence extorted admiration in Notre-Dame, had no such effect upon these serious-minded Christians. They never thought that the dogma had any need to be toned down, veiled, or dressed up to suit the ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... back with trouble from the place where she sat. The m'teoulin was furious with rage at her, that he had taken such pains for nothing. He said, "This serves you right for your impudence and forwardness. Learn your proper place, and never undertake to do what is none of your business." He then condoled with the husband, but said, "If you could give me all you could think of, I could never get your ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... and he did not want Jack to talk about her. It seemed like laying hands on something sacred and secluded. So he said, "Really, I don't know as yet—I only had one talk with her. I can't tell. I thought her delightful; like you with your impudence left out." ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... The impudence and thinly veiled hostility in the man's tone were unmistakable. Hazeltine hesitated, seemed about to speak, and then silently led the ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... and peeping business, the ready laugh followed by bashfulness and self-effacement, the old unalterable impudence, which is not least amidst the prima mobilia of the childish mind. In another moment, he felt, the thing would forget its respect and return his grimaces, so he ignored it and fixed his attention on Meeus and the trembling wretches ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... "That's just like your impudence, Andy Churchill," said Mrs. Hepsibah Fields to herself, as she laid her smooth loaves of bread-dough into their tins and proceeded energetically to scrape the board. "You always did have a way with you, wheedling folks ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... Luigi had replied sharply that he would go, just the same, and that he, Count Luigi, would see to that himself. Also, that upon Count Angelo's complaining about being kept on his legs so long, Count Luigi retorted with apparent surprise, "Your legs!—I like your impudence!" ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her days we may not dwell long. The scene is too pitiful, too harrowing. In vain she implores an interview with Catherine, who blazes into anger at the request. "The impudence of the wretch," she exclaims, "is beyond all bounds! She must be mad. Tell her if she wishes any improvement in her lot to cease the comedy she is playing." Prince Galitzin, Grand Chancellor, exerts all his skill in vain to force a confession of imposture from her. ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... courtesy and refinement, walkin' side by side with pretentius vulgarity, and mebby poverty bringin' up the rear. Genius and folly, honesty and affectation, gentleness and sweetness, and brazen impudence, and hatred and malice, and envy and uncharitableness. All languages and peoples under the sun, and differing more than stars ever ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... with not a sign of sorrow or of shame about her, offering (in the teeth of her deserved dismissal), actually offering as a favor to stay over Christmas and to see them through. The naked impudence of ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... Worcestershire Nobber? What for the French prints ogling him from all sides of the room; those regular stunning slap-up out-and-outers? And Calverley spelling bad, and calling him Hokey-fokey, confound her impudence! The idea of being engaged to a dinner at the Elephant and Castle at Richmond, with that old woman (who was seven and thirty years old, if she was a day), filled his mind with dreary disgust now, instead of that ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... book of Miltones against the late King,[309] wt Claudius Salmasius answer.[310] Surely it shal stand as long as the world stands for a everstanding memorandum of his impudence and ignorance: its nothing but a faggot of iniury (calomnies), theirs not on right principle either moral or politick to be found in it al; its penned by a pedant, a scoolmaster, on who deserved at the cheapest to be torn in peices by 4 horses. Neither ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... name and character of the brig in sight. The smallest of the young gentlemen might have done that duty, as well as the captain, or myself. It is the belief of those who are best informed, that the stranger, who has the impudence to lie quietly within long range of a royal cruiser, without showing his colors, is neither more nor less than the famous 'Skimmer of the Seas;' a man against whose seamanship I will say nothing, but who has none of the best reputation ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... raised their eyes and recognizing Stephane, they stopped and took counsel together. The somewhat brutal impudence of the young Russian had given him a bad reputation, and the little peasants would rather have turned back than encounter his morose jesting ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... to express his mind. A messenger arrived at Stockholm bearing despatches which emphatically disavowed the declarations of the partisans of Bernadotte. "I cannot think," said Napoleon, "that these individuals could have had the impudence to assert themselves to be charged with any mission whatever." The official announcement of the elevation of the Prince of Pontecorvo was already on its way to Paris. "I was little prepared for this news," replied Napoleon to the letter of King Charles XIII. He wished to wrest ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... move out. The red man rubbed his eyes. “He has gone South for the week,” he repeated. “Now that’s just like his impudence. Did he say that I was to give ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... either! Much you know about it!" the older girl flashed back, sticking out her tongue. But the fear in her eyes belied her impudence. ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... Rattar has the impudence to tell me he is letting the farm of Castleknowe to that fellow ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... this mad notion was a fine thing! I declare it is worse than Bertha's business; and you so much older! At least Hastings was a man of family, and this is a Yankee adventurer picked out of the back of a ditch by that young dog, Sandbrook. Only a Yankee could have had the impudence! I declare you are laughing all the time. What have you to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... inclination to fall at the Saint's feet and kiss her robe, and the temptation to knock Naumann down while he was adjusting her arm. All this was impudence and desecration, and he repented ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... like Wildney, who was a very bright, engaging, spirited boy, with a dash of pleasant impudence about him which took Eric's fancy. He had been one of the most mischievous of the lower fellows, but, although clever, did little or nothing in school, and was in the worst repute with the masters. Until ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... to him and shouted, 'What the bloody 'ell's the matter wi' yer?' As cool as you like old Peter replied, 'Cacoethes loquendi.' Of course Hyndman hadn't the remotest idea what that meant and said, 'None o' yer bleed'n' impudence, else I'll land yer inter trouble.' He didn't ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... "Infernal impudence!" said a bystander; "wanted to come and take a quiet look at his work, I reckon—didn't expect ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to have heard me for they rang again, upon which I opened the door wider and spoke more decidedly. Imagine my surprise when they rang again. I flung the door open, and was about to ask them what they meant by their impudence, when one of the little group upon my doorstep said, "If you please, sir, it's the baby." Never was there such a change—from the outraged householder to the professional man. "Pray step in, madam," said ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... me, and will be very pleased if she can help you. And here," says he, turning to the three younger ladies, "here are my three braw dauchters. A fair question to ye, Mr. Davie: which of the three is the best favoured? And I wager he will never have the impudence to propound honest Allan ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... away, to see me ride. After waiting a reasonable time, out of respect for their having accommodated me with quarters for the night, and no signs of the Sheikh appearing, I determine to submit to their impudence no longer; they gather around me as before, but presenting my revolver and assuming an angry expression, I threaten instant destruction to the next one laying hands on either myself or the bicycle; they then ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... swiftly through the little hamlet; the children had gathered by a gateway to watch us. Though so far from the world, they were not altogether without a spice of the impudence of the city arab. A tall and portly gentleman from town once chanced to visit this 'coombe-bottom' on business, and strolled down the 'street' in all the glory of shining boots, large gold watch-chain, black coat ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... thy debt! oh, impudence! Did I not purchase The land left by thy father? that rich land, That had continued in Wellborn's name Twenty descents; which, like a riotous fool, Thou didst make sale of? Is not here The deed that ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... a legal and constitutional right of secession, the writer has not the impudence to express—and scarcely to entertain—an opinion. That is a question for American lawyers and publicists to discuss and determine; the obfuscated British mind being entitled to affirm only this: that there seems ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... evidence: what judgement they have, they renounce by principle, in these sublime and mysterious subjects: or if they were ever so willing to employ it, passion and a heated imagination disturb the regularity of its operations. Their credulity increases his impudence: and his impudence ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... deprive her of her name. Hence it is that vice, though triumphant in the world, is still obliged to disguise itself under the mask of hypocrisy or sham honesty, to gain the esteem it has not the confidence to expect, if it should go bare-faced. Thus, notwithstanding its impudence, it pays a forced homage to virtue, by endeavouring to adorn itself with her fairest outside in order to receive the honour and respect she commands from men. It is true virtuous men are exposed to censure; ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... was all, of course, above criticism: sublime, adorable. To me the frankness of it and the impudence of it was, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... quickly and faced two brutish looking men, swearing at his awkwardness and cursing his impudence for being in ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... printing-office and shoot the turtle-doves; and he decorated his proclamation with quips and quirks of his own invention, and with personal allusions to his employer, who was auctioneer as well as constable. But though he was hail-fellow with every boy in town, and although every boy rejoiced in his impudence, he was so panoplied in the awfulness of his relation to the constabulary functions that, however remote it was, no boy would have thought of trifling with him when he was on duty. If ever a boy holloed something at him when he was ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... situation. As for my own predicament, I was in no mood to brood on the hazards of this mad adventure, a hundredfold more hazardous than my fog-smothered eavesdropping at Memmert. The crisis, I knew, had come, and the reckless impudence that had brought me here must serve me still and extricate me. Fortune loves rough wooing. I backed my luck ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... right to be worse or even as bad as men; and it is shameful that intelligent women should claim such a right, or even dare to mention it at all." No human being or class of human beings would venture to talk thus to equals. It is only because women are dependent on men that such cowardly impudence can be dished out to them day after day by puny legislators and editors, themselves often reeking in social corruption which should banish them forever from the presence of womanhood. Yours for an even-handed scale in morals as well as ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... chief or Earee Rahie; and one of the fellows with great gravity said he was the Earee Rahie, and that he had come to desire I would bring the ship into the harbour. I could not help laughing at his impudence: however I gave him a few nails for his coconuts and he left us. Immediately after a double canoe in which were ten men came alongside; among them was a young man who recollected and called me by ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... without a word even in a minute history of discovery, if he had not, like Ktesias with Herodotus, won a hearing for himself and drawn men's minds away from the truth-telling original that he travestied, by the sheer force of impudence. ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... convinced my friend meant to say "would not have had the infernal impudence," but softened the expression, being habitually careful ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "The New Republic,"—"The rogue is clever!" He has read a good deal, he has an active mind, a smooth redundancy of expression, a talent for caricature, a fondness for epigram and paradox, a useful shallowness, and an amusing impudence. He has no practical knowledge of mankind, no experience of life, no commanding point of view, and no depth of insight. He has no conception of the meaning and quality of the problems with whose exterior aspects he so prettily trifles. He has constructed a Science ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... unlucky enough to lose a silver buckle at Windsor, she asked Wild to recover it, and offered the hero twenty pounds for his trouble. 'Zounds, Madam,' says he, 'you offer nothing. It cost the gentleman who took it forty pounds for his coach, equipage, and other expenses to Windsor.' His impudence increased with success, and in the geniality of his cups he was wont to boast his amazing rogueries: 'hinting not without vanity at the poor Understandings of the Greatest Part of Mankind, and ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley |
