"Temerity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you?" he asked, wondering at his own temerity. They went together some little distance without Paul speaking a word. He felt he had much to say to her, and yet, now that the opportunity had come, he was speechless. He noticed, too, that the people in the street were watching them, ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... it all, he concludes as follows: "Let no person, therefore, have the temerity to violate the contents of our present confirmation, or to contravene it. Should any one dare to do so, let him know that he will incur the indignation of Almighty God, and that of His blessed Apostles, ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... acquired a strange zest and a hint of danger. And as for the rider, he appeared to have forgotten Jane in the wonder of this lovely child playing about him. At first he was much the shyer of the two. Gradually her confidence overcame his backwardness, and he had the temerity to stroke her golden curls with a great hand. Fay rewarded his boldness with a smile, and when he had gone to the extreme of closing that great hand over her little brown one, she said, ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... Domingo. But if I dare to answer that I removed Motley from the highest considerations of duty as an executive; if I presume to say that he made a mistake in his office which made him no longer useful to the country; if Fish has the temerity to hint that Sumner's temper was so unfortunate that business relations with him became impossible, ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ladies of the court, who had had some share in persuading the queen of his fitness for office.[11] But his disposition was in reality as rash as that of Calonne; and it was a curious proof of his temerity, as well as of his ignorance of the feeling of parties in Paris, that though he knew the Notables to be friendly to him, as indeed they would have been to any one who might have superseded Calonne, he dismissed ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... wonderful woman," he said with a conscious reddening of the face, yet looking me in the eyes with dogged temerity. "True, she is no longer young, and even rather elderly, as well as by no means good-looking; but as for loving a mere featherhead, a mere beauty—well, I never could understand that, for it is such a silly thing to do." (Dimitri said this as though he had just discovered ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... under the tree, taking with it the doomed native, whose last despairing cry was drowned in the roar of the rushing river. For a few moments the surviving Birwa remained kneeling on the inclined mass of timber, trembling in every limb, then, slowly and with every sign of temerity he began to make his way up ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... ignorance for any lawful or just cause of excuse, in that which shall be misordered by negligence, the burthen whereof shall light upon the negligent offending person, especially upon such as of their own heads, or temerity, will take upon him or them to do or to attempt anything, whereby prejudice may arise, without the commission of the agents as above is ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... I suggested to Frances and Betty that I cross to Calais alone, regardless of the weather, leaving them at Dover till my return. But they would not be left behind, so we all set sail on a blustery morning and paid for our temerity with a day of suffering. In Calais we posted our letters, having learned that a messenger would leave that same day for Paris, and two days later ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... to Afick's cavalier; And much would have subjoined; but, on his side, That knight, with angry voice and haughty cheer, The pagan interrupted, and replied: " 'Tis sure temerity and madness sheer Moves you and whatsoever wight beside, That counsels matter, be it good or ill, Uncalled a counsellor's duty ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the heroic in the enterprise. He might expose himself, unseasoned, to the poison of the Roman air, which in November lay, notoriously, much in wait. Fortune, however, favours the brave; and this adventurer, who took three grains of quinine a day, had at the end of a month no cause to deplore his temerity. He had made to a certain extent good use of his time; he had devoted it in vain to finding a flaw in Pansy Osmond's composition. She was admirably finished; she had had the last touch; she was really a consummate ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... had entered the presence of that terrible woman alone, at the dead hour of night! she had spoken bold and presumptuous words to that strange being whom even her own people hardly dared to approach uncalled for! Sick with terror at the consequences of her temerity, Catharine cast her trembling arms about the sleeping Indian girl, and, hiding her head in her bosom, wept and prayed till sleep came over her wearied spirit. It was late when she awoke. She was alone; the ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... outstretched hand, he walked to the closed door and opened it. The shrieks burst out afresh, and, as I recalled the appalling details of the scene which had occurred in this very room only five weeks ago, I shuddered at his temerity. ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... them, and their talk ceased. When it was over, Dorothy left the hall and sought her chamber. But in the fountain court her cousin overtook her, and had the temerity to resume the conversation. The moth would still at any risk circle the candle. It was a still night, and therefore not very cold, although icicles hung from the mouth of the horse, and here and there from the eaves. They stood by the marble basin, and the dim lights and scarce dimmer shadows ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... Slope, felt at the present rather abashed. He hardly knew how to frame his little request in language sufficiently modest. He had recognized and acknowledged to himself the necessity of shocking the bishop in the first instance by the temerity of his application, and his difficulty was how best to remedy that by his adroitness and eloquence. "I doubted myself," said he, "whether your lordship would have anyone immediately in your eye, and it is on this account that I venture to submit to you an idea that ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... stye a king to it—and in the doorway his—wife must I call her? Curious I suppose like all her sex she came down the strand to get a look at the white-skinned, light-haired stranger, and was rewarded for temerity in a most summary manner. The man, at first, seemed to expostulate with her, and so far as I could judge, ordered her back to her domicile; but as the lady did not seem prompt to obey the mandate, he ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... been some time since any man had had the hardihood or temerity to upbraid Madame Obosky. No male had cursed her since she left Petrograd,—and that was four years ago. She had been cursed often enough by her own sex,—professionally, of course,—but the men she had encountered since leaving Russia were either too chivalrous ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... rose and fell untiringly, flashing in the sunlight, now parrying a spear-thrust, and anon making a sweeping cut, and with every blow at least one savage had cause to regret his temerity. ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... and Jack Downing were not unsuitable figures here. The former heroically planted the bridges by which we cross to Goat Island and the Wake-robin-crowned genius has punished his temerity with deafness, which must, I think, have come upon him when he sunk the first stone in the rapids. Jack seemed an acute and entertaining representative of Jonathan, come to look at his great water-privilege. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... his account of it, it was submitted to the general who was his friend; and the general carelessly passed one little statement which no Chief of Intelligence of any army would ever have passed and probably no correspondent of experience would have had the temerity to submit to the censor unless he wanted to be responsible for the death of men who were his hosts and his friends. For the writer stated that he saw the battle ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... in London. Beauchamp had not vacated either Holdesbury or the town-house; he was defying his uncle Everard, and Cecilia thought with him that it was a wise temerity. She thought with him passively altogether. On this occasion she had not to wait for directness in his eyes; she had to parry it. They were at a dinner-party at Lady Elsea's, generally the last place for seeing Lord Palmet, but he was present, and arranged things neatly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to recall how long it was since they interested me. Nevertheless, I would not part with them. In my youth Ruskin's works were only for the wealthy, and I remember that my purchase of those volumes was an act of temerity, and even of sacrifice. And who but an ingrate would find fault with Ruskin, or would treat him lightly? With courage and eloquence he denounced dishonesty in the days when it was not supposed that cheating could be wrong if it were ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... 'I call it great temerity—and long to call it audacity—in Hewby,' resumed her father. 'I never heard such a thing—giving such a hobbledehoy native of this place such an introduction to me as he did. Naturally you were deceived as well as I was. I don't blame you at all, so far.' He went and searched ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... yours or mine. The inference of this is, that Fenwick has fallen under the ban of the same strange vengeance that overtook Van Fort and his wife. There is not the slightest doubt that he discovered the mine, and that he has not yet paid the penalty for his temerity." ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... protest, after having told them plainly that the balloon was leaky, the wind blowing out upon the lake, and that the ascent must necessarily be a peculiarly dangerous one. Nevertheless, they decided to take the hazard. Later they regretted their temerity. Husbanding his ballast as best he could, nevertheless, the loss of gas through leakage was such that by midnight, when well over the centre of Lake Ontario, the balloon descended into a rough, tempestuous ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... reflection I became thus, you shall speedily know: yet can you be at a loss to imagine it? You, who have passed through somewhat similar changes; who always made allowances for the temerity of youth, the fascinations of novelty; who always predicted that a few more years, the events of my peculiar destiny, the leisure of my long voyage, and that goodness of intention to which you were ever kind enough ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... with an air of indolent self-importance and consciousness of superiority, which inspired me with profound respect. If the ship had ever chanced to run down a row-boat, or a sloop, or any specimen of smaller craft, I should only have wondered at the temerity of any floating thing in crossing the path of such supreme majesty. The ship was leisurely chained and cabled to the old dock, ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... soon as they came across it, they would growl, bristle up, and then retreat with their tails between their legs. But one of his dogs ever really tried to master a wolf by itself, and this one paid for its temerity with its life; for while running a wolf in a canebrake the beast turned and tore it to pieces. Finally General Hampton succeeded in getting a number of his hounds so they would at any rate follow ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... tugging at the waistband of her habit, while Mrs. Spragg, relapsing from temerity to meekness, hovered about her with obstructive zeal. "If you'd only just let go of my skirt, mother—I can unhook ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... the affairs of Ireland might be justified upon the same grounds on which the argument for intervention in Spain was based. The King, never too fond of the brilliant commoner, whose presence in the ministry he considered scarcely less than a personal affront, had the temerity to criticise the policy which was so obnoxious to his fellow crowned heads. He thought that the English recognition of Spanish-American independence was as wicked as the French alliance in 1778 with ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... Mott, declared that God intended the male should dominate the female everywhere! Another was a son of Robert Purvis, who was earnestly and publicly rebuked by his father. Edward M. Davis, son-in-law of Lucretia Mott, also condemned the women for their temerity and severely criticised the resolutions, which demanded the same political rights for ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... alarmed at his own temerity, refused to accept the dismissal. "But, please, Sir," he begged; "I think the 'arf-crown ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... seem, had placed herself in an awkward predicament by her temerity. Sir Giles was not a man to threaten idly, as all who had incurred his displeasure experienced to their cost. His plan was to make himself feared; and he was inexorable, as fate itself, to a creditor. He ever exacted the full ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Some of the descendants of the Irish redemptioners in Massachusetts are found among the prominent New Englanders of the past hundred years. The Puritans of Massachusetts extended no welcoming hand to the Irish who had the temerity to come among them, yet, as an historical writer has truly said, "by one of those strange transformations which time occasionally works, it has come to pass that Massachusetts today contains more people of Irish blood in proportion to the ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... American patriots had achieved during the whole of their protracted struggle with Spain. That victory had literally electrified the troops, and inspired them with a courage and contempt of their enemy, that frequently showed itself, as on this occasion, in acts of the greatest daring and temerity. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... carrying audacity to temerity, had continued its endeavor to envelop our left, had crossed the Grand Morin, and reached the region of Chauffry, to the north of Rebaix and of Esternay. It aimed then at cutting our armies off from Paris, in order to begin the investment of ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... know that you're too good and generous, That you will pardon my temerity, Excuse, upon the score of human frailty, The violence of passion that offends you, And not forget, when you consult your mirror, That I'm not blind, and ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... intensity. 'Since the creation of the hierarchy,' Monsignor Talbot wrote, it is the greatest moment for the Church that I have yet seen.' It was the duty of the Chapter of Westminster to nominate three candidates for succession to the Archbishopric; they made one last effort, and had the temerity to place upon the list, besides the names of two Old Catholic bishops, that of Dr. Errington. It was a fatal blunder. Pius IX was furious; the Chapter had committed an 'insulta al Papa', he exclaimed, striking his breast three times in his rage. 'It was the Chapter that did it,' said Manning, afterwards; ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... nevertheless, to attract the king's attention. Louis walked through the pond, went up to the leper, gave him some money, took his hand and kissed it. "All present," says the chronicler, "crossed themselves for admiration at seeing this holy temerity of the king, who had no fear of putting his lips to a hand that none would have dared to touch." In such deeds there was infinitely more than the goodness and greatness of a kingly sold; there was in them that profound ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... importunities of a new desire. Yet, since the fear of missing what we seek must always be proportionable to the happiness expected from possessing it, the passions, even in this tempestuous state, might be somewhat moderated by frequent inculcation of the mischief of temerity, and the hazard of losing that which we endeavour to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... saw the tiger the latter roared. But the old boar did not seem to mind the roar so very much as might have been anticipated. He actually repeated his 'hoo! hoo!' only in a, if possible, more aggressive, insulting, and defiant manner. Nay, more, such was his temerity that he actually advanced with a short, sharp rush in the direction of the striped intruder. Intently peering through the indistinct light, we eagerly watched the development of this strange rencontre. The tiger was now ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... the gods neglected. Their stimulating influence was invoked by the dictator to inspire the people with confidence, while he soothed them with the intimation that Flaminius had failed rather through overcourage and neglect of divine things than through mere plebeian temerity and ignorance. Fabius took care to impress it upon all that he himself would take full warning from the lesson. He moved that the Sibylline books should be consulted, and the Senate promptly acted upon the motion. These directed that a holy spring be proclaimed forthwith; ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... exact spot now occupied by Montgomery's Bank, and the proper authorities a few years later called the name of the place Montgomery, which it remains to this day. This explains why the superintendent of schools overlooked the temerity of Amzi's great-granddaughter in electing the Main Street fauna as the subject of her commencement address rather than her indebtedness to the poets, though it may not be illuminative as to the holes in Phil's stockings. But on this point ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... life he exposed with careless gaiety; but it was said that he was nervously anxious and pusillanimously cautious when his professional reputation was in danger. He was so much annoyed by these censures that he soon became, unfortunately for his country, bold even to temerity, [670] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... skies had not assumed the splendour which now deepens around them with a tinge of purple, when I left the Turkish Divan, and, after dismissing my companions, proceeded ad libitum along the streets of Aleppo. You may feel surprise at my temerity, but, remember, that a person delegated by the Porte is as secure in the public walks as if he were honoured with the chains and straw of a dungeon in the Pacha's palace. But, as I pursued my path with sauntering steps, I heard the sound of a lute, accompanied ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... altitude, and no one overlooked his dignity. For twenty-eight years he had served Tinkletown and himself in the triple capacity of town marshal, fire chief and street commissioner. He had a system of government peculiarly his own; and no one possessed the heart or temerity to upset it, no matter what may have been the political inducements. It would have been like trying to improve the laws of nature to put a new man in his place. He had become a fixture that only dissolution could remove. Be it said, ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... always dressed in a blue blouse and the apparel of a man, saying that skirts were not made for bushes. She walked before me in the sand with a firm step and such a charming melange of feminine delicacy and childlike temerity, that I stopped every few moments to look at her. It seemed that, once started, she had to accomplish a difficult but sacred task; she walked in front like a soldier, her arms swinging, her voice ringing through the woods in song; suddenly she turned, came to me, and kissed me. This ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... class"! The phrase had brought up even Helen Starratt with a round turn. One might have called them both peasants with equal temerity. No, Hilmer had not made that point consciously, ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... Canadian militia had dispersed from sheer starvation. In spite of all, he had trusted to hold out till the winter frosts should drive the invaders from before the town; when, on that disastrous morning, the news of their successful temerity fell like ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... to one of his hostages, that he would, with no other attendants than his own servants, play a game of chess on Thurles Green, without fear of interruption. Carrying out this foolish wager, he accordingly went to his game at Thurles, and was very properly taken prisoner for his temerity, and made to pay a smart ransom to his captors. So runs the tale, which, whether true or fictitious, is not without its moral. Flan experienced greater difficulty with the tribes of Connaught, nor was it ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... to learn what unusual circumstance had caused him to retain her name, but lacked the temerity to ask. She would have been amazed, unbelieving, had he told her that it was her beauty; that he was clinging rather desperately to the unlovely number, which had no individuality and whose features ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... bewitched him on their first meeting no longer existed. An odd bashfulness overtook him. It did not seem to him that it could possibly have been he who had talked to her so boldly only the evening before. At the thought of his temerity he felt almost inclined to flee, yet he would not have deserted his post for worlds. The sound of a voice shot through his troubled thoughts like a beam of sunlight through ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... tribunes of the people were for enhancing the popular power (vested in them) by promoting the popular law. The senators, considering that there was enough and more than enough of frenzy in the multitude without any additional incitement, viewed with horror largesses and all inducements to temerity: the senators found in the consuls most energetic abettors in making resistance. That portion of the commonwealth therefore prevailed; and not for the present only, but for the forthcoming year they succeeded in bringing in M. Fabius, Kaeso's brother, as consul, and one still more detested ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... treacherous tribes; but the fears which troubled the minds of his comrades did not affect that of Hurtado. He learned that his wife was a captive in the hands of the cacique of Timbuez, and love and indignation in his soul suppressed all other feelings. With a temerity that seemed the height of imprudence, he sought alone the village of the chief and demanded the release of ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... that he had no wish to rob them of the glory and the reward they so well deserved. 'But,' he said, 'an army and a general have different functions. It is right that soldiers should be greedy for battle, but the general often does more good not by temerity but by foresight, deliberation and delay. I have done all I could to aid your victory with my sword: now I will serve you by the general's proper arts of calculation and strategy. The risks that face us are obvious. It is night; we know nothing of the lie of the city; ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... brought him a worthy executioner in Hather, the son of a prince whom he had slain. The young hero was hunting, and seeing the old man, he ordered two of his attendants to tease him. Both lost their lives for their temerity. The prince then advanced; and the old man, after relating his great actions, desired the former to kill him. To make the inducement stronger, he displayed the golden chain, which would be the reward of the deed; and to excite his rage, as well as avarice, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... learning never diminished. On the contrary, his zeal for philosophic studies grew, and with it his reputation in the learned world of Berlin. The Jewish thinker finally attracted the notice of Frederick the Great, whose poems he had had the temerity to criticise adversely in the "Letters on Literature" (Litteraturbriefe). He says in that famous criticism:[80] "What a loss it has been for our mother-tongue that this prince has given more time and effort to the French language. We should otherwise possess a treasure which ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... them at last, that I resolved they should bother me no longer. If they would not permit me to shoot one of the others, I was determined they themselves should not escape scot-free, but should pay dearly for their temerity and insolence. I resolved to put a bullet through one ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... "monstrosity" into the midst of her family circle,—she was appalled! Never had any one ventured to address her with such freedom; never before had she been treated by any one as though she were mere flesh and blood. She had not believed it possible that any one could have the temerity to regard her in the light of equality. One might almost have imagined that the formidable New England nurse had inspired her with dread, for she could not rouse herself, could not gain courage to face ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... lord come into the garden, to the roses and doves and—me?" she asked falteringly, her gaze held now irresistibly by the dark orbs above her. Then, afraid of her own temerity, she became white as death ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... to assemble our army in time, or to provide the means for supporting or moving them; a feather would have turned the balance last year, notwithstanding the powerful aid we received from abroad. Providence blinded our adversaries; to their temerity we owe ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... murmured, himself astonished at his own temerity in thus daring to address her. It was her grief which had brought her down to his level: the instinct of chivalry, of protection, of friendship which had raised ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... moved steadily forward to receive the onset of the French. Wolfe had been hit on the wrist, but hastily binding up the shattered limb with his handkerchief, he now placed himself at the head of the Louisburg Grenadiers, whose temerity against the heights of Beauport, in July, he had soundly rated. He had issued strict orders that his troops were to load with two bullets, and to reserve their fire till the enemy were at close quarters. He was nobly obeyed, though the French columns ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... respectable contour, would be apt to look a little "mussy;" but for the poor General's part, he looked hard enough, in all conscience, and had he known the effect such an appearance was likely to produce upon Mistress Hall, he would not have had the temerity of invading her premises. But the General's views were far above "buttons," leather, and prunella. Such a thing as paying deferential courtesies to a man's garments, was something not dreamed ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... a purely practical character." The Legion he considered a matter of immediate necessity, and he added, "The winged warrior of the air perches upon the pole of American liberty, and the beast that has the temerity to ruffle her feathers should be made to feel the power of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... disengaged her hands, her chief sensation one of amusement, Abbey was in such an agony of blushing diffidence, all flustered at his own temerity. Also, she thought, a trifle precipitate. That was not the sort of wooing to carry her off her feet. For that matter she was quite sure nothing Paul Abbey could do or say would ever stir her pulses. She had to put an end to the situation, however. She took refuge ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... heightened colour and angry eyes, eluded Howe's familiarities by a backward step, and, raising the glass, defiantly gave, "Success to Washington!" Then, scared at her own temerity, she darted from the room, in her fright carrying away the tumbler of spirits. But she need not have fled, for her toast only called forth ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... at Crozier, surprised at her temerity, but Crozier only smiled gently. "It is in the desk there. Bring it to me, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... table. This at least seemed to be a tenable theory. That man should have the temerity to take liberties with elementary principles was quite within reason, man being an animal of rare conceit, and that the result would bring about destruction was not at ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... replied the minister, "and sometimes, it seems to me, the result is hideous. I don't mind people taking themselves out of their places; but if the particles of this mighty cosmos have been adjusted by the divine wisdom, what are we to say of the temerity that disturbs ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... country. Sir Ralph's object in landing, surely, could only have been to try whether he could surprise or intimidate the scanty garrison. Had he not reembarked very soon, he would have had to repent his temerity, for the shipping could not safely remain at anchor where there was no harbor and where a dangerous coast threatened destruction. His communication with the country was cut off by the armed peasantry, who rose en masse, and to the number of not less than 20,000 threw themselves into the fortress ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... the reproach which the attack on a character so amiable brought upon him, he tried all means of escaping. The name of Cleland was again employed in an apology, by which no man was satisfied, and he was at last reduced to shelter his temerity behind dissimulation, and endeavour to make that disbelieved which he never had confidence openly to deny. He wrote an exculpatory letter to the duke, which was answered with great magnanimity, as by a man who accepted his excuse without believing ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... perhaps by his "glossy, unfeeling diction"—there is not one of them who overstepped the bounds marked out for literary effort by the prevailing taste of the Augustan age, in its narrowest sense, without paying the price for his temerity in the sneers or reprobation of Johnson. Collins, it is true, escapes more lightly than the rest; but that is probably due to the affection and pity of his critic. Yet even Collins, perhaps the most truly poetic spirit of the century between Milton and Burns, is blamed ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... Dutchman of the name of Cornelius Vermuyden was sent for, that the work might be begun. For fifty years this man dug and intrigued. He was called in to be the engineer; he had the temerity to compete with the new landlords; he boasted a desire—less legitimate in an alien than in a courtier—to make a great fortune rapidly. He ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... side of the fence, as I told you in the beginning. By winking at lawlessness of all kinds, their own particular brands of lawlessness, by which they and their backers make money, go unquestioned. So far from helping, they'd make it exceedingly difficult for any sheriff who should have the temerity to come in here in the discharge of ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... were sent to England.... But when both my position and myself stand virtually ... impugned by proclamation, I am neither the sycophant nor the renegade to crouch down under unmerited imputations, come from whence they may, even though I should suffer imprisonment and ruin for my temerity. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... weapon down on the table and hastily rearranged her dishevelled hair, and then she said in a still and ominous voice, more indicative of aggressive temerity than shrinking timidity: ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... no one seemed to have the temerity or the presence of mind to break, the Sheep Queen turned at the foot of the stairway, and the various groups separated on a common impulse to let her pass. She went straight to Prentiss, whose greeting was a smile ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... it that had dared to visit the island of the dead after dark? The bravest warriors were not capable of such temerity. Old men told how, away back in the past, some braves had ventured upon the island after nightfall, and had paid the awful forfeit. They were struck by unseen hands. Weapons that had lain for years beside the decaying corpses of forgotten warriors wounded ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... of the Duke of Marlborough; and there he assisted at the several sieges which were undertaken by the Confederate army after his arrival, viz., Mons, Douai, Bouchain, and several others. Yet though he was bold there, even to temerity, he never received so much as one wound through the whole course of the war, in which, after the siege of Lille, he commanded as a lieutenant, and ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... one. You like to exert your power and keep yourself in practice. You do not rejoice so much in overcoming your enemy as in overcoming. If a marble statue could show fight, you would just as soon fight it; but as it cannot, you take something that can, and something, besides, that has had the temerity to attack you, and so has made a lawful target of itself. But against your friend your hands are tied. He has injured you. He has disgusted you. He has infuriated you. But it was most Christianly done. You ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... was surprise rather than disapproval. The money was hers, of course. But that a woman should have the temerity to spend fifty pounds odd in a few months when she was already supplied with enough to ensure comfort for ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... and going over to Don Quixote, who was insisting upon the keeper's opening the cages, he said to him, "Sir Knight, knights-errant should attempt adventures which encourage the hope of a successful issue, not those which entirely withhold it; for valor that trenches upon temerity savors rather of madness than of courage; moreover, these lions do not come to oppose you, nor do they dream of such a thing; they are going as presents to his Majesty, and it will not be right to stop them or ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the Sawtooth had on its pay roll men who were paid to kill and to leave no trace. So many heedless ones crossed the Sawtooth's path to riches! Fred Thurman had been one; a "bull-headed cuss" who had the temerity to fight back when the Sawtooth calmly laid claim to the first water rights to Granite Creek, having bought it, they said, with the placer claim of an old miner who had prospected along the headwaters of Granite at the base ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... several centuries. Of even more permanent influence was his work upon the New Testament, in which he initiated the modern method of comparing manuscripts to find what the sacred text really is. At an earlier or later period he would doubtless have paid for his temerity with his life; fortunately, just at that time the ruling pontiff and his Contemporaries cared much for literature and little for orthodoxy, and from their palaces he could bid ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... of which we derived an advantage so odious to our neighbors, and, in their opinion, so oppressive? Should we be able to preserve it against the incumbent weight of Connecticut on the one side, and the co-operating pressure of New Jersey on the other? These are questions that temerity alone ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... don't know,' said Davies, evidently aghast at my temerity; but I did not mind that. If he roughed my suit, so much the better; I intended ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... into the hall, and passing by the panic-stricken Vasya, who took her for a wood-witch, ran into the drawing-room. Tatyana Borissovna, scared, tried to rise, but her legs sank under her. 'Tatyana Borissovna,' began the visitor in a supplicating voice, 'forgive my temerity; I am the sister of your friend, Alexy Nikolaevitch K——, and I have heard so much about you from him that I resolved to make your acquaintance.' 'Greatly honoured,' muttered the bewildered lady. The sister flung off her hat, shook her curls, seated ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... the Pedagogue of Councils and Fathers, in short, the God of all witnesses and ages, I have nothing to hope of your reading or hearing me. But if you are such as I have pictured you in my mind, philosophers, keen-sighted, lovers of the truth, of simplicity, of modesty, enemies of temerity, of trifles and sophisms, you will easily see daylight in the open air, seeing that you already see the peep of day through a narrow chink. I will say freely what my love of you, and your danger, and the importance of the matter ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... rotation, and tearing him from the charmed circle, but his arm was torn from him in the attempt, and clung to the dancer with the grip of life till his day was done. The man paid his life as the forfeit of his temerity. No effort was left untried to relieve the dancers, but every one failed. The sufferers themselves, however, appeared quite unconscious of what was passing. They seemed to be in a state of perfect somnambulism, and to be altogether unaware of the presence of any persons, ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... man, to what lengths will it go? what will be the limit to its boldness and temerity? For if it shall increase with each generation of man, and the successor shall be wicked a degree beyond his predecessor, it will be necessary for the Gods to add to the earth another land, which[34] will contain the unjust and the evil ones.—But ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... of being conceited and of talking about books which we had not read, a habit which I have never had the temerity to acquire. John Addington Symonds—an intimate friend of mine—had brought out a book of essays, which were not very good and ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... from the normal, even though it be in the forward direction and carrying with it certain privileges, yet entails its disadvantages. The man who breaks out is generally made to pay pretty dearly for his temerity: but, if there were none to advance and thus break out, civilisation itself would stagnate and there could be no progress. The artist, the dreamer, the visionary, the poet, the genius, these all are the advance ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... long-suffering bookworm, the reader, had turned, but one who at the present day drags from cobwebby corners the accusive mass of material on the subject, must seek to justify, not merely the loquacity of its authors, but one's own temerity as well, in forcing it a second time upon the jaded ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... with him. But even for self-defence there are other resources. "The powers of the mind are yet unfathomed." He tells the story of Marius, who overawed the soldier sent into his cell to execute him, with the words, "Wretch, have you the temerity to kill Marius?" Were we all accustomed to place an intrepid confidence in the unaided energy of the intellect, to despise force in others and to refuse to employ it ourselves, who shall say how far the species might be improved? But punitive coercion deals only with a man whose violence is over. ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... time, Dr. Elliotson and M. Dupotet continued the public exhibition at the hospital; while the credulous gaped with wonder, and only some few daring spirits had temerity enough to hint about quackery and delusion on the part of the doctors, and imposture on the part of the patients. The phenomena induced in two young women, sisters, named Elizabeth and Jane Okey, were so extraordinary ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... promoter would trouble himself to make such a showing as that to the American sucker? Even if such detailed information existed in the records of the average American mining concern, the sucker could not get access to the books even did he have the temerity to ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... autumn fixed by popular mandate when the straw hat is to be discarded for the season is hilariously celebrated in Wall Street by the destruction by the affronted populace of the straw hats of those who have had the temerity or the thoughtlessness to wear them. Coloured men in livery stables, however, sometimes wear straw hats the year round. To the habit generally of wearing a hat baldness is attributed by some. And the ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... of War awoke no less lively anger than the Prince de Polignac. He was a general of great merit, bold to temerity, brave to heroism, and a tactician of the first order. But his career had felt the vicissitudes of politics, and like so many of his contemporaries,—more, perhaps, than any of them,—he had played the most contradictory parts. Equally intrepid in the army ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... protect, is a flattering indication of her mental and moral integrity. Even a dull-witted person can follow a set rule; it requires some genius to make a legitimate exception, and it also involves some temerity. It is like gathering mushrooms; perhaps they are edible, perhaps they are poisonous; for the various fungi look very much alike. If it happens to be right, it is right; if it happens to be wrong, it ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... for the sake of its public utility standing forward in its encouragement and support, will endeavour to damp it by premature censure, ascribe the undertaking to vanity, or unworthiness, and if it should fail, be ready to aggravate the disappointment of the projectors with the galling imputation of temerity, impudence, or overweening self-conceit. The sympathy which mankind in general think it handsome to feel for unassuming merit, stumbling in its way through life by incautiously venturing upon ground untrodden ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter |
