"Effrontery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said Wickens's boy stubbornly, emboldened by witnessing the effrontery of one apparently of his own class. "I sor you two standin' together, and her a kissin' of you. There worn's ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... which might be expected to flow from any sipping of the Circean cup which such creatures proffered to their lips. But what fate could be too bad for the Siren herself? To think of the audacity, the shameless effrontery of such an one in daring to spread her lures, and wind her enchantments around such a man as the Marchese di Castelmare. Of course he, poor man, could not but feel her death as a terrible shock. What he had set his heart on had been violently and awfully, taken away from ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... breed and his moral responsibility in coming into camp in that defective condition. There was a general opinion that he couldn't have looked worse with a tail, and its removal was therefore a gratuitous effrontery. ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... shall take what we want without asking," replied Callan with cool effrontery. "You may take ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... man is past belief," continued the parson. "Think of his effrontery! Does he imagine that God or man has forgotten the mystery ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... effrontery of this peroration was quite to the taste of the idlers; the fame of the Prophet had reached Mockern, and, as a performance was expected on the morrow, this prelude much amused the company. On hearing the insults of his adversary, Dagobert could not help saying in the German language: "I know German. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... memory, smiling bitterly at the manner in which that former self had been beguiled. As if to give emphasis to his jest he arose from his box, lounged over to the window, cleared its panes of mist with his hand, and gazed out upon the landscape of his choice. It stared back at him with immobile effrontery, with the glazed wide-parted eyes of the prostrate prize-fighter who, in his falling, has been stunned—eyes in which hatred is the only sign of life. He threw back his head and guffawed at the conceit, as though it had been conceived ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... the Scotch flashed fire; and, as often happens on such occasions, from shame they passed to effrontery and two heads of clans ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... moment was utterly at a loss. He looked at his daughter in bewilderment; he turned from her to Howard and finally to Sanchia herself as though for help. His face was puckered up; he looked ridiculously as though he were on the verge of tears. Sanchia had the effrontery to pat ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... commander of the Paris guard, announcing Napoleon's death on the seventh; by the use of a forged decree of the senate purporting to establish a provisional republican government, and by the display of an amazing effrontery, he secured the adhesion of both men and officers. Marching at their heads, he liberated his accomplices, Lahorie and Guidal, from La Force, seized both Savary and Pasquier, minister and prefect of police respectively, and ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... business, unheeding their New England arrogance as long as His Excellency understood the truth concerning the wretched situation. And I for one marvelled that the sniffling 'prentices of Massachusetts and the Connecticut barbers and tin-peddlers had the effrontery to boast of New England valour while that arch-malcontent, Ethan Allen, and his petty and selfish yokels of Vermont, openly defied New York and Congress, nor scrupled to conduct most treasonably, to their everlasting and black disgrace. No Ticonderoga, ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... most unwholesome. They went to keep a watch on Victurnien and to embarrass him, a piece of schoolboys's mischief embittered by a jealous dandy's spite. But Victurnien was gifted with that page's effrontery which is a great help to ease of manner; and Rastignac, watching him as he made his entrance, was surprised to see how quickly he caught the ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... way for me beside her. I did not lose so favourable an opportunity of gaining her good graces, and losing those of all the male animals around her. I sunk down on the vacant chair, and contrived, with the most unabashed effrontery, and yet with the most consummate dexterity, to make every thing that I said pleasing to her, revolting to some one of her attendants. Wormwood himself could not have succeeded better. One by on they dropped off, and we were left alone among the crowd. ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... who have, on account of their offences, been brought to your bar, and who have seldom escaped your Lordships' justice. I put the decency, humility, and propriety of the most distinguished men's behavior in contrast with the shameless effrontery of this prisoner, who has presumptuously made a recriminatory charge against the House of Commons, and answered their impeachment by a counter impeachment, explicitly accusing them of malice, oppression, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... other passengers, French and English, had collected their baggage and had hurried away, but Charles Mann was never in a hurry, and he stayed scowling at the station which London had had the effrontery to erect in ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... of his men on board, Adair ordered them to handcuff the whole of the party. The Arabs looked somewhat alarmed, their skipper very much so. "What have you done with my officers and men?" asked Adair. The negoda, recovering himself, with the coolest effrontery made the action of shaking hands, then pointed astern, as if to signify that those whom Adair was asking after had parted good friends and gone off in ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... looked serious. De Catinat was a man of resource, but for once he was at his wits' end. Madame de Montespan's resolution, as it was called in her presence, or effrontery, as it was termed behind her back, was proverbial. If she attempted to force her way, would he venture to use violence upon one who only yesterday had held the fortunes of the whole court in the hollow of her hand, and who, with her beauty, her ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Angelo's secrets, he makes vessels, such as phials, ampullas and dishes, which it is not lawful for any foreigner to make. Moreover, in the vile wickedness of his shameless heart, the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, has the presumption and effrontery to sell the said vessels, openly admitting that he has made them. And they are well made, with diabolical skill, and the sale of the said vessels is a great injury to the glass-blowers of Murano, and to the honourable ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... those to whom it was written, as to us; but the malicious meaning was obvious, and we went no further." This, as usual, is well grouped; the Vicar ponders, and cannot tell what to make of it. We should have preferred, as a subject, the Vicar confronting Mr Burchell, and the cool effrontery of the philosopher turning the tables upon the Vicar, "and how came you so basely to presume to break open this letter?" or better still, perhaps, the encounter of art between Mr Burchell and Mrs Deborah Primrose. And why have we not Dick's episode of the dwarf and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... not so broad that he should think himself bound, once for all, by any opinion once given on so important a matter; he would willingly swear and submit to the law, if so be it were one, a proviso which he added as a mere cover for his effrontery. The people, in great joy at his taking the oath, loudly clapped and applauded him, while the nobility stood by ashamed and vexed at his inconstancy; but they submitted out of fear of the people, and all in order took the oath, till it came to Metellus's turn. But he, though his friends ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... mean? Didn't I warn you never again to come to me unless sent for? You sneak in without so much as knocking! Your effrontery deserves a horsewhip! Begone!" ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... le Marquis, contemptuously. "You have the effrontery to stand before my face and offer me this stinking cant of your ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... demonstration and walked in, when there arose a babel of howls. He turned round and came out again, facing the crowd. I can see him now, all splashed and muddy, with his shirt open at the neck. He was pale, ugly, and sinister; but he surveyed us all with entire effrontery, drew out a pince-nez, being very short-sighted, and then looked calmly round as if surprised. I have certainly never seen such an exhibition of courage in my life. He knew that he had not a single friend present, and he did not know that he would not be maltreated—there ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the coachman to drive back to the station, but the reflection—again a ludicrous one—that he would now be only bringing witnesses to a scene which might provoke a scandal more invidious to his acquaintance, checked him in time. But his spirits, momentarily diverted by the porter's effrontery, sunk to ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... little in the old-fashioned fopperies of a provincial audience to interest a young gentleman fresh from the capital. Odo looked about for any one resembling the masked beauty of the market-place; but he beheld only ill-dressed dowagers and matrons, or ladies of the town more conspicuous for their effrontery than for their charms. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... composure of face which touches the exquisite in effrontery, we were assured that this antithesis of master and slave, of tyrant and abject natures, is really a perfect harmony. Slavery—so said these logicians of liberticide—has solved the great social problem of the working-classes, comfortably for capital, happily ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... marring her otherwise strong and in many ways beautiful character which prevented my loving her completely and safely. Nevertheless, I cared for her enough to enter my feeble and futile protest; but it was waved aside with the superb effrontery of a woman who feels that she controls the situation with her head, and whose heart is not at liberty to make uncomfortable complications. I would rather argue with a woman who is desperately in love, to prevent her marrying the man of her choice, ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... all are undeniably shamelessly venal and corrupt. They accept a bribe much more quickly than an attorney a fee, or a hungry dog a shin of beef. If a policeman only enters a village he expects a feast from the head man, and will ask a present with unblushing effrontery as a perquisite of his office. If a theft is reported, the inspector of the nearest police-station, or thanna as it is called, sends one of his myrmidons, or, if the chance of bribes be good, he may attend himself. On arrival, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... of the seven of the same tenor now in my possession, which will, in addition to those I forwarded by last mail, inform you of the cause of the late disinclination of the people in some districts to labour—which, with so much effrontery, has been proclaimed ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... doubts, then, whether this provision, after all, refers to "fugitive slaves." Now, although he has said much in regard to "the effrontery of the Southern members of the convention" that formed the Constitution, we may safely defy him, or any other man, to point to any thing in their conduct which approximates to such audacity. What! the clause in question not designed to embrace fugitive slaves? Mr. Butler, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... following appropriate sentence: "Delhi taken and India saved for 36 rupees 10 annas." It is said that the Governor-General demanded the name of this waggish soldier, with the intention that he might receive punishment for his daring effrontery; but it is needless to say that the author of the joke remained unknown save to a few of his comrades; and the great ruler of Hindostan was forced to rest content and ponder over the hidden sarcasm and bitter irony addressed to one in ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... glasses. Sounds of footsteps came from outside. Presently Pan walked back through the open door, then halted a moment, to light another cigarette. His back was turned to the bar and the doors. That seemed the climax of his effrontery. It was deliberate, the utter recklessness of the cowboy who had been trained in a hard school. But all that happened was the silence breaking to a gay wild sweet voice: "Call again, cowboy, ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... Washington born in Great Britain or America? Absurd as this question must sound to an American, it has been gravely discussed within the last few months by a writer in the London Notes and Queries, who has the effrontery to say that Washington's own brief assertion in a letter to the effect that he was born in Virginia cannot be conclusive. "No man's unsupported testimony," he adds, "as to the place of his birth would be taken ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... Jew's natural effrontery came back to him, and returning Fraser's look with an insolent stare, he walked ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... may be rendered thus:—The Irish farmer, although in the abundant enjoyment of {280} bread, butter, cheese, flesh, and broth, is not only not ashamed to complain of poverty as an excuse for non-payment of his rent, but has the effrontery to thank God, as if he were enjoying only those blessings of Providence to which he is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... Her unblushing effrontery began to entertain him somewhat. And then he had sallied forth in search of amusement. This was not the form of amusement he would have ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Harlequin without the traditional black mask, 'but, alas! in vain: Pinkethman could not take to himself the shame of the character without being concealed; he was no more Harlequin; his humour was quite disconcerted; his conscience could not, with the same effrontery, declare against nature, without the cover of that unchanging face, which he was sure would never blush for it; no, it was quite another case; without that armour his courage could not come up to the bold strokes that were necessary to get the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... cap. The cap and the linen above the collar of his uniform coat brought out to the full the hue of his manly tan. The red flush of his shocked contrition touched his cheeks, and, all in all, whatever the daughter of Julius Marston, Wall Street priest of high finance, may have thought of his effrontery, the melting look she gave him from under lowered eyelids indicated her appreciation of his ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... part in the war, on the side of France. Genet, the French minister, undertook to fit out privateers in Charleston. Washington issued a proclamation of neutrality (1793), which was followed by a Neutrality Act of Congress (1794). When Genet had the effrontery to appeal from the President to the people, at the demand of Washington ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... replied the unfeeling woman with the utmost effrontery, "this is a most unaccountable address: it is beyond my comprehension. John," continued she, turning to the servant, "the young woman is certainly out of her senses: do pray take her away, she terrifies ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... perjured traitor. The gallant, who by his two previous lessons had been taught how to value the friar's censures, listened attentively, and sought to draw him out by ambiguous answers. "Wherefore this wrath, Sir?" he began. "Have I crucified Christ?" "Ay, mark the fellow's effrontery!" retorted the friar: "list to what he says! He talks, forsooth, as if 'twere a year or so since, and his villanies and lewdnesses were clean gone from his memory for lapse of time. Between matins and now hast thou forgotten this morning's outrage? Where wast thou this ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... you mean?" inquired Quair, with a malice so buried under flippancy that the deliberate effrontery passed for it with Graylock. Which amused Quair for a moment, but the satisfaction was not sufficient. He desired that Graylock should ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... statute, "for eminent and conspicuous conduct in battle," could not be reasonably denied him. But he would not work personally toward that end, nor pull political wires to attain it. With him, the promotion must come unasked or not at all. It never came, and others disputed, with unblushing effrontery, the laurels he had won. Not only that, but he has seen, as well as others, those who did the least service during the war, given recognition and place over those who "bore the heat and burden of the day," during those four years so momentous in the annals ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... sentimental theme from which breed ten thousand narratives; the theme of intellectual analysis and of moral psychology favored by the "literary" magazines; the "big-business" theme; the theme of American effrontery; the social-contrast theme; the theme of successful crime. Add a few more, and you will have them all. Read a hundred examples, and you will see how infallibly the authors— always excepting our few masters—limit themselves to conventional ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... prying gaze of all the world at the very crisis in her life, when natural modesty would most lead her to conceal herself from her dearest acquaintance. And our women themselves have grown so blunted by use to the hatefulness of the ordeal that many of them face it now with inhuman effrontery. Familiarity with marriage has almost killed out in the maidens of our race the last ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... the accused been required to declare if she had had pleasure and carnal commerce with all the men, nobles, citizens, and others as set forth in the plaints and declarations of the inhabitants. To which her who speaks has it been answered with great effrontery: "Pleasure, yes! ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... Another stopped before his hotel and made her servants call out 'Fire,' to force him to come out, and thus obtain an interview. They were to be seen seated on the front part of the carriage of Madame Law, striving to obtain from her a profitable friendship. That woman who had the effrontery to take the name of Law, though she was only his mistress, treated them ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... He was seated at a table, on which stood a flask of brandy and a couple of glasses, and seemed a good deal confused at being caught in such a situation, though he endeavoured to cover his embarrassment by an air of effrontery. ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... feelings. "Would you debate further! The Holy Father for some unexplained reason inflicts a madman upon me! And I, innocent of what you are, obey his instructions and place you in the University—with what result? You have the effrontery—the madness—to lecture to your classes on the heresies ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and longing, was for him alone. To the other dancers, to the crowded room at large, she seemed a brazen girl, with beauty to make a goddess, wit to mask as a great lady, effrontery to match that of the gentleman who had brought her here. The age was free, and in that London which was dear to the hearts of the Virginians ladies of damaged reputation were not so unusual a feature of fashionable entertainments as to receive any especial notice. But Williamsburgh ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... after Richard had gone his way, "there you have a young man remarkable for two things: his dullness and his effrontery. Did you hear how he spoke of his benefactor? The wretch! After all that good, poor Mr. Gwynn has done ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of young girls come in and, chatting pleasantly, settle themselves around the guests, observing all the while complete decency even according to the most exacting European ideas. There is not to be seen here any trace of the effrontery and coarseness which are generally to be found in similar places in Europe. One would almost believe that he was among a crowd of school-girls who had given the sour moral lessons of their governess the slip, and were thinking of nothing else than ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... more hateful than this trial, in which Almagro and Pizarro were at the same time both suitors and judges. The heads of the accusation were so ridiculous and absurd, that one is in doubt whether to be most surprised by the effrontery or the wickedness of Pizarro, in subjecting the head of a powerful empire, over which he had no jurisdiction, to such an inquiry. Atahualpa, being found guilty, was condemned to be burnt alive; but ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... shelter was in a leaky outhouse. The farmstead to which it belonged had burned down. I might have been taken in at any number of places, but my access of timidity was too great ... it might on the following dawn be followed by as great an effrontery. My year in college had disorganized me, pulled me out of my tramp character. It was no more a usual thing to beg or ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... exchanged a long stare, I choking down my temper, he smooth and placid, to outward seeming, as the idol he resembled. The resolution with which he stuck to his silly pose was, in its way, a rogue's masterpiece; nothing more exasperating than this stolid effrontery was ever devised. The scoundrel feared, and yet knew he had, in a sense, the better of me; the helpless old man between us ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... frailties; the marvellous agility and aptness of wit which, with a vesture of odd and whimsical constructions, at once hides the offensive and discovers the comical features of his conduct; the same towering impudence and effrontery which so lift him aloft in his more congenial exploits; and the overpowering eloquence of exaggeration with which he delights to set off and heighten whatever is most ludicrous in his own person or situation;—all these qualities, though not in their full bloom and vigour, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... and sat themselves down in the court of the Alhambra, uttering loud cries, saying, that their Highnesses and the admiral made them live in this poor fashion on account of the bad pay they received, with many other dishonest and unseemly things, which they kept repeating. Such was their effrontery that when the Catholic king came forth they all surrounded him, and got him into the midst of them, saying, 'Pay! pay!' and if by chance I and my brother, who were pages to the most serene Queen, happened to pass where they were, they shouted to the very ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... rogue have we here!" cried the angry Duke, who conceived that Richard was purposely dealing in effrontery. "Mr. Trenchard, I do think we are wasting time. Be so good as to confound them both with ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... abominable liar, but I had a certain admiration for his effrontery. I was glad I could meet him on his own ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... has not been called by its right name. "Do you mind if I smoke?" was a polite question two hundred years ago when tobacco was rare enough to make smoking a distinction, or fifty years ago when everybody smoked at home and in public. But it is effrontery to-day when people do mind, when smoking pollutes the air of drawing room and office, and while soothing the excited nerves of the smoker lowers the vitality of nonsmokers compelled to breathe smoke-laden air. It is selfish to intrude upon others ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... consequence to them, having thorns enough on her stem to have pleasure in exciting a little envy; but being afraid these connections should be known she excluded every friend she was requested to do, and thus the Sweet Briar and many of that rank were left out, yet several weeds had the effrontery to get in. ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... said to that fellow: "MR MAYOR,—You had the effrontery to-day to discharge me with a caution—forsooth!—your fellow —magistrate. I've consulted my solicitor as to whether an action will lie for false imprisonment. I'm informed that it won't. I take this opportunity of saying that justice in this town is a travesty. I have no wish ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... contended for that declaration, in the very teeth of the Supreme Court, for more than a quarter of a century. In fact, they have reduced the decision to an absolute nullity. That decision, I repeat, is repudiated in the Cincinnati platform; and still, as if to show that effrontery can go no further, Judge Douglas vaunts in the very speeches in which he denounces me for opposing the Dred Scott decision that he stands on the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... was by now "blooded to the game." He no longer needed Gretry's urging to spur him. He had developed into a strategist, bold, of inconceivable effrontery, delighting in the shock of battle, never more jovial, more daring than when under stress of the most merciless attack. On this occasion, when the "other side" resorted to the usual tactics to drive ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... have read what is called The Life of David Hume[356], written by himself, with the letter from Dr. Adam Smith subjoined to it. Is not this an age of daring effrontery? My friend Mr. Anderson, Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow, at whose house you and I supped[357], and to whose care Mr. Windham[358], of Norfolk, was entrusted at that University, paid me a visit lately; and after we had talked with indignation and contempt ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... was or might be involved. I told him I felt that this was so with me when I opposed you, and that all minds are subject to such obliquities!—the Lord help me, and this to an LL.D. and Principal of a College! I proceeded to discuss his Geology with the effrontery of a novice; and, thank God, I urged the very argument of your letter about evidence of subsidence—viz., not all submerged at once, and glacial action being subaerial and not oceanic. Your letter hence was a relief, for I felt I was hardly strong enough ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Budlong had never exchanged Christmas presents, at all, but with whom an intimacy had sprung up since Mrs. Budlong came into the reputation of her money—Myra Eppley had the effrontery to call up on the ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... Fountain signs and Maggie goes. Mrs. Fountain shakes out the folds of the robe. "Well, upon my word, I should think there was conspiracy to insult you, Clarence. I should like to know who has had the effrontery— What's ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... effrontery of the ambassador's scoundrelly servant in passing himself off for a man of condition formed the point of departure for every conversation. It was discovered that there were but three persons present who had not ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... called to discuss the enormity of the doctor's conduct and his growing record of outrages upon humanity. "To extract a portion of the intestines was madness and murder, for who can exist without intestines as God made them?—and his effrontery to put the blame upon the women who in the tenderness of their hearts had fed the youth on dhal and rice for the restoration of his strength—ai Khodar! What harm was there ever in plain dhal and rice? It was but an excuse, and now there is Gunesh Prosad without a son to inherit ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... Blanche, with cunning effrontery, "I wanted some gay fixings for the ball, so I took the rail to London, got 'em, stayed all night with the Claytons, and am bringing back to Mrs. Haughton ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... he would probably have slunk off; but the consciousness that a stranger was present, besides the person who came with him (a sort of land-surveyor), determined him to resort to impudence. The task, however, was almost too hard, even for his effrontery—"Sir—Sir—Mr. Bertram—Sir, you should not blame me, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... it came to that, there was Christopher Clogs, the wooden shoemaker, who was a good figure and a wealthy man to boot! He lived in the Market Place, and drove a thriving business, whilst Caspar was known to have only one coat to his back. Really the effrontery of Cobweb Corner ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... work of supererogation and effrontery for me to attempt to treat this subject in particular since it has been so clearly and ably done by Col. C. A. Van Duzee of St. Paul, Minn., and Viking, Fla., from the standpoint of long experience and full knowledge. His ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... He smiled pleasantly. Effrontery, properly managed, is one of the most valuable of all qualities. Especially in dealing with people who themselves are arrogant ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... for reasons which the surviving English did not learn. The executions were all by cutting off the heads of the condemned with a scymitar; and the Dutch prepared a black velvet pall for Captain Towerson's body to fall upon, which they afterwards had the effrontery to charge in account against the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... he had not evaded recognition, nor had he made the slightest attempt to alter his appearance. From his bold insouciance it seemed evident that he was totally indifferent as to who recognized him. Either the man possessed moral courage of the extremest sort or else an unbelievable effrontery. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... of absence. In that time he had visited Italy, France, England and Germany, and had studied under naval experts. He had come back home with his own little idea undiminished in its importance to his own mind, and he had proceeded with youthful enthusiasm and effrontery to prove its importance to the ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... thinking that if he did not know this rattling talk to be a form of embarrassment, he should take it for effrontery. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hide his sudden rush of indignation and resentment. Turbulently he longed to get his hands upon the sly Higginson, who had had the effrontery to dispatch a woman to protect him, and this woman of all others that lived in Hunston.... Protect him? Hardly. That an attack had been planned against his person was, indeed, likely enough, but not that any hireling of Ryan's should rush forward hysterically to pluck him from his peril. What move ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... quite the effrontery to say that. She told me that Mr. Meldon, this parson of yours who takes you out yachting, had given orders before I came that all my food was to be ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... sleepless nights; neuralgia, with Hendon Chartley's progress at the hospital; neuralgia, with the trouble about Janet; neuralgia, with James Poynter's coarse vulgar face full of effrontery always before her, flaunting his possessions, his power, and his influence, and staring with parted lips over the words which somehow he had never yet dared to utter, but which sooner or ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... this cloak by turns, those who had no right to it remaining at home.2 Whether true or not, the anecdote well illustrates the extremity to which Almagro's faction was reduced. And this distress was rendered yet more galling by the effrontery of their enemies, who, enriched by their forfeitures, displayed before their eyes all the insolent bravery of equipage and apparel that could ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... could have counselled my lord better than that; as any man may see, who will but open his bible and turn to the book of Job, chap. the 1st, verse 6th, and so on. There Moses informs, that when Satan, whose effrontery is up to any thing, presented himself at the grand levee, the Almighty very civilly asked him, (now mind that, 'saints', in your speech to poor sinners) — the Almighty, I say, very CIVILLY asked him "where ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... call for little but effrontery on my part," said he. "But think how it would affect these boys who came here for the sole purpose of enjoying themselves. I will not so much as mention ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... were usually honored by the railroad authorities, who reasoned that they could better afford to bear the shameless effrontery of the ermined extortioner than the damage which might result to ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... from Potchefstroom, and summoned the town of Klerksdorp to surrender. It is a town of fair size, predominantly Dutch, of course, but with a minority of English residents. The audacious demand of the Liliputian force was acceded to. They rode in, and the British flag was hoisted. With charming effrontery it was represented that the twenty-one were only the forerunners of an overwhelming force, and that resistance was useless. The Dutch were cowed or acquiescent, and a splendid reception was given to the army ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... wife almost shouted. "Gambled every day of his life for twenty-five years on the New York Stock Exchange, and now he has the effrontery to make a statement like that! John Parker, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... effrontery to chide him for lack of faith in her! He was in pain: for all that, the moment ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... to emancipate 'mind' and oil the wheels of political progression than those kept in state pay. The air of conventicles is not of the freest or most bracing description. The Methodist preacher, who has the foolish effrontery to tell his congregation 'the flush lusteth always contrary to the spirit, and, therefore, every person born into the world deserveth God's wrath and damnation,' may be a liberal politician, one well fitted to pilot his flock into the haven of true republicanism; but I am extremely ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... stretched out their hands to touch the golden frame of the harp as it was carried past them by the youth in crimson,—a pretty fellow enough, who looked extremely haughty, and almost indignant at this effrontery on the part of the fair poet-worshippers, but he made no remonstrance, and merely held his head a little higher and walked with a more consequential air, as he followed his master at a respectful distance. Another long ecstatic shout of "Hail Sah-luma!" arose ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... With brazen effrontery and calculating boldness it has its clutch upon the throat of this Republic, controls its government from the Presidential office down through army and navy, has open mass in the shipyards of the latter, in ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... together in Cristoforo's wagon, and the intruder was haranguing the people, the quack, without a movement of his face or a twitch of his body, jerked his foot against his rival's leg and threw him to the ground. He had the effrontery to proclaim the feat as magnetic entirely, accomplished without bodily means, and by ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... whatever, when the "King of the Peak" turned round, drew off the sheet which had been placed over the dead body, and ordered that everyone present should successively approach and touch it, declaring at the same time each his innocence of the foul murder. The cottar, who had retained his effrontery until now, shrank from the ordeal, and declined to touch the body, running at once out of the hall, through Bakewell village, in the direction of Ashford. Sir George, coming, as he well might, to the conclusion that the suspicions ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... of fair women, and of iron, my share of the spoils that we have taken; but one prize, he who gave has insolently taken away. Tell him all as I now bid you, and tell him in public that the Achaeans may hate him and beware of him should he think that he can yet dupe others for his effrontery never fails him. ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... his worst moments, had never been known to injure a poor man or a woman. The wild blood of the half-breed that was in her had been stirred, as only a woman's blood can be, by his reckless dealings, his courage, effrontery, and withal his wondrous kindliness of disposition. She was thinking of this man now, this man whom she knew to be numbered amongst the countless victims of that dreadful mire. And what had conjured this thought? A horse—a horse peacefully grazing far out across the mire in the direction ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... 'Seven the main—if seven or eleven is thrown next, the Caster wins.' Of course Dick intended to win; but he blundered in his operation; he LANDED at six and the other did not answer his hopes. Yet, with matchless effrontery, he swore he had called SIX and not seven; and as it was referred to the majority of the goodly company, thirteen HONEST GENTLEMEN gave it in Dick England's favour, and ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... mornings and all the afternoons?" I inquired, with the effrontery of a hardened sinner seizing his opportunity to take a saint ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... self-confidence and at the same time insolence, and a sort of incessant irritability, were apparent in the expression of his face. He was horribly scared, that was evident, but his self-conceit was wounded, and it might be surmised that his mortified vanity might on occasion lead him to any effrontery, in spite of his cowardice. He was evidently uneasy at every movement of his clumsy person. We all know that when such gentlemen are brought by some marvellous chance into society, they find their worst ordeal ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... splendid ignoramus, who, having everything against him, nothing for him, without provisions, ammunition, guns, shoes, almost without an army, with a handful of men against masses, dashed at allied Europe, and absurdly gained impossible victories? Who was this new comet of war who possest the effrontery of a planet? The academic military school excommunicated him, while bolting, and hence arose an implacable rancor of the old Caesarism against the new, of the old saber against the flashing sword, and of the chessboard against genius. On June 18th, 1815, this rancor ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... and unfaltering voice, from one end of a dinner-table to the other, who, on all occasions, have something to say, and can speak with fluency on what they know nothing about, no sooner rise in the House than their spells desert them. All their effrontery vanishes. Commonplace ideas are rendered even more uninteresting by monotonous delivery; and keenly alive as even boobies are in those sacred walls to the ridiculous, no one appears more thoroughly aware of his unexpected and astounding deficiencies than the orator himself. He regains ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... all the brazen effrontery of a hardened criminal. That is to say she came out singing, and with her hair perfectly in order, and looking in every way fresh and charming. Billy recognized this immediately as the wile of a malefactor trying to throw an officer of the law off the scent, ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... Julia are singular creatures, and their unaccountableness is not of the right feminine kind that offers an attractive role to a good actress. Why should the Countess Fiesco, herself an aristocrat and a woman with heroic blood in her veins, submit so meekly in her own house to the coarse effrontery of the woman who has wronged her? We get the impression that she is only a crushed flower,—a helpless, wan-cheeked thing, with nothing womanly about her except her jealousy. And then, at the end, she suddenly develops ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... ugly, not Crystalman. These are Crystalman's thoughts, which you see around you. He is nothing but Beauty and Pleasantness. Even Krag won't have the effrontery to ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... by alternate effrontery and flattery, he had kept his place in the Count's confidence, and exerted a guiding and restraining influence over him. Now Sagan held him at arm's length, and was plainly determined to act according to his own judgment without consulting the German. The mischief had, of course, been ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... crossed the room, and, standing before him, placed one hand upon her hip as she looked at him with half-pitying effrontery. ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... over their own side, but the sportsman confines himself to the common enemy. This training of theirs renders the one set more able to cope with the foreign foe, the others far less able. The hunting of the one is carried on with self-restraint, of the others with effrontery. The one can look down with contempt upon maliciousness and sordid love of gain, the other cannot. The very speech and intonation of the one has melody, of the other harshness. And with regard to things divine, the one set know ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... essays take upon themselves, in unpardonable effrontery, to weigh and judge, from their own petty suburban pedestal, the great Shadows they review. It is an insolence! How should Professor This, or Doctor That, whose furthest experiences of "dangerous living" have been squalid philanderings with their ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... admission into the more decent society of Carrick-on-Shannon—that he had some time since achieved; he then sought to mix among the second-rate country gentlemen; and by making himself useful to them, by plausibility, by some degree of talent, and by great effrontery, he had become sufficiently intimate with many of them to shake hands with them at race-courses and ordinaries, and to talk of them to others as "Blake," "Brown," and "Jones." To some few, who now usually called him "Hyacinth," and occasionally invited him to drinking parties ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... danger, sometimes in herself, sometimes also in others. The one impulse craves something innocent and helpless, to cherish and protect; the other delights in the spectacle of recklessness, audacity, sometimes even effrontery.[79] A woman is not perfectly happy in her lover unless he can give at least some satisfaction to each ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... who will pretend to say that it has ever been abused by the Government of Lord Melbourne? That Government has enemies in abundance; it has been attacked by Tory malcontents and by Radical malcontents; but has any one of them ever had the effrontery to say that it has abused the power of filing ex officio informations for libel? Has this been from want of provocation? On the contrary, the present Government has been libelled in a way in which no Government ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hand aside. "Who wants to go hand in hand with you?" she cried. "Here we grow older day after day, but we're still so full of brazen-faced effrontery that we don't even ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... dropped letters to him,—love-letters, do you understand? And now,"—her voice rose more shrill and uncontrollable at every word, as she saw Lira's face turn white, and her anger gave desperate utterance to the lie,—"and now he has the effrontery to come to me—to me—to me of all women—and to confess his abominable passion for that pure angel, imploring me to assist him in bringing destruction upon her and you. Oh, it is execrable, it is vile, it is hellish!" She pressed her hands to her temples ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... Sandy certain directions about kirk matters, the minister sniffed once or twice, and remarked, "Saunders, I fear you have been 'tasting' (taking a glass) this morning."—"'Deed, sir," replied Sandy, with the coolest effrontery, set off with a droll glance of his brown eyes; "'Deed, sir, I was just ga'in' to observe I thocht there was a smell o' speerits amang ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis in Goswell Street-Pickwick, who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward—Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless tomato sauce and warming-pans—Pickwick still rears his head with unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. Damages, gentlemen—heavy damages, is the only punishment with which you can visit him; the only recompense you can award to my client. And for those damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... impertinence; sauciness &c. adj.; flippancy, dicacity|, petulance, procacity[obs3], bluster; swagger, swaggering &c. v.; bounce; terrorism. assumption, presumption; beggar on horseback; usurpation. impudence, assurance, audacity, hardihood, front, face, brass; shamelessness &c. adj.; effrontery, hardened front, face of brass. assumption of infallibility. saucebox &c. (blusterer) 887[obs3]. V. be insolent &c. adj.; bluster, vapor, swagger, swell, give oneself airs, snap one's fingers, kick up a dust; swear &c. (affirm) 535; rap out oaths; roister. arrogate; assume, presume; make ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... determined to have the point cleared up; and he immediately offered to ride back to Cheltenham, and return the second volume. At this proposal, Lady Augusta, who foresaw that her falsehood would be detected, turned pale; but mademoiselle, with a laugh of effrontery, which she thought was putting a good face ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... word to those Americans who may chance to read this book. To them, of course, I must offer a somewhat different apology. I believe that, with all my limitations, I can tell my fellow-countrymen things about the history of America which they do not know. It would be absurd effrontery to pretend that I can tell Americans what they do not know. For them, whatever interest this book may possess must depend upon the value of a foreigner's interpretation of the facts. I know that I ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... work of envy. But now they had been repeated to her by dona Bernarda, by a lady "in good standing," a good Christian, a person incapable of falsehood. And then after rehearsing that scandalous biography, Rafael's mother had come to the shocking effrontery with which her niece and Rafael were rousing the whole city; flaunting their wrong-doing in the face of the public; and turning her home, the respectable, irreproachable home of dona Pepa, into a ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and yet has somehow gotten possession of one hundred million dollars from those who could not defend themselves from his strength and cunning. This man stands before you now with no shame in his soul, no tears on his cheeks, and with brazen effrontery demands ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... wonder—yes I wonder how he has the effrontery to look me in the face, to dare to claim acquaintance with me. He was in my London parish long ago. The other day in Santa Croce, when he was with Miss Honeychurch, I snubbed him. Let him beware that he does not get ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... mischievous sentimentalists who had always lent themselves to the solemn jest by protestations of great vraisemblance against "the judicial killing of women," became really alarmed and filled the land with their lamentations. Among the phenomena of brazen effrontery he classes the fact that some of these loud protagonists of the right of women to assassinate unpunished were themselves women! Howbeit, the sentences, if ever pronounced, were never executed, and during the first quarter of the twentieth century the meaningless custom of bringing female ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... the several European belligerents, designed to bend American neutrality to the service of one side or the other. Both parties have aimed to intimidate and cajole; but while the one party has taken recourse to effrontery and has made much and ostentatious use of threats and acts of violence against person and property, the other has constantly observed a deferential attitude toward American national self-esteem, even while engaged ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... Weavers{7} become our Lords of Trade, And every clown throw by his spade, 60 T' instruct our ministers of state, And foreign commerce regulate: Ev'n bony Scotland with her dirk, Nay, her starv'd presbyterian kirk{8}, With ignorant effrontery prays 65 Britain to dim the western rays, Which while they on our island fall Give warmth and ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell
... fell from the sky on to the cheek of the thief, burning on it a mark which he carried with him ever afterwards. Hence arose the custom in ancient times of branding or marking thieves." [282] The moral influence of this tale is excellent, and has the cordial admiration of all who hate robbery and effrontery: at the same time it exhibits the moon as an irascible body, with which no liberty may be taken. In short, it is an object of ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... who were astonished at the kind of tone he assumed. They, who had been gravely considering whether they could possibly shake hands with him, found themselves on a level with, if not beneath him, at once, by mere effrontery. There is some truth in the saying that, 'Accordingly as you think of yourself, others will think of you;' and impudence and riches combined, together with a certain amount of talent and personal appearance, can overcome vast worldly obstacles. Besides did he ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... that the woman who had just stormed at the conductor, who had the effrontery to subject Helen to that stony scrutiny before she answered, could adopt such dulcet tones so suddenly. Helen, frank and generous-minded to a degree, would have preferred a gradual subsidence of wrath to this ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... chooses to allege any pretext, whether rightfully or wrongfully, he will consign me headlong to the mill. To these evils this one is besides added for me. This Andrian, whether she is {his} wife, or whether {his} mistress, is pregnant by Pamphilus. It is worth while to hear their effrontery; for it is an undertaking {worthy} of those in their dotage, not of those who dote in love;[41] whatever she shall bring forth, they have resolved to rear;[42] and they are now contriving among themselves a certain scheme, that she is a citizen of Attica. There was formerly a certain ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... good-humored help, to go down into the kitchen and submit to Mrs. Hudson's hectoring. "Momma" had all the insolence of the underdog. Of her daughters, as of her husband, she was very much afraid. They all bullied her, Babe with noisy, cheerful effrontery—"sass" Sylvester called it—and Girlie with a soft, unyielding tyranny that had the smothering pressure of a large silk pillow. Girlie was tall and serious and beautiful, the proud possessor of what Millings called "a perfect form." She was inexpressibly ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... backed off a few feet to get a better look at the terrible stranger. He had not expected opposition and such effrontery was ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... Parson Acup, wrenched out of his usual placidity by the effrontery of the project, spoke vehemently. "Any tide thet would bust thet dam would sartain shore rip them rafts inter fragments. Ef they goes out a-tall they goes out ter destruction and splinters an' sure death, ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... whole city. Sometimes alone, sometimes two or three together, they seemed omnipresent. In all sorts of disguises, feigning all sorts of employments and characters, sometimes on horseback and again driving an old cart or a hack, they pressed with the most imperturbable effrontery into the very vortex of danger. Ever on the watch, and accustomed to notice every expression of the countenance, they would discover at a single glance when they were suspected, and remove the suspicion at once by some clever device. Sometimes one of them, seeing himself watched, would quietly ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... which they endured. Hence Bernard de Foucald (Monastier History), a writer of the twelfth century, says, "These Waldenses, although condemned by Pope Lucius II., continued to pour forth, with daring effrontery, far and wide all over the world, the poison of ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... he said that Canada was an "adjunct" of the United States. It was Willison's attempt to consider commercial union on its merits that made the Globe seem like a mark for the annexationists, at a time when the high priest of the movement in Canada had the effrontery to remain a citizen of the nation which he was openly trying to sell at a bargain counter. The man who kept the Globe from becoming an annex to Goldwin Smith in 1891 had an experience that would fit any man to become a protection-tariff Chairman of Reconstruction, and ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... Josephus recounts at length), while largely fanciful, vividly reflects the conditions and spirit of the age. Joseph, who evidently belonged to one of the leading families of Jerusalem, by his energy and effrontery secured the valuable right of farming the taxes of Palestine. By the iniquitous methods then in vogue, he succeeded in amassing a great fortune. The splendid ruins of Arak el-Emir on the heights of southern Gilead, east of the Jordan, represent the huge castle and town built by his son Hyrcanus ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... considerable—virtues which our neighbors possess in an eminent degree—are, except in a few favored instances, unknown among us; while affectation, in other countries the badge of ignorance and vulgarity, is ours, even in its worst shape, when it borrows the mien of rudeness, impertinence, and effrontery, the appendage of those whose station is most conspicuous, and whose dignity is best ascertained. There is more good breeding in the cottage of a French peasant than in all the boudoirs of Grosvenor square. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... you never see the commonplace effrontery of it, Mr. Winton? Day after day you have come here, idling away the precious hours that meant everything to you, and now you come once again to offer me a share in what you have lost. Is that your idea of ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... diffidence totally unable to speak in the house. In a debate on the Union act, desirous of delivering his sentiments, he rose, and began, "Mr. Speaker, I conceive"—but could go no farther. Twice he repeated, unsuccessfully, the same attempt; when a young member, possessed of greater effrontery than ability, completely confused him, by rising and saying, "Mr. Speaker, the honourable gentleman has conceived three ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... slander and treachery, and effrontery and cunning, the rivals who act unfairly, and the keen competition of the literary market," his companion said resignedly. "What is a first loss, if only your ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... affliction at all. It kept me from the boredom of school, in a fire-lit bedroom at home, with my pretty, smiling stepmother lavishing luxurious attendance upon me, and it gave me long, unbroken days for reading. I was awkwardly aware that I simply had not the effrontery to 'approach the Throne of Grace' with a request to know for what sin I was condemned to such a very ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... occasionally find in the pages of the Edinburgh or Quarterly Review, or in the columns of the English newspapers, not only a full justification of this oppressive treatment in view of its astonishing consequences, but a claim to approbation on account of its exercise. Would not such effrontery amaze us? Would not an honest indignation burn within us? Should we look with a more complacent aspect upon the bigots who kindled those fires of persecution around the Puritans, which, but for the interposition of Heaven, ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... postured and advertised yourself till every one's sick of you! A good press—I should think you had! You're never out of it! An announcement that you've left London—and the intolerable effrontery of telling us all about it! The only way you could escape from your mob ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... surly, thick-set man with a red face and small, cunning eyes like a ferret, had already sized up his fares for two sacre foreigners whom it would be flying in the face of Providence not to cheat, so with unblushing effrontery ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... forms of innocent amusement, such as cutting off people's heads. So he discouraged chess as a degrading game, that did not improve either the mind or the morals, and abolished the tournament summarily. Then he sent for the four priests who had had the effrontery to play better than a Grand Lama, and addressed them as follows: "Miserable and heathenish men, calling yourselves priests! Know ye not that to lay claim to a capacity to do anything better than my predecessor is a capital offence? Take that chessboard and, before day ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... to me, as doubtless to others of my brethren, to find that I have been personated, certainly to my considerable discredit. Take these instances. When at Brighton, a fellow had the effrontery to collect money in my name, and I suppose he somewhat resembled me, as I heard more than once that I had been seen here and there, where I undoubtedly was not, and proved an alibi. At Bignor, where I went to see some Roman pavements on the property ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Tryphena and Tryphosa, the representative of the family, as the deputy of Timotheus and the servant of the colonel. Ben Toner was his ally in war, but had no local standing, and the pensioner was simply an intruder. Yet, with cool effrontery, the corporal sat in the place of honour beside Tryphena, and regaled her with narratives of warfare, to which she had listened many times already. Ben and Serlizer were still full of one another's society. He had comforted her heart, if it needed any comforting, over ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... care for that fellow still!" he broke out hotly. "And you had the effrontery to take those solemn words on your lips this morning, with the love of . . . ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... here I know that some will chuckle, when they read that Capito is favoured by such a hater of Luther with the designation of an excellent and most accomplished man. These and many things of the like kind he represents me as saying, taking the pattern of his effrontery from a letter of Jerome, who complains that his rivals had circulated a forged letter under his name amongst a synod of bishops in Africa; in which he was made to confess that, deceived by certain Jews, he had falsely translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew. And they would ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... resist, in spite of their royal mistress's example and courage. It was an age of meaningless gallantry and real brutality; the high-flown compliment and pretended adoration covered cynical intention and unabashed effrontery. Caroline herself preserved an untainted name, and her influence must have been a rock of salvation to the giddy, laughing girls. Leigh Hunt, quoting from the "Suffolk Correspondence," thus summarizes these maids: "There is Miss Hobart, the sweet tempered and sincere (now become Mrs. Howard, ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton |
