"Insolence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wilt not ask what I did with it. I immediately tendered those same Christians I told thee of their money. The rascals were disappointed, and would have been surly; but a single look silenced their insolence. One of them was dispatched, according to form, to see that there were no detainers; and, being paid, they then set ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... that, if the subsequent excesses had not alarmed all prudent friends of liberty, the people of this country could not have been restrained from engaging in the struggle between France and England; but the reign of terror, backed by the insolence of Citizen Genet the minister of the French republic, and afterward by the exactions of the Directory, checked the headlong enthusiasm that otherwise would have embroiled us in the terrible wars of that period. In his almost more than human wisdom, Washington had ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... any man different from his fellows, humble or great? Is it not man himself, not only men, that I must face as I have faced you—with silence, or with sullen speech, or with a hardness far beyond my years, and a gaiety that means nothing more kind than insolence?" ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... without saluting him; but the tutor stopped, and inquired, not roughly neither, what he had been doing? "Sliding on the ice," was the reply, and so turned away with disdain. He laughed very heartily at the recollection of his own insolence, and said they endured it from him with wonderful acquiescence, and a gentleness that, whenever he thought of it, astonished himself. He told me, too, that when he made his first declamation, he wrote over but one copy, and that ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... writing, Miss! said the bold wench: it is admirable how you can get away what you write—but the fairies, they say, are always at hand to help lovers.—She retired in so much haste, that, had I been disposed, I could not take the notice of this insolence which it deserved. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... followed by another. No. 2 is grammatical, or thereabouts; but, under a feigned politeness, the insolence of a vulgar mind shows itself pretty plainly, and the master is reminded what he suffered on some former occasion when he rebelled against the trades. This letter is sometimes ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... showed itself in my manner, as it influenced my every action. It was not alone that I lost the obedient air and quiet submissiveness of the child, but I had assumed the very extravagance of that democratic insolence which was the mode among the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... no joke to be charged, even by a madman, with striving to arouse the crew to mutiny. Nevertheless I tried to console myself as best I could by reflecting that he could not prove his charges; that I need only to endure his insolence for a few weeks, and that there was always a law to vindicate me and punish him, should his evil temper betray him into any acts of cruelty ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... dimly suspected that any society of human beings expects some self-discipline, and some sacrifice to ordinary rules. As it was she wondered how long Molly's neglect of small duties and her frequent insolence ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... something about the insolence of strangers; then he picked up his saw. In silence the work was resumed, and later, when the boat had been divided, each man set about boarding up and calking the open end of his respective half. Neither of them was expert in the use of carpenter's ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... refined and barbarous cruelties. Still many of the learned bowed their necks to this yoke with abject servility: thus, Robert Powell, speaking of the Book of Sports, says, 'Needless is it to argue or dispute for that which authority hath commanded, and most insufferable insolence to speak or write against it.'[55] These Sunday sports, published by Charles I, in 1633, had doubtless aided in fostering Bunyan's bad conduct in his youthful days. In 1644, when The Book of Common Prayer was abolished, an Act was passed for the better observance of the Lord's-day; all persons ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to meet the degraded member of the family by the wayside. Mr. Tulliver, Mrs. Glegg considered, must be made to feel, when he came to his right mind, that he could never humble himself enough; for that had come which she had always foreseen would come of his insolence in time past "to them as were the best friends he'd got to look to." Mr Glegg and Mr. Deane were less stern in their views, but they both of them thought Tulliver had done enough harm by his hot-tempered crotchets and ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... numerous travellers, including ladies, have been there in safety; and it is probable that some of the disputes which have arisen were occasioned either through ignorance, or from insolence of the dragomans. It would be interesting to compare the accounts of those who have suffered annoyances in Petra, so as to ascertain how far the Fellahheen were to blame, or whether difficulties are not rather due to the ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... to blush!' the Abbess cried, 'The veil and vow deriding That rescued thee, in baby days, From insolence of Norman gaze, In pure and holy hiding. —O royal child of South and North, Malcolm and Margaret, The promised bride of Heaven art thou, And Heaven will not forget! What recks it, if an alien King Encoronet thy ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... means which I could never have devised had I been acquainted with the plot, of which I was totally ignorant. Several of the domestics, male as well as female, had left the house in a fright, fearing the insolence and rude treatment of this troop of soldiers, who behaved as riotously as if they were in a house given up to pillage. Some of these, at the distance of a quarter of a league from the house, by God's providence, fell in with Ferte and Avantigni, at the head of their ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... "Whose insolence and never yet match'd pride Can by no character be well express'd, But in her only name, the ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... and he was obliged to conceal his fury. He hated these rebellious men even more than he hated the upstart women. He was determined, if the opportunity offered, to be revenged upon them for their insolence. But how? This was the matter he revolved in his snake-licking mind as he stared at the wall, and he was in a hurry to reach a solution of his difficulty. Stark Coleman had called him before he was out of bed that morning ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... chain-gangs, or as slaves to settlers in the bush, for the lot of the assigned servant was often worse than that of a slave, as he had to give his labour for nothing but food and clothing, and was liable to be flogged on any charge of disobedience, insolence, or insubordination which his master might choose to bring against him. Moreover, the black slave might be sold for cash, for five hundred to a thousand dollars, according to the quality of the article and the state of the market, ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... Maria! Is this the woman who, anon, braved the jeers and brutal wrath of swindling hackney-coachmen; who repelled the insolence of haggling porters, with a scorn that brought down their demands at least eighteenpence? Is this the woman at whose voice servants tremble; at the sound of whose steps the nursery, ay, and mayhap the parlor, is in order? Look at her now, prostrate, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... force of hand, and swiftness of foot, and strength of body, excelling the ordinary rate, and wholly incapable of fatigue; making use, however, of these gifts of nature to no good or profitable purpose for mankind, but rejoicing and priding themselves in insolence, and taking the benefit of their superior strength in the exercise of inhumanity and cruelty, and in seizing, forcing, and committing all manner of outrages upon every thing that fell into their hands; all respect for others, all justice, they thought, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... We had come together from Harwich and did not reach this hotel until half an hour before midnight. We had had our things put on the pavement and had dismissed the cab, and the porter, with an airy, tentative insolence, now reported the ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... Aztecs were very angry with them for entertaining the Spaniards without the emperor's permission, and had demanded twenty young men and maidens to be sacrificed to the gods as a punishment. Cortes was most indignant at this insolence, and insisted that the Totonacs should not only refuse the demand, but should also seize the Aztec nobles, and throw them into prison. This they did, but the Spanish general managed to get two of them freed in the night, and brought before him. He then very cunningly made them believe ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... clung to him, but she tried to divert his affection. When she spoke it was of small domestic abuses: the exorbitant prices she had had to pay for food; the way in which the soldiery had stolen her pots and pans; the insolence she had experienced when she had lodged complaints against the men before their officers. And the boy—he wanted to be a poilu. He kept inventing revenges he would take in battle, if the war lasted long enough for his class ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... dressed with that perfection crowned with negligence which the Englishman of the upper classes so admirably achieves. He was, in fact, unmistakably a gentleman, at least by birth, though his bored manner held a hint of insolence, a suggestion of the bounder. His hazel eyes, glancing about with irritable restlessness, were curiously devoid of any depths, his mouth showed a mixture of weakness and obstinacy, devil-may-care courage and lack of moral ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... anticipated the catastrophe which was about to overwhelm his patron. He was by nature timid, suspicious, and apt to foresee disaster. Possibly he may have judged that the haughty citizens of Florence would not long put up with Piero's aristocratical insolence. But Condivi tells a story on the subject which is too curious to be omitted, and which he probably set down from Michelangelo's own lips. "In the palace of Piero a man called Cardiere was a frequent inmate. The Magnificent took much pleasure in his society, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... is a fair test of the vigour of youth; and, conversely, insolence towards the old and the past, whether in individuals or in nations, is a sign rather of ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... spring," he prayed, "if ever my master honored you, hear my prayer, and send him home again! He would make a sweep of all your insolence, you good-for-nothing wretch, loitering here in the city while your flocks are left ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... Roman camp, where, with insulting shouts and the hurling of their javelins, they aroused the Roman soldiers from their slumber. This insult had the desired effect, Sempronius rushed from his tent, furious at what he deemed the insolence of the Carthaginians, and called his troops to arms. With their accustomed discipline the Romans fell into their ranks. The light cavalry first issued from the palisade, the infantry followed, the heavy cavalry brought up the rear. The insulting Numidians had already retired, but Sempronius ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... noblesse, but in low circumstances, who was in a coffee house in Paris, where was also Julien, the great manufacturer at Gobelins, of fine tapestry, so much distinguished for the figures and the colours. The chevalier's carriage was very old. Says Julien with a plebeian insolence, 'I think, sir, you had better ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... insolence in the careless answer. It was as though he had tossed her an epitome of his opinion of her. Magda's spirit ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... built houses, or worked in tapestry. Apparently those who have condemned this proposition, have a secret for cutting stones and wood, and for sewing with the feet.... I have no doubt that they will soon condemn to the galleys the first who shall have the insolence to say, that a man cannot think without his head; for, some bachelor will tell him, the soul is a pure spirit, the head is nothing but matter: God can place the soul in the nails, as well as in the skull, therefore ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... the former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his imagination what proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even so, for the most part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought I, he means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspect sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He is useful to me. I can get along with him. If I turn him away, the chances are he will fall in with some less-indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Yes. Here ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... already prejudiced) had taken offence; either she would not reply at all, or presently there would come a few lines of polite displeasure, intimating her disinclination to aid his project. He silently raged against 'the woman'. Her neglect was insolence. Had she not delicacy enough to divine the anxiety natural to one in his dependent position? Did she take him for an every-day writer of mendicant appeals? His pride fed upon the outrage and ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... dissertation usually prefixed to the editions of Ossian, and who compares him favorably to Homer. First among the incredulous, as might be expected, was Dr. Samuel Johnson, who, in his Journey to the Hebrides, lashes Macpherson for his imposture, and his insolence in refusing to show the original. Johnson was threatened by Macpherson with a beating, and he answered: "I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian ... I thought your book an imposture; I think ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... their ordinary haunts. He sat down at table with them, and they began to drink and indulge themselves in gross jokes, while, like Mirabel in the "Inconstant," their prisoner had the heavy task of receiving their insolence as wit, answering their insults with good-humour, and withholding from them the opportunity which they sought of engaging him in a quarrel, that they might have a pretence for misusing him. He succeeded for some time, but soon became satisfied it was their purpose to murder ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... well, my lord, and so your worthy greatnesse 120 Decline not to the greater insolence, Nor make you think it a prerogative To rack mens freedomes with the ruder wrongs, My hand (stuck full of lawrell, in true signe Tis wholly dedicate to righteous peace) 125 In all ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... old, I would beat you for your insolence," said Nada, striving to look brave and all the while searching a way to escape. "Also, I have no stick, only a spear, and that is for warriors, not for an old umfagozan like you." Ay, my father, I lived to hear my daughter name me an umfagozan—a ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... his attention on each separately and examining it without regard to the other. On one occasion he anatomizes the faults of the dissenters, and on another he extols their virtues, "I have inveighed all my life against the insolence of the Tories, and for this I have the authority both of Whigs and Reformers; but then I have occasionally spoken against the imbecility of the Whigs, and the extravagance of the Reformers, and thus have brought all three ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... obliged, my cousin Anne! But these sentiments are not always reciprocal, and I warn you that the day when I set my foot on your neck, the spine shall break. Are you acquainted with the properties of the spine?" he asked, with an insolence beyond qualification. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... kind to be so ready to over look her insolence," the captain said; "but I cannot permit such exhibitions of temper, and must, at whatever cost, teach her to rule ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... of Delaware soon became the scene of attempts at settlement. De Vries began, in 1632, a colony on the banks of the Delaware, but it was quickly laid waste by the savages, who had been needlessly provoked by the insolence of the commander left in charge of the colony. In 1633 Minuit was succeeded by Van Twiller, and a fort was erected at Hartford, though the English claimed this country as theirs. Emigrants from the Plymouth colony began the settlement of Windsor, in ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... to you," said she, with haughty insolence. "And if to my father's servant, why not to ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... and inspired her rulers with the dangerous conviction that the opposing forces with which they would have to deal in the expected contest for the mastery of Europe could be more easily overthrown than they had anticipated. To the Russian defeat must be mainly attributed the blustering insolence of German policy during the next ten years, and the boldness of the ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... virtually broken, when Austria without warning to Italy stabbed at Serbia. Austria made a grave blunder there, in not observing the first term of the Triple Alliance, by which she was bound to take her allies into consultation. The insolence of the Austrian attitude was betrayed in the disregard of this obligation: Italy evidently was too unimportant a factor to be precise with. Italy might, then and there, the 1st of August, 1914, very well have denounced the Alliance, and perhaps would ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... irritation, his insolence, his contempt spoke clearly enough in his tone. The remark was almost like an intentional insult. For a second Carmichael hesitated. "No," he thought, "why should I quarrel with him? He is only sullen. He can ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... edifices since the period of that personage's temporary residence in the Netherlands, and substituting, with wonderful celerity, the escutcheon of Philip the Second. Thus suddenly could an Antwerp mob pass from democratic insolence ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... continued until the spiteful family appeared to have either relieved themselves or grown tired of having the cold shoulder of a profound contempt all the time turned toward them. It was a very hard thing for me to bear this malicious insolence. I could have retorted keenly on them by some plain insinuation touching their iron-tailed cow, of which they probably thought that no one but themselves had any knowledge. But we preserved our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... pitied than those of the former. The contemplation of distresses of this sort softens the mind of man, and makes the heart better. It extinguishes the seeds of envy and ill-will towards mankind, corrects the pride of prosperity, and beats down all that fierceness and insolence which are apt to get into the minds of the daring ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... superior authority. This fine he also declined voluntarily to pay. In the same way some peasants and soldiers who have refused to be drilled and to bear arms have been placed under arrest on a charge of breach of discipline and insolence. ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... Church, John Huss, already celebrated for his oratory and extensive learning, was appointed preacher. He saw the corruption of the age, and was not slow in denouncing it. For a while his rebukes were applied exclusively to the laity, who complained to the king of the preacher's insolence; and the archbishop was, in consequence, requested either to silence or at least to restrain his violence. But the archbishop, as well as the clergy at large, were as yet Huss's admirers; and the king was informed, that ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... great reputation in the science, yet even this cost him too much to be endured without some motive. Matrimony, therefore, having removed all such motives, he grew weary of this condescension, and began to treat the opinions of his wife with that haughtiness and insolence, which none but those who deserve some contempt themselves can bestow, and those only who deserve no contempt ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... created, of a new labor to be dared, I am not surprised that I find you sordid and material, sluggish and incredulous. That I do not despair is because I know also the forces that are driving behind you—because I know the raging lash of poverty, the sting of contempt and mastership, 'the insolence of office and the spurns.' Because I feel sure that in the crowd that has come to me tonight, no matter how many may be dull and heedless, no matter how many may have come out of idle curiosity, or in order to ridicule—there will be some one man whom pain and suffering have made desperate, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Brian out of the way," he said, as he laid an iron hand on Hugo's arm, "I am free to punish you as I choose. Mind, I would have spared you this if you had not had the insufferable insolence to pick up that pocket-book in my presence. Since you were shameless enough for that, it is plain what sort of chastisement you deserve. Take that—and ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... King's. . . . I see his mark on the rim. Does Conchubor come lodging here? LAVARCHAM — jumping up with ex- treme annoyance. — Who says it's Conchu- bor's? How dare young fools the like of you — (speaking with vehement insolence) come prying around, running the world into troubles for some slip of a girl? What brings you this place straying from Emain? (Very bitterly.) Though you think, maybe, young men can do their fill of foolery and there ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... is, I make part of what strangers attack, I make part, then, of what France is bound to defend. In giving me up she gives up herself, she avows her weakness, she acknowledges herself conquered, she courts the insolence of the conqueror. It is not the love of liberty which deposes me, but Waterloo; it is fear, and a fear of which your enemies will take advantage. And then what title has the Chamber to demand my abdication? It goes out of its lawful sphere ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... same you will judge,' he replied moodily. 'Oh, I know how you good women cling together: you know nothing of a man's nature; you cannot estimate his difficulties; because he has not got your sweet nature, because he cannot bear insolence patiently—Oh,' with an abruptness that was almost rude but for the concealed pain in his voice, 'I am not going to excuse myself to you: why should I? I have only to account to my Maker and my own conscience,' And he was actually walking off in the darkness, ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was one that had no single agreeable feature. These loutish, rowdy, loud-talking, intolerable young men were a blot upon the sweet day, the pleasant countryside. Probably, Hugh thought, there was something sexual beneath it all, and the insolence of the group was in some dim way concerned with the instinct for impressing and captivating the female heart. Perhaps the more demure village maidens who met them felt that there was something dashing and even chivalrous ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... would go and see Peter Bingham, the proprietor of the theater. I desired, anyhow, to tell him that I thought I would recover my voice, and that I might want another engagement with him after awhile. When I met him I fancied there was a shade of insolence in his manner. When I spoke of singing again he laughed, and said he guessed I would never want to go on the boards again. Why? I asked. Then he laughed again, and said "Mr. Phillips would not let me;" and then ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... can read. Pacchierotti was one of the best informed of the castrati ... Marchesi is so grossly ignorant that he wrote the word opera, opperra, but Nature has been so bountiful to the animal, that his ignorance and insolence were forgotten the moment he sang."—Venice, etc., by a Lady ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... they doubt him? The insolents! The crude brutish insolence of them! Her anger raged high again ... and as swiftly was quenched, extinguished in a twinkling by a terror born of her excitement and a bare ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... fresh-water fish. "From that time the old mother, although she pretended to have retired from business altogether, would flit from one stall to the other, still interfering in the selling of the fish, and causing her daughters continual annoyance by the foul insolence with which she at times spoke to customers." ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... success. Besides all these difficulties, those responsible for the administration of the Government in its executive branches have been and still are often annoyed and irritated by the disloyalty to the service and the insolence of employees who remain in place as the beneficiaries and the relics and reminders of the vicious system of appointment which civil-service reform was ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... dignity did not exclude the sheriff's officers, whom, as befitted so great a man, he treated with the utmost insolence, overwhelming them with abuse when they came to enforce an execution. Such scandals had several times aroused the curiosity of his neighbours, and did not redound to his credit. His landlord, wearied ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fellow, and a Republican at heart, and will to a certainty vote against our son, should John stand for the next Parliament," answered the marquis. "However, I promise you I will act with perfect justice; but you could not wish me to submit to the insolence of a fellow of ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... "in no respect differs from that of the slave, except that his master cannot apply corporal punishment by his own hands or those of his overseer, and has a property in him for a limited period. Idleness and insolence of expression, or of looks, anything betraying the insurgent spirit, subject him to the chain-gang or the triangle, or hard labour on ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... we do meet at another time!" Jack Benson flared back, wrathily. The cool insolence of the fellow cut him to the marrow, yet where was the use of disobeying a rascal flanked by two ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... there too, in all the insolence of beauty, defying criticism, and challenging the admiration that was lavished on her. I should like to describe her dress; but I know how dangerous it is for the uninitiate to venture within the verge of those awful mysteries ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... sent within three townspeople being in no condition hours, he would burn their town; to resist, the priest was at once (43) and (5) they, being in no sent. On his arrival, he defended condition to resist him, sent himself, alleging the insolence of the priest to him, (43) (44) who the sailors. But the English (50) justified himself upon the Admiral replied that a complaint petulant behaviour of the seamen. should have been forwarded to him, and then he would ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... Lizzie, "is it that way your fancies are drifting? It was I whom you suspected of dangerous designs the other day, Miss Granger. Take care your papa doesn't fall into a deeper pitfall. I should like to see him marry again, if it were only to take down that great pink creature's insolence." Whereby it will be seen that Miss Granger was not quite so popular among her contemporaries as, in the serenity of her self-possessed soul, she ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... time has slipped by, a happy change has come over Mr. Darwin's critics. The mixture of ignorance and insolence which, at first, characterized a large proportion of the attacks with which he was assailed, is no longer the sad distinction of anti-Darwinian criticism. Instead of abusive nonsense, which merely discredited its writers, we read essays, which are, at worst, more or less intelligent ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... another. Christ's parable of the wheat and the tares explains that to my satisfaction. There is goodness in all men, and sermons even in stones. But goodness and badness is apt to run in streaks. Man, to use the language of another, is a queer combination of cheek and perversity, insolence, pride, impudence, vanity, jealousy, hate, scorn, baseness, insanity, honor, truth, wisdom, virtue and urbanity. He's a queer combination all right. And those mixed elements of his nature, in their effects on other people, we call personal influence. Many a man is not altogether what he ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... another week passed, the tension lessened; indeed, she would have broken down under the strain if she had not fallen into a sort of apathy. She told herself that after all there was no reason why she should leave Old Chester immediately. Mr. Benjamin Wright's insolence had been outrageous and he was a horrible old man; but he had said that he would not speak of her affairs. So as far as he was concerned she could perfectly well wait until that Western trip was over; she would just ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... the ears of impudent boys on the floor of the House, he was sworn without further question. It has often occurred to us that this anecdote, which John Randolph used to relate with much satisfaction, was typical of much that has since occurred. The excessive courtesy of the officer, the insolence of the Virginia tobacconist, the submission of the Clerk to that insolence,—who has not witnessed such scenes ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... secret murmurings they proceeded to loud and angry complaints. Perdiccas was not their king, they said, to lord it over them in that imperious manner. He was nothing but the tutor of their kings, and they would not submit to any insolence from him. Perdiccas was soon quite alarmed to observe the degree of dissatisfaction which he had awakened, and the violence of the form which it seemed to be assuming. He changed his tone, and attempted to soothe and conciliate the minds of his men. ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of what the world is, I could hardly explain to you," she said, with cool rudeness; the sort of insolence that a fine lady can use upon occasion when it suits her. Philip's face flushed, but he would not make the rudeness more palpable by seeming ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... incredible the insolence of these English! What do you suppose Milord Wellington had done when he found that Massena had blockaded him and that he could not move his army? I might give you many guesses. You might say that he had raged, that he had despaired, that ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Lord A. This insolence is intolerable, and will not be forgotten. You may find, hot sir, that Where my friendship is despised, my resentment may be feared. I well know the latent motives for this insult. It is the language of a losing gamester, and is treated ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... made no answer, Rios, small and sinister and handsome, his air one of eternal well-bred insolence, kept his own counsel. There came a quick tug at his sleeve; his companion whispered in his ear. Thus it was that for the first time Kendric really looked at this companion. And at the first keen glance, in spite of the male attire, the loose coat ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... death before him all the time, which the heathen, instigated by the devil, promised to give him. He went through their thickets and along their shores, crying out and endeavoring to conquer the coldness of those men. By virtue of the cross, he was finally able, little by little, to soften the insolence of their fierce breasts, and to render them more tractable, although they seemed like rocks in the hardness of their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... in fact It wouldn't be the thing at all. The fact is, Frank, that Torrington's coming here tomorrow, wired from Dublin to say so. He and Lady Torrington. I can't imagine what he wants here. I'd call it damned insolence in any one else, knowing what I must think of his rascally politics, what every decent man thinks of them. But of course he's a kind of cousin. I suppose he recollected that. And he's a pretty big pot. Those fellows ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... a note of her mother's insolence was in the speech, but the whole spirit of the dead actress seemed to possess Brigit for that moment. Her being rippled, as it were, with the new disturbance, just as a pond will tremble to its edges at the mere dip of a swallow's wing. The artistic hatred of all restraint and the wild desire of ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... bottom of the hill again when another year called her to its renewed duties,—schooling her temper in unending inward and outward conflicts, until neither dulness nor obstinacy nor ingratitude nor insolence could reach her serene self-possession. Not for herself alone. Poorly as her prodigal labors were repaid in proportion to the waste of life they cost, her value was too well established to leave her without what, under other circumstances, would have been a more than sufficient compensation. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... I queried, taking him up short. This officer, with the pudding cheeks and patronizing insolence, had a provoking trick of always keeping just inside the bounds of what one might resent. "To the what, did you say Hamilton ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... so to restrain men by the laws of rectitude, that the astuteness of successors might not strive to transgress the bounds of their predecessors, and to infringe established rules in insolence of licence. Accordingly, with the advice of prudent men, we have prescribed the manner in which we desire that the communication and use of our books should be permitted for the benefit ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... express our fervent hope, that ministers will drive "home" the nail which they have so happily planted. The worst spectacle of our times was on that day when Mr O'Connell, solemnly reprimanded by the Speaker of the House of Commons, was suffered—was tolerated—in rising to reply; in retorting with insolence; in lecturing and reprimanding the Senate through their representative officer; in repelling just scorn by false scorn; in riveting his past offences; in adding contumely to wrong. Never more must this be repeated. Neither must the Whig ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... daily life, during the large number of holidays in the year, together with want of proper cleanliness, induced by the idea that comfort and happy purity are less pleasing to God than discomfort and self-degradation. This insolence induces much despondency, a larger measure of real misery than is necessary under the given circumstances of life, and many forms ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... (in 1708) in the mildly classical system of the Saybrook Platform. The filial love of the Puritan colonists toward the mother church of England was by no means extinct in the third generation. Alongside of the inevitable repugnance felt and manifested toward the arrogance, insolence, and violence with which the claims of the Episcopal Church were commended by royal governors and their attaches and by some of the imported missionaries, there is ample evidence of kindly and fraternal feeling, far beyond what ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... looking from one to the other, her heart hammering wildly. No man had ever addressed her with such insolence and before such company. What she feared was that something would snap in her and she fall ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... insolence and pride— His haughtiness!" the turkey cried. "He trusts in feathers; but within They serve to ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... cautious industry. The hope of boundless wealth for the morrow made them heedless and extravagant for to-day. A luxury, till then unheard-of, was introduced, bringing in its train a corresponding laxity of morals. The over-bearing insolence of ignorant men, who had arisen to sudden wealth by successful gambling, made men of true gentility of mind and manners blush that gold should have power to raise the unworthy in the scale of society. The haughtiness of some of these "cyphering cits," ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... do; I had rather by half walk home; I'll sit on the box and be coachman, if you like, but I'll not draw.' While this was passing, a duck came quacking up and cried out, 'You thieving vagabonds, what business have you in my grounds? I'll give it you well for your insolence!' and upon that she fell upon Chanticleer most lustily. But Chanticleer was no coward, and returned the duck's blows with his sharp spurs so fiercely that she soon began to cry out for mercy; which was only granted her upon condition that she would draw the carriage home for them. This she ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... nor on the score of his wages, which were extremely liberal; nor on account of the "old blighter's"—that is, Mr. Saffron's—occasional outbursts of temper, these being in the nature of the case and within the terms of the contract; nor, finally, by reason of Beaumaroy's airy insolence, since from his youth up the Sergeant was hardened to unfavorable comments on his personal appearance, trifling vulgarities which a man of sense ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... Elizabeth he had slipped the fairest opportunity that could be to do the service. He, to make some satisfaction, punished the purveyors that had not made provision of beer, bread, &c. which was not yet ready nor embarked, secretly smiling at the insolence of the Spaniards, when he heard them bragging that what way soever they came upon England, they would have an undoubted victory; that the English were not able to endure the sight of them. The English admiral ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... the day after that on which the priest had breakfasted at Durbelliere, and the rumours of it went quickly through the country. As Cathelineau had said, the news was soon known in Nantes and Angers, and the commander of the republican troops determined most thoroughly to avenge the insolence and rebellion of the vain people of St. Florent. He was not, however, able to accomplish his threat on the instant, for he also was collecting conscripts in the neighbourhood of Nantes, and the peasantry ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... deal of running, my dear Betty. You fair Americans have learned that by this time. But that a man who has not even a decent name to offer—who is blackballed by his county—should coolly present himself as a pretendant is an insolence he should ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... equilibrium, ultimately fell at full length on the floor. I could not suppress a smile at sight of his copper highness's prostrate position, when springing up in a furious passion, he seized an axe, and proceeded to demolish the seat. I wrested the axe from his grasp, and reprimanded him sharply for his insolence. This exasperated him to the utmost: he swore I was in league with the stool to insult him; but that he should be revenged on us both before morning. Uttering these menaces, he set out ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... was one quality on the possession of which these mediaeval knights never prided themselves, because they could not imagine life without courage, but gentle courtesy was, unhappily, rare, and many a heroic legend is spoilt by the insolence of the hero to people of lower rank. Again, the legends often look lightly on the ill-treatment of maidens; yet the true hero is one who is never tempted to injure a defenceless woman. Similarly, a broken oath to a heathen or mere churl is excused as a trifling matter, ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... in Athens either had, or deserved to have, a greater number of enemies, political as well as private, than Alcibiades; many of them being among the highest citizens, whom he offended by his insolence, and whose liturgies and other customary exhibitions he outshone by his reckless expenditure. His importance had been already so much increased, and threatened to be so much more increased, by the Sicilian enterprise, that they ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... himself with sending a detachment of bishops and clergy to watch the trial. They returned with the news that the court had refused to reconsider the charge of manslaughter, and had merely condemned Philip for insolence; he was ordered to make personal satisfaction to the sheriff, standing (clerk as he was) naked before him, and submitting to a heavy fine; his prebend was to be forfeited to the king for two years; for those two years he was to be exiled and ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... answer was only restrained with exceeding difficulty; and there was a scornful smile on the young prisoner's cheek, that caused the page to exclaim angrily, "What means that insolence, malapert boy?" ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... produced his bird, but not without much fear and trembling, and set him down upon the ground; which he had no sooner done than Grip drew fifty corks at least, and then began to dance; at the same time eyeing the gentleman with surprising insolence of manner, and screwing his head so much on one side that he appeared desirous of screwing it ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... in the Universities, and all of them amid the high civilization and taste of England. I say all of them, too hastily; as there were young men of the colonies among them, who probably had not enjoyed these advantages. The easy air, self-possession, and quiet, what shall I call it?—insolence would be too strong a word, and a term that I, the son and grandson of old king's officers, would not like to apply, and yet it comes nearest to what I mean as applicable to the covert manner of these young men—but, whatever it was, that peculiar ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... that you might gather my roses? Was it not enough that I allowed you to be in my palace and was kind to you? This is the way you show your gratitude, by stealing my flowers! But your insolence shall not go unpunished." The merchant, terrified by these furious words, dropped the fatal rose, and, throwing himself on his knees, cried: "Pardon me, noble sir. I am truly grateful to you for your hospitality, which was so magnificent that I could not imagine that you would be offended ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... staying in that very house—a house famous for the material perfection of its equipments. "The servants here," so Hare wrote and printed, "are notoriously more pampered than those in any other house in England, and their insolence and arrogance is proportionate to the luxury in which they live." On another occasion he recorded a visit to Castle ——, the family name of the owners being C——. He summed up his gratitude to his entertainers in the following pithy sentence, "Except dear Lady ——, I never could ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... much annoyed yesterday," said Raskolnikoff, addressing the magistrate, with more or less of insolence in his smile, "and, wishing to get rid of them, I went out to hire lodgings where I could be sure of privacy, to effect which I had taken a certain amount of money. Mr. Zametoff saw what I had by me, and perhaps he can say whether I was in my right senses yesterday or whether I was ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... that offer a little testily, for the insolence behind the offer was less than half concealed. Jaimihr sneered as he ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... extravagance of the men; the tyranny of the Union; the growing insolence of the Union officials—Tressady's letters from home after a time spoke of little else. And Tressady's bankbook meanwhile formed a disagreeable comment on the correspondence. The pits were almost running at a loss; yet neither party had made up their minds ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and vice; you concentrate your interest upon a matter of chance, instead of upon a subject of true knowledge; and you back opinions which you have no grounds for forming, merely because they are your own. All the insolence of egotism is in this; and so far as the love of excitement is complicated with the hope of winning money, you turn yourselves into the basest sort of tradesmen—those who live by speculation. Were there no other ground for industry, this would be a sufficient one; that it protected ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... I do. When I think of the blessings that have been showered on you, and contrast them with the poverty! the humiliations! the anxieties! the heartbreak! the insolence and tyranny that were the daily lot of mankind when I was learning to suffer instead of learning to live! when I see how lightly you take it all! how you quarrel over the crumpled leaves in your beds of roses! how you are so dainty about your work that unless it is made either ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... advertised, or by addressing him as the Housemaid's Terror or the Nursegirl's Blight. He ground tegmenta of 'Maud' between his teeth as he looked at him. 'His essences turn the live air sick,' and 'that oiled and curled Assyrian bull, smelling of musk and of insolence.' And it happened one night that Captain MacMadden, arriving late, and in a mighty hurry and flutter lest he should have missed the lady, tapped Paul ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... us be just to Mirth. Let us be thankful that we have in Wit a power before which the pride of wealth and the insolence of office are abased; which can transfix bigotry and tyranny with arrows of lightning; which can strike its object over thousands of miles of space, across thousands of years of time; and which, through its sway over an universal weakness of ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... return journey the Captain raged and swore. "A contemptible cad, Sir! a base-born, low-bred cad, Sir! What else could you expect from a fellow of his breeding? The insolence of these lower orders is becoming insupportable. The idea! the very idea! His bank against my family ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... sinister, unblinking, and the hands that could strangle a bull, and with which as though to control himself, he continually pulled at his black beard, were gigantic, of a deadly white, with fingers long and prehensile. In his manner he had all the suave insolence of the Oriental and the suspicious alertness of one constantly on guard, but also, as Ford at once noted, of one wholly without fear. He had not been over a moment in his presence before the reporter felt that to successfully lie to such a man might ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... uttered the last words a man's step was heard, and the individual just threatened by Fourchon entered unannounced. It was easy to see from the glance he threw at the old man that the threat had reached his ears, and all Fourchon's insolence sank in a moment. The look produced precisely the same effect upon him that the eye of a policeman produces on a thief. Fourchon knew he was wrong, and that Michaud might very well accuse him of saying these things merely to terrify the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... remarkably small compass; and that, together with the unnatural stillness of his form, showed that the lofty-minded, manly Mr. Robson, the scorner of the female sex, was not above the foppery of stays. He seldom deigned to notice me; and, when he did, it was with a certain supercilious insolence of tone and manner that convinced me he was no gentleman: though it was intended to have a contrary effect. But it was not for that I disliked his coming, so much as for the harm he did the children—encouraging all their evil propensities, and undoing in a few minutes the little ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... and from morning to night! I must amuse them, of course, that is the condition; but I must now and then amuse myself. In the midst of these distractions there came into my head a fatal idea, an idea that gave me confidence, that inspired me with pride and insolence: it was that they could not do without me, and that ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... whole life, he applied himself with such special affection, and which, accordingly, he succeeded in representing with such fidelity and truth. The condition of peasant children, their sorrows and joys, their sports and bickerings—the coarse insolence of the richer, the timid dispiritment of the needy, all stood in lively remembrance before his fancy, which liked to go back into that first and only period of his freedom, though, perhaps, also of his beggarhood. In Freudenberger's school he had learned ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... flouncing, half pouting, she retired. Her young mistress, aware that Lydia's talents and expeditious performance, as a mantua-maker and a milliner, were essential to the appearance of Zara, suppressed her own resentment, submitted to her maid's insolence, and brought her into humour again that night, by a present of the famous ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... reigns, And in luxurious cities, where the noise Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers And injury and outrage; and when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... William Longchamp (1189-1197), Chancellor of England and subsequently Papal Legate. When the king went abroad he was appointed to govern England south of the Trent. He behaved in this office "with great insolence, pride, and oppression," and having particularly offended John, the king's brother, he made an attempt to escape from the country in the disguise of a woman; but he was detected at Dover and thrown into prison. Being allowed, after a time, to go to Normandy, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... advances and society increased the violence of his passion, until at last he spoke his wishes with brutal frankness. With maidenly pride and dignity, the lady repelled his suit, and severely stigmatized his insolence. Foaming with rage, the duke left her presence, and from that moment his love was exchanged for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... by the honors conceded to them by the natives, they looked on themselves as entitled to these, and condemned the poor Indians as a race immeasurably beneath the European. They not only showed the most disgusting rapacity, but treated the highest nobles with wanton insolence. They even went so far, it is said, as to violate the privacy of the convents, and to outrage the religious sentiments of the Peruvians by their scandalous amours with the Virgins of the Sun. The people of Cuzco were so exasperated, that they would have laid violent ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott |
