"Audacious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... origin, fights against Lochlanners, i.e. Norsemen. It may also be inquired why the borrowing should have affected the saga only, not the myths of the gods. No other Celtic scholar has given the slightest support to this brilliant but audacious theory. On the other hand, if the saga has Norse affinities, and if it is, in origin, pre-Celtic, these may be sought in an earlier connection of Ireland with Scandinavia in the early Bronze Age. Ireland had a flourishing civilisation then, and exported beautiful gold ornaments to Scandinavia, ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... like mushrooms, Drive us all into the water, Give our bodies to be eaten By the wicked Nee-ba-naw-baigs, 20 By the Spirits of the water!" So the angry Little People All conspired against the Strong Man, All conspired to murder Kwasind, Yes, to rid the world of Kwasind, 25 The audacious, overbearing, Heartless, haughty, dangerous Kwasind! Now this wondrous strength of Kwasind In his crown alone was seated; In his crown too was his weakness: 30 There alone could he be wounded, Nowhere else could weapon pierce him, Nowhere else could weapon ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... he was, wavered and blenched for a moment under the surprise of this audacious attack. Then with an oath he put out his hand, seized Daddy's thin shoulder, flung him violently ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "Audacious sinner!" said the pretended priest, "have you not the fear of God before your eyes? I tell you, as you will dread punishment at the last day, to let none of the idolatrous communion enter, to mingle in ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... conies as ever in the chase?" and to begin on a discussion of all the memories connected with the free days of childhood, the blackberry and bilberry gatherings, the hide-and-seek in the rocks and heather, the consternation when little Dick was lost, the audacious comedy with the unsuspected spectators, and all the hundred and one recollections, less memorable perhaps, but no less delightful to both. It was only thus gradually that they approached their recent encounter ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of this cruise so aroused England, that France no longer dared to harbor the audacious Yankee cruisers. The "Lexington" and "Reprisal" were, therefore, ordered to leave European waters forthwith. The "Lexington" complied first, and when one day out from the port of Morlaix encountered the British man-of-war cutter ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... profoundly dissembling, courteous, liberal, amorous, decisive. There was a certain grandeur in all his proceedings. He was fertile in resources; and, while he looked forward, he was at the same time almost madly audacious in his enterprises. This strange mixture of valor, religion, policy, and craft, was a peculiar product of the century. . . . There are two main points in his character which I shall dwell upon at the outset. These are his soldier-like qualities and his cruelty. As a commander, the only ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Jellachich. The Prince de Rohan, refusing to accept the capitulation, left with his infantry division, and joined by some regiments from other divisions, he fled into the mountains, which he crossed, despite the rigours of the season: then by an audacious march, he bypassed the cantonments of Marshal Ney's troops, who occupied the towns of the Tyrol, and arriving between Verona and Venice, he fell on the rear of the French army of Italy, while this force, commanded by Massna was following ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... go my hand, with such a reverence in his manner, as brought blame upon me from some, that I would not hear him.—And this incensed me the more. O my dear, this man is a devil! This man is indeed a devil!— So much patience when he pleases! So much gentleness!—Yet so resolute, so persisting, so audacious! ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... cases of so great importance—for there was now no disobedience or contumacy to a second or third royal decree, or interference with the royal patronage, or other like causes or motives which could justify so audacious an act. And solely at hearing the reply of his illustrious Lordship to two royal decrees, which at the very same time were communicated to him in regard to different matters—each one of these being ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... he shook, but never shall I forget his audacious apology, "Beg pardon, sir, but I was thinking ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... not time to write more than a line the other day under Croker's cover, having received it just at post time. He sent for me; I found him in his nightcap at the Admiralty, colded badly, but in audacious spirits. His business was this. The Duke of W[ellingto]n finds himself without one newspaper he can depend on. He wishes to buy up some evening print, such as the dull Star; and could I do anything for it? I said ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... should fall from cherry lips that will become irresistible should they turn to pouting;—so take heed and tempt me not." He had already swallowed several glasses of wine and was fast becoming audacious. ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... three brilliant love-stories well worth reading.... The letters are original and audacious, and are full of a certain intellectual "abandon" which is sure to charm the cultivated reader.... We trust that Mrs. W. K. Clifford will give us more fiction in this delicately humorous, subtle, and ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... Reason.' In June another festival was ordered—to the Supreme Being: the God of Philosophy. But the most superb exhibition was the 'general festival,' in honor of the republic. It was distinguished by a more audacious spirit of scoffing and profanation than the former. Robespierre acted the 'high-priest of Reason' on the day, and made himself conspicuous in blasphemy. He was then at the summit of ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... not recognize your right to question me," said the baroness; "but since you are audacious enough to come here and to question me about that lady after what I heard last night—" she paused there of set purpose, and repeating the words "after what I heard last ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... trembled for the shoulders of this imprudent person, and watched the Emperor's movements anxiously. Nevertheless, to my great astonishment, he contented himself with crumpling in his hand the bill of the audacious milliner, and, his arms folded on his breast, made two steps towards him, pronouncing this word only, "Really!" with such an accent and such a look that the merchant rushed to the door, and took to his heels without waiting for ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... while speaking of this audacious attack of Vandamme that the Emperor used this expression, which has been so justly admired, "For a retreating enemy it is necessary to make a bridge of gold, or ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Napoleon • David Widger
... can only assert that they reflect the popular and doubtless faithful impression of Raleigh's mother-wit and audacious alacrity. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... his followers are attached to him from principle and affection, there are many others who follow him through fear; and he was scarcely a mile from town, before they indulged in the most virulent invectives against him. The Prophet is impudent and audacious, but is deficient ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... a spark of that chivalry and gallantry attributed to him—must loathe and scorn the act. But much as I reprobate the act, much more do I reprobate the conduct of those who stood by and saw the outrage perpetrated. O, magnanimous Slidell! O, prudent Douglas! O, audacious Toombs! ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... was not at all ashamed, for a Scot never uses this word without a ring of fondness and admiration in his voice, as of one who gives the world to understand that he quite disapproves of this audacious woman, wife or daughter of his, but is proud of her all the time. It is indeed a necessity of his nature for a Scot to have husks of reproach containing kernels of compliment, so that he may let out his heart and yet preserve his character as ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... say a few words of this young gentleman, who made that audacious movement lately which I chronicled in my last record,—jumping over the seats of I don't know how many boarders to put himself in the place which the Little Gentleman's absence had left vacant at the side of Iris. When a young man is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... most excellent jest, albeit rather keen, as far as Sir Ferdinand is concerned! We shall never, never cease to recall the humorous side of the whole affair. Why, we ourselves, our august editorial self, actually had a bet in the stand with the audacious pretender, and won it, too. Did he pay up? Of course he did. A "pony", to wit, and on the nail. He does nothing by halves, "notre capitaine". We have been less promptly reimbursed, indeed, not paid ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... "The madman! the audacious, desperate, outrageous villain! Look-ye, sir! where he flung the Holy Gospel! Behold it on the holly and box boughs in the chimney-place, spreaden all abroad, like a lad about ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... sun, His bright rays darting through the angry clouds, The dark sky painted with the lovely bow. The race restored, to earth returned, begins anew The same career of wickedness and lust, With their attendant ills. Audacious man Defies the threats of the avenging sea, And to new shores and to new stars repeats The same sad tale of ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... succeeded his uncle in the medical profession, and passed away, amid deep and universal regret, in 1898. Here during the thirties Sydney Smith was a frequent and a welcome visitor; it was in answer to old Mrs. Kinglake that he uttered his audacious mot on being asked if he would object, as a neighbouring clergyman had done, to bury a Dissenter: "Not bury Dissenters? I should like to be ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... fell a-thinking upon her own life as, in the light of Trenholme's letter, the contrast of her present womanly self with the bright, audacious girl of that past time was set strongly before her. It is probably as rare for any one really to wish to be the self of any former time—to wish to be younger—as it is really to wish to be any one else. Sophia certainly did not dream of wishing to be younger. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... person, accused by 'Archy' (Archibald Cameron) of forging a letter from James, with a commission to take part of the hidden hoard, is Young Glengarry. In his letter of October 12, 1751, AEneas Macdonald mentions a report 'too audacious to be believed; that Glengarry had counterfeited his Majesty's signature to gett the money that he gott in Scotland.' Glengarry 'was very capable of having it happen to him,' but HE accused Archibald Cameron, and the charge still clings to his name. Even now ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... phases of Anglo-Saxon spinster and widowhood assumes the functions of the recluse's veil and announces the renunciation of worldly vanities and a resigned indifference to external feminine contour. The most audacious masculine arm would shrink from clasping that shapeless void in which the flatness of asceticism or the heavings of passion might alike lie buried. She had also in some mysterious way imported into the fresh and pleasant room a certain bombaziny shadow of the past, and a suggestion ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... uneasily about, and his fingers fumbling his mustache or his clothing or the papers on his desk. He puffed, snorted, and floundered; seemed to make assertions without proof and phrases without point; when suddenly he would utter a statement so pregnant as to clear up a whole policy, or a sentence so audacious as to paralyze a whole line of his opponents, or a phrase so vivid as to run through the nation and electrify it. Then, perhaps after more rumbling and rambling, came a clean, clear, historical illustration carrying conviction; then, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... safer going in letters than in visits, do you not see? In the letter, one may go to the utmost limit of one's supposed tether without danger—there is the distance so palpably between the most audacious step there, and the next ... which is nowhere, seeing it is not in the letter. Quite otherwise in personal intercourse, where any indication of turning to a certain path, even, might possibly be checked not for its own fault but lest, the path once reached and proceeded ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... on the watch for an audacious little blockade-runner that slipped by one of our boats into this Inlet a few weeks ago," said the officer, as he folded the papers and handed them back to their owner. "You're quite sure ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... betted, boxed, ran into debt. Josiana thought great things of his horses, his dogs, his losses at play, his mistresses. Lord David, on his side, bowed down before the fascinations of the Duchess Josiana—a maiden without spot or scruple, haughty, inaccessible, and audacious. He addressed sonnets to her, which Josiana sometimes read. In these sonnets he declared that to possess Josiana would be to rise to the stars, which did not prevent his always putting the ascent off to the following ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... stateliness by the hand of a woman!" It is the refrain that runs through the whole history of Israel, that reasonable complacency of a little people in their God-fraught destiny. And, withal, a streak of savage spite: that the audacious oppressor shall be done scornfully to death. There is the motive of Jael and Sisera too. So "she smote twice upon his neck with all her might, and she took away his head from him, and tumbled his body down from the bed." Ho! what a fate for the emissary of the Great King. Wherefore, once more, ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... Annette's submission to her mother's will was consideration for her brother and his career. For while for her father she cherished an affectionate pride and for her mother an amused and protective pity, her great passion was for her brother—her handsome, vivacious, audacious and mercurial brother, Tony. With him she counted it only joy to share her all too meagre wages whenever he found himself in financial straits. And a not infrequent situation this was with Tony, who, while he seemed to have inherited from his mother the vivacity, ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... into the crater of Yocul of Sneffels, which the shade of Scartaris caresses, before the kalends of July, audacious traveler, and you will reach the centre of the ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... had read the note, and was raving for the captain of the police force, and vowing that it was dangerous to live in his own palace, the bushrangers had become so audacious. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... myself. The accounts that I intend to set a-going would frighten any one less audacious. And I mean to be my own home secretary, and to keep my own conscience,—and to be my own master of the ceremonies certainly. I think a small cabinet gets on best. Do you know,—I should like to put the ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... arrests, neither being permitted to see the other or William Dodge, all inquiries for cause of imprisonment smilingly evaded, the strain on both Pierre and Paul became almost unbearable. Either could face definite crises with resourceful, audacious craft, but how meet indefinitely ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... he was keeking at her from closer range now; and in that position—for he held her firmly still—she could not help but keek back. He looked so handsome—humble for once; penitent yet reproachful; his own eyes a little moist; and, withal, his old audacious self—that, despite herself, her anger ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... audacious heretic!" exclaimed the Inquisitor, who was no other than the infamous Munebrega, Archbishop of Tarragona, who had come over from Seville in consequence of the illness of his colleague. His eyes rolled; he gnashed with his teeth in fury ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... waif looked up in my face with such an expression of satisfaction as he finished this audacious speech, that I could not help gazing at him in blank amazement. What I should have replied I know not, for we arrived just then at the abode ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the grooves of the barrel. Jim would glance at the compass, would glance around the unattainable horizon, would stretch himself till his joints cracked, with a leisurely twist of the body, in the very excess of well-being; and, as if made audacious by the invincible aspect of the peace, he felt he cared for nothing that could happen to him to the end of his days. From time to time he glanced idly at a chart pegged out with four drawing-pins on a low three-legged table abaft the steering-gear case. The sheet of paper portraying ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... in New York, at least, the practice of the most audacious usury was an early and favorite means of acquiring the property of others. These others were invariably the mechanic or laborer; the merchant dared not attempt to overreach the aristocrat whose power he had good reason to fear. Money which was taken in by selling rum and by wheedling the unsophisticated ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... second of the three versions, appointed the ass as keeper of the tolls. One day King Lion, together with the wolf and the fox, approached the city. The ass came and demanded the toll of them. Said the fox, "You are the most audacious of animals. Don't you see that the king is with us?" But the ass answered, "The king himself shall pay," and he went and demanded the toll of the king. The lion rent him to pieces, and the fox ate the heart, and excused himself as in ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... strongly suggest Asiatic influences.[152] When we turn from Alexandria to Syria, we find Orientalism more rampant. Speculation among the Syrian monks of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries was perhaps more unfettered and more audacious than in any other branch of Christendom at any period. Our knowledge of their theories is very limited, but one strange specimen has survived in the book of Hierotheus,[153] which the canonised Dionysius praises in glowing terms as ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... in a mood for talking seriously, and he waited to hear Mrs. Lorraine strike in with some calmly audacious invitation. She did not, however, and he turned round from her mother to question her. He was surprised to find that her eyes were fixed on the ground and that something like a tinge of color was in her face. He turned rapidly away again. "Well, Mrs. Kavanagh," he said with a fine air of indifference, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... thinkers had done all the work and the Latin poem is a hymn of triumph over prostrate deities, yet in the literature of free thought it must always hold an eminent place by the sincerity of its audacious, defiant spirit. In the history of rationalism its interest would be greater if it had exploded in the midst of an orthodox community. But the educated Romans in the days of Lucretius were sceptical in religious matters, some of them were Epicureans, ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... their wits! Nor could maturer life be uninfluenced by reading such volumes as are alluded to in the text: and as to the bed of death—that must have sometimes shaken the stoutest faith, and disturbed the calmest piety. For what can be more terrible, and at the same time more audacious, than human beings arrogating to themselves the powers of the deity, and denouncing, in equivocal cases, a certainty and severity of future punishment, equally revolting to scripture and common sense? To drive the timid ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... promise of the enduring qualities obvious enough in his later works. Noah Brooks has told us how he was advised if he wisht to "see genuine specimens of American humor, frolicsome, extravagant, and audacious," to look up the sketches which the then almost unknown Mark Twain was printing in a Nevada newspaper. The humor of Mark Twain is still American, still frolicsome, extravagant, and audacious; but it is riper now and richer, and ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... resolutions and proceedings of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, pronouncing the election of deputies to sit in Convention, and the meeting of that Convention at Boston, daring insults to his Majesty's authority, and audacious usurpations of the powers of Government; yet, as has been seen, that Convention expressly disclaimed any assumption of government, and simply expressed the grievances complained of, prayed for their redress, declared their loyalty to the King, and recognition of the supreme authority of Parliament ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... The audacious words being spoken, his courage oozed away and anti-climax, followed. He paled and trembled, yet he knelt on until she should bid him rise, and furtively he watched her face. He saw it darken; he saw the brows knit; he noted the quickening breath, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... century Henry VI. of England, in consideration of a red rose as annual rental, conveyed the entire group to the Duke of Warwick. But strange privileges were from time to time extended to these audacious people. Queen Elizabeth proclaimed the islands a world's sanctuary, and threw open the ports as free harbours of refuge in time of war. She authorized protection to "a distance on the ocean as far as the eye of man could reach." This act of grace was cancelled by George ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... audacious, and preposterous proceeding; one which the rules and regulations of the Fire Department, many and varied as they are, never anticipated. But it was adopted. Meanwhile the Captain found it necessary to inspect the interior of the building, the Lieutenant ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... endeavors for years, if need be. What troubled her most was that she could not logically explain the conduct of her enemies from the time M. de Fondege had asked her hand for his son up to the present moment. And first, why had they been so audacious or so imprudent as to bring her to their own home if they had really stolen one of those immense amounts that are sure to betray their possessors? "They are mad," she thought, "or else they must deem me blind, deaf, and more ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... ask you my question, or shall I not?" he went on, gripping her hand hard, and half raising himself in his chair as he looked intently at her telltale face. "For it means more than you can realise. It is an audacious, impudent question, Lucy,—one that no man of my age ought to ask any woman,—one that is likely ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... sensibility for form. He writes not as one inspired, but as one steeped in the best literature. Many were greater stylists, but few were endowed with such an exquisite sense of style. As a poet he is a dilettante, and his claim to greatness lies in the brilliant and audacious humour of his 'picaresque novel'. But his verse at its best has a charm and fragrance of its own that is almost unique in Latin, and reveals a combination of grace and facility, to find a parallel for which among writers of the post-Augustan age we ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... wives. [126] The cemetery swarmed with clamorous beggars, who squatted with dirty cotton napkins spread on the ground before them for the reception of coins. Some of the women promised to recite Fatihahs for the donors, and the most audacious seized the visitors by their skirts. Burton laid out three dollars in this way, but though the recipients promised loudly to supplicate Allah in behalf of his lame foot, it did not perceptibly benefit. Burton's companions hinted that he might do worse than settle in Medina. "Why not," ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... should stand over, so long as one cannot be sure that Italy will permit the transit of foodstuffs destined for the people." He desired no mediation between himself and the Italians. Perhaps the most audacious act of spoliation was the sale of the State stores at Gallipoli, just when the Allied offensive on the Salonica front was leading to the collapse of the enemy. Instead of forwarding the 25,000 greatcoats, the 20,000 kilos of leather, and ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... be but too welcome!" He sunk back, exhausted by his own violence; but not a minute passed ere again he burst forth. "And Hereford, the traitor Hereford, he dared defend him! dared assault thee in the pursuance of thy duty, the audacious insolent! Doth he think, forsooth, his work in Scotland will exempt him from the punishment of insolence, of treason? as an aider and abettor of treachery he shares its guilt, and shall know whom he hath insulted. Back to thy citadel, my Lord of Berwick, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... beside her litter when she was carried abroad, they assembled at night to serenade her, fighting desperately among themselves. They sought to gain admission as tradesmen, as errand boys, even as scullions male and female. To such lengths did they proceed, that a particularly audacious youth actually attempted to carry her off one evening, and would have succeeded but for the interposition of another, who flew at him with a drawn sword, and after a fierce contest smote him bleeding to the ground. ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... he would find for modern events in the annals of Judah and of Israel were astounding. Yet he kept a sharp eye upon the daily paper, and his reference to current events would often give his listeners an audacious sense of up-to-dateness which might have been easily discounted by the argument they illustrated. The survivors of a convulsion of nature, for instance, might have learned from his lips the cause and kind of their disaster traced back forcibly to local acquiescence in iniquity, ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... to the Baron. Before the world she displayed the attractive combination of modest and pensive innocence, of irreproachable propriety, with a bright humor enhanced by the suppleness, the grace and softness of the Creole; but in a tete-a-tete she would outdo any courtesan; she was audacious, amusing, and full of original inventiveness. Such a contrast is irresistible to a man of the Crevel type; he is flattered by believing himself sole author of the comedy, thinking it is performed for his benefit alone, and he laughs ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... surrounds us is only thrust a little further off, while the darkness is as impenetrable and profound as ever. All that we have learnt is how natural law works; we have not come near to learning why it works as it does. All we have really acquired is a knowledge that the audacious and unsatisfactory theories, such, for instance, as the old-fashioned scheme of redemption, by which men have attempted with a pathetic hopefulness to justify the ways of God to man, are, and are bound to be, despairingly incomplete. The danger of the scientific spirit is not that it is too agnostic, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... launched into the air and came as straight as an arrow toward me. I looked in amazement, but in less than half a minute, he was within fifty feet of my face, coming full tilt as if he had sighted my nose. Almost in self-defense I let fly one barrel of my gun, and the mangled form of the audacious marauder fell literally ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... from her. If she gave herself to Mark, her knowledge, her suspicions, her practical certainty must go with the gift. She could not keep from him her growing belief that Monk Lawrence was vitally threatened, and that Gertrude, in spite of audacious denials, was still madly bent upon the plot. And to tell him would mean instant action on his part: arrest—prison—perhaps death—for this woman she had adored, whom she still loved with a sore, disillusioned tenderness. ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the bold mind of Montreal now turned its thoughts; and his soldiers had joyfully conjectured his design when they had heard him fix Terracina as their bourne. Provident of every resource, and refining his audacious and unprincipled valour by a sagacity which promised, when years had more matured and sobered his restless chivalry, to rank him among the most dangerous enemies Italy had ever known, on the first sign of Louis's warlike intentions, Montreal had seized and fortified a strong ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... where the King sat, and placed it by his side, saying, "Though in your hands I may be a prisoner, I am a man as much as you are, and can only meet you as an equal." His sable Majesty was greatly annoyed at Gordon's audacious conduct, and remarking said, "Gordon Pasha don't you know I am the King, and could kill you if I wished." "I am perfectly aware of that," said Gordon, "Do so at once if it is your Royal pleasure, I am ready." "What," said the King, "Ready to be killed?" ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... I praise God for you sir, your reasons at dinner haue beene sharpe & sententious: pleasant without scurrillity, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresie: I did conuerse this quondam day with a companion of the Kings, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... our hearts, and puts the scruples of criticism to silence. The most delirious of enterprises is that of Moor, but the vastness of his mind renders even that interesting. We see him leagued with desperadoes directing their savage strength to actions more and more audacious; he is in arms against the conventions of men and the everlasting laws of Fate: yet we follow him with anxiety through the forests and desert places, where he wanders, encompassed with peril, inspired with lofty daring, and torn by unceasing ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... said old Martin. "It's I knows about the River Plate; none so well. Who'd ever been there, nor heard of it nether, before Captain Will and me went, and I lived among the savages a whole year; and audacious civil I found 'em if they 'd had but shirts to their backs; and so was the prince o' mun, that Captain Will brought home to King Henry; leastwise he died on the voyage; but the wild folk took it cruel well, for you see, we was always as civil with them as Christians, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... not know to what extent Idris had observed it and had begun to get uneasy, understanding that, in case the pursuing party should capture them, he could not depend upon the boy's intercession. Idris was always ready for the most audacious deed, but as a man not deprived of reason, he thought that it was necessary to provide for everything and in case of misfortune to leave some gate of salvation open. For this reason, after the last occurrence he wanted in some manner to conciliate Stas and, with this object, ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... they fled to the huddled little hotels and pensions of the narrow and dark wooded valley of Karlsbad, under skies which Frank declared to be bluer than the blue of forget-me-nots, where, amid Brahmins from India and royalty from Austria and audacious young duchesses from Paris and students from Petersburg and Berlin, and undecipherable strangers from all the remotest corners of the globe, it seemed to Durkin they were at last alone. He confided this feeling to his wife, ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... it, either!" interrupted the young girl, rising and disclosing in the firelight an audacious but wonderfully pretty face; "and supposing he IS my uncle, that ain't any cause for their bedevilin' my poor old cousins Hiram and Sophy thar!" For all the indignation of her words, her little white teeth flashed mischievously in the dancing light, ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... in his private boudoir and barricade himself away from his better-half. So I decided, all of a sudden, to beard the lion in his den. There was such a thing as too much formality in a family circle. Yet I felt a bit audacious as I quietly pushed open that study door. I even weakened in my decision about pouncing on Dinky-Dunk from behind, like a leopardess on a helpless stag. Something in his pose, in fact, ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... threats of a victorious Barbarian; and he yielded to the tender eloquence of his wife Eudoxia, who, with a flood of artificial tears, presenting her infant children to their father, implored his justice for some real or imaginary insult, which she imputed to the audacious eunuch. [28] The emperor's hand was directed to sign the condemnation of Eutropius; the magic spell, which during four years had bound the prince and the people, was instantly dissolved; and the acclamations that so lately hailed the merit and fortune of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... wormwood and gall which this poor life presses to our lips. My palace of Weinberg, near Potsdam, is finished. I will drive you there today—you alone, marquis! As for the others, they are light-minded, audacious, suspicious children of men, and they shall not so soon poison the air in my little paradise with their levities. You alone, D'Argens, are worthy. You are pure as those who lived before the fall. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... the less the "girls" drew up their skirts a little, and Tim felt premonitory thrills run up his spidery legs into his spine. The wallflowers shook their tawny heads as a sudden breath of wind swept past them across the End of the World. It seemed an age before the audacious thing was accomplished and the door swung wide into the road outside. Uncle Felix might so easily have been stabbed or poisoned or suffocated—but instead they saw a shabby, tangled figure come shuffling through that open gate upon a ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... to forbid such harmful and detestable practices to those who seek license for them: may he silence this infernal demand for ever, with so much terror, that from this time forward there shall be no one so audacious as to dare but to name it. 10. This—Most High Lord—is most fitting and necessary to do, that God may prosper, preserve and render blessed, both temporally and spiritually, all the State of the royal crown of ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... Spaniards did not only entertain them with Cuffs, Blows, and wicked Cudgelling, but laid violent hands also on the Governours of Cities; and this arriv'd at length to that height of Temerity and Impudence, that a certain Captain was so audacious as abuse the Consort of the most puissant King of the whole Isle. From which time they began to consider by what wayes and means they might expel the Spaniards out of their Countrey, and immediately took up Arms. But, good God, what Arms, do you imagin? Namely such, both Offensive ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... beautiful in her simple riding-dress, so quaint and original in that very beauty, and, above all, so teeming with a certain vital earnestness of purpose just positive and audacious enough to set off that beauty, that the grave gentleman before her did not content himself with the usual formal inclination of courtesy, but actually advanced, and, taking her cold little hand in his, graciously led her to the ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... through ages make thee shine, And proud to mix my memory with thine. But now the cause that waked my song before, With praise, with triumph, crowns the toil no more. If to the glorious man whose faithful cares, Nor quelled by malice, nor relaxed by years, Had awed Ambition's wild audacious hate, And dragged at length Corruption to her fate; If every tongue its large applauses owed, And well-earned laurels every muse bestowed; If public Justice urged the high reward, And Freedom smiled on the devoted bard: Say then,—to him whose levity or lust Laid all ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... move and did not offer to shake hands, so he stood on the hearthrug and spread out his own to the blaze, looking down at her with bright, audacious eyes. He thought he had not yet seen her so beautiful. There was an extraordinary depth and mystery in her look, he thought, as it rested for a moment on his face, and she had never yet dropped her eyelashes as she ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... and gnats swarmed around by thousands; in vain one waved myrtle-branches about like mad; the audacious insect population did not cease to sting; nor was there a single person in the well-crammed carriage whose face was not swollen and sore from their ravenous bites. The poor horses, tortured almost to death, suffered ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... the Tribuna of the Uffizi, as the pendant to the more resplendent but more realistic Venus of Urbino, is a darker and less well-preserved picture than its present companion, but a grander if a more audacious presentment of the love-goddess. Yet even here she is not so much the Cytherean as an embodiment of the Venetian ideal of the later time, an exemplification of the undisguised worship of fleshly loveliness which then existed in Venice. ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... proposal; but when he is asked how he is to manage this practical paradox, he says: 'Oh, I shall put out the L.10 to interest, and in the course of time it will increase until it pays off the L.100.' The lender is perhaps a little staggered at first by the audacious plausibility of the proposal, but it requires but a few seconds to enable him to say: 'Why, yes, you may lend out the L.10 at interest; but in the meantime, as you have borrowed it, interest runs against you upon it; so what better are you?' The lender, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... nothing more was meant than was pretended. But when I see, that, for years together, full as impious, and perhaps more dangerous writings to religion, and virtue, and order, have not been punished, nor their authors discountenanced; that the most audacious libels on Royal Majesty have passed without notice; that the most treasonable invectives against the laws, liberties, and constitution of the country, have not met with the slightest animadversion; I must consider this as a shocking and shameless pretence. Never did an ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... thing. Had he been one of the smaller men, a modern specialist like Arnold or Rossetti, we could better understand it. But Browning's work was not limited to any particular or temporary phase of human nature. He set himself to represent, as far as he could, all types of human nature; and, more audacious still, types taken from many diverse ages, nations and climates. He told us of times and folk as far apart as Caliban and Cleon, as Karshish and Waring, as Balaustion and Fifine, as St. John and Bishop Blougram. The range and the contrasts of his subjects ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... we can add anything to this explanation; the difficulty lies in the audacious sweep of the speculation itself; we will, however, attempt an illustration, although we fear it will be to illustrate obscurum per obscurius. Let A B C D be four out of the Infinite number of the Divine attributes. A the attribute of mind; B the attribute of extension; C and D other attributes, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... impossible; but there it was. By some extraordinary method or another the audacious criminal had boarded an express train traveling at sixty miles an hour in the teeth of a gale. He had contrived to enter the cashier's carriage and remove specie to the amount of eight thousand pounds! It was impossible ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... tobacco," and swore and swaggered in all the newest fashions. William was the son of his father in appreciation of pleasant and abundant living. But he was not of a disposition to enter into this wanton and audacious merry-making,—a gentle, serious country lad, ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... a plan which did honor to his genius. I would render him greater justice and praise than I did recently. But three months ago he announced to the executive power, your General Committee of Defense, that if we were not audacious enough to invade Holland in the middle of winter, to declare instantly against England the war which actually we had long been making, that we would double the difficulties of our campaign, in giving our enemies the time to deploy their forces. Since we failed to recognize this stroke of ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... must perforce leap over, Even as a man who finds his way cut off. But whoso thinketh of the ponderous theme, And of the mortal shoulder that sustains it, Should blame it not, if under this it trembles. It is no passage for a little boat This which goes cleaving the audacious prow, Nor for a pilot who would spare himself. "Why does my face so much enamor thee, That to the garden fair thou turnest not, Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming? There is the rose in which the Word Divine [72] Became incarnate; there the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... Stanbury the elder. Falseness of that nature would have been ruinous to him,—would have made him a marked man in the city all his days, and would probably have reached even to the bishop's ears. He was neither bad enough, nor audacious enough, nor foolish enough, for such perjury as that. And, moreover, though the wiles of Arabella had been potent with him, he very much preferred Dorothy Stanbury. Seven years of flirtation with a young lady is more trying to the affection than any duration of matrimony. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... d'Ailleboust was worthily succeeded by M. de Lauson, one of the principals of the Associated Company. The new governor found affairs in a very discouraging condition, the colony rapidly declining, and the Iroquois, flushed by their sanguinary triumphs, more audacious than ever. These fierce savages intruded fearlessly among the French settlements, despising forts and intrenchments, and insulting the inhabitants with impunity. The island of Montreal suffered so much from their incursions, that ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... attack was sent into Griffin that morning, and a company of cavalry took up the Indian trail, followed it until evening, and returned to the post during the night. Approaching a government station was generally looked upon as an audacious act of the redskins, but the contempt of the Comanche and his ally for citizen and soldier alike was well known on the Texas frontier and excited little comment. Several years later, in broad daylight, they raided the town of Weatherford, ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... at Turin and I took the train to Genoa, arriving in the early afternoon. After lunch I set out to walk eastwards along the Cornice Road. It was a relief to my thoughts and feelings to be quite alone. The day was windy and sunless and rather cold, but the warm and audacious colouring of the Villas and the little fishing villages seemed almost to draw sunshine out of the dull sky. I stopped at Sturla and drank two cups of coffee and ate some biscuits, and decided to walk on to Nervi. ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... capacity for the production of unpleasant odors is unequalled no doubt from the Alps to Calabria. As they reached the bare white platform at the entry to the upper town, where Pope Paul's grim fortress once frowned to overawe the audacious souls of the liberty-loving Umbrians, she turned mute eyes to Alan for sympathy. And then for the first time the terrible truth broke over her that Alan wasn't in the least disappointed or disgusted; he knew it all before; he was accustomed to it and liked it! As for ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... Lyman Mertzheimer, his face distorted and swollen, his necktie streaming from one shoulder, where he had torn it in a mad effort to beat off the angry hornets whose nest he had disturbed out of sheer joy in the destruction and an audacious idea that no insect could scare him away or worst him in a fight. He had underestimated the fiery temper of the hornets and their concentrated and persistent methods of defending their home. After he had run wildly through the woods for fifteen minutes ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... "Audacious falsehood!" said the widow, her eyes flashing fire. "Go, heartless man! who dares to trifle thus with the feelings of a respectable and unprotected woman. Go, sir, you're only fit for the love of a—Dolly—Coddlins!" She pronounced the Coddlins with a withering sarcasm that struck the captain ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... paddles, approached; and a Siamese official mounted the side, swaying himself with an absolute air. The red langoutee, or skirt, loosely folded about his person, did not reach his ankles; and to cover his audacious chest and shoulders he had only his own brown polished skin. He was followed by a dozen attendants, who, the moment they stepped from the gangway, sprawled on the deck like huge toads, doubling their ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... it had been Miss Lestrange's audacious proposal that they should go masquerading in the open air, she was a wise young virgin, and she took care before going out to thrust a soft silk handkerchief into the square opening of her dress; the Ladies ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black |
