"Impudence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hand. Ira now shewed the blood to the audience, and the Brothers, with an immense pretense of indignation, went off the stage. Cummins at once explained; the audience became disgusted, and, enraged at the impudence of the imposture, broke over the foot-lights, knocked Ferguson backward into the "cabinet;" and when the discomfited agent had scrambled out and run away, smashed the thing fairly into kindling-wood, and carried it off, all distributed into ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... had a letter. The impudence of the woman, writing to me! Now, Vesta, don't look at me in that way, for you have some sense, if not much, and you know perfectly well it was impudent. Folderol! don't tell me! her dear aunt, indeed! I'll dear-aunt her, if she tries to set foot ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... while his wife was in the country, he brought his Baltimore inamoretta to New York, and established her in his splendid mansion on the Avenue. With an impudence and infatuation perfectly astounding in so shrewd a man, he took no pains to conceal his conquest. Jauntily would he pace down Broadway with her on his arm in the morning, and in the evening she would be in waiting to accompany ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... to halt the Negro then and there and tell him a few plain truths. But he did not feel quarrelsome at the moment, and there was, after all, nothing very tangible to justify a berating. The fellow's impudence was sure to increase, and then! So he merely reined his horse to the better part of the ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... assailed by a number of little noisy dogs in the street. He usually passed them with apparent unconcern, as if they were beneath his notice; but one little cur was particularly troublesome, and at length carried his impudence so far as to bite the Newfoundland dog in the leg. This was a degree of wanton insult beyond what he could patiently endure; and he instantly turned round, ran after the offender, and seized him by the skin of the back. In this way he carried him in his mouth to ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... don't give him his own at the hustings!—How dare a man set himself up for a guardian of his neighbour's rights, who has robbed his neighbour of his dearest comforts? How dare a seducer come into freeholders' houses, and have the impudence to say, send me up to London as ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... gaun, ye crowlin ferlie! Your impudence protects you sairly: I canna say by ye strunt rarely, Owre gauze and lace; Tho' faith, I fear, ye dine but sparely On ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... said Mr. Dunborough. 'I tell you, Tommy, we had a near run for it. Curse their impudence, they made us sweat. For a very little I would give the rascals something to ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... quality as well—something elfin, wayward, mischievous. They peep and whisper. It is said they can cast spells. To sleep upon a daisied lawn is to run a certain risk. There is this hint of impudence in their attitude, half audacity, half knavery, that shows itself a little in the way they stare unwinkingly all day at everything above them—at the stately things that tower proudly in the air—then just shut up at sunset without a word of explanation ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... get me, impudence," said Alice, and began walking up and down again. But not long after, having to come in, she just said, "How do, Mr. Halbert?" and passed on, never speaking to Sam. Now there was no reason why she ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... my customary impudence, "it is not of the slightest importance whether you see the joke of it or not. The public will—and that is enough ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... world, lost in some such thought as was possible to her. Clare pulled off his cap, and bade her good morning as he passed. Perhaps she knew she did not deserve politeness; anyhow she took Clare's for impudence, and came swooping upon him. He stopped and waited her approach, perplexed as to the cause of it; and was so unprepared for the box on the ear she dealt him, that it almost threw him down. Her ankle was instantly in Abdiel's sharp teeth. She gave a frightful screech, and Clare, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... "wickedness" in sending an "impudent mandate" to one assembly to rescind the lawful resolution of another. The too eager Hutchinson fell into the trap, and pointed out that it was the king, rather than the ministry, who must be charged with impudence. But this was not to disprove the impudence; it was simply to make the king instead of the ministry obnoxious to the charge, and to enlighten the people as to who their real enemy was. "The king," said Adams, "has placed us in a position where we must ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... grateful a conscience was not overcome for nothing. Peter never liked cheap sins. The contest came, the election takes place, and Peter Pure's plumper weighs down the adversary's scale. Soon after this he had the impudence to accost his benefactor thus:—"My dear friend and benefactor, and worthy sir, I wished for this opportunity of explaining to you, with the utmost sincerity and confidence, what may have appeared to you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... a mahogany or lignum vitae billy was too costly a weapon to be broken over a Negro's head. The police were on board the train before it stopped even, and the way they went for the Negroes was inspiring. The police tolerated no impudence, much less rowdyism, from the Negroes, and if a darky even looked mad, it was enough for some policeman to bend his club double over his head. In fact after the police finished with them they were the meekest, mildest, most polite set of colored men I ever saw." This language is respectfully dedicated ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... Greek Kostolo so much gaudy impudence and barefaced roguery that, in spite of the fact that the main concern of these pages is with women, I am constrained to add his portrait to the sketches I have made in illustration. He is of the gallery in which ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... such impudence as it deserved, but a thought struck him, and he chewed it over. Among the gang of idealists he consorted with, or at least salooned with, the dearest ambition of all was to turn America's dream of a vast fleet of ships into a nightmare of failure. In order to secure "just recognition" ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... Excellency's marked reception by his Majesty? By Jove though, it was the rarest piece of impudence I ever heard of; hoaxing a crowned head, quizzing one of the Lord's anointed is un ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... always ready to run, doubling and shifting to avoid the encounter that must mean instant death to him. Many a time from some hiding-place he watched the great Bear, and trembled lest the wind should betray him. Several times his very impudence saved him, and more than once he was nearly cornered in a box-canon. Once he escaped only by climbing up a long crack in a cliff, which Wahb's huge frame could not have entered. But still, in a mad persistence, he kept on marking the trees ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... rods; but Mr. Whittier now had them removed, and refused to have them replaced, though much solicited by agents. In revenge, one of the persistent brotherhood issued a circular having a picture of this house with a thunderbolt descending upon it, as an awful warning against neglect! He had the impudence to emphasize his fulmination by printing a portrait of the poet, who, it was intimated, would yet be ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... like her impudence," muttered Amy, as Belle and Sally disappeared. "I don't see how her mother ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... me with a waltz, later in the evening," returned Jack, courteously. "But if I had the impudence to ask you for this waltz, and if you were generous enough to grant it to me, I ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... appeared on the table came from. But in point of fact, I never went very far, and my servant always had instructions which way to send for me if I was wanted; while as to the Dacoits I did not believe in their having the impudence to come in broad daylight within a mile or two of our camp. I did not often go down the face of the Ghauts. The shooting was good, and there were plenty of bears in those days, but it needed a long day for such an expedition, and in view of the Dacoits who ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... hope that among good men these calumnies [and misrepresentations of Holy Scripture] may make little headway. And God will not long endure such impudence and wickedness. [They will certainly be consumed by the First and Second Commandments.] Neither has the Pope of Rome consulted well for his own dignity in employing such patrons, because he has entrusted ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... large-honed, curved of beak, and touched with race, Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea, The brown eyes radiant with vivacity— There shown a brilliant and romantic grace, A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace Of passion, impudence, and energy. Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck, Most vain, most generous, sternly critical, Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist; A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all, And something of the ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that's why he needs me," said Duncan brazenly. In his soul he remarked "O Lord!" in a tone of awe; his colossal impudence dazed even himself. "But don't you think he could get back some of the trade if the ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... table and put a pair of phones to his ears. Then he began to tune. First there came to him a discordant confusion of static and other noises, including an admixture of "ham impudence". ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... devoted friend, and a first-class fighter, only takes a thousand men, and makes a clean sweep of the Pasha's army, which had the impudence to bar our way. Thereupon back we came to Cairo, our headquarters, and now ...
— The Napoleon of the People • Honore de Balzac
... fail of success; it had a prodigious fame. Some historians lodged protests; they might as well have protested against Dares. Gerald de Barry cried out it was an imposture; and William of Newbury inveighed against the impudence of "a writer called Geoffrey," who had made "Arthur's little finger bigger than Alexander's back."[183] In vain; copies of the "Historia Regum" multiplied to such an extent that the British Museum alone now possesses ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... strong-minded women. We conceived a very unfavorable opinion of this Miss Anthony when she performed in this city on a former occasion, but we confess that, after listening attentively to her discourse last evening, we were inexpressibly disgusted with the impudence and impiety evinced in her lecture. Personally repulsive, she seems to be laboring under feelings of strong hatred towards male men, the effect, we presume, of jealousy and neglect. She spent some hour or so to show the evils endured by the mothers, wives and daughters ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... of impudence and trick,[448:2] With cloven tongue prepared to hiss and lick, Rome's Brazen Serpent—boldly dares discuss The roasting of thy heart, O brave John Huss! 10 And with grim triumph and a truculent glee[448:3] Absolves anew ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... rather, Oh, the foolish Effects of a mean Education! (interrupted his Majesty of Bantam.) For Passions were given us for Use, Reason to govern and direct us in the Use, and Education to cultivate and refine that Reason. But (pursu'd he) for all his Impudence to me, which I shall take a time to correct, I am oblig'd to him, that at last he has found me out a Kingdom to my Title; and if I were Monarch of that Place (believe me, Ladies) I would make you all Princesses and Duchesses; ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... damned runaway midshipman, who, if you belonged to my ship, instead of marrying Donna Agnes, I would marry you to the gunner's daughter, by God! Two midshipmen sporting plain clothes in the best society in Palermo, and having the impudence to ask a post-captain to dine with them! To ask me, and address me as Tartar, and my dear fellow! you infernal young scamps!" continued Captain Tartar, now boiling with rage, and striking his fist on the table so as to set ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... have been writing a satire on antiquity when he warned his contemporaries of the demons lurking everywhere, but more especially dwelling in trees and fountains. Of a learned man who was studying the classic poets, he said: "This man, confused by the magic of evil spirits, had the impudence to propound doctrines contradictory to our holy faith. In his opinion everything the ancient poets had maintained was true. Peter, the bishop of the town, condemned him as a heretic. At that time there were many men in Italy believing this false ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... he did not; nor made any remark. He did not dislike seeing those voracious maws stuffed with a fat morsel. He knew as much of the real poverty in Florence as of the innocent impudence of many poor, with their lingering medieval outlook upon the relations of the poor and the rich. He sided with those against these. Singularly, perhaps, he regarded himself as belonging among the latter, the rich. He was glad the ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... to improve as we advanced farther into Bundelkhand in appearance, manners, and intelligence. There is a bold bearing about the Bundelas, which at first one is apt to take for rudeness or impudence, but which in time he ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... won't mind!" cried the lad, emerging. "As if you could mind! But it sounds like my impudence to be talking to you about—about—You see," he blurted out, "she's going to Italy with the Raeburns. She's a connection of theirs, somehow, and Miss Raeburn's taken a fancy to her lately—and her mother's treated me like dirt ever since they asked ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and dried. This was the most miserable and starving place which they had yet visited: since their arrival, Mr. Gun had sent them two meals, consisting of a little pounded yam, and fish stewed in palm oil, and for this he had the impudence to demand two muskets in payment. These fellows, like the rest on the coast, were a set of imposing rascals, little better than downright savages; Lander was informed that they had absolutely starved three white men, shortly before his arrival, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... occasionally wrote "those kind." William Dean Howells reviewed the book in the Atlantic, which was of itself a distinction, whether the review was favorable or otherwise. It was favorable on the whole, favorable to the humor of the book, its "delicious impudence," the charm of its good-natured irony. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Phelan Duffy) Wisha, bad luck to your impudence to call my husband a bla'gard. A dacent man that never went to the likes of you or any ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... to you. I cannot find words sufficient to express my gratitude to you, I think the wedding will take place on Tuesday next, I have seen some of the bread from your house, and she says it is the best bread she has had since she has been in America. Sometimes she has impudence enough to tell me she would rather be where you are in Philadelphia than to be here with me. I hope this will be no admiration to you for no honest hearted person ever saw you that would not desire to be where you are, No flattery, but candidly speaking, you are worthy all the praise of ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... and Lady Purbeck, "grew to such boldness, that he brought her up to London and lodged her in Westminster. This was so near the Court and in so open view, that the King and the Lords took notice of it, as a thing full of Impudence, that they should so publickly adventure to outface the Justice of the Realm, in so fowl a business. And one day, as I came of course to wait on his Majesty, he took me aside, and told me of it, being then Archbishop ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... against Sphacteria, was looked upon by the people as the greatest captain of that age. Aristophanes, to set that bad man in a true light, who was the son of a tanner, and a tanner himself, and whose rise was owing solely to his temerity and impudence, was so bold as to make him the subject of a comedy,(197) without being awed by his power and influence: but he was obliged to play the part of Cleon himself, and appeared for the first time upon the stage in that character; ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... banker, came and seated herself beside her. Many of the guests looked at each other and whispered words which Micheline did not hear, and if she had heard would not have understood. "It is heroic!" some said. Others answered, "It is the height of impudence." ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... giving them a paradoxical appearance completely inadmissible . . . . Love that disguises itself as hate, incomparable energy under the cloak of weakness, virginal innocence under the aspect of malice and impudence, wit masquerading as folly, etc., etc. By this means they hope to make an effect of which they are incapable through the direct, frank, and conscientious study of character." He mentions Octave Feuillet as the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... over the impudence of those tramps," muttered Darry, as he set his coffee cup down. "They couldn't hope to get away with the horse and wagon and sell them in these days of the rural telephone. They couldn't use our clothing for themselves. And yet they ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... "The impudence of union labor must be suppressed. The men are lazy; that's what's the matter with them. It is all nonsense to talk about working eight hours. Union labor, if it keeps on, will ruin this country's commercial ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... of yo' havin' the brazen impudence to come here arter the harm you've done that po' defenceless darling boy," she said, with a noble dignity which obscured somehow her slovenly figure and her dirty kitchen. Peering out from under the staircase, I could see that my father stood quite humbly before her, ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... satisfactory account of their actions on the night of the murder. It struck me that I should like to take up the case, and with the confidence of youth, I applied to the Commissioner for permission to be allowed to try my hand at unravelling the mystery. What they thought of my impudence I cannot say, but the fact remains that my request, after being backed up by my Inspector, was granted. The case was a particularly complicated one, and at one time I was beginning to think that I should prove no more successful than the others had been. Instead ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... any one seen such impudence? This is not all; he has written at the bottom, in red letters, 'Cabrion, to his good friend Pipelet, for life,'" said the portress, examining the picture ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... feller, but that where he hailed from he belonged to the quality folks, which really was the p'int she seemed most anxious about. That's whut I told her, and I was monstrous glad to be able to tell her. A stranger might have thought it was pure impudence on her part, but of course we both know, you and me, whut was in the back part of her old kinky head. And when I'd got done tellin' her she went down the street from here with her head throwed away back, singin' till you could 'a' heard her half ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... second voyage the governor, Count Tramp, prohibited the intercourse: Jorgenson landed while the people were at church, and aided by his seamen took the governor prisoner. He then, with extraordinary impudence, issued a proclamation stating that he had been called by an oppressed people to assume the reins of government. He proceeded to reform its various departments: he lightened the taxes, augmented the pay of the clergy, improved the system of education, established ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... this—and for very small chances in comparison to this. Why, I know a fellow, a Frenchman, called Fleurus, who will take as much trouble about a few hundred pounds' worth of unclaimed stock as this man, George Sheldon, has taken about the Haygarth succession. And he has really the impudence to claim ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... low, spoke to us and humbly tried to comprehend our chanted utterance. Know, dog, that it is not we who have changed! It may be, there are days when I'm more myself, when everything offends me, and justly; a brusque gesture, a vulgar laugh, the banging of a door, your odor, your inconceivable impudence when you touch me, or encircle me, jumping and ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... relates to the emperor, and is not to be delivered to the first underling who has the impudence to make inquiry," replied Wilhelm in a haughty tone, which could scarcely be regarded, in ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... in Christendom are assembled in Oxfordshire. I am obliged to hire a clerk to pay the people; and the village where I live is become a constant fair. A fellow has set up the sign of the Three Blind Kittens, and has the impudence to tell the neighbours, that if my whims and my money only hold out for one twelvemonth, he shall not care a fig for the king. I thought to prevent this inundation, by buying up all the old cats and secluding them in convents and monasteries of my ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... the hut he put his fingers to his nose and waggled them in the direction of the grade, then he climbed back through the window. Inside, every vestige of impudence deserted him. A grave frown puckered his forehead as he seated himself thoughtfully on the solitary chair to sit like a statue staring at the floor. Certain sudden twistings of his clumsy frame revealed the vagrant meanderings of his mind, now satisfied and determined, now ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... counting-room the cash from the clerks in wooden balls, and he returned the change, and kept the accounts, with a pitiless eye for errors. The women were afraid of him, and hated him with bitterness, which exploded at crises in excesses of hysterical impudence. ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... impudence to go about as you've done—eating my food and taking my wages, while all the time you've been carrying on with ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... Police. I saw her very frequently on the street; passing her both on the sidewalk and on horseback. And if she were pining for the newly wedded husband, who had forsaken and denied her, she most assuredly did not show it. Nor did her impudence diminish. Whenever she saw me she tried to catch my eye. Several times it happened she was watching me when I first observed her; then, like a flash, she would bow and smile with the air of the ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... should know what a man is like in the house before she marries him. Thats been going on for two months now; and whats the result? Youve got yourself thoroughly disliked in the office; and youre getting yourself thoroughly disliked here, all through your bad manners and your conceit, and the damned impudence you ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... I thought then that calling the fat man his friend, who a few moments before had been chasing him around, ready to kill him, was about the grandest specimen of sublime impudence that I ever saw. ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... out all night, and then coolly acknowledged all, was something undreamed of in the Nicholsonian philosophy, and transcended comment. The return of the change, which the old gentleman still carried in his hand, had been a feature of imposing impudence; it had dealt him a staggering blow. Then there was the reference to John's original flight - a subject which he always kept resolutely curtained in his own mind; for he was a man who loved to have made no mistakes, and when he feared he might have made one kept the ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... witchcraft when you came back from Stettin, and found the poor priest in his coffin!" which impertinence, however, my hag so resented, that she hit Anna a blow on the mouth, and exclaimed in great wrath, "Take that for thy impudence, thou daring peasant wench!" But, calming herself in a moment, added, "Ah, good Anna, is it not human to err?—have you ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... only white men of his acquaintance were Hudson Bay officials, this constituted a slurring piece of impudence that demanded ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... rumour went round that the Ballance Ministry meant to abolish the Property Tax and bring forward Bills embodying a Progressive Land Tax, and Progressive Income Tax, the proposal was thought to represent the audacity of impudence or desperation. When the rumour proved true, it was predicted that the farmers throughout the length and breath of the country would rise in wrath and terror, scared by the very name of Land Tax. Nevertheless Parliament passed the Bills, with ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... extraordinary," he replied, "that Petion should not have earlier known what had lasted so long." Even he could not but be for a moment abashed at the king's unwonted expression of indignation. But he soon recovered himself, and with unequaled impudence turned and thanked the crowd for the moderation and dignity with which they had exercised the right of petition, and bid them "finish the day in similar conformity with the law, and retire to their homes." They obeyed. The interference of the deputies had convinced their leaders that they ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... she glanced into her tent she saw the package Isbel had carried. It lay on her bed. Ellen stared blankly. "The—the impudence of him!" she ejaculated. Then she kicked the package out of the tent. Words and action seemed to liberate a dammed-up hot fury. She kicked the package again, and thought she would kick it into the smoldering camp-fire. But somehow she stopped short of that. She left the ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... isn't impudence for you!" ejaculated Mrs. Waters, as her boarder left the room. "I must be hard up for a husband, to marry such a shiftless ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... that he could talk without any shyness, that he could speak French fluently, and that after a month in Italy he could chatter Italian, at any rate without reticence or shame; when she perceived that all the women liked the lad's society and impudence, and that all the young men were anxious to know him, she was glad to find that Silverbridge had chosen so valuable a friend. And then he was beautiful to look at,—putting her almost in mind of another man on whom her eyes had once loved to dwell. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... was sheer impudence. It is very well understood in Delhi that any native gentleman of rank may call on Yasmini between midday and midnight without offering a reason for his visit; otherwise it would be impossible to hold a salon and be a power in politics, in a land where politics run deep, but where men do ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... livery stable and slipped from her saddle. Not because a woman in a calico dress and sunbonnet, a tanned, brown-handed woman, was a novelty there, but because the license of the place was one of impudence ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... have imagined that a chit of a thing like you, Dorothy Glenn, would have the impudence to put in your oar, or that you ever thought of lovers, or marrying, and you only sixteen a day or so ago?" ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... without the exposure of passing any of the other attendants. The Baron was quite gray, and upwards of sixty years of age! But the self-conceited dotard soon caused the Queen to repent her misplaced confidence, and from his unwarrantable impudence on that occasion, when he found himself alone with the Queen, Her Majesty, though he was a constant member of the societies of the De Polignacs, ever after treated him ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Great Rebellion. But the fame of Bath is social rather than historical. It was not until the 18th cent. that the city reached the zenith of its importance. The creator of modern Bath was the social adventurer Nash. By sheer force of native impudence Nash pushed himself into the position of an uncrowned king, and exercised his social sovereignty with a very high hand. His rule was certainly conducive to the better government of the city. From a mere haunt of bandits and beggars, ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... piece of bread? How thankful you were for cheese parings? Have you forgotten that memorable era, when the lord of the manor interfered to obtain for you a slice of the public pudding? And now, with an audacity only equalled by your ingratitude, you have the impudence to ask for knives and forks, and to request, in terms too plain to be mistaken, that you may sit down to table with the rest, and be indulged even with beef and beer: there are not more than half a dozen ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... to hurl its missiles against the foe. He only laughed aloud, and bade the soldiers do nothing till he gave the word of command. To the citizens this seemed an evil jest, and they grumbled aloud at the impudence of the general who chose this moment of terrible suspense for merriment. But now when the Goths were close to the fosse, Belisarius lifted his bow, singled out a mail-clad chief, and sent an arrow through his neck, inflicting a deadly wound. A great shout of triumph rose from the Imperial ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... sin is to lay a foundation for a continuance; this continuance is the mother of custom, and impudence at last the issue. ...
— Miscellaneous Pieces • John Bunyan
... meet with what some call an interjective phrase; such as, Ungrateful wretch! impudence of hope! folly in the extreme! what ingratitude! away ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... continued Aunt Matilda; "light grey that would show every spot. I told her it wasn't a very serviceable colour and she had the impudence to laugh at me. 'It'll clean, won't it?' she says, just like that, and Frank says, right after her, 'Yes, it'll clean.' He knew a lot about it, he did. She ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... simply she said it! Yet it was surely the veriest impudence of coquetry. He looked at her slowly from the hat downward, as he lounged leisurely ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... than Conigherazzo," said Ercole. "It is Lira—Erre Gheraffe fonne Lira." (Herr Graf von Lira, I suppose he meant. And he has the impudence to assert that singing has taught him to pronounce German.) "And that means," he continued, "Il Conte di Lira, as ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... destroyed all scruples, being first examined, as having been the young prince's confidant, declared with cool impudence that, his master having shown a wish to escape for a few days from the importunities of a young married lady whose passion was beginning to tire him, had followed him to the island with three or four of his most faithful servants, and that he himself had adopted ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his yells and cries, pommelled him severely. Although they were now at some distance, too great for the distinguishing of words, I could hear that Turkey mingled admonition with punishment. A little longer, and Peter crept past the window, a miserable mass of collapsed and unstrung impudence, his face bleared with crying, and his knuckles dug into his eyes. And this was the boy I had chosen for my leader! He had been false to me, I said to myself; and the noble Turkey, seeing his behaviour through the window, had watched to give him his ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... shall condemn you to the Concha, if you carry your impudence so far as to speak so of a woman before she has become mine.... Turn your thoughts to dressing me, I am ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... manifestations against his humble person, and when they scolded him he retorted with the most bare-faced impudence and indifference. ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... enough to speak out for our rights. It struck me, from the various pretexts set up for cutting down our scanty wages, that they were untrue, and had been trumped up for the sole purpose of cheapening our work. Some of them were so transparently false that I wondered how any one could have the impudence to present them. Those who did so must have considered a sewing-woman as either too dull to detect the fallacy, or too timid to expose and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... brutes! You apes! You miserable, white-skinned creatures! How dare you come into my garden and knock me on the head with that awful basket and then fall on my toes and cause me pain and suffering? How dare you, I say? Don't you know you will be punished for your impudence? Don't you know the Boolooroo of the Blues will have revenge? I can have you patched for this insult, and I will—just as sure as I'm the Royal Boolooroo ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... great propriety.' Here let me offer a short defence of that propensity in my disposition, to which this gentleman alluded. It has procured me much happiness. I hope it does not deserve so hard a name as either forwardness or impudence. If I know myself, it is nothing more than an eagerness to share the society of men distinguished either by their rank or their talents, and a diligence to attain what I desire[606]. If a man is praised for seeking knowledge, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... "The—the impudence of the thing!" exclaimed the young pilot, pounding his knees with his clenched hands. "Who's going to keep them posted? Where do they expect to get their ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... Soul is wholly compos'd of Hipocrisy, Envy, and Lust, can ill endure another Woman should be esteem'd Mistress of those Virtues she has acted with too barefaced an Impudence to pretend to, and is never so happy as when by some horrid Stratagem she finds the means to traduce and blast the Character of the Worthy.... With how much readiness the easily deceiv'd Riverius [Savage] has obliged her in spreading those Reports, ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... could all be pieces of literary mosaic? It was very annoying. If the fact came to be known, it would certainly be said that he had attempted to pass off Jeremy Taylor's for his own—as if he would have the impudence to make the attempt, and with such a well-known writer! But what difference did it make whether the writer was well or ill known? None, except as to the relative probabilities of escape and discovery! And should the accusation be brought ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... you mean, you scoundrel, by this impudence?" exclaimed his master, although at the same time he could not avoid laughing; for, in truth, he felt a kind of presentiment, grounded upon Dandy's very assurance, that he was the bearer of some agreeable intelligence. ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... purposes of a party to do so. The weight of power, of wealth, of rank is thrown into the scale, gives its impulse to the machine; and the whole is under the guidance of Mr. Gifford's instinctive genius—of the inborn hatred of servility for independence, of dulness for talent, of cunning and impudence for truth and honesty. It costs him no effort to execute his disreputable task—in being the tool of a crooked policy, he but labours in his natural vocation. He patches up a rotten system as he would supply the chasms in a worm-eaten manuscript, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... No, sir, it is not becoming language for a clergyman. I used the wrong word. I should have said damn your impudence: that's what St. Paul, or any honest priest would have said to you. Do you think I have forgotten that tender of yours for the contract to supply clothing to ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... general opinion, which supposes the bear a carnivorous animal, I affirm, with all the inhabitants of this colony, and the neighbouring countries, that he never feeds upon flesh. It is indeed to be lamented that the first {246} travellers had the impudence to publish to the world a thousand false stories, which were easily believed because they were new. People, so far from wishing to be undeceived, have even been offended with those who attempted to detect the general ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... duel on the southern ramparts had of course become a farce, not likely to be enacted now that Marguerite's life was at stake. The daring adventurer was caught in a network at last, from which all his ingenuity, all his wit, his impudence and his amazing luck ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... calmly, pointed to my offending foot, and said: "Back, sir!" Then we argued a bit—I'm afraid I was a trifle testy—and finally she laid hands upon my ankle in the most scientific manner and had me on my back before I could think of the proper adjectives to apply to her impudence." ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... bellowed. "This is the damnedest piece of impudence I've ever had to suffer from any subordinates in my whole State Department experience! I want an explanation out of you, and it'd better be ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... night's lodging for the best thesis that ever was argued. "You may easily imagine," says he, in a subsequent letter to his brother-in-law, "what difficulties I had to encounter, left as I was without friends, recommendations, money, or impudence, and that in a country where being born an Irishman was sufficient to keep me unemployed. Many, in such circumstances, would have had recourse to the friar's cord or the suicide's halter. But, with all my follies, I had principle to resist the one, and resolution ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... good inn here," she wrote,—"for of course, under the circumstances, you would scarcely have the impudence to expect the hospitality of my own roof. But if you are determined to have a final 'No' for your answer, I am entirely competent to give it to you by word ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers |
