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More "Effrontery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... young man, not more than thirty, of very quick parts, who had been brought up in the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, had an exorbitant idea of his own importance, and might be described without malice as a master of effrontery. The ship which brought him to this country was driven by adverse winds to Charleston and landed him there on April 8th. He lost no time in fitting out a privateer against British mercantile vessels. The fact that by ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... impudent rogue have we here!" cried the angry Duke, who conceived that Richard was purposely dealing in effrontery. "Mr. Trenchard, I do think we are wasting time. Be so good as to confound them both with the truth of ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... proved itself. For, as the days passed, rumours reached the distant department of New Mexico that the old tyrant Santa Anna was again returning to power. And, in proportion as these gained strength, so increased Gil Uraga's confidence in himself, till at length he assumed an air of effrontery—almost insolence—towards his superior officer; and towards the sister, in the interviews he was permitted with her, a manner ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... trademarks of intellectual products and changing the terminology of things! Those men with flowing beards and gold-rimmed spectacles, pacific rabbits of the laboratory and the professor's chair that had been preparing the ground for the present war with their sophistries and their unblushing effrontery! Their guilt was far greater than that of the Herr Lieutenant of the tight corset and the gleaming monocle, who in his thirst for strife and slaughter was simply and logically ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sunken with pain and longing, was for him alone. To the other dancers, to the crowded room at large, she seemed a brazen girl, with beauty to make a goddess, wit to mask as a great lady, effrontery to match that of the gentleman who had brought her here. The age was free, and in that London which was dear to the hearts of the Virginians ladies of damaged reputation were not so unusual a feature of fashionable entertainments as ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... to the gods; so that they were jeered by the mob who thronged around them, as it was plain to all that they were equally afraid to sacrifice and to die. Others advanced more briskly, carrying their effrontery so far as to avow that they never had been Christians." [301:2] Multitudes now withdrew into deserts or mountains, and there perished with cold and hunger. The prisons were everywhere crowded with Christians; and the magistrates were occupied with the odious task of oppressing and destroying ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... a most leisurely way to the gate that led into the meadow whose eastern boundary was Hope's quick-set hedge, and he came in the same leisurely way up to Mr. Bartley, and leaned his back, with his hands behind him, with perfect effrontery, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... conveys to the mind of the reader that I applaud and sympathise with the events of the winter of 1793, and more particularly with the odious procession of the Goddess of Reason at Notre Dame. He says, moreover, that I have "the effrontery to imply that the horrible massacres of the Revolution ... were 'a very mild story compared with the atrocities of the Jews or the crimes of Catholicism.'" No really honest and competent disputant would have hit on "effrontery" as the note of the passage referred ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... corporal punishment or jail, but the impulse of gluttony and lechery is always there. Any keeper of a second or third-class hotel in a town that is on one of the big circuits is apt to grow eloquent upon the subject of theatrical folk if given the chance. They are noted for a brazen effrontery in demanding everything that is in sight and the laxity with which they regard a debt incurred. I have no doubt that the first man to let his valise down from the second-story window of a hotel, slide down the rope himself and thus square his bill was the leading comedian of that sterling ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... of Mr Colt, of which our Lay contains merely the sequel, is this: A New York printer, of the name of Adams, had the effrontery to call upon him one day for payment of an account, which the independent Colt settled by cutting his creditor's head to fragments with an axe. He then packed his body in a box, and sprinkling it with salt, despatched it to a packet bound for New Orleans. Suspicions having been excited, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... advantage of me, sir, but allow me to say that the person under discussion has not only, with unheard of effrontery, publicly and unblushingly proclaimed himself as a blackmailer and knave, capable of descending to any perfidy or treachery for the purpose of favoring his own base schemes, but he has also, in his inordinate greed and ambition, unwittingly proved himself by his own statements and conduct to be a ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... but she eyed her hostess narrowly. She had begun of late to distrust the aesthetic worth of the colored glass and metal stag, and, though she was on her guard against effrontery, she wished to know the truth. She knew that Mr. Pierce, with fine business instinct, had already conveyed to her husband the promise that he should furnish the varnish for the new church in case of his own selection, which, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... said, laughing at her enchanting effrontery. "But, Marya, when the rainbow goes a-glimmering, the same old grey world is there again. It's ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... mention how many of my salutary advices you have despised: I have given you line upon line and precept upon precept; and while I was chalking out to you the straight way to wealth and character, with audacious effrontery you have zigzagged across the path, contemning me to my face: you know the consequences. It is not yet three months since home was so hot for you that you were on the wing for the western shore of the Atlantic, not to make a fortune, but to hide ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... reading it to his friends after dinner, or on other occasions, and as he had many, it got pretty well about London. I may here very truly remark that Mr. Hotten, in the public controversy which he had with Mr. Trubner on the subject of my "Ballads," displayed an effrontery absolutely without parallel in modern times, apropos of ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... the motion. They had not the effrontery to wrap up their motives in specious expressions of concern for my health, but stated their point of view with brutal frankness, as is their wont. I was an old dear, they conceded, and of course Kitty was Kitty; but ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... of distinct genius. Yet the Directors were, almost without exception, men of mediocre talents, [Footnote: Carnot, upright and sincere, and the only member of first-rate ability, was forced out of the Directory in 1797.] who practiced bribery and corruption with unblushing effrontery. They preferred their personal gain to the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... and treachery, and effrontery and cunning, the rivals who act unfairly, and the keen competition of the literary market," his companion said resignedly. "What is a first loss, if ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... such occasions. Young Mavering's behaviour gave her still greater question: his self-possession, his entire absence of anxiety; or any expectation of rebuff or snub, might be the ease of unimpeachable social acceptance, or it might be merely adventurous effrontery; only something ingenuous and good in the young fellow's handsome face forbade this conclusion. That his face was so handsome was another of the complications. She recalled, in the dreamlike swiftness with which ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the accused been required to declare if she had had pleasure and carnal commerce with all the men, nobles, citizens, and others as set forth in the plaints and declarations of the inhabitants. To which her who speaks has it been answered with great effrontery: "Pleasure, yes! Commerce, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Iglesias. Her unblushing effrontery began to entertain him somewhat. And then he had sallied forth in search of amusement. This was not the form of amusement he would have selected; but—since it ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... friend took my troubles on his shoulders," said Percival, "and got the parcels through with an effrontery which amazed me. I always took him for an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... Mrs. Egremont was greeting him, and there were ten minutes of delicious exchange of news. But 'pleasures are as poppies fled,' Nuttie had no dance to spare, her card was full, and she had not learnt fashionable effrontery enough to play tricks with engagements, and just then Mr. Egremont descended on them—'I wish to introduce you to the Duchess,' he said to his wife; and on the way he ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fought it out with his imperative father; but, nevertheless, it was a comfort to have to fetch pale Charles for a jobation; so he went at once. And the three young people, two of them trembling with affections overstrained, and the third indurated in effrontery, stood before that ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... you'd do such a caddish thing as that. Think it over for a minute. You come down here; you sweep that unfortunate girl off her feet; you make love to her with the fury of a stage villain; you force her to betray her very evident partiality for you—and then you have the effrontery to say: 'Good-by. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... off a few feet to get a better look at the terrible stranger. He had not expected opposition and such effrontery was new to him. ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... watched for flocks of migrating starlings and shot at them with small shot, then we picked up those that were wounded, and some of them died in our hands in terrible agonies (I remember to this day how they moaned in the cage at night); those that recovered we sold, and swore with the utmost effrontery that they were all cocks. On one occasion at the market I had only one starling left, which I had offered to purchasers in vain, till at last I sold it for a farthing. "Anyway, it's better than nothing," I said to comfort myself, as I put the farthing ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... though, if so, it must, from some of the references, have been revised after 1773. The two young men who had tried to palm off their retranslation from Goethe as Diderot's own text, at once had the effrontery to accuse Briere and Diderot's daughter of repeating their own fraud. A vivacious dispute followed between the indignant publisher and his impudent detractors. At length Briere appealed to the great Jove of Weimar. Goethe expressed his conviction ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... to imply a mixture of boldness and apprehension, like one who has undertaken a dangerous commission, and is sensible that audacity alone can carry him through it with safety. Something of the same mixture of fear and effrontery was visible in the manner in which he paid his respects, and he showed also a grotesque awkwardness, not usual amongst those who were accustomed to be received in the presence ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... to repent of any action—I will be content to receive Mesopotamia and Armenia, which was fraudulently extorted from my grandfather. We Persians have never admitted the principle, which you proclaim with such effrontery, that success in war is always glorious, whether it be the fruit of courage or trickery. In conclusion, if you will take the advice of one who speaks for your good, sacrifice a small tract of territory, one always in dispute and causing continual bloodshed, in order that you may rule the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... in a humble attitude, little conformable with the effrontery natural to his race. One would have said that he was endeavoring rather to avoid attention than to attract it. His battered hat, browned by the suns of every clime, was pulled forward over his wrinkled face. His arched back was ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... whether it would ever have taken place—with this dash of affecting reminiscence in any case. Allusions to a common past were barred for excellent reasons, as between these two persons, save strictly in public. Even so it struck him as a humorous piece of audacity on the lady's part. Her effrontery touched on the colossal! But it succeeded, always had done so.—In his judgment of Henrietta, Carteret never failed to remember, being compact of chivalry and of truthfulness, that he had once on a time been a good half in love with her himself.—All the same he was not sure her close association ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... attempt to kill Cicero; his directions to Manlius well observed, XXVIII. His machinations induce the Senate to confer extraordinary power on the consuls, XXIX. His proceedings are opposed by various precautions, XXX. His effrontery in the Senate, XXXI. He sets out for Etruria, XXXII. His accomplice, Manlius, sends a deputation to Marcius, XXXIII. His representations to various respectable characters, XXXIV. His letter to Catulus, XXXV. His arrival at ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... veneration as inclines me to approve his conduct in the whole, without a minute examination of its parts; yet I could never forbear to wish, that while vice is every day multiplying seducements, and stalking forth with more hardened effrontery, virtue would not withdraw the influence of her presence, or forbear to assert her natural dignity by open and undaunted perseverance in the right. Piety practised in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of Heaven, and delight those unbodied ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... of poetry to that exhibited in 'Jabberwocky.' Carroll, with a sense of mathematical neatness, makes his whole poem a mosaic of new and mysterious words. But Edward Lear, with more subtle and placid effrontery, is always introducing scraps of his own elvish dialect into the middle of simple and rational statements, until we are almost stunned into admitting that we know what they mean. There is a genial ring of ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... decided. She could not, with effrontery of selfishness, take the last possible place,—a place already asked for by another. She thanked Dakie Thayne, and, with just one little secret sigh, got into the interior, placing herself by ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... obscurity and wreckage of the past, whether as legend, or ballad, or mere nursery rhyme, has survived in right of some intrinsic merit of its own, and will not be snuffed out of existence by any of our precautionary or hygienic measures. . . . Puss in Boots is one long record of triumphant effrontery and deception. An honest and self-respecting lad would have explained to the king that he was not the Marquis of Carabas at all; that he had no desire to profit by his cat's ingenious falsehoods, and no weak ambition to connect himself with the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... should think himself bound, once for all, by any opinion once given on so important a matter; he would willingly swear and submit to the law, if so be it were one, a proviso which he added as a mere cover for his effrontery. The people, in great joy at his taking the oath, loudly clapped and applauded him, while the nobility stood by ashamed and vexed at his inconstancy; but they submitted out of fear of the people, and all in order took the oath, till it came to Metellus's turn. But he, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... which seemed to furnish the Papacy with a new external guarantee. Two cardinals, who, at the same time, were princes of ruling houses, Giovanni d'Aragona, son of King Ferrante, and Ascanio Sforza, brother of Lodovico il Moro, sold their votes with shameless effrontery; so that, at any rate, the ruling houses of Naples and Milan became interested, by their participation in the booty, in the continuance of the papal system. Once again, in the following conclave, when all the cardinals but five sold themselves, Ascanio received ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... of the sixteenth century, France was invaded by a horde of mountebanks in showy and fantastic garb, who went from one town to another, loudly and with brazen effrontery proclaiming in the market-places their ability to cure every kind of ailment. And the people, then as now easily duped, lent willing ears to these wily pretenders, and bought freely of their marvellous pills ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... safety. She had said all that she could say to Veronica and to Bosio. Gregorio Macomer, her husband, whom she hated and despised, but whom she was saving, or trying to save, with herself, carried the effrontery of his sham-honest face and cold manner through it all, unmoved, so far as she could see. Only once or twice in the course of the day he had laughed suddenly and nervously, with a contraction of the face and a raising of the flat ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... He had early gained the name of Raven from his artful looks. His manner was a mixture of calm audacity and consummate self-conceit. Though you knew him to be a thorough scamp, the young imp would stare you in the face with the effrontery of a man about town. He was active, sharp, and nice-looking, and there was nothing which he was either afraid or ashamed to do. He had not a particle of that modesty which in every good boy is as natural as it is graceful; he could tell a lie without the slightest hesitation or the faintest ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... has a better opinion of himself than the people have of him: he is superficial, and makes up in effrontery what he lacks in qualification. The gambler yonder, with a toothpick in his mouth, has of late succeeded in his tricks. The affairs of this kind-hearted grocer are troubling him. Were we within a yard of that round-shouldered man from the country, we should smell leather; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... believe that the woman who had just stormed at the conductor, who had the effrontery to subject Helen to that stony scrutiny before she answered, could adopt such dulcet tones so suddenly. Helen, frank and generous-minded to a degree, would have preferred a gradual subsidence of wrath ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... farmer, although in the abundant enjoyment of {280} bread, butter, cheese, flesh, and broth, is not only not ashamed to complain of poverty as an excuse for non-payment of his rent, but has the effrontery to thank God, as if he were enjoying only those blessings of Providence to which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... hypocrite!" his wife almost shouted. "Gambled every day of his life for twenty-five years on the New York Stock Exchange, and now he has the effrontery to make a statement like that! John Parker, roll ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... occasions) of the persecutions which they endured. Hence Bernard de Foucald (Monastier History), a writer of the twelfth century, says, "These Waldenses, although condemned by Pope Lucius II., continued to pour forth, with daring effrontery, far and wide all over the world, the poison ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... that had happened had been in perfect accordance with his wishes. He made a short speech, in which he confirmed all the concessions and promises which he had previously made. He even placed in his hat a tricolor cockade, which the mayor had the effrontery to present to him, though it was the emblem of the revolt of his subjects and of the defeat of his troops. And at last such an effect had his fearless dignity on even the fiercest of his enemies, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... of rooms, either by force or with false keys. There are of this class thieves of incredible effrontery; that of one Beaumont almost surpasses belief. Escaped from the Bagne at Rochefort, where he was sentenced to pass twelve years of his life, he came to Paris, and scarcely had he arrived there, where he had already practised, when, by way of getting his hand in, he committed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... would be Easter, and she thought of a hundred ways in which she could make it brighter for so many of the unfortunates. Her heart was opened to the world, and looking across to Henderson, who was deep in the morning paper, she said, with a wife's unblushing effrontery, "Dearest, how handsome ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... how I assault the strong places and root up the vines. Wherefore, do as I bid thee and bear thyself to me as a servant to his lord.' 'O stupid dullard,' answered the fox, 'that seekest a vain thing, I marvel at thy stupidity and effrontery, in that thou biddest me serve thee and order myself towards thee as I were a slave bought with thy money; but thou shalt see what is in store for thee, in the way of breaking thy head with stones and knocking out thy traitor's teeth.' So saying, he ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... despise the temples as charnel-houses; they reject the gods; they deride sacred things. While they are wretched themselves, if allowed they pity the priests; while they are half naked themselves, they despise honors and purple robes. O wonderful folly and incredible effrontery! They despise present torments, but fear those that are uncertain and in the future. While they fear to die after death, for the present life they do not fear to die. In such manner does a deceitful hope soothe their fear with ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... as it may be, and that is as I say, sir; and considering how you have treated me—your mean, treacherous, and infamous suit, and your cruel treason to your poor wife, I am amazed at your effrontery.' ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... effrontery will not avail thee, knave," he cried. "Thou knowest that I would have engaged thee as the leader of a chosen band, to favor the flight ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... at the regent's right hand, with head high and eyes undrooping. For a dramatic instant she paused, as though in the rehearsal of a part—a part of which it might be said that the regent was not alone the author. This triumph of woman over other women, this triumph of vice over other vice, of effrontery over effrontery akin—this could not have been so planned and executed by any but a woman. One another these beauties might tolerate, knowing one another's frailties as they did; yet the elegance, the disdain, the indifference ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... these two authorities, directly at issue on this point, I think there will be little trouble in determining which we shall make 'to give place;' or, if we 'look to a large and decided preponderancy' of either talent, learning, or benevolence, from whom we shall 'take our judgment.' The effrontery, or, to speak more charitably, the ignorance of a reference to Paley on this subject, and in this instance, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... devotion; and so on, to the end of the chapter. We will consider that all said, and so save time and trouble. You think that ought to end the matter and bring me to your way of thinking. I wonder at the effrontery of young men, who walk into our households and carelessly tell us mothers what is best for our children, and assure us, between their puffs of tobacco smoke, that a case of three weeks' moonshining outweighs ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... is ready to make new tests and what is holding up work on the Sisyphus? Replied it was complete except for my cabins. She had the effrontery to say these werent important and she was ready to go ahead without me. I pointed out that the Sisyphus was my property and it would not sail until I was ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... in a tone of the most imperturbable self- possession, and perfectly staggered poor Amos by their amazing effrontery. But all was now plain enough to him. This needy adventurer, who had entangled poor Julia in his cruel meshes, and had deserted her for a time, was hard up for money; and, having found out that Amos had taken upon himself to provide for his children at present, had hit ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... it all, now!" exclaimed she—"Bigot's falseness, and her shameless effrontery in seeking him in his very house. But it shall not be!" Angelique's voice was like the cry of a wounded panther tearing at the arrow which has pierced his flank. "Is Angelique des Meloises to be ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... kind of American travellers possess, these countrymen of ours display an amount of insolent conceit and cool assumption of superiority, quite monstrous to behold. In the coarse familiarity of their approach, and the effrontery of their inquisitiveness (which they are in great haste to assert, as if they panted to revenge themselves upon the decent old restraints of home), they surpass any native specimens that came within my ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... that the portrait of Maria Vanrenen might really be elsewhere, and even suggested in his hearing that it might not improbably have got into the hands of that omnivorous collector, Sir J. H. Tomlinson. But the vendor was proof against all such attempts to decry his goods. He had the effrontery to brush away the documentary evidence, and to declare that Sir J. H. Tomlinson (one of the most learned and astute picture-buyers in England) had been smartly imposed upon by a needy Dutch artist with a talent for forgery. ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... struck dumb by the other's effrontery, almost frightened by it. If this terrible creature withdrew into a brazen fortress of lies, who could tell how long a siege she might be able to withstand? The girl had been astonished and dismayed in the morning, when the first sally of the attack ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... the effrontery to say that. She told me that Mr. Meldon, this parson of yours who takes you out yachting, had given orders before I came that all my food was to be soaked ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... rival from the scene, Alessandro de' Medici plunged with even greater effrontery into the cruelties and debaucheries which made him odious in Florence. It seemed as though fortune meant to smile on him; for in this same year (1535) Charles V. decided at Naples in his favour against the Florentine exiles, who were pleading their own cause and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... he replied, 'the Greek has less confidence in me than I thought, and I must take it as a warning. It may be. On the other hand, there is the possibility that Petronilla's effrontery outwits us all. Of course she has done her best to ruin both of us, and perhaps is still trying to persuade Bessas that you keep Veranilda in hiding, whilst I act as your accomplice. If this be the case, ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... chief culprits, nay, as appeared afterwards, the most eager mischief-maker, was Professor Whitney himself, and let us now hear what he has to say. As if he himself were entirely unconcerned in the matter, instead of having been the chief culprit, he speaks of "cool effrontery;" "magisterial assumption, towards a parcel of naughty boys caught in their naughtiness;" "most discreditable;" "the epithet outrageous is hardly too strong." Here his breath fails him, and, fortunately ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... ownerless land yonder, the West. But they waited and waited, until your success was sure. Why, that scoundrel Merry is here this very day—the effrontery of him! He wants nothing more to do with me. No, he is here to undertake to recoup himself in his own losses by reasons of moneys he advanced to me some time ago. He is importuning my son-in-law, Mr. Alston, to pay him back those funds—which once ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... impertinence; sauciness &c. adj.; flippancy, dicacity|, petulance, procacity[obs3], bluster; swagger, swaggering &c. v.; bounce; terrorism. assumption, presumption; beggar on horseback; usurpation. impudence, assurance, audacity, hardihood, front, face, brass; shamelessness &c. adj.; effrontery, hardened front, face of brass. assumption of infallibility. saucebox &c. (blusterer) 887[obs3]. V. be insolent &c. adj.; bluster, vapor, swagger, swell, give oneself airs, snap one's fingers, kick up a dust; swear &c. (affirm) 535; rap out oaths; roister. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... find the difference on their return—a fondness for foreign fashions, an attachment to foreign vices, a supercilious contempt of his own country and countrymen; (himself more despicable than the most despicable of those he despises;) these, with an unblushing effrontery, are too generally the attainments that concur to finish the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... transaction was rapidly concluded; and it was not till the canvas passed into my hands that, as though the physical contact had unnerved her, Mrs. Fontage suddenly faltered. "It's the giving it up—" she stammered, disguising herself to the last; and I hastened away from the collapse of her splendid effrontery. ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... Eminent Writer.—Sorry you're offended. I thought my Article rather a moderate one. Quite true that I talk about falsehood, hypocrites, effrontery, demagogues, Pharisees, and so on; but expressions to be taken in strictly Pickwickian sense, and of course not intended ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... The mystical effrontery of this peroration was quite to the taste of the idlers; the fame of the Prophet had reached Mockern, and, as a performance was expected on the morrow, this prelude much amused the company. On hearing the insults of his adversary, Dagobert ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... was well understood to be concession, or at least silence, on the subject of slavery. The pressure of motives, some of which were honorable and generous, was everywhere, like the pressure of the atmosphere. It was not strange that there should be defections from righteousness. Even the enormous effrontery of the slave power in demanding for its own security that the rule of tyrannous law and mob violence by which freedom of speech and of the press had been extinguished at the South should be extended over the so-called free States did not fail of finding citizens ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... time to collect her thoughts and realize the situation. The effrontery of Jawkins seemed so daring that she almost laughed aloud. She had escaped from his clutches for a moment, but it was only a respite, a breathing spell which would soon be over. It would be necessary to provide ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... Elizabeth's boudoir. "And he had the effrontery," the latter was saying, "to tell me what I must do and must not do! The idea! A miserable little milk-wagon ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Sardinia will live to regret. All the rest of Europe—Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Prussia, Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden—take no part in the war, and yet our Ministers have—what I should call, if I were not in this House, the effrontery and audacity to get up and tell us that they are fighting the battle of all Europe, and that all Europe is leagued with us against the colossal power of Russia. Europe in the last war did, for the most part, unite with ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... one prize, he who gave has insolently taken away. Tell him all as I now bid you, and tell him in public that the Achaeans may hate him and beware of him should he think that he can yet dupe others for his effrontery ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... of his men on board, Adair ordered them to handcuff the whole of the party. The Arabs looked somewhat alarmed, their skipper very much so. "What have you done with my officers and men?" asked Adair. The negoda, recovering himself, with the coolest effrontery made the action of shaking hands, then pointed astern, as if to signify that those whom Adair was asking after had parted good friends and gone off ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... among these slave-holders? They refuse to legalize the marriages of their slaves, but induce them to form such temporary connexions as may suit the owner's conveniency, just as they would pair the lower animals; and this man has the effrontery to tell us so! Mary, however, tells a very different story, (see page 17;) and her assertion, independently of other proof, is at least as credible as Mr. Wood's. The reader will judge for himself as to the preponderance of internal ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... and write and cipher, and to tell mushrooms from toadstools, to eschew poisonous berries, and to know the weather signs. For her part, she taught me so much more that it seems effrontery to call her my pupil. It was from her gentle, softening companionship that I learned in turn to be merciful to helpless creatures, and to be honest and cleanly in my thoughts and talk. She would help me to seek for birds' nests ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... piece of cambric and was putting it in her basket, when Mr. Allston asked, with more effrontery than the ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... reason of the splendour of his equipage, entirely supported by his uncle's wealth; he had likewise made a forcible impression on her heart by virtue of the ardour of his addresses, wholly sustained by his own effrontery. The effect of his presence on the princess soon became visible to the court. Rumour whispered that as Lord St. Albans had already made an alliance with royalty, his nephew had likewise followed his example; but scandal declared that young Jermyn ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... November day he received a more penetrating chill when he saw the bulletins at the newspaper offices intimating that a fair count might give the Republicans enough Southern States to elect Hayes. This appeared to Bartley the most impudent piece of political effrontery in the whole history of the country, and among those who went about denouncing Republican chicanery at the Democratic club-rooms, no one took a loftier tone of moral indignation than he. The thought that he might lose so much of Halleck's ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... of effrontery then, and I shall take the opportunity of testing its truth. Go to the bank, Narischkin, and say that I need one hundred thousand rubles for an entertainment I propose to give to the czarina. I must have it in ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... confidence in Speug's genius for mischief and effrontery of manner, but the Rector's class sat breathless when Peter came in with an unshaken countenance, and politely intimated to the Rector that a magistrate of Muirtown had come and desired to speak to the school. Before ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... apologetic, wholly respectful, not altogether devoid of the old familiarity. He offered his hand; did not to be sure detain hers, which would have been inconvenient in a public assembly; but he detained her, falling into talk with an ease or an effrontery which it was impossible not to admire. And Eleanor admired him involuntarily. Certainly this man had capacities. He did not detain her too long; passed away as easily as he had come up; but returned again in the course of the evening to offer her some civility; and it was Mr. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... cried at him: "What's your name?"—"Donkin," he said, looking round with cheerful effrontery.—"What are you?" asked another voice.—"Why, a sailor like you, old man," he replied, in a tone that meant to be hearty but was impudent.—"Blamme if you don't look a blamed sight worse than a broken-down fireman," was the comment in a convinced mutter. ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... maddening agony; his Lear, at that supreme moment of intolerable torture when he parts away from Goneril and Regan, with his wild scream of revenges that shall be the terrors of the earth; his Richard the Third, with the gigantic effrontery of his "Call him again," and with his whole matchless and wonderful utterance of the awful remorse speech with which the king awakens from his last earthly sleep—those, among many others, rank with ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... my temper, he smooth and placid, to outward seeming, as the idol he resembled. The resolution with which he stuck to his silly pose was, in its way, a rogue's masterpiece; nothing more exasperating than this stolid effrontery was ever devised. The scoundrel feared, and yet knew he had, in a sense, the better of me; the helpless old man between us ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... contradict the hope implied in Lincoln's saying that you can't fool all the people all the time. Here was a demagogue, who had been exposed and beaten four years before, who raised his head—or should I say his voice?—with increased effrontery and to an equally ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... judgment may exist separately from the power of execution." One need not be a composer, but one must be able to feel with a composer before he can discuss his productions as they ought to be discussed. Not all the writers for the press are able to do this; many depend upon effrontery and a copious use of technical phrases to carry them through. The musician, alas! encourages this method whenever he gets a chance; nine times out of ten, when an opportunity to review a composition falls to him, he approaches it on ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... to sign my treaty on the 18th of June [Waterloo day] with or without that clause." Fancy a mind that could think of a treaty obtained by British guns as entitling him to be associated with Wellington! Yet Mr. Reed had the effrontery to say that he "expected us to make the missionary societies duly sensible of their obligations" to him. That twenty-ninth article was the gem of the treaty; and it had the honor of being copied into that of Lord Elgin, which ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... was obvious, and we went no further." This, as usual, is well grouped; the Vicar ponders, and cannot tell what to make of it. We should have preferred, as a subject, the Vicar confronting Mr Burchell, and the cool effrontery of the philosopher turning the tables upon the Vicar, "and how came you so basely to presume to break open this letter?" or better still, perhaps, the encounter of art between Mr Burchell and Mrs Deborah Primrose. And why have we not Dick's episode of the dwarf and the giant? Episodes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... ago, and our cooing doves of peace would have had molten tar mixed with their feathers. An Italian proverb runs, "It is easy to scoff at a bull from a window," and we indulge in not a little of such babyish effrontery from our safe place in the world. Germany, on the other hand, looks out upon the world from no such safe window-seat; she is down in the ring, and must be prepared at all hazards to take care of herself. That is a reason, too, why Germany ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... this bit of effrontery by nothing more than a growl deep in this throat. His eyes travelled on, above Iff's head, and Staff was conscious of their penetrating and ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... heard her exclaim, 'if that's not a nursery rhyme of my childhood that I've not heard for sixty years and more! I declare,' she added with innocent effrontery, 'I've not heard it since I was ten years old. And I was born in ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... The frank effrontery of satire like the foregoing had by this time begun to attract the attention of the Ministry, whose withers had already been sharply wrung by Pasquin; and it has been conjectured that the ballet of Quidam and the Patriots played no small part in precipitating the ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... persistently refused for years to select a fifth. To pretend that such a body was, or could lawfully be, empowered to appoint eight electors for the people of Louisiana, to match the eight who were appointed by the people of Maryland, would be simple effrontery; and most certainly, as I have said, if they could not appoint, they could not give an incontrovertible certificate of appointment. The certificate is one thing; the appointment another. The State appoints and the Legislature directs the manner of appointment, ...
— The Vote That Made the President • David Dudley Field
... attendants said that it was Uffe, he declared that it was enough that the insolent foreigner should jeer at the pangs of his misery, without those of his own household vexing him with the same wanton effrontery. But the courtiers persistently averred that this man was Uffe; and the king said: "He is free, whosoever he be, to say out what he thinks." Then said Uffe, "that it was idle for their king to covet a realm which could rely not only on the service ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... eleven and twelve o'clock at night, a tragedy in their opinion was the most unwholesome. They went to keep a watch on Victurnien and to embarrass him, a piece of schoolboys's mischief embittered by a jealous dandy's spite. But Victurnien was gifted with that page's effrontery which is a great help to ease of manner; and Rastignac, watching him as he made his entrance, was surprised to see how quickly he caught the tone ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... on altogether new characters when they are married, and girls think that they can do so. Look at this Mr. Maule, who is really over head and ears in love with Adelaide Palliser. She is full of hope and energy. He has none. And yet he has the effrontery to suppose that she will adapt herself to his way of living if ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... her with it and demanded why she had it. With ready effrontery she said it was to hammer in the hook that held the clothesline, and proceeded to carry out the lie with a smiling face. That gave Yan a new lesson and not a good one. The hatchet was at once put back in the box, to be stolen more ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the distinction in the church between spiritualia and temporalia. Well, the Jews let the spiritualia go to those who cared to take such things, while they held fast to the temporalia. And all that went on till His disciples had the effrontery to clip and coin under our Lord's very eyes, and even to ask Him to hold the coin while they sharpened their shears. 'O faithless and perverse generation! How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... for a bedroom and five louis for a glass of beer. Now, in order to derive such profit from the Anglo-Saxon a knowledge of English was indispensable. He resolved to learn the language. How he did so, except by sheer effrontery, taking linguistic toll of frequenters of the cafe, would be a mystery to anyone unacquainted with Aristide. But to his friends his mastery of the English tongue in such circumstances is comprehensible. To Aristide ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... For fifteen years Jansoulet had exploited the former Bey in a scandalous fashion. Names of purveyors were cited and tricks wonderful in their assurance, their effrontery; for instance, the story of a musical frigate, yes, a veritable musical box, like a dining-room picture, which he had bought for two hundred thousand francs and sold again for ten millions; the cost price of a throne sold at three millions for which the account could be seen in the books of an ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... with the same monotonous precision of habit, and disclosed the muzzles of his confederates' weapons still leveled at the passengers. In spite of their astonishment, indignation, and discomfiture, his practiced effrontery and deliberate display appeared in some way to touch their humorous sense, and one or two smiled hysterically, as they rose and hesitatingly filed out of the vehicle. It is possible, however, that the leveled shot-guns contributed more or less ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... Unblushing effrontery and a bronzed visage gained for John Scott (Lord Clonmel) while at the Bar the sobriquet of "Copper-faced Jack." He took the popular side in politics, which ordinarily would not have led to promotion in his profession; but his outstanding ability attracted ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... him,—love-letters, do you understand? And now,"—her voice rose more shrill and uncontrollable at every word, as she saw Lira's face turn white, and her anger gave desperate utterance to the lie,—"and now he has the effrontery to come to me—to me—to me of all women—and to confess his abominable passion for that pure angel, imploring me to assist him in bringing destruction upon her and you. Oh, it is execrable, it is vile, it is hellish!" She ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... acknowledged this correction, and with the cool effrontery that only a woman can carry off to her entire satisfaction, she then pretended that this was the first time that she had ever laid eyes on him, when as a matter of fact she and the Princess had discussed this remarkable, independent individual, ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... read that Capito is favoured by such a hater of Luther with the designation of an excellent and most accomplished man. These and many things of the like kind he represents me as saying, taking the pattern of his effrontery from a letter of Jerome, who complains that his rivals had circulated a forged letter under his name amongst a synod of bishops in Africa; in which he was made to confess that, deceived by certain Jews, he had ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... except "Martin Claw-Clergy," appointed by the author to print the same, presume to do so. [Footnote: Quoted by Prynne in his Fresh Discovery, p. 8.] Prynne quotes this as an example of the contempt into which the Ordinance for Licensing had fallen with the Sectaries, and of their supreme effrontery, Robinson, he says, was one of the chief publishers of scandalous libels, having brought printers from Amsterdam, and set up a private printing press for the purpose. [Footnote: I may take this opportunity of announcing ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... inference? Are not these evidences of a compact between them? Has he not acknowledged this compact in confessing that he knew Welbeck was my debtor; that he was apprized of his flight, but that (what matchless effrontery!) he had promised secrecy, and would, by no means, betray him? You say he means to return; but of that I doubt. You will never see his face more. He is too wise to thrust himself again into the noose; but I do not utterly despair of lighting upon Welbeck. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... The man's effrontery was prodigious and there was so much plausibility in his glib chatter that, in spite of himself, Coquenil kept a last lingering wonder if Groener could be telling the truth. If not, what was his motive in this elaborate fooling? He must know that his hypocrisy and ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... was the London public so much alarmed. The subject, of course, fell under the consideration of parliament, where Fergus O'Connor was accused of attending seditious meetings and making treasonable speeches; this he denied with the greatest effrontery, affecting to be a pattern of order and law, although it was notorious that he was bent upon revolutionary attempts, and that his main motive was to resent certain affronts offered to himself by the Whigs. He had been jealous of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and patriotic ladies and gentlemen in the whole of the United States, have been imposed upon by an individual who (I have been told) faintly resembles me as far as personal appearance is involved. Yet how this person, who is, I regret to say, but a common, vulgar ignoramus, could have the barefaced effrontery to address an intelligent audience either in his own or an assumed character, I can not comprehend. Needless to say I shall at once take steps to learn the truth, and the impostor shall be made to suffer the extreme penalties of the law providing for ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... "get over the idea that there's anything the matter with me mentally except love and righteous indignation. I am in love; and it hurts. I'm indignant, because those people are treating my sex with an outrageous and high-handed effrontery that would bring the blush of impotent rage to ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... dear. We were in by eleven." This was a faint attempt to help dignity by a parade of accuracy in figures, and an affectation of effrontery. "But really we needn't go over it again. You know what a nice letter he wrote Aunt Frances?" And instead of waiting for an answer, Tishy, perhaps to avoid catechism about the moonrise and things, ploughs ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... could not have been aware that your official envelope contained only blank paper. I cannot believe that one more simple-minded than I believe you to be would have had the effrontery to present such matter as evidence that he was an officer of the United States Navy," continued Captain Battleton, with a look of greater severity than he had before assumed, possibly because he ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... self-conscious. He greatly desired to lie, but lacked the effrontery to do so before the other men. His father saved him the trouble of doing so. Eager to get back at ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... no one in sight that morning who promised the diversion or the effrontery that would make this the day of days, and there seemed to be no excuse that would furnish the occasion for the battle-cry which would end all this ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... wicked persons in the country, mostly, it is true, belonging to that class of non-respectable foreigners of whom my lord spoke with such feeling, taste, and judgment, who are plotting, rather with insolent effrontery than crawling secrecy, to overturn the sacred edifice of property, the foundation of our hearths, our homes, and our altars. Gentlemen of the Jury, it might be thought that such madmen might well be left to themselves, that no one would listen to their ravings, and that the glorious machinery ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... could not bring himself to read Ruskin's letter of resignation to convocation. The editor of the University Gazette also had the effrontery to leave a letter from Ruskin, giving the reasons for his resignation, unpublished; and the Pall Mall Gazette crowned the edifice of poltroonery by announcing that he had resigned owing to his ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... organisms. Neither as individuals nor as a race, neither in regard to this life nor to the next, does the idea of God, when ennobled by a contemplation of the cosmical relations, permit to man the effrontery of claiming that this universe and all that therein is was made with an eye to his wants and wishes, whether to gratify ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... presented petitions against it, as they had done in the lower house. They prayed that counsel might open their case; and though they had been driven from the Commons on account of their evidence, with disgrace, they had the effrontery to ask that they might call witnesses ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... goddess and mistress of his being. Before her majestic purity, how false and empty seemed all the calumnies he had heard! How vulgar and insolent his own audacious attack upon her! Was this the woman he had had the effrontery to ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... sensations. The yellow journal with its blatant enthusiasms and its brazen effrontery finds a congenial habitat there, not because it is brazen, nor even because it is enthusiastic, but because it supplies a community need. The screaming headline is a mental cocktail. Bellowed forth by a trombone-lunged newsboy, it crashes against the eye, the ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... burly and ugly; the masculine type of his acquaintance presenting to his mind few of the superior elements of beauty. He resented the liberty the stranger took in resembling Narcissa, and he resented still more Selwyn's effrontery in discovering ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the sworn enemy of law and order, but who, in his worst moments, had never been known to injure a poor man or a woman. The wild blood of the half-breed that was in her had been stirred, as only a woman's blood can be, by his reckless dealings, his courage, effrontery, and withal his wondrous kindliness of disposition. She was thinking of this man now, this man whom she knew to be numbered amongst the countless victims of that dreadful mire. And what had conjured this thought? A horse—a horse peacefully grazing far out across the mire in the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... might be expected to flow from any sipping of the Circean cup which such creatures proffered to their lips. But what fate could be too bad for the Siren herself? To think of the audacity, the shameless effrontery of such an one in daring to spread her lures, and wind her enchantments around such a man as the Marchese di Castelmare. Of course he, poor man, could not but feel her death as a terrible shock. What he had set his heart on had been violently and awfully, taken away ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Miss Peyton playing the part. Shure, she's as tall as mesilf, and I don't mind satisfyin' yer cur'osity now, seein' as yer'll never git out o' this alive to blow on us!" returned the woman, with cool effrontery. ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... against Providence because he will have to earn his bread. Probably several hundreds a year will be left, and many men would be thankful for that. Then other people say it is such a pity that now he cannot marry Lady Rose Bright. They have the effrontery to say that to me, as if L800 a year were not enough for them to marry on if they cared ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... absence from England and India is requisite to the unraveling of that subtly interwoven web. The public still must believe him dead. If they knew of Oswald's flight and after hiding, the Laniers could move about with brazen effrontery. The farcical arrests of these villains, followed by such queer release from imprisonment, may have some reference to such information. Can it be that this strange procedure had its inception in knowledge of his whereabouts, and in a suspicion that the ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... him with her most cordial manner, and with a superb effrontery began to talk Italian just as usual, though she must have guessed that Georgie knew all ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... walls defective in many places, and Pammy's joy was to dig out bits of ancient plaster and consume it on the sly. It was presumably bad for her stomach and indubitably bad for her character, as the child persisted in it with a quiet effrontery that baulked discipline. So Mrs. de Lensky rose, and bidding Eliza look after the baby, started in search of the ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... lessened by the warmth with which Tressilian seemed to demand for her the rank and situation which she had disgraced, and the advantages of which she was doubtless to share with the lover who advocated her cause with such effrontery. Tressilian had been silent for more than a minute ere the Earl recovered from the excess of his astonishment; and considering the prepossessions with which his mind was occupied, there is little wonder that ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... made a low and humble acknowledgment for her civility; and Heyward adding a "Bonne nuit, mon camarade," they moved deliberately forward, leaving the sentinel pacing the banks of the silent pond, little suspecting an enemy of so much effrontery, and humming to himself those words which were recalled to his mind by the sight of women, and, perhaps, by recollections of his own distant and beautiful France: "Vive le vin, vive ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... thin slits. "Her aunt wrote me that she suspected you had the effrontery to—aspire to my daughter's hand. I couldn't ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... the United States to take an active part in the war, on the side of France. Genet, the French minister, undertook to fit out privateers in Charleston. Washington issued a proclamation of neutrality (1793), which was followed by a Neutrality Act of Congress (1794). When Genet had the effrontery to appeal from the President to the people, at the demand of Washington ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... with the inimitable effrontery of British insolence. He had pushed on through the dark, fired by the enthusiasm which is born of hard resistence. It had been no slight matter, but neither he nor his men were to be easily dismayed. Moreover, their patience had been severely ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... offended. I thought my Article rather a moderate one. Quite true that I talk about falsehood, hypocrites, effrontery, demagogues, Pharisees, and so on; but expressions to be taken in strictly Pickwickian sense, and of course not ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... ears of the Government and the columns of the newspapers with complaints. Those who remained at Romney formulated their grievance in an official remonstrance, which Loring was indiscreet enough to approve and forward. A council of subordinate officers had the effrontery to record their opinion that "Romney was a place of no strategical importance," and to suggest that the division might be "maintained much more comfortably, at much less expense, and with every ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... was not honored. The slaying of the Egyptian remained no secret, and those who betrayed it were Israelites, Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Pallu, of the tribe of Reuben, notorious for their effrontery and contentiousness. The day after the thing with the Egyptians happened, the two brothers began of malice aforethought to scuffle with each other, only in order to draw Moses into the quarrel and create an occasion for his betrayal. The plan succeeded admirably. Seeing Dathan raise his ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... bawling that they are conspiring against the democracy. They call loudly for the Knights, who enter as the Chorus to assist them against Cleon, encouraging the sausage-seller to show the brazen effrontery which is the mob-orator's sole protection, and to prove that a decent upbringing is meaningless. Nothing loth, he redoubles Cleon's vulgarity on his head. Cleon rushes out intending to inform the Upper House of their treasons; the sausage-seller ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... manages to divert off all unpleasant feeling of his vices and frailties; the marvellous agility and aptness of wit which, with a vesture of odd and whimsical constructions, at once hides the offensive and discovers the comical features of his conduct; the same towering impudence and effrontery which so lift him aloft in his more congenial exploits; and the overpowering eloquence of exaggeration with which he delights to set off and heighten whatever is most ludicrous in his own person or situation;—all these qualities, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... was not. The miracle of virtues and charms depicted by courtiers and poets existed, if she did exist at all, entirely in their exuberant imaginations. She could be indecently coarse and intolerably mean; she could lie with unblushing effrontery; her vanity was inordinate. But voracious as she was of flattery it never misled her; she could appreciate in others the virtues she herself lacked; behind the screen of capriciousness, an intellect was ever at work ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... artist. George Meredith before anything else was a poet. He would have been a better poet than a novelist, and I believe that he thought so. The public did not care for his poetry. If he had belonged to the no-compromise school, whose adherents usually have the effrontery to claim him, he would have said: "I shall keep on writing poetry, even if I have to become a stockbroker in order to do it." But when he was only thirty-three—a boy, as authors go—he had already tired of ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... an abominable liar, but I had a certain admiration for his effrontery. I was glad I could meet him on his own ground, ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... meaningless to the old Adam, but genuine in its own way and undeniably true. It is an immortality in representation—a representation which envisages things in their truth as they have in their own day possessed themselves in reality. It is no subterfuge or superstitious effrontery, called to disguise or throw off the lessons of experience; on the contrary, it is experience itself, reflection itself, and knowledge of mortality. Memory does not reprieve or postpone the changes which it registers, nor does it itself possess a permanent duration; it is, if possible, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... sell stock than when to clap and when to hiss at a play, and incurred some ridicule by making the hypocritical Sempronius their favorite, and by giving to his insincere rants louder plaudits than they bestowed on the temperate eloquence of Cato. Wharton, too, who had the incredible effrontery to applaud the lines about flying from prosperous vice and from the power of impious men to a private station, did not escape the sarcasms of those who justly thought that he could fly from nothing more vicious or impious than himself. The epilogue, which was written ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the mausoleum is vacant now. They say the entire mausoleum was intended for the Holy Sepulchre, and was only turned into a family burying place after the Jerusalem expedition failed—but you will excuse me. Some of those Medicis would have smuggled themselves in sure.—What they had not the effrontery to do, was not worth doing. Why, they had their trivial, forgotten exploits on land and sea pictured out in grand frescoes (as did also the ancient Doges of Venice) with the Saviour and the Virgin throwing bouquets to them out of the clouds, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... completely of Doctor Tarrant's little speech, and she had less and less disposition to be associated with a miracle-monger. Abraham Greenstreet was very well, but Abraham Greenstreet was in his grave; and Eliza P. Moseley, after all, had been very tepid. Basil Ransom wondered whether it were effrontery or innocence that enabled Miss Tarrant to meet with such complacency the aloofness of the elder lady. At this moment he heard Olive Chancellor, at his elbow, with the tremor of excitement in her tone, suddenly exclaim: "Please begin, please begin! A voice, a human ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... As if I did not yet know him from another! I tell you it was himself, and although he should deny it, credit him not.' Then said the friar, 'Daughter, there is nothing to be said for it but that this was exceeding effrontery and a thing exceeding ill done, and in sending him off, as thou didst, thou didst that which it behoved thee to do. But I beseech thee, since God hath preserved thee from shame, that, like as thou hast twice followed my counsel, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... thinking that if he did not know this rattling talk to be a form of embarrassment, he should take it for effrontery. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... yourself into my confidence by means of lies and deceit. You have tricked me, fooled me to the very limit! Oh, it is easy to see how you have beguiled my son into the folly of loving you! And you—you have the brazen effrontery to ask me to plead for your father? No! No! No! Let the law take its course, and now Miss Rossmore—you will please leave my ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... written, as to us; but the malicious meaning was obvious, and we went no further." This, as usual, is well grouped; the Vicar ponders, and cannot tell what to make of it. We should have preferred, as a subject, the Vicar confronting Mr Burchell, and the cool effrontery of the philosopher turning the tables upon the Vicar, "and how came you so basely to presume to break open this letter?" or better still, perhaps, the encounter of art between Mr Burchell and Mrs Deborah Primrose. And why have we not Dick's episode of the dwarf and the giant? Episodes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... and their fear of this, undoubtedly Calendar was reckoning: witness the barefaced effrontery with which he operated against them. His fear of the police might be genuine enough, but he was never for an instant disturbed by any doubt lest his daughter should turn against him. She would never ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... generous consideration, and compels me to ask the Court for suggestions as to the best course of proceeding. There are now but two men in Court who saw the paper executed, namely, the assignor and the assignee. The former has declared, with an effrontery which I have never seen equalled, that he never signed the document which so unmistakably bears his signature, and that the names of two of the witnesses are forgeries. I do not expect that, in a struggle like this, the testimony of the latter will be accepted, and I shall not ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... 'call but the Duchess of Dare! She has let her house to some friends, and has come away from London for a fortnight's rest. It was rather queer of her calling, wasn't it? She was less embarrassed than you would imagine and actually had the effrontery to mention Hortense.'" ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... of that church. At a moment when the feelings of the Dissenters are wrought up to intense excitement by a sense of wrong from grievances unredressed, an individual of that class who teach from the pulpit that a man who lacketh charity lacketh every thing, has had the daring effrontery to vomit forth a mass of rancorous scurrility against the whole Dissenting body, especially its teachers, applying to them epithets proscribed in almost every species of polemical warfare, except that carried on by Carlile and ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... republican, possessed constitutions as sacred as, and much more ancient than, the Crown. The resistance to the absolutism of Granvelle and Philip was, therefore, logical, legal, constitutional. It was no cabal, no secret league, as the Cardinal had the effrontery to term it, but a legitimate exercise of powers which belonged of old to those who wielded them, and which only ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... she is ready to make new tests and what is holding up work on the Sisyphus? Replied it was complete except for my cabins. She had the effrontery to say these werent important and she was ready to go ahead without me. I pointed out that the Sisyphus was my property and it would not sail until ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... evident emotion at once attained him the confidence of Lucy Bertram. The laird showed no signs of recognising Mannering; but when the man, Gilbert Glossin, who had brought him to this pass, had the effrontery to make his appearance, he started up, violently reproaching him, sank into his chair again, and died ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... uncle, on my behalf, took measures to claim this sum, and for this purpose came to Boston. Imagine his surprise and indignation when the lawyer positively denied having received any such deposit and called upon him, to prove it. With great effrontery he declared that it was absurd to suppose that my father would have entrusted him with any such sum without a receipt for it. This certainly looked plausible, and I acknowledge that few except my father, who never trusted without trusting ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... slowly, eyeing Ramona with a steady look, entered the room. This joyous composure on Ramona's face angered the Senora, as it had done before, when she was dragging her up the garden-walk. It seemed to her like nothing less than brazen effrontery, and it changed the whole tone and manner ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Government to the Indians; the rapacity exhibited in the system of trade-licences and other extortions by which the officials wrung from the humbler classes whatever could be got by fair means or by foul; to say nothing of the scandalous effrontery with which the Government itself was robbed by its own officers in every conceivable way—all these stood out in their naked deformity, and had more than once made Isidore wonder how a people thus treated could remain so generally loyal as the Canadians ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... us by the Defensors of the "sacrosanct" Roman Church that Pope Simplicius, of blessed memory, bought a house at Rome[303] of Eufrasius the Acolyte, with all proper formalities, and that now the people of the Samaritan superstition, hardened in effrontery, allege that a synagogue of theirs was built on that site, and claim it accordingly; whereas the very style of building, say their opponents, shows that this was meant as a private house and not as a synagogue. Enquire into this matter, ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... directly in front of her, said:—"'Twas but a moment ago that thou didst curse Ercolano's wife, and averred that she ought to be burned, and that she was the reproach of your sex: why saidst thou not, of thyself? Or, if thou wast not minded to accuse thyself, how hadst thou the effrontery to censure her, knowing that thou hadst done even as she? Verily 'twas for no other reason than that ye are all fashioned thus, and study to cover your own misdeeds with the delinquencies of others: would that fire ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... precepts, and before set of sun you shall be as superior a rhetorician as myself, the absolute microcosm of your profession. Bring then above all ignorance, to which add confidence, audacity, and effrontery; as for diffidence, equity, moderation, and shame, you will please leave them at home; they are not merely needless, they are encumbrances. The loudest voice you can come by, please, a ready falsetto, and a gait modelled on my own. ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... interest on the mortgage became due. There was no one to pay it, and they even had the effrontery to come to me. I refused again and again, and every time the interest was added to the mortgage till it rolled up to an enormous amount. Meanwhile the devisee died, penniless, in Europe, and on ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... lion or two. Lone wondered sometimes what the Sawtooth meant to do about the Swede, but so far the Sawtooth seemed inclined to do nothing at all, evidently thinking his war on animal pests more than atoned for his effrontery in taking Skyline as a homestead. When he had proven up on his claim they would probably buy him out ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... and when it was seen that her purpose continued steadfast, the parents were glad of a chance which finally offered itself for bringing her projects to an end through marriage. The Paladin had the effrontery to pretend that she had engaged herself to him several years before, and now he claimed a ratification of ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... are forgotten or bluntly disregarded, and the law-abiding citizen may see robbery and violence carried on in broad daylight. In some cases it happens that organized bands of thieves rob one man after another with a brutal effrontery which quite shames the minor abilities of Macedonian or Calabrian brigands. Forty or fifty consummate scoundrels work in concert; and it often happens that even the betting-men are seized, raised from the ground, and shaken until their money ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... rogue have we here!" cried the angry Duke, who conceived that Richard was purposely dealing in effrontery. "Mr. Trenchard, I do think we are wasting time. Be so good as to confound them both with the truth of ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... the mutineers now concealed themselves in the bushes about San Josef Barracks. These men, after the affair was over, joined Colonel Bush, and, with a mixture of cunning and effrontery, smiled as though nothing had happened, and as though they were glad to see him; although, in general, they each had several shirts and pairs of trousers on, preparatory for a start to Guinea, by way of ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... clear of entanglement in these events which are beginning to happen in such rapid succession in Europe. They do not concern you; you have nothing to do with them, no interest in them. Your entry into affairs which can not concern you would be insulting effrontery and foolish bravado. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... and threats are calculated to excite. Through fear of having their provision and supplies entirely cut off, the traders are often obliged to overlook the grossest offences, even murder, though{28} the delinquents present themselves with unblushing effrontery{29} almost immediately after the fact, and perhaps boast of it. They do not, on detection, consider themselves under any obligation to deliver up what they have ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... judgment. Still, the fact is incontestable, that Dissenting Priests are, for the most part, opposed to the extension of political rights, or, what is equal, that' knowledge which would infallibly secure them. The Methodist preacher, who has the foolish effrontery to tell his congregation 'the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and, therefore, every person born into the world deserveth God's wrath and damnation,' may be a liberal politician, one well fitted to pilot his flock into the haven of true republicanism: ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... these high accomplishments were mixed with an air of rusticity and harebrained vivacity, which seemed rather to belong to some village maid, the coquette of the ring around the Maypole, than to the high-bred descendant of an ancient baron. A touch of audacity, altogether short of effrontery, and far less approaching to vulgarity, gave as it were a wildness to all that she did; and Mary, while defending her from some of the occasional censures of her grave companion, compared her to a ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Such effrontery is beyond criticism. She finds it "impossible to depict the disinterested loyalty with which she longed for the King's return," and describes the hero of her letters as a ruthless destroyer of all worth, and being brought so low, she is straitened by the demands of "truth" and "grows ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... brazen effrontery of the ambassador's scoundrelly servant in passing himself off for a man of condition formed the point of departure for every conversation. It was discovered that there were but three persons present ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... Mengino's effrontery ripens the resolution in the guardian's breast to marry Grilletta at once, he is however detained by Volpino, who comes to bribe him by an offer from the Sultan to go into Turkey as apothecary at court, war having broken out in ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... whole being and the most sacred thing in life should be given over utterly to him? It seems astounding that any man should ever have the impudence to answer such questions in the affirmative. Doubtless he would not have had such effrontery but for ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... What was left of the first advancing company of Turks halted below the ramp, and with sublime effrontery, born no doubt of knowledge that we had no artillery, proceeded to dig themselves a shallow trench. The Zeitoonli were making splendid shooting, but it was only a question of minutes until the shelter would be high ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... of the Scotch flashed fire; and, as often happens on such occasions, from shame they passed to effrontery and two heads of clans ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to contradict the hope implied in Lincoln's saying that you can't fool all the people all the time. Here was a demagogue, who had been exposed and beaten four years before, who raised his head—or should I say his voice?—with increased effrontery and to an ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... evidently led him into this scrape, may be, for aught we know, worthy and amiable. His exposure, however, is on his own head: he has ostentatiously and pertinaciously forced his ignorance, conceit, and effrontery on public notice." We quite agree with ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... "a considerable fair traveller, and most particular good bottom." I hesitated; this man who talks with such unblushing effrontery of getting up cases, and making profit out of them, cannot be offended at the question—yes, I will put it ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Nation. In a few days he would have his crib made, and his outfit ready to start for the Ottawa mills. He was sure to be ahead of the big timber rafts that took up so much space, and whose crews with unbearable effrontery considered themselves ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... eyes also remained fixed there, while in an undertone he added that Miss Avellanos was quite aware of his new and unexpected vocation, which in Costaguana was generally the speciality of half-educated negroes and wholly penniless lawyers. Then, confronting with a sort of urbane effrontery Mrs. Gould's gaze, now turned sympathetically upon himself, he breathed out the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... thirty-three of this century, and in his own memory, there was a cause brought before a judge, between two highwaymen, who had quarrelled about the division of their booty; and these men had the effrontery to bring their dispute to trial. "In the petition of the plaintiff," said Mr. Bryant, "he asserted that he had been extremely ill-used by the defendant: that they had carried on a very advantageous trade together, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... she revolted against the court he so plainly paid to her in these last few days; it was bold, conscienceless, impertinent. She avoided him; she treated him to a short season of disdain; she did all in her power to rebuke his effrontery—and then in the end she surrendered to the overpowering vanity which confronts all women who put the pride of caste ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... have seen you, who should be wearing a crescent moon on your brow, if my good friend Hyacinthe hadn't mired herself in this mud-hole," he had the effrontery to tell me. ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... escorted him to the institution, carrying his bag, as what with his disease and his antidote he was weak. The hospital was a block away from the lagoon. It was surrounded by a high stone wall, and as it was built by the military, it was ugly and had the ridiculous effrontery of the army and all its lack of common sense. The iron gate was shut, and a sign said, "Sonnez s'il vous plait!" A toothless French portiere of thirty years let us in. All the doctors of Tahiti had left the island for a few days on an excursion, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... three together, they seemed omnipresent. In all sorts of disguises, feigning all sorts of employments and characters, sometimes on horseback and again driving an old cart or a hack, they pressed with the most imperturbable effrontery into the very vortex of danger. Ever on the watch, and accustomed to notice every expression of the countenance, they would discover at a single glance when they were suspected, and remove the ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... people here in Lombardy are well clothed, fat, stout, and merry; and desirous to divert themselves, and their protectors, whom they love at their hearts. There is however a degree of effrontery among the women that amazes me, and of which I had no idea, till a friend shewed me one evening from my own box at the opera, fifty or a hundred low shop-keepers wives, dispersed about the pit at the ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Greek has less confidence in me than I thought, and I must take it as a warning. It may be. On the other hand, there is the possibility that Petronilla's effrontery outwits us all. Of course she has done her best to ruin both of us, and perhaps is still trying to persuade Bessas that you keep Veranilda in hiding, whilst I act as your accomplice. If this be the case, we shall both of us know the smell of a prison before long, and perchance the taste of torture. ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... corruption and waste. State legislatures and courts already protect the taxpayers from any measure in the least Socialistic, whatever form of local government and whatever party may prevail. It has caused more than a little resentment among the propertyless that the taxpayers should actually have the effrontery to propose the still more conservative commission plan as being ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... responsibility or with the consent of the rest; it was ridiculous to suppose that they could offer any opposition or refuse to condemn a man. Some would praise Titus, only not in Domitian's hearing; for such effrontery would be deemed as grave an offence as if they were to revile the emperor in his presence and within hearing: but [Lacuna] [Footnote: A gap must probably be construed here. Bekker (followed by Dindorf) regarded it as coming after "secretly" and consisting of but a word or two (e.g. "he hated ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... is altogether a very mysterious affair: M. de Vergy was the cause of D'Eon's violent behaviour at Lord Halifax's (see ant'e, p. 254, letter 181,); he afterwards took D'Eon's part, and had the effrontery and the infamy to say, that he was suborned by the French ministry to quarrel with and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... her better claim to the saintly title than most who wear it. The Major knew this, and was proud to say it. "If," he was accustomed to say, "I am the most godless man in the parish, my wife is the most godly woman." Yet his godlessness was, after all, rather outside than real: it was a kind of effrontery, provoked into noisy display by the extravagant bigotries of those about him. He did not believe in monopolies of opinion, but in good average dispersion of all sorts of thinking. On one occasion he had horrified his poor wife by bringing home a full set of Voltaire's Works; but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... shoulders, and shapely body, down to his small, well-turned feet. The young fellow lacked the polish and well-bred grace of the doctor, just as he lacked his well-cut clothes and distinguished manners, but there was a sort of easy effrontery and familiar air about him that some of his women admirers encouraged and others shrank from. Strange to say, this had appealed to Lucy before he had spoken ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... thus for a hushed moment—the man on the threshold of death, the young woman in the fullness of youth and beauty—linked together. Then the crowd laughed; in the audacious effrontery of the girl's act the ultimate fate of the two men was forgotten. She slipped languidly to the ground; SHE was the focus of all eyes,—she only! The ringleader saw it and his opportunity. He shouted: "Time's up—Forward!" urged his ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... same road; with what perfect and impudent lies do they entertain each other!—with what gusto do they try and take one another in!—what cheating doubts do they not mutually endeavour to raise, in their desire to induce each other to take the wrong road! With the effrontery of a diplomate, with the assurance of a secretary of legation,—one affirms, his hand on his heart, and looking towards heaven, that he is going to the left, when it is his positive intention, well-considered beforehand, to go to the right. No, France and England, Bresson ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... thing which this monster did was to go to the Parliament and betray his benefactor, for the sake of the hundred louis-d'ors. The cheeks of the judges, which so seldom change colour, became pallid at this denunciation; for he informed them with the greatest effrontery that he was the very assassin, who, having been broken alive upon the place where he had committed the murder, had been saved by the compassion of the surgeon. The latter was sent for; and the Devil conducted Faustus into the hall of judgment exactly at the moment he appeared. The attorney-general ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... The startling effrontery of the proposal provoked Roswell, and he told her that so far as a separation from himself was concerned she should be gratified to her heart's content, and that while she remained as she was he would not divulge the marriage, but he warned her that ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... to hide his sudden rush of indignation and resentment. Turbulently he longed to get his hands upon the sly Higginson, who had had the effrontery to dispatch a woman to protect him, and this woman of all others that lived in Hunston.... Protect him? Hardly. That an attack had been planned against his person was, indeed, likely enough, but not that any hireling of Ryan's ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... of the Duchess of Marlborough to have this witty and malignant satirist for an enemy. He exposed her peculiarities, and laid bare her character with fearless effrontery. It was thus that he attacked the most powerful woman in England: "A lady of my acquaintance appropriated L26 a year out of her allowance for certain uses which the lady received, or was to pay to the lady or her order when called for. But after eight years it appeared upon the strictest ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... it, that it was not agreeable for him to remain under the kindly shelter of the paternal mansion; so he, prodigal like, took the portion his father gave him and spent it in riotous living. But he was determined not to feed on husks, if unmitigated cheek and unblushing effrontery could ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... lawyers have made us familiar with the distinction in the church between spiritualia and temporalia. Well, the Jews let the spiritualia go to those who cared to take such things, while they held fast to the temporalia. And all that went on till His disciples had the effrontery to clip and coin under our Lord's very eyes, and even to ask Him to hold the coin while they sharpened their shears. 'O faithless and perverse generation! How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Have ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... that, sir? Did you have the effrontery to force yourself into a company which despises you, at the risk of your life and ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... Hanway-Harley, after Richard had gone his way, "there you have a young man remarkable for two things: his dullness and his effrontery. Did you hear how he spoke of his benefactor? The wretch! After all that good, poor Mr. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... hours' steaming, certain peace-mongers would have been hanged long ago, and our cooing doves of peace would have had molten tar mixed with their feathers. An Italian proverb runs, "It is easy to scoff at a bull from a window," and we indulge in not a little of such babyish effrontery from our safe place in the world. Germany, on the other hand, looks out upon the world from no such safe window-seat; she is down in the ring, and must be prepared at all hazards to take care of herself. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... echelon, eclectic, ecstatic, edict, eerie, effervescent, efficacious, effrontery, effulgence, effusion, egregious, eleemosynary, elicit, elite, elucidate, embellish, embryonic, emendation, emissary, emission, emollient, empiric, empyreal, emulous, encomium, endue, enervate, enfilade, enigmatic, ennui, enunciate, environ, epicure, epigram, episode, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... the simplest rules of courtesy. Mr. Smalley replied at once, willingly granting the favour, as I can prove by the note still in my possession; and presently, frightened by the puny yelping of a few critical curs at home, he has the effrontery to deny ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... still more hopelessly the multitude dependent on them, whom they can reduce to starvation if they rebel. Another element, which, viewed from the plane of justice and equity may be rightly termed criminal, is the popular and conservative economist who caters to the plutocracy and with brazen effrontery denies facts susceptible of proof, while he denounces every reformer who seeks to expose the iniquities of the present. This course is precisely a repetition of the policy of those who minified the real danger and misrepresented ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... what was intended for them. Mr. Wentzel of course immediately repelled this injurious accusation and reminded Akaitcho again that he had been told on engaging to accompany us that he was not to expect any goods until his return. This he denied with an effrontery that surprised us all, when Humpy, who was present at our first interview at Fort Providence, declared that he heard us say that no goods could be taken for the supply of the Indians on the voyage; and the ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... the skull of Charlemagne, that cranium which may be said to have been the mold of Europe, and which a beadle had the effrontery ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... My wife is an adulteress, and my servants in league with villains to rob me! These two letters confirm the first—and my last night's adventure in the Dark Vaults convinced me of the second. And then the woman just now had the damnable effrontery to request me to take her rascally paramour into my service, in place of my faithful Dennis! She wishes to carry on her amours under my very nose! And that scoundrel Davis—how demure, how innocently he ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... us apparently from nowhere, walking in after the Chinese manner, which is quite nonchalantly, and with the sublime calm of the East. One of the first slid in and out of the enemy's barricades with immense effrontery at dawn, and then climbed the Japanese defences, and produced a little ball of tissue paper from his left ear. Fateful news contained so long in that left ear! It was a cipher despatch from General Fukishima, chief of the staff of the relieving Japanese columns. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... every step of his way. A more emphatic vote in favor of the Empire could not have been given. A more legitimate title to the throne no monarch ever enjoyed. And yet the Allies, in renewing the war against him, had the unblushing effrontery to proclaim that they were contending for the liberties of the people against the tyranny of an usurper! In view of such achievements of Napoleon, we do not wonder that Lamartine, his unrelenting political foe, should say that, as a man, "Napoleon was the greatest ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... calculated to excite. Through fear of having their provisions and supplies entirely cut off the traders are often obliged to overlook the grossest offences, even murder, though the delinquents present themselves with unblushing effrontery almost immediately after the fact and perhaps boast of it. They do not on detection consider themselves under any obligation to deliver up what they have ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... you mean?" inquired Quair, with a malice so buried under flippancy that the deliberate effrontery passed for it with Graylock. Which amused Quair for a moment, but the satisfaction was not sufficient. He desired that Graylock ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... his cigar-case, really forgetting that it was gone, like all other incidents of his old self; while Jolland giggled with unrestrained delight at such charming effrontery. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... Jekyll, the exemplary, is no more. In his place, wearing his shoes, audaciously signing his name even to checks, is that other being, Hyde: one absolutely the reverse of the reputable Jekyll; repudiating with scorn that gentleman's engagements; with brazen effrontery denying him utterly, and all the sane conventionality for which the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... the uproarious merriment had drowned all other sounds. Hobbs had become a great favourite with the Highland family, owing to his hearty good humour and ready power of repartee. The sharp Cockney, with the easy-going effrontery peculiar to his race, attempted to amuse the household—namely, Mrs McAllister, Dan, Hugh, and two good-looking and sturdy-limbed servant-girls—by measuring wits with the "canny Scot," as he called ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... daughter in bewilderment; he turned from her to Howard and finally to Sanchia herself as though for help. His face was puckered up; he looked ridiculously as though he were on the verge of tears. Sanchia had the effrontery to ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... your effrontery," said Mr. Hardie: "I wonder you are not ashamed to look your father in ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... l'Hospital, whose blood boiled with indignation against the wretch who stood before him with such effrontery. "All these witnesses who complain of having lost ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... but rather a sudden desire to pick him up and put him where he belonged, the instinct, I should say, of the normal man who hangs his axe always on the same nail. When he saw me he gathered himself together with reluctance and stood fully revealed. It was a curious attitude of mingled effrontery and apology. "Hit me if you dare," blustered his outward personality. "For God's sake, don't hit me," cried the innate fear in his eyes. I stopped and looked at him sharply, His eyes dropped, his look slid away, so that I experienced a sense ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... accused been required to declare if she had had pleasure and carnal commerce with all the men, nobles, citizens, and others as set forth in the plaints and declarations of the inhabitants. To which her who speaks has it been answered with great effrontery: "Pleasure, yes! Commerce, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... your heart. I will not mention how many of my salutary advices you have despised: I have given you line upon line and precept upon precept; and while I was chalking out to you the straight way to wealth and character, with audacious effrontery you have zigzagged across the path, contemning me to my face: you know the consequences. It is not yet three months since home was so hot for you that you were on the wing for the western shore of the Atlantic, not to make a fortune, but to ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Chowles. He was seated at a table, on which stood a flask of brandy and a couple of glasses, and seemed a good deal confused at being caught in such a situation, though he endeavoured to cover his embarrassment by an air of effrontery. ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... what I cannot but characterize as astonishing effrontery, or (to use his own language with respect to Tischendorf) "an assurance which can scarcely be characterized otherwise than an unpardonable calculation upon the ignorance of his readers." (Vol. ii. ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... nature, and already mottled with grey. The man's face expressed rather knavery than vice, and a disposition to sharpness, cunning, and roguery, more than the traces of stormy and indulged passions. His sharp quick black eyes, acute features, ready sardonic smile, promptitude and effrontery, gave him altogether what is called among the vulgar a knowing look, which generally implies a tendency to knavery. At a fair or market, you could not for a moment have doubted that he was a horse-jockey, intimate with all the tricks of his trade; yet, had you met him on a moor, you would ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Gordius had to detain the Roman army till the king came up with far superior forces and compelled battle; Murena was vanquished and with great loss driven back over the Roman frontier to Phrygia, and the Roman garrisons were expelled from all Cappadocia. Murena had the effrontery, no doubt, to call himself the victor and to assume the title of -imperator- on account of these events (672); but the sharp lesson and a second admonition from Sulla induced him at last to push the matter no farther; the peace between ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... topic for conversation among the young, monsieur—what you call l'amour." And she entered the kitchen, where he had not the effrontery ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... Captain Rayner, which I had not the requisite effrontery to inquire into. Now, you might ask him, but I couldn't, don't you know?" responds Hayne, smiling amiably the while into the wrathful face of his superior. It serves only to make the indignant captain more wrathful; and no wonder. There has been no love lost ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... inhabitants, sore from disaster, suspected that these Indians were only masquerading as friendly, and prepared to attack them; but one of the citizens warned them of their danger and they escaped. Their effrontery was as remarkable as their treachery and duplicity. They had suddenly attacked and massacred settlers by whom they had never been harmed, and with whom they preserved an appearance of entire friendship up to the very moment of the assault. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... "And you had the effrontery to—My excellent friend, you amaze me. I can't believe it of you. Why, sir, how dare you say this to me? I know that Americans are bold, but, by gad, sir, I've always looked upon them ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... that the Boers are fighting for something more than their mere independence and liberty, viz., for conquest and the domination of Afrikanerdom. His Excellency Dr. Leyds may deny all those too previous intentions with his placid effrontery of assumed innocent calm. He may denounce Mr. Chamberlain, Rhodes, Jameson, and even the Prince of Wales, and he may use the old device of posing as innocent by accusing others. The detected robber, however, does not always escape with his booty by running ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... artless effrontery of the young man had not offended, for his neighbor talked freely, and in a short time the two were conversing as easily as old acquaintances. This was due, perhaps, to the fact that he had appealed to her with the same frankness he would have used toward a man and, ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... declaration, in the very teeth of the Supreme Court, for more than a quarter of a century. In fact, they have reduced the decision to an absolute nullity. That decision, I repeat, is repudiated in the Cincinnati platform; and still, as if to show that effrontery can go no further, Judge Douglas vaunts in the very speeches in which he denounces me for opposing the Dred Scott decision, that he stands ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... school, in a fire-lit bedroom at home, with my pretty, smiling stepmother lavishing luxurious attendance upon me, and it gave me long, unbroken days for reading. I was awkwardly aware that I simply had not the effrontery to 'approach the Throne of Grace' with a request to know for what sin I was condemned to such a very pleasant ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... door was closed, Nina threw herself across the bed, still hardly able to credit her senses. Giovanni had asked her, Nina, to be his wife, not half an hour before—he still had the effrontery to hope for a change in her answer. He had dared to tell her that he loved her, he had dared to call her, ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... raised to the towering face, and his eyes fell. Every trace of fight, of effrontery, had left him, and he dropped ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... strictures.... He was too complacent, too aboundingly self-satisfied, too buoyantly full of spirits, to hate anybody; but he burlesques them, derides them, and abuses them with the most exasperating effrontery—in a way that is great fun to the reader, but exquisite torture to the victim." At the same time, his wit was always governed by commonsense (its most prevailing distinction); and, though almost unique among humorists for his personal gaiety, "his best work was ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... every success, and excused a certain number of failings. Unkind people said that, like her Imperial namesake, she had won her way to success by strength of will and hardness of heart, and a kind of haughty effrontery that was somehow justified by the extreme decency and dignity of her private life. Mr. Manson Mingott had died when she was only twenty-eight, and had "tied up" the money with an additional caution born of the general distrust of the ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... troubles on his shoulders," said Percival, "and got the parcels through with an effrontery which amazed me. I always took him for an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... and, in consequence of this pelvic development, her legs were bowed. The mammae and labia had all the appearance of established puberty, and the pubes and axillae were covered with hair. She was lady-like and maidenly in her demeanor, without unnatural constraint or effrontery. A case somewhat similar, though the patient had the appearance of a little old woman, was a child of three whose breasts were as well developed as in a girl of twenty, and whose sexual organs resembled ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... woman, I am not far from protection and assistance," said Alice, who liked less and less the effrontery of her new acquaintance. ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... committee to investigate the late Mr. Dilworthy, the Senate yesterday appointed a committee to investigate his accuser, Mr. Noble. This is the exact spirit and meaning of the resolution, and the committee cannot try anybody but Mr. Noble without overstepping its authority. That Dilworthy had the effrontery to offer such a resolution will surprise no one, and that the Senate could entertain it without blushing and pass it without shame will surprise no one. We are now reminded of a note which we have received from the notorious burglar ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... in Elizabeth's boudoir. "And he had the effrontery," the latter was saying, "to tell me what I must do and must not do! The idea! A miserable little milk-wagon ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... temper happens to be combined with considerable information and talent. Still, however, in order to such a person {p.045} being actually spoiled by his mixing in such debates, his talents must be of a very rare nature, or his effrontery must be proof to every species of assault; for there is generally, in a well-selected society of this nature, talent sufficient to meet the forwardest, and satire enough to penetrate the most undaunted. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... brows Julian had caught their private glances at the table. And Louis was now carrying trays for her, and hobnobbing with her in the kitchen! Lastly, because Julian could not pass the night in the house, Louis, the interloper, had the effrontery to offer to fill his place—on some preposterous excuse about burglars! And the fellow was so polite and so persuasive, with his finicking eloquence. By virtue of a strange faculty not uncommon in human nature Julian loathed Louis' good manners ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... officers were assaulted and robbed with the greatest effrontery. There remained no doubt of the intentions of the natives. They even attempted to possess themselves of the hatchets the sailors had brought on shore to cut wood, and were only made to desist ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... pas la pretention de m'affubler d'un titre que la mauvaise fortune de mon roi ne me permet pas de porter comma il sied. Je m'appelle, pour vous servir, Blair de Balmile tout court.' [My lord, I have not the effrontery to cumber myself with a title which the ill fortunes of my king will not suffer me to bear the way it should be. I call myself, at your service, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Champs-Elysees, the Rue Jacob, the Rue de Tournon, the ancient gothic sewer still cynically displayed its maw. It consisted of enormous voids of stone catch-basins sometimes surrounded by stone posts, with monumental effrontery. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... fresh and sparkling. The tone of light banter and raillery in which he described public life in Greece and Greek statesmen, might have lost some of its authority had any one remembered to count the hours the speaker had spent in Athens; and Nina was certainly indignant at the hazardous effrontery of the criticisms. It was not, then, without intention that she arose to retire while Atlee was relating an interesting story of brigandage, and he—determined to repay the impertinence in kind—continued to recount his history as he arose to open ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... been qualified to weigh motives, the heart that brindle-roan steer would surely have burst at; the pure effrontery of the thing: not only must he yield his life and give his body for meat, that those yearning stomachs might be filled with his flesh; he must deliver that meat at the most convenient spot, as a butcher brings our chops to the kitchen door. For that purpose alone they were cunningly luring ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... his looks were not so. He seemed to possess a penetration and cunning beyond his years—to hide a man's judgment under a boy's mask. The glance, which he threw at the door, was singularly expressive of his character: it was a mixture of alarm, effrontery, and resolution. In the end, resolution triumphed, as it was sure to do, over the weaker emotions, and he laughed at his fears. The only part of his otherwise-interesting countenance, to which one could decidedly object, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the Elders we see judicial position and feigned piety used as a cloak for lust and slander; great hardness of heart in condemning Susanna to death, with the full knowledge that she was innocent; unblushing effrontery (v. 50); sins of the tongue ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... his thumb to his nose that Pen had to turn a laugh into a cough and Jim smiled as he hurried out of the tent. As soon as the murder trouble was settled, Jim thought, he would have some sort of a settlement with Sara. His calm effrontery was becoming unbearable. ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... bouquets, who with the rough fierceness of conquerors assailed the passers-by in bands. They were mostly young women, with bare heads, or with kerchiefs tied over their hair, and they displayed extraordinary effrontery. Even the old ones were scarcely more discreet. With parcels of tapers under their arms, they brandished the one which they offered for sale and even thrust it into the hand of the promenader. "Monsieur," "madame," they called, "buy a taper, buy a taper, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... provincial audience to interest a young gentleman fresh from the capital. Odo looked about for any one resembling the masked beauty of the market-place; but he beheld only ill-dressed dowagers and matrons, or ladies of the town more conspicuous for their effrontery ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... had decided. She could not, with effrontery of selfishness, take the last possible place,—a place already asked for by another. She thanked Dakie Thayne, and, with just one little secret sigh, got into the interior, placing herself by the ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... of five called to discuss the enormity of the doctor's conduct and his growing record of outrages upon humanity. "To extract a portion of the intestines was madness and murder, for who can exist without intestines as God made them?—and his effrontery to put the blame upon the women who in the tenderness of their hearts had fed the youth on dhal and rice for the restoration of his strength—ai Khodar! What harm was there ever in plain dhal and rice? ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... ignoramus, who, having everything against him, nothing for him, without provisions, ammunition, guns, shoes, almost without an army, with a handful of men against masses, dashed at allied Europe, and absurdly gained impossible victories? Who was this new comet of war who possest the effrontery of a planet? The academic military school excommunicated him, while bolting, and hence arose an implacable rancor of the old Caesarism against the new, of the old saber against the flashing sword, and of the chessboard against genius. On June 18th, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... necessity of paying them a single cent for their improvements. In the state of public temper, the officials of the State of New York decided to fight his claim. Astor offered to sell his claim to the State for $667,000. But such was the public outburst at the effrontery of a man who had bought what was virtually an extinct claim for $100,000, and then attempting to hold up the State for more than six times that sum, that the Legislature dared ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... knew that the hero would show himself only at a very late hour if it were to be her good fortune that he showed himself at all—Mr. Sowerby walked up the stairs. He had schooled himself to go through this ordeal with all the cool effrontery which was at his command; but it was clearly to be seen that all his effrontery did not stand him in sufficient stead, and that the interview would have been embarrassing had it not been for the genuine good-humour ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
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