"Impertinent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... run against one another, and miss the way to our food; but intellect is selfish and barren. The secret of success in society, is a certain heartiness and sympathy. A man who is not happy in the company, cannot find any word in his memory that will fit the occasion. All his information is a little impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds in every turn of the conversation equally lucky occasions for the introduction of that which he has to say. The favorites of society, and what it calls whole souls, are able men, and of more spirit than wit, who have no uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
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... instant, a look of indignation contracted Mary's brow, as she steadily met the eyes of the impertinent counsellor. But, in that instant, she saw the hands removed from a face beyond, behind; and a countenance revealed of such intense love and woe,—such a deprecating dread of her answer; and suddenly her resolution was taken. The present was everything; ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
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... over-power'd with Incidents and Under-plots, and our Stage as much crowded with such Actors, as there's little or no occasion for; especially at one time. Then the Matter, and Discourse of our Plays is very often incoherent and impertinent as to the main Design; nothing being more common than to meet with two or three whole Scenes in a Play, which wou'd have fitted any other part of the Play ev'n as well as that; and perhaps any Play else. Thus some appear to swear out a Scene or two, others to talk bawdy a little, without ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
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... like the above. In history we are cramped by impertinent facts that must, however, be set down; by theories that must be answered; evidence that must be weighed; views that must be taken. Our facts constantly break off just where we should wish to examine them most closely. The writer of fiction follows his ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
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... established in his own mind that Kiddey Downey and he were the only men in London who really knew anything about, horses, and fully impressed with that conviction, he would halt, and stand, and stare, in a way that with any other man would have been considered impertinent. Perhaps it was impertinent in Soapey—we don't mean to say it wasn't—but he had done it so long, and was of so sporting a gait and cut, that he felt himself somewhat privileged. Moreover, the majority of horsemen are so satisfied with the animals they bestride, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
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... once kept the party alive, and made it incapable of succeeding. Their measures were so taken that they did not go out in the Forty-five, yet could have proved their loyalty had Charles reached St. James's in triumph. Walpole calls Lord Elibank 'a very prating, impertinent Jacobite.' {125} As for the younger brother, Alexander Murray, Sir Walter Scott writes, in his introduction to 'Redgauntlet,' 'a young Scotchman of rank is said to have stooped so low as to plot the surprisal ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
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... was the people that bothered Sir Bryan. In dress, in manners,—he sometimes feared in morals, they lacked the strong flavor which he had confidently looked for. They did not wear flannel shirts in general society; they did not ask impertinent questions; a whiskey cocktail did not seem to play a necessary part in the ceremony of introduction; the almighty dollar itself did not stalk through every conversation, putting the refinements of life to the blush. In short, Sir Bryan found himself forced to base his regard for ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
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... not in your present character say that in public; lest Cyril should be impertinent enough to remind you that Christian emperors and bishops ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
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... or in compliance with Mr Allworthy, who seemed very much to approve what Jones had done. As to what he urged on this occasion, as I am convinced most of my readers will be much abler advocates for poor Jones, it would be impertinent to relate it. Indeed it was not difficult to reconcile to the rule of right an action which it would have been impossible to deduce from ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
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... This led to extra violence on the part of the Turks, until at last the chief of Faloro (Werdella) declared open war, and suddenly driving off the Turks' cattle, he retired to the mountains, from whence he sent an impertinent message inviting Mahommed ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
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... of the vixisse, it may not be impertinent to notice that Knox, a young poet of considerable talent, died here a week or two since. His father was a respectable yeoman, and he himself, succeeding to good farms under the Duke of Buccleuch, became too soon ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
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... the matter of Don Sancho's letter, none knew better than Richard that the matter might have been good. Yet he would have nothing to say to it. 'Madame,' his words were, 'this is an idle letter, if not impertinent. Don Sancho knows very well that I ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
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... make their boasted Bullism an apology for their prejudice or grossness; and this I have especially noticed among those truly homebred and genuine sons of the soil who have never migrated beyond the sound of Bow bells. If one of these should be a little uncouth in speech and apt to utter impertinent truths, he confesses that he is a real John Bull and always speaks his mind. If he now and then flies into an unreasonable burst of passion about trifles, he observes that John Bull is a choleric old blade, but then his passion is over in a moment and he bears no malice. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
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... to remain in Paris, however, and the agents of M. de Talleyrand—a female amongst others were employed to negotiate with them. The true difficulty in the way of accommodation, in addition to the impertinent arrogance of the Directory, seemed to be that Merlin and others received a great part of the gains accruing from American prizes made by the French. In order to counteract this gold in one hand by gold in the other, Talleyrand demanded a douceur of L50,000 for himself and chiefs, besides a loan ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
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... a farm two miles behind those hills, and in a house hidden under elm and apple trees. Madam, it is very late, and I must bid you good-evening. Before I go, I should like to know, if you will not deem me unwarrantably impertinent, whether you are a very young person with white hair, or whether you are a very old woman with ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
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... unembittered. In spite of all the demands, "She seemed to think that, apart from one or two exceptions, the Germans in occupation behaved very much as any army in such circumstances would have done. Indeed, she added that when the English arrived, some of them were so impertinent ... that people thought that they used to get on better with the Germans." I have quoted part of the last clause, as it seems fair to do so. For me it illustrates the general experience that the present discomfort tends by its vividness ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
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... that a council at Constantinople had ordained the adoration of images, assembled, in the year 794, by order of Charles, son of Pepin, afterwards named Charlemagne, a very numerous council. In this council the second council of Nice is spoken of as an impertinent and arrogant synod held in Greece for the promotion of the worship of pictures. This council, held at Frankfort, was composed of three hundred clergymen from England, Italy, France and Germany. Aventin, Hinemar and Regina say the Frankfortians ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 12, December, 1880 • Various
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... of our Wenna being married to Mr. Trelyon, and how happy and pleased and pretty she would look as they went walking together! And then how proud he would be to have so nice a wife! and he would joke about her and be very impertinent, but he would simply worship her all the same, and do everything he could to please her. And he would take her away and show her all the beautiful places abroad; and he would have a yacht, too; and he would give her a fine house in London. And don't you think our Wenna would fascinate everybody ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
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... temple, called Leocorion, to the daughters of Leus.[257] Alabandus is more honored in the city which he founded than any of the more illustrious Deities; from thence Stratonicus had a pleasant turn—as he had many—when he was troubled with an impertinent fellow who insisted that Alabandus was a God, but that Hercules was not; "Very well," says he, "then let the anger of Alabandus fall upon me, and that of Hercules ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
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... to you! When my father came into the room to-day and found me hiding my eyes from the lightning, he was quite angry and called 'it disgraceful to anybody who had ever learnt the alphabet'—to which I answered humbly that 'I knew it was'—but if I had been impertinent, I might have added that wisdom does not come by the alphabet but in spite of it? Don't you think so in a measure? non obstantibus Bradbury and Evans? There's a profane question—and ungrateful too ... after the Duchess—I except the Duchess and her peers—and be sure she will be the world's ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
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... interested in the Old Testament stories and said there were points of truth about them, although they had evidently come down to the modern writer—he called him a modern writer—in a legendary form. I thought his remarks impertinent and with difficulty refrained from saying so. Leaving the story of the Deluge and all that, I spoke of other matters, telling him of eternal life and Heaven and Hell, of which the poor benighted man had never heard. I pointed out especially that unless he repented, his life, by all accounts, ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
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... that all goes awry with me; that no one knows either what is his rank, nor what is his condition, what he does nor what he ought to do; and that except supper, which is always gay, and where there appears to be enough concord, all the rest of the time is passed in impertinent quarrels; Jansenist against Molinist, Parliament against the Church, men of letters against men of letters, courtesans against courtesans, financiers against the people, wives against husbands, relatives against relatives—it ...
— Candide • Voltaire
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... an impertinent allusion to his political bias, and said, very sharply, "What do you mean ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
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... temples. He had come because he thought Conscience wished to show him that she was happy and he forgiven. Now it appeared that her wishes had not been consulted, and she stood there with an expression almost stricken. Tollman had been impertinent—if nothing worse. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
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... little further, 135 And then I'll bring thee to the present business Which now's upon 's; without the which, this story Were most impertinent. ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
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... talking, When as I ruminate On my untoward fate, Scarcely seem I Alone sufficiently, Black thoughts continually Crowding my privacy; They come unbidden, Like foes at a wedding, Thrusting their faces In better guests' places, Peevish and malecontent, Clownish, impertinent, Dashing the merriment: So in like fashions Dim cogitations Follow and haunt me, Striving to daunt me. In my heart festering, In my ears whispering, "Thy friends are treacherous, Thy foes are dangerous, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
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... in this tale, that of bringing to pass by one's own actions the thing one fears and seeks to avoid or prevent, has much analogy with that embodied in the "novel of the Curious Impertinent" which Cervantes introduces into Don Quixote (Part I. chaps, xxviii., xxix). In this tale it will be remembered Anselmo and Lothario are represented as being two such close friends as the gentlemen who figured ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
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... mes principes. Ce livre conduit l'athisme que je dteste. J'ai toujours regard l'athisme comme le plus grand garement de la raison, parce qu'il est aussi ridicule de dire que l'arrangement du monde ne prouve pas un artisan suprme qu'il serait impertinent de dire qu'une horloge ne prouve ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
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... she replied, lifting herself straight up. 'No one yet has ever dared to be impertinent to me, and no one ever shall. But, Mr. Thornton, you have been very kind to my father,' said she, changing her whole tone and bearing to a most womanly softness. 'Don't let us go on making each other ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
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... to be rude or impertinent. Indeed, for the moment she was not even thinking of herself. She was thinking how a poor girl, who had her living to earn, would feel at an offer of five dollars for six long days of work ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
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... looking upon me) I should be impertinent, should I say anything upon this subject, when we have heard you but now discourse so fully against those that would persuade us that Epicurus's doctrine about the soul renders men more disposed and better pleased to die than Plato's doth. Zeuxippus therefore subjoined and said: And ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
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... offers—asserted positively her own marriage, and the claims of her children—intimated legal proceedings—and was signed in the name of Catherine Beaufort. Mr. Beaufort put the letter in his bureau, labelled, "Impertinent answer from Mrs. Morton, Sept. 14," and was quite contented to forget the existence of the writer, until his lawyer, Mr. Blackwell, informed him that a suit ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
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... shortest and likeliest way of coming at the lady was by demolishing, instead of putting on an impertinent disguise to circumvent two or three slaves. But Sempronius, it seems, is of another opinion. He extols to the skies the ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
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... pressing inquiries concerning information that I thought ought to be voluntarily given. Inquisitiveness was regarded as a gross rudeness by them, and I could frame no question that I did not fear would sound impertinent. But at last patience gave way and, at the risk of increasing her commiseration for my ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
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... maskers on the canals at all hours, and if Venice be so impertinent in her system of watchfulness, thou knowest, father, that, without extraordinary motive, that disguise is sacred. Without this narrow privilege, the town would not be habitable ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
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... official character, written by citizens, towns, or rulers in Rhode Island, were of such a sort in language and matter, that the town of Warwick did not think them fit for the public records, and so enjoined that the clerk should keep them in a file by themselves. This was known as "the Impertinent File," and, more profanely, but not less appropriately, as "the Damned File." A certain "perditious letter," written by Roger Williams himself, serves as the nucleus of this deposit; and we read of another of the documents as being as "full ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
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... laughed at if shown. She showed it now, poor child; how could she help it? she showed it by her unusually tinged cheeks and by her persistent down-looking eyes. It was very difficult indeed to help it; for if she ventured to look at Alexander she caught impertinent little winks, most unlike John Alden or any Puritan, which he could execute with impunity because his face was mostly turned from the audience; but which Daisy took ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
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... little wicket that admits you is perpetually turning and creaking, and you march through the institution with a herd of fellow-gazers. There is nothing left to discover or describe, and originality of attitude is completely impossible. This is often very annoying; you can only turn your back on your impertinent playfellow and curse his want of delicacy. But this is not the fault of Venice; it is the fault of the rest of the world. The fault of Venice is that, though she is easy to admire, she is not so easy ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
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... solitude and society," he thus sums up: "Any comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plain at the base of the mountain instead of climbing steadily to its top. Of course you will be glad of all the society you can get to go up with? Will you go to glory ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
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... looked upon as impertinent in me, who am about to give the life of another, to trouble the reader with any of my own concerns, or the affairs that led me into the South Seas. Therefore I shall only acquaint him, that in my return on board the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
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... suppose that Meynell—your precious guardian—my very amiable cousin—allows himself to make all kinds of impertinent statements about me. Well, you'll understand some day that there's no such bad judge of men as a clergyman. When he's not ignorant he's prejudiced—and when he's not prejudiced ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
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... death-watches; and was the other day almost frightened out of her wits by the great house-dog, that howled in the stable at a time when she lay ill of the tooth-ach. Such an extravagant cast of mind engages multitudes of people not only in impertinent terrors, but in supernumerary duties of life; and arises from that fear and ignorance which are natural to the soul of man. The horror with which we entertain the thoughts of death or indeed of any future evil, and the uncertainty of its approach, fill a melancholy ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
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... defied me, becoming even more passionate than before; till, all of a sudden, as if purposely to alarm the game, he dropped plump within a couple of yards of Rover's nose. This was too much for the latter to bear, so he gave a bounce and sprang upon the impertinent squirrel; who, in a second, was out of his reach, cocking his tail and shewing his teeth, on the identical bough where he had sat before. Away flew all the wild fowl, and my sport was completely marred. My gun went involuntarily to my shoulder to shoot the ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
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... thought her very impertinent, and barked at her, and tried to drive her away; but she would not go. They had always been good friends, and the dog was unwilling to hurt her; and so Mrs. Dog, after showing, in every way, her desire to get rid of her troublesome ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
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... impertinent fellow!' I exclaimed, slamming to the book. 'What? this close reader of antiquity, this fine analyst of the human heart, has been able to find only three good women, only three devoted wives, in all the Greek and Roman annals! This is playing the joker ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
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... said. "Please don't think me impertinent, but I am really curious to know whether that young woman was honest or not. She refused to read my hand or look into the crystal for me, simply because I was a man. Did she treat you in just the ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
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... as the prop of a hero. With this leg, which is fitted with a very handsome boot, he reviews his troops next Sunday, putting his best foot foremost; for generally he merely wears an unadorned wooden leg. The shoemaker, a Spaniard, whom I can recommend to all customers as the most impertinent individual I ever encountered, was arguing, in a blustering manner, with a gentleman who had brought a message from the general, desiring some alteration in the boot: and wound up by muttering, as the messenger left the shop, "He shall either ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
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... gentleman himself," responded the duenna; "I know nothing of him, but that he is the most daring and impertinent man"—(Martha indulged in the privilege granted her by Don Lope); "the most unceremonious, head-strong, self-sufficient cavalier I ever met with—Virgen Santa!—What a disturbance he has raised in the house. Then there's that most ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
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... was terribly strict, and woe betide the author of any small footmarks that he found on one of the freshly raked surfaces. Nothing annoyed him more than the odd bulbs that used to come up in the midst of his precious buffalo grass; impertinent crocuses and daffodils and hyacinths, that certainly had no right there. "Blest if I know how they ever gets there!" Hogg would say, scratching his head. Whereat Norah was wont to retire behind a pyramid tree for ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
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... gasped. "You impertinent young dog! I'll give you in charge. I'll—I'll report you to the police. Let me go this instant—this very instant, do you ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
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... of the onset from that which he ought to have exclusively bestowed on the defence of his own life. A slight flesh-wound in the side at once punished, and warned him of, his inadvertence; when, turning his whole thoughts on the business in which he was engaged, and animated with anger against his impertinent intruder, the rencontre speedily began to assume another face, amidst cries of "Well done, grey jerkin!"—"Try the metal of his gold doublet!"—"Finely thrust!"—"Curiously parried!"—"There went another eyelet-hole to his broidered jerkin!"—"Fairly pinked, by G—d!" ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
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... promiscuities. It was an effect of these things that from the very first, with every one listening, I could mention that my main business with her would be just to have a go at her head and to arrange in that view for an early sitting. It would have been as impossible, I think, to be impertinent to her as it would have been to throw a stone at a plate-glass window; so any talk that went forward on the basis of her loveliness was the most natural thing in the world and immediately became the most general and sociable. It was when I saw all this that ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
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... always paid, only by shewing a broad Blade, and cherishing a fierce Pair of Whiskers. Good Manners must certainly die with Chivalry; for what keeps all the pert Puppies about Town in Awe, but the Fear of being call'd to Account? Don't you know that there are a Set of impertinent Wretches, who are always disturbing publick Assemblies with Riots and Quarrels, only upon a presumption of being hinder'd from fighting, by the Crowd? There will be no end of such Grievances, if this Law takes Place. Besides, Sir, ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
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... rage, did advance to the door pointed out, and put his head inside, and there, on beholding a group of young ladies of all ages, from eight to fourteen, and no little brother, and finding all eyes turned upon himself as an impertinent intruder, he drew his head back quickly, and was met with a loud laugh from Jane, which so annoyed him, that without stopping to think, he ran off to his own room as fast as he could. The voice of Mary Roscoe however reached him as he ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
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... more in that common stock of recollections and interests in which she had no part, linked and reconciled through all difference by that Catholic freemasonry of which she knew nothing. The impertinent zeal of the evening—the young man's ill manners and hypocrisies—would be soon forgiven. In some ways Mr. Helbeck was more Jesuit than the Jesuits. He would not only excuse the audacity—was ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
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... had, I certainly should not show them to you, impertinent person! There are a few little souvenirs in that desk, but nothing very sentimental ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
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... impertinent letter was delivered to me yesterday. As I am not accustomed to receive such from any man, nor would have taken the same language from you personally, without letting you feel some marks of my resentment, I would advise ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
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... narration, and if the celebratinge the memory of eminent and extraordinary persons, and transmittinge ther greate virtues for the imitation of posterity, be one of the principle endes and dutyes of History, it will not be thought impertinent in this place to remember a losse, which noe tyme will suffer to be forgotten, and no successe or good fortune could repayre; In this unhappy battell was slayne the L'd Viscounte Falkelande, a person of such prodigious partes of learninge and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetenesse and delight ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
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... Day, Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Sound, as it is called, was written and printed in 1697. As it was designed for music (it was set by Jeremiah Clarke), the closing lines of every strophe are repeated by way of chorus. I have removed these repetitions as impertinent to the effect of the poem in print, and as interrupting the rushing vehemency of the narrative. The incident described is the burning ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
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... safety, we ought to have been more sensible. Two or three nights later, as I was sleeping in a special bed one of the men then absent had made by a big rock some yards from the main camp, I was awakened by a wolf crunching bones by the fire not eight feet from my head. I wanted to shoot the impertinent wretch, but his form was indistinct and my rifle lying by my side had to be trained his way. This took some time, as I had to move cautiously, and in the midst of my effort my elbow slipped. Like a shadow he flitted into the deeper gloom and I went to sleep again. I did not want to shoot ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
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... this excellent work is now before us, it may not be impertinent, before we finally take our leave of it, to attempt an idea of its celebrated author. We are happy in this place to declare our opinion, that no author ever better obeyed the precept of Horace and Boileau, in choosing a subject nicely correspondent to the talents he possessed. The character ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
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... came a period of what Bertram called "one night stands," so frequently were the dramatis personae below stairs changed. Gretchen drank. Christine knew only four words of English: salt, good-by, no, and yes; and Billy found need occasionally of using other words. Mary was impertinent and lazy. Jennie could not even boil a potato properly, much less cook a dinner. Sarah (colored) was willing and pleasant, but insufferably untidy. Bridget was neatness itself, but she had no conception of the value of time. ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
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... singing a song, at the top of his voice, for the whole house to hear, and for that traitor, Jean Baptiste, to come rushing out of his room marvelling at the impudence of the man, and cursing the Committee of Public Safety who were so slow in sending the soldiers of the Republic to lay this impertinent Englishman by the heels. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
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... his half-sovereign in a strictly impartial manner, to indicate that she accepted no responsibility. And the squaring of Edwin's shoulders conveyed to Miss Ingamells that he advised her to keep carefully within her own sphere, and not to make impertinent inquiries about the origin of the half-sovereign, which he could see intrigued her acutely. He now owned the box; it was not a box of colours, but a box of enchantment. He had had colour-boxes before, but nothing to compare with this, nothing that could have seemed magical to anybody wiser ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
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... Zeus, and I will wish you a pleasant journey.' 'You have only to name it,' I said, 'provided it is not something to carry.' 'It is a simple message of entreaty to Zeus. I am tired to death, you must know, of being slandered by these philosophers; they have no better occupation than impertinent curiosity about me—What am I? how big am I? why am I halved? why am I gibbous? I am inhabited; I am just a mirror hung over the sea; I am—whatever their latest fancy suggests. It is the last straw when they say my light ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
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... with me. If so, do not hesitate to mention it, I shall not be angry. If a demand arises I shall very likely issue an enlarged and improved edition of this paper in the form of a pamphlet, in which case hints and suggestions that to you may appear almost impertinent will be of distinct help ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
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... upon him that this epithet was understood in a mythological and allegorical sense. However, he objected again why their father should forbid them to wear a broom- stick on their coats, a caution that seemed unnatural and impertinent; upon which he was taken up short, as one that spoke irreverently of a mystery which doubtless was very useful and significant, but ought not to be over-curiously pried into or nicely reasoned upon. And in short, their father's ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
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... thanked him, and the master sat down to try and smooth some of his difficulties. His doing so was the sign for an audible titter, which there was no attempt to suppress; and when he had passed on, Wilton, whose conduct had been more impertinent than that of any one else, said ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
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... camping incident and the doctor's kindly talk wore off in a fortnight. Yet he was popular with teachers as well as pupils. His head was crowned with a mass of sandy hair and his impertinent face plastered with freckles. The boy was quick and full of grace as a wildcat and so well built and lithe that he was a ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
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... have been looking for an opportunity to speak to you, and I do not know when I may find another so suitable as this." She still believed that some proposition was to be made to her which would be disagreeable, and perhaps impertinent; but it never occurred to her that Mr. Saul was in want ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
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... to the cage, and so did Crocus and Twig; and Kitty, a little farther off, stood staring and smiling. But the Elf was not a bit frightened. He sat swinging his little legs, with his tongue in his left cheek and his left eye looking down with a half-winking, impertinent air. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
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... the woods," said Mr. Clifford. He had once owned a neighboring lot, and his pecan trees had been fenced around to protect them from the impertinent swine; but now the party were going into the heart ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
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... accompany her, for she was very sure that no one would have ventured to have spoken to her thus had he been her attendant. She instinctively looked round in the hopes that he might still be following, but she could not see him. She therefore went on, trusting that her silence would induce the impertinent stranger to allow ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
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... indeed had been mentioned by many other friends, that, by a decree concerning the exiles, I am allowed to return to Florence, provided I pay a certain sum of money, and submit to the humiliation of asking and receiving absolution: wherein, my father, I see two propositions that are ridiculous and impertinent. I speak of the impertinence of those who mention such conditions to me; for in your letter, dictated by judgment and discretion, there is no such thing. Is such an invitation, then, to return to his country glorious to d. all. (Dante Allighieri), ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
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... kind,' Milly answered, taking off her dripping shawl. 'I did not know that the Priory was occupied except by the old servants. I fear you must have thought me very impertinent just now when I talked so coolly of taking ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
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... encouragement it deserved, either here, or at C——. Your caputs, and heads of colleges, care less than any body else about these questions.—Contented to suck the milky fountains of their Alma Maters, without inquiring into the venerable gentlewomen's years, they rather hold such curiosities to be impertinent—unreverend. They have their good glebe lands in manu, and care not much to rake into the title-deeds. I gather at least so much from other sources, for D. is not a man ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
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... person to examine whether you gave in a true report; where you lodge, why you came, how long you mean to stay; with twenty more inquisitive speeches, which to a subject of more liberal governments must necessarily appear impertinent as frivolous, and make all my hopes of bringing home the most trifling presents for a friend abortive. So there is an end of that felicity, and we must sit like the girl at ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
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... mistaken attentions of Koah, the South Sea priest, did on the stomach of Captain Cook. The meat was good, but honest Koah spoiled its relish by proffering it ready chewed; and in the same manner, the effect of what is really most admirable in nature and art is weakened by the impertinent obtrusion of ready-made ecstasies. It is no reflection on human perverseness to say, that every one has his own way of admiring, and loves to feel and observe for himself; as well as to chew with his own teeth. For my own part, I never could appreciate the stupendous beauties ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
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... and pertinent part of my report on "the state of the Union" to express my admiration for the diligence, the good temper, and the full comprehension of public duty which has already been manifested by both the Houses; and I hope that it may not be deemed an impertinent intrusion of myself into the picture if I say with how much and how constant satisfaction I have availed myself of the privilege of putting my time and energy at their disposal alike in ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
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... You like me—you like me very much, but you are one kind of a coward, and of what value is a coward's friendship or regard? I don't mean to be impertinent—I'm just trying to explain how I feel. In your heart you believe in me, but you are afraid—afraid of public opinion—afraid of being left out of the teas and card parties which mean more to you than I do. You've known me all my life and fail ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
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... fifty years' time. Borrow is never technical. If he quotes Gypsy it is not for the sake of the colour effect on those who read Gypsy as they run. His effects are for a certain distance and in a certain atmosphere where technicality would be impertinent. ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
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... does not belong to them, and taking the pocket-book into his hands, he opened it, and fumbled over its leaves; in the doing of which a small piece of folded paper fell from one of the pockets unnoticed by the impertinent inquisitor or Andy, to whom he returned the book when he had gratified his senseless curiosity. Andy withdrew, Furlong retired to rest; and as it was in the grey of an autumnal morning he dressed himself, the paper still ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
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... saying that impertinence gained more favors from women than respect, and he—yes, certainly he was impertinent; she must never recognize him, of course—never! Her cheek burned as she fancied what he must think of her—a girl who made friends with strangers in the park! Yet she was glad that since he had not let her forget, he also had been ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
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... functionary on the marriage of his daughter, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, but whenever the matter was referred to, allusion was made to the antagonistic opinions he had hitherto held on the abolition of the land forces. The marriage was called the increase of the contingent, and some were impertinent enough to give it that ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
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... over the broom which the sweeper was using on the floor just beyond the doorway. The traveller, who appeared to have but poor control over his temper, or rather no control at all over it, accused the station hand of carelessness and cursed him. The station hand made an indignant and impertinent denial. At that the other flung down his bag, swung aloft his heavy walking stick and struck the sweeper across the head with force sufficient to lay open the victim's scalp in a ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
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... in and sat down to watch, feeling rather disturbed. Presently the fun began again: the children clapped their hands, the people laughed, and every one looked over at the house, in what he thought a very impertinent way. This made him angry; and out he rushed a second time, saying, as he ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
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... yesterday by a Bishop," he writes, triumphantly, but without volunteering any explanation of this extraordinary gift. Sterne's letter to Garrick was forwarded, it would seem, to Warburton; and the Bishop thanks Garrick for having procured for him "the confutation of an impertinent story the first moment I heard of it." This, however, can hardly count for much. If Warburton had really wished Sterne to abstain from caricaturing him, he would be as anxious—and for much the same reasons—to conceal ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
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... your scruples, my dear; they are just what anyone who knew you would expect. It is a positive affront that you should be told of such a proposal by this impertinent young man; and Lord Blandamer has so strange a reputation himself that one scarcely knows how far it is right to accept anything from him for sacred purposes. I honour your reluctance. Perhaps it would be right for you to decline ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
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... really their income? What was the matter with the one whom he attended, the sickly daughter, and what was her name? The questions would have gone on until now, but that the doctor stopped them. He had not made impertinent inquiries himself, he said, and had nothing at all to tell. The younger lady's complaint arose from disordered liver; he had no objection to tell them that; she had been so long a sufferer from it that the malady had become chronic; and ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
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... their attestation is useless to my friend's argument: will it then gain anything, if we suppose that they believed Jesus to be perfect, because they saw him to be perfect? To me this would seem no attestation worth having, but rather a piece of impertinent ignorance. If I attest that a person whom I have known was an eminently good man, I command a certain amount of respect to my opinion, and I do him honour. If I celebrate his good deeds and report his wise words, I extend his honour still farther. But if I proceed to assure people, ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
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... "I should have told him for one thing that he would have to reckon with something more than a weak girl or a poor old man if he annoyed that family again. In case he had been impertinent I cannot say what I might have been tempted ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
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... said he, "preach a sermon worth three cents (laughter), and yet I have heard the spirit move them to get up and speak at most improper times and on most inopportune occasions, and have heard them say most improper and impertinent things." In the Methodist Church he did not believe that there were over twenty-five women preachers, so the women were losing ground, and not gaining. Even the woman suffragists, who made so much noise a few years ago, had subsided, and he did not believe there were a hundred ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
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... more than ever the immature barbarian of her simile. Clara sat throwing the protection of her superior knowledge and capability around her, like a missionary garment; but Flora could have laughed with relief. Then Clara merely supposed Kerr had been impertinent. Her little invasion had been really nothing but pure kindness and protection; and Flora couldn't but feel grateful for it. Last night she had thought herself so absolutely alone; and here was a friend coming forward again, and stepping between her and the thing above all others she was helpless ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
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... little girl think me very curious and very impertinent if I ask her what my son Frederick was saying when ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
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... screamed the impertinent young Irishman, and the story was all over Connemara and Joyce's Country in a ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
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... himself, "Am I prepared thoroughly to sift out and ascertain the true import of every allusion contained in this volume?" And if he cannot honestly answer "Yes," let him shut the book, assured that he is not impelled to the study of it by a sincere thirst for knowledge, but by impertinent curiosity, or a shallow desire to obtain ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
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... are hasty, and have scolded without reason, bear it patiently; they will soon see their error, and not be happy till they make you amends. Muttering on leaving the room, or slamming the door after you, is as bad as an impertinent reply; it is, in fact, showing that you would be ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
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... said simply, "if you would think me impertinent if I were to ask you to tell me more about yourself. How is it that you are altogether alone ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
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... subjected his volumes to a laborious examination such as few books receive, because the text of Shakspeare is a matter of common and great concern, and they have borne the trial, except in these few impertinent particulars, admirably. Mr. Dyce and Mr. Singer are only dry commonplace-books of illustrative quotations; Mr. Collier has not wholly recovered from his "Corr. fo."-madness; Mr. Knight (with many eminent advantages as an editor) ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
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... (I like the expression, and can't find a better). He sigh'd as he look'd at her. Did he regret her? In her habit and hat, with her glad golden hair, As airy and blithe as a blithe bird in air, And her arch rosy lips, and her eager blue eyes, With her little impertinent look of surprise, And her round youthful figure, and fair neck, below The dark drooping feather, as radiant as snow,— I can only declare, that if I had the chance Of passing three days in the exquisite glance Of those eyes, or caressing the hand that now petted ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
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... brave strakes, its plunging bows, its healing beams, were wood, such as one makes a house of, or a tinker's cart. All the miracle of sails; the steady foresail; the sensitive jibs; the press canvas delicate as bubbles; the reliable main; the bluff topsails; topgallants like eager horses; the impertinent skysails; the jaunty moonraker, were just canvas stretched on poles. All the pyramidal wonder of them, fore, main, and mizzen, were not like a good rider's hands to a horse; compelling, coaxing, curbing the wind, they were utilities. The spinning wheel was a mechanical device. Port ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
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... solemn, impertinent jackanapes you are, to be sure, Morris! But I will 'put it to him,' as you call it! Here, you young ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
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... for him, gentlemen, in your midst; question him boldly; have no fear of importunity, chatter, or impertinent questions. You need not be afraid that he will take possession of you and expect you to devote yourself entirely to him, so that you cannot get ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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... first. I saw myself going up to her, and startling her with the statement, 'What you believe about me is not true!' Then again, I thought I might write her a letter and tell her. But of course it would be absurd; she would never acknowledge that she had believed anything, and she would think I was impertinent." ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
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... floor was splotched with mortar, the dining-room was cold and buzzing with impertinent flies, but what of that—the ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
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... recalls the curtain fell, but not quickly enough to conceal Mercury, wildly waving his liberated legs, Hebe dropping her teapot, Bacchus taking a lovely roll on his barrel, and Mrs Juno rapping the impertinent Owlsdark on the ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
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... with the Picards, whom John Ziska, the famous Hussite general, well-nigh exterminated, the latter speaks of them as practising all the absurd impurities of the Pre-Adamites, and he appeals for support to Stinstra's pastoral letter,—one of the most uncandid as well as impertinent productions that ever came from the pen even of an Anabaptist. For my own part, I see no reason to doubt that they are what they profess to be, the descendants of the Bohemian or Moravian brethren, whom the bigotry of the house of Austria drove from their homes, and of whom remnants are ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
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... if you didn't wish to hear it talked about you shouldn't have written it, you know. I want you to tell me a few facts I can retail to people on the best authority, don't you know; so you must just make up your mind to conquer that modesty of yours for once, old fellow, and gratify my impertinent curiosity.' ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
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... explanations are more difficult than the things themselves. May I be as impertinent as I like on my birthday?" she asked suddenly, again looking up ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
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... IT may perhaps be censured as an impertinent criticism, in a discourse of this nature, to find fault with words and names, that have obtained in the world: and yet possibly it may not be amiss to offer new ones, when the old are apt to lead men into mistakes, as this of paternal power probably has done, which seems ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
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... to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend. To these two original diversities may be reduced all those impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, black men, red men, and ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
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... men who might be expected to accept the kind of invitation which has brought me the honor of your company," remarked my host as we lit our cigarettes over the Roman punch. "To particularize, there is the curious impertinent, the merely foolish person, and the man in extremis rerum. Now I have no liking for the dog-faced breed, as Homer would put it, and neither do I suffer fools gladly. At least, one of the latter is not likely to bother me again." He smiled grimly, ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
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... by the whole width of heaven from Mr. James - the true artist will vary his method and change the point of attack. That which was in one case an excellence, will become a defect in another; what was the making of one book, will in the next be impertinent or dull. First each novel, and then each class of novels, exists by and for itself. I will take, for instance, three main classes, which are fairly distinct: first, the novel of adventure, which appeals to certain almost sensual and ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
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... yourself and him in your misunderstanding at the Hall: for, Madam, I intend to send, at times, any thing I think worthy of your ladyship's attention, out of those papers you were so kind as to excuse me from sending you in a lump, and many of which must needs have appeared very impertinent ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
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... contemplation; so Bindon took it to a man of a class he loathed, a medical man of extraordinary repute and incivility. "We must go all over you," said the medical man, and did so with the most disgusting frankness. "Did you ever bring any children into the world?" asked this gross materialist among other impertinent questions. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
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... floated some distance past him as if to see how it looked, gazed at from behind; and then Dorothy would catch sight of him again far ahead, peering out from behind a chimney, as if to get a front view of the performance. All this was, of course, very impertinent, and although Dorothy was naturally a very kind-hearted little child, she was really quite gratified when the Stork finally made an attempt to get a new view of her from the top of an unusually tall chimney, and fell down into it with ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
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... small boy is possessed, moreover, of a well-nigh invincible aplomb. He is not impertinent, for it never enters into his head to take up the position of protesting inferiority which impertinence implies. He merely takes things as they come, and does not hesitate to express his opinion of them. An American young gentleman of the mature age ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
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... people and parties declaring, "I didn't do it, nor countenance him to do it, in any conceivable way. It can't be fairly inferred from my past career." I, for one, am not interested to hear you define your position. I don't know that I ever was, or ever shall be. I think it is mere egotism, or impertinent at this time. Ye needn't take so much pains to wash your skirts of him. No intelligent man will ever be convinced that he was any creature of yours. He went and came, as he himself informs us, "under the auspices of John Brown and nobody else." The Republican ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
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... already noticed, previous to passing into the dining-room, where the refreshments were prepared. "Now, Doctor," continued the busy friend of Mr. Cargill, "let us see which of all these people has been the subject of your blunder. Is it yon animal of a Highlandman?—or the impertinent brute that wants to be thought a boatswain?—or which of them all is it?—Ay, here they come, two and two, Newgate fashion—the young Lord of the Manor with old Lady Penelope—does he set up for Ulysses, I wonder?—The Earl of Etherington with Lady Bingo—methinks it should have ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
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... met the other members of the company. He found them genial enough, even somewhat boisterous, with the single exception of Mr. Lane, who maintained a dignified and rather gloomy silence, such as became one of his recognized professional standing, after having favored the newcomer with a long, impertinent stare, apparently expressing disapproval. The manager was outwardly in most excellent humor, narrating several stories, at which all, excepting the reserved comedian, laughed quite heartily. At the conclusion of the repast, Albrecht condescended to purchase his new recruit a cigar, and then walked ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
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... you are making yourself out worse than you really are, Enna," said Elsie gravely. "I am sure you could never say anything so extremely impertinent as that ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
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... said, 'I'll deal openly with you. From all I can judge and from all I have heard of you through Pinch, you are not a likely kind of fellow to have been brought here by impertinent curiosity or any other offensive motive. Sit down. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
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... truth: as the twig is bent so will it grow. The skin he would slough will not be sloughed; he tries all the methods—robust executions, lymphatic executions, sentimental and insipid executions, painstaking executions, cursive and impertinent executions. Through all these the Beaux Arts student, if he is intelligent enough to perceive the falseness and worthlessness of his primary education, slowly works his way. He is like a vessel without ballast; he is like a blindfolded man who has missed his pavement; ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
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... give one hurrah under his breath at the discomfiture of the vain and self-sufficient Cornwallis. But he seems never to have been a young man. At one and twenty he gravely warned his friend Bradford not "to suffer those impertinent fops that abound in every city to divert you from your business and philosophical amusements.... You will make them respect and admire you more by showing your indignation at their follies, and by keeping them at a becoming distance." It was his loss, however, and our gain. He was one of ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
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... than thirty years in retirement and idleness. His moral ruin was from Robert Owen's Socialism and Atheistic Philosophy; but he presently began his rebukes on Robert Owen himself. His sole pleasure in company seems to be in noting down material for ingenious, impertinent, and insolent fault- finding; hence no one can safely admit him. He formally renounced his mother, brothers, and sisters about forty years ago, and wrote to other persons requesting them not to count him ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
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... meet Engineer Serko when my strolls take me in the direction of the Beehive. He always shows himself disposed to chat with me, though, it is true, he does so in a tone of impertinent frivolity. We converse upon all sorts of subjects, but rarely of my position. Recrimination thereanent is useless and only ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
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... he said. "I don't know.... I don't want to be impertinent.... But I feel—if I can be of any service to you.... I feel perhaps you want help here. I don't want to seem to be taking advantage of a situation. Or making unwarrantable assumptions. But I want to assure you—I would willingly die—if only I could do anything.... Ever since I first ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
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... forfeit his hold upon the public attention, Mr. Dulberry found himself obliged to relax the rigor of his principles, and to descend from the universal character of Englishman to so impertinent a consideration as the character of the individual.—"His name, gentlemen, is ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
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... projected, and very nearly effected it, for his son Gilbert, by intermarriage with the Lady Jane Grey, and so, by that way, to bring it into his loins. Observations which, though they lie beyond us, and seem impertinent to the text, yet are they not much extravagant, for they must lead us and show us how the after- passages were brought about, with the dependences on the line of a collateral workmanship; and surely ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
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... odd phrase came into repute in a brief space afterwards, in the form of the impertinent and not universally apposite query, "Has your mother sold her mangle?" But its popularity was not of that boisterous and cordial kind which ensures a long continuance of favour. What tended to impede its progress was, that it could not be well applied to the older ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
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... some amazement. She would have thought it rather impertinent in a stranger offering such familiar accommodation, but Bluebell availed herself of it with the frankest nonchalance, and, in the conversation that ensued, lost her place in the first rush of diners, who, at the ringing ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
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... be thought impertinent in thee to hazard a conjecture that, with the resources the Government of Demerara has, stones might be conveyed from the rock Saba to Stabroek to stem the equinoctial tides which are for ever sweeping away the expensive ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
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... housetop. They would be more in keeping in a glass case before a Nurnberg clock. Above all, at night, when the children are abed, and even grown people are snoring under quilts, does it not seem impertinent to leave these ginger-bread figures winking and tinkling to the stars and the rolling moon? The gargoyles may fitly enough twist their ape-like heads; fitly enough may the potentate bestride his charger, like a centurion in an old German print of the Via Dolorosa; but the toys should be put away ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
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... its waters. If we row a little way up we shall see this ceremony at the Burning Ghauts. There are funeral pyres of wood where the relatives are carrying out the last offices for the dead. Some prowling pariah dogs, of the lean yellow breed, and a few impertinent crows are hovering about, hoping that some scraps may fall to their share. The dead bodies are rolled up in white and red cloth and lie with their feet in the ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
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... And in this matter I do not think your impertinent orderly will venture to put Montmartre into the comparison. This soil is of a substance not unknown upon the earth." And speaking very slowly, the professor said: "It contains 70 per cent. of tellurium, and 30 per ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
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... by the stranger's appearance there were only two dissenting voices. One was that of an impertinent cur which, after sniffing at the heels of the glistening figure, put its tail between its legs and skulked into its master's backyard, vociferating an execrable howl. The other dissentient was a young child who squalled at the fullest stretch of his lungs and babbled some unintelligible nonsense ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
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... has been. I have read of cases in which people, rather than face a seven days' wonder, and have to account for themselves to the idle and impertinent, have taken themselves away, and ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
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... gives us at once the essence of Johnson; he brings before our eyes the luminous body of which we had previously been conscious only by a series of imperfect images refracted through a number of distorting media. To render such a service effectually is the highest triumph of criticism; and it would be impertinent to say again in feebler language what Carlyle has expressed so forcibly. We may, however, recall certain general conclusions by way of preface to the problem which he has not expressly considered, how far Johnson succeeded in expressing himself ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
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... very fine, I admit, very exalted, but we are simple people, we do not gild our gingerbread, we are not capable of following the flight of great minds like yours.... What you think sincere, we regard as impertinent and disingenuous and indiscreet.... What is clear and simple to you, is involved and obscure to us.... You boast of what we conceal.... How are we to understand you! Excuse me, I can neither regard you as a friend, ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
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... correspondent, therefore, could whisper the sudden disappearance of a sparkling blade, who, after blazing awhile at Whitehall, had unaccountably vanished like a meteor from its horizon; nor had the depredation of swindlers, or the frequent intrusion of impertinent hangers-on compelled the owners of manorial houses to shut their doors on uninvited guests. The jovial coarse hospitality of those times delighted in a crowded board; the extensive household daily required ample provision, and refinement was too little advanced from its earliest ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
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... several other persons were collected in the garden. Mr Rowlls desired his Lordship and others not to interfere; and on a second attempt of his Lordship to make peace, Mr Rowlls said, if they did not retire, he must, though reluctantly, call them impertinent. Mr England at the same time stepped forward, and took off his hat; he said—"Gentlemen, I have been cruelly treated; I have been injured in my honour and character; let reparation be made, and I am ready to have done this moment." Lady Dartrey retired. His Lordship stood in ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
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... "Why, you seem to me much too young. Forgive me, please," he added, apologetically, "I did not mean to be impertinent. I suppose you ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
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... door the members of the court looked round in sharp annoyance, suspecting here some impertinent intrusion. The next moment, however, this was changed to respectful surprise. There was a scraping of chairs and they were all on their feet in token of respect for the slight man in the grey undress frock who entered. ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
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... soft spot somewhere. Mr. LOWTHER'S is in his heart, and makes him go out of his way to help the wayward Member for North Westmeath. Mr. GINNELL, whose soft spot seems to be higher up, wanted to show that he did not approve of Mr. MACPHERSON, and called him an impertinent Minister. Ordered to withdraw the expression, he substituted "impudent." That would not do either, and there seemed danger of a deadlock and another expulsion until Mr. LOWTHER suggested that "incorrect" was a Parliamentary epithet which might suit the hon. Member's purpose. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
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... of position, and finds such variety to feed upon that it is rarely—except in the case of great political or public scandal—personal in its attentions; and what we too freely reckon a perverted and impertinent country taste is but an ordinary appetite of humanity, which, by the limitation of its feeding-ground, seems to attach itself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
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... and forward persons who presume to deviate from the rules of politeness. I spoke like a queen, but was treated like a maidservant. The Hircanian, without even deigning to speak to me, told his black eunuch that I was impertinent, but that he thought me handsome. He ordered him to take care of me, and to put me under the regimen of favorites, that so my complexion being improved, I might be the more worthy of his favors when he should be at leisure to honor me with them. I told him that rather than submit ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
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... couch within it a secondary and a profounder interpretation. The reader may think that the Sphinx ought to have understood her own riddle best; and that, if she were satisfied with the answer of oedipus, it must be impertinent in us at this time of day to censure it. To censure, indeed, is more than we propose. The solution of oedipus was a true one; and it was all that he could have given in that early period of his life. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
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... make her, an instrument to the good and happiness of the less worthy with whom her lot is cast. Away, ye imps! But mark ye before ye go, if ever I catch you making another innocent mortal the object of your impertinent pranks, I will reduce you, sure as fate, I will, to your original fog and moonshine, with just so little of you left as shall barely serve for echo ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
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... followed by a wail in minor key: "Five bells and all's well!" ... And of a sudden Lanyard suffered the melancholy oppression of knowing his littleness of body and soul, the relative insignificance even of the ship, that impertinent atom of human organization which traversed with unabashed effrontery the waters of the ages, beneath the shining constellations of eternity. In profound psychical enervation he perceived with bitterness ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
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... not sweep and dust the parlor to suit me, and I took her to task about it. She threw down her broom and said she would take no words from me. Then I told her to pack her trunk and leave the house. She grew more impertinent than ever, and said she would go, but I would have to pay her her wages regularly anyway. I asked what she meant. Then she told me to go and look for ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
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