"Pertness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... confirmed by English Bards—of Byron's leaning towards the past.] The answer to the sneer, as all the world knows, was English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. The author of the article had reason to be proud of his feat. Never before did pertness succeed in striking such unexpected fire from genius. And it is only fair to say that the Review took its beating like a gentleman. A few years later, and the Edinburgh was among the warmest champions of the "English Bard". [Footnote: See the article on The Corsair ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... blushing modesty and unaffected simplicity of Charlotte passed unnoticed; but the forward pertness of La Rue, the freedom of her conversation, the elegance of her person, mixed with a certain engaging JE NE ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... live by the Muses, it is but Gratitude in us to encourage Poetical Merit wherever we find it. The Muses, contrary to all other Ladies, pay no Distinction to Dress, and never partially mistake the Pertness of Embroidery for Wit, nor the Modesty of Want for Dulness. Be the Author who he will, we push his Play as far as it will go. So (though you are in Want) I wish you ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... he must be used with less Respect than that Fop there? pointing to a well-dressed young Gentleman who was drinking Tea at the opposite Table. The Boy of the House replied with a [great [3]] deal of Pertness, That his Master had two sorts of Customers, and that the Gentleman at the other Table had given him many a Sixpence for wiping his Shoes. By this time the young Templar, who found his Honour ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... That's the whole matter with you, Helene Churchill! You never stop to consider whether anything's fun or not; all you care is whether it's 'nice'!" Excitedly she turned to meet the cheap little wink from Zillah's sainted eyes. "Bah! What's 'nice'?" she persisted a little lamely. Then suddenly all the pertness within her crumbled into nothingness. "That's—the—whole trouble with you, Zillah Forsyth!" she stammered. "You never give a hang whether anything's nice or not; all you care is whether it's fun!" Quite helplessly she began to wring her hands. "Oh, ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... you, sir," said Mary, with more pertness than logic; "which I'm only come to take leave, for to-morrow I go ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... have a very high opinion of a person who would give up a friend." She stopped short with the sense apparent that she was saying more than she meant, though, strangely, as if it had been an effect of her type and of her voice, there was neither pertness nor passion in the profession she had just made. Curiously wanting as she seemed both in timidity and in levity, she was to a certainty not self-conscious—she was extraordinarily simple. Mr. Longdon looked at her now with an evident surrender ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... he took it for granted that all others were equally callous. He was not ashamed to exhibit himself to the whole world as a common spy, a common tattler, a humble companion without the excuse of poverty, and to tell a hundred stories of his own pertness and folly, and of the insults which his pertness and folly brought upon him. It was natural that he should show little discretion in cases in which the feelings or the honour of others might be concerned. No man, surely, ever published such stories ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said Florence, indulging in a little pertness as she saw that the situation would no more suit her than she it. She ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... coach: Miss Price went boldly up to him, as he was adjusting his curls; but he was too much occupied with his own dear self to attend to anything else, and so passed on without deigning to give her an answer. Killegrew came next, and the fair Jennings, partly encouraged by the other's pertness, advanced towards him, and offered him her basket, whilst Price, more used to the language, desired him to buy her fine oranges. "Not now," said he, looking at them with attention; "but if thou wilt to-morrow morning bring this young girl to my lodgings, I will make it worth all the oranges in ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... to Clarissa.— Pathetically laments the illness of her own mother, and of her dear friend. Now all her pertness to the former, she says, fly in her face. She lays down her pen; and resumes it, to tell her, with great joy, that her mother is better. She has had a visit form her cousin ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... peppered with a pale film of green. The lawn before the house shone with new grass. Upon it, in the early morning, Mary watched beautiful birds of types unknown to her, searching for nest- making material. She admired the large, handsome robins, so serious and stately after the merry pertness of the English sort, but her favorites were the bluebirds, and another kind that looked like greenish canaries, of which she did not know the name. None of them, she thought, had such melodious song as at home in ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... know best about that, you or I?" said Oscar, with a pertness for which he was becoming a little too notorious. "I see Alf every day, but you don't know hardly anything about him. At my rate, I 'll ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... knotted into a frown. "Nay, let him go to Brittany with the others," said he harshly. "I wonder, John, that you should bring back to my memory this youth whose pertness is too fresh that I should forget it. But some one must go to Brittany in your stead, for the matter presses and our people are hard put to it to hold their own." He cast his eyes over the assembly, and they rested upon the stern ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... women of the rustic order, if only they were a trifle good-looking, had an old-established license to be pert to their male social superiors. But this young woman was not at all disposed to tremble before him, and was just as far removed from pertness as ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... admired and loved thee long, It is a proud as well as pleasant thing To hear thy good report, now borne along Upon the honest breath of public praise: We know that with the elder sons of song In honouring whom thou hast delighted still, Thy name shall keep its course to after days. The empty pertness, and the vulgar wrong, The flippant folly, the malicious will, Which have assailed thee, now, or heretofore, Find, soon or late, their proper meed of shame; The more thy triumph, and our pride the more, When witling critics to the world ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... seventeen or eighteen, and long repented of as worthy of all repentance. The poem is imitative in its form, yet is not without traces of an individual thinking and feeling—the bird pecks through the shell in it. With this it has a pertness and pedantry which did not even then belong to the character of the author, and which I regret now more than ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... to consider on the part of servants are, briefly, ignorance, wastefulness, untidiness, pertness, or downright impudence, and what is called 'independence,' a term which all housekeepers thoroughly understand. I leave out of the category the vices of intemperance and dishonesty, which, although lamentably ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a sort of groan or grunt; and Angela, whose pertness was defensive, quailed a little. She had driven him out of the due sequence of his discourse, but he resumed it. 'Angel, I must tell you; if anybody asks you to break rules—by giving ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Netty, tossing her head and speaking with some pertness, "I can't do the washing. I didn't engage for any ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... admiration for Niagara and a regret for the Elevated Railway; and, unlike the men, they never bore us with Bunkers Hill. They take their dresses from Paris and their manners from Piccadilly, and wear both charmingly. They have a quaint pertness, a delightful conceit, a native self-assertion. They insist on being paid compliments and have almost succeeded in making Englishmen eloquent. For our aristocracy they have an ardent admiration; they adore titles and are a permanent blow to Republican principles. In the art of amusing ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... they stood without speaking. "Oh, good afternoon," Diantha said at last, and veiled her eyes from his fascinated stare. Formerly she had treated him with the free-and-easy pertness of a precocious child. Now the exquisite shyness of maidenhood enveloped her. Instinct drew her back from the man's inevitable advance. "I didn't know it was so late," she said to Persis, oblivious to Thad's gasping greeting. "I ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... each lively dunce, Remembering she herself was Pertness once, And tinsel'd o'er in robes of varying hues, With self-applause her wild creation views. Sees momentary monsters rise and fall, And with her own ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Quarterday answered these, full of confidence in the nation and in himself. When the debate was getting heavy, Lord Snap jumped up to give them something light. The Lords do not encourage wit, and so are obliged to put up with pertness. But Viscount Memoir was very statesmanlike, and spouted a sort of universal history. Then there was Lord Ego, who vindicated his character, when nobody knew he had one, and explained his motives, because his auditors could not understand his acts. Then there was a maiden speech, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... utmost admiration for both parties to the tete-a-tete. Under ordinary conditions,—that is to say, if Vavasour's existence depended on his own exertions,—Helen's eyes would have dwelt on a gawky youth endowed with a certain pertness that might in time have brought him from behind the counter of a drapery store to the wider arena of the floor. As it was, a reasonably large income gave him unbounded assurance, and his credit with a good tailor was unquestionable. ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... truest where the fine prevail: } Who doubts that Horace must have cater'd well? } Friend, I'm a shrewd observer, and will guess What books you doat on from your fav'rite mess, Brown and L'Estrange will surely charm whome'er The frothy pertness strikes of weak small-beer. Who steeps the calf's fat loin in greasy sauce Will hardly loathe the praise that bastes an ass. Who riots on Scotcht Collops scorns not any Insipid, fulsome, trashy miscellany; 245 And who devours whate'er the cook can dish up, ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... vain. The character given of her by Cadenus is fine painting, but in general fictitious. She was fond of dress; impatient to be admired; very romantic in her turn of mind; superior, in her own opinion, to all her sex; full of pertness, gaiety, and pride; not without some agreeable accomplishments, but far from being either beautiful or genteel;... happy in the thoughts of being reported Swift's concubine, but still aiming and intending to be ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be sure," said the old man, no whit offended or displeased by the boy's pertness; for the spirit of bon camaraderie which existed between them was not easily disturbed. "Well, now, I'm jes' comin' to it right spang off. Well, ye see, I been over to Millville this mornin' in the boat, accordin' to custom, ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... in Emma Lindsay!" was an exclamation frequent among her mother's friends. "Her pertness, repartee, and saucy witticisms are all gone. What have they been doing for her? This winning softness and grace of manner seems ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... ought to pay some regard to the age of him whose youth was passed in endeavouring to please them. They that encourage folly in the boy, have no right to punish it in the man. Yet I find, that though they lavish their first fondness upon pertness and gaiety, they soon transfer their regard to other qualities, and ungratefully abandon their adorers to dream out their last ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... one would think you was my brother," said Patty, looking up with a pretty pertness which she had a most bewitching way of putting on. Tom's rejoinder, and the little squabble which they had afterward about where her work-table should stand, and other such matters, may be passed over. At last he was brought to reason, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... beam Rated the Mule: "Why, sure you dream? Pray get on faster with the cart Or I shall sting you till you smart!" She answers: "All this talk I hear With small attention, but must fear Him who upon the box sustains The pliant whip, and holds the reins. Cease then your pertness—for I know When to give back, and when to go." This tale derides the talking crew, Whose empty threats are all ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... by what instruction, is this wonderful character to be formed? Is it found in the nurseries of affectation, pertness, and vanity, from which fashion is propagated, and the genteel is announced? In great and opulent cities, where men vie with each other in equipage, dress, and the reputation of fortune? Is it within the admired ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... inquired with a trace of pertness as he laid a hand upon the other's pommel. "Do we search again for that elusive Monterey? Methinks Vizcaino dreamed it in his cups." He smiled, a flash of strong, white teeth relieving the half-weary relaxation of his features, and Ortega turning, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... into a war of words with her, and enjoyed it extremely. Her brilliant colouring, her gestures as fresh and untamed as the movements of the leaping river outside, the mixture in her of girlish pertness and ignorance with the promise of a remarkable general capacity, made her a most taking, provoking creature. Mrs. Thornburgh—much recovered in mind since Dr. Baker had praised the pancakes by which Sarah had sought to prove to her mistress the superfluity of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Bundlecombe's death had thrown her history into the background, and she had not seemed eager to obtrude it on any of her friends. Lettice's assurance that she might safely stay where she was at present seemed to satisfy her. She had lost her briskness—her occasional pertness—of manner; she was quiet and subdued, attaching herself with dog-like fidelity to Lettice's steps, and showing that no satisfaction was so great as that of being allowed to wait on her. But her submissiveness had something in it which pained Lettice, while ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Phil's match in sense, learning, talents, self-command, and modesty, did not occur to me as lessening my chances with a woman. If I lacked real wit, I had pertness; and I thought I had a manner of dashing boldness, that must do one-half the business with any girl, while my converse trick of softening my voice and eyes to her on occasion, would do the ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... another common case. When dogs pass through a place Beyond their customary bounds, And meet with others, curs or hounds, Imagine what a holiday! The native dogs, whose interests centre In one great organ, term'd the venter, The strangers rush at, bite, and bay; With cynic pertness tease and worry, And chase them off their territory. So, too, do men. Wealth, grandeur, glory, To men of office or profession, Of every sort, in every nation, As tempting are, and sweet, As is to dogs the ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... with a little flourish of words, but the old lady ignored him entirely. She held up her chin with a kind of ancient pertness, and eyed Mrs. Field. She was a small, straight-backed woman, full of nervous vibrations. She stood apparently still, but her black silk whispered all the time, and loose ends of black ribbon trembled. The black silk had an air of old ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... spectacled lawyer, had, as a boy of seven, rampaged on that identical Turkey hearthrug, when it was new, a quarter of a century earlier. He was now seated at the grand piano with the youngest child, Alicia, a gawky little treasure, always alternating between pertness and timidity, aged twelve. Jimmie and Johnnie, young bloods of nineteen and eighteen, were only present in their mother's heart, being in process of establishing, by practice, the right to go forth into the world of an evening and return when they chose without suffering too much from ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... that he was going to see her again so soon. Her pertness, which had seemed fairly clever the previous night, would probably descend to triteness in the morning; he could even see her endeavouring to keep up the same exchange of short sentences. Bah! It was like a duel with toothpicks. The stolid respectability ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... you need. I should have guest the first by your pertness; for your saucy thing of Quality acts the Man as impudently at fourteen, as another at thirty: nor is there any thing so hateful as to hear it talk of Love, Women and Drinking; nay, to see it marry too at that Age, and get itself a ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn |
