"Impertinence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the small pika, squeaking on the slide-rock of the high peaks. They knew and loved them all; they found ever-increasing enjoyment in the study of their shy ways and furtive occupations; they observed with delight the droll awkwardness of the moose calves, the impertinence and saucy speech of the jays, the humor of the black bear and the surly arrogance of the grizzly. They knew that superlative cunning of his wickedness, the wolverine; the stealth of the red fox; the ferociousness ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... in this uncalled for manner. There were plenty of people in the Bishop's service expressly appointed for the purpose of looking into complaints and attending to them. To bring them up to headquarters, to the Bishop himself, was an act of downright impertinence. Very much as if a native should bring his petty quarrels up to the Governor-General. These thoughts passed through the Bishop's mind as he regarded the intruder with a fixed and most unfriendly eye. A few moments of hesitating silence followed, while the Bishop watched ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... heard from him about it. I told him he need not write at the time, but I have been afraid he was hurt or annoyed, and thought it an impertinence on ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... springing from his pillow to sit upright in bed, "when I want any of your advice, sir, I will ask for it. Such impertinence!" ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... "Really," he said, "this impertinence from my own nephew is something I was by no means prepared for. It is a poor return for ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger
... thought this savored of wit and impertinence (though the poor lad intended only to show his readiness to work), gave him a blow with a stick which broke his head so that the blood ran down. In this situation, and fainting for want of food, he laid himself down at the door of one ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... had got the advantage, and took care to keep it. He positively declared that the rule which excluded Jesuits from ecclesiastical preferment should not be relaxed in favour of Father Petre. Castelmaine, much provoked, threatened to leave Rome. Innocent replied, with a meek impertinence which was the more provoking because it could scarcely be distinguished from simplicity, that his Excellency might go if he liked. "But if we must lose him," added the venerable Pontiff, "I hope that he will take care of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... wish to give Miss White the place of honor," said Ogilvie, out of sheer impertinence; but Macleod went off to order the candles to be lit in the marquee, where ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... humility from the Bible, 'she might hope to prove, not indeed a good writer of novels, but a useful friend, a faithful wife, a tender mother, and a respectable and happy mistress of a family.' This impertinence is thoroughly characteristic of the days when the Quarterly was regarded as an amusing but frivolous, not to say ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... child, to which is devoted all the transports of an unreasonable affection. The spoilt child, the object of such blind affection, more often responds to it by indifference, or even by ingratitude, disdain and impertinence. We find everywhere this play of sentiments, which considerably impedes mutuality in love. It may even concern inanimate objects. We like a garden, a house or a book over which we have taken much pains, and we remain indifferent to the most ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... The impertinence of Modeste's speech was heightened by a little air of contemptuous disdain which she purposely put on, and which fairly astounded Madame Mignon, Madame Latournelle, and Dumay. As for Madame Latournelle, she opened her eyes so wide she no longer saw anything. Butscha, whose alert attention ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... of the air of the penitentiary in the very refinements of his luxurious hostelrie. But these are incidents not without their attendant advantages. If the stranger is thus separated from his fellows, he is at least saved, in turn, from the attempts of fraud, and the contact of impertinence. This is, in fact, the meaning of such arrangements, and if not exactly palatable, they are at any rate protective. But there are restrictions with regard to the fairer part of creation, and his correspondence with them, which admit of no such topics of comfort ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... the history of the folk of yore and of peoples long gone before!' Thereupon one of them came forward and, kissing the ground before him, spake as follows[FN329] 'Know, O King, that it behoveth one of good breeding to eschew impertinence and adorn himself with excellencies, and observe the Divine injunctions and avoid mortal sins; and to this he should apply himself with the assiduity of one who, if he stray therefrom, falleth into ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Beg pardon, sir, but Moles has been and told me what you was going to do for him, sir. Would you be considering it great impertinence if I asked you to take six hundred dollars what I've saved, sir, ...
— Her Own Way - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... uttered Old Dut sternly, "ten checks for that impertinence. And go and stand in the corner by the piano. Turn your back to the ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... the Vicomte said. "I wonder," he added, "whether Mademoiselle will pardon the impertinence of a ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul. Time and space are but physiological colors which the eye makes, but the soul is light: where it is, is day; where it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury if it be any thing more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... but a Frenchman in the better acceptation of the term. He was fairly well educated, and fulfilled his duties to us conscientiously, but he had the peculiar features of fickle egotism, boastfulness, impertinence, and ignorant self-assurance which are common to all his countrymen, as well as entirely opposed to ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... caused a great stir throughout the Lower School. Excited girls crowded round the notices discussing the question, and for that day the talk was of nothing else. Gipsy had rather taken the popular fancy; and though a few considered it impertinence on the part of a new girl to offer any criticisms on existing institutions, all were anxious to hear what she had to say on so absorbing a topic. At 2 p.m. on the Wednesday, therefore, the play-room was crowded. Juniors of all sorts and conditions ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... nonsense have you got to plague me with?" said Lord Nigel. "But go on, since it is the last time I am to be tormented with your impertinence,—go on, and make ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... me at this moment your life of Henri Regnault. I trust you will not consider it an impertinence if I tell you how it has delighted me, both as a man and a painter. I have the most intense admiration for Regnault, and in reading his biography it has rejoiced me to find the author in such thorough sympathy with his subject. Biographies ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... beat the devil?" ejaculated William. "Caleb Kimball ain't done a good day's work for years, an' I'm to set up nights paintin' his kitchen!" Nevertheless the magnificent impertinence of the idea so paralyzed his will that he ended by putting on twelve single rolls of fawn-colored paper and painting the woodwork yellow to harmonize, working from eight to twelve several nights and swearing freely ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... dotage. It was inconceivable that it could be the practical and achievable cunning of military bullies and strategists. The truth dawned too slowly for her to display any vivid burst of anger. "It isn't true," she said. And then, "It seems incredible." And lastly, "What infernal impertinence!" ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... cried, recoiling at this fresh impertinence, while the Lieutenant's eyes almost jumped out ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... old chief laughed heartily at this piece of impertinence; but the captain whose ship I had so recently quitted was silly enough to be offended: he found me out, and went and complained of me to my captain the next day; but my captain only laughed at him, said he thought it an excellent joke, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Lucas de Montigny, "Memoires de Mirabeau," II. 231 and following pages.—The preface affixed by Manuel to his edition (of Mirabeau's letters) is a masterpiece of nonsense and impertinence.—Peltier, "Histoire du 10 Aout," II. 205.—Manuel "came out of a little shop at Montargis and hawked about obscene tracts in the upper stories of Paris. He got hold of Mirabeau's letters in the drawers of the public department and sold them for 2,000 ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... evoke? What other than that of a young gallant in a lace collar, with lovelocks over his shoulders, pointed Vandyke fingers, possibly a peaked chin-beard? There is accomplishment enough, beauty enough, God knows; but there is impertinence too; it is de ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... say that you think so at present. Perhaps I don't feel quite so sure of it. I say again, it's nothing to me, unless I get drawn into it by you yourself. I am not your guardian. If I tell you to be careful, it's an impertinence. But the money; that's another affair. I won't ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... few strained moments Dick had borne himself as a man concerned only with his daughter. But at this moment Dixon Mallaby caught a gleam from his eyes which assured him that the least familiarity or impertinence of Melchard's would be resented in a manner likely to divert the crowd's lingering anger from Mut-mut to his master. Much as he disliked Melchard and his indefinitely unpleasant reputation, he was not going to have his match spoiled by the beating and kicking to a ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... boy! What do you mean by such impertinence?" cried the outraged Miss Kimble, changing her thrust, and poking in his chest the parasol with which she had found it impossible actually to assail his smiling countenance.—Such a strange looking creature! He could not be in his sound ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... choose to, Miss Impertinence! Don't be cross now, and torment me to death with your ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... poop deck, a small smart pinnace, carrying a gun in her bow, shot out from Howard's lines, bore down on the San Martin, sailed round her, sending in a shot or two as she passed, and went off unhurt. The Spanish officers could not help admiring such airy impertinence. Hugo de Moncada sent a ball after the pinnace, which went through her mainsail, but did no damage, and the pinnace again disappeared ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... the man who cobbles my shoes or the daughter of the grocer who supplies my sugar is, in the eyes of God, undoubtedly of the same value as my own wife, but they don't interest me. As a social democrat, I may wish sincerely to do them good, but, confound it, to wish to do them good is an impertinence. And when I've tried to bring these elements together in my house I have always failed. Mrs. Crego, while being most gracious and cordial, has, nevertheless, managed to make the upholsterer chilly, and to freeze the grocer's wife entirely out of ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... talked of it in my sleep; in short, nothing could remove it out of my mind: it even broke so violently into all my discourses that it made my conversation tiresome, for I could talk of nothing else; all my discourse ran into it, even to impertinence; and ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... self-confidence, otherwise it must at once have been borne down by the weight of general authority and received canon law. Strong instincts are apt to make men strange and rude; self-confidence, however well founded, to give much of what they do or say the appearance of impertinence. Look at the self-confidence of Wordsworth, stiffening every other sentence of his prefaces into defiance; there is no more of it than was needed to enable him to do his work, yet it is not a little ungraceful here and there. Suppose this stubbornness and self-trust ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Sundays only, but for all days; that spirituality of mind is not appropriate to one set of actions, and an impertinence and intrusion with reference to others; but like the act of breathing, like the circulation of the blood, like the silent growth of the stature, a process that may be going on simultaneously with all our actions—when we are busiest as when ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... doing so. I had had three glasses of champagne. He is an architect, and I understand from Josie that he has already made his mark in the erection of a church, two school-houses, and a town-hall in the suburbs, which I have promised her to go and see. It seems that a week before he had the impertinence to offer himself to her he received word that his plans for a vast railroad station in one of the large Western cities had been accepted. But for this untoward circumstance, my dear Josie would still be the light of my house, and I should ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... repair, and contested coal-pits. In short, I am sick and sorry, and when I have a little repaired my irreparable affairs, away I shall march, either to campaign in Spain, or back again to the East, where I can at least have cloudless skies and a cessation from impertinence. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... you have been trying to read me, Peter Ivanovitch. That is natural. I have perceived it and I have been frank. Perhaps you may think I have not been very expansive? But with a man like you it was not needed; it would have looked like an impertinence, perhaps. And besides, we Russians are prone to talk too much as a rule. I have always felt that. And yet, as a nation, we are dumb. I assure you that I am not likely to talk to you so much ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... most men, is engaged to my Lord's and Mr. Crew's families. Meeting with Captain Stoakes at Whitehall, I dined with him and Mr. Gullop, a parson (with whom afterwards I was much offended at his importunity and impertinence, such ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... subject, and even Mr. Derwentwater took part in the speculations. He looked upon the Contessa as one of those inscrutable women of the stage, the Sirens who beguile everybody. She had some design upon Montjoie, he felt, and it was only the youth's impertinence which prevented Mr. Derwentwater from interfering. He watched with the natural instinct of his profession and a strong impulse to write to the lad's parents and have him taken away. But Montjoie had no parents. He had attained his majority, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... Demetrius, and when he would come? Upon which Cato's companions burst out into laughter, but Cato said only, "Alas, poor city!" and passed by without any other answer. However, Pompey rendered Demetrius less odious to others by enduring his presumption and impertinence to himself. For it is reported how that Pompey, when he had invited his friends to an entertainment, would be very ceremonious in waiting, till they all came and were placed, while Demetrius would be already stretched upon the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... An innocent impertinence once coldly frustrated soon takes unto itself a sting and branding-irons, and thus, what was originally merely idle curiosity, becomes bitter malice; and henceforth the worthy minister's gossiping wife lost no opportunity of ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand." The charge that Goldsmith was incapable of collected thought in conversation falls to the ground if we recall one gentle utterance: "It must be much from you, sir, that I take ill." These words from one who had suffered an indescribably teasing impertinence at the hands of Johnson are the most collected conceivable. They are not less chivalrous. In The Retaliation Johnson alone is spared. To this friend nothing could shake Goldsmith's admiring and unalterable faithfulness and affection. There is a certain spirit ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... all very well, young woman," said the Rector, a good deal surprised, and unable to conjecture whether to impute Jeanie's language to simplicity or impertinence; "this may be all very well—but let me bring it to a point. Why do you stop this young man's mouth, and prevent his communicating to his father and his best friend, an explanation (since he says he has one) of circumstances which seem in themselves ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... suppose that yonder lovely, gracious creature, intended to treat you with impertinence?"—was the rejoinder of her brother; and already the Stanleys had two enemies the less among their neighbours at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... you full permission, and acquit you of all sins, whether of disrespect, meanness, impertinence, ungentle-manlike practices, or any other vice that may be thought to attend and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... of apology. She spoke like one who had a right there, and this it was which angered me and made me lose my self-command. Starting to my feet, I confronted her where she sat in my chair, by Guy's bedside, with those queer blue eyes of hers fixed so questioningly upon me as if she wondered at my impertinence. ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... most cases, selected you for his patient, and he wants you, you may not be all he wishes you were, but still such as you are, there you are, he knows what you can and what you cannot do; and it is a great piece of impertinence for a nurse to go away unknown to the doctor, leaving a stranger in her place. The consequence, so far as he is concerned, will most likely be to have her name crossed off his ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... postmaster's wife in their village, or some one of that sort; and whenever poor Gertrude Lefferts begins to suspect anything, and he's afraid of trouble, he gets up a fuss of this kind, to show how awfully moral he is, and talks at the top of his voice about the impertinence of inviting his wife to meet people he doesn't wish her to know. He's simply using Madame Olenska as a lightning-rod; I've seen him try the same thing ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... behaving well," said Lady Royland, coldly. "He actually had the impertinence to speak to me last night about the preparations, and objected to the men being ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... 'Impertinence!' he heard Annie exclaim, as one of these gossips passed through the gate, after putting her through a more minute inquisition than usual. And he heard dainty shoe-heels impatiently tapping along the hall, and when she brought in a bouquet of fresh flowers he saw in her face ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... into the ingenuous mind misgivings, a mistrust of its own evidence, dispositions to affect to feel where there can be no real feeling, indecisive judgments, a superstructure of opinions that has no base to support it, and words uttered by rote with the impertinence of a parrot or a mockingbird, yet which may not be listened to with the same indifference, as they cannot be heard without ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... than to his merit as a painter of cattle and landscapes. The Outcry, indeed, with reference to this promotion, and the continued neglect of older artists of greater public repute, had suggested, with its usual impertinence, that the motto of Lasciate ogni speranza, which was reported in certain circles to be almost visibly inscribed over the door of the Academicians' Committee-room, should be supplemented by the legend, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... materials or provisions. The supply of beef becomes daily more precarious and costly, for the oxen are all "treking," and one hears of nothing but diseases among animals—"horse sickness," pleuro-pneumonia, fowl sickness (I feel it an impertinence for the poultry to presume to be ill), and even dogs set up a peculiar and fatal sort of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... wit and raillery of Martial cannot make it palatable. Without a moral background, such as is provided by the indignation of Juvenal, the picture soon palls, and the reader sickens. Most unpleasing of all are the epigrams where Martial himself speaks as client in a language of mingled impertinence and servility. His flattery of the emperor we may pass by. It was no doubt interested, but it was universal, and Martial's flattery is more dexterous without being either more or less offensive than that ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... Maupassant to English readers with apologetic explanations as though his art were recondite and the tendency of his work immoral would be a gratuitous impertinence. ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... "He is cooking food." Meantime the frog had set off to tell God that when men died they would like not to come to life again. Nobody had asked him to give that message; it was a piece of pure officiousness and impertinence on his part. However, away he tore. The dog, who still sat watching the hell-broth brewing, saw him hurrying past the door, but he thought to himself, "When I have had something to eat, I will soon catch froggy ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... what had passed; but he could not believe that Mr. Corbet had come to any enduring or final resolution to break off his engagement, and he had almost reasoned himself back into his former state of indignation at impertinence and injury, when Ellinor came ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... but when one falls into a favourite train of thought, one indulges oneself in thinking on. I began in thinking and wondering what sort of artistic constitution you had, being determined, as you may observe (with a sarcastic smile at the impertinence), to set about knowing as much as possible of you immediately. Then you spoke of your 'gentle audience' (you began), and I, who know that you have not one but many enthusiastic admirers—the 'fit and few' in the intense meaning—yet not the diffused fame which ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... were persons more difficult to manage than poor devils. Colonel Pembroke's tailor, who had begun by being the most accommodating fellow in the world, and who had in three years run him up a bill of thirteen hundred pounds, at length began to fail in complaisance, and had the impertinence to talk of his large family, and his urgent calls for money, etc. And next, the colonel's shoe and boot-maker, a man from whom he had been in the habit of taking two hundred pounds' worth of shoes and boots every year, for ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... side of the street felt quite scandalized, and said to themselves that surely the poor young ladies had seen the last of Mrs. Ellsworthy, after such a piece of impertinence. But the lady of ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... this Translation, was to give those who are as yet unacquainted with it, a Taste of the Acumen and Genius of the Arabian Philosophers, and to excite young Scholars to the reading of those Authors, which, through a groundless Conceit of their Impertinence and Ignorance, have been too ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... foolish speech deserves a foolish answer. I beg your pardon, my love, for the impertinence of my son. He is a silly young fellow, who has not yet learnt the ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... that you should have received any impertinence from any of the people on board," said the first lieutenant kindly. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... conceal it?—have thrown in my lot with the party of progress. You will see how we suffer from him at the masters' meetings. He has no talent for organization, and yet he is always inflicting his ideas on others. It was like his impertinence to dictate to you what authors you should read, and meanwhile the sixth-form room like a bear-garden, and a school prefect being put into the waste-paper basket. My good Rickie, there's nothing to smile at. How ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... signed by the Governor. As a general rule, no man has a right to tell another by word or look that he is going to die. It may be necessary in some extreme cases; but as a rule, it is the last extreme of impertinence which one human being can offer to another. "You have killed me," said a patient once to a physician who had rashly told him he was incurable. He ought to have lived six months, but he was dead in six' weeks. If we will ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... and are full of dignity. You may offer them fruit or sweetmeats or anything tempting that may be on the table, and they will refuse it. I fancy they regard the invitation to partake of Nazarene's food as a piece of impertinence, only excusable ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... conclude without observing that the memorial which follows is not in any sense to be considered as representing that regiment. Having been connected with the Twenty-Third only during its absence, it would be simply a piece of impertinence in me to claim to speak for it. And this very circumstance of being an outsider has given me an advantage. For, unconscious of any motive except to tell the truth and render praise where I believed it to be due, I have felt at liberty to say many ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... a conscience, and refused indignantly to tell the little fibs which her mother occasionally suggested. She put her sense of right and wrong before Mrs. Clibborn's wishes, which that lady considered undutiful, if not entirely wicked. It seemed nothing short of an impertinence that Mary should disapprove of theatres when there was nothing to which the elder woman was more devoted. And Mrs. Clibborn felt that the girl saw through all her little tricks and artful dodges, often speaking out strongly ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... above and had agreeably to indian information been in this neighbourhood for some weeks. while at dinner an indian fellow verry impertinently threw a poor half starved puppy nearly into my plait by way of derision for our eating dogs and laughed very heartily at his own impertinence; I was so provoked at his insolence that I caught the puppy and thew it with great violence at him and struk him in the breast and face, siezed my tomahawk and shewed him by signs if he repeated his insolence I would tommahawk him, the fellow withdrew apparently ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... weariness of life; or Mr. Albany, without declaiming about the vices of the rich and the misery of the poor; or Mrs. Belfield, without some-indelicate eulogy on her son ; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, as in the character of Monckton, we do not think that she succeeded well.(26) We are, therefore, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... rolls, the din of life is never hushed. In London, in Paris, in Boston, in San Francisco, the carnival, the masquerade is at its height. Nobody drops his domino. The unities, the fictions of the piece it would be an impertinence to break. The chapter of fascinations is very long. Great is paint; nay, God is the painter; and we rightly accuse the critic who destroys too many illusions. Society does not love its unmaskers. It was wittily, if somewhat bitterly, said by D'Alembert, "Un etat de vapeur etait ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... rose in a whirl of amazement, rage, and sorrow. Some other impertinence, aimed at Dennis, broke all restraint, and, in pure Irish, he delivered himself of an address to the gallery, inviting any person who wished to fight to come down and do so,—stating, that they were all dogs and cowards and the sons of dogs and cowards,—that he would ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... girls on the stools sought to curry favour by smiling likewise, in gracious acknowledgement of which attention the old lady frowned them down instantly, and said that if they dared to be guilty of such an impertinence again, they should be sent under convoy to their respective homes. This threat caused one of the young ladies, she being of a weak and trembling temperament, to shed tears, and for this offense they were ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Adelle was chic and modern, as she felt with satisfaction, of a type that might find more approval in Paris than in America, where a pretty face and fresh coloring still win distinction. She was new all over from head to foot, of a loud, hard newness that gave the impression of impertinence, even defiance. ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... and the next time Verus passed Balbilla he looked, if possible, more gloomy than before. Something very unpleasant must have arisen to spoil the good humor of her friend's husband; and the poetess was sincerely sorry; for, though she herself had daily to suffer under the praetor's impertinence, she always forgave it for the sake of the graceful form in which he knew how ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Tom, Dick, and Harry's notions of it have any special claim to our respect.) Such publicity would destroy all individuality, and undermine the foundations of society. Clairvoyance—if there be any such thing—always seemed to me a stupid impertinence. When people pay visits to me, I wish them to come to the front-door, and ring the bell, and send up their names. I don't wish them to climb in at the window, or creep through the pantry, or, worst of all, float through the keyhole, and catch me in undress. So I believe ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... was at least offensive. It was de trop—"matter out of place"—an impertinence. The gem was unworthy of the setting. Even the barbarous taste of our time and country, which had loaded the walls of the room with pictures, the floor with furniture, and the furniture with bric-a-brac, had not quite fitted ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... of ill-contrived impertinence," said the gaoler. "We have victual and drink too; but for such as thou art, it were an ill-bestowed morsel. I marvel what can have possessed my lady ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... The money I must earn, must come from men. Whether I sewed or cooked, or whatever I did, they were the paymasters to whom I looked for my wages. How, then, was it possible to escape contact with them, or avoid being misunderstood. In one breath I resented, with all the ardor of my soul, the impertinence of the world's judgment, and in the next I declared to myself that I did not care; that conscious innocence should sustain me, and that I had a right to do the best I could for myself ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... if not actually rich—he couldn't pay a trifling account of less than three hundred dollars because he didn't have three hundred dollars in the bank. Collection agencies and the warning of suits—and impertinence from young ruffians who were hired to dun him! He scowled more heavily, and then gave his shoulders an upward movement of rancour ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... was clear she never would see him. One gentleman was particularly assiduous; she smiled on his assiduity; he was ugly, but she smiled on him. Dolignan was surprised at his success, his ill taste, his ugliness, his impertinence. Dolignan at last found himself injured; who was this man? and what right had he to go on so? "He never kissed her, I suppose," said Dolle. Dolignan could not prove it, but he felt that somehow the rights of property were invaded. He went home and dreamed ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... there was an old grudge which urged them to sack Cremona. The town was believed to have given assistance to the Vitellian cause before this in the war with Otho;[88] and again, when the Thirteenth had been left behind to build an amphitheatre,[89] the populace had shown its town-bred impertinence by assailing them with insolent ridicule. Other causes increased this bad feeling: it was here that Caecina had given his show of gladiators:[89] the town had become for a second time the theatre of the war: the citizens had conveyed food to the Vitellians ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... moved from rose to rose; the cloud of discontent had warmed into invisible vapor in the rich sunlight of family affection, and on the common memory the only scar of last year's wound was old Charlie's sheer impertinence in crossing the caprice of the De Charleus. The cup of gladness seemed to fill with the ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... to resent this question she must have been surprised, for Alice merely smiled as if at the impertinence of a child. ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... curious stares of the two gentlemen opposite, her vision shortened itself to near objects, and rightly surmising from their looks the tenor of their thoughts, she colored, and straightway turned her back, at the same time informing "C" of what she termed their impertinence. But "C" answered, ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... do nothing of the kind, for it is an impertinence to want to change the counsels of the Lord. And what has happened here is, indeed, not the work ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... Mrs. Brent. "I am willing to overlook his impertinence this time. I won't say a word to Mr. Granville, but he ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... practising on himself. If he has not succeeded in identifying himself with himself, he makes very trying work of the rest of us. A man who has not learned to say "I" and mean something very real by it, has it not in his power, without dulness or impertinence, to say "you" to any living creature. If a man has not learned to say "you," if he has not taken hold of himself, interpreted and adjusted himself to those who are face to face with him, the wider and more general privilege of saying "they," ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... sauce, young gentleman," said she, putting down her bag and umbrella, and folding her arms defiantly. "I've not come here to take any of your impertinence." ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... 'It is great impertinence to send up at our dinner hour with such a request. I cannot agree to your running down to the village as late as this. The boy must ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... declaring himself capable, as far as the law was concerned, of going wherever he pleased without reference to Mr. Hart; and told that gentleman that any interference on his part would be regarded as an impertinence. "But my money—my money, which you must pay this minute, if ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... are as delightful to childhood as to criticism, to youth as to age. To dwell on their technical excellences (the chief of which is the unerring precision with which the catalectic and acatalectic lines are arranged and interchanged) has a certain air of impertinence about it. Even a critical King Alfonso El Sabio could hardly think it possible that Milton might have taken a hint here, although some persons have, it seems, been disturbed because skylarks do not come to the window, just as others ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... Pierce had made her feel excited. She had not shown it. She had seemed, indeed, almost oddly indifferent. But something combative was awake within her. She wondered whether the American was consciously imitating her. What an impertinence! But Miss Schley was impertinence personified. Her impertinence was her raison d'etre. Without it she would almost cease to be. She would at any rate be ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... minute Mrs Bust refused to make tea for Mrs Carter. To the other nine she did not actively object—safety in numbers, I suppose—but Mrs Carter, it seems, had asked her during the progress of my last cold if she had neglected to air the sheets for my room. Such impertinence from any woman no lady could suffer, Mrs Bust informed me. Into her house Mrs Carter shall never set foot again. Seeing that I had laid in the cakes and sweeties and rubbish for the tea she suggested that ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... him, and to cross me. For myself, I told her I had no joy to be in any place, but was loth to be near about her, when I knew my affection so much thrown down, and such a wretch as Ralegh highly esteemed of her.' When he called Ralegh a wretch the Queen expressed her disgust at the impertinence by turning away to Lady Warwick, and ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... are drunk, Hubschle, you are exceedingly shrewd, and for that reason, I pardon your impertinence. Your rubicund nose has scented the matter correctly. The ambassador has demanded his passports already. But go now. Take this dispatch to the second courier and tell him to carry it immediately to the French embassy. As for yourself, you must hasten to the commander of Vienna, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... guilty of impertinence, who considers not The circumstances of time, or engrosses the conversation, or makes himself the subject of his discourse, or pays no regard to the company ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... that 'George began to think himself quite a man now,' whereupon both pa and ma laughed too; and George (who carried a dress cane and was cultivating whiskers) muttered that 'William always was encouraged in his impertinence;' and assumed a look of profound contempt, which lasted ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... edicts which provoked the coup d'etat of 1898, declared that newspapers were a boon to the public and appointed one of them a government organ. The empress-dowager revoked this decree, and declared that the public discussion of affairs of state in the newspapers was an impertinence, and ought to be suppressed. Nevertheless the newspapers continued to flourish, and their outspoken criticism had a salutary effect on the public and on the government. The official classes seem to have become alarmed at the independent attitude ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... as he looked towards his kinsman, flashed out challenges, of which we who were watching him could see the warlike purport. Warrington looked at Bayham and Pendennis with glances of apprehension. We saw that danger was brooding, unless the one young man could be restrained from his impertinence, and the other ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be scolded and sent away," said Stella decidedly. "You are just encouraging her impertinence in coming here to ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... understand, for some time, with what a keen sense of enjoyment many of those people made the acquaintance of an entirely new person who cordially gave the full particulars about herself; but we soon learned to call this by another name than impertinence. ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... other slaves looked at one another, stupefied: they had recognised Vaninka's voice. As for Ivan, he flung himself back in his chair, balancing himself with marvellous impertinence. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... certain circumstances, attacking powerfully his personal interest, while threatening slight danger of failure or detection. This style of thought, set off by a fair share of witty expression and ever-ready impertinence, gave Felix a kind of ascendancy in his circle of intimates—but naturally it gained him no friends. Common reputation grows out of words rather than actions, and Felix suffered the just penalty of his sceptical fancies. They cost him more than they ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... valuing, as he did, the public of that city, it could not but surprise him greatly, when a certain young Doctor S—— called out to him, "Bravo, Schiller!" from the gallery, in a very loud tone of voice. Offended at such impertinence, the poet hissed strongly, in which the audience joined him. He likewise expressed in words his displeasure at this conduct; and the youthful sprig of medicine was, by direction of the Court, farther punished for his indiscreet applause, by some admonitions ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... power of the Highest Being;" and this position he proceeds to advocate by a variety of arguments, at the same time controverting the opposite opinion, and especially the notion of the late Major Noah that the Indians of this continent were descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel. In this impertinence is the only noteworthy fault we discover in the book. Discussions of such controverted points as this belong exclusively to the audience of scholars. A far more interesting and satisfactory part of the introduction ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... door. The old gentleman finally concluded that the pedlers and old boot collectors, more as a matter of daily amusement than profit or concern—gave him a call. And laboring under this impression, Uncle Henry determined to give the nuisances, as he called them, a reception commensurate with their impertinence and his ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... Sobieski quitted the Hummums, on the evening in which he brought away his baggage, he was so disconcerted by the impertinence of the man who accosted him there, that he determined not to expose himself to a similar insult by retaining a title which might subject him to the curiosity of the insolent and insensible; and, therefore, when Mrs. ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter |
