"Impertinent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jim as the sloop rose and sank on the swells on her way over to Seal Island, "if you won't think me impertinent, I'd like to ask ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... could (if need required) set down in this place the number of religious houses and monasteries, with the names of their founders, that have been in this island: but, sith it is a thing of small importance, I pass it over as impertinent to my purpose. Yet herein I will commend sundry of the monastical votaries, especially monks, for that they were authors of many goodly borowes and endwares,[5] near unto their dwellings although otherwise they pretended to be men separated ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... comrade Coretti nor Garrone would ever have answered their fathers as you answered yours this afternoon. Enrico! How is it possible? You must promise me solemnly that this shall never happen again so long as I live. Every time that an impertinent reply flies to your lips at a reproof from your father, think of that day which will infallibly come when he will call you to his bedside to tell you, "Enrico, I am about to leave you." Oh, my son, when you hear his voice for the last time, and for a long while ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... the character of Mr. Warrington. After a fashion he is a credit to his native town. But we reaffirm, he is not a citizen, he is not eligible to the high office. If he accepts, after this arraignment, he becomes nothing more than an impertinent meddler. What has he done for the people of Herculaneum? Nothing. Who knows anything about his character, his honor, his worth? Nobody. To hold one's franchise as a citizen does not make that person a citizen in the honest sense of the word. ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... there were serious faces, more than one, in that house where it was impertinent to speak of death and eternity. It is true, that for a time gay visitors were admitted to Helen's chamber, and there was hollow laughter there, as they talked of balls, parties, and new fashions, and told the poor girl that she was looking ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... contracting a marriage as a matter of form. Don't you see that this consideration, and this alone, made it possible for an impertinent outsider like Curtis to offer his services as de Courtois's substitute, while my misguided daughter was equally prepared ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... magistrate for his information, who immediately dispatches a proper 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 the fair, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... The whole street was like a crowded fair; and Alexander had several times to follow Agatha and her escort out into the roadway, quitting the shelter of the arcade, to escape a party of rioters or the impertinent ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the church of Christ, by which it is exhorted to faith and prayer; but it speaks not a word of a woman's meeting, and therefore it is fooling with the word to suggest it. I cannot therefore, while I see this impertinent dealing, but think our argumentator dotes, or takes upon him to be a head of those he thinks to rule over. The woman's letter to me also seems to import the same, when they say, "Mr. K. would desire to know what objections ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... simplification of scenic appliances that is needed. Other external incidents of production require revision. Spectacular methods of production entail the employment of armies of silent supernumeraries to whom are allotted functions wholly ornamental and mostly impertinent. Here, too, reduction is desirable in the interest of the true significance of drama. No valid reason can be adduced why persons should appear on the stage who are not precisely indicated by the text of the play or by the authentic stage directions. When Caesar ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... through the medium of your guardian, Mr. Hornby, and with the consent of the accused. But I do not suppose the occasion will arise, although I am very glad you called, as you may be able to give us valuable assistance in other ways. For example, you might answer one or two apparently impertinent questions." ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... the shabbiness of the house where the gambler lived. A moment after he spoke, he realized the question was highly impertinent, but by then it was too late: "I don't understand, Max. If you make so much money gambling, why do you live in a place like this? Aren't there any ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... hidden again, and the old gentleman was puzzled. He went 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 marched ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Griffen, so far as Croustillac was concerned, were without foundation. The chevalier was nothing more than the poor devil of an adventurer which we have shown him to be. The excellent opinion he held of himself was the sole cause of his impertinent wager of espousing Blue Beard before the end ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... with the Church, concerning the right of investiture, were more obstinate and more dangerous. As this is an affair that troubled all Europe as well as England, and holds deservedly a principal place in the story of those times, it will not be impertinent to trace it up to its original. In the early times of Christianity, when religion was only drawn from its obscurity to be persecuted, when a bishop was only a candidate for martyrdom, neither the preferment, nor the right of bestowing it, were sought with great ambition. Bishops were then elected, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... discordant, and perpetual din which rang in their ears from morning to night. Their male visitors were, likewise, few and select, and did not remain with them any very considerable time together. An order was issued by the king, that if any impertinent individual troubled them at any time with his company, when it was not desired, Ebo was at liberty to behead him, and no one according to the strict injunction of Mattsolah, should tax the eunuch with injustice or cruelty in ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... moment; but I'm sorry that I took even a moment's notice of it. Why should one be ruffled because others are unfeeling and impertinent; it is their ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... he could not find out any appellation to assume the crown in his own person, yet he 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 it may amaze a well-settled judgment ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... is not easy to decide, and it is perhaps in both senses impertinent to speculate, whether the "Marguerite" (whose La Tour-like portrait is drawn in this piece with such relish, and who is so philosophically left to her fate by her lover on the Terrace at Berne later) had any live ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... her blankly, his laughing, impertinent brown face sobered at once by the sight of her own. He made a reply in Italian, raising his shoulders. Some ill-dressed, loafing stragglers on the wharf drew near Sylvia with an indolent curiosity. She turned ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... He had very little to do; and as it never suited me to reside there, there was never any one to look after him. However, I make no complaint. Here they are intolerable—intolerable, self-sufficient, impertinent upstarts, full of crotchets of their own; and the bishop is a weak, timid fool; as for me, I never go inside a church. I can't; I should be insulted if I did. It has however gone so far now that I shall take permission ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... its caricatures of well-known social and political personages, its magnificent diction,—too magnificent to be taken quite seriously,—excited inquiry; and the great world was amazed to discover that the impertinent observer was not one of themselves, but a boy in a lawyer's office. To add to the audacity, he had conceived himself the hero of these diverting situations, and by his cleverness had outwitted age, beauty, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... worst places is Vintimiglia on the Franco-Italian line. The French frank you out of their country; the Italians frank you in. You step into a separate chamber and are searched and asked particular and impertinent questions. Before leaving Italy the Italian police demand your personal attendance and take a small due. In some countries you are required to obtain police permission to leave the country; in some not. No one tells you what you have to do. You can take a ticket and proceed gaily to ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... 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
... the lawliness of the most profound respect those rash 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 ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... Paine, and telling him that God Almighty had sent her to tell him that unless he repented and believed in the blessed savior he would be damned. Paine replied that God would not send such a foolish old woman with such an impertinent message.—Clio ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Jeff flatly. "You don't care a hang about me. You've never noticed me before. We're not friends. You've always disliked me. But you want the credit of bringing me into the fold. It's damned impertinent of you." ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... Sir; if you don't happen to be quiet; if you get into a rage, or say impertinent things. But if you are reasonable, we shall only chain you by the feet. The blacksmith is ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... back from him, gazing at him mischievously, as if anticipating his defeat. As for the professor, he grows red—he draws his brows together. Truly this is a most impertinent pupil! 'The Master of Ballantrae.' It sounds like Sir Walter, and yet—The ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... and it wasn't the Tumblers' Arms." That, they were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang, O Lady Fair! Mr. Wopsle taking the bass, and asserting with a tremendously strong voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in a most impertinent manner, by wanting to know all about everybody's private affairs) that he was the man with his white locks flowing, and that he was upon the whole the weakest ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... said the Duke, "that your proposition is the most unbecoming and the most impertinent that ever was addressed to me." The Major's mouth fell, and he stared with all his eyes as he looked up into the Duke's face. "Good afternoon," said the Duke, turning quickly round and walking away. The Major stood for a while transfixed to the place, and, cold as was the weather, was bathed in ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... mischief her tongue was guilty of, was more owing to her vanity and that talkative humour in which she had always been encouraged from her infancy, than to any real malice in her heart. She had been long accustomed to speak without thinking, and naturally imagined that her impertinent loquacity would be as much admired and applauded by other people as by her thoughtless parents. I have the satisfaction, however, to observe that you are perfectly sensible of her mistake, though she had not the good fortune to ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... knows I can never afford to slight the place it holds in my affection) I even dared in my fondness to reckon it with great and famous temples such as in our Westminster, in Paris, in Rheims—aye, and in Cologne—men have reared to the glory of God. I asked myself if these, too, looked impertinent as this day's sun took their towers, dawning so eventfully over Europe; if these, too, suffered in men's minds such a loss of significance by comparison with the eternal hills and the river that rushed at my feet refreshing this valley as night-long, ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... this the next day, and I could see she thought I had been bragging of my family. So I recounted all the conversation I had had with him, as nearly as I could recollect, and set down the question to an impertinent irony. But I have since changed my mind: I now judge that he could not believe any poor person would joke about poverty. I never found one of those people who go about begging for charities believe me when I told him the simple truth ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... at her during that long evening, I felt that it was impertinent to probe her heart with my wonderings and surmises. I knew instinctively just how carefully she was hiding her hurt from all human eyes. I knew how her fierce pride was bearing up under the cruelty of it. I felt how ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... at this time, that he was "President de jure only." Besides this domestic strife, the cabinet was engaged in futile efforts to resist the gradually tightening cordon of British aggression. Erskine's amateur negotiations, quickly disavowed by the British government, and the short and impertinent mission of Jackson, who succeeded him and was dismissed from the United States, well served Canning's policy of delay. Madison, whose prejudices were as strongly with Englishmen and English ways as those of Jefferson were with the men and ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... would compel her to be for some hours in the company of a man she had so much reason to detest, sat in the stern sheets, with the fat clergyman directly in front, and forming an impenetrable rampart against the impertinent gallantries of the coxcomb Gregorio. She wore no jewels or ornaments, and from her pensive and serious expression of countenance, might have passed for an Athenian tribute-maiden whom the annual ship was about to carry to ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... Pendennis; "people are very impertinent, I am sure. Mr. Smirke came here as Arthur's tutor, and I am surprised that anybody should ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it and cutting it, but the more he cut, the longer grew that impertinent nose. In despair ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... me capable of inventing such a story?" said Monsieur Gravier, nettled by Lousteau's impertinent tone. ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... "'You are impertinent, sir,' I said, rising. 'Geoffrey Westbourne is nothing to me, and you need not fear that my affections will be misplaced. I must respect the man I love, and look up to him as my superior.' My pride was hurt, now, ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... by the royalist at this unsatisfactory result. "These bravadoes and impertinent demonstrations on the part of some of your people," wrote Richardot, ten days later, "will be the destruction of the whole country, and will convert the Prince's gentleness into anger. 'Tis these good and zealous patriots, trusting to a little favourable breeze that blew for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... story, and it would be impertinent to guess at the feelings of those intrepid travelers when they found themselves forestalled. Nevertheless they had achieved the purpose they had set themselves, and the fact that they could not claim the reward of priority makes not one jot of difference in estimating the ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... delicacy in 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
... Webb," she interrupted. "I dare say my questions seem impertinent, but they have a purpose back of them. My mother and I are looking for a private secretary for a charitable concern which we are going to organize shortly. We desire some one who is educated, who will ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... Delaval he had a rival, and, what was more, a successful one. He determined, before the day was over, to end his tortures of suspense by putting to Miss Patty the plain question whether or no she was engaged to her cousin, and to trust to her kindness to forgive the question if it was an impertinent one. He was unable to do this for the present, partly from lack of courage, and partly from the too close neighbourhood of others of the party; but he concocted several sentences that seemed to him to be admirably adapted to bring about ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... inform'd, or to be let alone. For Though if any Truly knowing Chymists shall Think fit in a civil and rational way to shew him any truth touching the matter in Dispute That he yet discernes not, Carneades will not refuse either to admit, or to own a Conviction: yet if any impertinent Person shall, either to get Himself a Name, or for what other end soever, wilfully or carelesly mistake the State of the Controversie, or the sence of his Arguments, or shall rail instead of arguing, ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... it is a constant, earnest, sincere practice. It is neither demonstrative nor loud, but manifests itself in a quiet, practical way, and is always at work. It is not aggressive, which sometimes is troublesome if not impertinent. In him religion exhibits its loveliest features; it governs his conduct not only toward his servants but toward the natives, the bigoted Mohammedans, and all who come in contact with him. Without it, Livingstone, with his ardent temperament, his enthusiasm, his ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... be impertinent, father. She's made decided that way, like my father." Mrs. Kronborg spoke warmly. "I never have any trouble with the child. I remember my father's ways and go at her ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... and the Countess's chat with Milly is in quite an under-tone—probably relating to women's matters that it would be impertinent for us to listen to; so we will leave Camp Villa, and proceed to Milby Vicarage, where Mr. Farquhar has sat out two other guests with whom he has been dining at Mr. Ely's, and is now rather wearying that reverend ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... the chariot-wheels of history now, my dear children, and must follow on with name and place and date, whether my tale suffer by it or no. With such a drama as this afoot it were impertinent to speak of myself, save in so far as I saw or heard what may make these old scenes more vivid to you. It is no pleasant matter for me to dwell upon, yet, convinced as I am that there is no such thing as chance either in the great or the little things of this world, I am very ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Elizabethan times. Cynical parents like Francis Osborn had not the slightest faith in its good effects, but recommended it solely because it was the fashion. "Some to starch a more serious face upon wanton, impertinent, and dear bought Vanity, cry up 'Travel' as 'the best Accomplisher of Youth and Gentry,' tho' detected by Experience in the generality, for 'the greatest Debaucher' ... yet since it advanceth Opinion in the World, without which Desert is useful to none but itself (Scholars and Travellers ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... visit to the farm of which Ned was virtually overseer. Our disconsolate party could not avoid an interview even if they would. They summoned their courage and affected to feel at ease. And truly they might, for Ned, like the class to which he belonged, would never dream of asking impertinent questions of any respectable white man, his known duty being to answer, not to ask, questions. Our weary party invited themselves to 'Uncle Ned's' cabin, which stood in the edge of the clearing close by, and turned out to be a ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... or beauty or for good temper, as to the best method of getting rid of the importunities of a rejected admirer. After having told her story and claiming a relationship with him because her own name was Arnot, she wound up with: "Ye maun advise me what I ought to do with this impertinent fellow."—"Oh, marry him by all means, it's the only way to get quit of his importunities," was Arnot's advice. "I would see him hanged first," retorted the lady. "Nay, madam," rejoined Arnot, "marry him directly as I said before, and by ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... experience apart. Within was a subdued bustle of women, a flitting of lights, and the doing of petty offices to that queer, exhausted thing that had once been my active and urgent little uncle. For me those offices were irksome and impertinent. I slammed the door, and went out into the warm, foggy drizzle of the village street lit by blurred specks of light in great voids of darkness, and never a soul abroad. That warm veil of fog produced an effect of vast seclusion. The very houses by the roadside ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... and he is not willing to waste it; therefore access to him is difficult. Many persons endeavor to see him merely to gratify their impertinent curiosity, and others wish to "interview" him for purposes which simply consume his time. To protect himself, he has been compelled to resort to the following expedient: A gentleman is kept on guard near the main door of the store, whose duty it is to inquire the business of visitors. If the visitor ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... 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 ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... speak to me, and a damned impertinent thing he said, too. He had the folly—the outrageous, unconscionable folly—to ask me to allow you to marry him!" exclaimed the colonel in a husky voice, again almost driving his stick through the bottom of the carriage. "He had the folly; but I was not fool enough to accede ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... needless to say that they gave an immense deal of attention to the weather. We used to wish we could join this agreeable company, but we found that the appearance of an outsider caused a disapproving silence, and that the meeting was evidently not to be interfered with. Once we were impertinent enough to hide ourselves for a while just round the corner of the warehouse, but we were afraid or ashamed to try it again, though the conversation was inconceivably edifying. Captain Isaac Horn, the eldest and wisest of all, was discoursing upon some ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... 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
... still at home in the Farm? Rumors, whose faces I cannot fairly see, pass by me sometimes, breathing your name and others. But I have long ago turned rumor out-of-doors as an impostor and impertinent person, who apes the manners and appearance of its betters. I shall receive none as from you, however loudly they may shout your name, except they show your ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... was the only evidence that the judge had noted the impertinent suggestion that he did not ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... creatures on which his glory and praise is showed forth, and he made this creature man to show forth that praise and that glory which is showed forth in other creatures. O but this is a divine office! It is strange how our hearts are carried forth towards base things, and busied in many vain, impertinent, and base employments and scarce ever mind this great one we were ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... his brown coat was perfect and his red waist-coat faultless. He practised his singing until his love-song was all he could wish it. He was wonderfully well satisfied with himself; but Jenny Wren's impertinent speeches would recur to his mind. The words fat and clumsy had especially annoyed him, and he never could altogether rid ...
— The Story of a Robin • Agnes S. Underwood
... unrelated; arbitrary; independent, unallied; unconnected, disconnected; adrift, isolated, insular; extraneous, strange, alien, foreign, outlandish, exotic. not comparable, incommensurable, heterogeneous; unconformable &c 83. irrelevant, inapplicable; not pertinent, not to the, purpose; impertinent, inapposite, beside the mark, a propos de bottes [Fr.]; aside from the purpose, away from the purpose, foreign to the purpose, beside the purpose, beside the question, beside the transaction, beside the point; misplaced &c (intrusive) 24; traveling out of the record. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... But, I shall grow impertinent to such a grate man.—And hereafter may do for that, as she turnes out: for one mought be loth to part with her, mayhap, so verry soon too; espessially if she was to make the notable landlady your Honner ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... to do all that I could to prevent the marriage. You employed me yourself, my lord. It was you sent me down to see the young man, and explain to him how impertinent he was. It isn't my fault, Lord Kingsbury, if things have got ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... had already, in October, 1878, given utterance to its opinion of unsanctified science as follows: "This is an age in which scientific atheism, having divested itself of the habiliments that most adorn and dignify humanity, walks abroad in shameless denudation. The arrogant and impertinent claims of this 'science, falsely so called,' have been so boisterous and persistent, that the unthinking mass have been sadly deluded; but our university alone has had the courage to lay its young but vigorous hand upon ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and his look turned aside. It revolted him to hear one talk thus of her—and surprised him that the one who spoke thus was that Itchoua whom he had always known as the quiet husband of an ugly and old woman. But the blow struck by the impertinent phrase followed nevertheless, in his imagination, a dangerous and unforeseen path.—Gracieuse, "imprisoned a room with him!" The immediate possibility of such a thing, so clearly presented with a rough and coarse word, made his head swim like a very ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... feeling pulses and shaking his head in a sort of melancholy helplessness which brought joy to the heart of eight hundred patients, some hundred doctors, nurses and orderlies, and did not in any way disturb the melancholy principal medical officer, who was wholly unconscious of Hector's impertinent imitations. ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... rendered us all miserable. My poor horses and mules, worn and sore, stood dripping and wretched, with quivering knees, in the middle of the square—too miserable to feed, only now and then slashing their long wet tails to right or left to drive away impertinent flies. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to speak specifically of writing as a means of tradition, he confines his remarks to that particular kind of writing, which is agreed on betwixt particular persons, and called by the name of cipher, giving excellent reasons for this proceeding, impertinent as it may seem, to those who think that his only object is to make out a list and 'muster-roll of the arts and sciences';—stopping to tell us plainly that he knows what he is about, and that he has not brought in 'these private ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... who resented his uncle's questions as impertinent intrusions upon the family affairs, ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang 'O Lady Fair,' Mr. Wopsle taking the bass, and assisting with a tremendously strong voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in a most impertinent manner by wanting to know all about everybody's private affairs) that he was the man with his white locks flowing, and that he was upon the whole ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... intelligence, as much greater than man's as his is greater than a blackbeetle's; no being endowed with powers of influencing the course of nature as much greater than his, as his is greater than a snail's seems to me not merely baseless, but impertinent. Without stepping beyond the analogy of that which is known, it is easy to people the cosmos with entities, in ascending scale, until we reach something practically indistinguishable from omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. If our intelligence ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... me," she said, calmly, "that you are trying to be impertinent. The nature of my interest in Mr. Brand can be no concern of yours. It is sufficient that what I ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... sorrow-stricken Shall his own sorrow seem impertinent, A thing that takes no more root in the world Than doth the traveller's shadow on ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Instance of Humour and Raillery, I shall insert Horace's famous Description of his Embarrassment with an impertinent Fellow. This indeed is entitl'd, in almost all the Editions of Horace, a Satire, but very improperly, as the Subject is not Vice ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... with the rest in a bowl. "I don't believe she's seen a hothouse rose since she left college," thought Phyllis, with a stab of pity at her tender heart. But for the first hour of their stay Georgiana had been her gay and brilliant self, flinging quips and jests broadcast, asking impertinent questions, making saucy comments, quite as of old. It was only when Dot Manning, toward the end of the visit, began a sober tale of the misfortunes which had come thronging into the life of one of their classmates, that Georgiana's ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... that their bones may be cast into 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
... cursed out your theories and creeds, it almost seemed impertinent for me to do it, because you really have so many talents and accomplishments, so much knowledge, so infinite a capacity for things of the mind, which are rather out of my mental sphere. And I've wondered sometimes, even if you ever consented ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... I sometimes think I resemble—I have, I say, like him turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, and like him, too, frequently shaken hands with their intoxicating friendship. After you have perused these pages, should you think them trifling and impertinent, I only beg leave to tell you that the poor author wrote them under some twitching qualms of conscience, arising from a suspicion that he was doing what he ought not to do; a predicament he has more than once been ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... unwilling. "I counted upon the chaise," she said, turning her back to me, and roughly pushing back all the quiet tumblers on the cupboard shelf as if they had been impertinent. "Yes, I desired the chaise for once. I ain't goin' berryin' nor to fetch home no more wilted vegetation this year. Season's about past, except for a poor few o' late things," she added in a milder tone. "I'm goin' up country. No, I ain't intendin' to go berryin'. I've ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... mind and character which he must have known could not be intelligently discussed in a book so swiftly and lightly executed. No such notion seems to have occurred to him. He has rattled off his "Reminiscences" with a confidence which may be justly called indecent and impertinent. The result is what might have been expected. We have so many pages of voluble, superficial, and exceedingly tedious talk about Mr. Choate,—and that is the whole of it. For our own part, we have been not at all profited by the reading, and the little amusement it has afforded ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... requite God by taking rather than by giving, not merely because He needs nothing, and we have nothing which is not His. If that were all, it might be as true of an almighty tyrant, and might be so used as to forbid all worship before the gloomy presence, to give reverence and love to whom were as impertinent as the grossest offerings of savage idolaters. But the motive of His giving to us is the deepest reason why our best recompense to Him is our thankful reception of His mercies. The principle of our text reposes at last on 'God is love and wishes our hearts,' and not merely ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... into action. He had met Gilbert Palgrave out hunting. He had seen the impertinent, cocksure way in which he ran his eyes over women. He clutched the handle of the case and said: "That's all right, thanks. Miss Ludlow will write to Mrs. Palgrave." Then he turned and went down the ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... excited 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 ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... thought of seeing English visitors," she continued. "Shall I be impertinent if I ask why you have come ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... to 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 her to ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... was something of a scene. Sir John asserted that my conduct had been impertinent and unprofessional. I replied that I had only done my duty and appealed to Dr. Jeffries, who remarked drily that we had to deal not with opinions and theories but with facts and that the facts seemed to bear me out. On learning the truth, the ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... especially with young ladies of from sixteen to twenty-six years of age, both inclusive. He could imitate the French-horn to admiration, sang comic songs most inimitably, and had the most insinuating way of saying impertinent nothings to his doting female admirers. He had acquired, somehow or other, the reputation of being a great wit, and, accordingly, whenever he opened his mouth, everybody who knew him ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... carpenter, surgeon, the two mates, the cooper, and a seaman. Here we thought ourselves safe and secure. The next day, in the afternoon, two of the boatswain's friends, which had lately deserted from his majesty's service, and an Irish clerk with them, came to pay us a visit. They were so impertinent, as not only to enquire into the reasons of the disturbance among ourselves, but they also instructed us in our duty, telling us, they came from our commander the boatswain, with orders to see my journal. I told them the journal ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... obtained the distinction of this Epigram by his impertinent inquiries into what he called ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... perhaps to Thwackum, 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 rule ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... himself, "I see how it is! She has gone and made poor old June unhappy, with her scornful airs—a little impertinent puss!—I wonder Flora does not teach her ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... desire. In the East, hundreds of men would have tried to reason the men out of this feud, and some few would have forcibly separated them while fighting; but in the diggings any interference in such matters is considered impertinent, and deserving ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... little speculation, which will involve a large correspondence; and for reasons that I need not specify to a man like you, they do not wish to have every ragtag, bobtail post-office clerk poring over their letters, and asking impertinent questions at the delivery- window. If they can find a shrewd, square man, who knows how to keep his mouth shut, and who can't be fooled, that for a handsome consideration will put the letters away in ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... of their repartees, which, as I said, were seasoned with humour, may be gathered from these instances. When a troublesome fellow was pestering Demaratus with impertinent questions, and this in particular several times repeated, "Who is the best man in Sparta?" He answered, "He that is least like you." To some who were commending the Eleans for managing the Olympic games with so much justice and propriety, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... the back of impertinent puppies," cried the doctor, angrily. "I said lying—lying in wait near ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... purpose, he went away again, for thou must know that he is wroth with her because, he having written some verses in which he praised the great Gustavus, she did not write to him, she who, as thou knowest, has written to a hundred impertinent apes. I might complain, with far more reason; but, so long as kings, queens, princes, and princesses do me only that sort of harm, I shall never complain. The chancellor [Seguier, at whose house the Academy met] had forgotten ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... always with just the right thing to say—or to withhold, if silence were better than speech; and her fit and proper place in the world as a great man's wife—and a good and beautiful woman—was always conceded to her with due honor, even by the most impertinent among the highly placed of her own sex, without any necessity for self-assertion on her part whatever—without assumption ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... 52. 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 so to place the power ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... 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 ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... disturbed without reason. And for the moment, even when she heard impertinent and incredulous fellows pooh-poohing the monument, and sharpening their rather dull wits upon its corners, she did not open her lips, when otherwise she would have spoken her mind with a vengeance; for Jeanne Marchand had a reputation for spirit and temper, and she spared no one when ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... haughtily. "I most decidedly object. I have told all I have to tell concerning this murder. About my private affairs I will answer no impertinent questions, either now ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... secrecy—something dark and hidden within you—and I fear your influence over my uncle. You have known me less than a fortnight—Mr. Farrington, less than a week—yet you have made what I can only conceive to be impertinent proposals of marriage to me. To-day you were for three hours with my uncle. I can only guess what ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... threatened war; but the threat proved fruitless, and even the Scotch Council pressed Charles to give fuller satisfaction to the people. "I will rather die," the king wrote to Hamilton, "than yield to these impertinent and damnable demands"; but it was needful to gain time. "The discontents at home," wrote Lord Northumberland to Wentworth, "do rather increase than lessen"; and Charles was without money or men. It was in vain that he begged for a loan from Spain on promise of declaring war ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... sort of women it was generally pleasing to represent. Certainly the language of the two friends, Musidorus and Pyrocles, in the Arcadia, is such as we could not now use except to women; and in Cervantes the same tone is sometimes adopted, as in the novel of the Curious Impertinent. And I think there is a passage in the New Atlantis[1] of Lord Bacon, in which he speaks of the possibility of such a feeling, but hints the extreme danger of entertaining it, or allowing it any place in a moral theory. I mention this with reference to Shakspeare's ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... ex-governess from a new angle—a more illuminating than agreeable one, at which she no longer figured as pitiful, her little assumptions and sillinesses calling for the chivalrous forbearance of persons more happily placed; but as actively impertinent, an usurper of authority and privileges altogether outside her office and her scope. She was greedy—not a pretty word yet a true one, covering both her manner of eating and her speech. Registering which facts Damaris was sensible of almost physical ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... another of the many forms of intoxication to which circumstances subjected the poor lover. In Fallow field, among impertinent young men, Evan's pride proclaimed him a tailor. At Beckley Court, acted on by one genuine soul, he forgot it, and felt elate in his manhood. The shades of Tailordom dispersed like fog before the full South-west breeze. When I say he forgot it, the fact was present enough to him, but it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Square Ravenslee entered the subway and, buying his ticket, was jostled by a boy, a freckled boy, round-headed and round of nose, who stared at him with a pair of round, impertinent eyes. ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow... a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in "Every Man in His Humour" ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... him, without waiting to hear what he supposed. I was not going to stand there to expose my tortured feelings to the insolent laughter and impertinent curiosity of ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... woman to be elegant, to dance or to sing; but I should like to see as much care devoted to her mind as to her body, and between being ignorant and savante I should like to see a road taken which would prevent annoyance from an impertinent sufficiency or from a tiresome stupidity. I should like very much to be able to say of anyone of my sex that she knows a hundred things of which she does not boast, that she has a well-balanced mind, that ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... not without offence remember it, since beauty, like the sun, must sometimes lose its power to choose, and shine into equal warmth the peasant and the courtier." He quaintly adds, "However presumptuous or impertinent these thoughts may have appeared at my first entertaining them, why may I not hope that my having kept them decently a secret for full fifty years may be now a good round plea for their pardon?" The imperious spirit which ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... suffering fellow-men and into closer communion with his God. He had learned that religion is a thing of the spirit, and not a matter of creeds and catechisms. Of Robert Burns's own religion it would be impertinent to inquire too curiously. The religion of a man is not to be paraded before the public like the manifesto of a party politician. After all, is there a single man who can sincerely, without equivocation or mental reservation, label himself Calvinist, Arminian, Socinian, or Pelagian? If ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... a single point which indeed would be more correctly placed among our observations on the use of the spleen, but which it will not be altogether impertinent to notice in this place incidentally. From the splenic branch which passes into the pancreas, and from the upper part, arise the posterior coronary, gastric, and gastroepiploic veins, all of which are distributed ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... my noble friend!—I love and admire you for the generous conclusion of your last more than I can express. Though I began this letter with impertinent raillery, knowing that you always loved to indulge my mad vein; yet never was there a heart that more glowed with friendly love, than ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... in silence; then "Come," I said, "I am going to be impertinent! I am in a mood to ask questions, ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson |
