"Audacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... first, as unrivalled by his colleagues in talent and audacity. He was a man of gigantic size, and possessed a voice of thunder. His countenance was that of an Ogre on the shoulders of a Hercules. He was as fond of the pleasures of vice as of the practice of cruelty; and it was said there ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... near, heard the words. For the first time Russell saw the expression of careless audacity leave her face, her pink ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... cried the king. "That is more of his audacity! It is unbearable. I will stand it no longer. I will instantly give him battle. Farewell, and if for ever—still for ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... about. He had written a little book of verse, "Vision of Helen," he called it, I believe.... The oblique stare of the hostile Trojans. Helen coifed with flame. Menelaus. Love ... Greater men than Grimshaw had written of Priam's tragedy. His audacity called attention to his imperfect, colourful verse, his love of beauty, his sense of the exotic, the strange, the unhealthy. People read his book on the sly and talked about it in whispers. It was indecent, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... an invitation from a former waiting-woman of Madame de Warens to attend her home to Freiburg. On this expedition he paid an hour's visit to his father, who had settled and remarried at Nyon. Returning from Freiburg, he came to Lausanne, where, with an audacity that might be taken for the first presage of mental disturbance, he undertook to teach music. "I have already," he says, "noted some moments of inconceivable delirium, in which I ceased to be myself. Behold me now a teacher of singing, without knowing how to decipher an air. Without the least ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... used as the symbol of impertinence and audacity; for whilst all other animals shun man more than anything else, and run away even before he comes near them, the fly lights upon his ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... to the city of Chandrapur, where, hearing the name of my master Hemgupt, he recollected that one of his father's wealthiest correspondents was so called. Thereupon, with his usual audacity, he presented himself at the house, walked in, and although he was clothed in tatters, introduced himself, told his father's name ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... defy justice, insult the Consuls, beat the Tribunes, parade the streets with a gang of armed slaves, killing persons disagreeable to him; and in the Senate itself he had high friends and connections, who threw a shield over him when his audacity had gone beyond endurance." Milo was as disreputable as Clodius. His chief fame had been gained in the schools of the gladiators. Gangs of armed slaves accompanied him everywhere, and there were constant collisions between his retainers and those ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... was startled and bewildered by the audacity of their scheme; but forgetting the gratitude which he owed to Jiuyemon for sparing his life on the previous ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... its surplus was rather less than that of the other company, wrote nearly two millions and a half. In short the Salamander gambled, and played to win, and as a matter of fact it usually did win by sheer audacity. It had never made any money out of its underwriting, that real test of company efficiency; but four years out of five the daring manipulation of its assets in Wall Street—politely termed the slight rearrangement of ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... the sinking spirit of the courier's wife. She recovered her courage; she found her voice. 'Look at me, my lady, if you please,' she said, with a sudden outbreak of audacity. ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... we snatch it for ourselves; and the republic will be all the stronger to resist, if the kings of Europe should band themselves together to reduce it." I know not which of the two I should admire the more: the simplicity of the multitude or the audacity of the adventurer. But such are the subtleties, such the quibbling reasons, with which he blinds and leads this people. How long a course so tortuous can be pursued with safety I am incapable of guessing; not long, one would suppose; and yet this singular man has ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Dukes were on the most familiar terms, and addressed each other by their Christian names. This is one of the shades invented to mark a degree of intimacy, to repel the audacity of French familiarity, and humiliate conceit—"tell me, Henri, I am in such a desperate difficulty that I can only ask advice of an old friend who understands business, and you have practice and experience. My daughter Clotilde, as you know, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... the second night of his visit to Newbury Grange that they had cornered him in the billiard-room. It was the beautiful daughter of Lord Castleberry who, with the audacity of youth, forced him, metaphorically speaking, into a corner, from whence there ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... of the vestal virgins, and several others of high rank amongst the connexions of his great house. These may have done something; but it is due to Sylla, who had a sympathy with everything truly noble, to suppose him struck with powerful admiration for the audacity of the young patrician, standing out in such severe solitude among so many examples of timid concession; and that to this magnanimous feeling in the Dictator much of the indulgence which he showed may ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... above all, the tranquil possession of the imperial palace, conspired to favour the deceit. [39] Placed on the Persian throne, but concealing his person from the eyes of the multitude in the impenetrable pomp of an Oriental seraglio, the pseudo Smerdis had the audacity to despatch, among the heralds that proclaimed his accession, a messenger to the Egyptian army, demanding their allegiance. The envoy found Cambyses at Ecbatana in Syria. Neither cowardice nor sloth was the fault of that monarch; he sprang ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... [interrupting]. Ho! respectable! How did you pick up Mangan? How did you pick up my husband? You have the audacity to tell me that ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not be done. On the fifteenth day we got orders to go out, but that was countermanded in two hours. To the last we could scarcely believe we were actually to get out. The real audacity of the position was its safety; the Germans knew to a foot where we were. I think I told you of some of the "you must stick it out" messages we got from our [French] General,—they put it up to us. It is a wonder to me that we slept ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... civilised world. But no—pinned on the edge of the dead woman's dress was the usual now familiar triangular piece of grey paper—the grimmest visiting card ever designed by the wit of man! And this time The Avenger has surpassed himself as regards his audacity and daring—so cold in its maniacal fanaticism ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... a kind of miracle, something abnormal and exceptional. Yes! the more I see what marriage is, the more I look back with terror at the risk I ran. I am like those who, ignorant of the dangers they have unwittingly gone through, turn pale when all is over, amazed at their own audacity. ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... lightly. He obeyed, and she swung back again, nestling into the curve of his arm. 'That's nice, isn't it? Now, what was ee going to tell?' Paul had not a word to say for himself. If he had ever had the audacity to picture anything in his own mind like this present truth, he would have thought it certain to be deliriously happy; but as a matter of fact he was miserable, and felt himself at the clumsiest disadvantage. 'You said,' she ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... at his audacity, Chris dropped the phial which splintered on the floor. Watching there in the darkness, he shook so with nerves that ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... the very means placed within his reach of satisfying the craving desire of his heart; and yet, all the same, he seemed to shrink back with a vague and undefined dread. A thousand impalpable fears and doubts beset his mind. He had grown timid as a woman. The old happy audacity had been destroyed by sleepless nights and a torturing anxiety. It was a new thing for Keith Macleod to have become a prey ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... are drawn with much boldness and energy, but it is not the fortunate audacity of Orgagna. They are much more the work of a mechanic, not self-distrustful, but with comparatively little feeling for the higher range of artistic expression. They are quite destitute of sentiment, but are not without a strong, rough, hardy humor. The drawing is far from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... has eradicated the monarchy,—expelled the proprietary, persecuted religion, and trampled upon law,—you may call this France if you please: but of the ancient France nothing remains but its central geography; its iron frontier; its spirit of ambition; its audacity of enterprise; its perplexing intrigue. These, and these alone, remain: and they remain heightened in their principle and augmented in their means. All the former correctives, whether of virtue or of weakness, which existed in the old monarchy, are gone. No single new corrective ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... bitterness entertained by the anti-education section of the priests found utterance, and the paper was, almost openly, denounced as an infidel publication. At first indeed, the charge was shrouded in mysterious insinuations; but it soon gained strength and audacity, and received the unblushing sanction of at least one prelate. The answer of the Nation was confined to one indignant line. Proof was demanded and was not offered; but its very absence only deepened the malignity of the slanderers. Even in the midst of this storm the muse of Thomas Davis sang ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... pursued his work on fossil fishes with ardor and an almost perilous audacity, in view of his small means, he found also time for various other investigations. During the year 1836, though pushing forward constantly the publication of the "Poissons Fossiles," his "Prodromus of the Class of Echinodermata" appeared in the Memoirs of ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... the history of the war one of its most remarkable chapters. For sheer audacity and success it has few parallels. Twenty-two ships, mostly British, have been sunk and one has been captured by this German cruiser, rightly named ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... immense distance, out of shot for an opera-glass; when in her immediate vicinity his motto was that of the Breton baron—mourir muet. Claret-cup flowed and Champagne sparkled, powerless to raise him to the audacity of an avowal. Under the woods of Nuneham, in the gardens of Blenheim, amid the crowd of the Commemoration ball, the same deep river of diffidence flowed between him and his happiness. My own idea is that, after all was over, the silent ones, like Jacques' ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... they stood, if it wasn't on my corns. Twenty years later I shouldn't have been so particular. But I don't much mind now, bless you! You wont at forty-four. There's nothing to these young men. All talk, pretence, audacity, and paper collar, I assure you. I've studied all of them. They are the same now as then. Human nature, you know, my dear Fourteen, is the same yesterday, to-day, and week after next. I used to think it wasn't; now I know ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... in the code of female manners which I perpetrated on that occasion, made me a laughing-stock and a by-word for many a long day afterwards! All this, I say, must be fresh in your recollection, and yet you have the audacity to ask me to expose myself ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... last, and turned to her duties with less sighing than you would have supposed, and no tears at all. Her belief in the wisdom, audacity, and decision of her Angioletto was absolute. She had never known him to fail. Yet if she chanced to think of the towering Count Guarini plying her with flowers and sweatmeats, she shivered to remember her citadel naked of all defences. This made her feel homesick for her lover's arms. ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... hatred of God toward the English I know nothing." Then she spoke up with the old martial ring in her voice and the old audacity in her words, and added, "But I know this—that God will send victory to the French, and that all the English will be flung out of France but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Quaker under the influence of Mrs. Knowles, who now proceeded to deprecate Johnson's wrath at what he regarded as an apostasy. "Madam," he said, "she is an odious wench," and he proceeded to denounce her audacity in presuming to choose a religion for herself. "She knew no more of the points of difference," he said, "than of the difference between the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems." When Mrs. Knowles said that she had the New Testament before her, he said that it was ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... to ride, single-handed, into the villages and the little towns on the Campo, driving a pack mule before him, with two revolvers in his belt, go straight to the shop or store, select what he wanted, and ride away unopposed because of the terror his exploits and his audacity inspired. Poor country people he usually left alone; the upper class were often stopped on the roads and robbed; but any unlucky official that fell into his hands was sure to get a severe flogging. The army officers did not like his name to be mentioned in their presence. His followers, mounted ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... grave and religious earnestness is at the foundation of her individuality, and she is so assured of this fact that she can safely indulge in wilful gibes at pretension in all its most conventionally sacred forms. This bright audacity is the perfection of moral and intellectual health. No morbid nature, however elevated in its sentiments, would dare to hazard such keen and free remarks as Gail ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... they behaved with great audacity, seemed to value themselves on the crimes they had committed, caused several disturbances at chapel and discovered little or no sense of that miserable condition in which they were. O'Bryan died a Papist, and in the ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... he was by the man's words, Tommy did not hesitate. If audacity had successfully carried him so far, it was to be hoped it would carry him yet farther. He quietly passed into the house and mounted the ramshackle staircase. Everything in the house was filthy beyond words. The grimy paper, of a pattern now indistinguishable, hung ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... Their audacity can be imagined from the part they played in Perkin Warbeck's rebellion of 1492. They decked him out "with some clothes of silk," and John Walters, the Mayor, insisting that the poor Fleming was son to the Duke of Clarence, ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... there may be difference of opinion as to which is by nature the greater gentleman, but, as I said before, I can't conceive how he had the audacity to come to see ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... said, astounded by the very audacity of the rogue's proposition, "you do not flatter yourself that you ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... in the case of Islwyn, where I have thrown some of my translations into sonnet form) or where—as in the Song of the Fisherman's Wife—the metre, even if it could be reproduced, would not in English harmonise with the meaning. I ought perhaps to ask pardon beforehand for the audacity with which I have treated Ieuan Glan Geirionydd's ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... affection; and like most Puritan families, there was little of caressing among them. Sitting there with the rain on the roof and driving through the trees, they planned getting back into the old house. Howard's plan seemed to her full of splendor and audacity. She began to understand his power and wealth now, as he put it into concrete form ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... My dear John Bull, you will be sorry to hear, that despite the activity of our squadron for the suppression of slavery, that faithless country which owes a national existence to oceans of British treasure, and the blood of the finest army the great Wellington ever led, has the unparalleled audacity to make us slave carriers to Cuba. Yes, thousands of those who, if honour and truth were to be found in the Government of Spain, would now be free, are here to be seen pining away their lives in the galling and accursed ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... To those who regard them as grounded in some knowledge of history and of the present political and social condition of those nations, corrected and modified indeed by the personal observation aforesaid, their crudity and audacity will be somewhat less astounding. No one will doubt that other travelers in Europe have been far better qualified to observe and to judge than I was, yet I see and think, and am not forbidden to speak. We know already how Europe appears in the eyes of the learned ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... he, "strange as it may appear to you, a kind hand has not so often been held out to me, that I should forget it, especially when that hand is so fair and gracious. May I be permitted, madam—you will impute it to gratitude rather than audacity—I—I—" (whimper), "madam" (with sudden severity), ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... of mortification she had felt at the sight of that woman in the street with Van, coupled with the sheer audacity of his conduct towards herself that morning, had already sufficiently shamed her. She refused, however, to discuss ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... was insistent; that his business was urgent, and he must know one way or the other immediately. He tried to give Courtland an adequate idea of the greatness of Uncle Ramsey, and the audacity of anybody, especially a little college upstart, attempting to keep him waiting; but Courtland only shook his head and said it wouldn't be possible for him to give his answer at once. If that was the condition of the offer he would ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... each other or their teachers; an eager pursuit by each individual of her own interest and convenience; and a coarse indifference to the interest and convenience of every one else. Most of them could lie with audacity when it appeared advantageous to do so. All understood the art of speaking fair when a point was to be gained, and could with consummate skill and at a moment's notice turn the cold shoulder the instant civility ceased to be profitable. Very little open ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... and he answered, 'Excellent, sir; I have been in all the casernes, and they desire nothing so much as to fight for your Majesty;' and such words as these the King swallows and acts upon. Their confidence, audacity, and presumption are certainly admirable, disdaining any art and management, and apparently anxious to bring about a crisis with the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... squeamishness and caprice of high birth and laziness about her, becomes their ideal; to be favourably noticed, their highest glory; to be loved, these wretched mortals, by this divinity—that thought must often pass through their brain and terrify them with its delicious audacity; oh no, such a thing is not possible. But it is. The lady at first, perhaps most often, singles out as a pastime some young knight, some squire, some page; and, in a half-queenly, half-motherly way, corrects, rebukes his deficiencies, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... through before we were even admitted to the portress's lodge, as much more ceremonial before the portress could be induced to convey our errand to one of the numerous clerks in a counting-house close by. At length, and after many dubious shakes of the head and murmurs of surprise at our audacity, the card was transmitted to ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... college as the natural door between his world and hers; after four years at New Haven he might seek her acquaintance without audacity. To that end he had laboriously accumulated money, and had even passed his matriculation, when his father's death made him indispensable on the poor little farm. Since then he had doggedly plodded ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... 'The Shrine of the Slaves.' Strangely, as I revise this page for press, a slip is sent me from 'The Christian' newspaper, in which the comment of the orthodox evangelical editor may be hereafter representative to us of the heresy of his sect; in its last audacity, actually opposing the power of the Spirit to the work of Christ. (I only wish I had been at Matlock, and heard the kind ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... there were spectres, possibly. She took a good look, and heard the beasts walking on the grass, and she distinctly saw spectres moving in the trees. Then she seized her bucket again; fear had lent her audacity. "Bah!" said she; "I will tell him that there was no more water!" And she resolutely ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... vagaries, the master could not help noticing in her different tasks the workings of a quick, restless, and vigorous perception. She knew neither the hesitancy nor the doubts of childhood. Her answers in class were always slightly dashed with audacity. Of course she was not infallible. But her courage and daring in venturing beyond her own depth and that of the floundering little swimmers around her, in their minds outweighed all errors of judgment. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... the audacity to tell you he knows what is the matter with me. He will say this is delirium tremens—a lie, and you must ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... not keep her guests on fruit and water, and assured her that English poverty was equivalent to German riches. He spent six or seven hours tete-a-tete with his hostess each evening of his stay, and declares that he was astonished at the originality and variety of her conversation. He had the audacity to ask her if the Arab chief who accompanied her to Palmyra had been her lover, but she, not ill-pleased, assured him that there was no truth in the report, which at one time had been generally believed. She said ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... who fiercely reproached the Russian with his crime. He was the son of a tradesman, and had been apprehended while exciting the people to insurrection. A circumstance which occasioned alarm was the discovery that he belonged to a sect of German religious and political fanatics. His audacity had never failed him in prison. It was imagined, for a moment, that the spirit of equality had penetrated into Russia. He did not, however, disclose ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... social need. And now at last he has come to look upon the life-seed as not simply in his keeping as a trust for another, but as his own property to control in the interest of his own future. Can human audacity reach higher? Can the assumption of divine and creative responsibility by man out-strip this latest act of self-government? From beast to citizen, did we say? But have we not found the process during the last four hundred years to be from citizenship to godship, ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... youngest had a wrinkle on her brow; their forms wanted the round and supple grace of early years. Living principally in the open air, trained from infancy to feats of activity, their muscles were sharp and prominent, their aspects had something of masculine audacity and rudeness; health itself seemed in them more loathsome than disease. Upon those faces of bronze, vice had set its ineffable, unmistaken seal. To those eyes never had sprung the tears of compassion or woman's ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... army complained of the spirit of reaction they had noticed. Bonaparte was constantly urged by his private correspondents to take one side or the other, or to act for himself. He was irritated by the audacity of the enemies of the Republic, and he saw plainly that the majority of the councils had an evident ill-will towards him. The orators of the Club of Clichy missed no opportunity of wounding his self-love in speeches and pamphlets. They spared no insults, disparaged his success, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... isn't this the woman they trump up a story about, as having been a perpetual source of jealousy to the neglected wife, and monopolizing all the tenderness and pretty speeches of the once faithful and still too conquering Misis? For our own part, we think it is a shocking instance of female audacity, for the devourer of such boat-loads of fish, and the visiter of M. and Madame Grimod, to affect jealousy of Julia or any one else. Let her be contented with her Grimods and oysters, and leave Julia to listen to the harpings of Apollo in peace. We have another letter, dated a few days after the first, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... country which will be felt as long as it remains united. It is doubtful if anyone else could have rendered these same services, for, to my knowledge at least, we have no man in the country who combines financial genius with an unexampled boldness and audacity. He has emphatically been the man for the hour, abruptly transferred from his remote birthplace, it has seemed to me, by a special intervention of Providence; free of all local prejudices, which have been, and will continue to be, the curse of this country, and with a mettle ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... at her innocence or her audacity. That such a baby should do so much mischief. The thought irritated him. "It was impossible that he should not see it, Lady Betty," he said, with a touch of ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... may fairly be said to beat Mr. Henty's record. His adventures will delight boys by the audacity and peril they depict. The story is one of ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... girl in the porch. Those people should have been hunted out of that long ago. Who knows how many spies they have harboured right in the very midst of our camps? A safe-conduct from the Commander-in-Chief! The audacity of the fellow! Ha! ha! Now we shall catch him to-night, and then we shall find out, without any safe-conduct, what he has got to say, that is so very important. ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... remarkable now: the audacity with which I went to a baudy house; all the rest seems to have began, and followed as naturally as possible. What a lovely recollection it is! nothing in my career since is so lovely as our life then was; scarce a trace of what may be called ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... we were, but a heaven on earth for us both; and, indeed, we could not but recognize that merely thus to love and be loved was in itself a thing so immense (without all the other blessings we had) that we were fain to tremble at our audacity in daring ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... "has that fellow had the audacity to come here for another job? He has been discharged from his section this ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... of note which did not bring one or more long articles or short notes regretting the loss, describing the end, and estimating the man and artist. But the phenomenal ignorance, exuberance of imagination, and audacity of statement, manifested by almost every one of the writers of these articles and notes are sufficient to destroy one's faith in journalism completely and for ever. Among the offenders were men of great celebrity, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... it. All were well assured that their lady had fallen into an ambuscade, formed by Dawfyd the one-eyed, a redoubted freebooter of the period, who had ventured upon this hardy enterprise in the hope of obtaining a large ransom for the captive Eveline, and all, incensed at his extreme insolence and audacity, devoted his head and limbs to the eagles ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... mercante di campagna, who is not nobly born, who is not a priest, who has a wife and children, thinks he has a right to share in the management of the affairs of his country, upon the ground that he manages his own well. He points out abuses; he demands reforms. What audacity! The priests would cast him forth as they would a mere advocate, were it not that his occupation is the most necessary of all occupations, and that by turning out a man ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... questionable quality. The moment that a thing is a metier, it is wholly absurd to talk about any disinterestedness in the pursuit of it. To the professional politician national affairs are a manufacture into which he puts his audacity and his time, and out of which he expects to make so much percentage for ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... residence of Boone was again besieged by a body of Indians, whose number was increased to two hundred. With their numbers, their hardihood and audacity were increased in proportion. To prevent the neighboring stations from sending assistance, detachments from their body assailed most of the adjacent settlements at the same time. The gallant inmates of the station made them repent their temerity, though, as formerly, with some loss; ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... did it," ejaculated Isburn, greatly astonished at her coolness and audacity. "But how did you find out how to ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... a mad and splendid game she and Hanson played together! He rose to her every soaring audacity; they took almost impossible chances as lightly as a hunter takes a hurdle. The lift of her eyelash, an imperceptibly significant gesture, a casual word spoken in conversation, these Hanson met with an incredible ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... 'hallucinated' Magdalens, conducting grand picnics in that 'charming' climate, and making life a May day, is not the world's mighty Deliverer; and his miracle-mongering demagogue, claiming to be the Son of David in lying genealogies, and the Son of God in blasphemous audacity, is not the world's Teacher of all Truth and Righteousness. The new Jesus is a poor substitute for the Divine ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... eternally chosen; for that I praise God. I do not understand it. If I did, could I praise Him? But I know my settled place in the divine decrees." I quote the beginning. It is pregnant with superb spiritual audacity, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... that to the licensed victuallers of eternity." Paul experienced a thrill. The woman's audacity was boundless. Did ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... other countries, in which discussion is permitted at all, there is at least the appearance of fair play, whatever may be done covertly; but here, it seems to be sufficient to justify falsehood, frauds, nay, barefaced rascality, to establish that the injured party has had the audacity to meddle with public questions, not being what the public chooses to call a public man. It is scarcely necessary to say that, when such an opinion gets to be effective, it must entirely defeat the real intentions of a ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... heresy, while everything in the Old and New Testaments which can be distorted into an antichristian and heathen meaning they regard as the foundation of Christianity. In support of their assertion that Christianity is not opposed to the use of force, these men usually, with the greatest audacity, bring together all the most obscure passages from the Old and New Testaments, interpreting them in the most unchristian way—the punishment of Ananias and Sapphira, of Simon the Sorcerer, etc. They quote all those sayings of Christ's which can possibly be interpreted ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... passage; its bulky Tatar, towering high above his scraggy steed, impressed in shining gold upon its cover. Read, borrowed, handed round, it is devoured and discussed with fifth form critical presumption, the adventurous audacity arresting, the literary charm not analyzed but felt, the vivid personality of the old Etonian winged with public school freemasonry. Scarcely in the acquired insight of all the intervening years could those who enjoyed it ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... baby? And you put it across old Rumbold?" Laughter and sheer admiration of her audacity were mingled in his voice. With a baby it was a good bluff; without one, the girl's ingenuity seemed to ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... of an anonymous poem, and the audacity of an imaginary character, which the writer supposes to be meant for Lady Byron, may be deemed to merit this formidable denunciation from their most sweet voices, I neither know nor care; but when he tells me that I can not 'in any way justify my own behavior in that affair,' I acquiesce, because ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... rest on Christ's presence is audacity rather than courage, and is sure to collapse, like a pricked bladder, when the sharp point of a real peril comes in contact with it. If we sit down and reckon the forces that we have to oppose to the foes that we are sure to meet, we shall find ourselves ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... For whimsical audacity, and quaint unexpectedness. Mr. PAIN, in his latest book, Playthings and Parodies, would be hard to beat. In this there is a good back-ground of shrewd observation. He does not propose to make your flesh creep, or your eyes ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... thirty-five—when Henry of Guise and Henry of Valois died within six months of one another by the assassin's knife—I remembered Pavannes' augury. And remembering it, I read the ways of Providence, and saw that the very audacity of which Guise took advantage to entrap Coligny led him too in his turn to trip smiling and bowing, a comfit box in his hand and the kisses of his mistress damp on his lips, into a king's closet—a ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... Tasso, as expert in the use of the sword as of the pen, put to flight the cowardly traitor and his two brothers, whom he had brought with him to attack the poet. This adventure, and the cause of it, reached the ears of the duke, whose resentment was kindled by the audacity of a poor poet and dependant of his court in falling in love with a lady of royal birth. On the strength of this suspicion his papers were seized, and all the sonnets, madrigals, and canzones that were supposed to give countenance to it, confiscated. ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... Austria might indirectly have dared to influence the sentiments and conduct of her ci-devant subjects of Lombardy; but his own high opinion of the awe which his very name inspired at Vienna dispersed these thoughts, and his wrath fell entirely on the audacity of Pitt and Markof. Strict orders were therefore issued to the prefects and commissaries of police to watch vigilantly all foreigners and strangers, who might have arrived, or who should arrive, to witness the ceremony of the coronation, and to arrest instantly any one who should ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... a dusky red. While Jim and I were talking, she would come and go with rapid glances at us, leaving on her passage an impression of grace and charm and a distinct suggestion of watchfulness. Her manner presented a curious combination of shyness and audacity. Every pretty smile was succeeded swiftly by a look of silent, repressed anxiety, as if put to flight by the recollection of some abiding danger. At times she would sit down with us and, with her soft cheek dimpled by the ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... besetting fault was a tendency toward an Egyptian blackness in his composition. Fond of strong contrasts as was John Martin, he is, at times, as great a sinner in the handling of his blacks. An experimenter of audacity, Piranesi's mastery of the technique of etching has seldom been equalled, and even in his inferior work the skilful printing atones for many defects. The remarkable richness and depth of tone, brought about by continuous and innumerable bitings, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... Opposition. Bit by bit it came to pass that Helena Langley grew to look upon Ericson over there in that queer, ebullient corner of new Spain, as her ideal hero; and so it happened that when at last she met her hero in the flesh for the first time her frank audacity seemed to desert her. ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... him with an angry and scrutinizing eye; for Darby's deportment, to say truth, puzzled him very much. Whether his conduct proceeded from audacity, or shear simplicity, he felt unable to determine, from anything that he could see in ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... else except myself as their mother.' Yaja, desiring to do good unto the king said, 'So be it!' Then the Brahmanas (present there), their expectations fully gratified, bestowed names upon the new-born pair, 'Let this son of king Drupada, they said, be called Dhrishtadyumna, because of his excessive audacity and because of his being born like Dyumna with a natural mail and weapon.' And they also said, 'Because this daughter is so dark in complexion, she should be called ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... a woman looked a divinity, Fancy Day appeared one that morning as she floated down those school steps, in the form of a nebulous collection of colours inclining to blue. With an audacity unparalleled in the whole history of village-school-mistresses at this date—partly owing, no doubt, to papa's respectable accumulation of cash, which rendered her profession not altogether one of necessity—she had actually donned a hat and feather, and lowered her hitherto ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... and set up the Queen of Scots in her place, to hand over Elizabeth's ships to Spain, confiscate property, and to kill a number of anti-Catholic people. The Hawkins counterplot of revenge on Philip and his guilty confederates was completely successful. The comic audacity of it is almost beyond belief. The Pope had bestowed his blessing on the conspiracy, and the Spanish Council of State was enthusiastically certain of its success. So credulous were they of the great piratical seaman's ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... that no sign of payment was made, he proclaimed his intention of taking steps—not according, but in opposition, to the law—in order to obtain his due. Montrond knew himself to be a wretched swordsman, and therefore resolved at once to replace his want of skill by audacity. He sent his servant to the stable where four-and-twenty goodly steeds belonging to the Count de Champagne were champing their oats in all security, with orders to carry them off and leave in lieu of the magnificent animals a message to the effect that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... He can deny and contradict the statements made by other Counts, Ambassadors, Kings, or by himself, without its becoming a matter of sufficient importance to interest us. Such giving and taking the lie is a part of the business of persons of this kidney. But he has actually had the audacity to deny the truthfulness of the report by RUSSELL to the Times of a conversation held between them. If this thing is not checked in the bud, he will next be denying—his conversation! with the Tribune "special," as reported by that ubiquitous observer. What will there be ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... no greetings. Only some of the women looked at the young man as if struck, or almost startled, by his good looks. Certainly he was amazingly handsome. His brown skin suggested the sun; his figure athletic exercises; the expression of his face audacity and complete self-possession. Yet there was in his large eyes a look of almost appealing gentleness, as if he were seeking something, some sympathy, some affection, perhaps, which he needed and had never yet found. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... My Lord Farquhart, if he is, in reality, this gentleman highwayman, doubtless loves the excitement of the chase. 'Tis merely a new divertisement—a hunt, as it were, for men instead of beasts. In truth, it almost makes me love Lord Farquhart to find he has such courage, such audacity, such ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... of the North American Quarterly which contained the exposure of these fictions, when another contributor to the same periodical, Mr. Prescott, began his history, founded on authors already denounced as fabulous by so high an authority as the Hon. Lewis Cass!" Think of the unparalleled audacity of the author of the "History of Ferdinand and Isabella" in actually exercising his own judgment with regard to the credibility of the Spanish chroniclers, after so high an authority had pronounced against them! However, we are not yet prepared to abandon our own belief in Mr. Prescott's "good faith." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... that does not concern them, practically dropped a campaign with which the rest continued to persevere. But Punch's silence was misunderstood. At any rate, it was presumed upon. When he could stand the audacity of the poachers no longer, he broke out, as recounted, in the summer of 1844, again in the following year, and once more in 1847, into a practical prosecution. Douglas Jerrold's caustic pen had full play in his all-round denunciation of the pilferers, and in Punch's name he let fly ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Desert-Laura, hurtles through the eclipse-light of history like the stone from a catapult,—rules a church with iron rods, organizes, denounces, intrigues, executes, keeps an unarmed soldiery to do his behests, and hurls ecclesiastic thunders at kings and emperors with the grand audacity of a commission presumedly divine, while Greeks cringe, and Jews blaspheme, and heathen flee into, or away from, conversion; and the Church itself canonizes this spiritual father, this Sphinx-son of an instinct and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... just enough obvious admiration of Mr. Clinch's audacity in the maiden's manner to impel him to any risk. His only answer was to take from his pocket a small steel instrument. Holding the neck of the bottle firmly in one hand, he passed his thumb and the steel twice or thrice around it. A faint rasping, scratching sound was all the wondering girl heard. ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... had a single and concentrated kind of character. He knew precisely the work which Philip required, and felt himself to be precisely the workman that had so long been wanted. Cool, incisive, fearless, artful, he united the unscrupulous audacity of a condottiere with the wily patience of a Jesuit. He could coil unperceived through unsuspected paths, could strike suddenly, sting mortally. He came prepared, not only to smite the Netherlanders in the open field, but to cope with them in tortuous policy; to outwatch and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... again, and then, as he again paused, Mrs. Thompson looked up to him very sweetly; "madame, what I am going to say will, I am afraid, seem to evince by far too great audacity on my part." ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... turned and laid his back against the panels, trembling in every muscle, terrified by the result of his impulsive audacity, thunder-struck by a lightning-like foreglimpse of its possible consequences. Of what colossal imprudence had ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... audacity which is seldom lacking to women when some action attracts them, or their minds are impelled by curiosity, my neighbor went up to ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... opposition, without destroying it. He then projected the reduction of this body to judicial functions, and associated with himself Lamoignon, keeper of the seals, for the execution of this project. Lamoignon was skilled in coups d'etat. He had audacity, and combined with Maupeou's energetic determination a greater degree of consideration and probity. But he made a mistake as to the force of power, and what it was possible to effect in his times. Maupeou had re-established parliament, changing its members; Lamoignon wished ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... abolished, and it is he that will abolish it. The Messiah is come, and it is he that is the Messiah. The Kingdom of God is about to be revealed, and it is he that will reveal it. He knew well that he would be the victim of his own audacity, but it was by cries and the rending of hearts that the kingdom had ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... difficulty been prevented from edifying the crew of a man of war with his pious oratory. [31] He now addressed the House of Peers, for the first time, with characteristic eloquence, sprightliness, and audacity. He blamed the Commons for not having taken a bolder line. "They have been afraid," he said, "to speak out. They have talked of apprehensions and jealousies. What have apprehension and jealousy to do here? Apprehension ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... kind treatment not for their acts but for their words and supplications. As Marcellus asked to be excused from returning to Sicily, they sent Laevinus. The Syracusans in this way obtained some consideration: the Campanians, however, were led by stupidity to deliver their accusation with too much audacity and were rebuked. Flaccus was not present, but one of his ex-lieutenants ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... Stage costume, too, wherever there is half a chance, is usually made as lascivious and immodest as possible; and a freedom and impropriety prevails among the characters of the piece which would be kicked out of private society the instant it would have the audacity ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... place so naturally and easily, made himself so thoroughly at home and so agreeable to every one, that it was almost impossible for Horace Smithson to resent his audacity! Mr. Smithson's vitals might be devoured by the gnawing of the green-eyed monster, but however fierce that gnawing were, he did not want to seem jealous. Montesma was there as the very incarnation of some experiences ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... adopted as an example to the nations of the earth. Jonathan! we like your amiability; we esteem you as a keen fellow, who, large of trade, and wise in the ways of a cheap government, may well boast a happy people: bridle, then, the audacity of that southern ambition, lest it betray you into unforseen difficulties. Let peace be the guardian of that commerce now teeming its grandeur and wealth on your shores; and in all kindness, Mr. Pierce, do we speak, when we say,—look to those things you send ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton |
