"Bravado" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... going in," he said to Bosinney; "you'd better come back to dinner with us." Into that invitation he put a strange bravado, a stranger pathos: "You, can't deceive me," his look and voice seemed saying, "but see—I trust you—I'm not afraid ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... This idea may be carried out in other instances. The bravery of civilization is not the bravado that savages call bravery, and modesty is now a virtue where boasting used to be reckoned as the necessary complement of bravery. As for hospitality in the old sense, it is not now a 'virtue' not to kill ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... a small body of light cavalry passed along the glen, and, turning round a point of rock, showed themselves before the town: they (6) skirred the fields almost to the gates, as if by way of bravado and to defy the garrison to a skirmish. The Moors were not slow in replying to it. About seventy horse and a number of foot who had guarded the walls sallied forth impetuously, thinking to make easy prey of these insolent marauders. The ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... Aberginians, had been able to take a bloody revenge for the attempt on his life. But no satisfactory reason occurred to him why the body of Pieskaret should have been fastened to the raft. It seemed a wanton act of bravado, which he could not reconcile with the known qualities of Sassacus. Concealment and not exposure, he thought, should have been the policy, but on the contrary, the very course had been adopted most likely to lead ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... observed Andy. It was not said with that false admiration which so often keeps a man on the wrong road from sheer bravado. Andy was rather white, ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... bravado was but a scintillation, on a hard and highly polished surface, and had Georgie been able to penetrate into Lucia's heart he would have found complete healing for his recent severe mortification. He ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... Beggar shall brave it, and Wily Will too, Simplicity shall knave it, wherever we go: With lustly bravado, take care that care will, To catch it and snatch it we have ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... apart from 'le mot rare' is an impossibility. The beauties of restraint, of clarity, of refinement, and of precision we pass by unheeding; we can see nothing there but coldness and uniformity; and we go back with eagerness to the fling and the bravado that we love so well. It is as if we had become so accustomed to looking at boxers, wrestlers, and gladiators that the sight of an exquisite minuet produced no effect on us; the ordered dance strikes ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... at Raffles, with the watery eyes of unsuspecting innocence. I itched to emulate the fine bravado of my friend. ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... throughout, but with a well-worn cushion on the seat of it, in which it was the miller's custom to sit when the work of the day was done. In this chair no one else would ever sit, unless Sam would do so occasionally, in bravado, and as a protest against his father's authority. When he did so his mother would be wretched, and his sister lately had begged him to desist from the sacrilege. Close to this was a little round deal table, on which would be set ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... England." The {138} rapidity of his movements "gave amazing advantage for the display of his inimitably fine science," says the writer of the account in the Cambridge Chronicle for 1827. "On taking the champion's belt many sprung up in bravado, but none in arms sufficiently hardy to dispute his well-earned honours. At length, Peter Crawley got backed against him. Crawley was a giant and stood 6 feet, 2 inches, while Ward was 5 feet, 9 ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... shadow, but the figures were a man and a woman, and that was their whole concern and their mysterious beauty,—it was the rhythm in which they moved, at last, along the roof and down into the dark hole; he first, drawing her gently after him. She came down very slowly. The excitement and bravado and uncertainty of that long day and night seemed all at once to tell upon her. When his feet were on the carpet and he reached up to lift her down, she twined her arms about his neck as after a long separation, and turned her face to him, and her lips, with their perfume of ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... so much in deceiving his audience. It is this inability which unfortunately results in rumours being spread of wonderful performances being given by magicians in distant lands, notably the Rope trick, with which I will deal later. Such rumours and stories are started by persons who from bravado will swear that they have seen this, that, and the other, in order generally to be the centre of ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... professional criminals—living a life of defensive warfare with the community; and the odds are heavy against him. He therefore builds up a defensive psychology against it—a psychology of boldness, bravado, and self-justification. The good criminal—which means the successful one, he who has most successfully carried through a series of depradations against the enemy, the common enemy, the public—is a hero. He is recognized as such, toasted ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Marguerite Blakeney at last, quietly, and without that touch of bravado which had characterised her attitude all along, "Chauvelin, my friend, shall we try to understand one another. It seems that my wits have become rusty by contact with this damp climate. Now, tell me, you are very anxious to discover ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... of jest among her mates. At sixteen she suddenly thrust her foot forward into womanhood with saucy bravado, as it seemed. At seventeen she snatched it back—pettishly, some said, but there were those who looked deeper, and they discerned a certain vague terror in the movement—a dread of the unknown. Since that time—almost a year now—Nannie had been hovering on the ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... There was bravado here on his part, and nervousness to be discerned beneath it; for it is most certain that her reverie was not exactly as he would have it. Her chin was in her hand, her caught other hand lay idle in his own; ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... last words a thrill of rage seemed to run through the line of sailors, and they stood waiting for an order which did not come, for the lieutenant only smiled at the American's insolent bravado and waited before interfering with him to hear what more he ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... discreet set of verses, he rattled a bravado accompaniment. Presently Chantel moved to his side, and, with the same spirit, swung into the chorus. The tumbled white figure on the couch clung to her refuge, her bright hair shining below the girl's quiet, thoughtful face. She was ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... not carry him so far as to make the venture; Kit Smallbones observed that he had a wife and children, and could not afford to risk his good right hand on a wandering soldier's bravado; Edmund was heard saying, "Nay, nay, Steve, don't be such a fool," but Stephen was declaring he would not have the fellow say that English lads hunt back from what rogues of France and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... eyes half shut, sleepy, stupid, inflamed. An idiot smile, a ridiculous surliness, an affected bravado, disgraces the bloated countenance. The mouth open tumbles out nonsense in heaps, without articulation enough for any ear to take it in, and unworthy of attention, if it could be taken In. The head seems too heavy for the neck. The arms dangle from the shoulders; as if they ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... in the hall of the palace preparing to take his leave, he threw his cloak over a sunbeam, and, strange to say, the garment was suspended as though the shaft of light were solid. This, we are told, was not a mere piece of bravado, but was done to show that the saint's action in refusing the see was prompted ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... was too much for him and he went in to have a drink to take the horrors out of him. Since then, the detectives have followed all his movements and know just how much liquor he drank and to whom, in tipsy bravado, he showed the contents of his pockets. But he wasn't so far gone as not to have moments of apprehension when he thought of the dead man lying with his feet in Dark Hollow, and of the hue and cry which would soon be raised, and what folks might think if that accursed watch he had taken ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... was too late. What mad impulse possessed him I cannot say; but certain I am, from my knowledge of his character, that it was no foolish bravado or schoolboy desire to show off, that seduced him to so wild a freak. The fact was, but for the depth below, the leap did not look at all formidable; not above four or five feet, but in reality it was a deal ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... personal feeling of outrage at Shan Tung's frank confession of eavesdropping. A subtle significance began to attach itself more and more to the story his room was telling him. He knew that Shan Tung had left none of the marks of his presence out of bravado, but with a definite purpose. Keith's psychological mind was at all times acutely ready to seize upon possibilities, and just as his positiveness of Conniston's spiritual presence had inspired ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... matter of valor there is no brag or bravado in a Pole, so thoroughly and seriously ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... bravado in the assertion. Had there been, Ellen would not have felt so much alarmed. It was the fearless sincerity of the remark that frightened her. She had not intended to force a crisis. She had calculated that her bullying tone would ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... critical adventures with the Indians were but child's play in comparison. Despite their boasting, the Indians would seldom venture to provoke a fight with a grizzly, except in the most favorable circumstances, and when strength of numbers inspired them with bravado. Reckless and headlong as wild elephants, nothing would daunt the grizzlies, once they had set about fighting; and so hardy were they as often to escape, apparently unharmed, though their vital parts were ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... other feats of bravado, went to make up the heroic legend of Perenna. It threw into relief the superhuman energy, the marvellous recklessness, the bewildering fancy, the spirit of adventure, the physical dexterity, and the coolness ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... cared little. In the midst of the tumult he caused the sentences of excommunication which he had fulminated to be legally executed in the chapel of his house. But bravado like this soon died before the universal resentment, and "the handsome Archbishop" fled again to Lyons. How helpless the successor of Augustine really was was shown by a daring outrage perpetrated ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... Brass-button Man was suspiciously wondering what this person wanted of him; but they crossed to the adjacent saloon, a New York corner saloon, which of course "glittered" with a large mirror, heaped glasses, and a long shining foot-rail on which, in bravado, Mr. Wrenn ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... King said, "I hope that this torture against a crowned head will only last a few days," the jailer replied: "I grieve to say that the Queen's orders are to the contrary; anger not the Queen by any bravado, else you will be placed in the irons, and if these fail we can have recourse to sharper means." To the excessive self-love, intemperance, conceitedness, and want of foresight which had characterized all his actions, the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... police, and the strikers also, were determined that there should be no violence; but there was another party interested which was minded to the contrary—and that was the press. On the first day of his life as a strikebreaker Jurgis quit work early, and in a spirit of bravado he challenged three men of his acquaintance to go outside and get a drink. They accepted, and went through the big Halsted Street gate, where several policemen were watching, and also some union pickets, scanning sharply those who passed in and out. Jurgis and his ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... made in a spirit of bravado; rather it reflected the self-respect of one consciously ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... vulgar, the air a mere minor chant. Yet Thorpe's mind was stilled. His aroused subconsciousness had been engaged in reconstructing these men entire as their songs voiced rudely the inner characteristics of their beings. Now his spirit halted, finger on lip. Their bravery, pride of caste, resource, bravado, boastfulness,—all these he had checked off approvingly. Here now was the idea of the Mate. Somewhere for each of them was a "Kitty," a "daisy Sunday best-day girl"; the eternal feminine; the softer side; the ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... answer!" he shouted. "Tell your Secretary the choice he offers is an insult! It is blackmail. We will not sign his treaty. We do not desire his visit to our country." Thrilled by his own bravado, his voice rose higher. "Nor," he shouted, "do we desire the presence of his representative. Your usefulness is at an end. You will receive ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... began uttering, by means of his organs of speech, the most fearful blasphemies, words embodying conceptions which, had they come into his mind, he might indeed have borne with patience before this, or uttered in bravado, but which now filled him with inexpressible loathing, and a terror to which he had hitherto been quite a stranger. He had always in his heart believed in a God, but he now believed with a reality and intensity utterly new to him. He felt it as if he saw Him; he felt there ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... know, for you have often drunk from the spring when you have gone up for firewood. This gave me great encouragement, for I was afraid that the want of water would have driven me to submission. By way of bravado, I tore off, and cut with my knife, as many boughs of the underwood on the ravine as I well could carry, and the next morning I built a sort of wigwam for myself on the guano, to show them that I had a house over my head as well as they ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... was that flag hoisted at the brig's peak? What was that shot fired for? Pure bravado doubtless, unless it was a sign of the act of taking possession. Harding knew now that the vessel was well-armed. And what had the colonists of Lincoln Island to reply to the pirates' guns? A few ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... The bravado with which he spoke, the insolence of his bold glance and curled lip, the arrogance with which he flaunted that King's favor which should be a brand more infamous than the hangman's, his beauty, the pomp of his dress,—all were alike hateful. ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... recluse that he had been, had also been as steady as a deacon; but the old professor realized that a reaction might come at almost any instant. One outlet, and that the highest one, forbidden him, he might seek other, lower ones in sheer bravado. Forbidden to climb into the Tree of Knowledge of all Good, he might, in revenge, fall greedily upon the Apples of Sodom. Left to himself, no one knew what harpies he might chance upon as comrades, nor what sights they might show him. To prevent all that, to provide ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... bravado, but he ate well. They started drinking again. Yakob looked at them with eagerness, his arms folded over his stomach, his head bent forward; the hairy hand of the captain put ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... unsportsmanlike behavior to sing on the chase. For all that they were all very jolly, throbbing with excitement at the thought of the adventures which they were about to encounter; and concealing a latent spark of fear under an excess of bravado. At the end of an hour's march they had reached the pine forest; and as they were all ravenously hungry they sat down upon the stones, where a clear mountain brook ran down the slope, and unpacked their provisions. Wolf-in-the-Temple had just helped himself, in old Norse ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... pride to think that she had ruined her life for a silly, shallow man, and that her false step had been foolish, base, and, indeed, accidental. The future seemed threatening; but she sought to dissipate her fears by obstinate bravado. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... so sure of that. I've lived long enough among the Indians to know they don't fire away good arrows merely for bravado, and these are planted so close together it must be some sort of a signal. It may have been intended ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Baltimore he left Naples a few days after my friends, and travelled about Italy in his usual way. Three years later he paid for his British bravado with his life. He committed the wild imprudence of traversing the Maremma in August, and was killed ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... it seemed as if it must snap under his weight. Then it shot upward, carrying the boy with it, he kicking his feet together as he was lifted and laughing out of pure bravado. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... perils of the field, will go forth to share the dangers of their countrymen." The "skulkers" and "deserters" referred to were no doubt brave men who, having fought as long as there was hope, were not ambitious to sacrifice their lives to carry on the shameless bravado of the political leaders of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... secret that is given. These childlike diaries are full of the "Gondal Chronicles",[A] an interminable fantasy in which for years Emily collaborated with Anne. They flourished the "Gondal Chronicles" in each other's faces, with positive bravado, trying to see which could keep it up the longer. Under it all there was a mystery; for, as Charlotte said of their old play, "Best plays were secret plays," and the sisters kept their best hidden. And then suddenly the "Gondal Chronicles" were dropped, the ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... truth, there was a little bravado in this, mingled with the stern courage that habit and nature had both contributed to lend the serjeant. The veteran knew the feebleness of his garrison, and fancied that warlike cries, from himself, might counterbalance the yells that ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... namely, that a visit to the battle-field of Marathon would raise in him no kindling emotion, and asked Mr. Wordsworth whether this was true as a token of his mind. At first Mr. Wordsworth said, 'Oh! that was a mere bravado, for the sake of astonishing his hearers!' but then, correcting himself, he added, 'And yet it might in some sense be true, for Coleridge was not under the influence of external objects. He had extraordinary powers of summoning ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... me in there alone, Gabriella," begged Charley piteously. "I'd rather face bullets than Jane in an attack." His bravado had deserted him, and he appeared positively craven. The stiffness seemed to have gone not only out of his character, but out of his clothes also. Even his collar had become ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... clear to me, however, that personal considerations could rightly have but little part in the settlement of this problem. In no spirit of bravado, but in simplest recognition of the truth, I say to you that I believe I would have been betraying the profession which I have sworn to serve had I permitted conditions of personal affection, however lovely and precious, to determine my decision in this case. I take seriously ...
— A Statement: On the Future of This Church • John Haynes Holmes
... many others if thou standest; fly not, therefore, as was said afore, out of a slavish fear; stand not, of a bravado. Do what thou dost in the fear of God, guiding thyself by his Word and providence; and as for this or that man's judgment, refer thy case to the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... some in your pocket?" said the little man, with a mixture of embarrassment and bravado that touched Braith, who saw what the ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... ancient, proud, and noble Scotch family, as renowned for courage as for wit—had striven to put some affront on the fencing-master at Lord Norris's house, in Oxfordshire, wishing to render him contemptible before his patrons and assistants—a common bravado of the rash Tybalts and hot-headed Mercutios of those fiery days of the duello, when even to crack a nut too loud was enough to make your tavern neighbour draw his sword. John Turner, the master, jealous of his professional honour, challenged the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... more interesting as the lack of news from the investigators restored a sort of hopeful optimism to the breasts of the anxious company. Those who had maintained a stubborn air of bravado, now became almost offensively jaunty. Others, frankly terrified at the outset, sauntered timidly away from the life-boats to which they were assigned. Every one was glad that the Captain had ordered a life-boat drill on the first afternoon out, and every one was glad that he had ignored the demand ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... upon his long walk. He could not but feel, notwithstanding his little bravado of indifference, that it was a very important decision, which he had made irrevocable by thus publishing it. For some time it had been a certainty in his mind; but nothing seems a certainty until it has been said, and now that it had been ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... against the wall, began to go into hysterics. "Your letter has already gone, Mary; and I desire you will write no other without letting me know." Then he left the room and the house,—and absolutely went over to the Bush. This latter proceeding was, however, hardly more than a bravado; for he merely took the opportunity of asking Mrs. Runciman a question at the bar, and then walked back to his own house, and shut ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... fellow-townsman in his need, Though harsh the price, and I was feign to crawl About his feet ere I might buy at all. But thou—although a myriad flocks may crop By Sussex gorse or Cheviot's grassy top, A myriad herds tumultuously snort From Palos Verdes eastward to Del Norte, Or where the fierce vaquero's bold bravado Resounds about the Llano Estacado; Though every abattoir works overtime And every stall in Smithfield groans with prime Cuts, from thy lips the ready lie falls pat, How thou art sold clean out of this and that, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... the air of bravado. Now, you know that I've what they call 'knelt at her feet.' She's handsome. Don't cry out. She's dashing, and as near being a devil as any woman I ever met. Do you know why we broke? I'll tell you. Plainly, because I refused to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a source of the greatest embarrassment; the more so as, in spite of the bravado with which in public I made a point of treating him and his pretensions, I secretly felt that I feared him, and could not help thinking the equality, which he maintained so easily with myself, a proof of his true superiority; since not to be overcome cost me a perpetual struggle. Yet this ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... purchased my ticket with a bravado air that ought to have aroused the suspicion of the ticket-master, and hurried to the car, where I sat fidgeting until the train shot out into the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the blockade, and was an event to talk about. The garrison made frequent partial sorties in quest of fire-wood, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. Fatigue parties dug trenches in the snow, without the walls, by way of exercise or bravado. Sentinels at the Block House and other exposed points were frequently frostbitten. A kind of sentry-box was fixed on a pole thirty feet high, at Cape Diamond. Thence could be seen the tin spire of St. Foye Church, but not the Plains of Abraham, beyond Gallow's Hill, where the besiegers ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... the beautiful creatures with bread and buns, and to feel the suffusion of pleasure derived from the contact of their soft lips with the palm of the hand. After that they were scarcely astonished when, without bravado, but clearly with simple confidence and enjoyment, Julius put his hand within the bars of the lion's cage and scratched the ears of a lioness, murmuring the while in a strange tongue such fond sounds as only those use who are on the ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... particularly told you not to forget to repeat them to me, then perhaps he was in excitement, beside himself. He had made his decision and was frightened at it. He wasn't walking away from me with a resolute step, but leaping headlong. The emphasis on that phrase may have been simply bravado." ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a note of bravado, and his attitude betrayed the self-conscious actor, but there was that in his countenance which could only have come of real misery. The thin cheeks, heavy-lidded and bloodshot eyes, ill-coloured lips, made a picture anything but ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... looked at her narrowly, solemnly. He was not deceived to any extent by her bravado. If she were really innocent, he knew she would have jumped to her feet in her defiant way. Protest would have been written all over her. As it was, she only stared haughtily. He read through her eager defiance ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... bravado; it is worse than foolishness," said Beverley, not feeling her mood. "What can two or three ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... La Meilleraye assumed the style and bravado of a captain when a lieutenant-colonel of the Guards suddenly came to tell the Queen that the citizens threatened to force the Guards, and, being naturally hasty and choleric, was transported even with fury and madness. He cried out that he would perish rather ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... you going to do with me?" demanded the Yorker, with bravado. "You'll all suffer for this outrage, I promise ye! Wait until I get ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... their amazement. We were in a spot where we could not easily be seen from any distance, and no one was in sight, nor were we to be remarked from the fort. They exchanged looks, as I started back towards the chateau, walking very near the edge of the cliff. A spirit of bravado came on me, and I said musingly to them ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... own thoughts, and by the look on his face these were serious thoughts. He seemed to see and yet not to see the ring of faces; to be aware of them, yet not concerned with them, no whit afraid and quite as little defiant. True, he was smoking, but without a trace of affected insouciance or bravado; gravely rather, resting an elbow on his groin and leaning forward with a preoccupied frown. Two minutes passed in this silence, and he felt the danger ebbing. Mob insolence ever wants a lead, and—perhaps because with the return of fine weather the ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... created a popular demand for direct action by the organized industries ('Syndicalism'); and wrecked the centre of Europe in a paroxysm of that chronic terror of one another, that cowardice of the irreligious, which, masked in the bravado of militarist patriotism, had ridden the Powers like a nightmare since the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. The sturdy old cosmopolitan Liberalism vanished almost unnoticed. At the present moment all the new ordinances ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... are devoted to an account of this war; and a most curious story it is of cowardice, bravado, and inefficiency. It was advance and retreat, boastful challenge and as boastful reply, marching and countermarching, day after day, and month after month. "Like the heroes of old, the adverse parties spoke to each other: 'We are coming, we are coming; lay aside your muskets and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... to come on board me, sir," answers the Spaniard, in a clear, quiet tone; "bringing with you this answer, that you lie in your throat;" and lingering a moment out of bravado, to arrange his scarf, he steps slowly down again ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... a simple problem. I am loyal, as I have said; but I am a daughter and sister first, patriot later. In a fit of meaningless bravado, tempered perhaps by some compulsion from over the border, my old father and brothers had joined a rebel commando. You, with a naivete which I had hardly expected in you, and for which I liked you, told me the objective of your column—information which meant everything to me, and perhaps ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... evils of a manufacturing trade where machinery is employed," said Uncle Jack. "I'm afraid that, generally speaking, the accidents are occasioned by the men's carelessness or bravado; but even then it is a painful thing to know that it is your machinery that has mutilated a poor fellow. That poor fellow has been ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... all—as of a last peep at normality before he took this plunge with Megan! He got his borrowed bathing dress, and they all set forth. Halliday and he undressed behind one rock, the three girls behind another. He was first into the sea, and at once swam out with the bravado of justifying his self-given reputation. When he turned he could see Halliday swimming along shore, and the girls flopping and dipping, and riding the little waves, in the way he was accustomed to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... wall, where the shock had flung him. The exciting fumes of the wine he had drunk too recklessly evaporated, and only a dim recollection remained in his absolutely sobered brain of the idiotic wager, the ugly jest, the still more contemptible bravado that had sent him into ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... the capacious dining-room quietly enough, though their expressions were eloquent of bravado, and they jostled one another and their neighbours intentionally, even in the act of sitting. However, it was not long before delectable foods engaged their whole attention and Miss Amy Rennsdale's party ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... slung and ready. The gang on the other side were gesticulating, with random tugs at the line. There was something whimsical in the way the proposers of the project shrank the one behind the other, with assumed bravado and covert glances at each ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... said of death that results from abuses or excesses of any kind, such as dissipation or debauchery; from risks that are taken in a spirit of bravado or with a view to winning fame or lucre. For a still better reason this cannot be said of those who undergo criminal operations: it is never permitted to do what is intrinsically evil that good ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... that new garb. He arose, came to me, and with his moist hand irresolutely and weakly seized my hand, and sat down by me. Instead of looking at me, though he apparently seemed so glad to see me, he gazed with an expression of unfriendly bravado at the officers. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... and looked so melodramatically important that the meeting snickered behind their collective hands. Just then there came a knock at the door. Halleck put his fingers to his lips; the crowd sat as if petrified; the roly-poly conspirator felt his bravado oozing out in youthful perspiration. The knocking came again, ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... word of advice. Select as your leaders girls in whom the others have confidence; those who may be trusted to do right; however unpleasant it may be. Young girls may laugh at and seemingly admire a smart bravado of manner and sly deceit, but when it comes to being led, they want none of these. A dozen trustworthy agents will be worth more than ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... calling out, in a tone of reproof, "look to keeping your men together, sir;" and though, God knows, I had not the remotest idea that he was within a mile of me at the time, yet, so sensible was I that circumstances warranted his supposing that I was a young officer, cutting a caper, by way of bravado, before him, that worlds would not have tempted me to look round at the moment. The French fled from the wall as soon as they received a volley from a part of the third division, and we instantly dashed down the hill, and charged ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... Effendim?" he inquired from the shugduf behind me. "Yes," I replied aloud, "in my country we always dine before an attack of robbers, because that gentry is in the habit of sending men to bed supperless." The Shaykh laughed aloud, but those around him looked offended. I thought the bravado this time mal place; but a little event which took place on my way to Jeddah proved that it was ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... had a particularly vicious broncho, which none but he had ever been able to control, and which in consequence, he prized as the apple of his eye. During his temporary absence from the ranch one day a confrere, "Stiff" Warwick, had, in a spirit of bravado, roped the "devil" and instituted a contest of wills. The pony was stubborn, the man likewise, and a battle royal followed. As a buzzard scents carrion, other cowboys anticipated sport, and a group soon gathered. Ere minutes had ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... which curled upward and were always twitching nervously. His face was pale with the pallor that nitric acid strong enough to eat copper gives to the complexion, and in his sharp, pert, bold features were mingled bravado, energy, recklessness, intelligence, impudence and all sorts of rascally expressions, softened, at certain times, by a cat-like, wheedling air. His trade of glove-cutter—he had taken up with that trade after two or three unsuccessful trials as an apprentice ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... shot out through the open windows. Others were retained inside, though kept sketchily away from view. From here and there in accents of bravado, of mockery, of submissive humor, a few remarks were dropped that soon melted into the listless and ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the chart of the world. This Cecil Fanshaw was, in person, of the kind that commonly urges such crude but pleasing enthusiasms; a very young man, light-haired, high-coloured, with an eager profile; with a boyish bravado of spirits, but an almost girlish delicacy of tint and type. The big shoulders, black brows and black mousquetaire swagger of Flambeau were ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... cannot be restrained from dividing) there would be no endeavour to throw it out. Thus it is that one folly produces another: the Duke's silly speech about the Coronation Oath (a piece of nonsense quite unworthy of his straightforward, manly sense) produced Wrottesley's bravado in the other House. But Wharncliffe says he is persuaded nothing can prevent a collision between the two Houses ultimately. There is a great idea that the Government will fall to pieces before the end of this year. Tavistock told me that ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... with large diamonds. The count invited the King of Spain to visit his Mexican territories, assuring him that the hoofs of his majesty's horse should touch nothing but solid silver from Vera Cruz to the capital. This might be a bravado; but a more certain proof of his wealth exists in the fact, that he caused two ships of the line, of the largest size, to be constructed in Havana at his expense, made of mahogany and cedar, and presented them to the king. The present count was, as I already told you, married ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... instinct which attracts the murderer to the spot where his crime was committed. No man can describe or define this resistless impulse, and yet all criminology records it, clear and unmistakable. It is no less than a form of curiosity. Driven by this irresistible force, David Cable, with bravado that cost him dearly, worked his uninterrupted way to the scene of his crime. By trolley car to Chicago Avenue and, then, like a homeless dog scenting his way fearfully, to a corner not far from ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... an intimate way To Menelik and to Loubet, He was frequently beckoned, By William the Second, A word of advice to receive, He talked with bravado About the Mikado, King Oscar, Oom Paul, the Khedive, King Victor Emmanuel Second, the Shah, King Edward the Seventh, Kwang Su, ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... that their owner might have kept his place in the school with ease had he but so chosen. He did not seem very conscious or very miserable: he had the true boyish instinct of hiding feelings, and looked much as usual, though there was nothing like bravado or nonchalance in his manner. When his father shook hands with him gravely, and merely said, 'Well, Cecil,' in a short dry way, a sudden flush mounted up in his brown cheek; and there was a little anxiety in his face when he turned to kiss his mother, as if a sudden fear had come over ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... utmost, that the secret dies in the breast of the man who possesses it," said Saint-Aignan, in a tone of bravado, as he moved toward the door; but a gesture of the king ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... one's hair untidy," said Sarah, suddenly bursting into a laugh; but the whiteness of Peter's face frightened her, and she had some ado to laugh naturally. "And I am lost without a looking-glass," she added, in a somewhat quavering tone of bravado. ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... on his black and white horse, one of the best in the village, came at full speed over the hill in hot pursuit of an antelope that darted away like lightning before him. The attempt was made in mere sport and bravado, for very few are the horses that can for a moment compete in swiftness with this little animal. The antelope ran down the hill toward the main body of the Indians who were moving over the plain below. Sharp yells ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Prince saw the aim, as well as heard the shot, on this occasion, and she stooped, he pulling her down that the ball might pass over her head. In another moment the man, who still leant against the railing, pistols in hand, with much bravado and without any attempt to escape, was seized by a bystander. In the middle of the consternation and wrath of the gathering crowd, the Queen and the Prince went on to the Duchess of Kent that they might be the first to tell ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Matamore settles his hat firmly on his head, twists the long ends of his mustache, puts his hand on the hilt of his big sword, and advances threateningly towards Leander—but it is pure bravado, for his teeth are chattering with fear, and his long, thin legs waver and tremble under him visibly, like reeds shaken by the wind. Only one hope remains to him—that of intimidating Leander by loud threats and ferocious gestures, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... scope for humour. Cyrano, with all his generous impulses, is too self-conscious for that. But in each of his moods and phases—bravado, sacrifice, acceptance of the inexorable pathos of things—Mr. LORAINE had got at the heart of the man. A very brave and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... home again at twelve-thirty, taking with her a replenished purse, and a stock of tremluous emotions. One was of dreadful solitude, a fear of loneliness, spineless and enervating; another of defiance; another of excitement; another of bravado; another ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... sofa in the small, shelved breakfast-room, and she shot these words at Edwin Clayhanger, who was standing near her. The singular words were certainly uttered out of bravado: they were a challenge to adventure. She thought: "It is madness for me to say such a thing." But such a thing had, nevertheless, come quite glibly out of her mouth, and she knew not why. If Edwin Clayhanger was startled, so ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... in Swede Olson's house were hard cases. They boasted of their hardness. But their hardness was the typical tough's hardness, nine parts bravado, a savagery not difficult to subdue with an oak belaying pin in the fist of a bucko mate. But the hardness of this big, scar-faced man was of a different sort. You sensed, immediately you looked at him, that he possessed a steely armor of indifference that penetrated ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... nothing more. I was pleased to think that the said house and windows were "mine host's," and not mine, otherwise a little hail of shot might have followed the "short thunder;" but as it was, nothing more than this warning bravado (as I imagine it to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various |
