"Impertinent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... say." I substitute "Blame my cats!" No: I substitute "Blame my kittens!" Observe, Miss O'Dowda: kittens. I say again in the teeth of the whole Cambridge Fabian Society, kittens. Impertinent little kittens. Blame them. Smack them. I guess what is on your conscience. This play to which you have lured me is one of those in which members of Fabian Societies instruct their grandmothers in the art of milking ducks. And you are afraid it will shock your father. Well, I hope ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... indeed! I am afraid you will think me impertinent, but remember, there is a true feeling in my heart which offers some excuse for me; in fact, it has given me the spirit to undertake this affair. I love—and I take ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... he, in high good humour; but it is impossible to hold it with such an impertinent: however, I'll keep my temper. But while I see you here, pray don't put on those dismal grave looks: Why, girl, you should forbear them, if it were but for your pride-sake; for the family will think you are grieving to leave the house. Then, sir, said I, I will try to convince them of the contrary, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... his question in no impertinent tone, but in the low voice of one who "shall whisper out of the dust." He had not yet recovered from the first impression of his awakening, that the world in which he now stood was not ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... possessed a framework of bones that were so sparingly covered with softer substance, as to render it a matter of wonder how he and the stones could compromise the matter at all, and called forth from his friend frequent impertinent allusions to "thridpapers, bags o' bones, idges o' knives, half fathoms o' pump water," and such like curious substances. But whatever the bed, it invariably turned out that the whole party slept soundly from the time they lay down till ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... apart. Within was a subdued bustle of women, a flitting of lights, and the doing of petty offices to that queer, exhausted thing that had once been my active and urgent little uncle. For me those offices were irksome and impertinent. I slammed the door, and went out into the warm, foggy drizzle of the village street lit by blurred specks of light in great voids of darkness, and never a soul abroad. That warm veil of fog produced an effect of vast seclusion. The very houses by the roadside peered through it as ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... he may be attracted by an ancient and honourable national institution; or he may possess a marked inclination for albs and chasubles; or he may reflect upon the distinct social advantages of a good living; or he may have nothing else in particular to do; or he may simply desire to rouse the impertinent curiosity of all the indolent quidnuncs of his acquaintance, without the remotest intention of ever gratifying their ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... took all the blame himself instead of boxing my ears for being impertinent. A fine soldier he'll make! If I can scare him, what will the guns do?" she said aloud, and then with a roguish gleam of mischief in her ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... account (having obtained Dr. Mildman's permission to do so) of the interview with Spicer. They found him, it seemed, at his lodgings, preparing for his departure. At first he took a very high tone, denied the whole thing, and was extremely blustering and impertinent; but on being confronted with Cumberland, and 94threatened by Dr. Mildman's legal friend with the terrors of the law, he became thoroughly crestfallen, restored the three-hundred-pound cheque, and consented, on the payment ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... little time in the vestibule, the chief magistrate of Roubaix being very busy. Deputy-mayors, adjoints, were coming and going, and liveried officials bustled about, glancing at me from time to time, but without any impertinent curiosity. Impertinent curiosity, by the way, we rarely meet with in France. People seem of opinion that everybody must be the best judge of his or her own business. I was finally ushered into the council chamber, where the ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... something so sternly sincere in his look and tone that further questions seemed impertinent. I had repeated opportunity to ask them, however, for after this we spent much time together. Daily for a fortnight, we met by appointment, to see the sights. He knew the city so well, he had strolled and lounged so often through its streets and ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... when the old Ilga was at the front, domineering and impertinent, and Polly would be called upon to exercise all her tact and patience in order to keep things pleasant during her visits. But, little by little, as the convalescent gathered strength of body she also gained in self-control. Miss ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... you to-night, my lady?" said Naseby, taking a seat beside his hostess. "May I be impertinent and guess?—you don't like your gems? Lady Leven has been telling me tales about them. They are the most magnificent things I ever saw. I ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the house of one of our friends, Ernest de B——. On my arrival I found Ganguernet there with some others of the party. Ernest had just finished a letter, which he sealed, directed, and placed upon the chimney-piece. Ganguernet, in his usual inquisitive and impertinent manner, took it up, and read the direction. 'Ah ha!' said he; 'so you correspond with your pretty cousin, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... seen at Maple Grove, and though he did not recognize the original, he fancied he might have met him before, and was about making his acquaintance, when Durward's action drew from him the remark we have mentioned. Thinking him to be some impertinent fellow, Durward paid him no attention, and was about leaving, when, hitching his chair a little nearer, Joel said, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... necessary to detail these transactions in a manner which may, to some readers, appear an impertinent digression from the narrative in which this history is at present engaged, in order to set in a clearer light some points of the greatest importance. In the first place, from the summary review of the affairs of Scotland, and from the complacency with ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... him to me," said the admiral; "I'll talk to him. Now, sir," he continued, turning to the boy sternly, "pray what did I say to make you start grinning like a confounded young monkey? I—I—I am not accustomed to be laughed at by impertinent boys." ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... "Isn't it very impertinent of him to call me Gatty?" said the little beauty, tossing her long locks and speaking in a half aside to Diana. "Now he would like that I should return the compliment and call him Evan; but I won't. What do you do, when men call you ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... her repeated failures to draw the novelist out. "Monsieur Roux," she began abruptly, with her most animated smile, "I remember so well a statement I read some years ago in your 'Mes Etudes des Femmes' to the effect that you had never met a really intellectual woman. May I ask, without being impertinent, whether that assertion ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... whole conduct of this family was as great a surprise to me as it was a comfort and encouragement. Mrs. Logan always made the kindest inquiries about my parents, but in the politest way imaginable,—no impertinent questions, but such as showed that she felt some interest in me. I think that Effie must have spoken very favorably of me to her parents when at home, but I could not understand why, as I was not near so affable and pleasant in my manners as she was. But ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... from our assemblies, and ridicule the good intention of those that offer it, to consult upon the best expedients for encouraging and increasing sailors, and when the merchants offer their scheme, to treat them as saucy, impertinent, idle meddlers, that assume— ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... my niece, Flora," said Snapshot Harry, with a slight wave of the hand that was by no means uncourtly, "and her company will keep you from any impertinent questioning as well as if I were with you. This is Mr. Brice, Flo, who came to see me on business, and has ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... were that a lecturer on Pope began by asking the, perhaps not impertinent, question, 'Was he a poet?' And the method had its merits, for the question once asked, it was easy for the lecturer, like an incendiary who has just fired a haystack, to steal away amidst the cracklings of a familiar controversy. It was not unfitting ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... a Plot Discovered, a Tragedy, acted at the Duke's Theatre, 1685, dedicated to the Duchess of Portsmouth. Of this we have already given some account, and it is so frequently acted, that any enlargement would be impertinent. It is certainly one of the most moving plays upon the English stage; the plot from a little book, giving an account of the Conspiracy ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... A member of this Church shall not publish, nor cause to be published, an article that is uncharitable or impertinent towards religion, medicine, the courts, or ...
— Manual of the Mother Church - The First Church of Christ Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts • Mary Baker Eddy
... thinking," said he, "about what you told me"—this was a reference to an interview not recorded. "I am annoyed that Mrs. Harrop should have been impertinent to you." ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... count decidedly troublesome, not to say impertinent, had opened her lips to give an unqualified negative, but another glance from Trenta ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... fact would probably be known at the Antipodes. Mr. Chamberlain can now make his speeches as he goes on—although the material may be prepared beforehand—and, as we know, he can turn from the course of his argument to answer quickly and effectively some pertinent or impertinent question or interruption. ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... appeared behind a veil of flickering moonlight and shadow she had not known who I was. She had mistaken me for some impertinent stranger, and rather than give an alarm, she had hoped that a frown might rid her of the intruder. Then, I had gone without giving her a second ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... all that; I find that all goes awry with me; that no one knows either what is his rank, nor what is his condition, what he does nor what he ought to do; and that except supper, which is always gay, and where there appears to be enough concord, all the rest of the time is passed in impertinent quarrels; Jansenist against Molinist, Parliament against the Church, men of letters against men of letters, courtesans against courtesans, financiers against the people, wives against husbands, relatives against ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... never have a chance at a cathedral," he would reply. "And, besides, it always seems to me so material and so impertinent to build a little structure of stone and wood in which ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... believe any of you suffer as I do," cried Amy, "for you don't have to go to school with impertinent girls, who plague you if you don't know your lessons, and laugh at your dresses, and label your father if he isn't rich, and insult you when your nose ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... lovely, and very small teeth. She was not unlike her mother in feature, but she was taller, more dreamy, less vivid, less straightforward in expression. At times there was a hint of the minx in her. She emerged from her dreams to be impertinent. A certain shrewdness mingled with her audacity. At such moments, as men sometimes said, "you never knew where to have her." She was more self-conscious and more worldly than her mother. Secret ambition worried at her mind, and made her restless in body. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... notorious idiot, one HIGHT WHACHUM, who from an Under-spur-leather to the law, is become an Under strapper to the play-house, who has lately burlesqued the Metamorphoses of Ovid, by a vile translation, &c. This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Censor.' Such was the language of Mr. Dennis, when ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... her during that long evening, I felt that it was impertinent to probe her heart with my wonderings and surmises. I knew instinctively just how carefully she was hiding her hurt from all human eyes. I knew how her fierce pride was bearing up under the cruelty of it. I felt how she had rushed from the humiliation ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... a delicacy in pressing inquiries concerning information that I thought ought to be voluntarily given. Inquisitiveness was regarded as a gross rudeness by them, and I could frame no question that I did not fear would sound impertinent. But at last patience gave way and, at the risk of increasing her commiseration for my ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... really their income? What was the matter with the one whom he attended, the sickly daughter, and what was her name? The questions would have gone on until now, but that the doctor stopped them. He had not made impertinent inquiries himself, he said, and had nothing at all to tell. The younger lady's complaint arose from disordered liver; he had no objection to tell them that; she had been so long a sufferer from it that the malady had become chronic; and her name ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... one in the wide world really cared for her. Those people who had been going to Switzerland had thrown her over without a thought. Anna Wolsky, who had spoken as if she really loved her only a day or two ago, and who had made that love her excuse for a somewhat impertinent interference in Sylvia's private affairs, had left Lacville without even sending her word that ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... years there had grown in the mind of Caius much prejudice against the form and measure of his parents' religion. He would have throttled another who dared to criticise them, yet he himself took a certain pleasure in an opportunity that made criticism pertinent rather than impertinent. It was not that he prided himself on knowing or doing better, he was not naturally a theorist, nor didactic; but education had awakened his mind, not only to difficulties in the path of faith, but to a higher standard of altruism than was ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... was stationed in Antique province, while in Capiz was a detachment of the regular army. And in full sight of both on the top of a precipice, an insurrecto flag flaunted its impertinent message. ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... leaned forward to take her, Randy was aware of the change in her. In the old days Mary had been a gay little thing, with an impertinent tongue. She was not gay now. She was a Madonna, tender-eyed, ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... no claims to original investigations. He trusts, however, it will not be considered impertinent for a mere loiterer in the vestibule of the temple of science to attempt to lay before others the results of the investigations of our eminent scholars. He has endeavored faithfully to perform this task. As far as possible technical ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... puzzled. He went in and sat down to watch, feeling rather disturbed. Presently the fun began again: the children clapped their hands, the people laughed, and every one looked over at the house, in what he thought a very impertinent way. This made him angry; and out he rushed a second time, saying, as he ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... say your Pleasure; but I hope I have not liv'd to these Years to be impertinent—No, Madam, I am none of those that run up and down the Town a ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... The windows were fast-closed and the curtains half-drawn. The man who stood upon the hearthrug was of medium height, dark, with close-cropped hair and a black, drooping moustache. His first glance at his visitor, as the door opened, was one of impertinent curiosity. ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "There is more. When I corrected Annabel for what I had heard about her—her impertinent behavior, she said that Mrs. Underwood had never approved of the whole thing, and that if I had consulted her she would never have given her consent to your being here, ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... impertinent, forward young man!" said Catherine in a rage. "There, now!" added she, beginning to cry, "I've forgotten what I was going to say, ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... useful talent our hero had, however, acquired during his military service, and on this gross provocation it began seriously to arise. 'Look ye, sir; I came here for my own accommodation, and not to answer impertinent questions. Either say you can, or cannot, get me what I want; I shall pursue my course ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... when I came up here from New York to join the camp, and was not prepared with enough clothes. I've sent home for clothes and am expecting them to arrive at the camp this morning— that's why I didn't go boating, since you are impertinent enough to ask. (She gives ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... something, Sir Henry," said Cleek when he heard that, and noticed how gratefully the woman looked at the baronet when she replied, "Yes, Sir Henry, God bless you, sir!" "Tell me, if it is not an impertinent question, did you take out an insurance policy on Murple's life and pay the premium on it yourself? I gathered the idea that you did from the manner in which the woman spoke ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... case," she said gravely, "I think you did right to slap his ears—not because he is a hired boy, but because it would be impertinent in ANY boy. But talking of kissing makes me think of a story I found in Aunt Olivia's scrapbook the other day. Wouldn't you like to hear it? It is called, 'How Kissing ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... could not be intelligently discussed in a book so swiftly and lightly executed. No such notion seems to have occurred to him. He has rattled off his "Reminiscences" with a confidence which may be justly called indecent and impertinent. The result is what might have been expected. We have so many pages of voluble, superficial, and exceedingly tedious talk about Mr. Choate,—and that is the whole of it. For our own part, we have been not at all profited by the reading, and the little amusement ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... men ready to develop them, and then to leave the rest to the initiative and drive of individuals and companies." All government interference with the management, prices, rates, charges, and conduct of private business they held to be either wholly pernicious or intolerably impertinent. Judging from their speeches and writings, they conceived the nation as a great collection of individuals, companies, and labor unions all struggling for profits or high wages and held together by a government ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... unnecessary to place at this moment before the bar of England so noble a model for imitation so sublime an ideal for serious contemplation as that offered in the person of the Earl of Mansfield? Is it impertinent to warn our lawyers, that, without confirmed habits of industry, temperance, self-subjugation, unsullied honor, vast knowledge, enlightened and lofty views of their difficult yet fascinating profession, and ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... remember that they set very little store upon metre as a dividing line between poetry and prose, and no store at all upon rhyme. I am tempted to-day to go farther, and to maintain that, the larger, the sublimer, your subject is, the more impertinent rhyme becomes to it: and that this impertinence increases in a sort of geometrical progression as you advance from monosyllabic to dissyllabic and on to trisyllabic rhyme. Let me put this ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... sacrifice. The position of the fingers, Fig. 80, is also given as one of Quintilian's oratorical gestures by the words "Duo quoque medii sub pollicem veniunt," and is said by him to be vehement and connected with reproach or argument. In the present case, as a response to an impertinent or disagreeable petition, it simply means, "instead of giving what you ask, I will give you nothing but what is vile and useless, as ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... said to herself, her lips moving, although no sound was audible, "the first thing to do is to get Lanigan away. As long as he is here I might as well not lift a finger, and it looks as if that impertinent minx of a child's nurse would be my best help. If he doesn't have one of his changeable fits, he will be ready in three days to follow her anywhere, but I must look sharp, for at this very minute he may ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... REC. You are an impertinent Fellow, will you teach the Court what Law is? It's Lex non scripta, that which many have studied thirty or forty Years to know, and would you have me to tell ...
— The Tryal of William Penn and William Mead • various
... not be angry. If a demand arises I shall very likely issue an enlarged and improved edition of this paper in the form of a pamphlet, in which case hints and suggestions that to you may appear almost impertinent will be of distinct help ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... at Vienna, and, however clever, he either wants presence of mind or is touchy, as the following anecdote shows. Madame de Metternich is a fine handsome woman, ill brought up, impertinent, insouciante, and assez bourrue—au reste, quick and amusing. She went to a ball at St. Aulaire's with a fine coronet of diamonds on, and when he came to receive her he said, 'Mon dieu, madame, quelle belle couronne vous avez ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... Mr. Holroyd, that he had spent ten delicious days in Paris about the end of June. 'She was very fond of me, and the husband was particularly civil.' He continues confidentially: 'Could they insult me more cruelly? Ask me every evening to supper, go to bed and leave me alone with his wife—what an impertinent security!' ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... expressed increased amazement at this very unceremonious proceeding; and he felt as if he would have said that he thought it the most impertinent thing ever he had seen done in his life; but he refrained. In this feeling Mrs Adair also partook; and in this feeling Mr Mowbray's own wife shared, although not, perhaps, to the same extent. Not the least curious part, let us observe too, of this odd scene, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it, or like that secret influence which binds the world together, and holds the planets in their orbits. The very same persons who are the most forward to laugh at all systematic reasoning as idle and impertinent, you will the next moment hear exclaiming bitterly against the baleful effects of new-fangled systems of philosophy, or gravely descanting on the immense importance of instilling sound principles of morality into the mind. It would not be a bold conjecture, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... it was the people that bothered Sir Bryan. In dress, in manners,—he sometimes feared in morals, they lacked the strong flavor which he had confidently looked for. They did not wear flannel shirts in general society; they did not ask impertinent questions; a whiskey cocktail did not seem to play a necessary part in the ceremony of introduction; the almighty dollar itself did not stalk through every conversation, putting the refinements of life ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... say to your impertinent remarks on my zigzag progress to my various engagements, neither any observation to make about Emily's information upon the subject of my white ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... anywheres unless David goes along," she said, with an impertinent ring in her voice, and with a conviction that she was administering a stab and a rebuke. She had come prepared to watch her husband and Mrs. Lafirme, her heart swelling with jealous suspicion as she looked constantly from one to the other, endeavoring to detect signs of an understanding ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... years. One gets so little encouragement. First you bolt away from my tears, then you send an impertinent message, and then when you come at last you pretend to behave respectfully, though you don't know how to do it. You should sit much nearer the edge of the chair and hold yourself very stiff, and make it quite clear that you don't know what to ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... I can only meet with a short, sharp, and indignant denial. I know of no such "atmosphere" in all America; if it anywhere exists, I certainly never lived, moved, or worked in it. The statement is a gratuitous, impertinent, and totally false allegation of fact, wholly outside of my book and its contents, and is used in this connection solely to feather an arrow shot at my reputation; it is a pure invention, a manufactured assertion which is ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... made to be independent. The control of a mind more steadfast than her own was necessary to her respectability. While she was restrained by her husband, a man of sense and firmness, indulgent to her taste in trifles, but always the undisputed master of his house, her worst offences had been impertinent jokes, white lies, and short fits of pettishness ending in sunny good humour. But he was gone; and she was left an opulent widow of forty, with strong sensibility, volatile fancy, and slender judgment. She soon fell in love with a music-master from Brescia, in whom ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... remembered episode, but the thing was burrowing in his subconsciousness, and an arrow of light before long pierced his brain. He reconsidered the conclusion upon which he had rested with regard to the black crow who at the veglione had put to him an impertinent question. Could it be that not the particular lady whom he had fixed upon in his mind, as being fond of Landini, consequently jealous of Mrs. Hawthorne, had by it expressed her spite, but that—? He saw in a ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... "Jasper!—well, go on." "When I answered, 'No,' Mr. Poole (that is his name) shook his head, and muttered: 'A sad affair—very bad business—I could do Mr. Darrell a great service if he would let me;' and then went on talking what seemed to me impertinent gibberish about 'family exposures' and 'poverty making men desperate,' and 'better compromise matters;' and finally wound up by begging me, 'if I loved Mr. Darrell, and wished to guard him from very great annoyance and suffering, to persuade ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dinner for the men on the six-thirty. I wonder what she is giving them to-day?" Jeff smiled when he remembered how Judith had satisfied Nan's impertinent curiosity concerning what was in her basket. "I've a great mind to find out. Foolishness! I'll do nothing of the sort." The young man tried to lose himself in the intricate plot of a detective story but he had to confess he was not half so ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... some amazement. She would have thought it rather impertinent in a stranger offering such familiar accommodation, but Bluebell availed herself of it with the frankest nonchalance, and, in the conversation that ensued, lost her place in the first rush of diners, who, at the ringing of ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... you always frown just like that?" demanded Mercy Curtis, in a manner which would have been impertinent in any other person, but was her natural way of speaking. "You don't waste your time in ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... the school-hours, from their respective pastors. The present system of the Public Schools in the United States professes to exclude all religious exercises. We are often told that this is the American system, and that it is very impertinent for foreigners to wish to bring religion into schools against the American idea. Now the assertion that the exclusion of all religion from the schools is truly American, that it is an essential part of our national system, is utterly false. So far as any system ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... entertain as familiars the men long dead, yet living in their works. As Americans, our birthrights in the past are imperfect; we are born into the present alone. But he who lives only in present things lives but half a life, and death comes to him as an impertinent interruption: by living also in the past we learn to value the present at its worth, to hold ourselves ready for its end. With Dante, taking him as a guide and companion in our privater moods, we may, even in the natural body, pass through the world ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... a single point which indeed would be more correctly placed among our observations on the use of the spleen, but which it will not be altogether impertinent to notice in this place incidentally. From the splenic branch which passes into the pancreas, and from the upper part, arise the posterior coronary, gastric, and gastroepiploic veins, all of which are distributed upon the stomach in numerous branches and twigs, just as the mesenteric vessels are ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... friend, that I told you all this at the time. You thought, too, that it was singularly impertinent, on my part, thus to flare up in advance, because, certainly a millionaire does not give his daughter to a ruined nobleman in the pay of Marcolet, the patent-broker, to a poor devil of an inventor, who is building the castles of his future upon the solution of a problem which ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... the theoretical kind, but it is a constant, earnest, sincere practice. It is neither demonstrative nor loud, but manifests itself in a quiet, practical way, and is always at work. It is not aggressive, which sometimes is troublesome if not impertinent. In him religion exhibits its loveliest features; it governs his conduct not only toward his servants but toward the natives, the bigoted Mohammedans, and all who come in contact with him. Without it, Livingstone, with his ardent temperament, his enthusiasm, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... advance to the door pointed out, and put his head inside, and there, on beholding a group of young ladies of all ages, from eight to fourteen, and no little brother, and finding all eyes turned upon himself as an impertinent intruder, he drew his head back quickly, and was met with a loud laugh from Jane, which so annoyed him, that without stopping to think, he ran off to his own room as fast as he could. The voice of Mary Roscoe however reached him as he ran along the gallery, uttering these words: "I'll take care ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... face ached. The schoolroom was cold and smoky, for the fire refused to burn and the children were huddled about it in shivering groups. Anne sent them to their seats with a sharper tone than she had ever used before. Anthony Pye strutted to his with his usual impertinent swagger and she saw him whisper something to his seat-mate and then glance at her ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fellow, whose conduct annoyed me exceedingly. However, I very soon got rid of them; and after strolling for a short time within sight of us, they all went up the creek; but I could not help thinking, from the impertinent pertinacity of these fellows, that they had discovered my magazine, and taken all the things, more especially as they had been digging where our fire had been, so that, if I had buried the stores there as intended, they ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... to take advantage of my position and be impertinent but do you think that kind of thing will do her any ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... disposition, should never hint at, or complain of, Philip's attempts upon his life. Had he complained—had he accused Philip of murder—had he vowed vengeance and demanded justice on his return to the authorities, it had been different; but no—there he was, making his uncalled-for and impertinent observations, with his eternal chuckle and sarcasm, as if he had not the least ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... he saw the moon peek over the buildings in the next street. He softly got up and turned off the impertinent gas. Beyond a startled glance over her shoulder she made no objection. He was utterly fascinated by the movements of the bright head, now raised, now lowered, now turned towards the window in the changing moods of ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... at last. But I shan't tell you what it is,' as though I had been so impertinent as to inquire. 'I am not sure that it wholly satisfies me. But it is the best I can find. It suggests something of the quality of the poems.... Strange growths, natural and wild, yet exquisite,' he added, 'and many-hued, and full ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... taken from the pockets of a Roman Catholic population, whom they have been put there to convert to Protestantism for the last three hundred years—with what success, all the world knows. Of course, it is a most impertinent, and almost a blasphemous thing, for a working man to dare to mention such subjects. Is it not "speaking evil of dignities"? Strange, by-the-by, that merely to mention facts, without note or comment, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... certainly ask dear Lucia to a seance, if we do," she said. "Dear me! How late it is: there was such a long wait between the tableaux. But we must keep our eyes on Georgie, and be careful how we answer his impertinent questions. He is sure to ask some. About getting that woman down again, Robert. It might be fool-hardy, for we've had an escape, and shouldn't put our heads into the same noose again. On the other hand, it would disarm ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... first, with every one listening, I could mention that my main business with her would be just to have a go at her head and to arrange in that view for an early sitting. It would have been as impossible, I think, to be impertinent to her as it would have been to throw a stone at a plate-glass window; so any talk that went forward on the basis of her loveliness was the most natural thing in the world and immediately became the most general and sociable. It was when I saw ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... ask what you like," Vincent said quietly; "but I am certainly not going to answer impertinent questions." ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... is Minford," said the mechanic, in a deep and solemn voice, "and I thank you for saving me from the annoying visits of that impertinent fellow. I beg, sir, that you will give me your address, and assure you that the sum shall positively be repaid to ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the impertinent flag come down," said she, frankly; "but you can make resignation from the army, and have a little store on Alvarado Street. You can have beautiful silks and crepes from America. I buy ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... be impertinent to ask for what purpose you have come to Poland? Believe me, I only put the question in order to see if I can in any way be of ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... Globe had contained a grand plan of her own and the royal apartments, and the Advertiser of the following day had printed, without apparent reason, an editorial upon Mademoiselle de la Valliere. But the King considered it highly impertinent of American journals to make any personal comment whatever upon majesty, and had almost burst a blood-vessel when approached soon after his arrival by an interviewer from ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... her pretty invalid's gown of lace, stood silently at the music-room door, watching them. Her thick, dark hair was braided, and looped up under a black bow behind; and she looked like a curious and impertinent schoolgirl peeping at them there through the crack of the door, bending forward, her joined hands ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... acting for myself, and thinking for myself, for the last few months, and I'm tired of the unnatural business. I've been false to the leading principle of my life, and I've suffered for the folly. I found two gray hairs in my head the week before last, and an impertinent crow has planted a delicate impression of his foot under my right eye. Yes, I'm getting old upon the right side; and why—why should ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... proclaimed spendthrift, the mark of impertinent wonder, perhaps of scorn, and to encounter singly the reproaches or taunts of my fellow-citizens, was no alluring prospect. As a shield between me and censure, I invited some few of the most reckless of my comrades to accompany me; thus I went armed against the world, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... whereupon Bacon, in his anxiety, sent Yelverton in person to try to conciliate Buckingham and the King, enjoining him to lie so hard and so unblushingly as to declare that Bacon had never hindered, but had in "many ways furthered the marriage;" that all he had done had been to check Coke's "impertinent carriage" in the matter, which he wished had "more nearly resembled the Earl of ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... years excluded, and a large majority in each association refused to receive into their fellowship those who advocated or contributed to its objects. Hyper-Calvinism, ignorance and avarice cooperated in making the very name "missions" odious, ministerial education an impertinent human effort to supplant a spirit-called and spirit-endowed ministry, Sunday-schools and prayer-meetings as human institutions, the aim of which was to interfere with the divine order, and the receiving of salaries for ministerial work ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... poet's address, and, hastening to his room near the Piazza Novella, he wrote a note asking permission for a young American to call and pay his respects to Mr. and Mrs. Browning, but wrote it in terms which, however warm, would yet permit it to be put aside if it seemed impertinent, or if, for any reason, such a call were not desired. The next morning betimes the note was despatched, and a half-hour had not passed when there was a brisk rap at the Easy Chair's door. He opened it, and saw a young man, ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... if a visitor kindly began to talk to one of the children, another was sure to draw near and "take up" all the first child's answers, with smart comments and catches that sounded as silly as they were tiresome and impertinent. ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... was over, Charles rushed off to Cannes, to get away from the impertinent stare of London. Amelia and Isabel and I went with him. We were driving one afternoon on the hills beyond the town, among the myrtle and lentisk scrub, when we noticed in front of us a nice victoria, containing two ladies in very deep mourning. We followed it, unintentionally, as far as ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... Peggy resented this impertinent remark, but deigned to take no notice of the speaker. "She wouldn't have wore her best clothes to the Centennial, would she?" mildly inquired Peggy, bobbing her head toward the ceiling. "'Twould be a shame to spoil your best things in such a place. An' I don't know of her havin' ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Jim as the sloop rose and sank on the swells on her way over to Seal Island, "if you won't think me impertinent, I'd like to ask ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... that impertinent creature actually staring at us, as if she belonged here!" exclaimed ...
— Five Happy Weeks • Margaret E. Sangster
... as greater than themselves, by reason of this woman's choice. There was method, too, in their salutation. Some rumour must have got about of my preference for the older and simpler habits, and there was no drinking wine to my health after the new and (as I considered) impertinent manner. Decorously, each lord and lady there came forward, and each in turn spilt a goblet at my feet; and when I called any up, whether man or woman, to receive tit-bits from my platter, it was eaten simply and thankfully, and not kissed ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... I am no more, see that you put an end to such impertinent gossiping," said the nobleman, impatiently; "and you will be the better convinced of the propriety of thus acting, as soon as you have learned the nature of my injunctions. That door," he continued, "communicates ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... continued: "Then nothing remains for me but to forbid your having any communication whatever with one whose conduct in my house has been so unpardonably rude and vulgar. You will never marry him, Margaret, never! Nay, I would sooner see you dead than the wife of that low, mean, impertinent fellow!" ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... neighbours is the beginning of wisdom. Neighbours, at the best, are an impertinent encroachment on one's privacy, and, at the worst, an unnatural hindrance to our development. Generally speaking, it is the man or woman who has lived with least fear of his neighbours, who is least likely to hear that last call. ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... tibi non placere. Some think to bear it by speaking a great word, and being peremptory; and go on, and take by admittance, that which they cannot make good. Some, whatsoever is beyond their reach, will seem to despise, or make light of it, as impertinent or curious; and so would have their ignorance seem judgment. Some are never without a difference, and commonly by amusing men with a subtilty, blanch the matter; of whom A. Gellius saith, Hominem delirum, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... to say, "I am not so impertinent as to call your reputation into question for an instant. I will not be so insolent as to sit in judgment upon so delicate a question for a moment. I have said all I had to say, and can see no reason for recalling any part of it." ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... you profited at all by this lesson on inoculating?" he asked the girl, and he added a remark which was so vulgar and impertinent that he would not have dared to use the expression in a variety theatre or any other low ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... with Plato's usual description of the Sophists, who in the early dialogues, and in the Republic, are frequently depicted as endeavouring to save themselves from disputing with Socrates by making long orations. In this character he parts company from the vain and impertinent talker in private life, who is a loser of money, while he is a ...
— Sophist • Plato
... utterance to its opinion of unsanctified science as follows: "This is an age in which scientific atheism, having divested itself of the habiliments that most adorn and dignify humanity, walks abroad in shameless denudation. The arrogant and impertinent claims of this 'science, falsely so called,' have been so boisterous and persistent, that the unthinking mass have been sadly deluded; but our university alone has had the courage to lay its young but vigorous hand upon the mane of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... indeed, events occurred which disturbed the wretched monotony of Frances Burney's life. The Court moved from Kew to Windsor, and from Windsor back to Kew. One dull colonel went out of waiting, and another dull colonel came into waiting. An impertinent servant made a blunder about tea, and caused a misunderstanding between the gentlemen and the ladies. A half- witted French Protestant minister talked oddly about conjugal fidelity. An unlucky member of the household mentioned a passage in the Morning Herald, reflecting ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 'wonderful' spiritual manifestations of the 'boy-medium,' Master Henry B. Allen, in charge of Doctor J. H. Randall, of Boston, were brought to a sad end last evening by the impertinent curiosity and wicked doings of some of the gentlemen present at the ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... to be rude or impertinent. Indeed, for the moment she was not even thinking of herself. She was thinking how a poor girl, who had her living to earn, would feel at an offer of five dollars for six long days of work ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... towards Harry. "Mr. Trojan," he said, "I'm going to be impulsive and perhaps imprudent. There's nothing an Englishman fears so much as impulse, and he is terribly ashamed of imprudence. But, after all, there is no time to waste, and if you think me impertinent you have only to say ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... in. What can the impertinent flirt want with me? She knows I hate her too for being of the other party: however, I'll be as civil to her as I can. [Enter Miss STITCH.] Dear miss! your servant; ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... too bad. Well, my mind was made up that night, and every thing was clear before me for the next day's campaign. It seems that word made a great impression on that little, impertinent Jenny. She was here the other day at the door with her berry basket; and when she saw me, do you think, she looked up sidewise, with the smile those girls have, and said, in a subdued way, 'Campaign.' I wished she were in Guinea. To think ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... time, my boy. The sun was blazing in my eyes, I was going to say, so, you see, I could not make out the distant view, and therefore, can't describe it," ("Glad of it," murmured the impertinent Junkie); "but I knew that the wild elephants were there, somewhere in the dense jungle. Suddenly a shot was heard at the head of the valley. We afterwards learned that it had been fired over the head of a big tusker elephant ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... transformation. For instance, the fumes of self-conceit mounted to Saint Anthony's head when he learned what immense veneration and adoration had been paid to him by all Christendom; and he who here below withstood the most terrible temptations was now quite an impertinent rascal and dissolute gallows-bird, who vied with his pig in rolling himself in the mud. The chaste Susanna, from having been excessively vain of her virtue, which she thought indomitable, came to a shameful fall, and she who once so gloriously resisted the two old men, was a victim ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... the next day, and I could see she thought I had been bragging of my family. So I recounted all the conversation I had had with him, as nearly as I could recollect, and set down the question to an impertinent irony. But I have since changed my mind: I now judge that he could not believe any poor person would joke about poverty. I never found one of those people who go about begging for charities believe me when I told him the simple truth ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... her latest act of insubordination. She would, it was true, have to make a report to him of the day's conduct, but she could refrain from telling the whole story; could smooth the matter over so that he would not understand how extremely impertinent ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... that my son Gildart pressed Miss Puff to attempt another tart, and whispered something impertinent in her ear, for the poor thing's pink round face suddenly became scarlet, and she puffed out in a dangerously ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... with your last, upon the false Ornaments of Persons who represent Heroes in a Tragedy. What made your Speculation come very seasonably amongst us is, that we have now at this Place a Company of Strolers, who are very far from offending in the impertinent Splendor of the Drama. They are so far from falling into these false Gallantries, that the Stage is here in its Original Situation of a Cart. Alexander the Great was acted by a Fellow in a Paper Cravat. The next Day, the Earl of Essex [1] seemed to have ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... humanity scourged by instant dismissal. So when those fathomless eyes glittered in his direction, his knees trembled, and a ball of copper invaded his throat. He could barely drag himself to her side and ask if he could help her. A burst of impertinent laughter greeted him, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... doubt, thought her very impertinent, and barked at her, and tried to drive her away; but she would not go. They had always been good friends, and the dog was unwilling to hurt her; and so Mrs. Dog, after showing, in every way, her desire to get rid of her troublesome acquaintance, and ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
... pleasant to see the numbers of the magazine on the counters at Bonchamp, and to know there were extracts in the local papers, and still less to be indignantly condoled with by neighbours who expressed their intention of 'cutting' the impertinent girl. They were exactly the 'old fogies' Arthurine cared for the least, yet whose acquaintance was the most creditable, and the home party at Stokesley were unanimous in entreating others to ignore the whole and treat the newcomers as if nothing ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... disappointment felt by the royalist at this unsatisfactory result. "These bravadoes and impertinent demonstrations on the part of some of your people," wrote Richardot, ten days later, "will be the destruction of the whole country, and will convert the Prince's gentleness into anger. 'Tis these good and zealous patriots, trusting to a little favourable breeze that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and shouts with laughter at the smallest joke. I pass as a wit with G., and have a great success. She is going to stay with a married sister for the cold weather. Quite like me, only I'm going to an unmarried brother. I think we are both getting slightly impertinent to our elders. They tease us so at meals in the saloon we have to answer back in self-defence, and it is very difficult to help trying to be smart; sometimes, at least with me, it degenerates into rudeness. I told you about all the people at our table, but I forgot one—a very aged man with a long ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... I do not wish woman to be elegant, to dance or to sing; but I should like to see as much care devoted to her mind as to her body, and between being ignorant and savante I should like to see a road taken which would prevent annoyance from an impertinent sufficiency or from a tiresome stupidity. I should like very much to be able to say of anyone of my sex that she knows a hundred things of which she does not boast, that she has a well-balanced mind, that she speaks well, writes correctly, and knows the world; but I do not wish it to be said ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... it's no business of mine," said Barbox Brothers. "That was an impertinent observation on my part. Be ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... took my impertinent speech in good part, and laughed heartily at it; and thus, half amicably, half in earnest, we entered the little town of Letterkenny, just as ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... by my resolves for flight, and only waiting the lucky minute for escape, I set a willing hand to every thing that was preparing for the ceremony of the ensuing morning; with that pretence I got me early to my chamber, tried on a thousand dresses, and asked a thousand questions, all impertinent, which would do best, which looked most gay and rich, then dressed my gown with jewels, decked my apartment up, and left nothing undone that might secure 'em both of my being pleased, and of my stay; nay, and to give the less suspicion, I undressed myself even to my under-petticoat and ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... silly impertinent fellow mean? thought I; but the ale was now before me, and I hastened to drink, for my weakness was great, and my mind was full of dark thoughts, the remains of the indescribable horror of the preceding ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... cordially welcomed to this country than Mr. JAMES. His long and most honorable and productive career as an author has made him universally known, and his works have been very widely read in the United States as well as in England. The officious and impertinent gossip of a portion of our newspaper press led Mr. JAMES to publish a note disclaiming the intention of writing a book upon this country. We regret that he should have found it necessary either to announce such a purpose, or to form it. This country has nothing to lose from the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... published 'by Authority, to prevent false and impertinent relations.' It was licensed by Gilbert Mabbot, and, so far as one can judge from internal evidence, is rather the slightly amplified transcript of a barrister's note, than the work of anybody who in those days might represent a ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... screamed the impertinent young Irishman, and the story was all over Connemara and Joyce's Country in ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sort of liberties might be permitted. Look then upon Horace, who liv'd under an Emperor in the beginnings of a Monarchy (the most dangerous time in the world to laugh) who is there whom he has not satiriz'd by name? Fabius the great Talker, Tigellius the Fantastick, Nasidienus the Impertinent, Nomentanus the Debauchee, and whoever came at his Quill's end. They may answer that these are fictitious Names: an excellent Answer indeed! As if those whom he attack'd were no better known; as if we were ignorant that Fabius was a Roman Knight who compos'd a Treatise ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... could whisper the sudden disappearance of a sparkling blade, who, after blazing awhile at Whitehall, had unaccountably vanished like a meteor from its horizon; nor had the depredation of swindlers, or the frequent intrusion of impertinent hangers-on compelled the owners of manorial houses to shut their doors on uninvited guests. The jovial coarse hospitality of those times delighted in a crowded board; the extensive household daily required ample provision, and refinement was too little advanced from its earliest stage ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... touchy this evenin', Robert," said Abner placidly, for he was so given to interesting himself in the affairs of his neighbors that he did not realize that his curiosity was displayed in an impertinent manner. "Of course I want to sell all I can. You've got considerable money comin' back to you. Don't you want ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... marten on the back of a cat. But, Mr. Van Staats, while walking to your door this morning, it was my fortune to meet the late governor, who is permitted by his creditors to take the air, at an hour when he thinks the eyes of the impertinent will be shut. I believe, Patroon, you were so lucky as to get back your moneys, before the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... that is partly the source of her knowledge," replied the knowing one, with a great show of innocence in her manner. John was in no position to ask impertinent questions, nor had he any right to grow angry at unpleasant discoveries; but he did both, although for a time he suppressed ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... he would not have it. He remembered all that Agg had said. Assuredly Agg had shown nerve, too much nerve, to tackle him in the way she did, and the more he reflected upon Agg's interference the more he resented it as impertinent. Still, Agg had happened to ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... may call intermittent chaperonage. Business, definite, serious occupation of any kind, is a coat of mail. The woman or girl who is plainly absorbed in some earnest and dignified work is shielded from misinterpretation or impertinent intrusion while engaged in that work. She may go unattended to and from her place of business, for her destination is understood, and her purpose legitimate. She needs no guardian, for her capacity ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... and tidy, and the gardener, Hogg, was terribly strict, and woe betide the author of any small footmarks that he found on one of the freshly raked surfaces. Nothing annoyed him more than the odd bulbs that used to come up in the midst of his precious buffalo grass; impertinent crocuses and daffodils and hyacinths, that certainly had no right there. "Blest if I know how they ever gets there!" Hogg would say, scratching his head. Whereat Norah was wont to retire behind a pyramid tree for ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... a more marked line drawn between wealth and pretension on the one hand, poverty and impertinent assumption on the other, than in the dominions of the Czar. Birth, place, power, are all duly honoured, and that sometimes to a degree which would astonish a British nobleman, accustomed all his life to high society. I remember once travelling in a canal boat, ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... smoothly, "which I have no right to ask perhaps. I am looking for a man who disappeared some time ago, and the parties interested hope that you can give some information. You can tell me if the question is at all impertinent, and I will go. ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... said Madelon, getting rather red. She had resented the stare, and did not want to be talked to; her one idea now was to get to Spa unnoticed. But she had ill-chosen her travelling companion—the Countess was a lady whose impertinent curiosity ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... the version published by Miss Smirke in 1818, to accompany her brother's plates, was merely a patchwork production made out of former translations. On the latest, Mr. A. J. Duffield's, it would be in every sense of the word impertinent in me to offer an opinion here. I had not even seen it when the present undertaking was proposed to me, and since then I may say vidi tantum, having for obvious reasons resisted the temptation which ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... I was not in the least offended. The Duke's manner throughout, and the framing of his questions, had been too tactful to awaken any resentment. But I had no fancy for exposing my ill-luck and friendless state to any one. I was democrat enough to feel that a cross-examination which would have been impertinent in anybody else was becoming a little too personal even ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... understands the old and terrible truth: as the twig is bent so will it grow. The skin he would slough will not be sloughed; he tries all the methods—robust executions, lymphatic executions, sentimental and insipid executions, painstaking executions, cursive and impertinent executions. Through all these the Beaux Arts student, if he is intelligent enough to perceive the falseness and worthlessness of his primary education, slowly works his way. He is like a vessel without ballast; he is like a blindfolded man who has missed his pavement; he is blown from ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... that he is clever in some respects—brilliantly clever, I admit. And I don't say that he has ever committed any acts of violence, or ever willingly injured anybody. But, for all that, he is mad, if ever a man were mad yet. Forgive me if the inquiry is impertinent. What can your motive possibly be for wanting an introduction to ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... very sensible, and his advice to the King and Queen on the subject of Hamlet's madness very ridiculous. But he gives the one as a father, and is sincere in it; he gives the other as a mere courtier, a busy-body, and is accordingly officious, garrulous, and impertinent. In short, Shakespeare has been accused of inconsistency in this and other characters, only because he has kept up the distinction which there is in nature, between the understandings and the moral habits of men, between the absurdity of their ideas and the absurdity of their ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... exercise thereof joined together in the same commission. Yea, so individual and inseparable are power and exercise, that under exercise, power and authority is derived: as, "Go, disciple ye all nations, baptizing them," &c., Matt. xxviii. 18, 19. 3. How vain, idle, impertinent, and ridiculous is it to fancy and dream of such a power as shall never be drawn into act by them ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London |
