"Impertinence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... society, he grew saucy in a moment. I did not mind him, but he was vinegar and brimstone to a young student from Tennessee, a slight, weakly lad, but as brave a little chap as you ever saw, named Thorne. Well, one day, for some impertinence, Thorne struck him. Deering was an athlete; he weighed twenty pounds more than I did, fifty more than Thorne, I guess; he was quick as lightning, was most handy with his props, and in an instant he smashed ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... Spaniard was stabbed by an American. It seems that the presumptuous foreigner had the impertinence to ask very humbly and meekly that most noble representative of the Stars and Stripes if the latter would pay him a few dollars which he had owed him for some time. His high mightiness the Yankee was ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... way they move us about in those horrid jungle stations, without a decent bungalow to set one's foot in, I consider I've got a hearthless child, rather than a childless hearth. Thank you for your sympathy all the same. I dare say it was well meant. Impertinence often is. ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... the magnet; my heart, I say, replied to me, 'Reassure yourself, master; tender and valiant as you are, the love that you feel shall cause the birth of a love which you shall share.' But pardon me madame, the language of my heart makes me outrageously impertinent—it is doubtless this impertinence ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... recoiling at this fresh impertinence, while the Lieutenant's eyes almost jumped out ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... herself, she is the most anxious to transfer her fault to others, and to blame where she is conscious of being open to censure. Madame de Verneuil had not, however, in this instance at all miscalculated the extent of her influence over the royal mind; as, instead of resenting an impertinence which was well fitted to arouse his indignation, Henry weakly condescended to justify himself, and by this unmanly concession laid the foundation of all his subsequent ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Albert had not arrived. Madame de Watteville was disposed to regard such delay as an impertinence. ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... he said. "You have only to come to me and give me the right to defend you. I ask for nothing better. Even Caryl would scarcely have the impertinence to dispute it. As my wife you will be ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... creature! How dare you have the incomparable impertinence to mention my name in conjunction with that of your boor of a son. Though he were a millionaire I would think his touch contamination. You have fallen through for once if you imagine I go out at night to meet any one—I merely ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... France could be a happy home; but only if the Brigadier was liked and respected by the rest of the Staff, and tried to make them feel at home. It seems almost an impertinence even at this date for me to say anything whether in praise or in blame of the man who controlled the immediate destinies of the 149th Infantry Brigade when I first joined it. But as I became much attached to Brigadier-General Clifford I may perhaps be forgiven for describing ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... of her, either. She had grown impatient of interests that lay outside her home. Once she had decided to give herself up to her husband, other people's claims appeared as an impertinence beside that perfection ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... cattle, and the people, I began to think myself in Lilliput. I was afraid of trampling on every traveler I met, and often called aloud to have them stand out of the way, so that I had like to have gotten one or two broken heads for my impertinence. ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... your Saint Pere, nor any one's! I am a poor, weak, conceited, miserable man, who by his accursed impertinence has broken the heart of the being whom he loves ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... without expressing apathy and weariness of life; or Mr. Albany, without declaiming about the vices of the rich and the misery of the poor; or Mrs. Belfield, without some indelicate eulogy on her son; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, we do not ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... unnecessary—it would be almost an impertinence—to enlarge on a spiritual destitution of which you are already well aware. There are, we shall all agree, many thousands in London who are palpably sick of spiritual disease, and need the physician. But I have special reasons for not pressing ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... you won't think it's impertinence, papa, I don't mean it for that," she said with hesitation, hanging her head, and blushing; "but—but—I hope it isn't mamma Vi's money we're to ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... and aunts are, their names, and all about them, and so on, a series of interminable catechetical questions on subjects that, one would think, could not possibly have any interest for him. This would be gross impertinence, were it not that "The Crew" is perfectly unconscious of giving any offence. He only asks for information, like Rosa Dartle; and this questioning is ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... through a poor country to Ponte di Po, a miserable village on the borders of the duchy, where we lay, not slept, in our clothes, at the worst inn I have yet encountered. Here our luggage was plumbed for Pianura. The impertinence of the petty sovereigns to travellers in Italy is often intolerable, and the customs officers show the utmost insolence in the search for seditious pamphlets and other contraband articles; but here I was agreeably surprised by the courtesy of the officials and the despatch with which ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... his first feeling was one of irritation at the man's familiarity—which amounted almost to impertinence—and his second, disgust at the grimy hand so near his collar. To summarily shake it off was a natural instinct. But, when he thought a moment, he clearly saw the absurdity of professing a creed of universal brotherhood and then, as soon as some one attempted brotherly ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... deep sleep. A number of men spoke, and most of them said something which I had intended to say, until there was very little of my speech left which could sound original. As each man sat down, Dennison and Webb had the impertinence to shout "Marten," but they were always called to order by the President, who was in no hurry to hear my maiden effort. Collier, who had not come to hear me from inclination but a sense of duty, dozed peacefully in ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... interrupted the poet in his talk at the very moment when the bird was dropping a lobster on the sacred cranium, with the view of unshelling the lobster, but unaware that at the same time he was unshelling a great poet's brain, you would have been fully justified. An impertinence it would certainly have been to interrupt a sentence as undeniable in its Greek as any which that gentleman can be supposed to have turned out, but still the eagle's impertinence was greater.[2] That would have been your excuse. AEschylus, or my friend the casuist, is not to ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... far from all that is dear to me, confronted by a sombre and impenetrable future, I recall the days when in a little town that you know well'—he meant Cagliari—'with my head resting on another sofa, and only seeing around our own exclusive circle (good heavens, what an impertinence!) little men and little things, I used to ask myself: "Am I then condemned to live and die in this place, like a limpet on a rock?" I suffered bitterly; my head was overloaded, wearied, flattened, by the enormous ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... have allowed yourself to do so. Well, there I agree with you. But a woman may do so without impertinence, and I am sure that Miss Kenton has a story. I have watched her, and her face has told me everything but ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... cobbles my shoes or the daughter of the grocer who supplies my sugar is, in the eyes of God, undoubtedly of the same value as my own wife, but they don't interest me. As a social democrat, I may wish sincerely to do them good, but, confound it, to wish to do them good is an impertinence. And when I've tried to bring these elements together in my house I have always failed. Mrs. Crego, while being most gracious and cordial, has, nevertheless, managed to make the upholsterer chilly, and to freeze the grocer's wife ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... the customary line of University studies and prejudices; but the men were too powerful, and their work too genuine and effective, and too much in harmony with the temper and tendencies of the time, to be stopped by impertinence and obstructiveness. Dr. Hawkins was one of those who made the Oriel Common-room a place of keen discussion and brilliant conversation, and, for those days, of bold speculation; while the College itself reflected something of the vigour ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... handkerchief tied over her white cap, and the stick on which she supported herself, all contributed to call up before my mind one of those creatures our ancestors would have burned alive. I confess I wished her such a fate when she advanced towards Francis and said, with her ingrained impertinence— ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... no means strove to repress his voice. Captain Scarborough asserted his rights as a free agent, declaring himself capable, as far as the law was concerned, of going wherever he pleased without reference to Mr. Hart; and told that gentleman that any interference on his part would be regarded as an impertinence. "But my money—my money, which you must pay this minute, if I please ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... the slightest of frowns—just sufficient rebuke to the person who had forgotten himself so far as to stare at a woman in a public place. The maid, too, glanced towards me with a slight flash in her large black eyes, as though she, also, resented my impertinence, and the little Japanese spaniel yawned as he was carried past, and showed me a set of dazzling white teeth. I was in disgrace all round, because I had looked for a second too long into his mistress' deep blue eyes and pale, proud face. Nevertheless, I presumed even further. ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... without permission from the authorities: and there are others who by permission of the authorities exercise that privilege. But, latterly, even sub-vassals and henchmen of no rank have taken to so riding. This is a flagrant impertinence. Henceforward the daimyo of the provinces, and such of their kinsfolk as are men of distinction subordinate to them, may ride without applying for Government permission. Besides those, the following have permission, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... unjustified," said Signor Colajanni in the Italian Chamber on November 23—yet it was not our business to weigh the profit and loss to the two interested parties. After all, it was they who had between themselves made this Agreement, and one might argue that it surely would be an impertinence if anybody else was more royalist than the king. These commentators held that it was inexpedient for anyone to ask why the Yugoslavs should now have accepted conditions that were, on the whole, considerably worse than those which President Wilson, with the approval of Great Britain and France, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... ass, and the hare, as the Pharaohs or Assyrian kings of old had done; and they would track the lion to his lair and engage him single-handed; in fact, they held a strict monopoly in such conflicts, a law which punished with death any huntsman who had the impertinence to interpose between the monarch and his prey being only abolished by Artaxerxes. A crowd of menials, slaves, great nobles, and priests filled the palace; grooms, stool-bearers, umbrella- and fan-carriers, havasses, "Immortals," bakers, perfumers, soldiers, and artisans formed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... nine she did not actively object—safety in numbers, I suppose—but Mrs Carter, it seems, had asked her during the progress of my last cold if she had neglected to air the sheets for my room. Such impertinence from any woman no lady could suffer, Mrs Bust informed me. Into her house Mrs Carter shall never set foot again. Seeing that I had laid in the cakes and sweeties and rubbish for the tea she suggested that she herself and Cissy should be of the company. In that case the ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... be a dinner of herbs with contentment, then, if I have it alone," said Beth; for which impertinence she was condemned to be present ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... not," retorted Mary, flushing angrily. It was too provoking. Why must she be constantly reminded of her resemblance to one she disliked so intensely? In her annoyance at the nature of the French girl's remarks, she quite overlooked the impertinence of her address. ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... it too? But I, my son, am Gaston de Nerac, a vidame of Gascony, nom de Dieu! et il aura affaire a moi, ce pantin-la! Sacredieu! Do you know what he had the impertinence to ask me yesterday? What settlements I proposed to make on Madame de Verneuil. Settlements, mon petit Asticot! He spoke as trustee, whatever that may be, under her husband's will. 'Sir,' said I, 'I will settle my love and my genius upon her, and thereby insure her happiness and her ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... ought not to pay—for incompetence, for impertinence, for disobedience of orders, for laziness, for shirking, for cheating, or for theft. To do so is a social wrong. It is the wrong that lies back, not only of sinecures and spoils, but of employing incompetent ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... I think the child is insane upon the subject. Where could she have picked up such an idea? Is it a mere caprice, a mere piece of impertinence, invented to disconcert the sober senses ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... minds more delicate and tender, easily offended by every deviation from rectitude, soon disgusted by ignorance or impertinence, and always expecting from the conversation of mankind more elegance, purity and truth, than the mingled mass of life will easily afford. Such men are in haste to retire from grossness, falsehood and brutality; and hope to find in private ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... meadow, and in it two horses beneath a chestnut tree, their long tails a-swish, sleepily nosing each other to rout the flies; while in the distance the haze of heat hung like a film over the rolling hills. Close at hand echoed the soft impertinence of a cuckoo, and two fat wood-pigeons waddled about the lawn, picking and stealing as they went. The sky was cloudless, and there was not a ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... of apology. She spoke like one who had a right there, and this it was which angered me and made me lose my self-command. Starting to my feet, I confronted her where she sat in my chair, by Guy's bedside, with those queer blue eyes of hers fixed so questioningly upon me as if she wondered at my impertinence. ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... the past, Anna Sergyevna ... and this was bound to come about sooner or later. Consequently I must go. I can only conceive of one condition upon which I could remain; but that condition will never be. Excuse my impertinence, but you don't love me, and you never will ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... other hand, understand me only too well, scent something equivocal and ridiculous, though they do not exactly know what, make me go on, and finally get out of the difficulty by some subtle piece of impertinence, and a burst of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... opportunity, with many aggravating circumstances of her own invention; for which they generally complimented her, by way of reward, with the flattering titles of a good child, a sweet little dear, and a careful little girl. By this officious impertinence she frequently got the servants reprimanded, and sometimes dismissed; so that by degrees they all began to fear and hate her. She was equally attentive to every trifle which happened at the school, where she was daily sent to learn the art of reading, and the use of her needle; for the moment ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... Whether it was devised by some wicked rhymester and contemner of royalty in the neighbourhood, or placed there by some of the wits of his own company, was never ascertained, though he challenged them at random, and swore lustily that he would know the originator of this piece of folly and impertinence. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... would think there was hope. Then again he would be plagued with despair, at some impertinence or coquetry of his mistress. For days they would be like brother and sister, or the dearest friends—she, simple, fond, and charming—he, happy beyond measure at her good behaviour. But this would all ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... church, exposed himself to the resentment of one Signior Ascanio Negro, who began notwithstanding Mr. Hall's lay-habit, to suspect him to be a clergyman, and use some indecent freedoms with him in consequence of this suspicion. Our author to avoid any impertinence which the captain was likely to be guilty of towards him, told him, Sir Edmund Bacon, the person with whom he travelled, was the grandchild of the great lord Verulam, High Chancelor of England, whose fame was extended to every country where science and philosophy ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... the confinements was inflicted on Honore for his faulty Latin and impertinence. "Caius Gracchus was a noble heart," he translated with a free paraphrase of vir nobilis. "What would Madame de Stael say, if she happened to learn you had thus misconstrued the sense?" asked the master. (Madame de Stael was supposed to be Louis Lambert's patroness.) "She would say you are ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... degree—are, except in a few favored instances, unknown among us; while affectation, in other countries the badge of ignorance and vulgarity, is ours, even in its worst shape, when it borrows the mien of rudeness, impertinence, and effrontery, the appendage of those whose station is most conspicuous, and whose dignity is best ascertained. There is more good breeding in the cottage of a French peasant than in all the boudoirs of Grosvenor ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... abounds, In many parts in country towns, No doubt but some will spurn my song, And say I'd better hold my tongue; But none I'm sure will take offence, Or deem my song impertinence, But only those who guilty be, And plainly here their pictures see. Some maidens say, if through the nation, Bundling should quite go out of fashion, Courtship would lose its sweets; and they Could have no fun till wedding day. It shant be so, they rage and storm, And country girls ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... called Lucy at once, and spoke to her seriously on her forwardness and impertinence. "I could tell you, Lucy, that it is not like a young lady, but I must tell you more, it is not like a young Christian maiden. Do you remember the text that I gave you to learn a little while ago—the ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... must be a mistake of yours. No girl could have the impertinence to say such a false thing of Lord Arondelle," exclaimed Salome, in disgust and abhorrence of the ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... IRVING as the preposterous Beverley was in his very best form. Beverley is really a creation. How much the author's and how much the player's it would be an impertinence to inquire. This imperturbable trickster with his thin streak of genuine sensitiveness to psychic influence; his grotesquely florid style—the man certainly has style; his frank reliance on apt alcohol's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... frequent in the world. All who are not equally pleased with the good and the bad, with the elegant and gross, with the witty and the dull, all who distinguish excellence from defect, she considers as ill-natured; and she condemns as proud all who repress impertinence or quell presumption, or expect respect from any other eminence than that of fortune, to which she is ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... with impertinence; your party are taking an unwarrantable liberty. I wish, if my brother persists in keeping the church doors open, that he would keep a chained bulldog inside! Nothing else will keep you tourists in your place. And here am I without ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... "No impertinence at all, sir. But, unfortunately, we have no intentions in common. We are engaged to be married, and I want ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... interrupt. Mrs Gunning sailed on, maternal, imperative, and took no heed. It would be impertinence to intrude on the talk that followed, and the plan laid for the entrapping of his Grace, of whom it may be said that he could protect himself against even the assaults of beauty better than Mrs Gunning supposed. But Elizabeth, borne down by two to her one, fought ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... slowly towards her mother, smiling over her shoulder at the whole room, as if it had been a single person, without a flush in her whiteness, or the need of drawing a longer breath. The performance had evidently been very easy to her, and there might have been a kind of impertinence in her air of not having suffered from an exertion which had wrought so powerfully on every one else. Ransom broke into a genial laugh, which he instantly swallowed again, at the sweet grotesqueness of this virginal creature's standing up before a company of middle-aged people ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... man thus caught the old marten sitting by the side of his wife. At this he was much annoyed, and as the marten suddenly ran out the man asked the woman what it meant. So she told him all that the marten had said, and of his impertinence in asking her to leave him and become the marten's wife. At this the man was very indignant, and so they arranged to ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... the very best cliches (my own and others)—"supersubtle analysis," "intimate psychology," "masterly handling," "incomparable artistry"—I found nothing that it didn't seem a sort of impertinence to apply to JOSEPH CONRAD's Chance, which METHUEN has just had the good luck to publish. For the whole thing is much nearer wizardry than workmanship. I put the book down with a gasp, so close had I been to realities as conjured up by one to whom realism is a servant and not a master. I had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... that they were actively and thoroughly cheerful. Even her busy hands, which of their own thinness alone might have besought compassion, plied their task with a gay courage that made mere compassion an unjustifiable assumption of superiority, and an impertinence. ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... said Volnay with a laugh to take the edge from his words. 'Here's a sample of the sort of thing you're walking into. It'll be a piece of rank impertinence on your part to call me "old chap" in half an hour's time, and you mustn't do it. When you catch sight of me, it'll be your business to stand up as stiff as a ramrod and salute me; and you'll have to say ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... Crockstead, let me remind you that frankness has its limits: exceeding these, it is apt to degenerate into impertinence. Be good enough to ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... of their own accord, gave me 10 pound each, which is all I ever received of any person whatsoever. It may indeed be imputed to my own neglect, in not acquainting the learned with my design, but modesty still keeps me silent. I hope your goodness will pardon my impertinence. I shall be ready at all times to give you any satisfaction you desire on this subject, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... we have found reason to believe, has a biological basis. It is not until a child is born or conceived that the community has any right to interest itself in the sexual acts of its members. The sexual act is of no more concern to the community than any other private physiological act. It is an impertinence, if not an outrage, to seek to inquire into it. But the birth of a child is a social act. Not what goes into the womb but what comes out of it concerns society. The community is invited to receive a new citizen. It is entitled to demand that that citizen shall be worthy ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... once have been borne down by the weight of general authority and received canon law. Strong instincts are apt to make men strange, and rude; self-confidence, however well founded, to give much of what they do or say the appearance of impertinence. Look at the self-confidence of Wordsworth, stiffening every other sentence of his prefaces into defiance; there is no more of it than was needed to enable him to do his work, yet it is not a little ungraceful here and there. Suppose this stubbornness and self-trust in a youth, laboring ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the language of the law, is a gratuitous opinion, an individual impertinence, which, whether it be wise or foolish, right or wrong, bindeth none—not even ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... from the grivest apprehensions. After a short time I heard two very loud shots, and distinctly perceived the unfortunate undergraduate Smith leaning far out of the Warden's window and aiming at the Warden repeatedly with a revolver. Upon seeing me, Smith burst into a loud laugh (in which impertinence was mingled with insanity), and appeared to desist. I sent the college porter for a ladder, and he succeeded in detaching the Warden from his painful position. Smith was sent down. The photograph I enclose is from the group of the University ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... them the men that they wanted. The man who had us in charge joined with those we met in the hurrahing. We were afraid to ask them the reason for their yelling, as that would have been regarded as an impertinence, and probably would have caused us all ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... "It is no impertinence. If you doubt my knowledge, I'll tell you the particulars. You opened the drawer with one of a bunch of keys which you took from your pocket, took out a morocco pocketbook, opened it and counted the roll of bills which it contained, then put the ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... accomplished Hypatia, familiar to ladies from Kingsley's novel—in the days when ladies used to read novels—and also the Royal ladies whom Descartes and Leibnitz found apter disciples than the savants. It was, however, he remarked, an impertinence to suppose that any apology was needed for introducing such subjects before ladies. He plunged therefore at once in medias res, and made his first lecture not a mere isolated or introductory one, but the actual commencement of his series. Unreasoned ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... critics, who never heard Thalberg, have the impertinence to flout him, to make merry at his fantasias. Just compare the Don Juan of Liszt and the Don Juan of Thalberg! See which is the more musical, the more pianistic. Liszt, after running through the gamut of operatic extravagance, ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... so. Yet what could she say? She could not go to the Queen of England and cry out, like a silly milk-maid: "You have taken my lover—give him back to me!" What proof had she that the Queen wanted her lover? And if she spoke, the impertinence of the suggestion might send back to the fierce Medici that same lover, to lose ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... herself for half-an-hour to please and pacify this uncomfortable child. The character and appearance of this infant, so utterly unlike all its companions, had already excited my curiosity, but I had found no opportunity of asking a question without risking an impertinence. On this occasion, however, I ventured to make some remark on the extreme gentleness and forbearance with which not only Eveena but the children treated their ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... by meat and drink was in their eyes something altogether swinish and bestial. [18] Nor did Gobryas fail to notice that they only asked questions which were pleasant to answer, and only jested in a manner to please; all their mirth was as far from impertinence and malice as it was from vulgarity and unseemliness. [19] And what struck him most was their evident feeling that on a campaign, since the danger was the same for all, no one was entitled to a larger share than any of his comrades; on the contrary, it was thought the perfection ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... in all these cases, either the special circumstance or the special relation implies superiority of knowledge or superiority of position on the part of the person tendering the advice, and to assume this superiority, where it does not plainly exist, is an act of impertinence. Just as the assumption of superiority wounds a man's self-respect, so does the disposition to meddle in his affairs, which is generally founded on that assumption, affect his sense of independence, and, hence, an act which includes both grounds of offence seems to be ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... Gallegher, with that calm impertinence that made him dear to us. "He'll dress just like a gentleman. Toughs don't wear gloves, and you see he's got to wear 'em. The first thing he thought of after doing for Burrbank was of that gone finger, and how he was to hide it. ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... with unconscious impertinence, insults his heroine for her presumable ignorance of his critical jargon. His smart epigrams want but a slight change of tone to become satire. It is the same writer who begins an essay on women's characters by telling a woman that her ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... light Peyrolles peered derisively at the different members of the party. "They seem a choice set of ruffians," he observed, with the labored impertinence that seemed to him a ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... much of his own dignity it was possible that he might fail, but hardly with a young lady and pretty woman. He possessed the tact of becoming instantly intimate with women without giving rise to any fear of impertinence. He had about him somewhat of the propensities of a tame cat. It seemed quite natural that he should be petted, caressed, and treated with familiar good nature, and that in return he should purr, and be sleek and graceful, and above all never show his claws. Like other tame cats, however, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... returned the ghost, throwing a quart of indignation into the face of the master of Harrowby. "It may rank high as repartee, but as a comment upon my statement that you do not know what you are talking about, it savors of irrelevant impertinence. You do not know that I am compelled to haunt this place year after year by inexorable fate. It is no pleasure to me to enter this house, and ruin and mildew everything I touch. I never aspired to be a shower-bath, but it is my doom. Do you ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... sit still. "Your attitude to crime is pretty clear to me now, but... excuse me for my impertinence (I am really ashamed to be worrying you like this), you see, you've removed my anxiety as to the two grades getting mixed, but... there are various practical possibilities that make me uneasy! What if some man or youth imagines that he is a Lycurgus or Mahomet—a future one of course—and suppose ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... it occurred to Tom that he might himself personally address the Being in whose hands poor Jack lay. God was good. Dr. M'Hearty had said so, and the doctor knew almost everything. He hesitated for a few moments, though. It seemed like taking the parson's duty out of his hands. Was it impertinence? He looked at Jack's poor, white, still face—looked just once, then knelt and prayed—prayed a simple sailor's prayer that isn't to be found anywhere in a book, but may be none the less ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... governor consented to receive in lieu a certain proportion of butter*, the master having a quantity of that article on board very good. This deficiency was ascertained by weighing all the provisions which were landed; a proceeding which the master acquiesced in with much reluctance and some impertinence. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... and it was buzzed about that I was the juvenile pupil of Garrick,—the promised Cordelia. My person improved daily; yet a sort of dignified air, which from a child I had acquired, effectually shielded me from the attacks of impertinence or curiosity. Garrick was delighted with everything I did. He would sometimes dance a minuet with me, sometimes request me to sing the favourite ballads of the day; but the circumstance which most pleased him was my tone of voice, ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... I suspected the fellow of gratuitous impertinence. I told him with marked emphasis that I would see him and Hamilton hanged first, and requested him to conduct me to my room with no more of his nonsense. He produced then a key from somewhere and led ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... from view in his sudden and overwhelming sense of utter insecurity. And this made Mr. Jones feel very savage; but not against the man with the moustaches. Thus, while Heyst was really feeling that his life was not worth two minutes, purchase, he heard himself addressed with no affection of languid impertinence but with ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... have fewer revenges to take, there is less need of their being stamped on in advance. The general good nature, the social equality, deprive them of triumphs on the one hand, and of grievances on the other. There is extremely little impertinence; there is almost none. You will say I am describing a terrible society,—a society without great figures or great social prizes. You have hit it, my dear; there are no great figures. (The great prize, of course, in Europe, is the opportunity to ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... some embarrassment turned to escape the eyes which had caught him in a rare bit of impertinence, but was surprised to ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... that her friends were grand enough for him to honour their houses by his presence. She had in this, too, a lively recollection of her lost Captain's doctrinal views of the great world's creed. The Captain had flourished in the time when Impertinence, installed by Brummell, though her influence was waning, still schooled her oligarchs, and maintained the etiquette of her court; and even when his misalliance and his debts had cast him out of his native sphere, he lost not all ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... awkwardness, and one in which few are found to manage with success; the blushing, hesitating, blundering apology of the absent man, is scarcely better than the ill-affected surprise of the more practised offender. The bashfulness of the one is as distasteful as the cool impertinence of the other; both are so thoroughly out of place, for we are thinking of neither; our thoughts are wandering to cold soups and rechauffed pates, and we neither care for nor estimate the cause, but satisfy our spleen ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... deferential treatment in society, that is something which intellectual ability can never expect; to be ignored is the greatest favor shown to it; and if people notice it at all, it is because they regard it as a piece of impertinence, or else as something to which its possessor has no legitimate right, and upon which he dares to pride himself; and in retaliation and revenge for his conduct, people secretly try and humiliate him in some other way; and if they wait to do this, it is only for a fitting ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... with the girl who ignorantly goes about unattended, or with other unchaperoned girls, on social occasions. A girl must have an unusual measure of native dignity, as well as native innocence, always to escape the disagreeable infliction of either "fresh" or blase impertinence, if she has no mother's wing to ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... permission, and acquit you of all sins, whether of disrespect, meanness, impertinence, ungentle-manlike practices, or any other vice that may be thought to attend and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... discovered in the unceasing noise of beating coats, singing French airs, and scolding the boot-boy. He rarely retires to rest before mid-night; and the whole day long he is in one eternal round of occupation. When he is bordering upon impertinence, he seems to be conscious of it—declaring that "the English make him saucy, but that naturally he is very civil." He always speaks of human beings in the neuter gender; and to a question whether ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... The Impertinence of this account would hardly have given it a place here, only to hint that it has always been the Opinion, that Satan's Name may well be call'd a Noun of Multitude, and that the Devil and his Angels are certainly no inconsiderable Number: It was a smart Repartee that a ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... devils! if I were a physician, I would be revenged of his impertinence, and when he falls ill, I would let him die without relief. In vain would he beg and pray. I would not prescribe for him the least little bleeding, the least little injection, and I would tell him, "Die, die, like a dog; it will teach you to laugh ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere
... the people into his confidence, let them know the sources of revenue, the nature of expenditures, and measures of relief. This was very quieting to the public, but exasperating to the privileged classes, who had never taken the people into their confidence, and considered it an impertinence for them to inquire how the moneys were spent. And so Louis, again yielding to the pressure at Versailles, dismissed Necker; then, in the outburst of rage which followed, tried to retrace ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... short stature, thin visage, and poor figure were not calculated to make much of an impression on the hero of the theater; and after the general-in-chief had welcomed him cordially, and very politely asked him to sing an air, he replied by this poor pun, uttered in a tone the impertinence of which was aggravated by his Italian accent: "Signor General, if it is a good air which you desire, you will find an excellent one in making a little tour of the garden." The Signor Marchesi was for this fine speech immediately put out of the door, and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... to come so soon," she began. "I did not blame you for running off the other day; Charley's impertinence was shameful. He said, after you left, that he perceived you had not yet lost your quickness to take offence, but I know he felt that you showed a just ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... rites, may be quite fitting if it is a true expression of religious feeling, but if it is a matter of form, of rule, or requirement, if it is regarded as a ground of merit, it is an absurdity and an impertinence. ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... of her smile of amusement with its trace of mischievousness. Becoming conscious of his consciousness of her, he cast her deliberately out of his mind and concentrated upon Mr. Stevens. The two men gazed quite steadily at each other, not to the point of impertinence at all, but nevertheless rather absorbedly. Really it was only for a fleeting moment, but in that moment they had each penetrated the husk of the other, had cleaved straight down to the soul, had estimated and judged for ever and ever, ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... serious for a single moment? Can I not make you understand that you are ruining yourself and me; that we have nothing to depend upon but the bounty of that man whom you disgust by your caprice, extravagance, and impertinence; and that if you don't get reconciled to your father what is to become of you? You already know what you have to expect from my family, and how you ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... her answer she wonders why she did it, remembering that it is from a stranger the question comes, and that it is therefore an impertinence. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... with your first remarks you had climbed to the dizziest heights of impertinence. I perceive that I was mistaken. I am a discarded minister,"—dryly. "I may be supposed to have in my possession secrets for which your country would pay. Is it not to those facts that I am indebted for ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... folk had arranged themselves just outside and were staring up at my windows. Then they took to their heels again and fled whispering and laughing down the lane, only, however, to return with the next gust of wind and repeat their impertinence. On the other side of my room, a single square window opens into a sort of shaft, or well, that measures about six feet across to the back wall of another house. Down this funnel the wind dropped, and puffed and shouted. Such noises I never heard before. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... gentleman is just giving up business, on purpose, I verily believe, to avoid publishing my book. In short, of all the seventeen booksellers, only one has vouchsafed even to read my tales; and he—a literary dabbler himself, I should judge—has the impertinence to criticise them, proposing what he calls vast improvements, and concluding, after a general sentence of condemnation, with the definitive assurance that he will not be concerned on any terms.... But there does seem to be one righteous man among these seventeen unrighteous ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... If it be not an impertinence to mention a contemporary, I should certainly have a brace from Rudyard Kipling. His power, his compression, his dramatic sense, his way of glowing suddenly into a vivid flame, all mark him as a great master. But which are we to choose ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and readily acknowledge, that the discovery upon which I am at work is not my own work; and, therefore, I pray for it as for a signal favor. Nor can it be otherwise with any man. It is, therefore, always an impertinence for any man to attribute to his personal genius, vast as he may suppose it to be, the discovery of any law. God alone discloses His treasures, and, as I have experienced, He only reveals them to the eye of reason raised by ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... smiled, and Mrs Wackles smiled, the two little girls on the stools sought to curry favour by smiling likewise, in gracious acknowledgement of which attention the old lady frowned them down instantly, and said that if they dared to be guilty of such an impertinence again, they should be sent under convoy to their respective homes. This threat caused one of the young ladies, she being of a weak and trembling temperament, to shed tears, and for this offense they were both filed off immediately, with a dreadful promptitude that struck ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... a fantastic, unaccountable whim; the whim of a woman seeking forgetfulness, not counting the cost nor caring; simply a whim. She had brought him here to crush him for his impertinence; and that purpose was no longer in her mind. Was she sorry? Did he cause her some uneasiness, some regret and sadness? It was too late. There could be no Prince Charming in her world. He had tarried too long by the way. Not that ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... of them at any rate. We'll see if girls are so much in the way, Mr. Hal. I consider it a gross piece of impertinence," said Hil, leading the way with an ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... populace. She therefore sent Poulain back to the king for further instructions. Meantime, Poulain was followed by Malicorne, a creature of the duke's, at the head of some partisan troops. This presumptuous officer had the impertinence to demand the immediate surrender of the castle, and went so far as to threaten to turn some cannon against it, in case of her refusal. But he little understood the virile courage of the woman with whom he had to do. "Malicorne," ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... pardon the suggestion, miss, hoping you'll not think it's an impertinence, it strikes me the thing to do is first to get Mr. Roger into bed and then to give him a good strong sleeping draught. If he still is bent on going out to-morrow, miss, with your permission I'd take away ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... course. I doubt my own ability to do him justice, well as I knew him. But you put a stopper on that—and you were right. My kind regards," he said, draining his second glass of claret. "The laborer is worthy of his hire, the artist must not be interfered with. It was an impertinence of me to ask to do ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... the bill-of-fare, you feel ashamed to say you've been in Egypt. Anyway, I am a faker and I don't care, and I proved it today by being photographed on a camel in front of the Pyramids, and if that wasn't impertinence I do not know its name. I accordingly went and bought a lot of gold dresses for Nora ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... pragmatic in me to begin to set John Bunyan right in his English; but I had rather offend the shades of a hundred John Bunyans than leave my most unlettered hearer without his full and proper Sabbath- night lesson. The third armed thief, then, that fell upon Valiant was, under other names, Impertinence, Meddlesomeness, Officiousness, Over-Interference. Pragmatic,—by whatever name he calls himself, there is no mistaking him. He is never satisfied. He is never pleased. He is never thankful. He is always setting his superiors right. ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... asked if he did not live close to the Court. On admitting that he did, the further question was put, "And pray, sir, for what reason did you take up your residence in that place?"—"To avoid the rascally impertinence of ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... at Bussy in a manner that portended a violent storm. Bussy saw that he had done wrong; but he was not a man to draw back; on the contrary, he was one of those who generally repair an indiscretion by an impertinence. ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... Farmer-folks in Californy ain't got the money ter spend in readin' matter. They're in big luck these times if they kin pay the interest on their mortgages. With wheat at eighty cents a cental, an' barley not wuth the haulin', it seems most an impertinence to ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... beg you not to allow Mr. Baxter to enter the house.... No, I have no authority from anyone, least of all from Mr. Baxter. He has no idea that I have come. He would think it an unwarrantable piece of impertinence." ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... there have desiderated a more confident tone, but I have deliberately refrained from going further than the facts seemed to warrant. The cause of truth is not served by unwarranted assertions; and the facts are often so difficult to concatenate that dogmatism becomes an impertinence. Those who know the ground best walk the most warily. But if the old confidence has been lost, a new confidence has been won. Traditional opinions on questions of date and authorship may have been shaken or overturned, but other and greater things abide; and not the least precious ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... learning, judgment, fire! She seems inspir'd, and can herself inspire: How then (if malice rul'd not all the fair) Could Daphne publish, and could she forbear? We grant that beauty is no bar to sense, Nor is't a sanction for impertinence. Sempronia lik'd her man; and well she might; The youth in person, and in parts, was bright; Possess'd of every virtue, grace, and art, That claims just empire o'er the female heart: He met her passion, all her sighs return'd, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... out of a point of Honour undervalue my Comedy. I should very unseasonably disoblige all the People of Paris, should I accuse them of having applauded a foolish Thing: as the Public is absolute Judge of such sort of Works, it would be Impertinence in me to contradict it; and even if I should have had the worst Opinion in the World of my Pretentious Young Ladies before they appeared upon the Stage, I must now believe them of some Value, since so many People agree to speak ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... what he said of his friend: it would be, as Mr. Foster says, impertinence to offer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... taken so aback with this, and the extreme impertinence of it, from a mere young girl like Annie, that I turned round to march away and have nothing more to say to her. But she jumped up, and caught me by the hand, and threw herself upon my bosom, with her face all wet ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... is a man quite ignorant of the world, of your quality, and the respect that is due to you: but we beseech you to overlook and pardon his fault." "I have not received adequate satisfaction," said she; "I will teach him to know the world; I will make him bear sensible marks of his impertinence, and be cautious hereafter how he tastes a dish seasoned with garlic without washing his hands." They renewed their solicitations, fell down at her feet, and kissing her fair hands, said, "Good madam, moderate your anger, and grant us the favour we supplicate." She made no reply, but got ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... been so abashed by my wretched mistake that I had not so much as told the President who I was (though, truth to tell, he had not asked me, and it would have been only another impertinence on my part to have volunteered the information). Yet as I sat waiting for young Mr. Lewis, and reviewing in my mind the miserable events through which I had just passed, it suddenly occurred to me as very remarkable ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... cast, must be smoothed and made even. This is a very pretty process, and used to be performed by machines which bore the very pretty names of valseuses. That paviour's rammers should be called demoiselles has always seemed to me an outrage and an impertinence, though I may suppose it finds its excuse in the short-waisted costumes of our grandmothers. But the movement of the glass-smoothing valseuses was really a sort of waltz movement. The plates of glass were fixed with plaster on a solid rectangular table. Granite-dust was scattered upon the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Gettysburg meant. These gallant men in blue and gray sit all about us here.[C] Many of them met upon this ground in grim and deadly struggle. Upon these famous fields and hillsides their comrades died about them. In their presence it were an impertinence to discourse upon how the battle went, how it ended, what it signified! But fifty years have gone by since then, and I crave the privilege of speaking to you for a few minutes of what ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson |
