"Insolence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... humour. The colonel, who had not wit at will to put down his antagonist, became still more provoked to see that such a low-born fellow as the squire should and could laugh and make others laugh. For the lack of wit the colonel had recourse to insolence, and went on from one impertinence to another, till the squire, enraged, declared that he would not be browbeat by any lord's nephew or jackanapes colonel that ever wore a head; and as he spoke, tremendous in ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... however, carried their audacity even to insolence. They were seen retiring at a foot-pace across the interval between our squadrons, and coolly reloading their arms. They reckoned upon the heaviness of our cavalry of the elite, and the swiftness of their own horses, which they urge with a whip. Their flight ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... portico of Heliodora, I will drive my dagger into his heart," and on he struts, leaving me so amazed that I forgot even to fetch the cub a box o' the ear. But I had not long to wait for an explanation of his insolence. Whom should I next meet but the solemn-visaged Opilio. "So your friend Basil," he began, "has forgotten his Gothic love?" We talked, and I learnt from him that you were the hot rival of Vivian for Heliodora's favour. Nay, I do but repeat what you ought to hear. Can such gossip ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... with equal contempt. The spectators were noisy and insulting, but they called him out at the end of the piece. "What do you want?" he asked.—"You! you!" was the reply.—"Well, here I am!" continuing after a pause, with characteristic insolence: "I have acted in every theatre in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, I have acted in all the principal theatres throughout the United States of America, but in my life I never acted to such a set of ignorant, unmitigated brutes as I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... used me as a stalking-horse to draw her brother's suspicions away from her and Jevons; she had had it when she drew me after her to Belgium, and when I followed her from Bruges to Canterbury at her bidding; she had had it when I married Norah (hadn't she told me, in the insolence of it, that she had meant that I should marry Norah?). She had had it, this malign power over me, the other night, and she had it now. ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... the American people has been deeply stirred by two considerations: Germany's unwarrantable insolence and arrogance, and Britain's magnificent display of patriotism, ashore and afloat, in fighting for her independence. The patriotic struggle for independence—that is what has moved the American people to forgetfulness of all jealousies and rivalries. The rather ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... like Gerald of Wales. He had a strange gift of attracting friends and of winning the love of women. But in his inner soul John was the worst outcome of the Angevins. He united into one mass of wickedness their insolence, their selfishness, their unbridled lust, their cruelty and tyranny, their shamelessness, their superstition, their cynical indifference to honour or truth. In mere boyhood he tore with brutal levity the beards of the Irish chieftains who came to own him as their lord. His ingratitude and perfidy ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... consideration, and proved by trustworthy evidence. I could not doubt that the case demanded the interposition of this Government. Justice required that reparation should be made for so many and such gross wrongs, and that a course of insolence and plunder, tending directly to the insecurity of the lives of numerous travelers and of the rich treasure belonging to our citizens passing over this transit way, should be peremptorily arrested. Whatever it ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the effects break out in insolence and disobedience, then there ensues a scene. If you go there you will witness them occasionally, and I assure you they are not edifying. You must endeavour to train the girls to something better than they have been trained ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... had been placed under the censures of the Church were, meanwhile, in violent anger. Roger of York said he had 8,000 crowns in his coffers, and would spend every one of them in beating down Thomas's insolence: and together they all set out to make their complaints to the ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... spot are deposited the remains of one who possessed beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices. This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery, if inscribed over human ashes, is but a just tribute to the memory of BOATSWAIN, a dog, Who was born at Newfoundland, May, ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... sister's restraining arm, his face white with passion and his breath coming in gasps. "Let me go, Truelove!" he commanded. "If I am a Friend, I am a man as well! Thou fellow with the shoulder knots, thee shall pay dearly for thy insolence!" ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... was our guise To slight the poor, or aught humane despise: For Jove unfold our hospitable door, 'Tis Jove that sends the stranger and the poor, Little, alas! is all the good I can A man oppress'd, dependent, yet a man: Accept such treatment as a swain affords, Slave to the insolence of youthful lords! Far hence is by unequal gods removed That man of bounties, loving and beloved! To whom whate'er his slave enjoys is owed, And more, had Fate allow'd, had been bestow'd: But Fate condemn'd him to a foreign shore; Much have I sorrow'd, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... the Euxine. Muratori, the author of the Antiquities of the House of Este, says that he was confined principally in order that he might be cured; while the Abbate Serassi, who wrote a life of the poet, attributes his imprisonment to his insolence to the duke and his court, and to his desire, repeatedly expressed and acted upon, to leave his patron's service. But both these writers considered the interests of the house of Este more sacred than those of truth. The cause generally accepted is Tasso's supposed attachment to Leonora, ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... been, a real alliance between the two extreme parties in this country. They play into each other's hands. They live by each other. Neither would have any influence if the other were taken away. The demagogue would have no audience but for the indignation excited among the multitude by the insolence of the enemies of Reform: and the last hope of the enemies of Reform is in the uneasiness excited among all who have anything to lose by the ravings of the demagogue. I see, and glad I am to see, that ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... thoroughly corrupt, to lose all the lesser without gaining anything of the greater virtues. They boast, like John Tod, that they ne'er feared the French, and have scant respect for (white) persons; indeed, their independence sometimes takes the form of insolence. We were obliged to release by force the boy Nyongo, and two of Mr. Tippet's women who had been put "in log"—Anglice, in the stocks. They were wanted as hostages during the coming war, and this rude contrivance was ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... loss of his father he spoke sadly, and then, with burning words, of the cowardly wooers, of their feastings and revelings and wasting of his goods, and of their insolence ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... not seem to be frightened. Her quick temper rose at the man's insolence, and she exclaimed authoritatively, "Let go of my bridle this instant, and ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... gentlemen, thank you. Your wishes have always been my law. You bid me endure all this insolence; honored by your good opinion, and supported by your promise to stand by me, I will endure it." And Mr. Hawes was seen to throw off the uneasiness he had put on to bind the magistrates ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... hast thou thus to thine owne harme deceiu'd me Well I perceiue thy Noble dauntles heart: Because it would not beare the Conquerors insolence, Vsed on it selfe this cruell violence, 1140 I know not whether I should more lament, That by thine owne hand thou thus slaughtred art, Or Ioy that thou so ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... wrath flare up—it was in the heightened color that spread upward above the collar of his shirt; he saw the man's terrific effort at self-control; and his look grew bitter with insolence. ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Goose, with the idea of furthering his benign influence. Hartwell, Morrison, and Pierre were sitting around a table in the private office, Hartwell impatient for action, Pierre unobtrusively alert, Morrison cocksure to the verge of insolence. ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... best in my power," replied the girl, with a tinge of insolence in her manner. "But, how was it possible to force a knowledge of the contents on the old man, after I had denied reading the book? He must have opened at some unimportant passage, or a deeper interest ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... called subinfeudation, and the vassal of a vassal was called a subvassal or subtenant. There was still another way in which the number of vassals was increased. The owners of small estates were usually in a defenseless condition, unable to protect themselves against the insolence of the great nobles. They consequently found it to their advantage to put their land into the hands of a neighboring lord and receive it back from him as a fief. They thus became his vassals and could ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... not find as easy as you anticipate," I retorted, angered at his cool insolence. "If you are Philip Henley, then the lady you are holding prisoner ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... Told me I was a regular modern Frankenstein, and that I had made a young monster to worry me to death. Such insolence! Dexter's growing a very nice lad, and I feel as if I could make a nobleman of him if I liked, but I think I'll send him to a good school for a bit. You see, he's ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... been delivered late, too, and when Helen had called up the shop to protest she had been met with cool insolence. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... producing an unfair impression of imperiousness and insolence. Tycho was fiery, no doubt, but I think we should wrong him if we considered him insolent. Most of the nobles of his day were haughty persons, accustomed to deal with serfs, and very likely to sneer at and trample on any meek man of science whom they could easily ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... of the same ordinary food with the most wretched pauper. By a retrospective law, Roose was sentenced to be boiled to death, which was done accordingly. In Smithfield, the arch-rebel, Wat Tyler, met with, in 1381, the reward of his treason and insolence." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... understand it," quoth the seneschal, "for the English knights and nobles whom I have met were not men to brook the insolence of the base born." ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as a result of flattery. Hence he did not permit any one to propose any measure whatever. This course he declared far better than to reject what has been voted to one. The latter method brought hatred for the high position that led to such measures being passed, and connoted arrogance and insolence in not accepting what is granted by your superiors or at all events by your peers. By the former method you possessed in very fact the democratic name and behavior both, not indicated but existent. For having received almost all ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... until late in the spring of 1498 that the ships were ready for Columbus. Everything that Fonseca could do to vex and delay him was done. One of the bishop's minions, a converted Moor or Jew named Ximeno Breviesca, behaved with such outrageous insolence that on the day of sailing the Admiral's indignation, so long restrained, at last broke out, and he drove away the fellow with kicks and cuffs.[589] This imprudent act gave Fonseca the opportunity to maintain that what the Admiral's accusers said about his tyrannical ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... scarce common civility, as indeed he shewed very little to any other person, treating his officers little better than a man of no great good-breeding would exert to his meanest servant, and that too on some very irritating provocation. As for me, he addressed me with the insolence of a basha to a Circassian slave; he talked to me with the loose licence in which the most profligate libertines converse with harlots, and which women abandoned only in a moderate degree detest and abhor. He often kissed me with very rude familiarity, and one day attempted further brutality; ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... absurd fable. All eyes were turned on Nell, and all waited for her to bring about with a denial the satisfactory denouement. Drake did not laugh, for his heart was burning with fury against the audacity, the shameless insolence, of Lady Luce; but he smiled in a grim fashion as his eyes ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... affairs,—the Queen being only applied to for the sake of form. These two great statesmen treated the Scottish noblemen to whom the Cavaliers entrusted the success of their representations, with a lofty insolence, which galled the proud Highlanders, and ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... magistrate would have dared to brave public opinion by proceeding against him. In his own depositions, Marcasse gave an account of the mysterious and inexplicable appearance of the Trappist at Roche-Mauprat, the steps he had taken to obtain an interview with M. Hubert and his daughter, his insolence in entering and terrifying them in their drawing-room, and the efforts the Carmelite prior had made to obtain considerable sums of money from me on behalf of this individual. All these depositions were treated as fairy tales, for Marcasse admitted ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... sight, to the touch, smell, and taste. All feelings of this kind are a sort of melting pleasure that dissolves the mind. Boastfulness is a pleasure that consists in making an appearance, and setting off yourself with insolence.—The subordinate species of lust they define in this manner. Anger is a lust of punishing any one who, as we imagine, has injured us without cause. Heat is anger just forming and beginning to exist, which the Greeks call ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... against you," said Duncan, confronting him with an undaunted look, before which his insolence quailed. ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... pretty smart in making their exit, and David Butts, being used to doors, was not slow to shut his own, but they could not altogether baffle the colonel, for he was waiting outside. Indeed, he had been whistling with furious insolence through the keyhole all the time of the visit. Sliding in edgewise, at the moment of opening, he managed to scatter the ashes again, and whirl about some of the light articles ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... if he did not think himself imposed upon by a forgery, might well consider himself outraged. It was a letter of this kind which was sent by the Secretary of State to the Minister Plenipotentiary to the Empire of Austria. Not quite all the vulgar insolence of the M'Crackin letter was repeated. Mr. Seward did not ask Mr. Motley to deny or confirm the assertion of the letter that he was a "thorough flunky" and "un-American functionary." But he did insult him with ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... insolence of these English! What do you suppose Milord Wellington had done when he found that Massena had blockaded him and that he could not move his army? I might give you many guesses. You might say that he had raged, that he had despaired, that he had brought his troops together and spoken to them ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... right of any nation to prohibit the commerce of another into its own dominions, where there are no treaties to the contrary; but as this right belongs to one side as well as the other, there is always a way left to bring avarice and insolence to reason. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... cheeks furrowed by ceaseless tears. Behold in his quick and certain movements the natural vigour of his age and the confidence of independence. His manner is free and open, but without a trace of insolence or vanity; his head which has not been bent over books does not fall upon his breast; there is no need to say, "Hold your head up," he will neither hang his ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... your Heav'en and Hell be true, and Fate that forced me to be born Force me to Heav'en or Hell—I go, and hold Fate's insolence in scorn. ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... half walk home; I'll sit on the box and be coachman, if you like, but I'll not draw.' While this was passing, a duck came quacking up and cried out, 'You thieving vagabonds, what business have you in my grounds? I'll give it you well for your insolence!' and upon that she fell upon Chanticleer most lustily. But Chanticleer was no coward, and returned the duck's blows with his sharp spurs so fiercely that she soon began to cry out for mercy; which was only ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... the widower's nights of mourning haunted by the ghost of love, the horrors of the war that followed, the slain abroad and the mourners at home, the change of living flesh and blood for the dust and ashes of the tomb. At last with a return to their original theme, the doom of insolence, the chorus close their ode and announce the arrival of a messenger from Troy. Talthybius, the herald, enters as spokesman of the army and king, describing the hardships they have suffered and the joy of the triumphant issue. To him Clytemnestra ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... infamous debauchery, he died, in the forty-eighth year of his age, with a bottle of the "Elixir Vitae" in his pocket. The mantle of Paracelsus has been left behind, and a rich inheritance of ignorance, insolence, and vanity, bequeathed to a multitude of heirs; the value of the legacy, however, would have been trifling, but for the credulity of mankind, which renders these worthless possessions of inestimable ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... the day, for Stonor's horse was growing very tired. Whenever they halted they began to fence with words in much the same way, each trying to discover the other's weak joint without letting down his own guard. It seemed to Stonor that, under his cynical insolence, his prisoner ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... no insolence, my Lord Bishop; and as to the slitting of my ears, I fancy Earl Harold, my master, would have something ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... frailty, which, as we know and feel, we can allow for. We charge this offender with no crimes that have not arisen from passions which it is criminal to harbor,—with no offences that have not their root in avarice, rapacity, pride, insolence, ferocity, treachery, cruelty, malignity of temper,—in short, in [with?] nothing that does not argue a total extinction of all moral principle, that does not manifest an inveterate blackness of heart, dyed in grain with malice, ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... young men before him with an air that left no doubt of his repugnance for a certain sort of pleasantry; but as the group had evidently no offensive intention, their gayety having no insolence about it, he said, with a tolerably gracious air: "Which of you gentlemen is captain? I have a letter for ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... instruction which he is capable of giving. If you do not compel him to tax his mind with remembering all your foibles and weaknesses, you may, thanks to race sympathy, learn more rapidly at first from him than from a foreigner, and, unless you are rude and insubordinate to the point of insolence, you may depend upon receiving no actual harshness from him, although he will refuse to flatter you, and will repeat his warnings against faults, quite as persistently ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... appreciates and understands the servant question. That touches the comfort of the individual too nearly to be ignored. The rapid extinction of good servants, the insolence and inefficiency of the average domestic—these are facts of everyday life that will come home to the suffering upper and middle classes. It is not because they are educated that domestic servants ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... it," the young Mexican remarked, with a faint insolence in his voice, the insolence of a subordinate who believes himself protected ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... to give a little kindly advice to the uneducated. But the medieval idea of a saint or prophet was something quite different. The mediaeval saint or prophet was an uneducated man who walked into grand houses to give a little kindly advice to the educated. The old tyrants had enough insolence to despoil the poor, but they had not enough insolence to preach to them. It was the gentleman who oppressed the slums; but it was the slums that admonished the gentleman. And just as we are undemocratic ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... which always seemed familiar to him. He remembered afterwards that Horace Jewdwine had the same trick. But in her, accompanied as it was by a pretty lifting of the corners of her mouth, it expressed friendly interest, in Jewdwine, apathy and a certain insolence. And yet all the time she was wondering how she should break it to him that ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... driven by 'the soul of the Gironde.' A mere coincidence, of course! It was a mere coincidence, too, that the Girondist, Dufriche-Valaze, who, at the trial of Louis XVI., especially gratified the personal malignity of Madame Roland by the insolence with which he treated the royal captive, should have tried to save his own head when he and his comrades at last were writhing in the iron grip of Robespierre, by eagerly denouncing his friend and associate, Valady, as the real author ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... to be leading on his fellow merchants, who were lifting up their hands and weeping as they recounted their losses. They shouted confusedly as they came: "This insult must be punished! Revenge! Revenge! He shall pay dearly for his insolence. Money, oil, salt; doves—he must pay for all. Where is he, that he may ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... of six years, to relinquish the farm, and seek shelter on the grounds of Lochlea, some ten miles off, in the parish of Tarbolton. When, in after-days, men's characters were in the hands of his eldest son, the scoundrel factor sat for that lasting portrait of insolence and wrong, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... to many things, which were grossly injurious to us, and to surrender many others with voluntary tameness, to which we had the clearest right. Have we not been treated formerly, with abominable insolence, by officers of the navy?——I mean no insinuation against any gentleman now on this station, having heard no complaint of any one of them to his dishonour.—Have not some generals, from England, treated ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... at Bristol, and reprinted here, reports Mr. Wood to say 'that he wonders at the impudence and insolence of the Irish, in refusing his coin.' When, by the way, it is the true English people of Ireland who refuse it, although we take it for granted that the Irish will do so too whenever they are asked."—SCOTT'S Swift, vol. iv, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... effect; and the dialogue, generally, is nervous, animated, and clear. In the great article of character, too, this play has very considerable merit. The King's insane dotage of his favourites, the upstart vanity and insolence of Gaveston, the artful practice and doubtful virtue of Queen Isabella, the factious turbulence of the nobles, irascible, arrogant, regardless of others' liberty, jealous of their own, sudden of quarrel, eager ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... "No insolence, boy," quoth Lindley, working himself into a fine rage. "Mistress Judith has no servants that are not of her ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... know of her—is she an old acquaintance?" asked Mrs. Graham, throwing into her manner as much of insolence as possible. ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... offer a little testily, for the insolence behind the offer was less than half concealed. Jaimihr ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... royal favour, as an ebbing sea, Like a leviathan, his grandeur left, His gasping grandeur! naked on the strand, Naked of human, doubtful of divine, Assistance; no more wallowing in his wealth, Spouting proud foams of insolence no more, On what, then, smote his heart, uncardinal'd, And sunk beneath the level of a man! On the grand article, the sum of things! The point of the first magnitude! that point Tubes mounted in a court, but rarely reach; Some painted cloud still ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... alike for their cunning and their arrogance,—cunning when they had an object to gain, arrogance when they had gained it. In their dealings with Charlemagne they displayed the same mixture of artfulness and insolence which they had employed in their dealings with the empire of the East. But they had now to do with a different man from the weak emperors of Constantinople. Charlemagne continued his negotiations, but ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... had sent to James I. a hectoring alternative that Raleigh must be executed in London or sent alive for a like purpose to Madrid. The trial was a cowardly and ignominious submission of the English Government to the insolence of England's hereditary enemy. Raleigh seemed for the moment to have failed completely, yet it was really like the act of Samson, who slew more men at his death than in all his life. Samuel Pepys, who had some fine intuitions at a time when the national moral was ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... cultivation is chiefly poor wheat; the hills the most barren conceivable. On arriving near the palace we made a detour, to avoid exposure to the usual regal insolence: our plan was effectual. From some distance I had espied our quarters, and although our mission is one sent by the most powerful eastern government, yet we had allotted to us a residence fit only ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... berserk who looked down into her mocking eyes. He was the embodiment of the dominant male,—efficient to the last inch of his straight six feet. What he wanted he had always taken, by the sheer strength that was in him. Back of her smiling insolence lay a silken force to match his own. She too had taken what she wanted from life, but she had won it by indirection. Manifestly she was of those women who conceive that charm and beauty are tools to bend men to their wills. Was it the very width of the gulf between them that made the appeal ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... Oaklands sprang upon his feet, regarding me with the greatest surprise as he asked "if I knew what I was saying?" while Cumberland, in a voice hoarse from passion, inquired, "What the devil I meant by my insolence? what did I dare to insinuate he had done with the letter, if ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... learn what the Church or the head of the Church[44] really means, before he drives out the poor heretics with writings of such height, depth, breadth and length. It grieves me to the heart that we must suffer these mad saints to tear asunder and blaspheme the Holy Scriptures with such insolence, license, and shamelessness, and that they make bold to deal with the Scriptures, whereas they are not fit to care for a herd of swine. Heretofore I have held that where something was to be proved by the Scriptures, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... darkling, could easily have punished her. Tessie knew it. But he never did, or would. She knew that, too. Her very insolence and ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... could hardly help laughing, in spite of her terror, at Amyas's perfect coolness (which was not in the least meant for insolence), and being at her wits' end, sent him, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... destroyers of the peace of mind of friend and foe alike pride themselves on the fact that they are "nothing if not candid," and "always say just what they think." Be it understood, this is not truthfulness. The utterance of unnecessary and unkind criticism, however honest, is impertinence, amounting to insolence. ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... consenting to retire to France with a pension of thirty thousand crowns, and the promise of being recommended for a cardinal's hat, and almost consoled for his downfall "by the pleasure of being delivered from the insolence of the Swiss, the exactions of the Emperor Maximilian, and the rascalities of the Spaniards." Fifteen years afterwards, in June, 1530, he died in oblivion at Paris. Francis I. regained possession ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... make fun of the Boob. There is no malice in him, no insolence, no passion to thrive at the expense of his fellows. If he sees some one on a street corner gazing open-mouthed at the sky, he will do likewise, and stand there for half hour with his apple of Adam expectantly vibrating. But is that a shameful trait? May not a Boob expect ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... of a bare road leading towards the bazar, and eyed the natives passing. Most of them were barrack-servants of the lowest caste. Kim hailed a sweeper, who promptly retorted with a piece of unnecessary insolence, in the natural belief that the European boy could not follow it. The low, quick answer undeceived him. Kim put his fettered soul into it, thankful for the late chance to abuse somebody in the tongue he knew best. 'And now, go to the nearest letter-writer ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... notice was posted up to the effect "That the English Ober-Lieutenant Gerald Knight would for gross insolence the next three days in arrest spend." Usually, roll call took place outside the main building, and as it generally meant standing in water or melting snow, was not particularly pleasant. Wolfe very often managed to take these parades, ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... marveled at it, I've seen it in spite of the degraded sins and poverty-stricken appearance of our peasantry. They are not servile, and even after two centuries of serfdom they are free in manner and bearing, yet without insolence, and not revengeful and not envious. "You are rich and noble, you are clever and talented, well, be so, God bless you. I respect you, but I know that I too am a man. By the very fact that I respect you without envy I prove my dignity as ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... The insolence of this demand angered all the Spaniards, and our resolute attitude filled the Sangleys with anxiety; for, as it could not be imagined that a less generous one [would be taken], they feared the injuries that would be caused ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... almost felt sympathy for Lord Salisbury's son in the position in which he found himself. His face is usually pale, but now it had the deadly, ghastly, and almost green pallor of a man who is condemned to die. But, amid all the palpable terror, the Cecil insolence was still there, and Lord Cranborne declared that, though he had used the phrase, he had not intended it for the House, and that it was true. Since his relative, Lord Wolmer, made the lamest and meanest apology the House ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... that I record an anecdote so much to the honour of a gentleman of that nation, on which illiberal reflections are too often thrown, by those of whom it little deserves them. Whatever may be the rough jokes of wealthy insolence, or the envious sarcasms of needy jealousy, the Irish have ever been, and will continue to be, ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... captains; the rapacity of the quartermasters, and the unreasonable nature of their demands; the fashion in which the paymasters managed their accounts; the complaints of the people; the traffic in and exchange of billets; the insolence of the undisciplined troops; their quarrels with the other guests at the inns; the requisition of more rations and other stores than were rightful or necessary; and, finally, the almost inevitable ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... youth disguised the haughty insolence of the words, which drew the attention of every one present to the new-comer. The landlord at once assumed the countenance of Pilate washing his hands of the blood of that just man; he slid back two steps to reach his wife's ear, and whispered, "You are witness, if any harm comes of ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... nearest Jims could get to expressing what he felt as he looked at the picture. The young girl was beautiful, but her face was a little hard. There was pride and vanity and something of the insolence of great beauty in it. There was nothing of that in Miss Avery's face now—nothing but sweetness and tenderness, and a motherly yearning to which every fibre of Jims' small being responded. How they loved each ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to join them, taking danger for a bride, Not in insolence and malice, but in honour and in pride; Caring nought to be recorded on the muster-roll of fame, So they struck a blow for Britain and the glory of her name. Toil and wounds could but delight them, Death itself could not affright them, Who went out to fight for freedom and ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... go faster? See if I do not prick your neck with my sting." The Draught-Mule replied, "I do not heed your threats; I only care for him who sits above you, and who quickens my pace with his whip, or holds me back with the reins. Away, therefore, with your insolence, for I know well when to go fast, and when to ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... of his singular gentleness and modesty, that it rather increases one's indignation against the presumption of his critic.) Since Lord Brougham assailed Dr. Young, the world has seen no such specimen of the insolence of a shallow pretender to a Master in Science as this remarkable production, in which one of the most exact of observers, most cautious of reasoners, and most candid of expositors, of this or any other age, is held up to scorn as a "flighty" person, who endeavours "to prop up his utterly ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley
... excommunicate, And interdict from church's privilege And all society of holy men. He grows too proud in his authority, Lifting his lofty head above the clouds, And, like a steeple, overpeers the church: But we'll pull down his haughty insolence; And, as Pope Alexander, our progenitor, Trod on the neck of German Frederick, Adding this golden sentence to our praise, "That Peter's heirs should tread on Emperors, And walk upon the dreadful adder's back, ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... shoulders. First, Craig's impudent assumption that she loved him, and his rude violation of her lips; now, this frank insolence of insult, the more savage that it was unconscious—and from the oldest and closest of her men friends. If one did not die under such outrages, but continued to live and let live, one could save the situation only by laughing. So, ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... The insolence of Damaris' beauty was gone. Her eyes were dull and heavy with weeping, her lips were pale, and her face had lost its laughter and dimples. Only her hair, escaping from the shawl she had cast around it, gushed forth in warm splendor in the sunset light, and framed her wan face like the aureole ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the fact that she had not spoken to her brother since the day she went to see him after Wolsey's visit, and had been so roughly driven off. At first, upon her refusal to speak to him—after the Wolsey visit—Henry was angry on account of what he called her insolence; but as she did not seem to care for that, and as his anger did nothing toward unsealing her lips, he pretended indifference. Still the same stubborn silence was maintained. This soon began to amuse the king, and of late he had been trying to be on friendly ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... sanguinary than, the "town and gown rows" of more recent days. The general result of these disturbances, assumed to be acts of aggression on the part of the citizens, but more probably provoked by the insolence of the undergraduate portion of the University, of which there is abundant evidence, was to fortify the authority of the Chancellor and extend his powers. We have seen that the townsmen, at an early period, were mulcted in an annual tribute, of which they were afterwards relieved, for ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... was packing the woman kept on talking very angrily about Sami's wickedness and insolence, so that he now for the first time understood it all. The boys had stated that he had reproached them for not being God-fearing people; they had punished him for it, and through his resistance he had overturned ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... ancient noblesse, but in low circumstances, was in a coffee-house at Paris, where was Julien, the great manufacturer at the Gobelins, of the fine tapestry, so much distinguished both for the figures and the colours. The chevalier's carriage was very old. Says Julien, with a plebeian insolence, 'I think, sir, you had better have your carriage new painted.' The chevalier looked at him with indignant contempt, and answered, 'Well, sir. you may take it home and DYE it!' All the coffee-house rejoiced ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... perhaps right to mention that for the first time in Russia, purposeless rudeness and insolence came to my notice on the part of the ticket officials of the Mercury line. They behaved like stupid children, and were absolutely incompetent to do the work which had been entrusted to them. They were somewhat surprised when ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... melts all opposition, emanated from Heinz. Wolff had experienced it himself. He had seriously intended to make the insolent intruder feel his strong arm, but since he had learned the identity of the Swiss his acts and nature appeared in a new light. His insolence had gained the aspect of self-confidence which did not lack justification, and when a valiant knight talked to him so frankly, like a younger brother to an older and wiser one, it seemed to the lonely man who, of late, completely ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... name might be a new thing to her, and might have a softening and affectionate kind of effect, don't you see? As to Beadle, that I needn't say was wholly out of the question. If there is anything that is not to be tolerated on any terms, anything that is a type of Jack-in-office insolence and absurdity, anything that represents in coats, waistcoats, and big sticks our English holding on by nonsense after every one has found it out, it is a beadle. You ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... after another vessel of Parliament attacked a ship belonging to persons from Dartmouth in sympathy with the king. This time Winthrop turned the guns of the battery upon the parliamentary captain and made him pay a barrel of powder for his insolence.[2] ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... than the person who has sweated himself into it. Think of the old Duke who was told he must retrench, and that he need not have six still-room maids in his establishment, and said, after a brief period of reflection, 'D——n it, a man must have a biscuit!' We like insolence! That is to say, we like it in its place, because we admire power. It's ten times more impressive than the meekness of the saint. The mischief is that we like anything from a man of power. If he is insolent, we think it grand; if he is stupid, we think it a sort of ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... their incense; while the pursed mouth's pout Aggressive, while the beak supreme above, While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back, Beard whitening under like a vinous foam, There made a glory, of such insolence— I thought,—such domineering deity Hephaistos might have carved to cut the brine For his gay brother's prow, imbrue that path Which, purpling, recognised the conqueror. Impudent and majestic: drunk, perhaps, But that's religion; ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... never persuaded that August's Apostasy was more than a sham one, not even when he made his Prince apostatize too. Their Sovereignty has been a mere peck of troubles, disgraces and vexations: for those thirty-five years, an ever-boiling pot of mutiny, contradiction, insolence, hardly tolerable even to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... was just like a young fool to wish to sit in solemn judgment on a fellow officer—in his shirt sleeves. If he had asked to be excused from serving on the Court—yes—he could accept his excuse and let him go. But this insolence was unbearable. The Colonel glanced over the Court before putting the question to a vote. Smith was his enemy. Whichever way he voted as President, the Major could be depended on to go against his decision. There was a feud between those two hot-tempered fire-eaters which had lasted for years. ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... the English character. The Editor and his friends systematically explode every principle of liberty, laugh patriotism and public spirit to scorn, resent every pretence to integrity as a piece of singularity or insolence, and strike at the root of all free inquiry or discussion, by running down every writer as a vile scribbler and a bad member of society, who is not a hireling and a slave. No means are stuck at in accomplishing ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... her nobles to pleasures of the sense, and had enervated their proud, maritime character, while the great name of the republic robbed them of the caution for which they used to be conspicuous. Yet the real strength of Venice was almost spent, and nothing remained but outward insolence and prestige. Everything was gay about Goldoni in his earliest childhood. Puppet-shows were built to amuse him by his grandfather. 'My mother,' he says, 'took charge of my education, and my father ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... astonished when he beheld the goddess, who appeared to him alone, being invisible to all the rest. He instantly knew who she was, and he said to her: "O goddess, have you come to witness the insolence of the son of Atreus? You shall also witness the punishment I shall inflict upon him for ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... for Maulana Mahomed Ali to go to Turkey and to tell the Turks personally that India was with them in their righteous struggle. He was not free to do so. If I had a truly national legislative I would answer Hindu insolence by creating special and better wells for the exclusive use of suppressed classes and by erecting better and more numerous schools for them, so that there would be not a single member of the suppressed classes left without a school to teach their children. ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... road of Claude's regard, when the voice of the advocate was heard calling upon his son to attend him in the room above. Narcisse obeyed; but filled with a sentiment of rising rebellion and new-born insolence, as of one who intends no longer to be checked, nor submit to unmerited harshness and tyranny. There the two had an altercation, provoked by the old grudges, and aggravated by Narcisse's recent dissipation, escapade, and neglect of duty, and still more sharpened by ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... my house, Maud—first, because his perfectly unconscious insolence tries my patience nearly beyond endurance; and again, because I have heard unfavourable reports of him. On the question of right which he disputes, I am perfectly informed. I am your tenant, my dear niece; when I am gone you will learn how scrupulous ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... you've done it to please yourself," said Lizzie, in a tone of insolence with which Lady Linlithgow had been familiar in ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... all officers, generally speaking, to attend at court as constantly as possible; should they fail, they forfeit their lands, wives, and all belongings. These will be seized and given to others more worthy of them; as it is presumed that either insolence or disaffection can be the only motive which would induce any person to absent himself for any length of time from the pleasure of seeing his sovereign. Tidiness in dress is imperatively necessary, and for any neglect of this rule the head ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... true that the old man scarcely represented the usual worthless, criminal type that took to vagabondage. As he paused to scrutinize the convict gang neither insolence nor fear, one of which was certainly to be expected, became manifest in his face. They had anticipated certain words in greeting, a certain look out of bleary, shifty eyes, but neither materialized. True, the old man was following the cinder ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... no small pains to keep them within the bounds of moderation, but having a council composed of ambitious cavaliers, was unable entirely to check the disorder. In spite of his authority, the Puritans were treated with insolence and neglect, and the colony, distracted with domestic differences, were ill prepared for defence against external enemies: not only so, but such divisions occasioned a neglect of industry and application, which prevented the country from making that progress ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... one dimpled elbow on the velvet cushioned rail, watched the dancers for a while, then her unamused and almost expressionless gaze swept the tables below with a leisurely absence of interest which might have been mistaken for insolence—and envied as such by a servile world which ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... publisher was clamouring for copy. In the proud insolence begot of January's shining possibilities and Kate's neat memorandum, Hugh had promised his book ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... inclined to stoutness, and her too youthful apparel could not mislead one as to the length of her pilgrimage in this world, nor soften the hard lines of her worldly face-lines acquired, one could see, by a social struggle, and not drawn there by an innate patrician insolence. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... more. The airy conceit and insolence of the man overcame all self-restraint and resolution. With one bound he was at his throat, his strong white hands grasping him in a sudden, vice-like grip, then hurling him with stunning, thundering force to the floor. Down, headlong, went the tall ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... "No insolence, sir!" he roared. "Come with me, and," as he dragged McNeil to the door and paused there, "if you dare lisp a word of what you've overheard, I'll ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... Macpherson; and no sooner did he suspect the truth, than he dashed from his mind every friendly and grateful feeling towards the man who had saved his life; and saw in Allan Cameron only the hereditary foe of his clan, whose daring insolence had attempted to disgrace the name of Macpherson, by seeking to win the heart of its most loftily descended maiden. Full of resentment at what he deemed so deep an insult, he was ranging the groves and thickets of Glen Feracht in quest of Cameron, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... them by the natives, they looked on themselves as entitled to these, and condemned the poor Indians as a race immeasurably beneath the European. They not only showed the most disgusting rapacity, but treated the highest nobles with wanton insolence. They even went so far, it is said, as to violate the privacy of the convents, and to outrage the religious sentiments of the Peruvians by their scandalous amours with the Virgins of the Sun. The people of Cuzco were so exasperated, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... manner. Either then some means of terror more terrible than this must be discovered, or it must be owned that this restraint is useless; and that as long as poverty gives men the courage of necessity, or plenty fills them with the ambition which belongs to insolence and pride, and the other conditions of life remain each under the thraldom of some fatal and master passion, so long will the impulse never be wanting to drive men into danger. Hope also and cupidity, the one leading and the other following, the one conceiving the attempt, ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... insults and depredations, but was an informal breach of neutrality towards France, by passively contributing to the aid of her enemy. That the government of England considered the American government as pusillanimous, is evident from the encreasing insolence of the conduct of the former towards the latter, till the affair of General Wayne. She then saw that it might be possible to kick a government into some degree of spirit.(1) So far as the proclamation of neutrality ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... the bloodiest lawlessness of the American past shows continual repetitions. First, liberty is construed to mean license, and license unrebuked leads on to insolence. Still left unrebuked, license organizes against the law, taking the form of gangs, factions, bandit clans. Then in time the spirit of law arises, and not the law, but the offended individuals wronged ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... Ireland with the Dalriadan colony established in Western Scotland a hundred years before. Columba came from Iona in behalf of Aidan, whom he had crowned a short time previously as King of Albania or Scotland. It seems that the bards or poets were accused of insolence, rapacity, and of selling their services to princes and nobles, instead of calling them ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud |
