"Effrontery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sickening chill, a sort of hideous panic to Jimmie Dale—and then fury, anger, in a torrent, surged upon him, and there came a merciless desire to crush, to strangle, to stamp out this inhuman band of criminals that, with intolerable effrontery to the laws of God and man, were so elaborately and scientifically equipped for ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... to her, and the effrontery in his eyes repelled the old, vanishing self in her, yet drew all her awakening sensuousness. He saw enough in her face to impel him to take her hand and hold it while he ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... of civilisation, there are, as you may not know, a set of wicked persons in the country, mostly, it is true, belonging to that class of non-respectable foreigners of whom my lord spoke with such feeling, taste, and judgment, who are plotting, rather with insolent effrontery than crawling secrecy, to overturn the sacred edifice of property, the foundation of our hearths, our homes, and our altars. Gentlemen of the Jury, it might be thought that such madmen might well be left to themselves, that no one would ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... were spake. When Wermund asked who had thus begged leave to speak, and the attendants said that it was Uffe, he declared that it was enough that the insolent foreigner should jeer at the pangs of his misery, without those of his own household vexing him with the same wanton effrontery. But the courtiers persistently averred that this man was Uffe; and the king said: "He is free, whosoever he be, to say out what he thinks." Then said Uffe, "that it was idle for their king to covet a realm which could rely not only on the service of its own ruler, but also on the arms and ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... you, who should be wearing a crescent moon on your brow, if my good friend Hyacinthe hadn't mired herself in this mud-hole," he had the effrontery to ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... into a madhouse (but that was Sir Guy's fault); and a darker tale still of a certain potion prepared by her hand, which the Baronet was prevented from swallowing only by his invariable habit of contradicting his wife on all points, and which the lady herself had the effrontery to boast "would have settled all accounts." Not a word of truth in any of these stories probably; but still, such is the character the world's good nature affixes to that dark handsome woman at whom Cousin John seems ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... and Tryphosa, the representative of the family, as the deputy of Timotheus and the servant of the colonel. Ben Toner was his ally in war, but had no local standing, and the pensioner was simply an intruder. Yet, with cool effrontery, the corporal sat in the place of honour beside Tryphena, and regaled her with narratives of warfare, to which she had listened many times already. Ben and Serlizer were still full of one another's society. He had comforted her heart, if it needed ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... this young man here—he's not exactly a friend of mine—a mere pick-up acquaintance, in fact. You mustn't accept him on my say-so. Of course, you know I'm all right, but I can't guarantee him," Buck drawled, with magnificent effrontery. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... have for sadness, showed at times a strain of deep melancholy thought, which interfered with and controlled the natural flow of lively spirits which the practice of the joyous science especially required. She lacked also, even in her gayest sallies, the decided boldness and effrontery of her sisterhood, who were seldom at a loss to retort a saucy jest, or turn the laugh against any who interrupted or ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... to have found one better than others have; but upon any definition, that I or you could give or understand, of atheism, they are atheists! Their God is invisible; he is a universal spirit, like this circumambient air; of no form, dwelling in no place. But how can that without effrontery be called a being, which is without body and form; which is everywhere and yet nowhere; which, from the beginning of the world has never been heard of, till by these Nazarenes he is now first brought to ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... remarked Pan, but he did not stir. The bartender went on cleaning glasses. Sounds of footsteps came from outside. Presently Pan walked back through the open door, then halted a moment, to light another cigarette. His back was turned to the bar and the doors. That seemed the climax of his effrontery. It was deliberate, the utter recklessness of the cowboy who had been trained in a hard school. But all that happened was the silence breaking to a gay wild sweet voice: "Call again, ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... of her covetousness and ambition. And then, when the Sun-King looked with favour upon her opulent charms, when at last she saw the object of her ambition within reach, that husband of hers went very near to wrecking everything by his unreasonable behaviour. This preposterous marquis had the effrontery to dispute his wife with Jupiter, was so purblind as not to appreciate the honour the Sun-King proposed ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... referred in parliament to a "revolutionary hydra" or a "hotbed of anarchy," they pictured to themselves a barbershop like that of Cupido, but much larger perhaps, scattering a poisonous atmosphere of cruel gibe and perverse effrontery all ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... you never see the commonplace effrontery of it, Mr. Winton? Day after day you have come here, idling away the precious hours that meant everything to you, and now you come once again to offer me a share in what you have lost. Is that your idea of chivalry, of ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... just now to conceal what a greater fear now urges me to mention. The honour I have had in view is already known to many, and in a very short time there are none will be ignorant of it. That impudent young man, Morrice, had the effrontery to rally me upon my passion for you, and though I reproved him with great asperity, he followed me into a coffee-house, whither I went merely to avoid him. There I forced myself to stay, till I saw him engaged with a news-paper, and then, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... between slavery and freedom," answered the stranger, with most amusing effrontery, lighting another cigar as he spoke. "You serve the tyrant King George. I serve myself, and no one else, and I like my master best of the two; but I pity you—you ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... hearts to which these touching recollections do not pertain, and they heed them not; and some there are, who, with a callousness which shocks sensibility, have the ignorant effrontery to ask, "Of what use are such recollections?" With such frigid utilitarians it would be vain to argue; but this question, at least, may be put in return:—Why should the ancient glories of Greece and Rome form a large ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... of man who develops slowly, needs a big field, and perhaps makes some big mistakes, but gets where he wants to in the end. Jove, I wish I could put him in a book! There's something epic about him—a kind of epic effrontery." ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... doubts, then, whether this provision, after all, refers to "fugitive slaves." Now, although he has said much in regard to "the effrontery of the Southern members of the convention" that formed the Constitution, we may safely defy him, or any other man, to point to any thing in their conduct which approximates to such audacity. What! the clause in question not designed to embrace fugitive slaves? Mr. Butler, even ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... present society. Now, alas! the time for flying was past; all prudent choice was over, even all reflection was gone for ever, or only admitted on compulsion, when it imperiously forced its way amidst the scenes of tumultuous mirth or licentious passion, of distracted riot, shameless effrontery, and wild intoxication, when it would force its way, even through the ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... sneer; "but, madam, I am not quite blind. An honest woman—a virtuous woman, Mrs Sullivan, would have immediately acquainted her husband with what had passed—not have concealed it; still less have had the effrontery to deny it, when ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... had been less than three months Emperor, was even a more violent shock to Falco, who was crushed with horror at such a crime. He was even more horrified at the arrogance of the guilty Praetorians and at their shameless effrontery in offering the Imperial Purple to the highest bidder and in, practically, selling the Principiate to so bestial a Midas as Didius Julianus, who, of all the senators, seemed most to misbecome the Imperial Dignity and who had nothing to recommend ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... prostrate themselves in the dust before the hurricane, like the alarmed beasts of the field, the free people stand erect before it, in all the strength of unity, in self-reliance, in mutual reliance, with effrontery against all but the visible hand of God. It is neither cast down by calamity nor elated ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... The frank effrontery of satire like the foregoing had by this time begun to attract the attention of the Ministry, whose withers had already been sharply wrung by Pasquin; and it has been conjectured that the ballet of Quidam and the Patriots played no small part in precipitating the famous "Licensing ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... cleared up; and he immediately offered to ride back to Cheltenham, and return the second volume. At this proposal, Lady Augusta, who foresaw that her falsehood would be detected, turned pale; but mademoiselle, with a laugh of effrontery, which she thought was putting a good face upon the ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... Lincoln's saying that you can't fool all the people all the time. Here was a demagogue, who had been exposed and beaten four years before, who raised his head—or should I say his voice?—with increased effrontery and to an equally large and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... cooly as if every living man had forgotten that for four years he had been exerting his utmost effort to destroy the Constitution under which he now claimed the full rights of a citizen. In his astounding effrontery Mr. Stephens even went so far as to insist on interpreting to those loyal men, who had been conducting the Government of the United States through all its perils, the Constitution under which they had been acting, and to point ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the conspirators, XXVII. His second attempt to kill Cicero; his directions to Manlius well observed, XXVIII. His machinations induce the Senate to confer extraordinary power on the consuls, XXIX. His proceedings are opposed by various precautions, XXX. His effrontery in the Senate, XXXI. He sets out for Etruria, XXXII. His accomplice, Manlius, sends a deputation to Marcius, XXXIII. His representations to various respectable characters, XXXIV. His letter to Catulus, XXXV. His arrival at Manlius's ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... reported to the proper authorities, the affair had been thoroughly investigated by them, my guilt established beyond the possibility of doubt, and yet my accusers had actually been dismissed while I was retained.* This is cited as an example of Republican rule; and the writer had the effrontery to ask, "How long shall such things be?" I did not reply to it then, nor do I intend to do so now. Such assertions from such sources need no replies. I merely mention the incident to show how wholly ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... effrontery to give it out that they have captured General Burgoyne's whole force," sneeringly announced Mobray, as he returned from guard mount. "There seems no limit to ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the Africans and, more rarely, of his ship. Red-handed slavers, caught in the act and convicted, were too often, like La Coste of South Carolina, the subjects of executive clemency.[148] In certain cases there were those who even had the effrontery to ask Congress to cancel their own laws. For instance, in 1819 a Venezuelan privateer, secretly fitted out and manned by Americans in Baltimore, succeeded in capturing several American, Portuguese, and Spanish slavers, and appropriating the slaves; being finally wrecked herself, she transferred ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... said, "our doom of forfeiture and imprisonment against this disobedient and insolent minion! She shall to the penitentiary, to herd with those whose lives have rendered them her rivals in effrontery!" ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... The dreadful secret is known to a few, in its entirety it is even unknown to me. I asked you just now if you had received the first of your messages, and you denied that you knew what I meant. You actually had the effrontery to deny it to me, sitting opposite to you as I am, and looking straight at the dreadful disfigurement of your left hand. For over three centuries the natives of Mexico worked the Four Finger Mine till only two of the tribe who knew its secret remained. Then it was that ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... to all men, as to the evils which might be expected to flow from any sipping of the Circean cup which such creatures proffered to their lips. But what fate could be too bad for the Siren herself? To think of the audacity, the shameless effrontery of such an one in daring to spread her lures, and wind her enchantments around such a man as the Marchese di Castelmare. Of course he, poor man, could not but feel her death as a terrible shock. What he had set his heart on had been violently and awfully, taken away from ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... and humble acknowledgment for her civility; and Heyward adding a "Bonne nuit, mon camarade," they moved deliberately forward, leaving the sentinel pacing the banks of the silent pond, little suspecting an enemy of so much effrontery, and humming to himself those words which were recalled to his mind by the sight of women, and, perhaps, by recollections of his own distant and beautiful France: "Vive le vin, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... church, and newness of life as the condition of admission, and that the ordinances belong exclusively to the church, and not to those outside. All listened attentively, though a disturbance was feared. In the afternoon I 'fenced' our communion fully, but Priest John had the effrontery to partake. I have since learned that had it been withheld, he, with the rabble, would have taken it by force. A perfect separation seems called for, and with it a casting out of unworthy members from the church. But the heart of the body is right, and will, I trust, stand ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... before made in the senate, said, that his back was not so broad that he should think himself bound, once for all, by any opinion once given on so important a matter; he would willingly swear and submit to the law, if so be it were one, a proviso which he added as a mere cover for his effrontery. The people, in great joy at his taking the oath, loudly clapped and applauded him, while the nobility stood by ashamed and vexed at his inconstancy; but they submitted out of fear of the people, and all in order took ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... in her pride and beauty, dressed exquisitely, yet simply, she was a revelation to the woman who had sought to rob her and was now brazen enough to carry off the situation with effrontery. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... such a rendering. Benzler was severely taken to task in the Neue Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek[24] for his shamelessness in rewriting Bode's translation with such comparatively insignificant alterations, for printing on the title page in brazen effrontery "newly translated into German," and for berating Bode for his failure after cursing him with condescension. Passages are cited to demonstrate the comparative triviality of Benzler's work. Abrief comparison of the two translations shows that Benzler ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... by the effrontery of his military companion, who had claimed to be his friend, and forced himself upon the acquaintance of the powerful man on the strength of that intimacy; had even brought to his notice the fact—if it was a fact—that ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... that this was so with me when I opposed you, and that all minds are subject to such obliquities!—the Lord help me, and this to an LL.D. and Principal of a College! I proceeded to discuss his Geology with the effrontery of a novice; and, thank God, I urged the very argument of your letter about evidence of subsidence—viz., not all submerged at once, and glacial action being subaerial and not oceanic. Your letter hence was a relief, for I felt I was hardly strong enough to have launched out as I did ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... struck dumb by my apparent effrontery. Yvonne at last recovered sufficiently to ask if my presence at the chateau arose from my being attached to M. de Mancini. Now, "attached" is an unpleasant word. A courtier is attached to the King; a soldier to the ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... could hear the general's voice upraised in declamation, and the thin tones of Lady Vandeleur planting icy repartees at every opening. How cordially he admired the wife! How skillfully she could evade an awkward question! with what secure effrontery she repeated her instructions under the very guns of the enemy! and on the other hand, how he detested ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... influence of women and favorites. He was feeble in mind and body. He was married to one of the worst women in history, and Messalina has passed into a synonym for infamy. By this woman he was influenced, and her unblushing effrontery and disgraceful intrigues made the reign unfortunate. She trafficked in the great offices of the state, and sacrificed the best blood of the class to which she belonged. Claudius was also governed by freedmen, who performed such offices as Louis XV. intrusted to his noble vassals. Claudius ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... and with the cool effrontery that only a woman can carry off to her entire satisfaction, she then pretended that this was the first time that she had ever laid eyes on him, when as a matter of fact she and the Princess had discussed this remarkable, independent individual, who had so quietly ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... companions. United to every disagreeable characteristic that the worst kind of American travellers possess, these countrymen of ours display an amount of insolent conceit and cool assumption of superiority, quite monstrous to behold. In the coarse familiarity of their approach, and the effrontery of their inquisitiveness (which they are in great haste to assert, as if they panted to revenge themselves upon the decent old restraints of home), they surpass any native specimens that came within my range of observation: and I often grew so patriotic when I saw and ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... marry a woman several years my senior who has the effrontery to believe that she can lecture acceptably on the entire range of literary and social knowledge from the Troubadours and the Crusades to Rudyard Kipling and the Referendum? Such is the reward ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Sand, who had so profoundly influenced his early life, he did not deny or extenuate "her passions and her errors." Byron, though he thought him "the greatest natural force, the greatest elementary power, which has appeared in our literature since Shakespeare," he roundly accused of "vulgarity and effrontery," "coarseness and commonness," "affectation and brutal selfishness." In the case of Goethe, he said that "the moralist and the man of the world may unite in condemning" his laxity of life; and even in Faust, which he esteemed the "most wonderful ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... immature, his looks were not so. He seemed to possess a penetration and cunning beyond his years—to hide a man's judgment under a boy's mask. The glance, which he threw at the door, was singularly expressive of his character: it was a mixture of alarm, effrontery, and resolution. In the end, resolution triumphed, as it was sure to do, over the weaker emotions, and he laughed at his fears. The only part of his otherwise-interesting countenance, to which one could decidedly object, was the mouth; a feature ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... am going to make you," she said with splendid effrontery, looking at herself in the glass and patting her rumpled hair. "See what you have done to me, ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... ... hara-kiri.... Of course, it was all very wicked; it is impossible to justify them in any way. In Bayswater and all other haunts of unbridled chastity they were tortured, burnt alive, stewed in oil, and submitted to every conceivable penalty for their saucy effrontery. Yet, somehow, there was a touch about it, this spectacle of four men defying the law and order of the greatest country in the world, which thrilled every man with any devil in him. Peter the Painter is a ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... Then I shall not let you stay here!" cried Archie. "What does the girl expect? That we are going to make her reputation in the literary world and get nothing for ourselves? I never heard such effrontery! She refuses to give you the least opportunity, ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... their offences, been brought to your bar, and who have seldom escaped your Lordships' justice. I put the decency, humility, and propriety of the most distinguished men's behavior in contrast with the shameless effrontery of this prisoner, who has presumptuously made a recriminatory charge against the House of Commons, and answered their impeachment by a counter impeachment, explicitly accusing them of malice, oppression, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... delighted with his bargain. There are the three Banellic girls, the most ill-tempered, ugly cats in England. But each will have a large marriage portion, so they have no fears, I warrant me. I wonder the elder has the effrontery to show her face here so soon if it is true that the waiting-woman died of her injuries. Little Wax is talking to them. He needs one of those marriage portions. Aye, he needs all three, what with his very boot-maker ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... punctual was his nightly attendance at the Beargarden, but still with some faint hope that he might have remained on this special occasion to tell her of his fortune. She had watched the whispering, had noticed the cool effrontery with which Felix had spoken,—for without hearing the words she had almost known the very moment in which he was asking,—and had seen the girl's timid face, and eyes turned to the ground, and the nervous twitching of her hands as she replied. As a woman, understanding ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... And truly the condition of the world and of society was of a character to force such a conviction on the minds of intelligent men. Infidelity was rampant, and intemperance, gambling, unchastity, and other forms of vice were practiced with unblushing effrontery. On the other side, the churches, which should have been waging war on all ungodliness, were fighting each other, contending about the questions on which they differed, and exhausting their strength in internecine conflict. Was it not time, men were asking, that the forces that were on the side ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... being under the legal or moral necessity of paying them a single cent for their improvements. In the state of public temper, the officials of the State of New York decided to fight his claim. Astor offered to sell his claim to the State for $667,000. But such was the public outburst at the effrontery of a man who had bought what was virtually an extinct claim for $100,000, and then attempting to hold up the State for more than six times that sum, that the ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... here I know that some will chuckle, when they read that Capito is favoured by such a hater of Luther with the designation of an excellent and most accomplished man. These and many things of the like kind he represents me as saying, taking the pattern of his effrontery from a letter of Jerome, who complains that his rivals had circulated a forged letter under his name amongst a synod of bishops in Africa; in which he was made to confess that, deceived by certain Jews, he had falsely translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew. And ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... janglings of things married by increasing prosperity, but never meant to be bedfellows in the harmonious course of nature. One was the unblushing effrontery of the new brick pairing itself brazenly with the venerable gray stone manor-house on the adjoining knoll—impudence perceivable even to a hobbledehoy fresh from the school desk and the dormitory. Another was the total lack of sympathy between the ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... rules of conduct are forgotten or bluntly disregarded, and the law-abiding citizen may see robbery and violence carried on in broad daylight. In some cases it happens that organized bands of thieves rob one man after another with a brutal effrontery which quite shames the minor abilities of Macedonian or Calabrian brigands. Forty or fifty consummate scoundrels work in concert; and it often happens that even the betting-men are seized, raised from the ground, and shaken ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... by the mere effrontery of the replies. His father and his aunt (the latter of whom at any rate was a firm and confessed religionist, who had been responsible for converting Mr Clayhanger from Primitive Methodism to Wesleyan Methodism) did not trouble ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... ammunition, guns, shoes, almost without an army, with a handful of men against masses, dashed at allied Europe, and absurdly gained impossible victories? Who was this new comet of war who possest the effrontery of a planet? The academic military school excommunicated him, while bolting, and hence arose an implacable rancor of the old Caesarism against the new, of the old saber against the flashing sword, and of the chessboard against genius. On June 18th, 1815, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... which, when an irishman is introduced, he is not drawn as a broad, grotesque blunderer, every sentence he speaks involving a bull, and every act the result of headlong folly, or cool but unstudied effrontery. I do not remember an instance in which he acts upon the stage any other part than that of the buffoon of the piece uttering language which, wherever it may have been found, was at all events never heard in ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... tune of seventy dollars, and while she wrote her check to Marie Littlejohn, a tiny blond exotic not much older than herself,—who laid down the law with the ripe authority of a Cabinet Minister and kept to a daily time-table with the unalterable effrontery of a fashionable doctor,—talked over her ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... age-long oppression, they have evolved a fantastic and distorted image of free government. In fatuous effrontery they seek to graft the growth of their stunted vision upon the splendid and ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... shame could not bring himself to read Ruskin's letter of resignation to convocation. The editor of the University Gazette also had the effrontery to leave a letter from Ruskin, giving the reasons for his resignation, unpublished; and the Pall Mall Gazette crowned the edifice of poltroonery by announcing that he had resigned owing ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... part of men of distinct genius. Yet the Directors were, almost without exception, men of mediocre talents, [Footnote: Carnot, upright and sincere, and the only member of first-rate ability, was forced out of the Directory in 1797.] who practiced bribery and corruption with unblushing effrontery. They preferred their personal gain to the welfare ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... up the piece of cambric and was putting it in her basket, when Mr. Allston asked, with more effrontery than the ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... most eager mischief-maker, was Professor Whitney himself, and let us now hear what he has to say. As if he himself were entirely unconcerned in the matter, instead of having been the chief culprit, he speaks of "cool effrontery;" "magisterial assumption, towards a parcel of naughty boys caught in their naughtiness;" "most discreditable;" "the epithet outrageous is hardly too strong." Here his breath fails him, and, fortunately for me, the climax ends. And this, we are ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... to the towering face, and his eyes fell. Every trace of fight, of effrontery, had left him, and he dropped weakly ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... been more amply supplied. But Voltaire was not satisfied. At a later period, when he possessed an ample fortune, he was one of the most liberal of men; but till his means had become equal to his wishes, his greediness for lucre was unrestrained either by justice or by shame. He had the effrontery to ask for a thousand louis more, in order to enable him to bring his niece, Madame Denis, the ugliest of coquettes, in his company. The indelicate rapacity of the poet produced its natural effect on the severe and frugal King. The answer was a ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... have made their breakfasts, eager to wreak vengeance upon their employer; but a printer in the pillory has advantages over others traders, and Curll had caused handbills to be struck off and distributed amongst the crowd, stating, with his usual effrontery, that he was put in the pillory for vindicating the blessed memory of her late Majesty Queen Anne. This either touched or tickled the mob—it does not matter which—who protected Curll whilst he stood ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... Julian had caught their private glances at the table. And Louis was now carrying trays for her, and hobnobbing with her in the kitchen! Lastly, because Julian could not pass the night in the house, Louis, the interloper, had the effrontery to offer to fill his place—on some preposterous excuse about burglars! And the fellow was so polite and so persuasive, with his finicking eloquence. By virtue of a strange faculty not uncommon in human nature Julian loathed Louis' good manners and appearance—and ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... over as a cool specimen, although there was nothing "cheeky" about the intruder. He showed neither the sneakiness nor the effrontery of the professional railroad beat or ride stealer, nothwithstanding the easy, natural way in which he made himself at home in the cab as though he ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... the world as a spectacle and a warning. "We have all sinned" in believing that the body is more than the spirit, that food and pleasure and power are the primary ends of all living; but Germany alone has had the effrontery to justify her cynicism by conscious theory and to teach it systematically to all her people. She has endowed with life a philosophical idea, given it the personality of her people, created a national Frankenstein to be feared and loathed. More, she is coming perilously ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... Mrs. Budlong had never exchanged Christmas presents, at all, but with whom an intimacy had sprung up since Mrs. Budlong came into the reputation of her money—Myra Eppley had the effrontery to call up on ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... and chagrin, but could not resist the torrent. His behaviour was now no other than a series of license and effrontery; prank succeeded prank, and outrage followed outrage with surprising velocity. Complaints were every day preferred against him; in vain were admonitions bestowed by the governor in private, and menaces discharged by the masters in public; he disregarded the first, despised the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... steaming, certain peace-mongers would have been hanged long ago, and our cooing doves of peace would have had molten tar mixed with their feathers. An Italian proverb runs, "It is easy to scoff at a bull from a window," and we indulge in not a little of such babyish effrontery from our safe place in the world. Germany, on the other hand, looks out upon the world from no such safe window-seat; she is down in the ring, and must be prepared at all hazards to take care of herself. That is a reason, too, why Germany offers little resistance to the ruling ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... F says she is ready to make new tests and what is holding up work on the Sisyphus? Replied it was complete except for my cabins. She had the effrontery to say these werent important and she was ready to go ahead without me. I pointed out that the Sisyphus was my property and it would not sail until ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Street—Pickwick, who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward—Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless tomato sauce and warming-pans—Pickwick still rears his head with unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. Damages, gentlemen—heavy damages is the only punishment with which you ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... reasoned with her upon the fitness of her coming to mass, and receiving as sacred the sacrament and sacramentals of the Holy Ghost. "If these things were in the word of God," said Mrs. Lewes, "I would with all my heart receive, believe, and esteem them." The bishop, with the most ignorant and impious effrontery, replied, "If thou wilt believe no more than what is warranted by scripture, thou art in a state of damnation!" Astonished at such a declaration, this worthy sufferer ably rejoined, "that his words were as ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... the side of France. Genet, the French minister, undertook to fit out privateers in Charleston. Washington issued a proclamation of neutrality (1793), which was followed by a Neutrality Act of Congress (1794). When Genet had the effrontery to appeal from the President to the people, at the demand of ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... may chance to read this book. To them, of course, I must offer a somewhat different apology. I believe that, with all my limitations, I can tell my fellow-countrymen things about the history of America which they do not know. It would be absurd effrontery to pretend that I can tell Americans what they do not know. For them, whatever interest this book may possess must depend upon the value of a foreigner's interpretation of the facts. I know that I should be extraordinarily ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... artful, and perverse woman in barbarous times; she started low down in the scale and rose very high without a corresponding elevation of soul; she was audacious and perfidious, as perfect in deception as in effrontery, proceeding to atrocities either from cool calculation or a spirit of revenge, abandoned to all kinds of passion, and, for gratification of them, shrinking from no sort of crime. However, she died quietly at Paris, in 597 or 598, powerful and dreaded, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and can harangue with unruffled foreheads and unfaltering voice, from one end of a dinner-table to the other, who, on all occasions, have something to say, and can speak with fluency on what they know nothing about, no sooner rise in the House than their spells desert them. All their effrontery vanishes. Commonplace ideas are rendered even more uninteresting by monotonous delivery; and keenly alive as even boobies are in those sacred walls to the ridiculous, no one appears more thoroughly ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... sidewalks in these streets, and the dust was soiling the train of her dress. Some young girls who passed dropped their eyes, and did not admire at all as they should her luxurious attire. Sinang's coachman, who was driving Sinang and her cousin in an elegant tres-por-ciento, had the effrontery to cry out to her "Tabi!" in so audacious a voice that she moved out ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Sunday would be Easter, and she thought of a hundred ways in which she could make it brighter for so many of the unfortunates. Her heart was opened to the world, and looking across to Henderson, who was deep in the morning paper, she said, with a wife's unblushing effrontery, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and comfort for a very long time in reading it to his friends after dinner, or on other occasions, and as he had many, it got pretty well about London. I may here very truly remark that Mr. Hotten, in the public controversy which he had with Mr. Trubner on the subject of my "Ballads," displayed an effrontery absolutely without parallel in modern times, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... been aware that your official envelope contained only blank paper. I cannot believe that one more simple-minded than I believe you to be would have had the effrontery to present such matter as evidence that he was an officer of the United States Navy," continued Captain Battleton, with a look of greater severity than he had before assumed, possibly because he realized that the real Lieutenant Passford was higher in rank ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... tax-collector (which Josephus recounts at length), while largely fanciful, vividly reflects the conditions and spirit of the age. Joseph, who evidently belonged to one of the leading families of Jerusalem, by his energy and effrontery secured the valuable right of farming the taxes of Palestine. By the iniquitous methods then in vogue, he succeeded in amassing a great fortune. The splendid ruins of Arak el-Emir on the heights of southern Gilead, east of the Jordan, represent the ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... nerveless maid who had matured to womanhood in the crisis of the night before—seizing command of a menacing situation through sheer effrontery and wit, compelling fate itself to swerve aside as she led our galloping horses through the slowly closing gates ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... exclaimed she—"Bigot's falseness, and her shameless effrontery in seeking him in his very house. But it shall not be!" Angelique's voice was like the cry of a wounded panther tearing at the arrow which has pierced his flank. "Is Angelique des Meloises to be humiliated by that woman? Never! But my bright dreams will have no fulfilment so long as she ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... favorite sources of speculation to the miners, as determining both his breed and his moral responsibility in coming into camp in that defective condition. There was a general opinion that he couldn't have looked worse with a tail, and its removal was therefore a gratuitous effrontery. ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... Supreme Court, for more than a quarter of a century. In fact, they have reduced the decision to an absolute nullity. That decision, I repeat, is repudiated in the Cincinnati platform; and still, as if to show that effrontery can go no further, Judge Douglas vaunts in the very speeches in which he denounces me for opposing the Dred Scott decision that he stands on the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... approbation of this letter to translate it into Latin verse. But in the world generally it raised a great outcry. It was false, it was incredible, it was a wicked defiance of the surest verities of religion. Even Boswell calls it a piece of "daring effrontery," and as he thinks of it being done by his old professor, says, "Surely now have I more understanding than my teachers." Though nothing was further from the intention of the author, it was generally regarded as an attack upon religion, which imperatively called for repulsion; and a champion ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... amiable dog became a lion, bold, impudent, mocking; the mask was gone forever, both from his face and his desires. He wore his empty scabbard with all the effrontery of a man who had fought and won his first duel. Du Puys had threatened to hang the man who gave the vicomte a sword. As the majority of the colonists were ignorant of what lay behind this remarkable quarrel, they naturally took sides with the man whose laugh was more ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... he is quite unashamed, and replies that the moderns "are always saying 'you can't put the clock back.' The simple and obvious answer is, 'You can.' A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the human finger to any figure or hour." The effrontery of an answer like that is so magnificent that it takes one's breath away. The chief difficulty of Mr. Chesterton and Mr. Belloc, however, seems to be that they want their clock to point to two different hours at the same time, ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... inexpedient unless large dowries were brought to the husband. Numerous were the efforts of Emperors to promote honorable marriages, but the relation was shunned. Courtesans usurped the privileges of wives, and with unblushing effrontery. A man was derided who contemplated matrimony, for there was but little confidence in female virtue or capacity, and woman lost all her fascination when age had destroyed her beauty; even her very virtues were distasteful to her self-indulgent husband. When, as sometimes ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... eminent degree,—are, except in a few favoured instances, unknown among us; while affectation, in other countries the badge of ignorance and vulgarity, is in ours, even in its worst shape, when it borrows the mien of rudeness, and impertinence, and effrontery, the appanage 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... was not. The miracle of virtues and charms depicted by courtiers and poets existed, if she did exist at all, entirely in their exuberant imaginations. She could be indecently coarse and intolerably mean; she could lie with unblushing effrontery; her vanity was inordinate. But voracious as she was of flattery it never misled her; she could appreciate in others the virtues she herself lacked; behind the screen of capriciousness, an intellect was ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... annexed to his office, was asserted without a blush.[36] This last allegation was said to be supported by extracts from the treasury accounts which had been laid before the legislature, and was maintained with the most persevering effrontery. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... de l'Hospital, whose blood boiled with indignation against the wretch who stood before him with such effrontery. "All these witnesses who complain of having lost ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... entertaining account of Bet Flint, a woman of the town, who, with some eccentrick talents and much effrontery, forced herself upon his acquaintance. 'Bet (said he,) wrote her own Life in verse, which she brought to me, wishing that I would furnish her with a Preface to it, (laughing.) I used to say of her that she was generally slut and drunkard; occasionally, whore and thief. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... have to buy it. And it fluctuates extraordinarily. I have more than once bought it in at half-a-crown and come home burning with indignation, and, if you will believe me, there was a blackguard at that big Sale of Work for the Territorials in the autumn who had the effrontery to charge me a guinea and a half. I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... mingled effrontery and duplicity marked the closing months of the year (1897). In the February following Mr. Krueger was elected to the presidency of the South African Republic for the fourth time. It was generally recognised that the success of his candidature was ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... followed closely by a bevy of inmates. Chia Lien evidently placed such thorough reliance upon the love, which old lady Chia had all along lavished upon them, that he entertained little regard even for his mother or his aunt, so he came, with perfect effrontery, to stir up a disturbance in their presence. When Mesdames Hsing and Wang saw him, they got into a passion, and, with all despatch, they endeavoured to deter him from his purpose. "You mean thing!" they shouted, abusing him. "Your crime is more heinous, for our ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... But Elfie ignored the attention she attracted, and went on chatting, unconcerned. What did she care if people guessed how she made the money to dress as she did? She was too old at the business for that, too hardened, yet with all her effrontery, she had at least one redeeming virtue. In her days of prosperity she was never too proud to greet or help old friends. She had met Jim Weston years ago. He was press agent for the first company she joined, and she had not forgotten trifling little services ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... Chivey with the coolest effrontery. "My servant knew that I had come on here; thinking to be detained some time with his excellency the consul, I left word at my hotel where I was coming, and he followed ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... bayoneted and butchered in the most inhuman manner, a number of the militia who have unfortunately fallen into their hands. That Colonel Mawhood immediately after the massacre, in open letters, sent to both officers and privates by a flag, had the effrontery to insult us with a demand, that we should lay down our arms, and if not, threatened to burn, destroy, and lay the whole country waste, and more especially the property of a number of our most distinguished men, whom he named. That he has since put ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... considerable fair traveller, and most particular good bottom." I hesitated; this man who talks with such unblushing effrontery of getting up cases, and making profit out of them, cannot be offended at the question—yes, I ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the other mornings and all the afternoons?" I inquired, with the effrontery of a hardened sinner seizing his opportunity to take ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... his valour and defend his crown: No stranger and no traitor rules o'er me, Or unchastised inveigles humbled Spain. Covilla, gavest thou no promises? Nor thou, Don Julian? Seek not to reply - Too well I know, too justly I despise, Thy false excuse, thy coward effrontery; Yes, when thou gavest them across the sea, An enemy wert thou to Mahomet, And no appellant to his ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... said Mr. Iglesias. Her unblushing effrontery began to entertain him somewhat. And then he had sallied forth in search of amusement. This was not the form of amusement he would have selected; but—since it ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... youth's crown." But Giw told them that he could not comply with their demand; yet he was ready to reward them with money to any extent. The pertinacious ferrymen, who were not anxious for money, then demanded his armor, and this was also refused; and such was their independence or their effrontery, that they replied, "If not one of these four things you are disposed to grant, cross the river as best you may." Giw whispered to Kai-khosrau, and told him that there was no time for delay. "When Kavah, the blacksmith," said he, "rescued ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... pacified. It is very true that the piratical interest would suffer, and this was a very considerable and influential branch of business. So long as war existed anywhere, the corsairs of England sailed with the utmost effrontery from English ports, to prey upon the commerce of friend and foe alike. After a career of successful plunder, it was not difficult for the rovers to return to their native land, and, with the proceeds of their industry, to buy themselves positions of importance, both social ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... perhaps the most remarkable woman of her age, has published a book—half farce, half novel—in which she treats by turns with the clap-trap agony of a Bulwer, the quaint sneer of a Dickens, and the effrontery of an Ainsworth, that serious charge which employed the careful investigation of the most experienced men in France for many weeks, and which excited a degree of interest in domestic England almost unexampled in the history of foreign trials. This work ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... and treachery, and effrontery and cunning, the rivals who act unfairly, and the keen competition of the literary market," his companion said resignedly. "What is a first loss, if only your ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac |
