"Impudent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... most magnificently bound; but all won't do. He only says, "If she'd please me, she'd give up that cursed opera-box. Why, the rent of that thing—only to sit in and hear Italian women squealing and squalling, and to see impudent, outlandish baggages kicking up their heels higher than any decent heads ought to be—the rent, I say, would maintain a parish rector, or keep half-a-dozen parish schools a-going." As for her books, that all the world besides ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... And, farther, when our friend Paullus[469] was brought forward as a witness against Sestius, he affirmed that he would lay an information against Vatinius[470] if Licinius Macer hesitated to do so, and Macer, rising from Sestius's benches, declared that he would not fail. Need I say more? That impudent swaggering fellow Vatinius was overwhelmed with confusion and ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... through their Ministers, used barefacedly to inspire journalists to write the doctrine of waste of blood as being a natural process of dealing with the problem of overpopulation. History is pregnant with proof that their cry for peace was an impudent hypocrisy. They might have had it at any time, but this did not suit their policy of legitimacy. Countless thousands of human beings were slaughtered to satisfy the aversion of kings and nobles to the plan of one man who towered above them, and insisted on breaking up the nefarious ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... him! was there ever man So very impudent?—A knave! he ought To be transported at the ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... find some of the greatest rascals and most impudent liars in the "Synagogues and High Places" ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... at having lost this fine specimen, and when he saw this little fellow laughing, and standing quite close to his basket, he grew angry, and in a rough tone of voice, speaking in Guernsey French, he exclaimed: "Begone, you impudent little rascal." ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... painfully shrewd in reading such faces, and, on wet days, would present himself to them with his bare little red feet and half-naked body, rain water, (doing duty for tears), running from his weak bloodshot eyes, and falsehoods of the most pitiable, complex, and impudent character pouring from his thin blue lips, whilst awful solemnity seemed to shine on his ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... one night stealing your own oats from your own horses. Love. That must be a lie; for I never allow them any. James. In a word, you are the bye-word everywhere; and you are never mentioned, but by the names of covetous, stingy, scraping, old— Love. Get along, you impudent villain! James. Nay, sir, you said you would n't be angry. Love. Get out, you ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... a sound scolding," he muttered, "for he's becoming so impudent lately that soon he will think ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... flapped right into Tom's face, and stared at him in the most impudent way (for the mollys are audacious fellows, as all whalers know), and then asked him where he hailed from, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... so impudent!" said Mrs. Lincoln; "I wish I had been present, I would have spoken my mind freely, but so much one ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... countryside with a flash of truant splendor. To the south nestled the cluster of hospital buildings, each sending out thin gray lines of smoke. Moving up the valley, hugging the sinuous banks of the river, a train nosed its impudent way. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... an extremely impudent one, Charlie. But can you tell me at what time the mackerel boats may be expected this evening, for it seems the old fellow is not often to be found at home during the day, and we shall be pretty sure to find him on the beach when ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... Members of his staff reported Sheridan as saying that the request for his personal body-guard was impudent, but ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... brings you colored glass, and throws roses into your window, and perhaps has strewed the road with them by which he found his way to you to-day. But there are nevertheless laws which protect the Roman citizen from criminals and impudent seducers. You were always a great deal too much in the house over there, and you have exchanged your games with the little screaming beggars for one with the grownup child, the rose-thrower-the fop, who, for your sake, and not to be recognized, covers up his purple ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... one is against him—you and Mistress Wynne and that impudent boy, Jack Warder, despite his blushes. Oh, he can be bold enough. Isn't ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... of him. We had a dispute the other day as to the correct sort of lunch to be served on Ash Wednesday, and I got so irritated and annoyed at his conceit and obstinacy that at last I threw a cupful of coffee in his face and called him at the same time an impudent jackanapes. Very little of the coffee went actually in his face, but I have never seen a human being show such deplorable lack of self-control. I laughed at the threat of killing me that he spluttered out in his rage, and thought the whole thing ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... it bother you, Scatty," returned the impudent Sally. "We don't want anything to do with your pet," and she tossed her head, looked scornfully at Janice, and ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... the mosquito (lib. iv, 51); and PHILO-JUDAEUS, in his Vita Mosis, lib. i. ch. xxiii., descanting on the plague of flies, and using the term of the Septuagint, [Greek: kunomyia], describes it as combining the characteristic of "the most impudent of all animals, the fly and the dog, exhibiting the courage and the cunning of both, and fastening on its victim with the noise and rapidity of an arrow"—[Greek: meta roizou kathaper belos]. This seems to ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... Kollomietzev is!" he exclaimed suddenly. "At dinner I could scarcely keep from rushing at him and smashing his impudent face as a warning to others. But no, there are more important things to be done just now. There is no time to waste getting angry with fools for saying stupid things. The time has now come to prevent them doing ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... Death! cried the stupid lady; and wilt thou call my noble house the House of Death? Now art thou no longer bold, stripped thrall, but impudent. ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... in by Lady Russell and Lilias. Mr. Wilton, however, had his doubts. "Ermie in the role of the self-denying martyr is too new and foreign for me," he muttered. "There's something at the back of this. Basil in disgrace (which he well deserves, the impudent young scoundrel), and Ermengarde the friend and support of the suffering poor! these things are too new to be altogether consistent. There's something at the back of this mystery, and I shall go home and see ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... twenty, he appeared at the outside twenty-eight, wavy bronze-brown hair; big, wide-open eyes of yellow-brown like cigarette tobacco; low, straight brows and lashes of the same light shade; a clever, impudent nose and a wide, laughing mouth; a pointed, prominent chin with a cleft in it. Now, can you imagine this as the description of a nineteen-year-old girl's recreant parent, a ruined bankrupt returning to a house deserted by his ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... It was impudent street chaff, but there was cheerful spirit in it, and cheerful spirit has some occult effect upon morbidity. Antony Dart did not smile, but he felt a faint stirring of curiosity, which was, after all, not a ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... terrible than his anger, "It is true, then; you do not deny it!" She moved forward. "And you cannot deny it!" added Villefort, extending his hand toward her, as though to seize her in the name of justice. "You have accomplished these different crimes with impudent address, but which could only deceive those whose affections for you blinded them. Since the death of Madame de Saint-Meran, I have known that a poisoner lived in my house. M. d'Avrigny warned me of it. After the death of ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... destined that Laurel, which, though it hath long been withered, may not probably soon drop from the Brow of its present Possessor; but there is another Place of much the same Value now vacant: it is that of Deputy Licensor to the Stage. Be not offended at this Hint; for though I will own it impudent enough in one who hath so many Obligations of his own to you, to venture to recommend another man to your Favour, yet Impudence itself may possibly be a Virtue when exerted on the behalf of a Friend; at least I am the less ashamed of it, as I have ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... learn how to speak of your father, and how to think of your father, and how to love and honor your father, from a forward little minx like you! I was finely disappointed, I can tell you, when you were born—I wished for a boy, you impudent hussy! If you ever find a man who is fool enough to marry you, he will be a lucky man if you only love him half as well, a quarter as well, a hundred-thousandth part as well, as I loved your father. Ah, you can cry when it's too late; you can come ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... impudent grin. "Why, hello, trouper! As I live, the actin' Kid!" She held out a hand to him and he could not well refuse it. He would have preferred to "up-stage" her once more, as she had phrased it in her low jargon, but he was ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... laughed heartily; but James was silent, and as soon as they had entered the little parlour, declared that it would not do to encourage that old skipper—he was waylaying them like the Ancient Mariner, and was actually growing impudent. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he chanced upon an individual who had been long endeavoring to arrest his attention. This personage was completely in the background. All that Dick could discern of him was a brown curly head of hair, carelessly arranged in the modern mode; a handsome, impudent, sun-freckled face, with one eye closed, and the other occupied by a broken bottle-neck, through which, as a substitute for a lorgnette, the individual reconnoitered him. A cocked hat was placed in a very degagee manner under his arm, and he held an ebony ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... fair-skinned juveniles of more northern lands—namely scampering after each other, running and yelling, indulging in mischief, spluttering in the waters, rolling on the sand, staring at the strangers, making impudent remarks, and punching each ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... replied the fair young man, and his glances at the white beard, scanty locks and mumbling mouth of the ancient gentleman had an unpleasantly personal quality. To the casual on-looker it would have seemed that an impudent boy deliberately insulted a harmless benevolent old gentleman. To the fair young man, however, it was well known that the old gentleman's name was famous across Northern and Eastern Africa for monstrous villainy and fiendish cruelty—the name of the ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... Leather, though as impudent a dog as any of them, and far more than a match for the best of them at a tournament of slang, being on his preferment, thought it best to be civil, and replied, with a touch of his hat, that ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... said the Jackal, with an impudent laugh, 'will condescend to take hold of the tip of my brush with your trunk, and ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... the angry adjectives heaped on the head of the dancer on that memorable evening. Mrs. Frederick Marston, I remember, called her an insolent hussy; but then Mrs. Frederick Marston was never original. Others: rash, impudent, saucy, impertinent; in each ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... punish the youth without attracting attention." It occurred to the lady that there lived a very ill-tempered peasant woman on her estate, with whom no servant would stay, while her husband said that his life with her was more uncomfortable than if he was in hell. If the impudent boy could be induced to go to her as herd-boy, she thought the woman would give him a severer punishment than any judge could inflict upon him. "I'll arrange the matter just as you wish," said the queen. So she summoned a trustworthy messenger, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... Whenever I go, I go all together: No cutting from the whole piece; he who has me shall have the fag-end with the rest, I warrant him. Be satisfied, thy sheers shall never enter into my cloth. But, look to thyself, thou impudent belswagger: I will he revenged; ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... your tiresome chatter!" commanded the King, getting angry again. "Because you are my Chief Steward you have an idea you can scold me as much as you please. But the very next time you become impudent, I will send you to work in the furnaces, and get another Nome to fill your place. Now follow me to my chamber, for I am going to bed. And see that I am wakened early tomorrow morning. I want to enjoy the fun of transforming the rest ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... lady missionary's ready-made tie, dragged his shrinking cuffs into the open, set his hat at a killing cant and sidled toward the young woman. He made eyes at her, was taken with sudden coughs and "hems," smiled, smirked and went brazenly through the impudent and contemptible litany of the "masher." With half an eye Soapy saw that the policeman was watching him fixedly. The young woman moved away a few steps, and again bestowed her absorbed attention upon the shaving mugs. Soapy followed, boldly ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... stand the responsibility of pressing him to undertake a task that might be fatal to himself and foredoomed to failure. In that case she does not bear herself like a heroine, and strengthens the suspicion, as we have said, that the story of pleading with Nelson to offer his services is an impudent fabrication. Minto says that the tears and swooning is a strange picture, and assures him as before that nothing can be more pure and ardent than this flame; and she might have added that they had ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... the trail appears like a chain of curiously carved links. Sir Mephitis mephitica, or, in plain English, the skunk, has waked up from his six weeks' nap, and come out into society again. He is a nocturnal traveler, very bold and impudent, coming quite up to the barn and outbuildings, and sometimes taking up his quarters for the season under the haymow. There is no such word as hurry in his dictionary, as you may see by his path upon the snow. ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... in the Confederate cavalry. But then one looked into his eyes and got the illusion of being covered by a pair of blued pistol muzzles. He had an aura of combined ruthlessness, self confidence, good humor and impudent audacity. ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper
... husks; a string of deer-hoofs dangles from each wrist; fragments of fossil wood hang from the loins; and to the knees are fastened tortoise-shells. Nothing is worn with a view to ornament. These seeming monstrosities, frightful in their ugliness, move about quite nimbly, and are boldly impudent to a degree approaching sublimity. Notwithstanding their uncouth figures and mountebank tricks their movements at times are undoubtedly graceful, and they appear to exercise a certain authority ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... to marry her to the gay and witty Marshal de Bassompierre; and although his heart was not at all engaged, the marshal found the match extremely suitable, and was willing enough, until the King declared himself. Henry used the most impudent frankness. ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... the pleasure of writing to you again before reaching New York or Havana; but, if you continue always to be, for me, as kind as formerly, I hope you'll grant me the particular favor of writing to me once in a while. This will be an impudent theft, on my part, of time so usefully consecrated to scientific pursuits. Still I flatter myself you'll pardon it, consequently founded on that (perhaps gratuitous) supposition. I'll ask you to direct your letter to Charleston, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... one Tennent, a monster! impudent and noisy, and told them all they were damn'd, damn'd, damn'd! This charmed them, and in the most dreadful winter that i ever saw, people wallowed in the snow night and day for the benefit of his beastly brayings; and many ended their days under these fatigues. Both of them carried ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... "You impudent young shrimp. I don't believe a word of it. And let me tell you, young man, that I'll send whoever I please to do the work here, unions or ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... the Fourth Reader—a laggard in his studies because his mind was incurious about books and the like, was absorbed in games, in playing soldier and robber, in swimming and sledding, in orchard-looting and fighting. He was impudent and domineering, a bully but not a coward, good-natured when deferred to, the feared leader of a boisterous, imitative clique. Until Pauline came he had rarely noticed a girl—never except to play her some ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... a bit; but the other observes, impudent and languid like: You see, there's no future in a thing like that—is there? . . Oh! no, says Cloete. Certainly not. I don't mean this to have any future—as far as you are concerned. It's a 'once for all' transaction. Well, what do you estimate your future at? he asks. . . The ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... but drunkenness is of the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous and mad. He that is drunk is not a man, because he is, for so long, void of reason that distinguishes a ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... the doctor; "our pretence to repentance would otherwise be gross hypocrisy, and an impudent attempt to deceive and impose upon ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... domesticated. It used to fly about the garden and perch upon the heads and hands of the family. After a while it would venture upon an oak and carry on a very voluble conversation with its fellows who also patronised the tree. It soon grew as impudent and pugnacious and ravenous as most sparrows. It was always hungry and talkative. Though it had the freedom of the neighbourhood, it came down daily before sunset and roosted on a perch in its cage, the door of which was left open for its convenience. It was let out the first ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... wrapped up in his only son, of whose abilities he had the most extravagant estimate and hope. All the evidence goes to show that Richard Burke was one of the most presumptuous and empty-headed of human beings. "He is the most impudent and opiniative fellow I ever knew," said Wolfe Tone. Gilbert Elliot, a very different man, gives the same account. "Burke," he says, describing a dinner party at Lord Fitzwilliam's in 1793, "has ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... heard, and the effect upon them was magical. They fell to shamed confusion and to hurried useless tasks. Madeline found it difficult to see where they had been bold, though evidently they were stricken with conscious guilt. She recalled appraising looks of critical English eyes, impudent French stares, burning Spanish glances—gantlets which any American girl had to run abroad. Compared with foreign eyes the eyes of these cowboys were those ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... snatched up the candle;—A little this way, said Slop; Susannah looking one way, and rowing another, instantly set fire to Slop's wig, which being somewhat bushy and unctuous withal, was burnt out before it was well kindled.—You impudent whore! cried Slop,—(for what is passion, but a wild beast?)—you impudent whore, cried Slop, getting upright, with the cataplasm in his hand;—I never was the destruction of any body's nose, said Susannah,—which is more than you can say:—Is ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... Miss More—is she sdaying in this house?" asks Moss, half pushing his way in, and trying to look impudent. You should have seen the butler's face when ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... "Men who stick their heads into the lion's jaws are apt to lose them. Our young friend Cameron has done that. I'll change the figure. When a man tries to stop a great machine by putting his impudent fingers into the cog wheels, the man's a fool. He may lose his hand, or he may lose ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... He proceeded to argue that "a moral law must hold good always and everywhere, which modesty does not." Saint-Lambert, the poet, observed that "it must be acknowledged that one can say nothing good about innocence without being a little corrupted," and Duclos added "or of modesty without being impudent." Saint-Lambert finally held forth with much poetic enthusiasm concerning the desirability of consummating marriages in public.[59] This view of modesty, combined with the introduction of Greek fashions, gained ground to such an extent that towards the end of the century women, to the detriment ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... to the Synthesis. It seemed to make the air reel around her, and step by step she felt as if she should fall. A wild anger swelled her heart, and left no room there for shame even. She wondered what abominable lies that little wretch had told; but they must have been impudent indeed to overcome her mother's life-long reluctance from writing and her well-grounded fears of spelling, so far as to make her send a letter out of the usual course. But when her first fury passed, and she began to grow weak in the revulsion, she felt only her helplessness in the presence ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... answer, since marriages were celebrated with ring and book. "I want to ask you a close question— Are you now, in feeling as well as judgment, glad you are married as you are? From anybody but me this would be an impudent question, not to be tolerated; but I know you will pardon it in me. Please answer it quickly, as I am impatient to know." It is probable that Mr. Speed replied promptly in the way in which such questions must almost of necessity be answered. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... supported himself by writings chiefly of the Encyclopedia or Gazetteer kind; and became, still in Johnson's phrase, "the richest author that ever grazed the common of literature." A more singular and less reputable character was that impudent quack, Sir John Hill, who, with his insolent attacks upon the Royal Society, pretentious botanical and medical compilations, plays, novels, and magazine articles, has long sunk into utter oblivion. It is said of him that he pursued every branch of literary quackery with greater ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... standing in the water about shoulder-deep. There was no cover, therefore I could only advance upon the sand without a chance of stalking them; this caused them to retreat to deeper water, but upon my arrival within about eighty yards, they raised their heads well up, and snorted an impudent challenge. I had my old Ceylon No. 10 double rifle, and, taking a steady aim at the temple of one that appeared to be the largest, the ball cracked loudly upon the skull. Never had there been such a commotion in the pool as now! At the report of the rifle, five heads sank and disappeared ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... interview with Johnson, Priestley, in his Appeal to the Public, part ii, published in 1792 (Works, xix. 502), thus writes, answering 'the impudent falsehood that when I was at Oxford Dr. Johnson left a company on my being ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... and cut his cheeks mercilessly, and the starched cuffs covered his hands up to his red, crooked fingers, which were ornamented with silver and gold rings, set with forget-me-nots of turquoise. His red, fresh, impudent face belonged to those countenances which, as far as I have observed, are almost always repulsive to men, but, unfortunately, are often admired by women. Apparently trying to give an expression of contempt and of weariness to his rough features, he was forever closing his small, milky-gray ...
— The Rendezvous - 1907 • Ivan Turgenev
... pay me in money, let me have it in love. If I break through the modesty of my sex let my passion excuse it. I know the world will call it an impudent action; but if you will let me reserve all I have to myself, I will ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... energy of Washington, who, impatient of the delays which Great Britain opposed to the evacuation of the posts, marched troops to the frontier and obtained their surrender. Adet, the new French minister, had dashed the feeling of attachment for France by his impudent notice to the President that the dissatisfaction of France would last until the executive of the United States should return to sentiments and measures more conformable to the interests and friendships of the two nations. ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... assumption of its privileges. I can see them yet—yes, and smell them, too. In some unventilated chamber of my rather capacious nostrils an abiding breath of that intense, all-conquering odor of fish, smoke and muskrat, which they brought with them, still survives. I well remember their impudent and sometimes bullying demeanor; and the horror of one occasion I shall never forget, when a stalwart Winnebago, armed with a knife, tomahawk and gun, seized my mother by the shoulder as she stood by her ironing table, and shook her ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... I was. I said, 'Ye should teach your flock better than to tempt honest people.' 'It's gettin' impudent ye are,' says he; 'ye'll be turnin' heretic next. You must be seen to and taken care of,' says he. 'Bad luck to ye!' says I; 'when ye sees me two eyes light me to confession again, ye may take care o' me ...
— Live to be Useful - or, The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse • Anonymous
... which Nature herself founds and presents this lawless little brood of hers—the children. It is not the children who are out of order; it is Literature. And not only is Literature out of order, but she is presumptuous; she is impudent. She takes Nature's children and revises and corrects them till "their own mother doesn't know them." This is literal fact. So, very many of us are coming to inquire, as we've a right, why is the real child excluded from a just hearing in the world ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... against evil. That shook him. Then he saw the Saddhu fall sheer into the hands of the polis—all the effect of thy art. Then he gathered up his son and fled; for he said that thou didst change a quiet trader into an impudent bandier of words with the Sahibs, and he feared a like ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... even do it at night!" broke in another. "They come and drag them away in broad daylight, without shame, the impudent scoundrels!" ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... "The impudent creature!" fairly gasped the heiress, flinging aside her embroidery and pacing up and down the floor like a caged animal. "I shall take a bitter revenge on her for this, or my ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... inquired the swineherd, leaning on his stick. "The king," replied Eric. "You lie, Sir Prince! Ralph is king." "I speak the truth, swineherd." The swineherd by this time was examining Eric's dress with an impudent look. "Pay me now," said he; "give me this gold band, and I will guide you." "I cannot give you this gold band, for my father gave it to me, and I have lost enough to-day. By the by, did you see a gold thread waving anywhere among the trees?" "A gold ...
— The Gold Thread - A Story for the Young • Norman MacLeod
... Sicilian towns I found the mob more boisterous and impudent than in the East, and frequently it was my lot to witness most diabolical quarrels and fights. It is necessary to be much more on one's guard against theft and roguery among these people than among the Arabs and Bedouins. Now I acknowledge how falsely I had judged the poor denizens of the East when ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... man in the pillory all manner of impudent questions. He resented it, and threatened them, when plump went a couple of eggs against the boards near his head, and the yolks ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... do against such a tenacious animal!... And upon hearing that, not content with the explanations of the mother and the daughter and his own audacious tapping around her clothes, he recommended an internal examination, the proud mother almost showed him the door. The impudent wretch! Not in a hurry was he going to have the pleasure of seeing her daughter so intimately! The poor thing, so good and so modest, who blushed merely at the ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the dust of the sun. But as soon as this idea, having entered into my mind, began to become easy therein, I found it to be odd, absurd and grotesque. Ideas, when they impose themselves, very soon become impudent. But few are apt to be better than pleasant passers-by; and, decidedly, this very one had somehow an air of madness. During the time I asked myself, "Shall I open it?" "Shall I not?" the seal, which I had held continuously between ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... style, for example, par excellence profound and scientific, where the reader is tormented to death by the narcotic effect of longspun periods without a single idea in them,—such as are furnished in a special measure by those most impudent of all mortals, the Hegelians[1]; or it may be that it is an intellectual style they have striven after, where it seems as though their object were to go crazy altogether; and so on in many other cases. All these endeavors to put off the nascetur ridiculus mus—to avoid showing the funny little ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Carpenter's Bay in Mauritius, he found an impudent message from the pirates, 'writ on Captain Carpenter's tomb with a piece of charcoal,' to the effect that they had been expecting him and had gone to Port Dauphin. The squadron next proceeded to Bourbon, where they sold some casks ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... the lazy eyes closed in their last weariness, the impudent lips parted, and Penny was dead. The War had beaten him. It was too big a ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... not the Arab respect for women. I only speak of the common people—not of educated Copts. The best fun was to hear the Greeks (one of whom spoke English) abusing the Copts—rogues, heretics, schismatics from the Greek Church, ignorant, rapacious, cunning, impudent, etc., etc. In short, they narrated the whole fable about their own sweet selves. I am quite surprised to see how well these men manage their work. The boat is quite as clean as an English boat as crowded could be kept, and the engine in beautiful ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... for a siege, two pointed beaks, instead of one, defended the entrance to the nest. Cries, however, began to fill the air, and an assemblage of swallows gathered together on a neighboring roof. Cuvier recognized distinctly the dispossessed couple, who related to each newcomer the impudent robbery of the sparrow. The male, with blood-stained head and bared neck, distinguished himself by the earnestness of his protestations and appeals of vengeance. In a little while two hundred swallows had arrived at the scene of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... she bade him conduct Pearse from the great chamber, and as they passed out, little Pascherette peered up at Pearse with an impudent smile, and with her head on one side like a bird ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... you ain't the most impudent cuss I ever seen!" cried Blake, by this time almost on the point ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... saw anything so impudent on the walls of any exhibition, in any country, as last year in London. It was a daub professing to be a "harmony in pink and white" (or some such nonsense;) absolute rubbish, and which had taken about a quarter ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... in any one's drawing-room so long as it was amusing enough to make somebody—if not everybody—laugh. Feather had made people laugh in the same fashion in the past. The persons she most admired were always making sly little impudent comments and suggestions, and the thwarted years on the island of Jersey had, in her case, resulted in an almost hectic desire to keep pace. Her efforts had usually been successes because Nature's self had provided her with the manner of ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he wrote, "we were left behind by a full-rigged English ship ... bound round the Horn, we have not spied a sail, nor a land bird, nor a shred of sea-weed. In impudent isolation, the toy schooner has plowed her path of snow across the empty deep, far from all track of commerce, far from any hand of help; now to the sound of slatting sails and stamping sheet blocks, staggering in the turmoil of that business falsely called a calm, ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... the impudent young scamp says?" exclaimed Blackall. "We'll pay him and his sneaking set off before long, so ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... title to the respect of all he meets because some one among his fathers bought a right in the buergerschaft. Thou hast a large stake in the Winkelried, and art at this moment thinking what punishment is good enough for an impudent soothsayer who dares dive so unceremoniously into the secrets of so warm a citizen, while all around thee wish thy cheeses had never left the dairy, to the discomfort of our limbs and to the great detriment of ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... individual cases. No longer able to awe his patients into obedience, he must rely upon his moral and intellectual powers in controlling them. To enable any one to understand the explanations of physicians, and to protect himself, by discovery, against the impudent assumptions of quacks, some knowledge of medical truths and of the drift of modern medical thought is necessary. Every successful physician, no matter how independent he may be by nature, is necessarily more or less cramped by the prejudices of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... but not impudent. See all you can, and make the most of your time; "time is money;" and, when you grow older, you may find it even more difficult ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... I don't intend to be addressed in that impudent way by any student. I have attempted to suppress this rebellion by mild means; but they have failed. I have been to see your uncle. As I supposed he would, he has taken a proper view of the case. He does not wish to have you expelled, and I revoke my sentence; but he desires ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... are men, however excellent, from whom we would never receive an obligation in the worldly sense of the word; and I am as jealous for my friend as for myself. I, as you know, have it not; but I suppose that at last I shall make up an impudent face, and ask Horace Smith to add to the many obligations he has conferred on me. I know I need ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... stumbling-block. He was very witty, and wrote a lengthy Hebrew satire on our tyrants, from which we derived not a little amusement as each part was finished. Unfortunately, the misdemeanor was detected, and the corpus delicti consigned to the flames, but the sobriquet chotsuf (impudent fellow) clung to ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... out, sir," I would say, and then I would find a fierce delight in sending six freezing words of refusal to some impudent woman who was trying to play upon the tender side of my ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... luminaries; he wrote some of the best comedies of his day. He also succeeded where Dryden, for lack of true dramatic taste, failed. He tampered successfully with Shakespeare. Colley Cibber's version of "Richard the Third" is impudent and slightly larcenic, but it is marvelously effective. It has stood a century, and probably will stand forever; and the most admired passages in what literary humbugs who pretend they know Shakespeare by the closet, not the stage, accept ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... hell calls angels! These curs'd gifts would make You a corrupter, me an impudent traitor; And should I take these, they'd take me ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... your good and trustful nature the week before last, with the signature of "LE HEADS MASTERRE," professing to deal with the subject of the International athleticism, I should unfailingly pronounce, after cursory investigation, to be a forgery, impudent and profound. For survey the facts: while it proposed, in a set of regulations bizarre and fantastic, to abolish "Le 'Arf-back," as a superfluous officer in the French game, a contest took place in the very centre of this Paris, in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... miserable, old, wrinkled, impudent she-devil enjoys! Don't tell me, Corny; there is no such thing as fortune-telling; at least, nothing that can be depended on in all cases—and this is one of downright imposition. ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... "What do you mean? What are you talking about? Tackbun Claimant? Who's the Tackbun Claimant? Do you realize to whom you are speaking? Fordyce, who and what is this infernally impudent puppy?" ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... interview left a still more unfavourable impression on Headland's mind of Mr Miles Gaffin. He did not like the expression of the man's countenance or the impudent swagger of his manner; while it was evident by the way he talked that he was a person of some education. Headland tried to recollect whether he had before seen him, or whether his old protector had ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the fresh poison which the unknown had poured into my wounds. When I called the image of Mina before my soul, and the dear, sweet form appeared pale and in tears, as I saw her last in my shame, then stepped, impudent and mocking, Rascal's shadow between her and me; I covered my face and fled through the wild. Yet the hideous apparition left me not, but pursued me in my flight, till I sank breathless on the ground, and moistened it with a fresh torrent ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... cast away their coals then," said Oldbuck; "but," continued he, in a whisper to Lovel, "were they to pillory him for one of the most impudent rascals that ever wagged a tongue, they would square the punishment more accurately with his deserts. But let us see: I think he is about to show us some ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... every one hypnotised," exploded the Duke. "His influence over this boy is a menace to our country. He is making on oaf of him—a slangy, impudent little—" ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... easy grasp the pre-eminence among all American rulers who had shone and flourished up to the time when those great men gave us new ideas upon the science of government. The average and quiet citizen, shocked as he might be and grumble as he did at the impudent plundering by our masters, their contempt of public opinion and the cynical display of their luxury, would doubtless have confined himself to grumbling and to calling for slow-arriving thunderbolts to crash the oppressors who were despoiling him had he felt certain ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... and the only medium of communication he could use was Lush, who, to his mind, was as much of an implement as pen and paper. But here too Grandcourt had his reserves, and would not have uttered a word likely to encourage Lush in an impudent sympathy with any supposed grievance in a marriage which had been discommended by him. Who that has a confidant escapes believing too little in his penetration, and too much in his discretion? Grandcourt had always allowed ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... tremble at what you are bringing upon yourself with all this impudent talk. What a frightful storm you are brewing for yourself! What a tempest of blows will storm down on ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... proud of him in that anticipation. When he succeeded in obtaining from her money, as in the case of that L20,—when, with brazen-faced indifference to her remonstrances, he started off to his club at two in the morning, when with impudent drollery he almost boasted of the hopelessness of his debts, a sickness of heart would come upon her, and she would weep hysterically, and lie the whole night without sleeping. But could he marry Miss Melmotte, and thus conquer all his troubles by means of his own personal beauty,—then she would ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... mind the work so much as I do their impudent airs, and their stuck-up ways. I wont be ordered around, and if Auntie thinks I'm going to be a black slave, she'll ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... smoked, paper peeled off the walls, Mrs. P. got the rheumatics, a turner worked all night, next door, the fellow that had previously lived or stayed in the house, ran off, leaving all his bills unpaid, and our door bell was incessantly kept ringing by ugly and impudent duns, and the creditors of the rascal, whom I did not know from a side of sole leather. ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... speak against Scotland to me,' said Mrs Macintyre. 'Remember it is my native land—the land of the heather, and the lochs, and the glorious mountains. It is the land of brave men and brave women, and I will not have it run down by any impudent English girl. I've got so many other English girls coming to the school that the loss of you four won't ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... spent one once, stuck in a snow-drift, or almost stuck, for we were ten hours late, and missed all connections, and the Christmas I had expected to spend with friends, I passed in a nasty car with a surly Pullman conductor, an impudent mulatto porter, and a lot of fools, all of whom could have murdered each other, not to speak of a crying baby whose murder was perhaps the only thing all ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... indictment,—not altogether by direct proof, but by a chain of circumstantial evidence which is stronger even than the testimony of eyewitnesses. Men might lie, but circumstances cannot. We expect to show that the defendant is a man of dangerous character, a surly, impudent fellow; a man whose views of property are prejudicial to the welfare of society, and who has been heard to assert that half the property which is owned in this county has been stolen, and that, if justice were done, the white people ought to divide up the land with the negroes; in other ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... detective, "I think it most feasible. Great criminals have the most remarkable audacity. Some really astounding cases of most impudent impersonation have come under my own observation during my ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... face said that I was an impudent old meddler, an officious interloper. It made my voice as sharp as pins. "Very well, young man," I said, "there will be just one time in your life's history when you have encountered both an old law and an old woman that you will neither break nor change. Your attentions ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... exercised it himself. They played with that weapon of their new Lord, the sway of a mysterious will over the human soul, which had become enslaved. They called it magnetism, hypnotism, suggestion ... what do I know? I have seen them amusing themselves like impudent children with this horrible power! Woe to us! Woe to man! He has come, the ... the ... what does he call himself ... the ... I fancy that he is shouting out his name to me and I do not hear him ... the ... yes ... he is shouting it out ... I am listening ... I cannot ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... arrived by express; decorators from Indianapolis came and went; furniture was unpacked in the front yard; and a long stone bench and a sundial appeared in Amzi's lawn, together with a pool, in the center of which an impudent little god piped joyfully in a cloud of spray. Such trifles as these testified to the prevailing cheer ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... I know you write poetry," retorted Yaspard; and then Fred said, "Yes; and do you know he has been impudent enough to compose a ballad about a legend of your family, boy? Think of that! I liked the ballad so well that I asked Garth to bring it along and give us all the benefit; so you are to hear the story of your own great-granduncle, ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... Hall was in earnest, decidedly, but civilly, refused; and in such a manner as to put at rest all further conversation. Enraged, Hall instantly turned, swearing to the laughing politicians that surrounded the tavern steps, and who had witnessed his discomfiture, that he would punish Foster's impudent obstinacy. Accordingly, full of ill, revengeful feelings, he returned home, and forbade his daughter ever permitting Foster to step over the threshold of the door—commanding her instantly to break the engagement. She used every entreaty, expostulated, temporized—all was of no avail; ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... animals that are almost certain to be spoiled—a very handsome young man, and the "cock of the school." Being certainly in the latter predicament, I was only saved from becoming an utter and egregious ass by the advent of one, the cleverest, most impudent, rascally, agreeable scoundrel that ever swindled man or deceived woman, in the shape of a wooden-legged usher. He succeeded my worthy friend of the guitar, Mr Sigismund Pontifex. His name was Riprapton, and he only wanted the slight requisite of ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... perhaps unwittingly, impudent to God. In this way we are impudent: We question (even though it be in secret, hidden in the heart and not spoken) the justice of God, the ways of God, the plans of God, the love of God: by which means we argue with God and judge Him. And another manner ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... animal to let me know at once, and I would give an order to him to obtain it. The statement that 'Slack says he told Cox he could not find him, that a soldier or employee in his command got him, and if proper measures were taken he could be had,' is both impudent and false, and I respectfully submit that it is not, in matter or manner, such a complaint as the Commanding General should call upon me ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... hopeful, playful, despairing, bored, defiant, roguish, cunning, penitent, sensitive, aggressive, offended, reproachful, angry, pleased, trustful, loving, disobedient, determined, puzzled, faithful, naughty, dignified, impudent, proud, luxurious, fearless, disappointed, docile, fierce, independent, mischievous; and she often ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... winning speeches (which might have had their effect upon a younger man), asked me to lend her one hundred pounds, in order that she might take the advice I had so obligingly given her, and retire into private life for a certain time in the country. I do meet with a great many impudent people in the course of my calling—I am not very deficient in assurance myself—but this ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... man stretched out his right arm. "I will tell you what you are," he said. "You are a rogue, my man, an impudent and black-hearted rogue and vagabond. I have passed an hour with you. Oh, believe me, I feel myself disgraced! And you have eaten and drunk at my table. But now I am sick at your presence; the day has come, ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... who owns that ship? you impudent feller, you! Take the sails off her, immediately-at once! or I'll shoot you, by ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... general expression of that city's face. New York would be discontented and eager; London would be stolidly glum and healthy, with a little surliness; Berlin would be supercilious, overbearing; Rome would be gravely resentful; and so on; but Paris would be gay, incredulous, frivolous, pretty and impudent. The reality may be gone, or may have changed, but the look is in her face still when the light of a May morning shines ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... wholly given to the flesh, and therefore they called him Vile-Affection. Now there was he and one Carnal-Lust, the daughter of Mr. Mind, (like to like,) that fell in love, and made a match, and were married; and, as I take it, they had several children, as Impudent, Blackmouth, and Hate-Reproof. These three were black boys. And besides these they had three daughters, as Scorn-Truth and Slight- God, and the name of the youngest was Revenge. These were all married in the town, and also begot and yielded many ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... windows 230 Were open to me: I saw all that sin does, Which lamps hardly see That burn in the night by the curtained bed,— The impudent lamps! for they blushed not red, 235 Dinging and singing, From slumber I rung her, Loud as the clank of an ironmonger; Hum! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... obey me, for though he no more addressed me directly, he sang at me as he went in a very impudent manner of innuendo, and with an exceedingly ill ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me that she must be a devilish impudent girl,' says Edwin Drood. 'And so, Pussy, you have passed your last birthday ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... opportunities to assist in this noble work. It is related that during his magistracy a slave-holder brought a colored man before him, whom he claimed as his slave. There being no evidence of the alleged ownership, the colored man was set at liberty. The pretended owner was inclined to be impudent; but James Gibbons told him promptly that nothing but silence and good behaviour on his part would prevent his commitment for contempt ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... answered by producing proof that he did not hold the clerk prisoner, and could not hand him over. Thereupon, it appears that the father commissary calmed himself, and turned upon me in good earnest. At the earliest light he sent a youthful and somewhat impudent friar to me, to notify me of the act—which I enclose herewith [13] so that your Highness may see whether this is the way to treat one who occupies such a post as I, and whom his Majesty has delegated in his place. Considering that the cause pertained to me, because that clerk had committed an offense ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... named Gobet, constitutional bishop of Paris, was brought forward to play the principal part in the most impudent and scandalous farce ever acted in the face ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... flight to Cremona. But Macer checked their victorious ardour, for fear that the enemy might be reinforced and reverse the fortune of the battle. This aroused suspicion among the Othonians, who put a bad construction on all that their generals did. All the least courageous and most impudent of the troops vied incessantly with each other in bringing various charges against Annius Gallus, Suetonius Paulinus, and Marius Celsus, for the two latter had also been placed in command by Otho.[264] ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus |
