"Impertinent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instant. I'm not an overreligious body, I reckon, and I've always held that the best compliment you can pay God Almighty is to let Him go His own gait and quit advising Him; but, I declare, as I sat here just now I couldn't help being impertinent enough to pray that I might live ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang 'O Lady Fair,' Mr. Wopsle taking the bass, and assisting with a tremendously strong voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in a most impertinent manner by wanting to know all about everybody's private affairs) that he was the man with his white locks flowing, and that he was upon the whole ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... any other time did I ever encounter the slightest disrespect from police, gendarmes, servants (those severe and often impertinent judges of one's attire and equipage), nor from their masters,—not even on this critical occasion when I so patently, flagrantly transgressed all the proprieties, yet was not interfered with by word or glance, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... sent her? She would encounter rough soldiers, and camp-followers of every nation, and officers of all grades of character; and could she bear herself so wisely and loftily in all trials as to awe the impertinent, and command the respect of the supercilious, so that she might be free to come and go at her will, and do what should seem good to her? Or, if she failed to maintain a character proof against even inuendoes, would she not break the bridge over which any ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... You bless me with this promise. —How can you, lady, suffer this impertinent Afflict ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... "in this queer crisis personalities may be pardoned. I may tell you without offence of a way in which you will do more good than by helping the gendarmes, who are bound to break through in any case. You will permit me the impertinent intimacy, but do you care about that girl? Care enough to marry her and make her a good husband, ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... he continued, with one of his strident laughs, "what might be considered, by the thoughtless, as benefits, were resented, by the older and wiser of the crew, as innovations and intrusions of an impertinent and offensive nature. But the immediate result was that interest in the Society was undeniably developed, not only at home, but certainly abroad. Notably in Paris all the art circle was keenly alive to what was taking place in Suffolk Street; ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... of the Convention was for years excluded, and a large majority in each association refused to receive into their fellowship those who advocated or contributed to its objects. Hyper-Calvinism, ignorance and avarice cooperated in making the very name "missions" odious, ministerial education an impertinent human effort to supplant a spirit-called and spirit-endowed ministry, Sunday-schools and prayer-meetings as human institutions, the aim of which was to interfere with the divine order, and the receiving of salaries for ministerial work as serving God for hire or rather as serving ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... of a keen desire for knowledge, which his more prosaic seniors were in the habit of misconstruing, deeming it to arise, as they said, from an insatiable and impertinent curiosity combined with an inherent love of mischief. Be that as it may, this desire for knowledge on Master Maurice's part frequently led him into places where, to put it delicately, his presence was undesirable in many ways; his love for investigation taking him especially to ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... Directors ought to order their Solicitor to write to me and others, to whom so impertinent a letter has been addressed, and beg to withdraw it, with an apology ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... deep womanly anxiety. The carriage of the head "did" the pride, the wide-open eyes "did" the wistful wonder and the romance, the deep womanly anxiety lurked in the tremulous smile, and a violent rubbing of the cheeks produced the colour of excitement. In answer to any impertinent questions, if she encountered such, she meant to give an absent answer, as if she had not understood. Thus equipped ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... repeated just because they have often been repeated before; a sort of exhausted quarries and dried-up wells. There is a certain class of vain and sneering mortals, in whose conceit nothing is such proof of superior sense as discarding the greatest number of topics and arguments as obsolete or impertinent. It is to be reckoned on that some of these, on hearing again the old maxims, that a people without divine instruction must be a vicious one, and that a vicious people must be an unhappy one,—and those maxims accompanied with a description of the old pagan world as illustrative evidence,—will ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... Observations may be much easier, and more accurately made with good Telescopes, then with any other Instruments, it will not, I suppose, seem impertinent to explain a little what wayes I judge most fit and convenient for that particular. Such therefore as shall be the Observators for this purpose, should be furnished with the best Telescopes that can be had, the longer the better and more exact will their Observations be, though they ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... you, especially when I've come with an impertinent question." Her gay eyes mocked him as ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... sure that Rudolf and Ann did not join in the burst of applause which greeted the end of Captain Mittens' song. Peter would have been glad to, for he was too young and foolish to understand how really impertinent Mittens had been, but his brother and sister quickly stopped that. As for Growler and Prowler, they merely yawned, as if they had heard this song more than once before, only faintly clapping their paws together in order not to attract the tyrant's ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... he pay me for this crowning stroke of a long course of slander and ill-will! Have I not seen it? Has not he hated me from the first, misconstrued every word and deed, though I have tried, striven earnestly, to be his friend,—borne, as not another soul would have done, with his impertinent interference and intolerable patronizing airs! But he has seen the last of it! anything but this might be forgiven; but sowing dissension between me and the Edmonstones—maligning me there. Never! Knowing, too, as he seems to do, how I stand, it is the very ecstasy of malice! ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Constitution, therefore you shall not? This would have been a prohibition to do what the Constitution gives power to do. Each successive Congress would still have gone to the Constitution for its power, brushing away in its course the cobwebs stretched across its path by the officiousness of an impertinent predecessor. Again, the legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, had no power to bind Congress, either by an express or an implied pledge, never to abolish slavery in the District. Those legislatures had no power ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... phrase came into repute in a brief space afterwards, in the form of the impertinent and not universally apposite query, "Has your mother sold her mangle?" But its popularity was not of that boisterous and cordial kind which ensures a long continuance of favour. What tended to impede its progress was, that it could not be well applied to the older portions of society. It consequently ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... courtesy or the sentiment of respect. The first look is necessary to define the person of the individual one meets so as to avoid it in passing. Any unusual attraction detected in a first glance is a sufficient apology for a second,—not a prolonged and impertinent stare, but an appreciating homage of the eyes, such as a stranger may inoffensively yield to a passing image. It is astonishing how morbidly sensitive some vulgar beauties are to the slightest demonstration of this kind. When a lady walks the streets, she leaves her virtuous-indignation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... rose to carry her candle and books into the chilly but quiet bedroom, biting her lips the while lest she should be tempted to say something which Selina called "impertinent," which perhaps it was, from a younger sister to an elder. I do not set Hilary up as a perfect character. Through sorrow only do people go on to perfection; and sorrow, in its true meaning, the cherished girl had ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... the high-bred Lady Fanciful to the vulgar Mrs. Heidelberg; in country girls, romps, hoydens and dowdies, superannuated beauties, viragos and humourists; she had an inimitable talent in ridiculing the extravagant action and impertinent consequence of an Opera-singer—of which she gave an excellent specimen in Lethe. Her mirth was so genuine that whether it was restrained to the arch sneer, and suppressed half-laugh, or extended to the downright honest burst of loud laughter, the audience ...
— The Case of Mrs. Clive • Catherine Clive
... Lord Strathern angrily. "He has said a great deal more than I will tolerate." And, having broached the subject, he told the story of L'Isle's interview with himself, and his remarks to Bradshawe, pronouncing his whole conduct presumptuous and impertinent. Losing his temper more and more, he exclaimed: "Sir Rowland's absurd partiality has spoiled ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... gentleman, the bourgeois, whom I do not know, put snow in my back. Has any one the right to put snow down our backs when we are walking along peaceably, and doing no harm to any one? I am rather ill, as you see. And then, he had been saying impertinent things to me for a long time: 'You are ugly! you have no teeth!' I know well that I have no longer those teeth. I did nothing; I said to myself, 'The gentleman is amusing himself.' I was honest with him; I did not speak to him. It was at that moment that he ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... ex-governess from a new angle—a more illuminating than agreeable one, at which she no longer figured as pitiful, her little assumptions and sillinesses calling for the chivalrous forbearance of persons more happily placed; but as actively impertinent, an usurper of authority and privileges altogether outside her office and her scope. She was greedy—not a pretty word yet a true one, covering both her manner of eating and her speech. Registering which ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... imagine, however, that I do not wish woman to be elegant, to dance or to sing; but I should like to see as much care devoted to her mind as to her body, and between being ignorant and savante I should like to see a road taken which would prevent annoyance from an impertinent sufficiency or from a tiresome stupidity. I should like very much to be able to say of anyone of my sex that she knows a hundred things of which she does not boast, that she has a well-balanced mind, that she speaks well, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... to learn the matter of the wager, came up to pay closer attention to what they were saying, a tall, strong, good-looking young fellow, who, however, possessed the impertinent stare peculiar to people who have material force at their back, came ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... narrowly observed. A lieutenant of the foot guards, who was a public Ganymede, and against whom I had that natural antipathy and abhorrence I have for all such wretches, having indulged himself in some very impertinent jokes on the secret of my amour, I bestowed on him the epithet he deserved: we drew our swords, and he was wounded. On the Sunday following I presented myself to pay my respects to his Majesty on the parade, who said to me as he passed, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... ingenii ratione habita, major videtur esse gloria fabulam formare penitus novam, quam veterem, utcunque mutatam, de novo exhibere. (Poet. Prael. v. ii. p. 164.) Where, having first put a wrong construction on the word comnmnia, he employs it to introduce an impertinent criticism. For where does the poet prefer the glory of refitting old subjects to that of inventing new ones? The contrary is implied in what he urges about the superiour difficulty of the latter, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... answer. "The hours are absurd, the work is distasteful, and the mode of living repulsive. But it contents me. The secret of happiness lies in adapting one's self to conditions. I adapt myself wherever I happen to be. And now, may I, without impertinent curiosity, again ask what you meant when you said you had come down ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... of the workers, the property-holding class saw in it only a source of rage against a class of people who are fools enough to declare themselves no longer submissive to the treatment they had hitherto received. It saw in the just demands of the non-possessing workers only impertinent discontent, mad rebellion against "Divine and human order;" and, in the best case, a success (to be resisted by the bourgeoisie with all its might) won by "ill-intentioned demagogues who live by agitation and are too lazy to work." It sought, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... thinking," said he, "about what you told me"—this was a reference to an interview not recorded. "I am annoyed that Mrs. Harrop should have been impertinent to you." ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... touchy this evenin', Robert," said Abner placidly, for he was so given to interesting himself in the affairs of his neighbors that he did not realize that his curiosity was displayed in an impertinent manner. "Of course I want to sell all I can. You've got considerable money comin' back to you. Don't you want to buy ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... that led to this fortunate reconnoitre is not impertinent to our subject: in a time of dearth, which was severely felt in the city, the famous ballad-maker Delone composed a song reflecting on her Majesty. The ballad-maker and singer were both committed to the compter, but the poet defied government even while in the lion's den. In a letter ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... were later to be considered as proofs of her sanctity, were during her lifetime grounds of suspicion. Some unknown, exercised in his mind over the reports of her extraordinary abstinence, took evidently what would to-day appear the somewhat impertinent course of writing her a letter of remonstrance. Catherine's inability or reluctance to eat as much as others was one of the most interesting marvels of her life to her simple contemporaries. It is ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... out of the cloak-room, his arm linked in mine, and crossed the corner of the dining-room toward the outside door. Jamieson threw up his arm and fluttered his hand in an impertinent gesture of farewell. "So long, Senator Swollenhead," he cried in a thick voice. "We'll teach you a lesson in how ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... quite alive to the difficulties of my task; and I am conscious that the work may to some appear supererogatory. Stricture and praise are, it will perhaps be said, equally impertinent to a fame so well established. Neither have I any rash hope of adding a single ray to the light of Hawthorne's high standing. But I do not fear the charge of presumption. Time, if not the present reader, will supply the ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... Instead of rebuking the impertinent young man, Ethelyn turned very red, and stammered out something about its being of no consequence; and so Harry Clifford held the secret which she had kept so carefully from Richard, and that party in Camden was made ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... cannot but feel that Hardy has a reticence so commendable that praise of it is superfluous and impertinent. After all, men and women are better than sheep and cows, and had he been more explicit, he would have tempted one to inquire whether he proposed making a story or a volume which might bear the title The Wessex Farmer's Own Hand-Book, and containing wise advice ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... entertaining distraction, a discreet but immoral spy, which places at your mercy all the mysteries of the public street. This contrivance, which enables you to see the world without being seen, certainly gives you a tempting advantage over the untimely caller or the impertinent creditor; but it encourages, in my opinion, a habit of vision better adapted to a sultan's seraglio than to the discreet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... for the whole house to hear, and for that traitor, Jean Baptiste, to come rushing out of his room marvelling at the impudence of the man, and cursing the Committee of Public Safety who were so slow in sending the soldiers of the Republic to lay this impertinent Englishman by ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... interrupted by salvoes of hearty laughter. The girls remain while the man undresses in the evening, and permit themselves to make remarks on the difference of the physique, of the Europeans and Japanese, which are not only, in our way of thinking, unsuitable for young girls, but even impertinent towards the guest. The male attendants are seldom seen, at least in the inner apartments. In the morning one washes himself in the yard or on the balcony, and if he wishes to avoid getting into disfavour, the guest will be careful not to spill anything ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... I ever possess it, I lost, as do most men, rather lamentably early in my career. If you suffer me to do so, I will ask Darcy Faircloth to bring his mother here to me, this evening at dusk, when her coming will not challenge impertinent observation—so that I may be satisfied no bitterness colours her thought of me and that we part in peace, she ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... has only a little boy of two. I think it's very impertinent of him to talk of me like that ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... moment. I cannot follow that." Then she laughed. "I will swear that I did not intend to be impertinent." ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... the Doctor again. "The Colonel says he hopes that you are not so foolish as to wear the belt at any time. Your schoolfellow forbids you to speak about it to any one. Well, there, I do not wish to ask impertinent questions. That will do, gentlemen. I merely sent to you for enlightenment. You need say ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... Street, and catching a glimpse of the blacks on the steps, he said he would go over and warn the men to get away from the street. So the patrolmen followed, and Sergeant Aucoin asked the smaller fellow, Pierce, if he lived there. The answer was short and impertinent, the black saying he did not, and with that both Pierce and Robinson drew up to ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... once; and Smythe discreetly busied himself tossing stones at an impertinent chipmunk that popped in and out among the ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... trying to be impertinent? Was he deliberately describing her? He did not look like that sort of man; yet why was he watching her so closely, so curiously at every question? Why did he look at her teeth when ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... impertinent enough, but the insolence of the tone and the manner sent a quiver through Monsieur Joseph's nerves. His face twitched and his eyes flashed dangerously. At that moment he would have forgiven any rashness on the part of ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... I do now! How one evil brings on another! Dreadful news to tell thee! While I was meditating a simple robbery, here have I (in my own defence indeed) been guilty of murder!—A bl—y murder! So I believe it will prove. At her last gasp!—Poor impertinent opposer!—Eternally resisting!—Eternally contradicting! There she lies weltering in her blood! her death's wound have I given her!—But she was a thief, an impostor, as well as a tormentor. She had stolen my pen. While ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... admission to a territory, for the entering of which money is a surer passport than to a certain other more profitable (too) foreign kingdom? Whether these speculations of mine have any force in them, or whether they will not rather, by most readers, be deemed impertinent to the matter in hand, is a question which I leave to the determination of an indulgent posterity. That there were, in more primitive and happier times, shops where money was sold,—and that, too, on credit and at a bargain,—I take to be matter of ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... roses in blue jars, its two pictures—Velasquez' Maria Theresa in an old silver frame and Rembrandt's Night Watch—was pleasant, but overwhelmed now by the presence of these two enormous ladies. The evening sun, flooding it all with yellow light, was impertinent enough to blind the eyes of Mrs. Rossiter. She rose and moved slowly to draw down the blinds. A little silver clock struck ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... contracting a marriage as a matter of form. Don't you see that this consideration, and this alone, made it possible for an impertinent outsider like Curtis to offer his services as de Courtois's substitute, while my misguided daughter was equally ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... gives no end of information on river currents, wind-reefs, sand-reefs, alligator-water, and all that is useful to know about rivers, so that I was confident of my ability; all that had been required was the stirring-up that I got from the impertinent pilot, or buccaneer, whichever is proper to call him—one thing certain, he ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... meant almost anything whatever. The sound of "Chancery," the stereotype character of this volume, and its cheap price, may perhaps deter pirates,—who are but a weak body in this country as yet. I judged it right to help in that; and impertinent, at this stage of affairs, to go any farther. The Book is very fairly printed, onward. at least to the Essay New England Politics, where my "perfect-copy" of the sheets as yet stops. I did not read any of ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... "I was so surprised I could not utter a word. That the man should offer me that infamous work is very impertinent. My father?... You do not know his scrupulousness in business. It is the honor of his profession. There is not a sovereign in Europe who has not ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... done well, Madam, (said D'Elmont, looking on her with Eyes sparkling with Indignation) you have done well, by your impertinent Curiosity and Imprudence, to rouze me from my Dream of Happiness, and remind me that I am that wretched thing a Husband! 'Tis well indeed, answer'd Alovisa, (who saw now that there was no need of farther Dissimulation) that any thing can make you remember, both what you are, and what I ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... him, not from obedience to his mother, or out of any feeling of gratitude to the count, but from sheer curiosity, and that some chance remark might give him the opportunity for making one of the impertinent speeches which made his mother say,—"Oh, that naughty child! But I can't be severe with him, he ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... proper person to examine whether you gave in a true report; where you lodge, why you came, how long you mean to stay; with twenty more inquisitive speeches, which to a subject of more liberal governments must necessarily appear impertinent as frivolous, and make all my hopes of bringing home the most trifling presents for a friend abortive. So there is an end of that felicity, and we must sit like the girl at the fair, described ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Representatives were sanguine against it. I beg'd him to let me see his Letter but he refusd in a kind of Pet, telling me it was a private Letter, & leaving me to conjecture whether I had really been impertinent in asking a Sight of his Letter or whether the Contents of it were such as it was not proper for me to see. You will easily conceive what a Scituation a Man must be in here, who having receivd no Intelligence of the Sentiments of his Constituents himself is obligd in ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... of Whiskers. Good Manners must certainly die with Chivalry; for what keeps all the pert Puppies about Town in Awe, but the Fear of being call'd to Account? Don't you know that there are a Set of impertinent Wretches, who are always disturbing publick Assemblies with Riots and Quarrels, only upon a presumption of being hinder'd from fighting, by the Crowd? There will be no end of such Grievances, if this Law takes Place. Besides, ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... paid no heed to the Lord, but immediately disobeyed his positive command. The moral position the man took was that which displeased the Lord, made him angry. He saw in him positive and rampant self-will and disobedience, an impertinent assurance and self-satisfaction. Filled, not with pure delight, or the child-like merriment that might well burst forth, mingled with tears, at such deliverance; filled, not with gratitude, but gratification, the keener that he had been so long an object of loathing to his people; filled with arrogance ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... one, but still it had done, and does, good, for it has put an end to all impertinent sneering for the future about Albert's riding. This journey has done great good, and my beloved Angel in particular has had the greatest success; for instance, at Birmingham the good his visit has done has been immense, for Albert spoke to all these manufacturers in their ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... first. I saw myself going up to her, and startling her with the statement, 'What you believe about me is not true!' Then again, I thought I might write her a letter and tell her. But of course it would be absurd; she would never acknowledge that she had believed anything, and she would think I was impertinent." ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... girl who had believed that he possessed "genius," and supposed that genius was to one's spiritual economy what full pockets were to one's domestic. And yet, with her, Rowland never felt, as with Mrs. Hudson, that undercurrent of reproach and bitterness toward himself, that impertinent implication that he had defrauded her of happiness. Was this justice, in Miss Garland, or was it mercy? The answer would have been difficult, for she had almost let Rowland feel before leaving Rome that ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... depresso supercilio, crudelitatem tibi non placere. Some think to bear it by speaking a great word, and being peremptory; and go on, and take by admittance, that which they cannot make good. Some, whatsoever is beyond their reach, will seem to despise, or make light of it, as impertinent or curious; and so would have their ignorance seem judgment. Some are never without a difference, and commonly by amusing men with a subtilty, blanch the matter; of whom A. Gellius saith, Hominem delirum, qui ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... drew up a chair with his well hand, and sat down with that easy familiarity that came so natural to him. Helen watched him, lazily impertinent. ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... Johnson allowed to be "well-done," is valuable in many respects, especially for its account of the contemporary stage. In describing an actor or actress he had few equals—witness his skilful portrait of Nokes, and his admirably graphic vignette of Mrs. Verbruggen as that "finish'd Impertinent," Melantha, in Dryden's ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... some amazement. She would have thought it rather impertinent in a stranger offering such familiar accommodation, but Bluebell availed herself of it with the frankest nonchalance, and, in the conversation that ensued, lost her place in the first rush of diners, who, at the ringing of the bell, instantly ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... Utopia: but a little while, and they would cease to believe because the current had changed. Many believed from a need of action, a desire for adventure, from romantic folly. Others believed from a sort of impertinent logic, which was stripped of all common sense. Some believed from goodness of heart. The self-seeking only made use of ideas as weapons for the fight: their eye was for the main chance: they were fighting for a definite sum as wages ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... hope, Pyrophilus, you will not think it strange or impertinent, that I employ in divers passages of these Papers, examples drawn from Bodies and Shadows far more Gross, than those minute Protuberances and shady Pores on which in most cases the Colour of a Body as 'tis an Inherent ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... brutality with the utmost civility and mildness, meditating in my own mind a very pretty return for all his favours to me. Nor was I the only person in the house to whom the worthy gentleman was uncivil. He ordered the fair Lischen hither and thither, made impertinent love to her, abused her soups, quarrelled with her omelettes, and grudged the money which was laid out for his maintenance; so that our hostess detested him as much as, I think, without vanity, she ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ugly name of palpable darkness, over his creations; and his shadows flit before you without distinction or preference. Had he introduced a good character, a single gush of moral feeling, a revulsion of the judgment to actual life and actual duties, the impertinent Goshen would have only lighted to the discovery of deformities, which now are none, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... end of his pamphlet he makes a distinction between the Catholic clergy and gentry in England, which I know the latter consider to be very impertinent; and he makes it apropos of a passage in one of my original letters in January. He quotes me as saying that "Catholics differ from Protestants, as to whether this or that act in particular is conformable to the rule of truth," p. 48; and then he goes on to ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... County History, he replied, "I regret, sir, not to be able to contribute to so valuable a work; but the Smiths never had any arms. They invariably sealed their letters with their thumbs." In later life he adopted the excellent and characteristic motto—Faber meae fortunae; and, to some impertinent questions about his grandfather, he replied with becoming gravity—"He disappeared about the time of the assizes, and we ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... pressed me to go; and while I was thus uneasily deliberating what to do, the dance, I suppose, finished, for the people crowded down stairs. Had Lord Orville then repeated his offer, I would have accepted it notwithstanding Sir Clement's repugnance; but I fancy he thought it would be impertinent. In a very few minutes I heard Madame Duval's voice, as she descended from the gallery. "Well," cried I hastily, "if I must go-" I stopt; but Sir Clement immediately handed me into his chariot, called out, "Queen Ann Street," and then jumped in himself. ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... very honestly Dryden's Virgil, to let the reader know, that this is not that Virgil so much admired in the Augustaean age, an author whom Mr. Dryden once thought untranslatable, but a Virgil of another stamp, of a coarser allay; a silly, impertinent, nonsensical writer, of a various and uncertain style, a mere Alexander Ross, or somebody inferior to him; who could never have been known again in the translation, if the name of Virgil had not been bestowed upon him in large characters in the frontispiece, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... men's parts are less prominent, and neither the first lover, nor the virtuous model son who here and there occurs, lays claim to much significance. The servant- world—the crafty valet, the stern house-steward, the old vigilant tutor, the rural slave redolent of garlic, the impertinent page—forms a transition to the very numerous professional parts. A standing figure among these is the jester (-parasitus-) who, in return for permission to feast at the table of the rich, has to entertain the guests with drolleries ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... are ready enough to recognize these rudimentary facts about the poor, question our right to go among them with the object of doing them good, regarding it as an impertinent interference with the rights of the individual. But those who hold to this view seldom have the courage of their convictions. When they see suffering, they are very likely to interfere by sending help, though this well-meant interference, unaccompanied by personal knowledge of ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... Lucia to a seance, if we do," she said. "Dear me! How late it is: there was such a long wait between the tableaux. But we must keep our eyes on Georgie, and be careful how we answer his impertinent questions. He is sure to ask some. About getting that woman down again, Robert. It might be fool-hardy, for we've had an escape, and shouldn't put our heads into the same noose again. On the other hand, it would disarm suspicion for ever, if, after a few months, I asked her to spend ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... by giving them something of an orderly arrangement, I have conscientiously refrained from embellishing them with such small ornaments of diction as I may have felt myself able to bestow, which would not only have been impertinent, even if pleasing, but would have given me a somewhat closer relation to the work than I should care to have and ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... (History of English affairs), is written in good Latin, and has some of the same qualities as that of William of Malmesbury (q.v.). He rejects the legend of the Trojan descent of the early Britons, and animadverts severely on what he calls "the impudent and impertinent lies" of Geoffrey of Monmouth (q.v.). His record of contemporary ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... spacious Closet, stowed her within it, and then turned the Key. The Landlord and Theodore soon after appeared with lights: The Former expressed himself a little surprised at my returning so late, but asked no impertinent questions. He soon quitted the room, and left me to exult in the success ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... write down Captain Branscome's questions on paper, and divest them, as his gentle face and hesitating kindly manner divested them, of all offensiveness. I did not resent them at the time or consider then impertinent. But they were certainly close and minute, and I had reason before long to recall every detail of ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... of political guests was not of the quality they desired. The eminent politicians were either too busy or too scornful to accept their invitations. F. E. Robinson was impertinent to them until he heard that Mr. Balfour was interested in their proceedings ... had even asked to be introduced to Roger Carey ... and then he offered to address them on Young Toryism, but they told him that they did not now wish to hear ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... of the interview was that Borrow, after what appears to be a tactless, not to say impertinent, rejoinder, {50a} relapsed into silence and finally left the house, ordered back to his compilation by Sir Richard, as soon as he became sufficiently calm to appear coherent, and Borrow walked away musing on the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... later, as I was sleeping in a special bed one of the men then absent had made by a big rock some yards from the main camp, I was awakened by a wolf crunching bones by the fire not eight feet from my head. I wanted to shoot the impertinent wretch, but his form was indistinct and my rifle lying by my side had to be trained his way. This took some time, as I had to move cautiously, and in the midst of my effort my elbow slipped. Like a shadow he flitted ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... over the other, that his brown coat was perfect and his red waist-coat faultless. He practised his singing until his love-song was all he could wish it. He was wonderfully well satisfied with himself; but Jenny Wren's impertinent speeches would recur to his mind. The words fat and clumsy had especially annoyed him, and he never could altogether rid ...
— The Story of a Robin • Agnes S. Underwood
... was gazing at him with the deepest interest. "You have come to Algiers to find a woman," she murmured, "and I, to find a man. Do you—oh, don't think me impertinent—do you love ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... said I, "what for." I did not say this loud enough for the S. S. to hear me, but if I had, she would not have taken it for the reflection it meant. She seemed, the whole time, totally insensible to the numerous strange and, indeed, impertinent speeches which were made and to be very well satisfied that she was only manifesting a tenderness of disposition, that increased her beauty of countenance. At least, I can put no other construction upon her conduct which was, without exception, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... alive. He takes more pleasure in hunting bees than in expeditions with his dogs and gun; the king- birds destroy his bees—but, he adds, they drive the crows away. Ordinarily he could not persuade himself to shoot them. On one occasion, however, he fired at a more than commonly impertinent specimen, "and immediately opened his maw, from which I took 171 bees; I laid them all on a blanket in the sun, and to my great surprise fifty-four returned to life, licked themselves clean, and joyfully went back to the hive, where ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... From most men she would have considered the question impertinent, and would have resented it, but this frank faced boy meant no impertinence; he loved her in his honest way, and only wanted ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... country. Groningen is larger than Leeuwarden—it has nearly seventy thousand inhabitants—and its evening light seemed to me even more beautifully liquid. I sat for a long time in a cafe overlooking the great square, feeding a very greedy and impertinent terrier, and alternately watching an endless game of billiards and the changing hue of the sky as day turned to night and the clean white stars came out. In Holland one can sit very long in cafes: I had dined and ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... the French were compelled to give ground for a considerable distance. The glory which the French Army has won in this war would make it impertinent to labor the compelling nature of the poisonous discharges under which the trenches were lost. The French did, as every one knew they would do, all that stout soldiers could do, and the Canadian Division, officers and men, look forward to many occasions in the future in which ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... speak," continued the old gentleman bitterly; "I never was allowed to get a word in edgewise; I was shut up at once with some impertinent remark. They kept me on short allowance of pencils, when I wished to make notes of the most absorbing interest; the daily newspaper was guarded from me like a young baby from a gorilla. Now, you know me, Michael. I live for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been said that trains to the South would cease next day, the Geneva train was overfilled, and one had to be well satisfied to secure a seat at all. My travelling companions of the masculine gender were very unattractive: an impertinent and vulgar old Swiss who, as it was a cold night, and he had no travelling-rug, wrapped himself up in four or five of his dirty shirts—a most repulsive sight; a very precise young Frenchman who, without a vestige of feeling ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... "only think of our Wenna being married to Mr. Trelyon, and how happy and pleased and pretty she would look as they went walking together! And then how proud he would be to have so nice a wife! and he would joke about her and be very impertinent, but he would simply worship her all the same, and do everything he could to please her. And he would take her away and show her all the beautiful places abroad; and he would have a yacht, too; and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... factions—those who favored Ben Disraeli, and those who were opposed to him. The master cast his vote with the latter class, and the result was that Ben withdrew, thus saving the authorities the trouble of expelling him. His leave-taking was made melodramatic with a speech to the boys, wherein impertinent allusions were made concerning all schoolmasters, and the master of Walthamstow ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... historians are fond of dwelling. The pedant, on being presented to that imperious and accomplished sovereign, deported himself with the same ludicrous arrogance which had characterised him at the Hague. His Latin oration, which had been duly drawn up for him by the Chancellor of Sweden, was quite as impertinent as his harangue to the States-General had been, and was delivered with the same conceited air. The queen replied on the instant in the same tongue. She was somewhat in a passion, but ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... impertinent trick, for the purpose of frightening me. I shall take rough means to stop it, if it gives me any ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... with talk impertinent And idle fances he would fame a mirth, Yet is it easie seene somewhat is heere The which he dares not let his face ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... "You are impertinent," I replied, irritated that he should have surmised that his presence was causing me uneasiness. "If you will come to your senses and tell me the meaning of your visits here, we may agree upon terms. As it stands, you're a trespasser; you tried to bribe a ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... heeded the impertinent speech. He only saw in the stranger a man on whom he would like to bestow all the happiness that was triumphant in his soul. So full of love was he that he could not bear it alone. And he said: "I am no worm to be trodden under foot. I am that Son of Man ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... "The impertinent brute! Rosalind, he dared to look directly at me, and I am sure he would have winked at me in another instant! A gentleman!" she ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... in silence; then "Come," I said, "I am going to be impertinent! I am in a mood to ask questions, ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Power of Sound, as it is called, was written and printed in 1697. As it was designed for music (it was set by Jeremiah Clarke), the closing lines of every strophe are repeated by way of chorus. I have removed these repetitions as impertinent to the effect of the poem in print, and as interrupting the rushing vehemency of the narrative. The incident described ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... and we should be able to show that each of the alleged consequences flows inevitably and logically from these established facts. Ignorance, hypothesis, assumption of facts, sophisms, begging the question, and the like, are wholly impertinent in any such discussion. Were they even tolerable in the field of metaphysical discussion, they must, by the rules of the Positive Philosophy itself, banishing all but ascertained facts from the halls of science, be excluded from this discussion of an alleged general ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... gentleman. I ask no confidences, my dear Eve, and now that I have made my explanations, lame though they be, I will kiss you and repair to the drawing-room, where we shall both be soon missed. Forgive me, if I have seemed impertinent in my interference, and continue to ascribe it to its ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... space. ... How curiously out of the world Bourcelles was, to be sure. Newspapers had no meaning any longer. Picture-papers and smart weekly Reviews, so necessary and important in St. James's Street, here seemed vulgar, almost impertinent—ridiculous even. Big books, yes; but not pert, topical comments issued with an absurd omnipotence upon things merely ephemeral. How the mind accumulated rubbish in a city! It seemed incredible. He surely had climbed a wall and dropped down into a world ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... decided bearing on any theory of heredity. Does the occurrence of near-by cases have no significance? We are not yet in a position to state this as a fact. Does inquiry concerning religion seem especially impertinent? What if some future investigation should prove that cancer everywhere, is more prevalent among the Christians than the Jews? Does the social condition of the sufferer seem to have no relation to cause? What if we discover, that everywhere,—and not among the foreign population of Chicago ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... produce a certificate to prove that the birth of the child occurred only seven months after the date of the ceremony, which she contends made her Cuthbert's wife. She rejects the abundant pecuniary provision which has been repeatedly offered, and in her last impertinent and insanely abusive communication, threatens a suit to force the acknowledgment of the marriage, and of the child, stating that you, sir, hold the certificate or rather the license warranting the marriage, and that you will espouse and aid in prosecuting her iniquitous claims. My son is ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... most impertinent proceeding," Aunt Anne replied curtly. "They will much prefer pounds, shillings, and pence to embraces," and Barbara thought that after all she ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... She was on her lover's arm, in her best clothes, and going out to have a dinner given to her. And her lover had told her that he had ever so many things,—ever so many things to say to her! But she would ask no impertinent questions in the first hour of her bliss. It was so pleasant to walk with him up to Pentonville;—so joyous to turn into a gay enclosure, half public-house and half tea-garden; so pleasant to hear him order the ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... example of humour—provoking to smiles while touching to tears—with a wonderful introductory piling up of definitions: "A Poor Relation—is the most irrelevant thing in nature,—a piece of impertinent correspondency,—a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of your prosperity,—an unwelcome remembrancer," and so on. "This theme of poor relations is replete with so much matter for tragic as well as comic associations ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... leave him to me," said the admiral; "I'll talk to him. Now, sir," he continued, turning to the boy sternly, "pray what did I say to make you start grinning like a confounded young monkey? I—I—I am not accustomed to be laughed at by impertinent boys." ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn |
