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Impertinence   Listen
noun
Impertinence  n.  
1.
The condition or quality of being impertinent; absence of pertinence, or of adaptedness; irrelevance; unfitness.
2.
Conduct or language unbecoming the person, the society, or the circumstances; rudeness; incivility. "We should avoid the vexation and impertinence of pedants who affect to talk in a language not to be understood."
3.
That which is impertinent; a thing out of place, or of no value. "There are many subtile impertinences learned in schools."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Impertinence" Quotes from Famous Books



... pretensions of any person who comes forward as a candidate for a public office with disrespect; but we cannot regard the attempt of a young man of neither standing nor capital to thrust himself into the Legislative Council on Port Phillip influence, other than a piece of impertinence. We should, however, have passed it unnoticed, had not this very same person insulted every man in this Province so recently, by endeavouring to throw Port Phillip out of the line of steam communication with ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... seeing how splendidly she had done her duty in securing to herself a marquess, seemed out of place and almost vulgar. Girls about to marry curates or sucking barristers should be told to do their duty in that station of life to which God might be calling them; but it seemed to be almost an impertinence in a father to give such an injunction to a ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... with the name of one member present. This brought the ruffled gentleman up on to his legs, and, smarting under Mr. Chamberlain's ironical philippics, he tried to pay back "our young friend" for what he considered his unwarrantable impertinence. ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... if Your Eminence is displeased. I did not wish to trouble you over a mere impertinence like that; I know Rivarez well enough by now to feel sure that he only wanted to insult you. And, indeed, if you will allow me to say so, it would be most imprudent to go near him alone; he is really dangerous—so much so, in fact, ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... other slaves looked at one another, stupefied: they had recognised Vaninka's voice. As for Ivan, he flung himself back in his chair, balancing himself with marvellous impertinence. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... 'Specimen of his latest impertinence.' Torpenhow thrust the torn edges of the canvas together and showed the well-groomed picture to the Nilghai, who looked at it ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... 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

... of her real position in his master's camp. He treated her as if she were indeed what from the bottom of her heart she wished she was. He was solicitous without being officious, familiar with no trace of impertinence, He was Diana's first experience of a class of servant that still lingers in France, a survival of pre-Revolution days, who identify themselves entirely with the family they serve, and in Gaston's case this interest ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... road leads over it, being drained for that purpose by deep cuts on either side. I should apprehend this bog to be among the most improvable in the country. Slept at Ballyroan, at an inn kept by three animals who call themselves women; met with more impertinence than at any other in Ireland. It is an execrable hole. In three or four miles pass Sir John Parnel's, prettily situated in a neatly dressed lawn, with much wood about it, and a lake quite alive with ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young

... straightway, words and even facts become to him mere weapons in a splendid warfare. His statements grow rhetorical, reckless, virulent. Proof seems to him, as it did to the contemporary Transcendentalist philosophers, an impertinence. The sole question is, "Are you on the Lord's side?" i.e., on ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... is only because you are so beautiful and kind, although you are so far above me, that I dare to tell you what I feel . . . but I would like your leave to think about you. Somehow, without it, it seems an impertinence, and, God knows, no man ever felt more worship for a woman than I feel for you. Do you give me ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... her with eyes half closed and eyelids cunningly blinking. Now that her fears were weakening Joan found his impertinence almost insufferable. But she held her tongue ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... scattered in books. They always seem intoxicated with their own knowledge, and for all merit are rich in importunate babble. Unskilful in everything, void of common sense, and full of absurdity and impertinence, they decry everywhere true ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)

... you're out for loot, anyway." Then he glanced up at the man watching him so interestedly. "Maybe you'll oblige me with a light," he demanded, and cocked up the cigarette he had thrust between his lips with an exaggerated impertinence. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... Clint that the other was trying to mimic his pronunciation of the word, and he felt resentful until a look at the boy's face showed that he intended no impertinence. ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour

... who reside in the treaty ports are not impartial judges of the concessions. Too often they go to Canton or Shanghai in a frame of mind that would exasperate a much less vain people than the Chinese. They sometimes talk as if they thought it a mere impertinence on the part of an inferior race to have a pride of its own, and they act as if the chief end of the Chinese were to minister to the demands of ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... in full armour to a crossroad, and challenging every one to single combat who declined to acknowledge his particular fair to be queen of love and beauty, and that no one else should hold a candle to her! Now we should think it great impertinence in a fellow to offer his opinion about ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... in the most delightful half-vocal and half-silent fellowship; leaving everything to the mood of the hour and the place. Our walks took us sometimes into lovely recesses, where mutual confidences seemed as natural as the air; sometimes into solitudes where talk seemed an impertinence, and we were silent under the spell of rustling leaves and thrilling melodies coming from we knew not what hidden minstrelsy. But whether silent or speaking, we were fast coming to know each other. ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... took, not delight, so much as a serious and sober satisfaction, in the thought that he disappointed expectation. Each one believed himself the creature of a solitary and majestic law. His actions defied prediction. He felt it as an impertinence that anybody, even a Brodrick, should presume to conjecture how a Brodrick would, in any given circumstances, behave. He held it a special prerogative of Brodricks, this capacity for accomplishing the unforeseen. Nobody was surprised when the unforeseen happened; for this family made it a point ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... once came forward from the rear of the hall, where he had been sitting, and mounting the platform, said: I only came forward in obedience to a call which it would be impertinence to refuse here to-night. I came to be a listener and with no sort of intention of making any speech at all, and the only right I should have upon this platform is, that for the last twenty-five years of my short life I have pleaded for those rights which you plead for ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... them nearly;—game, politics, and the state of the weather. If I were to mention Mary's name to him, he would feel it to be an impertinence. You can say ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... This consideration, coupled with what is called the claim of locality, must in time still further deteriorate the representatives of the States at Washington. To ask in a nominating convention who is best qualified for service in Congress is always regarded as an impertinence; but the question "what county in the district has had the Congressman oftenest" is always considered in order. For such reasons as these Mr. Lincoln refused to allow his name to go before the voters again, and the next year he again refused, writing an emphatic letter for publication, in which ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... just outside and were staring up at my windows. Then they took to their heels again and fled whispering and laughing down the lane, only, however, to return with the next gust of wind and repeat their impertinence. On the other side of my room, a single square window opens into a sort of shaft, or well, that measures about six feet across to the back wall of another house. Down this funnel the wind dropped, and puffed and shouted. Such noises I never heard before. Between these two entertainments I sat over ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... asking questions that a man would not have dared to ask him, and he was answering them as a boy might have answered. It did not seem an impertinence to him or to her, so great was her interest in him, so deep ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer

... to be borne? I am far from thinking that we ought, in our dealings with such a people as the Chinese, to be litigious on points of etiquette. The place of our country among the nations of the world is not so mean or so ill ascertained that we need resent mere impertinence, which is the effect of a very pitiable ignorance. Conscious of superior power, we can bear to hear our Sovereign described as a tributary of the Celestial Empire. Conscious of superior knowledge we can bear to hear ourselves described ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of the curious stares of the two gentlemen opposite, her vision shortened itself to near objects, and rightly surmising from their looks the tenor of their thoughts, she colored, and straightway turned her back, at the same time informing "C" of what she termed their impertinence. But ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer

... heralded by a note from Mr. Bainrothe, full of his characteristic, guileful sophistry and cool impertinence. It ran as follows (I still possess this billet with others of his inditing—along with ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... the far-famed model for all Europe, had ceased to exist. The ambition which had once been identified with the cares of office or the dangers of war now found sufficient food in the bickerings of party-spirit, and revenged itself by salon jokes and salon impertinence for the loss of a lead it either could not or would not take in Parliament. The descendants of those very fathers and mothers who had, in many cases, suffered incarceration, and death even, together, set to hating each other cordially, because these would not abdicate what those would not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... desire to dispense with his society, he grew saucy in a moment. I did not mind him, but he was vinegar and brimstone to a young student from Tennessee, a slight, weakly lad, but as brave a little chap as you ever saw, named Thorne. Well, one day, for some impertinence, Thorne struck him. Deering was an athlete; he weighed twenty pounds more than I did, fifty more than Thorne, I guess; he was quick as lightning, was most handy with his props, and in an instant he smashed poor Thorne's face with a blow which ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... which house she belonged. The common feeling was distinctly unfavourable. Apart from the unseemliness of such an exhibition in a sacred place, new girls were not expected to make themselves conspicuous, or to introduce innovations; either was considered an impertinence on their part: so the general verdict was that Honor had done a dreadful thing, and public opinion was dead against her. She, however, held up her head as proudly as though her absurd hat had been the latest ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... nothing in answer to this impertinence. She was very angry with Vava; but now that she had time to think she felt that she had been too hasty, and should have asked an explanation from her sister, whom she could hardly believe had really asked for a rise; still it looked like it, its coming that morning. In a different ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin

... have quieted a child, how tipsy he was at Lady Cork's one evening and how much his merriment annoyed the ladies, how impertinent he was to the Duchess of Argyll and with what stately contempt she put down his impertinence, how Colonel Macleod sneered to his face at his impudent obtrusiveness, how his father and the very wife of his bosom laughed and fretted at his fooleries; all these things he proclaimed to all the world, as if they had been subjects for pride and ostentatious rejoicing. All ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... fighting the enemy at the front. He was closely related to the President, but not even this advantage could altogether protect him from taunts of cowardice, which were made even in the Executive Council, and somehow filtered down to us. On one occasion he favoured me with some of his impertinence; but I reminded him that in war either side may win, and asked whether he was wise to place himself in a separate category as regards behaviour to the prisoners. 'Because,' quoth I, 'it might be so convenient to the British Government to be able to make one or two examples.' He was a great gross ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... all those hitherto seen, are dirty in their persons, uniting curiosity with no small share of obstinacy and impertinence in their manners. The birds are the blackbird, a black mina, the house-sparrow, sparrow-hawk, larger crow, domestic pigeons, kites, and hoopoo. The red-legged crows I have heard once, but far above, nor do I think that ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... "Then it's damned impertinence of him to dare to come and ask you. Why should I take you there to make things comfortable with him ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson

... frequent among his travelled compatriots, he had, in a conversation with Sainte-Beuve, reproached the French with knowing so shamefully little of the Danes. The great critic, as was his habit, laid his head a little on one side, and with roguish impertinence replied: "Eh! bien, faites quelque chose! on parlera de vous." He approved of the reply. We younger ones looked upon him as belonging to another period and living in another plane of ideas, although, being a liberal-minded man, he ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... the shadow had reached the place where I was sitting. It was growing chilly, and I thought to myself what a fool I was to have remained sitting there, at the risk of getting rheumatism, just to listen to the impertinence of those two ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... figure was a woman; its graceful immobility having made him fancy it a statue. The stranger bowed to her politely as possible, and spoke to her with an air half way between respect and familiarity, impertinence and consideration. Aminta arose and recognized him, and as she did so, exhibiting a constraint and embarrassment she could not account for. The person who had spoken to Aminta was dressed so strangely, that the young woman was struck by it. Having ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... turns up. Certainly three times a week do I have to put up with his company in one way or another. It is a perfect insult to think of such a person as an admirer, and I annihilated Hephzibah, who had the impertinence to suggest such a thing to me when she was brushing my hair a few days ago. The ball is coming off, but grandmamma has not seemed very well lately. It is nothing much, just a bluish look round her mouth, but I fear perhaps she will not be fit to go. When the invitation ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... opinions, political and religious, may meet together in harmony and forget their differences for a season. And I have good hope that this will be the case for several reasons, and, among others, for one which I can barely allude to, for it might be an impertinence in me to dwell upon it. But I think that without any breach of delicacy or decorum I may venture to say that many years ago, when I was much younger than I am now, and when we stood towards each other in a relation somewhat different from that which has ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... A foolish speech deserves a foolish answer. I beg your pardon, my love, for the impertinence of my son. He is a silly young fellow, who has not yet learnt the ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere

... hand, To wave around the Fair her magic wand. When, lo!—the sudden Plumes her temples grac'd; The yielding Stays sink downwards to the waist; And, strange to tell, her rosy lips dispense Double-entendres and Impertinence. ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe

... on your onor!" responded the grateful Irishman. What a scene, thought I, for the pencil of my friend Bob Transit!"Could a stranger visit the place," I inquired, without molestation or the charge of impertinence, Barney?" "Divil a charge, your onor; and as to impertinence, a wake's like a house-warming, where every guest is welcome." With this assurance, I apprised Barney of my intention to gratify curiosity, and to bring a friend with me; carefully noted down the direction, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... Althaus, who was a peppery old fellow. "What the deuce do you mean by your impertinence! I'll have you up before the Academical Senate for this, sir;" with which threat he turned on his heel and hurried away. Von Hartmann was much surprised at this reception. "It's on account of this failure of my experiment," he said to himself, and continued moodily ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... hall and left me. He was absent some time, during which I was an object of curiosity to several persons of both sexes who entered or left an adjoining apartment. One very pretty young woman seemed unpleasantly struck with my appearance, and expressed in audible tones her astonishment at my impertinence in entering the front door. The servant at length returned and said the gentleman I wanted was unwell, and could ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... inconsistency of this proceeding, I must think it a piece of impertinence, unseasonable at least, and out of place, to obtrude these papers upon the officiating clergyman,—to offer to a public functionary an instrument which by the tenor of his function he is not obliged to accept, but, rather, he is called upon to reject. Is it done in his clerical capacity? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... took all sorts of undesirables under her protection, helped those whom everybody else wanted to punish, threw good discretion to the winds, and sometimes mixed in undertakings which no "lady" ought to touch. To all this she added the impertinence of regular attendance at church, where she recited the Creeds in a rich voice that almost drowned her husband's, turning punctually to the East and bowing at the Sacred Name. That she was a hypocrite trying to save her face was, of course, obvious to every Scribe and Pharisee ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks

... event, being only recently from India; Grim's uniform would have passed him in, but he and Jeremy were still arrayed as Arabs, and my civilian clothes entitled me in the sentry's opinion to protection lest I commit the heinous sin of impertinence. An Arab in his eyes was as an insect, and a white man, who consorted with such creatures, not a person ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... Edmonson's approval had seemed to her a desert beyond her talents; now his admiration displeased her,—there was an element of appropriation in it. Where Elizabeth prized regard she could not condescend to woo it; where she did not prize it, it seemed to her, if openly given, almost an impertinence. Stephen had been right when in the midst of his anger at her pride he had felt that love would awake new powers in her, that she could be magnificent in action and in devotion. He had been very human, too, in the breath of wild desire to ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various

... competition. He knew exactly what to do. You get behind the victim and grab him firmly under his arms, and then you start swimming on your back. A moment later, the astonished Mr. Swenson who, being practically amphibious, had not anticipated that anyone would have the cool impertinence to try to save him from drowning, found himself seized from behind and towed vigorously away from a ten-dollar bill which he had almost succeeded in grasping. The spiritual agony caused by this assault rendered him mercifully dumb; though, even had he contrived to utter the rich ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... very completely. The speech savoured of impertinence, and she resented it accordingly, yet it had been so gaily uttered, with a sort of confiding audacity which appeared to take it for granted that she would not be offended, that she found it difficult to feel as righteously indignant as ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... his first feeling was one of irritation at the man's familiarity—which amounted almost to impertinence—and his second, disgust at the grimy hand so near his collar. To summarily shake it off was a natural instinct. But, when he thought a moment, he clearly saw the absurdity of professing a creed of universal brotherhood and then, as soon as some one attempted brotherly familiarity, ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon

... through the horn of a dark lanthorn. His nostrils were elevated in scorn, as if his sense of smelling had been perpetually offended by some unsavoury odour; and he looked as if he wanted to shrink within himself from the impertinence of society. He wore a black periwig as straight as the pinions of a raven, and this was covered with a hat flapped, and fastened to his head by a speckled handkerchief tied under his chin. He was wrapped ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... impertinence,' said she. 'I earn my living by it. In a world of sentiment and passion I must be as cold and bloodless as a stone, but in fact, I am ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... below, and wandered through the cabins, under the front awning, and along the guard-ways. I scanned every face with an eagerness that to some must have appeared impertinence. Wherever one was young and handsome, he was an object of my scrutiny and jealousy. There were several such among the male passengers; and I endeavoured to distinguish those who had come aboard at Bringiers. There were ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... overcome by a much stronger inclination. My late acquired kingdom ran continually in my thoughts all the day, and I dreamed of it in the night: nay, I made it the continual subject of my talk, even to impertinence, when I was awake. I had such vapours in my head, that I actually supposed myself at my castle; that I not only perceived Friday's father the old Spaniard, and the wicked sailors, but that I talked and discoursed with them about their manner of living; that ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... There's good blood in these sand-hill people, and it shows in a lack of self-consciousness which makes one feel that they would meet a prince or an emperor without embarrassment. Yet there's nothing of forwardness, nothing of impertinence. It is a drawing-room manner, preserved in spite of generations of ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey

... Establishment of France," written at the age of two-and-forty) were quite as remarkable for genius, warmth, manly strength, and a lofty eloquence, as the earlier writings mentioned were for clearness and logical precision,—how could I be guilty of such irreverence, not to say impertinence? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... the highest horse of all: "Her inquiries about their souls are an impertinence. Why ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold

... and impertinence. Axel had got his stones the autumn before, and carted them home that winter; now, between seasons, he had got the foundation walls done, and cellar and all else—all that remained was to build the timbered ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... of London, I have been rudely spoken to; I have been greatly annoyed in Paris; in New York I have been subject to humorous impertinence; but in the great North-West every man has seemed to be my friend. In fact, wherever our English tongue is spoken," she wound up calmly, putting the great Austin in his place, "a ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... not blame at all. Accept your environment and adapt yourself to it in silence, instead of noisily attempting to adapt your environment to yourself. Here is true wisdom. You have no business trespassing beyond the confines of your own individuality. In so trespassing you are guilty of impertinence. This is obvious. And yet one of the chief activities of home-life consists in prancing about at random on other people's private lawns. What I say applies even to the relation between parents and children. And ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett

... much time upon the back porch of the house. Here most of the familiar Brady photographs of him were taken. Brady sent a young photographer to Richmond to get the photographs. Lee was at first disposed to refuse to be taken, but his family persuaded him to submit, on the ground that if there were any impertinence in the request it was not the fault of the young man, and that the latter might lose his position if he failed to ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... tone in which the dialogue had been carried on; her voice was so mellifluously sweet, one instinctively scented a touch of hidden poison in it—"Mees Gay, there is a question being put at this side of the table you alone can answer. Pray pardon the impertinence of a personal question—but we hear that American young ladies read Zola; is ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... speaking, Irene looked steadily at his handsome face. The governess muttered something about impertinence. When the young man looked up, Irene ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... do nothing of the kind, for it is an impertinence to want to change the counsels of the Lord. And what has happened here is, indeed, not the ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg

... shall be particularly tiresome, because, much against my will, they have filled my head with Election matters, and will not allow me a moment's time for anything else. I have no comfort, but that it will be concluded on Thursday, or Friday, but till then, what I shall suffer from folly and impertinence, and from everything that is disagreeable, cannot ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... very much interested in this wonderful old house," he said, addressing Miss La Sarthe. "That row of bay windows is in a long gallery, I suppose? Would it be a great impertinence if I ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... vivacity, knowledge, and good-nature. These are not born in a day; they seldom mark people till middle life, when experiences are wide and feelings deep, when flippancy is not mistaken for wit, nor impertinence for ease. A frivolous slave of dress and ornament can no more belong to the circle of which I now speak, than can a pushing, masculine woman to the sphere which she occasionally usurps. Not dress, not ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... Albert had not arrived. Madame de Watteville was disposed to regard such delay as an impertinence. ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac

... all his own works, from Sartor, of which he remarks that "only some ten pages are fused and harmonious," to his self-entitled "rigmarole on the Norse Kings": but he would not let his enemy say so; nor his friend. Mill's just strictures on the "Nigger Pamphlet" he treats as the impertinence of a boy, and only to Emerson would he grant the privilege to hold his own. Per contra, he overestimated those who were content to ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... reform edicts which provoked the coup d'etat of 1898, declared that newspapers were a boon to the public and appointed one of them a government organ. The empress-dowager revoked this decree, and declared that the public discussion of affairs of state in the newspapers was an impertinence, and ought to be suppressed. Nevertheless the newspapers continued to flourish, and their outspoken criticism had a salutary effect on the public and on the government. The official classes seem ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... read the pages of that painful, and yet pleasant, book—"East and West,"— which I have just quoted; and to read, also, an appendix to it—a Paper originally read at the Church Congress, Manchester, by the present Lord Chancellor—a document which it would be an impertinence in me ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... at that instant bending all the force of his mind upon Captain MacMadden, and punching his head in visioned combat, turned on him with a passionate 'Damn your impertinence, sir!' which set the startled gentleman agape with wonder. At this instant Claudia pushed through the swinging door which led from the stage to the corridor, and she ran in between the belligerent Paul and the ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... Virginia town noted for its intense conservatism, where she had seen a woman stripped to the waist and brutally beaten by order of the law (her skin happened to be of a dark color) whose only crime was that of alleged impertinence, and that impertinence provoked by improper conduct on the part of a young man; that, reared in such a cradle as this, still, through the blessing of a good home, she had learned to deeply appreciate the noble efforts of women who dared to tread ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... Pere, nor any one's! I am a poor, weak, conceited, miserable man, who by his accursed impertinence has broken the heart of the being whom ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... you?—nothing fix your thoughts, and make you serious for a single moment? Can I not make you understand that you are ruining yourself and me; that we have nothing to depend upon but the bounty of that man whom you disgust by your caprice, extravagance, and impertinence; and that if you don't get reconciled to your father what is to become of you? You already know what you have to expect from my family, and how you like living ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... no reproach to his master; such an impertinence would not have crossed his mind; but the words carried a sting to Lionel. He knew how many, besides Alice Hook, had had their good conduct undermined through the living "like pigs in a sty." Lionel had, as you know, a lively conscience; and his brow reddened with self-reproach ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... said he, with his irresistible kindly frankness, "this is an occasion that excuses all things between us, even my impertinence. Your conduct from first to last has been such that I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that I had a daughter to offer you, and that you felt for her as I believe you feel for Miss Trevanion. These are not mere words; do not look ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... baker's dozen of glaring improbabilities; but I am much mistaken if you will enjoy it the less for that. A quaint personal touch, which (to anyone who does not recall the cast of Pinkie and the Fairies on its revival) might well seem an impertinence, produced in me the comfortable glow of superiority that rewards the well-informed. But I can assure Baroness VON HUTTEN that she is all wrong about the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various

... in a tone of cool impertinence, "to find someone here ready to attend to my business. I explained the matter to M. Fauvel yesterday. I am Count Louis de Clameran, an iron-manufacturer at Oloron, and have come to draw three hundred ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... tradesman in especial, but even every tradesman in his station, must furnish himself with a competent stock of patience; I mean, that patience which is needful to bear with all sorts of impertinence, and the most provoking curiosity, that it is possible to imagine the buyers, even the worst of them, are or can be guilty of. A tradesman behind his counter must have no flesh and blood about him, no passions, no resentment. He ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... Scarborough asserted his rights as a free agent, declaring himself capable, as far as the law was concerned, of going wherever he pleased without reference to Mr. Hart; and told that gentleman that any interference on his part would be regarded as an impertinence. "But my money—my money, which you must pay this minute, if I ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... hatred: for as there are two things in the truths of our religion—a divine beauty which renders them lovable, and a holy majesty which renders them venerable; so there are two things in such errors—an impiety which makes them horrible, and an impertinence ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... yet to learn," aid he, "that you yourself ever were able to make good soldiers out of country clowns in less than a month's time. When you have done so, then you may speak to me on the subject without impertinence." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... case of the Santa Fe, Union Pacific, and many others, diverted to the payment of unearned dividends, while the public suffers from this failure to comply with charter obligations; yet Mr. Dillon informs us that the citizen commits an impertinence when he inquires why contract obligations, which are the express consideration for the exceptional powers ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various

... is nearly two thousand pounds in debt; and, in all things mimicking the great, has been obliged to put his affairs to nurse. Except the booby his son, he is the most prating, forward, ignorant coxcomb of my acquaintance; and that is a bold word. But his impertinence makes him amusing: I will ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... friends were grand enough for him to honour their houses by his presence. She had in this, too, a lively recollection of her lost Captain's doctrinal views of the great world's creed. The Captain had flourished in the time when Impertinence, installed by Brummell, though her influence was waning, still schooled her oligarchs, and maintained the etiquette of her court; and even when his misalliance and his debts had cast him out of his native sphere, he lost not all ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... none of the qualities which awaken personal enthusiasm. He was one of those great leaders who are worshipped from afar. Besides, it is not an easy task to rule another's household. Benefits however great, reforms however wise, are sure to be considered an impertinence by some. Then— there might be another "Restoration," and wary ambitious nobles were cautiously making a record which would not unfit them for its benefits when it came. He lived in an atmosphere of conspiracy, suspicion, and ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... the notary, "well—a young man nowadays may be as ugly as you and I, my dear Pons, but he is almost sure to have the impertinence to want six hundred thousand francs, a girl of good family, with wit and good looks and good ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... the customary reverences. Afterwards, having followed her into a cabinet, she perceived her instantly change her tone. By some it is said that Madame des Ursins, being desirous of finding fault with something about the Queen's head-dress, whilst she was at her toilette, the latter treated it as an impertinence, and immediately flew into a rage. Others relate (and these different accounts tally with each other in the main) that Madame des Ursins having protested her devotedness to the new Queen, and assured her Majesty "that She might always reckon upon finding her stand between the King and herself, ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... Morton's theory of reconstruction and State rights, neither Congress nor the people of the loyal States had anything to do with the question. It was no more their concern in South Carolina than in Massachusetts. His suggestion of a probation for Southern negroes was therefore an impertinence. If not, why did he not recommend a "probation" for the hordes of "white trash" that were as unfit for ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... represented. He delighted in informing the delighted majority in the House that he, for his part, "paid no regard whatever to the voice of the people." When Burke condescended to notice and to rebuke the impertinence of a youth of nineteen, he little thought that the lad whom he reproved would come to be a far more extreme advocate of popular rights than he himself, or that the chronicle of the century in recording the names of those who made themselves prominent for the utterance of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... to be able to carry off a pronouncement which in a lesser man would have been an impertinence, and ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... it's impertinence, papa, I don't mean it for that," she said with hesitation, hanging her head, and blushing; "but—but—I hope it isn't mamma Vi's money we're to ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley

... right place for it no doubt, but I have a curiosity to see the inside first, some impertinence you ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... certainly by its icy indifference as by its own proper traits. Just as passions transmute into their opposites, so they carry a significant company of subordinate characteristics. Thus, dread or fear is accompanied by disorderly impertinence, sensuality by cruelty. The latter connection is of great importance to us, for it frequently eliminates difficulties in the explanation of crime. That cruelty and lasciviousness have the same root has long been known. The very ecstasy of adventurous and ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... Earl of Ellenborough, and he has made the circuit of the House, everywhere received with a welcoming smile and a kindly grasp of the hand, and everywhere finding willing and gratified listeners. Possibly that is pardoned to his age and eminence which would be resented as impertinence in a younger man, but certainly he enjoys a license accorded to no one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... reason for his going. He had a place of his own. He was only a hired man for the moment. Eddie had told her that a man frequently had to hire out after a succession of bad seasons. What of it? His keeping it to himself was the crowning impertinence! ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... here intend to personate the bashful Author, and out of a point of Honour undervalue my Comedy. I should very unseasonably disoblige all the People of Paris, should I accuse them of having applauded a foolish Thing: as the Public is absolute Judge of such sort of Works, it would be Impertinence in me to contradict it; and even if I should have had the worst Opinion in the World of my Pretentious Young Ladies before they appeared upon the Stage, I must now believe them of some Value, since so many People agree to speak in their behalf. But as great part of the Pleasure ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere

... knoweth anent the history of the folk of yore and of peoples long gone before!' Thereupon one of them came forward and, kissing the ground before him, spake as follows[FN329] 'Know, O King, that it behoveth one of good breeding to eschew impertinence and adorn himself with excellencies, and observe the Divine injunctions and avoid mortal sins; and to this he should apply himself with the assiduity of one who, if he stray therefrom, falleth into perdition; for the foundation of good breeding is virtuous ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... husband, passing his rough hand across his eyes, and muttering some vulgar impertinence or another had withdrawn, Mr. ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Praise, either of Your blooming Youth, Your agreeable Person, Your genteel Behaviour, Your easy Temper, or Your good Sense... and, the Reason is, that I cannot for my Life bring myself to such a Degree of Impertinence, as to sit down with a solemn Countenance, and Take upon me to inform the World, that the Sun is bright, and that the ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere

... I tell you it was in the small bag? Now, gentlemen, listen!" turning the leaves. "Here is a man who has the impertinence to say that our industries are paralyzed. It is not our industries; it is our people. Robbed of their patrimony, their fields laid waste, their estates confiscated by a system of foreclosure lackin' every vestige of decency and co'tesy,—Shylocks wantin' their pound of flesh on the very hour ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith

... closed the first act with a song, but I find it is not thought so well. Hence I trust you with one of the inclosed papers; and, at the same time, you must excuse my impertinence in adding an idea of the cast I would wish the music to have; as I think I have heard you say you never heard Leoni, [Footnote: Leoni played Don Carlos.] and I cannot briefly explain to you the character and situation of the persons on the stage with him. The first (a dialogue between ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... perfection that the great shows of two thousand years ago might take place in it to-day. It is so suggestive of the fierce and splendid spectacles of Roman times that the ring left by a modern circus on the arena, and absurdly dwarfed by the vast space of the oval, had an impertinence which we hotly resented, looking down on it from the highest grade of the interior. It then lay fifty feet below us, in the middle of an ellipse five hundred feet in length and four hundred in breadth, and capable of holding fifty thousand spectators. ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... inspecting too closely the nest of one of them, curiously constructed of long stiff reeds, resembling rods of steel, suddenly received, as a rebuke for his impertinence, a blow from the wing of the offended owner, which laid him sprawling ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... lordship's patronage is the strength of my hopes; nor have I yet applied to anybody else. Indeed my heart sinks within me at the idea of applying to any other of the great who have honoured me with their countenance. I am ill-qualified to dog the heels of greatness with the impertinence of solicitation, and tremble nearly as much at the thought of the cold promise as the cold denial; but to your lordship I have not only the honour, the comfort, but the pleasure of being your lordship's much obliged ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... in my dotage,—as I should be if I permitted my son to marry a beggarly Italian,—nor too old to punish impertinence as it deserves," retorted ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... direct part in the money-making, the indirect part she performs, if she takes faithful charge of her household, is so essential, so beyond all compensation in money, that it is an utter shame and impertinence in the husband when he speaks of "giving" money to his wife as if it were an act of favor. It is no more an act of favor than when the business manager of a firm pays out money to the unseen partner who directs the ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... place, improper, scandalous. To arouse sexual emotions in a woman, if not to profane a sacred host, is, at all events, the staining of an immaculate peplos; if not sacrilege, it is, at least, irreverence or impertinence. For all men, the chaster a woman is, the more agreeable it is to bring her to the orgasm. That is felt as a triumph of the body over the soul, of sin over virtue, of earth over heaven. There is something ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... there's room yet. That's the first piece. This is the second: keep your own counsel about the irregularity of your birth, unless someone asks you point-blank who has the right; if anyone else does, knock him down and tell him to go to hell with his impertinence. And never let it hit your courage in the vitals for a moment. You are not accountable; your mother was the finest woman I ever knew, and you've got the best blood of Britain in your veins, and not a relative in the world who's not of gentle blood. You're ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... lyrics in 1582. Tasso had to bear this dubious compliment in silence. All Europe was devouring his poems; scribes and versifiers were building up their reputation on his fame. Yet he could do nothing. Embittered by the piracies of publishers, infuriated by the impertinence of editors, he lay like one forgotten in that hospital. His celebrity grew daily; but he languished, penniless and wretched, in confinement which he loathed. The strangest light is cast upon his state of mind by the efforts ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... except in the single argument from the authority of the Eastern Church. What does he mean by 'unlearned,' or wanting 'majesty,' or containing 'strange things'? Were ever such vague puerilities collected into one short paragraph? This is pure impertinence, and Phil. deserves to be privately reprimanded for quoting such windy chaff without noting and protesting it as colloquial. But what I wish the reader to mark—the [Greek: tho hepimhythion]—is, that suppose ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... there was no escape from him I said to myself, "The time for prayer draws near and I wish to go to her before the folk come out of the mosque. If I am delayed much longer, I know not how to come at her." Then said I aloud, "Be quick and stint this talk and impertinence, for I have to go to a party at the house of some of my intimates." When he heard me speak of the party, he said, "This thy day is a blessed day for me! In very sooth it was but yesterday I invited a company of my friends and I have ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... streak of lively, strong perversity in Harry Musgrave. Remarks had been passed on his accompanying Mr. Carnegie when he conveyed Bessie to school—quite uncalled-for remarks, which had originated at Fairfield and the rectory. The impertinence of them roused Harry's temper, and, boy-like, he instantly resolved that if his dear little Bessie was kept away from home and punished on his account, he would give her meddlesome friends something to talk about by going to Caen again and seeing her in ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... forgotten, and old traditions better unknown. No wrinkled Tannhauser, returning to the Wartburg, needed a wrinkled Venus to show him that he was no longer at home, and that even penitence was a sort of impertinence. He slipped away to Paris, and set up a household at St. Germain where he taught and learned French history for nieces who swarmed under the venerable cedars of the Pavillon d'Angouleme, and rode about ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... scoundrel!" cried Montague, who was as much nettled by a feeling of uncertainty how to act as by the impertinence of ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... natural. As I have before stated, there is nothing obsequious in a Lancashire operative's behaviour. They are rough, oft-times to the point of rudeness, although no rudeness is meant. Possibly this woman might have regarded Mary's visit as a piece of impertinence. If a neighbour had come, that neighbour would have been received kindly, but Mary's appearance suggested that she did not belong to the order of people who lived in that street, and there were many who resented anything ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... Foxham. "Here be a pair for you. The lad, when for good services I gave him his choice of my favour, chose but the grace of an old drunken shipman. I did warn him freely, but he was stout in his besottedness. 'Here dieth your favour,' said I: and he, my lord, with a most assured impertinence, 'Mine be the loss,' quoth he. It shall ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... dress. He could unbend in his family, but in the outer world he put on his defensive armour of stately politeness, which even for congenial minds made familiarity difficult if it effectually repelled impertinence. But beneath this sensitive nature lay an energetic and even impetuous character, and an intellect singularly clear, subtle, and decisive. His reasons were apt to be complicated, but he came to very definite results, and ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... impertinence. It is clear to me that you won't suit us. I will pay you your wages up to this evening, and you can ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr

... she was sorry; in her opinion it was an impertinence to offer condolence to failure. "I suppose," she said, after a pause, "there is not a back way—a door, or ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... not knowing what step to take next. With hesitation doubt came. I began to argue. The hostile flash of her eyes angered me. She had tacitly charged me with impertinence, with the manners of a common Broadway lounger. Then I said, had this really been Penelope she must have recognized me, for twelve years could not have obliterated all outward traces of the boy ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... defensive is a strong offensive I pushed my way boldly into the midst of a group gathered round a pump and made signs that I desired a drink. At first they did not understand, or, thinking that I was a native Belgian, they were rather taken aback by such impertinence; but one soldier handed me his cup and another pumped it full. I drank it, and, thanking them, started off. This calm assurance gained me passage past the guard, who had stood by watching the procedure. ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... length of the rope. There are plenty of women in Paris—if one has no heart, there is always another. I am far from proposing to frustrate your project, holding as I do that a man's suicide is an intimate matter in which 'rescue' is a name given by busybodies to a gross impertinence; but as you have not begun the job, I will confess that I think you ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... "Villain that he is!" exclaimed he, "I shall teach him to behave in such a manner to a child of mine, be she as she may; since I cannot get at himself, I shall lounder her that is nearest to him in life. Take you that, and that, Mrs. Colwan, for your husband's impertinence!" ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... is what he said of his friend: it would be, as Mr. Foster says, impertinence to offer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... added impertinence without resentment, for the light was beginning to dawn on him. He drew out his packet of fine cut and ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan

... society, that is something which intellectual ability can never expect; to be ignored is the greatest favor shown to it; and if people notice it at all, it is because they regard it as a piece of impertinence, or else as something to which its possessor has no legitimate right, and upon which he dares to pride himself; and in retaliation and revenge for his conduct, people secretly try and humiliate him in some other way; and if they wait to do this, ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... fool," retorted the other impatiently, and the impertinence of the words had the effect intended of bracing the half-fainting girl. "He does not come because to do so would be madness—because if he showed himself he would be at once arrested by Scotland Yard detectives. They believe him to be the ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... looking on at my examination (quite unabashed at the mortification of his own), here interposed by telling me that the thing was a common form and must be gone through with. I was about to shake him off for his impertinence when a chance phrase of his, "free lodging," enlightened me. This, then, was not what I understood by a hospital—using the applied sense of the word—but one of those original institutions, so-called, which ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... the fire of his adversary at ten paces. After church, he disappeared as quietly as he had entered, and fortunately escaped hearing the comments on his rash act. His appearance was generally considered as an impertinence, attributable only to some wanton fancy, or possibly a bet. One or two thought that the sexton was exceedingly remiss in not turning him out after discovering who he was; and a prominent pew-holder remarked, that if he couldn't take his wife and daughters to that church, without ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... of those I meet are dumbly eloquent to me. The touch of some hands is an impertinence. I have met people so empty of joy, that when I clasped their frosty finger tips, it seemed as if I were shaking hands with a northeast storm. Others there are whose hands have sunbeams in them, so that their grasp warms ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... With a sharp signal cry for volunteers, he dashed off in pursuit. He was joined by two other crows who happened to be at leisure; and the three, quickly overtaking the majestic voyager, began to load him with impertinence and abuse. With their comparatively short but very broad wings the crows could dodge so nimbly in the air that if was quite impossible for their great enemy to catch them. He made no attempt to do so. Indignantly he changed the ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... enough to know what 'is kind of civility means. I wasn't going to lay myself open to impertinence." ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... Lucy at once, and spoke to her seriously on her forwardness and impertinence. "I could tell you, Lucy, that it is not like a young lady, but I must tell you more, it is not like a young Christian maiden. Do you remember the text that I gave you to learn a little while ago—the ornament fit ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge

... borne down by the weight of general authority and received canon law. Strong instincts are apt to make men strange, and rude; self-confidence, however well founded, to give much of what they do or say the appearance of impertinence. Look at the self-confidence of Wordsworth, stiffening every other sentence of his prefaces into defiance; there is no more of it than was needed to enable him to do his work, yet it is not a little ungraceful here and there. Suppose this stubbornness and self-trust in a youth, laboring ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... (who is now Mrs. Beddam [Badams], and Bed-dam'd to her!) was at Enfield, which she was in summer-time, and owed her health to its suns and genial influences, she visited (with young lady-like impertinence) a poor man's cottage that had a pretty baby (O the yearnling!), gave it fine caps and sweetmeats. On a day, broke into the parlour our two maids uproarious. 'O ma'am, who do you think Miss Ouldcroft (they pronounce ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... the season was passing, yet housekeeping did not begin. The birds, indeed, appeared to have abandoned the tree, and days went by in which I could not see that either visited it. But the nest was not deserted, for all that; the curiosity and impertinence of the neighbors were simply amazing. (Perhaps the kingbird has some reason to be pugnacious!) No sooner was that tenement finished than, as promptly as if they had received cards to a house-warming, visitors began to come. First to show himself was an orchard ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... find all justice, all rectitude, on your side, John; and all impertinence, all inconsiderateness, on mine. I am so much convinced of your honour in the whole transaction, that I shall for the future mistrust myself in everything. And if it be possible, whenever I differ from you on any point I shall take an hour's time for consideration before ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... hundred is a small number: Luther "reckons nothing of having against him a thousand Augustines, a thousand Cyprians, a thousand Churches." I think I need not carry the matter further. For when men rage against the above-mentioned Fathers, who can wonder at the impertinence of their language against Optatus, Hilary, the two Cyrils, Epiphanius, Basil, Vincent, Fulgentius, Leo, and the Roman Gregory. However, if we grant any just defence of an unjust cause, I do not deny that the Fathers wherever you ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... young took the thrust a little to heart. He returned it with a boy's impertinence. "We none of us grow thin on it," he said with a ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... will bear a great deal of impertinence from an old lady, but we had both gone further than we meant to. I closed Mr. Alger with a snap, ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... perplexing points in Burke's private history to know how he lived during these long years of parliamentary opposition. It is certainly not altogether mere impertinence to ask of a public man how he gets what he lives upon, for independence of spirit, which is so hard to the man who lays his head on the debtor's pillow, is the prime virtue in such men. Probity in money is assuredly one of the keys to character, though we must be very careful in ascertaining ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... except in a few favoured instances, unknown among us; while affectation, in other countries the badge of ignorance and vulgarity, is in ours, even in its worst shape, when it borrows the mien of rudeness, and impertinence, and effrontery, the appanage of those whose station is most conspicuous, and whose dignity is best ascertained. There is more good breeding in the cottage of a French peasant than in all the boudoirs of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... those of some other family covering the same period," Creighton added. "I realize that this is an impertinence on my part, but I wonder if such mention might not be found among the records of your own house. From what I have seen and heard, your family was very prominent in the city ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... earnest, unflinching attitude of the masses of the freemen, of my dear Yankees. The diplomats have lost the compass. They, duty bound, were diplomatically obsequious to the power held so long by the pro-slavery party. They got accustomed to the arrogant assumption and impertinence of the slavers, and, forgetting their European origin, the diplomats tacitly—but for their common sense and honor I hope reluctantly—admitted the assumptions of the Southern banditti to be in America the nearest assimilation to ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski



Words linked to "Impertinence" :   perkiness, gall, insolence, hutzpah, cheek, crust, cheekiness, disrespect, pertness, archness



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