"Audacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for a few minutes under the general expression of sympathy, till, hardened by observing that no appearance of popular indignation was directed his way, he had the audacity to require that the sale ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... chance she awoke from the chloroform sleep after he had finished screwing in the screws, so much the better! So it was that his mind had worked. And the scheme had been executed with that courage, that calmness, that audacity, that minute attention to detail, of which only madmen at their maddest appear to be capable. Beyond any question the scheme would have succeeded had not Hugo, the moment Albert Shawn uttered the word 'cemetery,' perceived the general trend of it in a single wondrous flash of ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... audacity of the Mexican, who undoubtedly was one of those who had held up the stage the day before, in coming boldly into town. Then he recollected that the sheriff had mentioned he had an idea of who was responsible for that job, but had been unable to ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... friend's letter which pertains to your affair," continued Mr. Aylett. "I shall write to Mrs. Sutton's protege by the mail that carries this, informing him of my opportune discovery, through no instrumentality of his providing, of the poverty of his claims to the title of gentleman, and the audacity of his pretensions to my sister's hand. Have what letters, etc., you have received from him ready packed to return to his address when I come home. My principal regret, in the review of the unfortunate entanglement, is ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... to have employed fifty men, who wore a livery, powdered hair, and smock frocks. This smuggler amassed a large fortune, and he had the audacity to purchase a portion of Eggardon Hill, in west Dorset, on which he planted trees to form a mark for his homeward-bound vessels. He also kept a band of watchmen in readiness to light a beacon fire on the approach of danger. This state of things continued until an Act of Parliament was passed which ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... country. By those unfortunate and fatal decisions the vicious and mischievous doctrine of States' Rights, called by some State sovereignty, by others local self government, which was believed to have perished upon the battlefields of the country, was given new life, strength and audacity, and fostered by the preaching of the fear of "Negro domination." The decision declaring the Civil Rights Law unconstitutional was rendered by Mr. Justice Bradley, and nearly all of those by which the principal sections of the different enforcement laws were nullified, were rendered ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... he made his way by different qualities; in the first place he was a character, an oddity, and the audacity of his vulgarity was tolerated, where a man only half as boisterous would have been scouted; then he was gallant in his way, affected, perhaps felt, a great devotion to the sex, and they were half amused, half pleased, with the rough ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various
... has contributed to the history of the war one of its most remarkable chapters. For sheer audacity and success it has few parallels. Twenty-two ships, mostly British, have been sunk and one has been captured by this German cruiser, rightly named ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... Novibazar. Numerous gipsy tents covered the plain, and at one of them, a withered old gipsy woman, with white dishevelled hair hanging down on each side of her burnt umber face, cried out in a rage, "See how the Royal Servian people now-a-days have the audacity to enter Novibazar on horseback," alluding to the ancient custom of Christians not being permitted to ride on horseback in ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... simplicity, and curious at heart, but not like many women merely of social gossip, she amused her age by attracting within her ken through the power of her great, almost historical, social prestige everything that rose above the dead level of mankind, lawfully or unlawfully, by position, wit, audacity, fortune or misfortune. Royal Highnesses, artists, men of science, young statesmen, and charlatans of all ages and conditions, who, unsubstantial and light, bobbing up like corks, show best the direction of the surface currents, had been welcomed in that house, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... greater than the legal, for the suits ploughed deeply into all the crimes or errors that had dishonored his career, and would necessarily turn up masses of documentary evidence, which on no less authority than that of his father, must carry the tale of his infamy to every eye; yet his audacity dared, as his genius surmounted, every disadvantage, and after fixing the admiration of a province—to him a sufficient compensation—by the ingenuity, the power, and the extraordinary resources of his eloquence in a path so new to him, he succeeded in re-establishing ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Nottingham, took the letters and read them with a thin smile; then bore them to his daughter's chamber, and laid them before her. "Truly the enemies of our King are not lacking in audacity," sneered Master Monceux, when Mistress Monceux ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... eat a variety of animals for our own selfish purposes, and yet some persons still have the audacity to say that we are "chosen people," ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... The audacity of a young man in his position presenting himself as a candidate for the legislature is fully equalled by the humility of the closing paragraphs ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... denied that I am an enthusiastic admirer of that great man who is conquering and subjugating the whole world, because God has destined him to be its master. Hence, I never was able to comprehend the audacity of those who instigated our gracious and noble Emperor Francis to wage war against the victorious hero, and as a true and sincere patriot I now bless the dispensations of fate which compels us to make peace with Napoleon the Great, for Austria can regain her former prosperity only by maintaining ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... mettlesome, warm-blooded creature, full of the energy and audacity of youth, to whom as yet life was only a frolic and a play spell. Work never tired her. She ate heartily, slept peacefully, went to bed laughing, and got up in a merry humor in the morning. Diana's laugh was as ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the this speech she looked proudly at the constable with a face marked by so much dissimulation and feminine audacity, that the husband stood looking as foolish as a girl who has allowed a note to escape her below, before a numerous company, and he was afraid of ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... done in the twinkling of an eye. At first, horror-struck at the audacity of the deed, and while it was doing, the crowd stood still and mute, bereft, as it were, of all power to move or speak. But soon as the fragments of the parchment came floating along upon the air, their senses returned, and the most violent outcries, curses, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... quick. For a moment the colt paused in pure wonder at the audacity of the thing; then, with a neigh, half of anger and half of fear, it sprang away at top speed, circling and recircling, flashing in and out among the other horses, the fragment of humanity on its back meanwhile clinging to his place like a monkey. For a minute, ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... you can advise me. Now as you look at me—" The young man's eyes burned into hers so that with all her audacity Nora felt the colour rising in her face. "Which would you suggest as the most suitable style for me, the psyche knot or the ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... is it! Egad, I begin to think it is," laughed the clockmaker, amused at the lad's audacity. "Certainly your demand would seem to ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... pulled her work to her again. Coryston dropped on his knees beside her, and asked her pardon with eyes whereof the male audacity had passed into a steady ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... between the rows of smart people." Mrs. Thesiger laughed as she recalled the picture. "They must have come from the Provinces. I could imagine them living in a chateau on a hill overlooking some tiny village in—where shall we say?" She hesitated for a moment, and then with an air of audacity she shot the word from ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... for the scaffold, have confessed that their entrance into a life of crime began in early youth, when the audacity of some unprincipled associate tempted them from the ways of innocence. Through all the years of life, even to old age, the life and character are influenced by association. If this be true in the case of the more mature and experienced, ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... changed man. Property must be upheld; low-born disorder and greed must be put down. He sold his race-horses, and proceeded forthwith to throw into the formation of a new party all the doggedness, the astuteness, and the audacity he had been accustomed to lavish upon the intrigues and ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... entered my chamber; and, with calm audacity preparing to go to bed, he bade me make haste, 'for that was the best place for husbands and wives to end their differences. He had been drinking plentifully to aid ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... party. He walked straight up to them, looked them in the eye, and passed on. They did not know him; or, if, as was alleged against them afterwards, they knew him, they were afraid to arrest him. The statement that Donald carried his audacity so far as to enter the hotel, and drink with them, he himself ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... Brent had entered was a daring one, and required great coolness and audacity. But the inducements were great, and for her son's sake she decided to carry it through. Of course it was necessary that she should not be identified with any one who could disclose to Mr. Granville the deceit that was being practiced upon him. Circumstances lessened the risk of detection, ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... almost incredible. It was as if a granite wall had been suddenly flung up against the advancing current of a mighty river. For a moment, speaker and audience were brought to a dead silence. Both the doctor and his hearers seemed appalled by the audacity, as well as the fitness of the rebuke. At length a shout went up to the cry of "Put him out!" Happily, no one attempted to execute this cowardly order, and the doctor proceeded with his discourse. Not, however, as before, did the{299} learned doctor proceed. The exclamation ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... what artist ought to be properly started, not the one who seemed likely to develop the genius of a great painter, furnishing food for discussion, but the one whose deceptive talent, set off by a pretended display of audacity, would command a premium in the market. And that was the way in which he revolutionised that market, giving the amateur of taste the cold shoulder, and only treating with the moneyed amateur, who knew nothing about art, but who bought a picture as ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... Queen of Scots in her place, to hand over Elizabeth's ships to Spain, confiscate property, and to kill a number of anti-Catholic people. The Hawkins counterplot of revenge on Philip and his guilty confederates was completely successful. The comic audacity of it is almost beyond belief. The Pope had bestowed his blessing on the conspiracy, and the Spanish Council of State was enthusiastically certain of its success. So credulous were they of the great piratical seaman's conversion, that ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... sure many a reader of the paper must have smiled at my criticisms. I forget why I soon gave up the duty; probably from incompetence, for I am sure I was not at all qualified for such a task; but what will the audacity of youth not attempt? This journalistic work occupied much of my spare time, but it supplemented my income, a consideration of no little importance, for in October, 1876, I had entered the married state. My wife came from the Midlands of England. My friends ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... case died here by his own hand last night. I mean an afflicted idiot, formerly the servant, and possibly the illegitimate son, of Fyodor Pavlovitch, Smerdyakov. At the preliminary inquiry, he told me with hysterical tears how the young Ivan Karamazov had horrified him by his spiritual audacity. 'Everything in the world is lawful according to him, and nothing must be forbidden in the future—that is what he always taught me.' I believe that idiot was driven out of his mind by this theory, though, of course, the epileptic attacks ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Western Railway Station, and how he was confined to his room from the injuries which he had received. The paragraph went on to state that the delinquent had, as it was believed, dared to raise his eyes to the same lady, and that his audacity had been treated with scorn by every member of the noble family in question. "It was, however, satisfactory to know," so said the newspaper, "that Mr C—— had amply avenged himself, and had so flogged the young man ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... is about"—Pelle bethought himself a moment; "the story is about the birth of Christ," he said quickly, and then blushed a deep red at his own audacity. But the others looked disappointed, and settled themselves decently and stared at the floor, as though ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... fellow; he has the audacity to say that he has never heard of Calros the pretender, who ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... cause. When this story was told to me, I remarked that the judge must have been bribed by the Marseillaise, since nothing could have been easier for him than, if he wished it, to have her arrested by his guards, and deprived of the paper which she had carried off with so much audacity. Again I received the answer: 'But she ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... till lately no need of an American navy. But the European who measures the unpreparedness of the nation in the terms of the unpreparedness of his own, or any other European, country, not taking into account the colonial character of the population, the alertness and audacity of the national mind, the resourcefulness and confident self-reliance of the people, is likely to fall ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... the guns of the fort, and fired the ships of the fleet in the harbor beneath the eyes of the astounded Englishmen, who thronged the shore and gazed bewildered upon the spectacle which American audacity displayed for them; he made incursions on the land; he threatened the port of Leith, and would undoubtedly have bombarded it, had not obstinate counter winds thwarted his plans; he kept the whole British shores in a state of ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... shall scoop out this old rip's odd eye with the sharp end of this here hammer, now, before your face.' Ay, and the villain would have done it too, if I had not instantly complied; but what was worse, the abominable scoundrel had the audacity to tell me, when I wanted him to deliver the horse first, for fear he should extort a further sum from me, that he had more honour than to break his word. A whelp of a boy had yesterday caught a young hedgehog, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... colleague had told him he didn't know how to run an auto anyway—and that the cook had given notice that morning,—and that he had a sprained back,—and that the moths had gnawed the knees out of his new dress suit,—and that the Superintendent of Nurses had had the audacity to send him a bunch of pink roses for his birthday,—and that the boiler in the kitchen leaked,—and that he had to go to Philadelphia the next day to read a paper on "Surgical Methods at the Battle of Waterloo,"—and he hadn't even ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... enormous letters; it is divided off with little numbers; and it starts straight away like this: "1. We intend to glorify the love of danger, the custom of energy, the strengt of daring. 2. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity, and revolt. 3. Literature having up to now glorified thoughtful immobility, ecstasy, and slumber, we wish to exalt the aggressive movement, the feverish insomnia, running, the perilous leap, the cuff and the blow." While I am quite willing to exalt ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... this case. In their wild excitement and eagerness to have the story begin, both Sagastao and Minnehaha sprang up and, rushing toward Souwanas, vied with each other in seeing which could first pluck the half-smoked calumet from his mouth. Such audacity appalled the Indian children and fairly took the breath away from the older Indians. For was not Souwanas a chief, and the calumet almost a sacred thing ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... were little skirmishes between the family and the painter, who had the audacity to call pere Vervelle witty. This flattery brought the family on the double-quick to the heart of the artist; he gave a drawing to the daughter, and ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac
... saved. The next day, Madame Bestuchef found means to convince her credulous husband that Trenck was the victim of an intrigue, and entirely innocent of the charge brought against him. Trenck remained, therefore, the friend of the house, and Madame Bestuchef had the audacity to publicly insult my ambassador. Trenck now announced himself as a raging adversary of Prussia. He inflamed the heart of his powerful mistress with hate, and they swore the destruction of Prussia. Both were zealously engaged in changing the chancellor, my private and confidential friend, into ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... all courage, he averted his eyes, lest she might decipher his thoughts in his instinctive glances. Such a request would be madness. One could not expect such a service from a friend; he would never have the audacity to ask. ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... of the stranger, when he gained the half-deck of the periagua, was finely nautical, and confident to audacity. He seemed to analyze the half-maritime character of the crew and passengers, at a glance, and to feel that sort of superiority over his companions, which men of his profession were then a little too wont to entertain towards those whose ambition ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... abrupt and daring. He excelled equally in winning men, and in ruling them by personal and familiar intercourse; he displayed equal ability in leading an army or a party. He had the instinct of popularity and the gift of authority, and he let loose factions with as much audacity as he subdued them. But born in the midst of a revolution, and raised to sovereign power by a succession of violent shocks, his genius was, from first to last, essentially revolutionary; and though he was taught by experience the necessity of order and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... mistaking the adulation in the boy's eyes, and even in the midst of her misery she felt a little glow of gratification. He was looking alluringly disreputable in his highwayman's dress, and the dark eyes shone upon her with fascinating audacity as he lifted her hand ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... It had passed his comprehension how the fellow could have the face to show up at the office at all, but for him to have the audacity to address a fellow-clerk, and that fellow-clerk Harris, of all people, seemed fairly ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... for their own sakes, without any purpose of edification; it had, like the fabliau, the merit of brevity, and not infrequently the fault of unabashed grossness. But the very fact that it was a thing of little consequence allowed the farce to exhibit at times an audacity of political or ecclesiastical criticism which transformed it into a dramatised pamphlet. In general it chose its matter from the ludicrous misadventures of private life: the priest, the monk, the husband, the mother-in-law, the wife, the lover, the roguish servant are the agents ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... whole of Europe, France submitted to be ground down by the most despotic and arbitrary government ever known in modern history,—the Great Committee of Public Safety; the Reign of Terror was in full exercise, and it was doubtful whether the energy, audacity, and concentrated vigour of the Great Committee would enable France to be victorious over Europe, and thus secure for her the right of deciding on the character of their own government. She was to be successful, but at what a cost!" (Stephens, H. ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... his hearers, than truly representing the speaker's feeling. Then my thoughts reverted to the talk I had overheard, when "Pickles" was made to see veritable showers of "greenbacks" raining into his vacuous pocket. I smiled to myself; and then a spirit of audacity coming over me, I determined to ascertain what Castleton would say to me on the currency question. I concluded to admit that I had overheard through my open window the conversation on monetary matters alluded to. There would then be no opportunity for him to evade the responsibility ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... a corner; everyone's back was turned to them happily, for in one second he had bent and kissed her neck. It was done with such incredible swiftness and audacity that even had they been observed it must only have looked as though he bent to pick up something she had dropped. But the kiss burned ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... person deluded by the artifices of the Countess de la Motte, it is certain that Joseph Balsamo, commonly called Alexandre, Count de Cagliostro, was capable of any knavery, however infamous. Guile was his element; audacity was his breastplate; delusion was his profession; immorality was his creed; debauchery was his consolation; his own genius—the genius of cunning—was the god of his idolatry. Had Cagliostro been sustained by the principles ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... chivalrous spirit. He believed in flying at the head when you are fighting with a serpent, and he knew that influence exerted in Rome would thrill through the Empire. If we would understand the magnificent audacity of these words of my text we must try to listen to them with the ears of a Roman. Here was a poor little insignificant Jew, like hundreds of his countrymen down in the Ghetto, one who had his head full of some fantastic nonsense about a young visionary whom the procurator ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... Rome, the news of Nero's expedition had caused the greatest excitement and alarm. All men felt the full audacity of the enterprise, but hesitated what epithet to apply to it. It was evident that Nero's conduct would be judged of by the event, that most unfair criterion, as the Roman historian truly terms it. People reasoned on the perilous ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... and a certain mixture of superstition and bravado, that formed nearly equal ingredients in his character, was a man likely to gain great influence with those who, from their ignorance and habits, had an inherent love of the marvellous, and a profound respect for all who possessed, in acting, more audacity, and, in believing, more credulity than themselves. The vulgar like an excess, even if it be of folly; for, in their eyes, the abundance of any particular quality is very apt to be taken as the standard of ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... more to say. The news about Gualtier, and the truth as to her parentage, were fresh shocks, and already her strength began to give way. Her spirit could not long be kept up to that height of audacity to which she had raised it. Beneath all was the blackness of her despair, in which was not one ray ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... had thought it time to marry somebody, if she ever intended to marry at all; so she threw over half a dozen young fellows like Coursay, and married Sprowl. For two years her beauty, audacity, and imprudence kept a metropolis and two capitals in food for scandal. And now for a year gossip was ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... of Keim to associate the narratives of the infancy in the canonical and apocryphal gospels, a great gulf separates them: on the one side there is a reverent and beautiful reserve, on the other indelicate, unlovely, and trivial audacity. ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... ceremonial before the portress could be induced to convey our errand to one of the numerous clerks in a counting-house close by. At length, and after many dubious shakes of the head and murmurs of surprise at our audacity, the card was ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... sultan, before he gave the signal, "I beg of your majesty to consider what you are going to do, since you will hazard your palace being destroyed; and who knows what fatal consequence may follow?" "My palace forced!" replied the sultan; "who can have that audacity?" "Sir," answered the grand vizier, "if your majesty will but cast your eyes towards the great square, and on the palace walls, you will perceive the truth of what ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... moved back into the Territory. For the moment the audacity of the crime stunned the frontier. He had figured on this hour of uncertainty and amazement to make good his escape. He knew that he could depend on the people along the way to Iowa to protect the ten slaves which he ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... prosecuted summarily for getting up a false charge and giving false evidence. It was a lesson to the police in those parts, and they did not dare to trouble me much afterwards; but it is only one instance out of hundreds I could give, and which every planter has witnessed of the barefaced audacity, the shameless extortion, the unblushing lawlessness of the rural police ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... thrust deep in her great coat sleeves, and standing like a nun lost in mystic revery, looked up with gay audacity—not like a nun at all, now, save for the virginal allure that seemed a part of ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... nation to pieces during the Reign of Terror, but the boundless variety and originality of the characters which found themselves suddenly in free rivalry? What else gave to the undisciplined levies, the bankrupt governments, the parvenu heroes of the Republic, a manifold force, a self-dependent audacity, which made them the conquerors, and the teachers (for good and evil) of the civilised world? If there was one doctrine which the French Revolution specially proclaimed—which it caricatured till it ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... Dukes were on the most familiar terms, and addressed each other by their Christian names. This is one of the shades invented to mark a degree of intimacy, to repel the audacity of French familiarity, and humiliate conceit—"tell me, Henri, I am in such a desperate difficulty that I can only ask advice of an old friend who understands business, and you have practice and experience. My daughter Clotilde, as you know, is in love with that little ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... brand of Cain upon his brow. Several even of the higher critics took fright. Jeffrey, while protesting his appreciation of the literary merits of the work, lamented its tendency to unsettle faith. Mr. Campbell talked of its "frightful audacity." Bishop Heber wrote at great length to prove that its spirit was more dangerous than that of Paradise Lost—and succeeded. The Quarterly began to cool towards the author. Moore wrote to him, that Cain was "wonderful, terrible, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... air of a leisurely man enjoying himself— with infinite contentment on his ruddy countenance, and with much concern in his agitated soul—Archie took the canoe straight past the very spot where the Indian lay concealed. He felt that audacity was the safest line of action, for he knew that if the savage meant mischief, to pretend absolute ignorance of his existence would be less likely to draw a shot than sudden flight—which, however swiftly carried out, could by no means equal the flight ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... audacity got on my nerves. On the surface we had all the best of the game. The trouble was that he knew the cards I held, whereas I could ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... needleworker, had the audacity to contest against Pallas, the goddess of the art of weaving. With her bobbins, Arachne wove such wonderful pictures of the Loves of the Gods that Pallas, conscious of having been surpassed by a mortal, in an outburst of anger struck her. Arachne, humiliated by ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... I lacked audacity, yet I found it strangely difficult to again pick up our conversation. This woman puzzled me; was becoming an enigma. She encouraged me, and yet something about her precluded all familiarity. I was haunted by the vague suspicion that she might be ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... and it sometimes showed itself on small as well as great occasions, but always in the name of State Rights. When it was supposed that Fremont was about to be chosen President, the menace became louder, and mingling with it was the hoarse mutter of war; and all this audacity was in the name of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... them perfect. Their very audacity renders them faultless. And the charm is that she does not ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... they were near the small city of Chiloteca. Here, worn out by their journey and learning that they were in a thickly settled country, most of the pioneers decided to return. But eighteen of the bolder spirits had the audacity to advance on Chiloteca, a place of perhaps ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... that in his command of the Roman armies, Fabius Maximus displayed a prudence and caution very different from the audacity and hardihood natural to his countrymen; and it was his good fortune that his methods suited with the times. For Hannibal coming into Italy in all the flush of youth and recent success, having already by two defeats stripped Rome of her best soldiers and filled her with dismay, nothing ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... of the next year, another concentration was made on the "key of the Mississippi;" General Grant marching his army one hundred and fifty miles from its base, to get in rear of Vicksburg and cut off its relief. The very audacity of this plan may blind the careless thinker to its bad generalship; especially in view of the success that at last crowned its projector's hammer-and-tongs style of tactics. His reckless and ill-handled assaults upon the strong works at Vicksburg—so freely criticised on his own side, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... and it is but a few years since this dreadful demoralisation has become so apparent and so shamelessly avowed. In another work the American author above quoted observes,—"We see the effects of this baneful influence in the openness and audacity with which men avow improper motives and improper acts, trusting to find support in a popular feeling, for while vicious influences are perhaps more admitted in other countries than in America, in none are they so openly avowed." ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... autumn, when he saw the gipsy who was the original of "Fifine." In the words of Mrs. Orr, "his fancy was evidently set roaming by the gipsy's audacity, her strength—the contrast which she presented to the more spiritual types of womanhood; and this contrast eventually found expression in a pathetic theory of life, in which these opposite types and their corresponding modes ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... audacity to tell you he knows what is the matter with me. He will say this is delirium tremens—a lie, and you must know it ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... disturbance with which the intestine rivalries of Jansenist and Jesuit had afflicted the faithful. "It is the abominable testimony of your convulsions," he cries, "that has overthrown the testimony of miracles. It is the fatuous audacity with which your fanatics have confronted persecution, that has annihilated the evidence of the martyrs. It is your declamations against sovereign pontiffs, against bishops, against all the orders of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, that have covered priest, altar, and ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... In the Den, despite the blushes his tennis had caused, he did his best to keep up his swagger and restore confidence by a few acts of special audacity; and the Den was forgiving on the whole. They did feel sore for a day, and showed it; but gradually they came back to their allegiance, and made excuses for their ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... and as to the compliment, if you knew what the Italians think of Ariosto, you would not hesitate about that.... If you think Scott will dislike it, say so, and I will expunge." Byron did not know that when Scott was at college at Edinburgh he had "had the audacity to produce a composition in which he weighed Homer against Ariosto, and pronounced him wanting in the balance," or that he "made a practice of reading through ... the Orlando of Ariosto once every year" (see Memoirs of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... at me with a truly terrible expression, "I have myself heard you avow, with insolent audacity, that you were not a Democrat. Do you not know, Sir, that nothing but Democrats are allowed to breathe the zephyrs of Louisiana? Silence, culprit! Not a word! The court cannot be interrupted. I have also heard you state that the immortal Breckenridge, Kentucky's favorite son, was the same to you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... enemy on this ledge, and, picking up the range with remarkable rapidity, forced the Turks into more comfortable positions. The enemy, too, had some well-served guns, and they plastered the spurs leading to the crest from the west, but our infantry's audacity never faltered, and after we had got into the first lines on the hill our men proceeded methodically to rout out the machine guns from their nooks and crannies. This was a somewhat lengthy process, but small parties working in support of each ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... M. Texier says, is now less the collective reason of a set of writers laboring to a common intent, than the expression of the individual activity, energy, and wonderful mobility of M. Girardin himself. The Presse is Emile de Girardin, with his boldness, his audacity, his rampant agility, his Jim Crowism, his inexhaustible cleverness, wonderful fecundity, and indisputable talent. The Presse is bold and daring; but no man can tell the color of its politics to-day, much less three days, or three months hence. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... in our democratic civilisation, and he was in excellent spirits. As the young lady of Mrs. Portheris's party joined us I thought I found a barometric reading in Mr. Dod's countenance that explained the situation. "I remember you," she said shyly, and there was something in this innocent audacity and the blush which accompanied it that helped me to remember her too. "You came to see mamma in Half Moon-street once. ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... won by audacity; the poets have repeated it from age to age, and some truth there must be in the saying. Suspicion of self-interest could not but attach to him; that was inherent in the circumstances. He must rely upon the sincerity of his passion, which indeed was beginning to rack and rend ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... They connected him with the "Govunment." It had to do somewhere with the Police. No one trifled with Uncle Felix. Yet, strange to say, the children never could be properly afraid of him, although they tried very hard. Their audacity, their familiarity, their daring astonished everybody. The gardeners and coachmen, to say nothing of the indoor servants, treated him as though he was some awful emperor. But the children simply pushed him about. He might have ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... did not touch. So when in the autumn the rumour went round that the Ballance Ministry meant to abolish the Property Tax and bring forward Bills embodying a Progressive Land Tax, and Progressive Income Tax, the proposal was thought to represent the audacity of impudence or desperation. When the rumour proved true, it was predicted that the farmers throughout the length and breath of the country would rise in wrath and terror, scared by the very name of Land Tax. Nevertheless Parliament passed the Bills, with the addition of a light ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... answered these requisitions with so much clearness and proof that the officials who issued them often considered themselves vanquished, and did not follow up their efforts; and although they resented what they called rebellion and audacity, they found his opposition so justified by law that they did not dare to condemn him for disobedience, no matter how much they chose to give his conduct this title to outsiders—for these tribunals are not accustomed to hear "no" to what they ordain in the name of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... translated itself into the remembrance of far-off woodpeckers. When at last it asserted itself more distinctly, she started up with a flushed cheek and opened the door. On the threshold stood a woman, the self-assertion and audacity of whose dress were in singular contrast to her timid, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... here, is English, and I am American. Don't you notice a difference between us?" answered Miss Audacity, saucily. ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... know how bored I have been since we locked up Colonel Carruthers. My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built. Life is commonplace, the papers are sterile; audacity and romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world. Can you ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem, however trivial it may prove? But here, unless I ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the vestal virgins, and several others of high rank amongst the connexions of his great house. These may have done something; but it is due to Sylla, who had a sympathy with everything truly noble, to suppose him struck with powerful admiration for the audacity of the young patrician, standing out in such severe solitude among so many examples of timid concession; and that to this magnanimous feeling in the Dictator much of the indulgence which he showed may have been really due. In fact, ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... to. They are perfectly distinct from those of any other nation. There is about them a dainty grace and pathos, combined frequently with a certain suspicion of sadness, which is full of charm, while those which are frankly gay are full of life, audacity, and "go," that carry away the listeners, even when the language is imperfectly understood. The charming songs, with accompaniment for piano or guitar, of the Master Yradier, are mostly written in the soft dialect of Andalucia, which lends itself to the music, and is liquid ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... none of the grace of association. But here at Noningsby church, the winter flowers had been cut by Madeline and the gardener, and the red berries had been grouped by her own hands. She and the vicar's wife had stood together with perilous audacity on the top of the clerk's desk while they fixed the branches beneath the cushion of the old-fashioned turret, from which the sermons were preached. And all this had of course been talked about at the house; and some of the party had ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... allowed to pass for being. No matter where it strikes or whom it strikes, he must help strip away pretense from the vain and shallow, unveil those who masquerade under borrowed, empty, high-sounding titles—those whose vociferous tones, glib tongues and unlimited audacity seek to pose their owners as learned ones under the thinnest veneer. This uncovering of shams, exposure of frauds will save the race many a gibe ...
— The Educated Negro and His Mission - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 8 • W. S. Scarborough
... should like to know,' pursued Mr Boffin, 'that you were to have the audacity to follow up this young lady? This young lady was looking about the market for a good bid; she wasn't in it to be snapped up by fellows that had no money to lay out; ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... letters attracted not a little attention at the Hub for their audacity in kicking over the classic styles and violating all the established dogmas of dignity and lofty intellectuality. They are a reaction from the strain and intensity of ordinary Boston life, and thus supply a clearly defined want. This explains their local ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... to raise the country in his cause. Letters and proclamations were at the same time dispersed by Ashton, in which the name of Elizabeth was employed without scruple. The party had even the slanderous audacity to pretend, that between Courtney and the heiress of the crown the closest of all intimacies, if not an actual marriage, subsisted; and the matter went so far that at Ipswich, one of the strong holds of protestantism, Cleberry proclaimed ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... at this little scene. Opposition expected Mr. G. would have thundered forth denunciations of Prince ARTHUR's audacity. Here he was making terms with the enemy; doing it all, too, with imposingly judicial manner that was irresistible. Before House quite knew where it was, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various
... admonished him of his sins and kept his feet in the path that leads to paradise, are both delightful, if such an adjective can apply, and are covered with exquisite marble embroidery, almost incredible in its perfection of detail. It is such as modern sculptors have neither the audacity or the imagination to design nor the skill or patience to execute. But they are not well kept. The rozah, or courtyard, in which the great king lies sleeping, surrounded by his wives, his children and other members of his family ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... building. Alarms of invasion made the scattered villagers wish to have all their men capable of bearing arms back again to defend their own homes. It was a most natural demand, but in this case, as so often, audacity is truest prudence; and in all high causes there come times when men have to trust their homes and dear ones to God's protection. The necessity is heartrending, and we may well pray that we may not be exposed to it; but if it clearly arises, a devout man can have no doubt of his duty. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... speaking to some persons who were praising a man of reckless daring and audacity in war, observed that there is a difference between a man's setting a high value on courage, and setting a low value on his own life—and rightly. For a daring soldier in the army of Antigonus, but of broken and ill health, being asked by the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... the deuce of a fellow is this? My heart thrills with clutching fear. But why should I tremble thus? Perhaps the rogue is as much afraid as I am, and talks in this way to hide his fear from me under a feigned audacity. Yes, yes, I will not allow him to think me a goose. If I am not bold, I will try to appear so. Let me seek courage by reason; he is alone, even as I am; I am strong, I have a good master, and ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... sign of the aquiline nose of the Mexican Seer. Still, I had learnt by then to discount appearances. If these were indeed the famous sharper and his wife or accomplice, we must be very careful. We were forewarned this time. Supposing he had the audacity to try a third trick of the sort upon us we had him under our thumbs. Only, we must take steps to prevent his ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... petrified for a moment at the audacity of the proposition. For him, the Clerk of the Court, to be blinded and made ridiculous with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he carried himself as a man with a grievance, and when he looked at his offspring, which was seldom, it seemed to Letty that he regarded the second one as an unnecessary intruder and cherished a secret resentment at its audacity in coming to this planet uninvited. He went back to his work in Boston without its having crossed his mind that anybody but his sister could take care of his children. He didn't really regard them as children or human beings; it takes a woman's vision to make that sort of leap into the future. ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... With the high audacity of those who have overcome fear, she now, with a hysterical cry of menace, ran at the two lynxes, to drive them ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... threatened daily to result in exposure; and after the death of Sir Burnham, which occurred a short time later, these increased in number and audacity. The dying baronet had impressed upon his wife the necessity of following my guidance in all things. Undoubtedly he died hoping that Lady Coverly might live out her days in ignorance of the grim secret of the Bell House. This dying wish of his was gratified. The loss of her ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... to Vespasian fixes its composition under his reign. Its profane flattery is in the usual style of the period, but lacks the brilliancy, the audacity, and the satire of that of Lucan. From certain allusions it is probable that the poem was written soon after the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus [6] (A.D. 70). There is considerable learning shown, but a desire to compress allusions into a small space and to ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... by a stare. He had never in his life encountered anything like this woman, and he was bewildered by her audacity, her alertness, her beauty, and the dash with which she ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates |
