"Insolence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... military commandant. He proved so little useful in this government that he was expelled from it, and, giving his salary to his native parish, he fell into something like his old poverty. He who had laughed to scorn the insolence and folly of the nobles could not enjoy the insolence and folly of the plebeians, and he was unhappy in that wild ferment of ideas, hopes, principles, sentiments, which Milan became in the time of the Cisalpine ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... of him to prefer him before all the princes in the world. He went farther; for the sultan not offering me to him as soon as he could have wished, he had the boldness to ask me of him. Whatever punishment his insolence deserved, my father was satisfied with telling him he had other thoughts in relation to me. The youth was incensed at this refusal; he resented the contempt, as if he had asked some maid of ordinary extraction, or as if his birth had been equal to mine. ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... "He insults my courage! This from one who is a mere Gringo—the most cowardly race of people on the earth. Oh, I shall exact revenge for this insolence. And you, Nicolas, had the impudence to come here with ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... this agree with the sentiments of Junius? In 1767-69 Junius had exhausted on Chatham his considerable treasury of insult. He is 'a lunatic brandishing a crutch,' 'so black a villain,' 'an abandoned profligate,' and he exhibits 'THE UPSTART INSOLENCE OF A DICTATOR!' This goes not well with Lyttelton's sentiments in 1774. True, but by that date (iii. 305) Junius himself had discovered 'that if this country can be saved, it must be saved by Lord Chatham's spirit, by ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... if firmly and calmly resisted, always abate something of their exorbitant insolence; he had no mind to be brought before a magistrate, and I suppose he saw I meant what I said. After an odd and long stare at me, at once bull-like and amazed, he seemed to bethink himself that, after ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... that the other had broken truce. An instance of these border difficulties occurred within a few months of the truce of December, 1497. A small party of Scots crossed the border, and appeared in the neighbourhood of Norham. They were challenged, and replied—with insolence or with proper spirit, according to the point of view. Thereupon they were attacked by superior numbers; some were slain; in the pursuit, damage was done on the north side of the border. The Scots King felt that he had been outraged, and was on the verge of breaking off all ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... said I, returning the crutch to where it was before. "Many thanks for thus permitting me to chastise the insolence of these black scoundrels, whom I take it for granted, you will immediately discharge;" and I again took my seat in the chair, bringing it ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... your ease here,' said Montesma, facing the two men with a diabolical recklessness and insolence of manner. 'Not one of these fellows on board knows a dozen ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... therefore, to have the power of removing any of the officers, whose business it is to examine and settle the public accounts, that so he may be enabled to obtain a proper and early settlement, and prevent the dangerous effects of inattention or corruption on one hand, or of delay, insolence, and tyranny to individuals concerned in such accounts, on the other. And on account of this power the Financier should have no accounts with the public himself, but wherever expenditures are necessary ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... megalomania He lost the sense of proportion, and was without respect for anybody or anything. The Commons of England and the immensely dignified Court of Spain—during that disgraceful, pseudo-romantic adventure at Madrid—were alike the butts of this parvenu's unmeasured arrogance But the crowning insolence of his career was that tragicomedy the second act of which was played on a June evening in an Amiens garden on the banks ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... him a moment before he answered. He was wondering why the very sight of Smaltz irritated him. He was the only man of the crew that he disliked thoroughly. His boastful speech, his swaggering walk, a veiled insolence in his eyes and manner made Bruce itch to send him up the hill for good, but since Smaltz was unquestionably the best all-round man he had, he would not allow himself to be influenced by his personal prejudices. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... age. As Lord Chamberlain, I know, you are absolute by your office in all that belongs to the decency and good manners of the stage. You can banish from thence scurrility and profaneness, and restrain the licentious insolence of poets and their actors in all things that shock the public quiet, or the reputation of private persons, under the notion of humour. But I mean not the authority which is annexed to your office, I speak of that only which is inborn and inherent to ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... man of science has said (Duclaux, L'Hygiene Sociale, p. 243), "have become things which the public uses when it wants them, and throws on the dungheap when it has made them vile. In its pharisaism it even has the insolence to treat their trade as shameful, as though it were not just as shameful to buy as to sell in this market." Bloch (Sexualleben unserer Zeit, Ch. XV) insists that prostitution must be ennobled, and that only so can it be even diminished. Isidore Dyer, of New Orleans, also argues that we cannot ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the King's favour unless he could clear up the matter, and by the event justify his indiscretion, he became for those two days the wonder, and almost the terror, of the Court. Ignorant of what he wanted, the courtiers found only insolence in his mysterious questions, and something prodigious in an activity which carried him in one day to Paris and back, and on the following to every place in the vicinity where news of the fleeting beauty might by any possibility be gained; so that he far outstripped my agents, ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... merely to compare this artificial manner with the poetic reaches of Brahms to understand the insolence of extreme Wagnerians and the indignation of a Hanslick. As against the pedantry of Bruckner the style of Strauss is almost welcome in its frank pursuit of effects which are at least grateful in themselves. Strauss makes hardly a pretence at having melodic ideas. They ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... by cable and telegraph almost immediately. It came as welcome news to us Americans who had been vainly endeavoring to justify to ourselves and others our country's lethargy in the face of Teuton insolence, and made us feel that once again we could acknowledge our nationality with the ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn marked this noble class. Of course there were exceptions, but the historians and satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity. The sole result of friendship ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... What her private character really was no one seemed to know, in spite of the special articles and interviews with her managers which fed the almost universal adulation of her dark and changeful face, her savage and sovereign beauty. There was insolence in her tread, and mad allurement in the rounded beauty of her powerful white arm—and at his weakest the young playwright admitted that all else concerning ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... perceived that the lady with the huge hat was the bird woman, the elderly gentleman he had never seen before, but the elderly gentleman had evidently often seen him, was most probably a near relative, to judge by the frigidity and insolence of his nod and general demeanour. This old person had the Army stamp about him, and a very decided chin ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... commendations, yet here is God on the one side, the Pharisee on the other, together with thine own heart, to give thee a check, to rebuke thee, to condemn thee, and to lay thee even to the ground for thy insolence. ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... petitioned the duke of Savoy against these missionaries, whose insolence and ill-usage were become intolerable; but instead of getting any redress, the interest of the missionaries so far prevailed, that the duke published a decree, in which he declared, that one witness should be sufficient in a court of law against a protestant, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... She hated Leslie's patronizing insolence more than she hated her open vituperation. She would have liked to say that she was amazed to learn that Leslie ever told the plain truth about anything. Prudence warned her to ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... occasional jerking of the other hand which held his hat. Paul was always smiling, always glancing about him, seeming to feel that people might be watching him and trying to detect something. This conscious expression, since it was as far as possible from boyish mirthfulness, was usually attributed to insolence or "smartness." ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... be not more to blame than the wretch that acts but after his kind! He does hot die of self-loathing! how then could he imagine the horror of disgust with which a glimpse of him such as he is would blast the soul of the woman?' Yet has he—what is it?—the virtue? the pride? or the cruel insolence?—to shrink with rudest abhorrence from one who is, in nature and history and ruin, his fitting and proper mate! To see only how a man will be content to be himself the thing which he scorns another for being, might well ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... fashion which we could not venture to assume toward Jupiter or Saturn. I repeat that we shall not wantonly offend any star; but at the same time we shall promptly resent any injury that may be done us, or any insolence offered us, by parties or governments residing in any star in the firmament. Although averse to the shedding of blood, we shall still hold this course rigidly and fearlessly, not only toward single stars, but toward constellations. We shall ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... slept in its filth. Four buzzards wheeled above it, gorged and slow; the harbour lay before him like a green mirror, so still that the ship was reflected in it down to the last rope-yarn. Over all, the sun, colourless and furnace-hot, burned in a sky of steel. There was insolence in the scorched slopes that shouldered up from the bay, a threatening permanence in the saw-edged sky-line. The indifference of it all, its rock-ribbed impenetrability to human influence, laid a crushing weight on Simpson's soul, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... charming insolence. "Meryl and I both have Norse blood in us. If you go far enough back we probably are Norse. But where would be the sense in our professing to love our country by talking her tongue, when it served every reasonable purpose in the world better ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... country, for it was his destiny to kill his father and become the husband of his mother. Knowing no country but Corinth, he pursues his way to Boeotia, and meets Laius in a chariot drawn by mules. A quarrel ensues from the insolence of attendants, and OEdipus kills Laius. The brother of Laius, Creon, succeeds to the throne of Thebes. The country around is vexed with a terrible monster, with the face of a woman, the wings of a bird, and the tail of a lion, called the Sphinx, who has learned from ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... lawyer would say, in analogy to a well-known term, "Coke upon Littleton,") produced an effect upon their minds which may be easily imagined. It was while their minds were under these two soothing influences, i. e. of the insolence of Huckaback and the vacillation of Frankpledge, that Mr. Gammon had penned the note to Titmouse, (surely, under the circumstances, one of extraordinary temper and forbearance,) which had occasioned him the agonies I have been attempting ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... everybody knew what he was doing; he's playing cricket most of his time," was my measured reply; and if it bore an extra touch of insolence, I can honestly ascribe that ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... negligent or inactive. Everything at that moment favoured his designs. He had nothing to apprehend from the German empire, which was then contending against the Turks on the Danube. Holland could not, unsupported venture to oppose him. He was therefore at liberty to indulge his ambition and insolence without restraint. He seized Strasburg, Courtray, Luxemburg. He exacted from the republic of Genoa the most humiliating submissions. The power of France at that time reached a higher point than it ever before or ever after attained, during the ten centuries which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the first rankling sting of humiliation and despair, he could almost have struck a murderous blow at the man whom fortune had set on such a pinnacle of pride and insolence, as it seemed to his galled fancy. He was not in the mood to be either just or generous, and he saw in Ralph Gowan nothing but a man who had both the power and will to rival him, and rob him of peace and hope forever. If Dolly had been with him, in all probability his wretchedness would ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... forgetting of your poor existence—or mine—is not aristocratic hauteur or patrician insolence; it is betise pure et simple, as they call it in France. She was a daughter of the house of Comtesbois, and the Fitztartans were not the inventors ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... circles of Versailles. Poor man, he was the least of the very least when I knew him first—a private in my corps. I made him keeper of the canteen. How can the son of such a one be more than a 'pea-soup.' What insolence and folly! He shall learn that this kind of rascality is not permitted by the nobles of ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... are paid. Take yourself off, without further insolence, or I will kick you to the ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... His eyes were bent, and from his brow eras'd All confidence, while thus with sighs he spake: "Who hath denied me these abodes of woe?" Then thus to me: "That I am anger'd, think No ground of terror: in this trial I Shall vanquish, use what arts they may within For hindrance. This their insolence, not new, Erewhile at gate less secret they display'd, Which still is without bolt; upon its arch Thou saw'st the deadly scroll: and even now On this side of its entrance, down the steep, Passing ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... I did see her, the brazen bellwether! And she saw me, and spoke to you in her insolence. And you must answer her, in spite of my presence, instead of shaking your fist and giving her a reproving frown. You want a ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... a second and a third and a fourth dress and she paced forward like the rising sun, and swayed to and fro in the insolence of beauty; and she was even as saith the poet of her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... Enemies of Christianity, they think themselves obliged to be in a state of perpetual Hostility with that people, and, for Centuries, have never so much as signed the preliminaries of a Peace with 'em. They have performed innumerable and astonishing exploits against their much-hated Enemies, the Insolence of whose Rovers they continue to Restrain and Chastise, except when the Rovers, as sometimes happens, get the better of 'em. They have Seven Galleys belonging to the Order, each of which carries Five Hundred Men, and as many Wretches in Fetters tugging away at the Oar, for Dear Life. Every ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... If I served you right I'd kick you out of the door and let you do your worst. I know if you sue that you can't recover one dollar from me. But I have my reasons for putting up with your insolence. I will pay you forty-five thousand dollars and not one cent more. The market value of 'The Witch' to-day I have made by my management. I have gone on improving the mine day by day. As it stands it is a new property. You were a quarter owner in 'The Biddy.' We capitalized 'The ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... beheld her. Then Achilles marvelled, and turned him about, and straightway knew Pallas Athene; and terribly shone her eyes. He spake to her winged words, and said: "Why now art thou come hither, thou daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus? Is it to behold the insolence of Agamemnon, son of Atreus. Yea, I will tell thee that I deem shall even be brought to pass: by his own haughtinesses shall ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... to eat, either?" It was with difficulty Patty concealed her rage at the man's insolence. "If you knew how hungry we are—we've been driving since daylight with only a cold lunch for food." She did not add that the cold lunch had been so unappetizing she had not ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... his words were as follows: "To me it seems best that no single one of us should henceforth be ruler, for that is neither pleasant nor profitable. Ye saw the insolent temper of Cambyses, to what lengths it went, and ye have had experience also of the insolence of the Magian: and how should the rule of one alone be a well-ordered thing, seeing that the monarch may do what he desires without rendering any account of his acts? Even the best of all men, if he were placed in this disposition, would be caused ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... had in mind not the vast majority of women, who in the United States as everywhere else on earth still fully participate in life, but the American Woman, that traditional figure compounded of timid ice and dainty insolence and habitually tricked out with a wealth which holds the world so far away that it cannot see how empty she really is. He has sought in his novels, by dissecting the pretty simulacrum, to show that it has little blood ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... forward with an ominous self-confidence bordering on insolence. There was a glow in his eye that made his former ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... had better take your wares to the back door. The servants may want to buy some," suggested Mildred, with more insolence than her family dreamed she was capable ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... less careful to turn his ear from every sort of music, besides that which is of the best manner and truest harmony. 'Twere to be wished we had the same regard to a right taste in life and manners.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} If civility and humanity be a taste; if brutality, insolence, riot, be in the same manner a taste, {HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} who would not endeavour to force nature as well in this respect as in what relates to a taste or judgment in other ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... offer a reward of L5,000 for the discovery. Allen, that wretched old steward had the insolence to tell me that I was the only man in the world who could have an interest in the death of his master; and he looked at me as if he thought that I had committed the crime. You are right; it becomes me, of all men, to be alert. The assassin must ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the men remained silent the insolence of their eyes answered him. Dutchy slung his saddle over his shoulder and stood while Joe picked up his belongings. And in those moments his eyes unflinchingly fixed his foreman, and a smile, an infuriating smile of contempt, slowly broke over his ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... and my armies shall sing them a song of the new majesty that Heaven has sent into the world. It has overtoppled the thrones of Naples and Spain; so it will that of Austria, if such be my desire! Austria must not persist in her insolence, and ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... he has accepted your advice and acted upon it, any further expression of advice from any of you or any future attempt of any legionaries to advise the Emperor will be regarded as an unbearable act of insolence and presumption and dealt with as such. Caesar commands you ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, '"—found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown. William's conduct at first was moderate. But the insolence of his Normans—" How are you getting on now, my dear?' it continued, turning to ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... said he; "curse Galissoniere's crooked neck—could he not have selected a more welcome messenger to send to Beaumanoir? But I have got his name in my list of debtors, and he shall pay up one day for his insolence at Louisbourg." ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... touches Lorna, I will stab him where he stands. She belongs to me. There are two other young damsels here, whom you may take away if you please. And the mother, I hear, is still comely. Now for our rights. We have borne too long the insolence of these yokels. Kill every man and every child, and burn this cursed ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... He was a Patriot.] is dead to Canada, or I'd give him a hint about this. I'd say, 'I hope none of our free and enlightened citizens will blow this lyin', swaggerin', bullyin' monument up? I should be sorry for 'em to take notice of such vulgar insolence as this; for bullies will brag.' He'd wink and say, 'I won't non-concur with you, Mr. Slick. I hope it won't be blowed up; but wishes like dreams come contrary ways sometimes, and I shouldn't much wonder if it bragged till it bust some night.' It would go for it, that's a fact. For ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... in ordinary circumstances might have refused this request with haughty insolence, responded to the summons rather sooner than McCoppet had expected. He was still red with anger, and meditating personal violence to Van ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... lungs, installed herself among the fresh water fish. And from that time the old mother, although she pretended to have retired from business altogether, would flit from one stall to the other, still interfering in the selling of the fish, and causing her daughters continual annoyance by the foul insolence with which she would at times speak ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... as becomes you," he almost shouted, with a sudden and incontrollable explosion of rage, while the blood mounted to his discolored visage. "Don't fancy, madame, that I am doting, or that you can manage me with your saucy coquetry or sulky insolence. I have a will of my own, madame, under which, by Heaven, I'll force yours to bend, were it fifty times as stubborn as ever woman's was yet. You shall obey—you shall submit. If you will not practise your duty cheerfully, you shall learn it in privation and tears; ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... Grace in tow, despaired of gaining entrance at the hands of the girls, came in unannounced, it was a sorry scene that greeted them. Fairy and the twins were only less sooty than Connie and the kitchen. The stove-pipe lay about them with that insufferable insolence known only to fallen stove-pipe. And Connie wept loudly, her tears making hideous trails upon her ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... obscured. What said the Moralist? "When thou wert a king Thy subjects were obedient, but whoever Proudly neglects the worship of his God, Brings desolation on his house and home." —And when he marked the insolence of his people, He knew the wrath of Heaven had been provoked, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... speaker. But these expressions were few, for, though tottering, Wolsey was yet too formidable to be insulted with impunity. On either side of him were two mounted attend ants, each caring a gilt poleaxe, who, if he had given the word, would have instantly chastised the insolence of the bystanders, while behind him rode his two cross-bearers upon homes ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: 'Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished ...
— Symposium • Plato
... better still, Basque; that compound, like the diamond, of darkness and fire. Hair, the shade of purple grapes viewed at midnight. Eyes, long, dusky, and disquieting with their untroubled directness of gaze. Face, haughty and bold, touched with a pretty insolence that gave it life. To hasten conviction of her charm, but glance at the stacks of handbills in the corner, green, and yellow, and white. Upon them you see an incompetent presentment of the senorita in her professional garb and ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... buckler with the stars of heaven, it may perchance be a prophet in conceit;[125] for if night shall settle on his eyes as he is dying, verily this vaunting device would correctly and justly answer to its name, and he himself will have the insolence ominous against himself. But against Tydeus will I marshal this wary son of Astacus, as defender of the portals, full nobly born, and one that reverences the throne of Modesty, and detests too haughty language, for he is wont to be slow at base acts, but no dastard. And from the ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... said Fakrash; "but I have conceived so bitter a hatred to thee by reason of thy insolence and treachery, that I cannot forego the delight of slaying thee with my ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... carousing festivals were sufficient to retard a man abandoned to his pleasures. He was followed by an unwieldy multitude, not less than sixty thousand men in arms, all corrupted by a life of debauchery. The number of retainers and followers of the army was still greater, all disposed to riot and insolence, even beyond the natural bent of ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... surrounded with all his former comforts in life. But awaking suddenly, and finding where he was, he was heard to burst into the loudest groans and lamentations on the miserable contrast of his present state; mixed with the meanest of his subjects; and subjected to the insolence of wretches a thousand times lower than himself in every kind of endowment. He appealed to the House, whether this was not as moving a picture of the miserable effects of the Slave Trade, as could be well imagined. There was one way, by which they ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... will do for you what he certainly wouldn't do for me, father. Daisy can go with you to the Embassy: I'll stay and look after Mrs. Dampier: she mustn't be left alone, exposed to the Poulains' insolence." ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... threatening those who are unwilling to learn, and finally, if spirited young men do not conduct themselves frugally, modestly, and respectably, they compel them to do so. Force and harsh measures are used even to youths who have grown up and are their own masters, if they, either from fear or from insolence, refuse to take what is good for them. Thus the greatest benefits that we receive, we receive either without knowing it, or against our will, ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... this insolence as he considered it, took a cup and threw it at the Caliph, who easily avoided a missile from the hand of a drunken man. It hit against the wall, and broke into a thousand pieces. Scheih Ibrahim, still more enraged, then went out to fetch a stick. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... passion and insolence to his displeasure; and the father irritated, again reproved her, commanding her to be silent, and to go up to her chamber. She obeyed him so far as to leave the apartment, taking no heed of Caliste, but muttering out her discontent at ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... rustic dress did not stifle the vanity of the sex; and this rude and humble gallantry, in that spot, was another moral in the history of human passions. Above, the ramparts of a modern rule frowned down upon the solitary tower, as if in the vain insolence with which present power looks upon past decay,—the living race upon ancestral greatness. And indeed, in this respect, rightly! for modern times have no parallel to that degradation of human dignity stamped upon the ancient world by the long sway of the Imperial Harlot, all slavery ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bewitching poems; Harriet stays at home and lives as best she can on her pittance until the time comes for her despairing plunge into the Serpentine. It is true that the poet invited the poor creature to come and stay with him; but what a piece of unparalleled insolence toward a wronged lady! The admirers of the rhymer say, "Ah, but Harriet's society was not congenial to the poet." Congenial! How many brave men make their bargain in youth and stand to it gallantly unto the end? A simple soul ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... of Odysseus muttered sullenly within him, in wrath at the insolence of the man. But he constrained himself and smiled, ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... endure the insolence of a subordinate toward the great Chieftain, whom he loved with a boy's blind devotion, ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... thou?" said the King, contracting his brows, and speaking in a tone of angry surprise. "Thou countenance his insolence? It ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... house, Maud—first, because his perfectly unconscious insolence tries my patience nearly beyond endurance; and again, because I have heard unfavourable reports of him. On the question of right which he disputes, I am perfectly informed. I am your tenant, my dear niece; when I am ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... you might gather my roses? Was it not enough that I allowed you to be in my palace and was kind to you? This is the way you show your gratitude, by stealing my flowers! But your insolence shall not go unpunished." The merchant, terrified by these furious words, dropped the fatal rose, and, throwing himself on his knees, cried: "Pardon me, noble sir. I am truly grateful to you for your hospitality, ...
— Beauty and the Beast • Anonymous
... Cleonice, a daughter of one of the first families of Byzantium, was tormented night and day by the ghost of that maiden, who left him no repose, repeating to him angrily a heroic verse, the sense of which was, Go before the tribunal of justice, which punishes crime and awaits thee. Insolence is in the end ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... causes, no longer gained a livelihood. They believed that this was the fault of the republic which they had at first adored and from which each day they were now becoming more detached. The financiers, both Christians and Jews, became by their insolence and their cupidity the scourge of the country, which they plundered and degraded, as well as the scandal of a government which they never troubled either to destroy or preserve, so confident were they that they could operate without hindrance under all governments. Nevertheless, ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... He is to be for recognizing war and taking hold of the situation in such a fashion as will eventually lead to an Allies' victory over Germany. But he goes unwillingly. The Cabinet is at last a unit. We can stand Germany's insolence and murderous policy no longer. Burleson, Gregory, Daniels, and Wilson were the last to ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... comes forward to brave their cries and to make them submit to the last indignities, from mere pride and self-will, our admiration of his prowess is immediately converted into contempt for their pusillanimity. The insolence of power is stronger than the plea of necessity. The tame submission to usurped authority or even the natural resistance to it has nothing to excite or flatter the imagination: it is the assumption of a right to insult or oppress others that carries an imposing ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... Administration, right or wrong, and he waged merciless warfare against those who opposed them. When Colonel William R. King, of Alabama, once begged him to soften an attack upon an erring Democrat, Mr. Blair replied, "No! let it tear his heart out." With all his political insolence, however, he possessed remarkable kindness, and a more indulgent father was never ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... just to Mirth. Let us be thankful that we have in Wit a power before which the pride of wealth and the insolence of office are abased; which can transfix bigotry and tyranny with arrows of lightning; which can strike its object over thousands of miles of space, across thousands of years of time; and which, through its sway over an universal weakness of man, is an ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Etruria. Here he was joined by great numbers of fugitive slaves, and by fresh accessions of barbarians from beyond the Alps. The Gallic king now demanded for his followers lands of Honorius, but the emperor treated all the proposals of the barbarian with foolish insolence. Rome paid the penalty. Alaric turned upon the devoted city, determined upon its sack and plunder. The barbarians broke into the capital by night, "and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet." Precisely eight hundred years had passed since its sack ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... black native fire, Imperiously triumphant: nostrils wide Waited their incense; while the pursed mouth's pout Aggressive, while the beak supreme above, While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back, Beard whitening under like a vinous foam, These made a glory, of such insolence— I thought,—such domineering deity Hephaistos might have carved to cut the brine For his gay brother's prow, imbrue that path Which, purpling, recognized the conqueror. Impudent and majestic: drunk, perhaps, But that's religion; ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... this time, excited attention by a pamphlet, called the Supper of Beaucaire, in which the politics of the Jacobin party were spiritedly supported; and of which he was afterwards so ashamed, that he took great pains to suppress it. However this may have been, he was received almost with insolence by Cartaux, who, strutting about in an uniform covered with gold lace, told him his assistance was not wanted, but he was welcome to ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... increase of insulting aggravation, was conveyed to the divine; who was so exasperated by this audacious act of insolence and gratuitous rebellion, that he went down on his knees, and took a solemn oath never to ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... begun to mourn for him with a grief equal to that which she endured for Ulysses: the goddess herself having so ordered the course of his adventures, that the time of his return should correspond with the return of Ulysses, that they might together concert measures how to repress the power and insolence of those wicked suitors. This the goddess told him; but of the particulars of his son's adventures, of his having been detained in the Delightful Island, which his father had so lately left, of Calypso, and her nymphs, and the many strange occurrences which may ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... vision occupies my thoughts,—it is a suggestion of beauty and deliciousness in a particularly ugly and irksome world,—but to ask such a dainty creature as Sylvie to be my housekeeeper, and make up the tradesmen's books, I could not,—it would be sheer insolence on my part,—it would be like asking an angel just out of heaven to cut off her wings and go ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... which his cousin, in all the insolence of her young beauty and vigorous self-esteem, had shown for him had been mutual. He had instinctively felt that she was an enemy, and more than that—a danger to him. This danger was now removed from his path, and by no intervention or even desire ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... ties, and in giving he had the lavish hand of a parvenu. The recipients were never content, hoarding their fees, and becoming opulent, pursuing all the time each his personal ambitions, and ofttimes returning insolence for favors. To meet these enormous expenditures there had been inaugurated throughout Europe a system of what may be termed private confiscations, the vast dimensions of which can never be justly estimated. German princes and Spanish grandees, English merchants and the Italian clergy, had all been ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... administration and wise legislation, our country might have long continued to tolerate a government of fair intentions and feeble abilities. Unhappily, the treaty of Amiens had scarcely been signed, when the restless ambition and the insupportable insolence of the First Consul convinced the great body of the English people that the peace, so eagerly welcomed, was only a precarious armistice. As it became clearer and clearer that a war for the dignity, the independence, the very existence of the nation was at hand, men looked with ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... so sure! Because though I was wrought upon, have struck His insolence back into him—am I So ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... displeasure, compromised with it; Nicholson sought its support in his memorable struggle with the Virginia aristocracy. In the 18th century through the House of Burgesses its influence slowly but steadily advanced. Governor Spotswood had once to beg the pardon of the Burgesses for the insolence of the members of the Council in wearing their hats in the presence of a committee of the House.[73] Governor Dinwiddie expressed his surprise, when the mace bearer one day entered the supreme court, and demanded that ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... attached to a pleasant traveling companion only to lose him. They have that most dismal experience of being in a strange vessel, among strange people who care nothing about them, and of undergoing the customary bullying by strange officers and the insolence of strange servants, repeated over and over again within the compass of every month. They have also that other misery of packing and unpacking trunks—of running the distressing gauntlet of custom-houses—of the anxieties attendant upon getting a mass of baggage ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... smell, and taste. All feelings of this kind are a sort of melting pleasure that dissolves the mind. Boastfulness is a pleasure that consists in making an appearance, and setting off yourself with insolence.—The subordinate species of lust they define in this manner. Anger is a lust of punishing any one who, as we imagine, has injured us without cause. Heat is anger just forming and beginning to exist, which ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... operations of general Amherst, whose separate army was first in motion, though such impediments were thrown in his way as greatly retarded the progress of his operations; impediments said to have arisen from the pride, insolence, and obstinacy of certain individuals, who possessed great influence in that part of the world, and employed it all to thwart the service of their country. The summer was already far advanced before general Amherst could pass lake George with his forces, although they ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the insolence of these English! What do you suppose Milord Wellington had done when he found that Massena had blockaded him and that he could not move his army? I might give you many guesses. You might say that he had raged, that he had ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been delivered late, too, and when Helen had called up the shop to protest she had been met with cool insolence. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... years ago, for the studied rhetoric which served our great-grandfathers in their ambitious pursuit of notoriety has given place to the arts of audacity, innovation, and the sublime courage of youthful insolence, which have occasionally worked wonders in our ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Russia's naval prestige, fell upon Admiral Makaroff. At about the same time, General Kuropatkin, the former Minister of War, was charged with punishing Japan for her insolence. His departure for the Far East was theatrical. After many genuflexions before sacred eikons, he promised to restore Russia's (p. 280) prestige by dictating terms ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... ridicule with which they pass by or allude to our claims—great God! it is too much for endurance and patience. Daily I pray for a tongue of flame and inspired lips to awaken the sleeping, arouse the careless, shake to trembling and overthrow the insolence of opposition.... After men and women have alike borne the burden and heat of battle, to mark the absolute silence with which these men regard the rights of half the race, while they squabble and wrangle, debate and contend, for exact justice to the poorest and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... of Arabs on horseback assailed our headquarters. Bonaparte, who was at the window of the sheik's house, indignant at this insolence, turned to one of his aides de camp, who happened to be on duty, and said, "Croisier, take a few guides and drive those fellows away!" In an instant Croisier was in the plain with fifteen guides. A little skirmish ensued, and we looked on from the window. In the movement ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... not?" queried Clifford dryly. The insolence which he could not keep out of his voice whenever he addressed Drayton crept into it now. "You see, sir, my sister hath cooked this meal, and I was wishing for other victims than Cousin ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... inextricable confusion. There could not have been less than fifteen hundred people congregated in that street—all, or nearly all, emancipated slaves. Yet, amidst all the excitements and competitions of trade, their conduct toward each other was polite and kind. Not a word, or look, or gesture of insolence or indecency did we observe. Smiling countenances and friendly voices greeted us on every side, and we felt no fears either of having our pockets picked ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... concessions are very gratifying to us; but how will they be received by the children of the Tabernacle? It is quite clear, indeed, throughout the whole of the work, that an apologetical explanation of certain religious opinions is intended; and there is a considerable abatement of that tone of insolence with which the improved Christians are apt to treat the bungling specimens of piety to be met with in ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... always the best time to strike. Leaping from his horse, he advanced bowing, and stood in the pathway of the King. Seeing this, two of the fine Court lords spurred their horses and rode straight at him, thinking to drive him back. But he held his ground, for their insolence made him angry, and, catching the bridle of one of the horses, threw it on its haunches so sharply that the knight who rode it rolled from his saddle into the mire, whereupon every one laughed. In a moment he was on his feet again, ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... strengthen the defences of my soul. For I have built an impregnable citadel whence, if only I am true to myself, I can repel assaults from the four quarters of heaven. Who shall console one lifted above the range of grief, whom neither privation nor insolence can annoy? for he has peace as an inalienable possession, and by no earthly tyranny shall be perturbed. Bearing serenely all natural impediments to action, trespassing beyond no eternal landmark, by no foolishness ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... his lieutenant. It is impossible after this to doubt of his approbation of the attempt; but, when the news arrived of the action at Corbiesdale, his eyes were opened to the danger which threatened him; the estates, in the insolence of victory, might pass an act to exclude him at once from the succession to the Scottish throne. Acting, therefore, after the unworthy precedent set by his father respecting the powers given to Glamorgan, he wrote[c] to the parliament, protesting that the invasion made by Montrose ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... show and convince you, Athenians, that nothing, if you take precaution, is to be feared, nothing, if you are negligent, goes as you desire. Take for examples the strength of the Lacedaemonians then, which you overcame by attention to your duties, and the insolence of this man now, by which through neglect of our interests we are confounded. But if any among you, Athenians, deem Philip hard to be conquered, looking at the magnitude of his existing power, and the ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... surprised me sleeping, and carried me to his own house, and wished me to marry him. When he saw that fair means would not prevail upon me, he attempted to make use of force; but I soon made him repent of his insolence. So at last he resolved to sell me; which he did to that very merchant who brought me hither and sold me to your majesty. This man was a very prudent, courteous, humane person, and during the whole of the long journey, never gave me the ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... she do so would she of necessity come back with her prize to our island, or would she sail away, and, perhaps ignorant of our existence, leave us to our fate? One thing was evident, that we ought to guard ourselves against the insolence of the French garrison. The men were evidently the scum of society, and should they find themselves without restraint, it was impossible to say what atrocities they might not commit. Anxious as we were to know the result of the chase, we agreed at once to go back to our friends to ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... shoulder with patronizing insolence. He filled a pipe and, though the car was making twenty-five, he lighted the pipe with distinguished ease, then settled down to ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... He started up in swift indignation. Had he not taught the child? Had he not brought her up in an atmosphere of faith? What right had she to turn upon him in this matter? It was—indeed it was—a sort of insolence, a ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... imminent danger of being murdered. Krises were actually unsheathed by several of the Sultan's own suite in the Audience Hall where Mr. Raffles received that Prince, who was accompanied by several thousands of armed followers expressing in their behaviour such an infuriated spirit of insolence as openly to indicate that they only waited for the signal to perpetrate the work of destruction, in which case not a man of our brave soldiers, from the manner in which they were ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... roturiers. They feel towards the noblesse the hatred which has accumulated during twelve centuries of past oppression and the resentment excited by present insolence. Of all the noble families of France the most noble is that of Bourbon. The head of that house has always called himself le premier gentilhomme de France. The Bourbons therefore suffer, and in an exaggerated degree, the odium which weighs down the caste to which they belong. ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... quickly, as though he would have been well enough pleased to begin the bone-breaking business at once. Theobald turned of an ashen colour—not, as he explained afterwards, at the idle threats of a detected and angry ruffian, but at such atrocious insolence from ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... too, in all the insolence of beauty, defying criticism, and challenging the admiration that was lavished on her. I should like to describe her dress; but I know how dangerous it is for the uninitiate to venture within the verge of those awful mysteries over which, as hierophants, Devy and Maradon-Carson preside. Conscious ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... time under the leadership of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. The special points of difference were the king's preference for foreign adventurers in his distribution of offices, his unrestrained munificence to them, their insolence and oppression relying on the king's support, the financial demands which were constantly being made, and the king's encouragement of the high claims and pecuniary exactions of the Pope. At first these conflicts took the form of disputes ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... next Saturday! drive on, boy. The ingratitude and insolence of those common people are disgraceful to human nature," muttered Richard, with an ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... repeated, as, despite my remonstrances, and these of the officers who rushed into the tent, he sprang from the couch, and, with the rapidity of light, assumed his long-neglected armor. 'The traitorous villain! would he beard me to my teeth? By the heaven above us, he shall rue this insolence! Bring me my charger. Beaten off, say ye? I doubt it not, my gallant friends; but it is now the Bruce's turn, his kindred traitors are not far off, and we would try their mettle now. Nay, restrain me not, these folk will work a cure for me—there, I am a man again!' ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... When I think of the blessings that have been showered on you, and contrast them with the poverty! the humiliations! the anxieties! the heartbreak! the insolence and tyranny that were the daily lot of mankind when I was learning to suffer instead of learning to live! when I see how lightly you take it all! how you quarrel over the crumpled leaves in your beds of roses! how you are so dainty about your work that unless it is ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... humiliating and blasting the adventurers from those States that, without cohesion and without a history, offer to humanity only infamous traditions and the sorry spectacle of Chambers in which appear united insolence and defamation, cowardice ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... become fruitful in the Church of God, leave them alone, and keep them in the estate into which God has called them. I pray you, father, do not so act that their poverty shall become a motive for pride, nor elevate them to prelatures which would move them to insolence toward others."[14] ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... simple dulness as the object of mirth or compassion, according to the nature of its appearance. Petulance and self-conceit they have corrected with more severe strictures; and though they have given no quarter to insolence, scurrility and sedition, they will venture to affirm, that no production of merit has been defrauded of its due share of applause. On the contrary, they have cherished with commendation, the very faintest bloom of genius, even when vapid and unformed, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... important information about the affair, and he was summoned to appear before the Committee during the second week in February. He obeyed the summons, so far as presenting an appearance was concerned, but he refused to reply to certain questions put to him, and conducted himself with great insolence and want of discretion. Being again summoned before the Committee, to answer for his conduct, he read a written defence which had been prepared for him, and which rather aggravated his offence than otherwise. Accordingly, on motion of Dr. Baldwin, seconded by George Rolph, the future ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... vices without distinction. Strictly speaking, we call those persons timid who are alarmed even at unmeaning noises. A fool possesses all vices, but he is not equally inclined by nature to all; one is prone to avarice, another to luxury, and another to insolence. Those persons, therefore, are mistaken, who ask the Stoics, "What do you say, then? is Achilles timid? Aristides, who received a name for justice, is he unjust? Fabius, who 'by delays retrieved the day,' is he rash? Does Decius fear death? Is Mucius ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... the Kashefs, who were descendants of the commander of the Bosniacs, and paid only a small annual tribute to Egypt, which, however, was sufficient to serve as a pretext for oppressing the unfortunate fellaheen. Burckhardt cites a curious example of the insolence ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... be frightened. Her quick temper rose at the man's insolence, and she exclaimed authoritatively, "Let go of my bridle this instant, and get out of ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... back from the brushwood screen. He was filled with the sort of sick rage that comes when you can't actively resent insolence and arrogance. He hated the people who wanted the world to collapse, and this was part of their effort ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... a touch of insolence in his voice. "So your master may find, one of these fine days." Being mindful of the Duke's honour, I told the man to mind his own business, which he said he meant to do, without asking my opinion. After that we rode on together a little heated, till we ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... time I sent for the black prince to assist me in shipping the slaves, and to receive the head-money which was his export duty on my cargo. The answer to my message was an illustration of the character and insolence of the ragamuffins with whom I had to deal. "The prince," returned my messenger, "don't like your sauciness, Don Teodore, and won't come till you beg his pardon ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... a detail. He was certain that he had never seen the man before, yet he knew at once that the trim, wiry figure, so clean of build and so gallant of bearing, could belong only to Wolf Leroy, the most ruthless outlaw of the Southwest. It was written in his jaunty insolence, in the flashing eyes. He was a handsome fellow, white-toothed, black-haired, lithely tigerish, with masterful mouth and eyes of steel, so far as one might judge behind the white mask he wore. Alert, cruel, fearless from the head to the heel of him, he looked the very devil ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... to the devil," said the King. "Confound him and his insolence. I'll have him in the prison too, if he interferes. Or Erhaupt can pick a quarrel with him here and fight it out behind the sand-hills before the others get back from their picnic. He has done as much ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... piece of insolence! How should I know, forsooth, what a menial like you has got against me! There are people in this house—oh! I'm not blind to their ways!—but every one for himself, say I! Pray, Miss judgement, who gave you such an impertinent ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... staircase ill sufficed for the number that waited the cautious descent or the laborious ascent of others.' But, of course, this state of things did not last very long. Mr. Sherwin, by his indolence—and indolence in his situation was a sort of insolence—soon put himself out of fashion. Fortune showered her gifts at his feet, but he was too superb a gentleman to stoop and pick them up; so the goddess, wearying of conferring favours that were so ill-appreciated, turned away from him in quest of more reverential ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... do more, she thought, as she hurried along the path, although she was unreasonably anxious not to have the young stone mason leave, more anxious than she had been that morning to have him discharged for his insolence to her. When she was about to enter the wood, she turned and looked back at the shack. She hoped that he was not going to start on a spree. The mason, who had been sitting on the step where she had left him, rose as if ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... would never spend the night in the house without them. Soon afterward the steward entered, and I very calmly and politely asked for the door keys of the two rooms, saying that I would spend the night with Jennie. With cool insolence he replied that he would ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... Bastinado once a week for three months, and a couple of years or so in Irons. The Chaplain pleaded for me as well as for my Master as hard as he could; and his Excellency frowned and said, that the Diversions of a Gentleman might run a little wild sometimes and no harm done, but that the Insolence of Servants (which was a growing evil) must be restrained. "At all events, I'll see what I can do," he condescended to explain. "Come what may, the Fellow can't fare very badly for a sound Beating, and perhaps they will let him off when he ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala |
