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Audacity   Listen
noun
Audacity  n.  
1.
Daring spirit, resolution, or confidence; venturesomeness. "The freedom and audacity necessary in the commerce of men."
2.
Reckless daring; presumptuous impudence; implying a contempt of law or moral restraints. "With the most arrogant audacity."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Audacity" Quotes from Famous Books



... man to pass through their ranks—a slight, tall, rather handsome fellow, with a pale face and cold, sneering eyes. He was dressed with fastidious care and neatness in the uniform of the Bersagliere—and he elbowed his way along with the easy audacity of a privileged dandy. He came close up to the brigand and spoke carelessly, with a slightly mocking smile playing round the corners ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... taken for granted that England would do something more than scold about the audacity of the American navy. Even after the declaration of war her most influential men hoped that the repeal of the obnoxious Orders-in-Council might yet avert a solution of the American problem by means of the sword. There was hesitation to apply the utmost military and naval pressure, and ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... hourly more formidable, and that thus his schemes were succeeding—or impelled onwards by those whom he had roused into action, but could no longer restrain—his movements became daily characterized by more astounding audacity—more vivid the glare of sedition, and even treason, which surrounded them: still the Government interfered not. Their apparent inaction most wondered, very many murmured, some were alarmed, and Mr O'Connell ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... of the throng was a youth whose slender figure and beautiful countenance seemed hardly consistent with his sex. But the feminine delicacy of his features rendered more frightful the mingled sensuality and ferocity of their expression. The libertine audacity of his stare, and the grotesque foppery of his apparel, seemed to indicate at least a partial insanity. Flinging one arm round Zoe, and tearing away her veil with the other, he disclosed to the gaze of his thronging companions the regular features and large ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... nearer we approach to the sun, the more we become familiar with vices of every kind. In the South of France, and Italy, sins of the blackest dye, and many of the most unnatural kind, are not only committed with impunity, but boasted of with audacity; and, as one proof of the corruption of the people, of a thousand I could tell you, I must tell you, that seeing at Lyons a shop in which a great variety of pictures were hung for sale, I walked in, and after examining them, and asking a ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... the audacity of a player dedicating to an Earl, without even saying that he has asked leave to dedicate. The mere fact that the dedication was accepted, and followed by that of Lucrece, proves that the Earl did not share ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... dramatized, it would be as little likely to be presented in Ireland as "The Tinker's Wedding." Mr. Moore, for all that he was born a Catholic, would not hesitate any more than did the son of the Protestant minister to put a priest into a realistic modern play, and that, of course, would be a mild audacity for Mr. Moore now that he has published the scenario of "The Apostle" (1911). His Paul, in "The Apostle," a "thick-set man, of rugged appearance, hairy in the face and with a belly," is wonderfully alive, and his Jesus is a distinct and realizable personality, if not the Jesus of Christian ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... beholding the audacity of his designs, and the miracle of their execution. Skepticism bowed to the prodigies of his performance; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... him, hands behind her, with an audacity which challenged—her whole being was always a delicate and perpetual challenge. There are such women. Over her golden-brown head the late summer sunlight fell, outlining her full, supple figure and bared ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... had hitherto escaped the greatest violence of the shocks. Various rumors among the most ignorant part of the population, however, still kept up the general excitement. A certain astronomer or professor of the occult sciences, a Dr. Briceno by name, had even the audacity to circulate a paper throughout the city, headed by the ominous title, "Vigilemos!" (Let us watch!). He prophesied that on the 17th of April, at twenty-nine minutes past one, there would certainly occur a great cataclismo, connecting the movements of the moon with the occurrence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... up, but at present in confusion and disorder, coming rather to see what was the matter than to fight, and hardly believing that the Saxons could have had the audacity to attack them. In an instant the Saxons fell into their usual formation, and overturning and cutting down those who happened to be in their path, burst through the straggling Danes, and at a trot ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... youth, even at the time when he was the meteoric, dazzling figure flaunting over all the baldpates of the universe the standard of the musical future, it was apparent that there were serious flaws in his spirit. Despite the audacity with which he realized his amazing and poignant and ironic visions, despite his youthful fire and exuberance—and it was as something of a golden youth of music that Strauss burst upon the world—one sensed in him the not quite beautifully deepened man, heard at moments ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... ill-treated and robbed several times to satisfy the rapacity of this wicked monster; and then, as if frightened at his own expressions, he peered cautiously round the tent, apparently fancying the Meer himself would start from behind the screen to punish him for his audacity. I returned him his 250 rupees, but told him if his story were true I would use what little influence I possessed to procure his release. When Baber Beg came to pay us his evening visit I broached ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... fat with brave audacity, but lean in the matter of discretion; so Pete leaned down with one last friendly ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple

... should have expected depravati, pars being only another form for alii. But nothing can be said against the grammatical agreement pars depravata, it being that form which, according to grammar, should be used. [115] Scaurus dreaded the stained audacity of those who accepted bribes from Jugurtha without any scruple or shame, and would have liked to stir up against them the hatred and envy of others. Licentia is the conduct of a man who thinks he is allowed to do anything, and accordingly here signifies ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)

... a wonderful old woman," the lawyer answered, quite involuntarily and with such instant alarm at his audacity ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... and swallowed something in his throat. Put into words, his audacity frightened him. "That's so, sir," he ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... none too 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 ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... fate, when it seemed that nothing could save Moses from a conflict with the mass of his followers, who had renounced him, Moses showed that audacity and fertility of resource, which had hitherto enabled him, and was destined until his death to enable him, to maintain his position, at least as a prophet, among the ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... point may be noted. Aeschylus always has a taste for the unseen and the supernatural; and one effective incident here is the raising of Darius's ghost, and his prophecy of the disastrous battle of Plataea. But in the ghost's revelations there is a mixture of audacity and naivete, characteristic at once of the poet and the early youth of the drama. The dead Darius prophesies Plataea, but has not heard of Salamis; he gives a brief (and inaccurate) list of the Persian kings, which the queen and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... glittering panoply of enormous uncut jewels, which had been presented to her by the reigning Princes of her Raj. At the end of the meal the Prime Minister, breaking through the rules of etiquette, arose, and in a flowery oration proposed the health of the Queen-Empress. His audacity was well received, and his speech was ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... For sheer audacity, there is not much that can be compared with his address to the officers of the Atlantic Fleet on ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... a clerk who played the man of courage and audacity, professed the opinions of the Left centre, and rebelled against the tyrannies of Baudoyer as exercised upon what he called the unhappy slaves of that office. His name was Fleury. He boldly subscribed to an opposition newspaper, wore a gray hat with a broad ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... was bought back by Mr. Sander, who wanted it for hybridizing, at 250 guineas—not a bad profit for the buyer, who has still two plants left. Another instance occurs to me while I write—such legends of shrewdness worthily rewarded fascinate a poor journalist who has the audacity to grow orchids. Mr. Harvey, solicitor, of Liverpool, strolling through the houses at St. Albans on July 24, 1883, remarked a plant of Loelia anceps, which had the ring-mark on its pseudo-bulb much higher up than is usual. There might be some meaning ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle

... present, and he resembled more closely the type of man with which she had been familiar all her life. The spirit of antagonism which he aroused was due rather to pique than to dislike, for in spite of his audacity she could not ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... in this story than to present a character of limitless audacity. He has impressed again one of his favorite teachings. There is, he holds, a barrier between East and West that can never be crossed. The West can go so far with the East but no farther. Brave men of the West may conquer the East and rule it, but to take liberties with it is to uncover ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... proclaimed his intention of taking steps—not according, but in opposition, to the law—in order to obtain his due. Montrond knew himself to be a wretched swordsman, and therefore resolved at once to replace his want of skill by audacity. He sent his servant to the stable where four-and-twenty goodly steeds belonging to the Count de Champagne were champing their oats in all security, with orders to carry them off and leave in lieu of the magnificent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... given me incredible self-confidence and audacity. I can dare all things now. I came back to Blois in deep dejection. Five years of study in the heart of Paris had made me look on the world as a prison. I had conceived of vast schemes, and dared ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac

... audible remark. The cause was decided almost by acclamation. The jury retired for form's sake, and instantly returned with a verdict for the defendant. Nor did the effect of Mr. Henry's speech stop here. The people were so highly excited by the tory audacity of such a suit, that Hook began to hear around him a cry more terrible than that of beef; it was the cry of tar and feathers: from the application of which, it is said, that nothing saved him but a precipitate flight and the speed ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... by saying that her mother was a very old acquaintance of mine. She spoke of the agreeable audacity which a mask rendered practicable; she talked like a friend; she admired her dress, and insinuated very prettily her admiration of her beauty. She amused her with laughing criticisms upon the people who crowded the ballroom, and laughed at my poor child's fun. She was very ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... off, some of Johnson's fugitives had the audacity to bawl out, though from a very prudent distance, threatening us that they would yet rescue the prisoners before we got to the bluff. But they wisely took care not to make good their word, for they were only a pack of ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... Spain. The magnetic needle began to vary its direction. This being the first time that this phenomenon was ever noticed, it was viewed by the sailors with astonishment; they thought it an indication that nature itself had changed its laws, and that Providence was about to punish their audacity in venturing so far beyond the bounds of man. They declared that the commands of the government had been fully obeyed in their proceeding so many days in the same course, and so far surpassing all former ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... his innocent victims; when he fixed his gaze of concentrated power upon him, the strong man's face relaxed; his eyes faltered and fell; until, at length, unable to bear up under self-conviction, he hid his head beneath the bar, and exhibited a picture of ruffianly audacity cowed beneath the spell of true ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... is, we will take good care that he has no opportunity of exhibiting his audacity," said Miss Pemberton; "and I beg that you will charge your son to take no further notice of the affair. If your husband could see the young man and warn him of the consequences of his conduct, he might induce him to behave ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... which no volitions, natural or supernatural, interfere. These being the three stages, the discovery of which as a series necessarily passed through by human thought in its progress towards maturity, constitutes one of Comte's chief glories, I almost tremble at my own audacity, shrinking from the sound myself am making, when by inexorable sense of duty constrained to declare that the grand discovery is after all merely that of a ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... the dressing of a wound was a cautious and delicate process. But it isn't. There is a certain casual audacity about it. The Commandant's hands worked rapidly as he rammed cyanide gauze into the red pit. It looked as if he were stuffing an old crate with straw. And it was all over in a moment. There seemed something indecent in the haste with which my ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair

... these things which were done by Stephen be passed by for the present, lest, while we remember his audacity and pride, we bring a more lasting sadness on ourselves from the things ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... risky," said Marcus Wilkeson, who could not help admiring the audacity of the plan. "Your next great difficulty will be to satisfy audiences after you have got them together, as I dare say you will, by some brilliant system of advertising. I have heard—perhaps you have—of audiences breaking furniture, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... dishes together?—why, bless me, twenty different sorts of seasoning at one swoop! (14) First of all he mixes up actually more ingredients than the cook himself prescribes, which is extravagant; and secondly, he has the audacity to commingle what the chef holds incongruous, whereby if the cooks are right in their method he is wrong in his, and consequently the destroyer of their art. Now is it not ridiculous first to procure the greatest virtuosi to cook for us, and then without any claim ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... be on the road to fortune, and can retire with a competence before you are middle-aged. A little skill with the scissors and needle, lots of courage and audacity, and original methods will make a woman succeed in this line ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... malaperts of birddom none excel and few equal the white-eyed vireo for volubility and downright audacity. All his songs—and he has quite a respectable list of them—seem to be either a protest or a challenge; a protest against your intrusion into his precincts, a challenge to find him and his nest if you can. Again and again in Kansas I crept into their bushy coverts just for the purpose ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... he first saw Hale, for he had marked Hale for his own and he knew that the fact was known to Hale. Had the battle begun then and there, Hale's death was sure, and Dave knew that Hale must know that as well as he: and yet with magnificent audacity, there he was—unarmed, personally helpless, and invested with an insulting certainty that not a shot would be fired. Not a Falin or a Tolliver even reached for a weapon, and the fact was the subtle tribute that ignorance pays intelligence when the latter is forced to deadly weapons as a last resort; ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... the truth rather than the audacity of his assertion, she looked down, pondering intently a little space; then, not considering what the admission involved, she said in a choked voice, "You ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... so," acknowledged Aunt Barbara, smiling at Betty's audacity. "But your Aunt Mary has suffered many things, and has lost her motive power. She cannot rouse herself when she wishes to, nowadays, but must take life as it comes. I can see that it was a mistake to yield years ago ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett

... rode back to the township before the moon went down. He was very heavy with his own reflections. How magnificent! It had all surpassed his most extravagant imaginings—in audacity, in expedition, in simple mastery of the mutable many by the dominant one. He forgave Stingaree his gibes and insults; he could have forgiven a horse-whipping from that king of men. Stingaree had been his imaginary god before; he was a realized ideal from this night forth, and ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... that he had not the audacity to make the proposal to Meta, though he was only too grateful; so his father carried it to the humming-bird; and, as soon as she found that it was not improper, nor would hurt any one's feelings, she gave ready consent—only begging that it might be as best suited every one, especially Flora; and ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... flickering light. The Count entered the chapel. Those who had seen him amid the brilliant society of Naples, or amid the awful judicial ordeal to which he had just been subjected, and which he had undergone with such coolness and audacity, would not have recognized the humble and trembling man, who knelt before a sarcophagus of black marble surmounted with the coronet and arms of the Monte-Leoni. The Count knelt at the tomb of his father—his father, who was his religion ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... goodness. I shall go where my lode-star leads," answered Denzil, looking at Angela, and blushing at the audacity ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... great big place for a country-house, Mr. Dolph," said Ezra Weeks, as he looked over Jacob Dolph's shoulder at the drawings of the house, and shook his head with a sort of pitying admiration for the projector's audacity. ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner

... an exclamation for mercy burst from his lips; but when, recovering the mere shock of his dastard nerves, he perceived it was not the gripe of some hireling of the law, but a father's hand that had clutched his arm, the vile audacity which knows fear only from a bodily cause, none from the awe of ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... shop, both of you, or I will hand you over to the police! You stole the watch, and have the audacity to bring it into the shop of an honest man. I ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic

... departure, asked the young man if he thought she might regain admittance to the works, and declared that in any case she should go there to see if the master would have the audacity to turn her away. Thus she continued while the minutes went slowly by. The conversation had dropped, Mathieu scarcely replying to her, when La Couteau, carrying the other child in her arms, at last darted in ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... had to devote his genius merely to singing the glories of Jerusalem. "Israel is among the other nations," he sang, "as the heart among the limbs." Even so is the fried fish of Judaea to the fried fish of Christendom and Heathendom. With the audacity of true culinary genius, Jewish fried fish is always served cold. The skin is a beautiful brown, the substance firm and succulent. The very bones thereof are full of marrow, yea and charged with memories of the happy past. Fried fish binds Anglo-Judaea more than all the lip-professions ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... lowest border postmaster, should decline to be its tool; all these things and more were needed, and they were found in the slave power of our Republic. There, sir, stands the criminal, all unmasked before you—heartless, grasping, and tyrannical—with an audacity beyond that of Verres, a subtlety beyond that of Machiavel, a meanness beyond that of Bacon, and an ability beyond that of Hastings. Justice to Kansas can be secured only by the prostration of this influence; for this the power behind—greater than any President—which ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... meanwhile Respectability, having destroyed the Tavern, and created the Club, continues to exercise a meretricious and enervating influence on literature. All audacity of thought and expression has been stamped out, and the conventionalities are rigorously respected. It has been said a thousand times that an art is only a reflection of a certain age; quite so, only certain ages are more interesting than others, and consequently produce better ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... is but a famous instance of an influence which wrought through the length and breadth of the down-trodden and dying Roman Empire, through the four fearful centuries which followed the battle of Adrianople. The wild licence, the boyish audacity, of the invading Teutons was never really checked, save by the priest and the monk who worshipped over the bones of some old saint or martyr, whose name the Teutons had ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... fierce Disease consumed: the woods their food, their homes The hollow rock, the streamlet of the vale Its waters furnishes, and, unforeseen, Dark death upon them steals. Ah, how unarmed, Wise Nature's happy votaries, are ye, Against our impious audacity! Our fierce, indomitable love of gain Your shores, your caves, your quiet woods invades; Your minds corrupts, your bodies enervates; And happiness, a naked fugitive, Before it drives, ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi

... grown so decrepit as to propose that ministers should possess themselves of the person of the young Duke, proclaim him of age and regent. From those dim travels, presenting themselves to the old man, who had never been [140] fifty miles away from home, as almost lunar in their audacity, he would come back—come back "in time," he murmured faintly, eager to feel that youthful, animating life on the stir about him ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... who do not hesitate to carry it home. Mr. Mill is right in his scorn for those who "erect the incurable limitations of the human conceptive faculty into laws of the outward universe," if there are such limitations. And Mr. Spencer is justified in condemning "the transcendent audacity which passes current as piety," if his definition of the underlying verity of religion is admitted—that it is "the consciousness of an inscrutable power which, in its nature, transcends intuition, and is beyond imagination."[98-1] ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... processes by which the war was pushed irresistibly forward to the final triumph may now forget all that and delight our thoughts with the story of what our men did. Their officers understood the grim and exacting task they had undertaken and performed it with an audacity, efficiency, and unhesitating courage that touch the story of convoy and battle with imperishable distinction at every turn, whether the enterprise were great or small, from their great chiefs, Pershing and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson

... the fanatical Parliament of Toulouse, which it had the audacity to publish with, or instead of, the king's edict. It contains this clause: "Ce que estant veu par nous, avons ordonne et ordonnons que, en la ville de Thoulouse ni aultres du ressort du parlement d'icelle, ne se fera publicquement ni secrettement aulcun exercice de la nouvelle pretendue religion, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... written of the part in his failure that Sprudell had played. It was not until she read it again together with Smaltz's confession, that it came to her clearly. When it did she was dumfounded by the extent of Sprudell's villainy, his audacity, the length to which his mania for revenge would take him. It was like a plot in one of his own ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... they came to the door of Lawyer Ed's office. Roderick was standing there alone, having just seen his partner off down the street. Miss Leslie Graham took matters into her own hands with her usual charming audacity. ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... this that hid in the Scottish sunshine, whispering in every heather-scented breeze—laughing at her from every little wave on Isla Water?—counselling her to this new and delicate audacity, imbuing her with a secret gaiety of heart, and her very soul fluttering with a delicious laughter—an odd, perverse, illogical ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... favors Hasting had become a Christian and a vassal to the king. It was doubtful, perhaps, if this man, even though he may have acted in good faith, was the best ambassador to his countrymen. For he was himself a living example of what might be gained by audacity and a shrewd use ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... light in which the book appeared to the young man who was soon to be the centre of German literature, the brilliant veteran who had for two generations been the centre of the literature of France was both shocked by the audacity of the new treatise, and alarmed at the peril in which it involved the whole Encyclopaedic brotherhood, with the Patriarch at their head. Voltaire had no sooner read the System of Nature than he at once snatched up his ever-ready pen and plunged into refutation.[140] At the same time he took ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... portress's lodge, as much more 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 ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... before they were overtaken by boats sent after them, and were stripped and murdered. The governor, who had heard of their setting out, concluded they were lost by accident. Intelligence of this mistaken opinion was transmitted to the king, who thereupon had the audacity to request that he might be honoured with the presence of some Portuguese of rank and consequence in his capital, to ratify in a becoming manner the articles that had been drawn up; as he ardently wished to see that nation ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... 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 ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath

... paused as one still lost in amazement at the audacity with which they had waylaid the helpless MacWheep—"there wes ae madam in Muirtown that hed the face tae invite hersel' oot tae tea wi' three dochters, an' the way they wud flatter him ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... hospitality, and pass the night in their quarters, he was willing to dispense with a great part of his armed soldiery, and visit them in a manner that implied entire confidence in their good faith. He was too absolute in his own empire easily to suspect; and he probably could not comprehend the audacity with which a few men, like those now assembled in Caxamalca, meditated an assault on a powerful monarch in the midst of his victorious army. He did not know the character ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... September, Horace actually got those two women up to tea in his house and garden. He had not dared to dream of such bliss. He had hesitated long before asking them to come, and in asking them he had blushed and stammered: the invitation had seemed to him to savour of audacity. But, bless you! they had accepted with apparent ecstasy. They gave him to think that they had genuinely wanted to come. And they came extra-specially dressed—visions, lilies of the field. And as the day was quite warm, tea ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... circles in London, who were persons of no consequence, and of no marked character in their own country, made, it seems, a prodigious sensation when they came over to Ireland, and turned the heads of half Dublin by the extravagance of their dress, the impertinence of their airs, and the audacity of their conduct. Fame flew before them to the remote parts of the country; and when they arrived at Ormsby Villa, all the country gentlemen and ladies were prepared to admire these celebrated fashionable belles. All worshipped them present, and abused them absent, except ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... 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 ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... says Chesterton with a splendid sense of justice. A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them. Mistakes do not affect us so deeply as we imagine. Our prophecies of change are subjective ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... conspiring among the Royalists and nonjuring priests, but they did not appreciate the imminence of the danger. On September 3, at latest, Danton certainly heard the details of the plot from a spy, and it was then, while others quailed, that he incited Paris to audacity. This was Danton's culmination. ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... the court sycophants. The news of this incredible event spread like wildfire. The next day I rehearsed Rienzi, which was to be performed the following evening. I was congratulated on all sides upon my self-sacrificing audacity. On the day of the performance, however, I was informed by Eisolt, the attendant of the orchestra, that the plans had been changed, and he gave me to understand that thereby there hung a tale. True enough, the terrible sensation I had made became so ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... in a Christian spirit, and Mrs Chick felt that it did her good. Not that she had anything particular to forgive in her sister-in-law, nor indeed anything at all, except her having married her brother—in itself a species of audacity—and her having, in the course of events, given birth to a girl instead of a boy: which, as Mrs Chick had frequently observed, was not quite what she had expected of her, and was not a pleasant return for all the attention and distinction ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... such incredible swiftness had this happened, and so utterly unprepared were we for this devilish audacity, that the Erie had shoved his trade-rifle against my ribs and fired before anybody comprehended what he ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... books, widened and freshened by the knowledge that comes of experience; the literary sense fortified by common sense; the bashfulness and delicacy of the scholar hovering as a finer presence above the forceful audacity of the man of the world; at once bookman, penman, swordsman, diplomat, sailor, courtier, orator. Of this type of manhood, spacious, strong, refined and sane, were the best men of the Elizabethan time, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... was obviously filled with amazement at Mrs. Killenhall's audacity, looked from one to the other of his visitors, as if he could scarcely credit ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... here on earth, and was surrounded by all His disciples, the man who actually led antagonism to the thought of a saving Messiah, was this very Apostle Peter. How he displayed his ignorance in the words, 'This shall not be unto Thee, O Lord'; and you remember also how his audacity rose to the height of saying, 'Why cannot I follow Thee now, Lord? I will lay down my life for Thy sake,' so little did he understand the purposes of Christ's suffering and Christ's death. And even after His resurrection we don't find that Peter in his early preaching ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... get hold of." She embroidered, she abounded. "I don't say it to interfere between you, but on the day she gets hold of a bigger one—!" Strether had thrown back his head as in silent mirth over something that struck him in her audacity or felicity, and her flight meanwhile was already higher. "Therefore close ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... preliminary anxieties might have been this adventure was not to end in sorrow. Once more Fortune favoured audacity; and yet I have never forgotten the jocular translation of Audaces fortuna juvat offered to me by my tutor when I was a small boy: "The Audacious get bitten." However he took care to mention that there were various kinds of audacity. Oh, there are, there are!... There is, ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad

... and audacity to place upon the steps of Thy Throne the first-fruits of my youthful labors?... Shall I make so bold as to hope that Thou wilt let fall upon them the august approbation ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... nice bit of beef chemically adapted for the soothing of troublesome dogs. I then dressed, disposed of these things neatly in my coat pockets, and went to the doctor's to dinner. In one respect, Fortune favored my audacity. It was the sultriest day of the whole season—surely they could not think of shutting up the second-floor back ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... for individually they were "bad," and collectively they made a force of no mean strength. Edwards had landed among them like a thunderbolt and had proved his prowess, and they still held him in awesome respect. His reckless audacity and grim singleness of purpose had saved him on more than one occasion, for had he wavered once he would have been shot down without mercy. But gradually his enforcement of hampering laws became more and more intolerable, and their subordinated spirits were nearly on the point ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... 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

... of the gang, netting the beneficiaries an aggregate profit of thousands of dollars. In 1885 nearly twenty more were set, with equally profitable results. The record for 1886 has reached six already, if not more. The business has been carried on with the most astonishing audacity. One of these men had his premises insured, fired them, and presented his bill of loss to the company within twenty-four hours after getting his policy, and before the agent had reported the policy to ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... at him wonderingly, and the vicar called him to order. Then he became terrified at his own audacity. The Erdmanns must have understood that on this subject he would not stand any joking, and made no further attempts to tease ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... crossing the Atlantic. The Continental army was but an armed rabble, with patriotism for their strongest weapon. And would the colonies, one and all, adhere, and "hang together"; or would the Declaration strike terror to timid hearts, and destroy its purpose by its very audacity? ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle

... second or two the other three stared at Rip agape. The audacity and danger of what he suggested was a little stunning. Since men had taken regularly to space no ship had made a direct landing on their home planet—all had passed through the quarantine on Luna. It was not only risky—it was so unheard of that ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... which everything is glorified without being idealized, "poetry" in which the reader must make the rhythms which the poet has not made for him, then I think we had better continue literary colonists. I shrink from a lawless independence to which all the virile energy and trampling audacity of Mr. Whitman fail to reconcile me. But there is room for everybody and everything in our huge hemisphere. Young America is like a three-year-old colt with his saddle and bridle just taken off. The first thing he wants to do is to roll. He is a droll object, ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... years before, and Benedict Arnold made a daring and difficult march up the Kennebec and down the Chaudiere to Quebec. Montreal fell to Montgomery; and Carleton himself escaped capture only by the audacity of some French-Canadian voyageurs, who, under cover of darkness, rowed his whaleboat or paddled it with their hands silently past the American sentinels on the shore. Once down the river and in Quebec, Carleton threw himself with ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... Lucretius. Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero, p. 327 foll., and references there given. I may note here that the power of Epicurism as a faith depended also largely on the directness, downrightness, and audacity of its system, working on minds weary of philosophers' disputations and ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... in the curly chair with her feet on the white rug; and her father, slender and straight, smiling half- amused, while her mother read aloud to them. Or she was a child in a black silk apron going up Black's Lane. Little audacious thing. She had a fondness and admiration for this child and her audacity. And always she saw her mother, with her sweet face between the long, hanging curls, coming down the garden path, in a wide silver-gray gown trimmed with narrow bands of black velvet. And she would wake up, surprised to find herself sitting ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair

... commons being dismissed, the senate was assembled, when the consuls proposed the consideration of the interruption experienced by the assembly of the commons, in consequence of the violence and audacity of the farmers of the revenue. They said, that "Marcus Furius Camillus, whose banishment was followed by the downfall of the city, had suffered himself to be condemned by his exasperated countrymen. That before him, the decemviri, according ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... compelled to conceal yourself, and when you are perceived, receive a volley of bullets, all to earn a paltry sum? Why, I have as much money as I want; mother Assunta always furnishes me when I ask for it! You see that I should be a fool to accept your offer.' The arguments, and his audacity, perfectly stupefied me. Benedetto rejoined his associates, and I saw him from a distance point me out ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... retorted Patsy. "To be strictly honest, Beth, we were not trapped at all; we were the victims of circumstances. When I remember how quick-witted and alert that manager was, to catch us unawares and so add to the value of his picture, I can quite forgive the fellow his audacity." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne

... expended for nothing. The ex-flour dealer of Philadelphia was not satisfied to accept the people's sacred verdict. He quickly called his lieutenants together, mapped out a campaign of almost reckless audacity and daring, and assigned his ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... audacity of the forgery accounted for by the mean opinion Bracciolini had of the intelligence of men. II. The character and tone of the last Six Books of the Annals exemplified by what is said of Sabina Poppaea, Sagitta, Pontia and Messalina. III. A few errors that must have proceeded ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... to the Scriptures, often in His wisdom makes a sport of the universe, had desired to show mortals the wonders in all their forms that He could work with men. Behold the encampments, the splendid marches, the audacity, the precautions, the perils, the resources of these brave men! Has there ever been beheld in two men virtues such as these in characters so different, not to say diametrically opposite? The one appears to be guided by deep reflection, the other by sudden illumination; the latter as a consequence, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... had progressed rapidly before, they went like lightning then. It was as if he had touched a spring or pressed a button, setting vast machinery in motion. Even as he reeled back stunned at his audacity, the room became suddenly full of Coppins of every variety known to science. Through a mist he was aware of Mrs. Coppin crying in a corner, of Mr. Coppin drinking his health in the remains of sparkling limado, of Brothers Frank and Percy, one on each side trying to borrow ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill

... over me. And it ain't for your good, Mr Whittlestaff. You ain't a young man—nor you ain't an old un; and she ain't no relations to you. That's the worst part of it. As sure as my name is Dorothy Baggett, you'll be falling in love with her." Then Mrs Baggett, with the sense of the audacity of what she had said, looked him full in the face and violently ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... high courage as she looked at the eyes where fright barely fluttered under the poised suspense. She approved of the plan. It appealed to her by its sheer audacity. She murmured that, if there were anything that she could do, Milly had only to ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair

... friends. The war from which the nation, and the whole world, have been made to suffer so much, and from the effects of which mankind will be long in recovering, was made because of Mr. Lincoln's election to the Presidency. The North was to be punished for having had the audacity to elect him even when the Democracy were divided, and the success of the Republican candidate was a thing of course. He, a mere man of the people, should never become President of the United States! The most good-natured ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... he had said or done yesterday, that he was exceedingly grieved and mortified that she should have mistaken his meaning for an insult, and so on and so on. He knew well how to make such honeyed talk when he chose, but the audacity of the thing was a trifle too much for even his bold nature, so he satisfied himself by strolling in a leisurely manner by ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... The audacity of the request almost tied the colonel's sharp old tongue. For a moment he stood with his mouth open, his face red in the gathering storm of ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... and even at the risk of displeasing Mme. de Restaud, he meant to annoy the dandy. It had struck him all at once that he had seen the young man before at Mme. de Beauseant's ball; he guessed the relation between Maxime and Mme. de Restaud; and with the youthful audacity that commits prodigious blunders or achieves signal success, he said to himself, "This is my rival; I ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... have so frequently proved 'dead failures,' that one would suppose these votaries would at length become disheartened. But this seems not to be the case—like a quack doctor when his patient dies, their audacity is equal to any emergency, and, with the elasticity of india rubber, they come out of a 'tight squeeze' with undiminished rotundity. With stupid amazement, hair all erect, and ears likewise, they pass through life as through a museum, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... There is, it is true, an audacity in the mere suggestion that the problem is not insoluble that is enough to take away the breath. But can nothing be done? If, after full and exhaustive consideration, we come to the deliberate conclusion that nothing can be done, and that ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... silence in the Executive Chamber—a silence that continued. The dignitaries at the door deigned to accord to Morrison neither glance nor word; they would not indulge his incredible audacity to that extent. As to Rellihan, they did not feel like stooping so low as to waste words on the impassive giant who personified an ignorant insolence that made no account of personalities. They adventured ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... of this fort, and the appointment of this ugly little man of war as commander, the Yankees continued the interlopings hinted at in my last chapter, and at length had the audacity to squat themselves down within the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... that he might have spoken his thought aloud had he not heard Gervase boldly arranging dance after dance with the Princess, and apparently preparing to write no name but hers down the entire length of his ball programme,—a piece of audacity which had the effect of rousing Denzil to ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... terrific brogue the minute you ask her why we don't have someone in to help her," Norma contributed, with a sort of shy and loving audacity. "She'll tell you in a minute that faith, she and her sister used to run barefoot over the primroses, and they blooming beyond anything the Lord ever created, and ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... Sybarite was travelling to deliver a message from a famous demi-rep to a notorious gang leader; with only a .25 calibre Colt's automatic and his native wit and audacity to guard the moderate fortune that he carried with him in cash—a single hundredth part of which would have been sufficient to purchase his obliteration at the hands of the crew that ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... shore. During the slow and laborious process of landing, the wreckers, observing uniformed soldiers, with guns, furtively slipped away, one by one, disappearing in the bush; all excepting Palafox, who, with brazen audacity, still held his ground, acting his part as succorer ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... had written a little book of verse, "Vision of Helen," he called it, I believe.... The oblique stare of the hostile Trojans. Helen coifed with flame. Menelaus. Love ... Greater men than Grimshaw had written of Priam's tragedy. His audacity called attention to his imperfect, colourful verse, his love of beauty, his sense of the exotic, the strange, the unhealthy. People read his book on the sly and talked about it in whispers. It was indecent, but it was beautiful. At that time you spoke of Cecil Grimshaw with disapproval, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... was silent a moment, completely taken aback by the suddenness with which the battle had broken, and amazed by the girl's audacity. She herself was accustomed to use brutality, but not to meet it. She laid her spoon ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... "What an object!" "Forcing herself into genteel society, too!" "The audacity of these creatures ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various

... The audacity of the reply appealed to the older woman, and her eyes twinkled. "Not altogether, eh?" she echoed. "Now I'm sorry to hear that because I ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... the fair wearer of the negligee. "Come in and sit down, I want to talk to you. There, leave the clothes, boy. I'll pay your mother next time," and she pushed the boy out, and drew the young girl in with easy audacity. ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... 'springing from vulgar gossip, and from the spiteful anger of the lady sister of Maximus, who hoped to inherit what has fallen to her niece. Let your valorous magnificence be assured that there is no truth in it. Can you imagine that I, whose mission is known to you, should have looked on at such an audacity? I think your perspicuity will not require better proof of the powers with which I am intrusted than that ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... them, Defoe added to their ill-feeling by issuing a jaunty pamphlet in which he proved with provoking unanswerableness that all honest Dissenters were noways concerned in the Bill. Nobody, he said, with his usual bright audacity, but himself "who was altogether born in sin," saw the true scope of the measure. "All those people who designed the Act as a blow to the Dissenting interests in England are mistaken. All those who take it as a prelude ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... Bulgaria and Roumelia, thanks to the irade on the bishoprics. He goes in triumph through the land, so that even the Russophile candidates invoke the protection of this man, who shoots the country's heroes and reduces its prince to the level of an ordinary public servant. His audacity, his impunity, the length of his tether, have no limits except those which will be imposed upon him by my power should you turn a deaf ear to ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... night, and the first thing in the morning they had come, they said, to make their statement. Captain S— listened attentively. He told them that he thought they must be mistaken as to the identity of the person, as he could not believe that a pirate would have the audacity to venture into Valetta; particularly just after he had committed a daring act of piracy. The Greeks shrugged their shoulders, but asserted that from what they had heard of Zappa, they believed him capable ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... preferred against him; in vain were admonitions bestowed by the governor in private, and menaces discharged by the masters in public; he disregarded the first, despised the latter, divested himself of all manner of restraint, and proceeded in his career to such a pitch of audacity, that a consultation was held upon the subject, in which it was determined that this untoward spirit should be humbled by a severe and ignominious flogging for the very next offence he should commit. In the mean time, Mr. Jolter was desired to write in the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... a youngster then to know, but who would probably be scouted even from a London club in the present day—the Prince of Wales. The part of a courtier is always degrading enough to play; but to be courtier to a prince whose favour was to be won by proficiency in vice, and audacity in follies, to truckle to his tastes, to win his smiles by the invention of a new pleasure and his approbation by the plotting of a new villany, what an office for the author of 'The School for Scandal,' and the orator renowned for denouncing the wickednesses of Warren ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... intelligence of the preparations of William were carried by a ship from Amsterdam, and by him they were communicated to the infatuated King, who had laughed at them as too absurd for serious consideration. But the Irish ruler, fully believing his informants, and never deficient in audacity, had at once entered into a secret treaty with Louis XIV. to put Ireland under the protection of France, in the event of the Prince of Orange succeeding to the British throne. No proposition could more entirely suit the exigencies of Louis, of whom William was by far the ablest and most relentless ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... as a Castilian noble, was then at the house negotiating for the girl's hand. Juana was nearly eighteen, had been born at the ranch, and after reaching years of usefulness had been adopted into Miss Jean's household. To ask for her hand required audacity, for to master and mistress of Las Palomas it was like asking for a daughter of the house. Miss Jean was agitated and all in a flutter; Tiburcio and his wife were struck dumb; for Juana was the baby and only unmarried one of their children, and to take her from Las Palomas—they ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... before the statues of our tutelary gods, to shriek, to yell—O ye abominations of the wise. Neither in woes nor in welcome prosperity may I be associated with womankind; for when woman prevails, her audacity is more than one can live with; and when she is affrighted, she is a still greater mischief to her home and city. Even now, having brought upon your countrymen this pell-mell flight, ye have, by your outcries, spread dastard cowardice, ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus

... his cause than this dissension; no spectacle could have been more gratifying to him than the rancour with which the Protestants alternately persecuted each other. Who could condemn the Roman Catholics, if they laughed at the audacity with which the Reformers had presumed to announce the only true belief?—if from Protestants they borrowed the weapons against Protestants?—if, in the midst of this clashing of opinions, they ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... dream Of many a brave unbodied scheme. But form to lend, pulsed life create, What unlike things must meet and mate: A flame to melt—a wind to freeze; Sad patience—joyous energies; Humility—yet pride and scorn; Instinct and study; love and hate; Audacity—reverence. These must mate, And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, To wrestle with ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... pious and best of mothers, had left only a great blood-spot upon the page of History, Elizabeth's reign was to be the most wise, prosperous and great, the Kingdom had ever known. In her complex character there was the imperiousness, audacity and unscrupulousness of her father, the voluptuous pleasure-loving nature of her mother, and mingled with both, qualities which came from neither. She was a tyrant, held in check by a singular caution, with an instinctive perception of the presence of danger, ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... speech, which distressed and outraged his contemporaries, are taken as they were meant, for witty or humorous by-play. He is regarded as the herald and champion revolt. He is praised for his "sincerity and strength," for his single-mindedness, his directness, his audacity. A dispassionate criticism recognizes the force and splendour of his rhetoric. The "purple patches" have stood the wear and tear of time. Byron may have mismanaged the Spenserian stanza, may have written up to or anticipated the guide-book, but the spectacle ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... eyewitness of these proceedings several times before, yet he felt that, now his attention was thus publicly called to the subject, he could not connive at them any longer; and as Watson had been laying about him in the most outrageous manner, in which he had the audacity to persevere, although called upon by the Sheriff to desist, Mr. Sheriff ordered his constables to take Watson into custody. Two or three of these guardians of the peace made a faint attempt to obey his orders, but Watson beat them all off, and set them at defiance. Sir Samuel remonstrated again; ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... good decent girl's affection,—if you hadn't, she would never have let you walk about with her at nightfall, with your arm round her waist,—and you have the cynical audacity to say that ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... had naturally a tender look, but she was transported with such a violent passion at his having the audacity to speak to her, that her eyes appeared like two fireballs when she turned them upon him. Hobart pinched her arm, as she perceived that this look was likely to be followed by a ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... Emily, rallying a little, and speaking with the least little touch of audacity,—"John, you are always fond of advancing your abstract theories. Now, I should have thought that if a man had felt any want in his first marriage, he would have tried for something more in a second, rather than have determined that there was no ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... spark of the old audacity which her prettiness used to justify, she laughed: "No, you won't. We shall want to talk—and talk. You'd ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton

... the Prince of Orange had the audacity to besiege Bonn, the residence of our ally, the Prince Elector of Cologne, and to reduce that prelate to the last extremity, the King promptly seized upon the Principality of Orange; and having planted the French flag upon every building, he published a general ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... cosey place to the Bachelor though! the sun had free access through the curtainless windows, and a merry time of it, it had playing upon the benevolent features of the good man, until many a little freckle stood out, as witness to its audacity. There was not a leaf in his neighbor's garden just below his windows, that was unfamiliar to him, and the three little girls that came out there to play beneath the trees, were always glad to see the kind face above them, for many a paper of sugar-plums fell from a capacious ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... religion. The friends of public decency and good order accused the government of encouraging the alarming progress of sacerdotal despotism. It was particularly in the smaller towns, and in the country, that the priests behaved with the most blamable audacity, abusing the privilege of speech which had been restored to them[16]. The pulpit became a tribunal from whence they pronounced sentence of present infamy, with the reversion of eternal damnation, upon all who refused to participate in their ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon



Words linked to "Audacity" :   daring, boldness, temerity, effrontery, brass, hardiness, presumption, face, audaciousness, presumptuousness, nerve



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