Temerity

Cursing his temerity, his heart sinking at the thought of finding himself at any moment face to face with the Emperor and being put to shame and arrested in his presence, fully alive now to the impropriety of his conduct and repenting of it, Rostóv, with downcast eyes, was making his way out of the house through the brilliant suite when a familiar voice called him and a hand detained him.

He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: “Please, sir, I want some more.” The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale.

Terror seized me, a horror of my temerity.

Then Small God (cozy and contained, private and limited) came away cauterized, laughing numbly at his own temerity.

In spite of all temptation— and most of last night it hadn't been temptation but raging need—he had managed to hold onto the last little bit of what the sallow thing had had the temerity to call China White.

One man had the temerity to grasp Ser Meryn by the wrist, and say, “It is time for all anointed knights to forsake their worldly masters and defend our Holy Faith.

“His impassive temerity astounds me.

They come from the Great Sea.” “Yes, well, my dog hated clams because one of them had the temerity to spit in his eye.

I, then, as it has fallen to my lot to be a member of knight-errantry, cannot avoid attempting all that to me seems to come within the sphere of my duties; thus it was my bounden duty to attack those lions that I just now attacked, although I knew it to be the height of rashness; for I know well what valour is, that it is a virtue that occupies a place between two vicious extremes, cowardice and temerity; but it will be a lesser evil for him who is valiant to rise till he reaches the point of rashness, than to sink until he reaches the point of cowardice; for, as it is easier for the prodigal than for the miser to become generous, so it is easier for a rash man to prove truly valiant than for a coward to rise to true valour; and believe me, Señor Don Diego, in attempting adventures it is better to lose by a card too many than by a card too few;597 for to hear it said, ‘such a knight is rash and daring,’ sounds better than ‘such a knight is timid and cowardly.’ ” “I protest, Señor Don Quixote,” said Don Diego, “everything you have said and done is proved correct by the test of reason itself; and I believe, if the laws and ordinances of knight-errantry should be lost, they might be found in your worship’s breast as in their own proper depository and muniment-house; but let us make haste, and reach my village, where you shall take rest after your late exertions; for if they have not been of the body they have been of the spirit, and these sometimes tend to produce bodily fatigue.” “I take the invitation as a great favour and honour, Señor Don Diego,” replied Don Quixote; and pressing forward at a better pace than before, at about two in the afternoon they reached the village and house of Don Diego, or, as Don Quixote called him, “The Knight of the Green Gabán.”

No one even knew Major—de Coverley’s first name, because no one had ever had the temerity to ask him.