"Obdurate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and with the object-lesson of my girlhood branded upon memory, I refused to taste the brimming glass, even when the pastor of the household, a genial "dominie," rallied me upon my abstinence. He offered gallantly, when he found me obdurate, to drink my share, and had his glass replenished by the reddest-faced ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... in a military collar which rose above his ears, and frowning forth immitigably at any Englishman who might happen to cross the threshold. I am afraid, however, that the truculence of the old General's expression was utterly thrown away on this stolid and obdurate race of men; for, when they occasionally inquired whom this work of art represented, I was mortified to find that the younger ones had never heard of the battle of New Orleans, and that their elders had either ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... saw me still stand motionless and obdurate, he said, disturbed a little, "Now see, son, between Beatrice and thee ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... forced to remain in the private room during the examination of Patience Crabstick and Mr. Cann; and she did not hear it. Patience was a most obdurate and difficult witness,—extremely averse to say evil of herself, and on that account unworthy of the good things which she had received. But Billy Cann was charming,—graceful, communicative, and absolutely accurate. There was no shaking him. The learned and acute gentleman who ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... brilliant imagination could compass. These visible evidences of the strife for the mastery indicated the valor and the woe, incident to the ordeal which had been passed, with an energy and pathos which overpowered the most obdurate will; and the multitude greeted Harrison and Perry with tears and smiles,—rain in sunshine with a heartiness that language is too poor and barren to describe. The living had earned their title to everlasting gratitude, and the dead had fallen as the brave desire to fall, at the post of duty ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... way of telling them, is Roxi. It was Roxi who gave us the love story of his cousin the Nuntalmute Lochinvar. This young man wooed a maid. The girl's father had no very good opinion of the lad's hunting ability and was obdurate. The lover determined to take destiny into his own hands. A ravine of ice stretched between his igloo and that of the family to whom he would fain be son, and over the chasm a drift-log formed a temporary bridge. Lothario, one night, crossed the icy gully, entered the igloo of his elect, ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... hundred dollars. Palmer pleaded that he had sent his money away. Jake was obdurate. Palmer finally produced ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... health so much that he went with his wife to the far South, where Major Drayton, now a colonel, had a remnant of what had once been a fine property. Here, for a time, amid the live-oaks and magnolias he appeared to improve. But his father's obdurate refusal to forgive his disobedience preyed on his health, and just after the war closed, he died a few months before his son ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... received it; but after a vain attempt to repress my feelings, I entreated her to wed me then, and I would never cease striving after the excellence she wished me to attain. But on that score she was obdurate. Her hand must be the reward of my entire reformation, not the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... Obdurate wretch! too fierce, too fell to move The least kind yearnings of a mother's love! No knight thou art, as having no estate; Long suffered'st thou in Rhodes an exile's fate, No more the happy Golden Age we see; ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... the marriage of Norbert and Mademoiselle de Puymandour. He had been presented to the lady, and neither had received a favorable impression of the other. At the very first glance each one felt that inevitable repugnance which the lapse of years can never efface. While dreading the anger of her obdurate father, Marie had at one time thought of confiding the secret of her attachment to George de Croisenois to Norbert, for she had the idea that if she told him that her heart was another's, he might withdraw his pretensions to her hand; but several times, ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... had heard from Blackwell strange accounts of Philip's obdurate perverseness, vile associates, and unredeemable character, was roused from his usual timidity by ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the thousands from the field of battle applied there for relief. Not even bread could any longer be dispensed to these unfortunates. Many wandered about without any kind of shelter. Then did we witness scenes which would have thrilled the most obdurate cannibals with horror. No eye could have beheld a sight more hideous at Smolensk, on the Berezyna, or on the road to Wilna—there at least Death more speedily dispatched his victims. Thousands of ghastly figures staggered along the streets, begging at every window ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... furnishing of my kitchen. As for the obstinate casing that wraps the coconut shell, it is an article of commerce. It must first be soaked for some months in a pit on the slimy bank of the backwater, until all the stuff that holds it together in a stiff and obdurate mass has rotted away and set free those hard and smooth fibres which nothing can rot. These, when thoroughly purged of the foul black pollution in which they have sweltered so long, will go out to all quarters of the world under the name of "coir" to make ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... was still obdurate, and she spoke with some petulance. "If that is the case, perhaps it is just as well that it was Aunt Mary and not one of ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... mothered. I spoke from pulpits in Chicago and Indianapolis on the subject, and was urged to plead with the Governor of the latter State to use his influence to have at least tiny mites of six years of age removed from the reformatory, which was under the very walls of the gaol. But he was obdurate to my pleadings and arguments, as he had been to those of the State workers. He maintained that these tiny waifs of six were incorrigible, and were better in institutions than in homes. The most interesting woman I met at the conference was the Rev. Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer, pastor of ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... Thomas Dancox. The Bishop did not do as much as that; though he sent for Tom Dancox and severely reprimanded him. But that, as Church Leet remarked, did not break bones. Tom had striven to make the best of his own cause to the Bishop, and the worst of Captain Monk's obdurate will; moreover, stolen marriages were not thought ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... every townsman must have wot of it, And not a worshipper within the church But must have smiled to see the marbled fraud? Surely this touches you? But if by chance My reasoning still leaves you obdurate, I'll lay one final plea. I pray you look On my presentment, as it reaches you. My features shall be sponsors for my fame; My brow shall speak when Shakespeare's voice is dumb, And be his warrant in an age ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle
... positively in London, Germany and Holland. "To assassinate Bonaparte" was a sort of game, in which the English were specially active. From their shores, well-equipped and plentifully supplied with money, sailed many who were desirous of gaining the great stake,—obdurate Chouans and fanatical royalists who regarded as an act of piety the crime that would rid France of the usurper. What gave most cause for alarm in these reports, usually unworthy of much attention, was the fact that all of them were agreed on one point—Georges ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... there be a voice from that party showing that whatever government be in power in England, no support will be given to such proceedings as these. It will do much to break them down. It will also strengthen the hands of a better and less obdurate class about the court. Even there all are not alike. I know it from observation. These ministers are the extremest of extremes. There are others who would willingly see more moderate means adopted.' On such grounds as these (I do not quote words) he ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... insisted upon by the other Powers, and they could only be obtained by coercive measures. The reports in the Blue Books and the London newspapers show that Mr. Lay, who personally conducted the negotiations for Lord Elgin, when he found the Chinese commissioners obdurate, was accustomed to raise his voice, charge them with having 'violated their pledged word,' and threaten them with Lord Elgin's displeasure and the march of the British troops to Peking. And when this failed to bring them to terms, a strong detachment of the British army ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... will be imprisoned in the mountains until you do, up to a certain period—until I have time to complete my business at Salonica, that is—and if, on my return from thence, you still continue obdurate, why, then all of you had better say your prayers—" completing his sentence with an emphatic gesture which could not ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... Lord Lytton, in the first place, was a singularly charming person. He was not only a delightful companion, but he was delightful because obviously open-hearted, enthusiastic, and exceedingly affectionate. To such charms Fitzjames was no more obdurate than his fellows. Lord Lytton, it is true, was essentially a man of letters; he was a poet and a writer of facile and brilliant prose; and Fitzjames acknowledged, or rather claimed, a comparative insensibility to excellence of that kind. Upon some faults, often ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... him a lifelong part. He fell back inside and proceeded to shoot fast and straight with his revolvers, his head burning as though on fire. When he had vented the dangerous pressure of his anger he went below and tried to fish the rifle in with a long stick. It was obdurate, so he sent three more shots into the door, and, receiving no reply, ran out around the corner of his shelter and grasped the weapon. When half way back he sank to the ground. Before another shot could be fired ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... from the remote Tanais, in a state of marriage with tome barbarian, yet you might be sorry to expose me, prostrate before your obdurate doors, to the north winds that have made those places their abode. Do you hear with what a noise your gate, with what [a noise] the grove, planted about your elegant buildings, rebellows to the winds? And how Jupiter glazes the settled snow with his bright influence? ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... small thing with a very great. The late Captain Marshall wrote a "farcical romance" named The Duke of Killiecrankie, in which that nobleman, having been again and again rejected by the Lady Henrietta Addison, kidnapped the obdurate fair one, and imprisoned her in a crag-castle in the Highlands. Having kept her for a week in deferential durance, and shown her that he was not the inefficient nincompoop she had taken him for, he threw open the prison gate, and said ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... however, obstinately insisted that the duel be continued, and the guns were loaded for the third time. In the next discharge the editor received a scalp wound. It was now agreed by all present that matters had gone far enough, but Hueston remained obdurate in his intention to kill or be killed, and in the face of violent protests, demanded that the guns again be loaded. The next exchange of shots proved to be the last. Hueston let both barrels go without effect, and fell to the ground shot through the lungs. Taken to the ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... by this sight, began to exclaim: "Yes, sir,—yes, Madame. Yes, sir,—yes, Madame," and threw herself into the arms first of the American, and then of Mother Etienne, who still remained obdurate. ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... the translator of Homer, and expounded his poems from the Chair of Rhetoric at Florence. He was a man of forbidding appearance, and 'more obdurate,' said Petrarch, 'than the rocks that he will encounter in his voyage': 'fearing that I might catch his bad temper, I let him go, and gave him a Terence to amuse him on the way, though I do not know what this melancholy Greek could have in common with that lively African.' Leontio was killed by ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... animals for their own eating, and render thanks to the Giver of all for their abundance; so that while some outward joys are retained for them, they may more readily respond to inward joys. For from obdurate minds it is undoubtedly impossible to cut off everything at once, because he who strives to ascend to the highest place rises by degrees or steps and not ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... the Capuchin, affecting to close his mouth ere he could pronounce the name of the Saviour. "Obdurate wretch, return to the demon who ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... His spite cannot wound who attempted the Drapier. Then, pr'ythee, reflect, take a word of advice; And, as your old wont is, change sides in a trice: On his virtues hold forth; 'tis the very best way; And say of the man what all honest men say. But if, still obdurate, your anger remains, If still your foul bosom more rancour contains, Say then more than they, nay, lavishly flatter; 'Tis your gross panegyrics alone can bespatter; For thine, my dear Dick, give me leave to speak plain, Like very foul mops, dirty ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... were innocent, and yet have perished In their May of life; and Vice grows old in triumph. 235 Is it Mercy's hand, that for the bad man holds Life's closing gate?—— Still passing thence petitionary Hours To woo the obdurate spirit to repentance? Or would this dullness tell me, that there is 240 Guilt too enormous to be duly punished, Save by increase of guilt? The Powers of Evil Are jealous claimants. Guilt too hath its ordeal, And Hell its own probation!—Merciful Heaven, Rather than this, pour ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Maid A victim fell. And now right greedily All hands are stretching forth the songs to buy, That are so tragical; which She, and She, Deals out, and sings the while; nor can there be A breast so obdurate here, that will hold back His contribution from the gentle rack Of Music's pleasing torture. Irus' self, The staff-propt Beggar, his thin-gotten pelf Brings out from pouch, where squalid farthings rest. And boldly claims his ballad with the best. An old Dame only lingers. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... remembered that ominous purchase of the pearls by Deep-water Peter, and shivered. His voice passed into a wail. Little by little he stumbled through the hemlock grove, beseeching each tree to yield up out of obdurate shadow that beloved form, to vouchsafe him the lisp of flying feet over dead beech leaves. But the trees stood mournfully apart, unanswering, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and accumulations of years which have constituted her husband's nearest approach to life have been labour in vain; that the "great mind" has been toiling, with feeble uncertain steps, in a path which has already been trodden into firmness and completeness; toiling in wilful and obdurate ignorance that other and abler natures have more than anticipated all he has been painfully and abortively labouring to accomplish. Again a cry bursts from the wounded heart, seemingly of anger against her informant, really of anguish—anguish, not for her own sinking hopes, ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... and there of whipping by the hangman, and other more ferocious cruelties. For among the Quakers themselves there were varieties of milder and wilder, less provoking and more provoking. The Quakerism of men like Fox and Dewsbury was, at worst, but an obdurate and irritating eccentricity, in comparison, for example, with the Quakerism run mad of James Nayler. This enthusiast, once quarter-master in a horse troop under Lambert, and regarded as "a man of excellent ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... quarrels gave rise to many surmises that the negotiations might be broken off and hostilities ensue. The main point of dispute as to Bolgrad threatened to form a casus belli with even a new arrangement of the Powers, as France gave up the case, and thus encouraged Russia to prove more obdurate. But England and the other Powers stood firm, and Bolgrad was included ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... since I was condemned, my confessor has besieged me; he threatened and menaced, until I almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I was. He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments if I continued obdurate. Dear lady, I had none to support me; all looked on me as a wretch doomed to ignominy and perdition. What could I do? In an evil hour I subscribed to a lie; and now ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... insisted upon the wedding taking place at Ellersleigh. She had obtained the, otherwise, obdurate father's consent, and ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... was obdurate. The Wests had always stood by their ships, she urged; had always brought their ships in to the ports intended or had gone down with their ships in the effort. The Elsinore had cleared from Baltimore for Seattle with the Wests in the high place. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... sometime before the conviction began to spread, that even men of sense, education, and fervent piety could entertain the madness and infatuation of the weak, illiterate, and unprincipled. A disbeliever in witchcraft was an 'obdurate sadducee.' That conviction did at last possess men. The disease which affected the supposed bewitched children somewhat resembled St. Vitus' Dance. It was an involuntary motion of the muscles. The affected were sometimes deaf, sometimes dumb, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face; If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Books, and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:- Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my spirit broad awake; Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, Choose thou, before that spirit die, A piercing pain, a killing sin, And to my dead heart ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... countrymen! if when you make your prayers, God should be so obdurate as yourselves, How would it fare with your departed souls? And therefore yet relent, and save ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... 1835 that his brother Charles wondered that he did not become sick at the stomach over his poor Journal: "Yet is obdurate habit callous even to contempt. I must scribble on...." Charles evidently was not a born scribbler like his brother. He was clearly more fond of real life and of the society of his fellows. He was an orator and could not do himself justice with ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... that it is a proverb, 'Everything may be had for money.' And without doubt," said he, turning to Apolyon, "my beloved daughter Pride is most serviceable to us, for what can there be more pernicious to a man's estate, to his body and soul, than that proud, obdurate opinion which will make him squander a hundred pounds rather than yield a crown to secure peace. She keeps them all so stiff-necked and so intent on things on high that it is amusing to see them, while gazing upwards, and 'extolling their ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... he could make more in the town, where a lawyer named Gibson was willing to take the youth into his office on a salary of three dollars a week and found. The trustees were obdurate, and the upshot of the matter was that the youth quietly packed his clothing into a bundle and ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... pressed, however, she admitted her guilt. The doctor insisted upon immediate restitution. She expressed her willingness, and at the same time her inability to comply—she had taken the voice, but did not possess the power to restore it. The conjure doctor was obdurate and at once placed a spell upon her which is to remain until the lost voice is restored. The case is still pending, I understand; I shall sometime take steps to find out how ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... not to make them more sad. That day we all were silent, and the next. Ah! obdurate earth, wherefore ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... years' experience had never been so seriously disturbed. To his intense humiliation he found himself abjectly appealing to the senior member of the firm of Thomlinson & Shields. Not that Mr. Thomlinson was obdurate; in the presence of mere obduracy Mr. Rae might have found relief in the conscious possession of more generous and humane instincts than those supposed to be characteristic of the members of his profession. Mr. Thomlinson, however, was anything but obdurate. He was eager to oblige, but ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... you in everything. She was as beautiful, as intelligent, as honest, as proud, and, unfortunately, she was, like you, as obdurate, which reminds me of the unfortunate gentleman whose emissary I now am. In his madness he requested me—yes, Miss Mathews, me a poor tinker—to woo you for him—to say to you all that he would have said had he ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... shown us as much of the process as a series of teacher's models might have done. Volcanic rocks could not be cut with the continuity and regularity of limestone. The point only could make any impression upon these obdurate materials. When, by force of time and patience, the work had thus been finished to the degree required, there would often remain some little irregularities of surface, due, for example, to the presence of nodules and heterogeneous substances, ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... not succeed in his attempt at sending him back, with all the terror of his information, that Collins had not a single guinea of his own, and was dressed in a coat he could never pay for. The young bard turned from his obdurate cousin as "a dull fellow;" a usual phrase with him to describe those who did not think as he would ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the other went away, in spite of David's protestations that two people did not tire him at all and his assertions that he often entertained as many as that at once. Tractable as they were in all other ways, anxious as they seemed to please him, on this one point they were obdurate: never would they ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... machinations of her enemy. "I am witched," she said, "and a parson can break the spell." The clergyman argued with her, but all to no purpose. She affirmed that she was witched, and that a clergyman could withdraw the curse. Finding that the woman was obdurate he read a chapter and offered up a prayer, and wishing the woman good day with a hearty "God bless you," he departed. Upon a subsequent visit he found the woman quite well, and he was informed by her, to his astonishment, that ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... proved to be. The note did not turn up. Old Jacob Patterson proved obdurate. He laughed to scorn the tale of the blotted note and, indeed, Ernest sadly admitted to himself that it was not a story anybody would be in a ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... not refuse me unless she did not love me, and I determined to put her to the proof. I was strengthened in this resolve by the wish to free myself from the state of excitement I was in, and I was sure that if she continued obdurate I should soon get cured. But at the same time I shuddered at the thought; the idea, of my no longer loving Clementine seemed to me an impossibility ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the view on the mornings of the—was glorious in the extreme, and one well calculated to awaken feelings of emotion in the most obdurate breast. The dark waters of the Sutlej glittering in the sun's rays as they flowed onward, all unconscious of the bloody strife about to be enacted on its banks: the frowning fortress, with its embattled walls bristling with cannon and swarming with men, whose ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... with any ailments which are not the result of spells. He says he can do nothing with natural ills, which are the province of the physician. He is a specialist in Satanic affections. He has most to do with the possessed whose neuroses have proved obdurate to hydrotherapeutic treatment." ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... a certain political faction to discredit the minister through his protege. The situation is further complicated by the Prince, Ernest IV., who has come under the spell of Gina's beauty, and furious at finding her obdurate, is glad of an opportunity to humiliate her. Fabrice is condemned to ten years' imprisonment in the Farnese tower, the Prince treacherously disregarding his promise of pardon. From this point the plot becomes fantastic. From his window in the tower, Fabrice overlooks ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... advance; but Jesus taught that the injured one should not wait for his brother to come to him, but go himself, and seek to adjust the difficulty; by so doing he might be the means of saving his brother's soul. If the offender proved to be obdurate, the brother who had suffered the trespass was to take two or three others with him, and again try to bring the transgressor to repentant acknowledgment of his offense; such a course provided for witnesses, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... fashioned "servant" will continue to cling to past customs; but once it is proved that domestic labor limited to eight hours a day and six days a week, brings a better, more intelligent, more efficient class of employees to the home, the most obdurate employer ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... papers were being examined. He assumed the attitude of a criminal endeavoring to mollify a magistrate, he made the sheepiest of eyes, and smiled the most deprecating of smiles, and seemed to implore a grace or rather a favor, and yet the most obdurate of the Chinamen had not a word to say ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... and confess your sorrow, I shall be pleased to accept your apology; but I insist on a letter being written to Miss Irvine now. One hour is at your disposal, and if at the end of that period I return and find you still obdurate, then to-morrow's pleasure is cancelled,—you will not be allowed, as promised, to see over Dick's ship." With that Mrs. Blake left the room, and Winnie was ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... misfortune to him, trifle as it might have been to another. For, while all that was hard and stern in his recollection, remained Reality on being proved—was obdurate to the sight and touch, and relaxed nothing of its old indomitable grimness—the one tender recollection of his experience would not bear the same test, and melted away. He had foreseen this, on the former night, when he had dreamed with waking eyes, but he had not felt ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... vainly there they seek their soul's relief, And of th' obdurate Grave its prey implore; Till Death himself shall medicine their grief, Closing their eyes ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... Southampton, the common friend, many years before, of Bacon and Essex, performed their duty with great delicacy. Indeed, the agonies of such a mind and the degradation of such a name might well have softened the most obdurate natures. "My Lords," said Bacon, "it is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech your Lordships to be merciful to a broken reed." They withdrew; and he again retired to his chamber in the deepest dejection. The next day, the sergeant-at-arms and the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... saucy and irritating replies; but I could not well help it then. Tom Thornton was a villain, by his own confession. My uncle had declared that he had stained his soul with crime for his son's sake. Whichever was the greater villain, it was clear that the son was the more obdurate, graceless, and unrepentant of the two. I had no patience with him. I had no respect for him, and I certainly had no fear of him. Even policy would not permit me to treat him with a ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... triumphantly carried off a stout little animal of theirs for my use. Before mounting, however, I was mobbed by the tumbling family, EN MASSE, who went on their knees in their solicitations to be exempt from the seizure of their property. Finding me obdurate in retaining the pony at a fair valuation, with "the army" to bear me out, they proceeded to diplomatic measures to gain their end. First, a very small child, choosing a stony place in the path, suddenly ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... in the calm monastic shade, All injuries may be forgiven; And there for thee, obdurate maid, My orisons shall rise to heaven. THE CRUEL LADY OF ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... them off from us again.' Then, not to make them sadder, I kept down My spirit in stillness. That day and the next We all were silent. Ah, obdurate earth! Why open'dst not upon us? When we came To the fourth day, then Geddo at my feet Outstretch'd did fling him, crying, 'Hast no help For me, my father!' There he died, and e'en Plainly as ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... shelter. No doubt the damage inflicted by this bombardment was very considerable, but Tripoli still defied the enemy. Four times within the next four weeks Preble repeated these assaults, pausing after each bombardment to ascertain what terms the Pasha had to offer; but the wily Yusuf was obdurate, knowing well enough that, if he waited, the gods of wind and storm would come to his aid and disperse ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... what was still more important, their wonted courage and confidence were wholly gone, and had given place to amazement and despair. The maid returned triumphant over the bridge, and was again received as the guardian angel of the city. After performing such miracles, she convinced the most obdurate incredulity of her divine mission: men felt themselves animated as by a superior energy, and thought nothing impossible to that divine hand which so visibly conducted them. It was in vain even for the English generals to oppose with their soldiers the prevailing opinion of supernatural ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... In obdurate wills subdued, the conquests of grace are often hard to win. In the docile souls of the early sanctified, its task is easy. Into these, its inspirations sink as the soft dew into good soil; and with the same result. Finding in them no impediment to its action, no check to its liberality, ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... ensemble fell far short of perfection. The remaining brush of scraggly hair, the watery eyes, the ancient teeth, seemed oddly out of tone with the gaiety of the costume. Mr. Button, however, was obdurate—he held out his hand. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the ground that thereby she would ensure that save on the single point of the re-marriage any demand she might put forward would be granted, and much scandal would be averted. The Queen took some days to consider her reply: but was absolutely obdurate. She was Henry's wife; she could not and would not profess that she was not. On every ground, she would fight to ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... though immortal: But his doom Reserv'd him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes That witness'd huge affliction and dismay Mixt with obdurate pride and stedfast hate: At once as far as Angels kenn he views The dismal Situation waste and wilde, 60 A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames No light, but rather ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... simply as a Christian, and showing her what her deplorable position was, appearing now for the last time before men, and destined so soon to appear before God, spoke to her such moving words that he broke down himself, and the oldest and most obdurate judges present wept when they heard him. When the marquise perceived the doctor, suspecting that her trial was leading her to death, she approached ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... God urged Moses to undertake the mission He desired him to execute. He resorted to persuasion, that the heathen might not say, that He abused His power as the Ruler of the world, forcing men to do His service against their will. But Moses remained obdurate, he could not be won over.[133] He said: "Thou doest a wrong unto me in sending me to Pharaoh. In the palace of the Egyptian king there are persons that know how to speak the seventy languages of the world. No matter what language a man may use, there is someone that understands him. ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... attack of D'Almaine's raillery, she was determined to out-flank him with her whole park of well-appointed artillery, consisting of all those endearing, solicitous looks and expressions, that can melt the most obdurate heart, and command a victory over the most experienced general. It was in vain that Lord Henry urged the unusual heavy expenses of the season in town,—the four hundred paid for the box at the opera,—or the seven ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... eat crow only after Mr. Ware had cursed and cajoled him into a better and more forgiving frame of mind. Then Tom hurried off to find Betty and put matters right; a more difficult task than he had reckoned on, for Betty was obdurate and her indignation flared up at mention of the incident; all his powers of argument and persuasion were called into requisition before she would consent to Hicks remaining, and then only on that most uncertain tenure, ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... were uttered by both Alice and the Pilot, who wished to comprehend more clearly each other's intentions relative to the intended escape: but the fear of personal punishment rendered the soldier obdurate, and a dread of exposure at length induced the lady to comply. She arose, and was leaving the apartment with lingering steps, when the Pilot, touching her ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... hand hit, As meaning to be veng'd for darting it. When this fresh-bleeding wound Leander view'd, His colour went and came, as if he ru'd The grief which Neptune felt: in gentle breasts Relenting thoughts, remorse, and pity rests; And who have hard hearts and obdurate minds, But vicious, hare-brain'd, and illiterate hinds? The god, seeing him with pity to be mov'd, Thereon concluded that he was belov'd; (Love is too full of faith, too credulous, With folly and false hope deluding us;) Wherefore, ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... permit the horses to be moved, and the old barn was deserted. A neighbor who had bought this barn at once pulled it down and carted it away. In this transaction I held out several days for $50, but as my neighbor was obdurate I finally accepted his offer. The first entry on the credit side of my farm ledger is, By one old barn, $45. The receipts for ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... passed through these several stages. Some of his more important subordinates had previously been captured or had surrendered. Others, still remaining in the field, now acted on his advice, more or less promptly. A few remained obdurate for a time, but as a rule not for long, and soon there remained in the field only a very limited number of real military leaders, like General Malvar in Batangas and General Lukban in Samar, and a very considerable number of bandit chiefs, ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... necessary, well-paying, if not honored, guest in the households of Europe; but the day when the Jew resolved on adopting the life and manners of his host, the host resolved on drawing tightly the family lines. The modern Jew has discovered it necessary either to convince the obdurate host, who points to a scientifically certified chart of the family-tree, that he too is of blood germane, or take himself to lodgings in the cellarage. And yet—a third possibility here insinuates itself—why may not the Jew set up ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... education, and by means of which he was there to plead its cause before the supreme tribunal of the nation, rushed suddenly upon his mind in an overwhelming flood. The justices of the Supreme Court—great lawyers, tried and toughened by experience into a certain obdurate sense of justice, and insensible to any common appeal to their hearts—melted into unwonted tenderness, as, in broken words, the advocate proceeded to state his own indebtedness to the "small college," whose rights and privileges he was there to defend. Chief Justice Marshall's eyes were filled ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... miserie Hath thine obdurate frowardness (old man) Drawn on thy Countries bosom? and for that Thy proud ambition could not mount so high As to be stil'd thy Countries only Patron, Thy malice hath descended to the depth Of Hell, to be renowned in the Title Of the destroyer? dost thou yet perceive What curses all ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... walked part of the way, or all the way, with him most days of the week, I was never bidden inside those doors. Lancelot told me that he had more than once besought leave to bring me in, but that the old gentleman was obdurate. So, save in those hours of study in the parrot-papered room, I saw but little ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... He was obdurate and her manner changed suddenly. With blighting scorn she exclaimed, "I don't ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... saying that,' rejoined the gentleman, with a voice and emphasis of kindness that might have touched a much harder and more obdurate heart. 'Think ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... with bare, noiseless feet, and sped like a ghost across the meadow to the river-bank. Poor weak hands! vainly they fumbled with the knotted rope that bound the skiff to a crooked elm over-hanging the water,—all in vain for many lingering minutes; but presently the obdurate knot gave way, and, turning to gather up her shawl, there, close behind her, so close that his hot breath seemed to sear her cheek, stood her husband, clear in the moonlight, with a sneer on his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... ignorance of the country, and the persevering activity and vigilance of the Indians, prevented the accomplishment of their attempt. They were overtaken, and brought back; and then commenced a series of cruelties, tortures and death, sufficient to shock the sensibilities of the most obdurate heart, if unaccustomed to the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... Gliding. Any one of these celebrated processes, by itself, might have been desirable; but their indiscriminate and impetuous combination in the present case gave the Flowerpot a confused impression that her whole ride was a startling series of incessant sharp turns around obdurate street corners, and kept her plunging about like an early young Protestant tossed in a Romish blanket. Instinctively holding her satchel aloft, to save its fragile contents from fracture, she rocked, shoed and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various
... Schwytz Cantoners had been sharpened, and their swords drawn (as they veritably are, for all the Reformed are concerned), for our own necks. No sooner, therefore, have we been informed of the state of your affairs, and the obdurate temper of your enemies, than, taking counsel with some very honourable persons, and some ministers of the Church of highest esteem for their piety, on the subject of the assistance it might be possible to send you consistently with our own present requirements, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... not breaking right for him. Mr. Inglesby's own interests are pretty extensive—and we set them to work. It wasn't hard to manage, after things began to shape: a word here, a hint there, an order somewhere else; and once or twice, of course, a bit of pressure was brought to bear, in obdurate instances. But the man with money is always the man with the whip hand. Eustis got the help he had to have—and presently we got these. All perfectly legitimate, all in the course of ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... jest is that?" replied the count. "Not all the world is as ignorant as you. It was owing to my father's own choice that he was not son of King Henry IV. His majesty desired nothing more than to recognise him, but my treacherous parent was obdurate to the end. Think how the De Grammonts would have stood if he had only kept to the truth. I see you laugh, but it's ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... her fan and stole glances from under her long black lashes at her visitor, who sat twisting one of his gloves and wishing most ardently that Providence had entrusted the painful task before him to some one of a more obdurate and ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... Baldwin remained obdurate. Then, one Sunday afternoon, she appeared, cold, critical, resentful still; lifted her eyebrows at the devices of their light housekeeping; looked disgusted when they pointed out from the window the little cafe ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... obedience to his laws. By a repetition of vicious acts, evil habits have been formed within us, and have rivetted the fetters of sin. Left to the consequences of our own folly, the understanding has grown darker, and the heart more obdurate; reason has at length altogether betrayed her trust, and even conscience herself has aided the delusion, till, instead of deploring our miserable slavery, we have too often hugged, and ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... he intended dropping to the house roof was obdurate. Only the upper half was movable. With hardly any noise at all he pulled this down, straddled it, balanced himself, secured a good grip on the ledge, and let himself down. The tips of his shoes, rubber-soled, just reached ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... jungle, he called out the colonel of the disaffected regiment and gave him half an hour in which to decide whether he would surrender or be attacked. What Nicholson would have actually done had the Sikh commander remained obdurate is a question; possibly he would have risked a dash across the open ground in front of the cemetery walls and taken the chance of his men facing the rebels' fire or turning tail. But he was spared such a crucial test. Before the half-hour was up the Sikh colonel reappeared to announce ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley
... her wide brim, low-crowned beaver tied under her dimpled chin with a bow that was distracting. The great blue eyes were of the melting, persuasive kind, her voice had a caressing cadence, and her smile was enough to conquer the most obdurate heart, and yet withal she had an air of masquerading and enjoyed it to the full. She was deeply in love with Philemon, and though he struggled against a passion he deemed almost ungodly, she being so young and pretty, she conquered in the end. He almost scandalized the Society when he ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... and you wrong her by such a suggestion. It was not her husband but her conscience that forced her to this retributive act. What Mr. Jeffrey might have done had she proved obdurate and blind to the enormity of her own guilt, I do not know. But that he is innocent of so influencing her is proved by the shock he suffered at finding she had taken her ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... the august tribunal. Many eminent men offered to speak for him. Chios was obdurate, and, when faced by his accusers, and asked to explain his position, he politely, but positively, refused. Nothing was left for him but death, and he ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... which mows down the rebels, I ascended it in haste in the rage of my heart; the strong bow which Assur entrusted to me, I seized it, and the javelin, destroyer of life, I grasped it: the whole host of obdurate rebels I charged, shining like silver or like the day, and I roared as Kamman roareth." Khumba-undash, the Elamite general, was killed in one of the first encounters, and many of his officers perished around him, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... bring it within the limits of a quarter of an hour. He seeks relief through the lawful channel of rubrical revision, and is only laughed at for his pains. In this busy nineteenth century it is nonsense, he is assured, to spend a dozen years in besieging so obdurate a fortress as the General Convention. The way to secure "shortened services" is to shorten services. This is easy logic, and applicable in more directions than one. Only see how smoothly it runs: If you want hymns that are not in the ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... Brotherhood representatives and for the managers, to confer with him at the White House, and suggested arbitration by way of settling the controversy. The labour leaders, conscious of their strength, refused to arbitrate. The railroad managers were equally obdurate. I well remember the patience of the President at these conferences day after day. He would first hold conferences with the Brotherhood representatives and then with the railroad managers; but his efforts were unavailing. It is regrettable that the men on both sides were indifferent to the President's ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... King spent in advising how he should get rid of this obdurate young creature. Cutting off her head was much too easy a death for her; hanging was so common in His Majesty's dominions that it no longer afforded him any sport; finally, he bethought himself of a pair of fierce lions which ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... interesting dreamer, absorbed in his schemes, which are his one weakness. To women, save when they can further the good of his cause, he is obdurate; in business, strong, energetic, and powerful. He is shown to us as the man with a master mind and one absorbing delusion, and as such is a pathetic figure. No one can dispute the prodigality and liveliness of the author's imagination; his ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... over the head with his fiddle. In this manner he is said to have broken scores of violins, and one unlucky clarionet-player, in particular, who was never either in time or tune, cost him a vast number of instruments. They shivered like glass upon the obdurate noddle of the faulty Orpheus, and Lully swore he had never met with so vile a musician, or so hard a head. After a time it was discovered that the offender wore a leaden lining to his periwig. Louis XIV. never ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... "save his own soul and follow his own conscience. But my conscience does not allow me to offer money for the king's protection or on any other pretext." In the event nearly all the clergy bought off the king's wrath by the voluntary payment of a fifth. Winchelsea was obdurate. His estates remained for five months in the king's hands, and he was forced, like another St. Francis, to depend on the charity of the faithful. But even Winchelsea did not hold out indefinitely. On July 14 he was publicly reconciled with the king outside Westminster Hall, and ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... he who would assume a place to teach or be a poet here in the States? The place is august, the terms obdurate. ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... taken a more obdurate male than Amir Khan to not appreciate the exquisite charm of the Gulab; no art could have equalled the inherent patrician simplicity and sweetness of her every thought and action. Perhaps her determination to ingratiate herself into the good graces of the Chief was ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... satisfied with nothing less than the best, ought one?" The peculiar, breathy tone in which Flavia always uttered that word "best," the most worn in her vocabulary, always jarred on Imogen and always made her obdurate. ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... Winifred, seemed soldiers, others baggage-waggons, horses, gun-carriages, rushing pell-mell for safety. One drooping, tattered cloud she deemed the colours of a regiment streaming under the stars that peeped out here and there—watching sentinel eyes, obdurate, till ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... along with one of the Earl's scouts. "Both," says Wodrow,[21] "were discovered and catched by the old bishop there. The Earl was peremptorily resolved to recover the two gentlemen, and ordered Sir Patrick Hume with a party of Fusileers to attack the town"; but the captains were obdurate {205} and nervous, and gave the Earl time only to seize seven islanders and a vessel "lying ther with meall and money," when the ships sailed away, leaving the unfortunate secretary to his fate.[22] He was sent down to Edinburgh,[23] indicted for treason, and ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... the visible sound. It pricked my ebbing courage, this blended strain of music and colour, and I turned for a last effort; and Fortune thereupon, as if half-ashamed of the unworthy game she had been playing with me, relented, opening her clenched fist. Hardly had I put my hand once more to the obdurate wood, when with a sort of small sigh, almost a sob—as it were—of relief, the ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... held them there, released them, and went from me into the wood. I was alone, and calm and quiet below me in the sun and shade lay the old house, with its terraces and turrets, on which there had seemed to me to be such complete repose when I first saw it, but which now looked like the obdurate and unpitying watcher of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... judge of that, old man. I have business to talk of with you and with my fair St. Catharine here, the loveliest and most obdurate saint in ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... detestation of the latter term possessed him. The essence of the Meikeljohns was a necessity for freedom, an almost bitter pride in the independence of their bodies. Their souls they held to be under the domination of a relentless Omnipotence, evolved, it might have been, from the obdurate and resplendent granite masses of the highland where they had first survived. These qualities gave to Elim Meikeljohn's political enmity for the South a fervor closely resembling fanaticism. Even now ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... ABDALLA, as they advance. Behold our future sultaness, Abdalla;— Let artful flatt'ry now, to lull suspicion, Glide, through Irene, to the sultan's ear. Would'st thou subdue th' obdurate cannibal To tender friendship, praise him ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... not speak to another man; I spoke to you," added Christy, as he intensified the gaze with which he confronted the man, resorting to the tactics of a sharp lawyer in the cross-examination of an obdurate witness. ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... was obdurate, scouting the idea of any suspicion attaching to either of the gentlemen in whom he had reposed such complete confidence and whom he had known all their lives, and so the matter would probably have remained a mystery but for a ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... have seen his regimentals!) was a perfect mammoth of a man, to Napoleon; hideously ugly, with a monstrously disproportionate face, and a great clump for the lower- jaw, to express his tyrannical and obdurate nature. He began his system of persecution, by calling his prisoner 'General Buonaparte;' to which the latter replied, with the deepest tragedy, 'Sir Yew ud se on Low, call me not thus. Repeat that phrase and leave me! I am Napoleon, Emperor of France!' Sir Yew ud se on, nothing ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... In vain the student requested to be informed of the charge against him, and protested against the illegality of detaining a person in custody without there being any charge even alleged; but to all this the magistrate remained obdurate, and the student was sent home under the care of the gendarme. Happily for himself, he managed to give his guardian the slip in the streets, and left the Papal States that night without awaiting the result of an inquiry which had ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... these bright prospects in view, and animated by the hope of rousing Western France from Quiberon, Pitt had a right to expect some measure of fortitude even in the Court of Madrid.[386] But Godoy remained obdurate. On 11th June, in his first interview with Bute, he said he had no faith in Russia; the vacillations of Austria were notorious; and Pitt was said to be about to send Eden to Paris to sue for peace. As for ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... of having his own way in the matter; being Zelotes Snow, he certainly did not give that up. Instead he took his daughter home with him to South Harniss, where a tearful and heart-broken Olive added her persuasions to his. But, when she found Jane obdurate, Mrs. Snow might have surrendered. Not her husband, however. Instead he conceived a brilliant idea. He was about to start on a voyage to Rio Janeiro; he would take his wife and daughter with him. Under their immediate observation and far ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... "I wrote to Clarke, but he remains obdurate, and I have tried other channels, but without any result. I can't find out what became of Helen Vaughan after she left Paul Street, but I think she must have gone abroad. But to tell the truth, Austin, I haven't paid much attention to the matter for the last few weeks; I knew poor Herries ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... I, in a manner most unexpected, get myself rid and clear of the two most obdurate oppositionists, and by taking care to choose discreet persons for their successors, I was enabled to wind the council round my finger, which was a far more expedient method of governing the community than what I had at one time meditated, even if I could have brought it to a bearing. ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... that "makes for righteousness"—we need not despair of the final outcome, and realization of its high behest to the children of men; for no expression of love, however mean in view of our own exalted ideals, but is, in reality, an effort towards something higher and better. The obdurate and selfish are unfolded, and taught by its ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... and shirkers who failed to see the necessity for so much strenuous training, but it was just here that his own personal gifts came to the front. By dint of argument, raillery, and—in one or two particularly bad and obdurate cases— judicious chastisement he finally succeeded in, what is termed in modern ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... World.—Surely, by these things the LORD tries the spirits of us all; tries other men by other means, but tries the intellectual man by the Word of GOD[520], and watches him as he reads it; hardens the obdurate; blinds the self-blinded; but pours into the humble mind the riches of His divine Wisdom like showers into a valley; making it soft with the drops of rain and blessing the ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... feet, and implored him, saying: 'Brother, save me this once. I will make the boy swallow cow-dung, and go through the prayaschittam ceremony. Do take him back into caste.' But your father remained obdurate. For my part, I could not disown my only child, and, bidding good-bye to my village and my kinsmen, I betook myself to Calcutta. There, too, my troubles followed me. When I had made every arrangement for my nephew's marriage, ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... which the true loses its distinction, becomes less and less apparent, nay, by degrees, less and less real. Wealth becoming the object of honour, every principle of true taste must be reversed. Hence the dire polish of the obdurate heart, repelling the force of nature. Hence avarice and profusion, dissipation, luxurious banqueting, &c. supersede the love of oeconomy, domestic comfort, the sweet reciprocation of the natural affections, &c. ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds
... thereupon to his concertina, meeting all further persuasions by deep sighs and obdurate shakes of the head; and, finding their efforts useless, the party withdrew at last, to drink ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... desires to the will of man. He can readily be brought to the point where he will tolerate captivity; but if, when engaged in ploughing, it occurs to him that he needs water, he will straightway go in search of it, not in a vicious, but in a perfectly obdurate manner. This quality of mind appears to be accountable for the failure of the many experiments which have been made to domesticate ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler |
