"Pertinacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the picture he had painted of her was now becoming actual and apparent—namely, the face of death looking through the mask of life. Yet he did not loosen his arms from about her waist; on the contrary he clasped her even more closely, and kept his eyes fixed upon her with such pertinacity that it seemed as if he expected her to vanish from his sight while he ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... worship. When wandering once upon the continent, we were thrown for several days into the company of an English clergyman, who had provided himself, as the best possible model in description, with a copy of Spenser; and it was curious to observe the pertinacity with which, from time to time, he drew forth his treasure, and the weariness with which in a few minutes he returned it to his pocket. Yet our reverend friend, we have no doubt, went home with his faith in Spenser unshaken, and recommends it to this day as the most delightful of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... haircloth shirt of the mediaeval monk. At one time failure seemed inexorably his portion; ill-luck became his bed-fellow, and whatever he touched he turned, not to gold, but to ashes. His most vivid conception of a supernatural element in the world's affairs had come to him once when this pertinacity of misfortune was at its climax; there seemed to him something stronger in life than his own will. But the mysterious something could only be the devil, and he was accordingly seized with an intense personal ...
— The American • Henry James
... pertinacity of the supercargo: he had no wish to sail alone, and the fear of this contingency was more powerful than the fear of ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... out in detail this very conception of a nation as passing through successive phases: at the close of each it is worn out, but a new rule regenerates it, throwing off the incrustations and giving room to the life within. It is interesting to note the genesis of Napoleon's ideas and the pertinacity ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... phrases of length and Latinity, Like honorificabilitudinity, Where is the maid could resist your vicinity, Wiled by the impudent grace of your plea? Then your vivacity and pertinacity Carry the day with the divil's audacity; No mere veracity robs your sagacity Of perspicacity, Barney McGee. When all is new to them, What will you do to them? Will you be true to them? Who shall decree? Here's a fair strife to you! Health ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... eaten grew, and soon there were other children growing; and all the best intentions in the world could not stop further leakages and still further leakages. The Food insisted on escaping with the pertinacity of a thing alive. Flour treated with the stuff crumbled in dry weather almost as if by intention into an impalpable powder, and would lift and travel before the lightest breeze. Now it would be some fresh insect won its way to a temporary fatal new development, ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... heard them before, and was anxious to connect them with the circumstances of their utterance. There was one in particular which especially tormented him. "Go for a cruise on your own account; go for a cruise on your own account," his brain reiterated with merciless pertinacity. What did it mean? Where had he heard those words before, and who had uttered them? He felt absolutely certain that at some time or other he had heard that phrase spoken, and that it had some intimate connection with ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... As it was impossible to be sure if they were Christian, they could not be put in consecrated ground; they were therefore included in an auction of dead and live stock, and were bought by the doctor. Surnames survived in Eastthorpe with singular pertinacity, for it was remote from the world, but what was the relationship between the scores of Thaxtons, for example, whose deaths were inscribed on the tombstones, some of them all awry and weather-worn, and the Thaxtons of 1840, ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... righteousness of her cause, and she continued to return blows at which the armies of the North reeled, stunned and bleeding. Mary was not permitted to exult very long, however, for the terrible pressure was quickly renewed with an unwavering pertinacity which created misgivings in the stoutest hearts. The Federals had made a strong lodgment on the coast of her own State, and were creeping nearer and nearer, often repulsed yet still advancing as if impelled by the ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... not taken more than the turkey's egg. The mosquitoes were a little troublesome after sunset and in the early part of the night; but, after that time, it was too cold for them. The flies were a much greater nuisance; at times absolutely intolerable, from the pertinacity with which they clung to the corners of our eyes, to the lips, to the ears, and even to the sores on our fingers. The wind was generally from the eastward during the morning, with cumuli; but ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... in Prickett's Lane. If I come to any advancement," said the Curate of St Roque's, "it must be in social estimation, and not in worldly wealth, which is out of my way;" and he went down to Wharfside rather cheerfully than otherwise, having begun to experience that pertinacity carries the day, and that it might be possible to goad Lucy into the experiment of how much her housekeeping talents were good for, and whether, with a good wife, even a Perpetual Curate might be able to live without any particular bother in respect to the grocer's bill. Mr Wentworth being at present ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... torrents. At half-past two o'clock Monsieur Desmarets reached the Treasury. At four o'clock, as he left the Bourse, he came face to face with Monsieur de Maulincour, who was waiting for him with the nervous pertinacity of hatred ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... desired in Miss Matty's way of doing business was, that she should not have so plaintively entreated some of her customers not to buy green tea—running it down as a slow poison, sure to destroy the nerves, and produce all manner of evil. Their pertinacity in taking it, in spite of all her warnings, distressed her so much that I really thought she would relinquish the sale of it, and so lose half her custom; and I was driven to my wits' end for instances of longevity ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... what pertinacity I grope about old alleys, old courts, by-lanes, and unfrequented corners—in search of what is curious, or precious, or rare in the book way. But ere we touch that enchanting chord, let us proceed according to the plan laid down. First therefore ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... understanding between the King and his people! Singly and together they were conferring with Baron Sonnino and the Premier. What were they offering? We know now that at this last moment of the eleventh hour Austria had wakened to the real gravity of the situation, and with Teutonic pertinacity and Teutonic dullness of perception made her first real offer—the immediate cession and occupation of the ceded territories she had set as her maximum, a thing she had refused all along to consider, insisting that the transfer be deferred to the vague settlement time of the ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... to be any thing but displeasing to a young girl, who, French Canadian by birth, although living under the Government of the United States, possessed all the natural vivacity of character peculiar to the original stock. Notwithstanding the pertinacity with which her aged father lingered in the room, the handsome and elegant De Courcy contrived more than once to address her in an under tone, and elicit a blush that greatly heightened the brilliant expression of her large ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... I condole with you: and, to say truth, it was chiefly to warn you of Mademoiselle Caumartin's pertinacity that ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the black soil of the valley and the red soil of the hills united at Arcade. The President relied on the statements given to him, and decided accordingly. “Here you see,” said the senator, “how my pertinacity and Abraham's faith ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... other to make it longer; he then ran a string through the mouth, so as to draw it close when necessary, and cut his sticks so as to support it and keep it open. All this being arranged, he went to where Snarleyyow was busy gnawing wood with great pertinacity, and allowed him not only to smell, but to tear off the tail of the red-herring, under the door; and then gradually drew the herring along until he had brought it right under the hatch in the middle, which left it at the precise distance that the ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... said to some one, "Who is that man whose eyes bode me no good?" This was the first occasion of their personal meeting, and it may be fancied that Berlioz followed up the introduction with his accustomed vehemence and pertinacity, though without immediate effect, for Miss Smithson was more inclined to fear ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... cent. by the business. And why not? a man must have some interest on his money! Then there's the risk of bad debts, too—that falls to be considered. But there was little risk of bad debts when Wilson took to cloth-distributing. For success in that game depends on pertinacity in pursuit of your victim, and Wilson was the man ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... came out of the wilderness and ate up a drove of small boys for guying a holy man, who was unduly sensitive about his personal dignity, the female of the ursine species, however, has been notorious for ill-temper and vindictive pertinacity, and she maintains that ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... at dinner, which I continued to don daily out of respect to Josephine's feelings. (This has been one of the few points in my behavior upon which she has ever laid particular stress, and I thank her here publicly for her pertinacity. It has saved me from the slough of utter carelessness.) Barring the single blue necktie and the pajamas, I drifted into and have stuck to blacks and browns and the least ostentatious cuts until my own wife and children have felt called upon ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... Cecil had that pertinacity of nature that is stimulated to resistance by opposition; and she thought of the Egyptian campaign, and her desire to understand the siege of Acre. Then she recollected that Miss Vivian had spoken of reading the book, and this ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... occasion; for that she sometimes ought to do so, seems to be both scriptural and rational. It would be very inconvenient to call in a third person as an umpire upon every slight difference of opinion between a young couple, besides being very humiliating. But if each maintain, with pertinacity, their opinion, what can be done? It does seem to me that every sensible woman, who feels any good degree of confidence in her husband, will perceive the propriety of yielding her opinion ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... displayed, as a mounted battery, against the fishful sea. With a view to this clambering ruggedness of life, all of these boats receive from their cradle a certain limber rake and accommodating curve, instead of a straight pertinacity of keel, so that they may ride over all the scandals of this arduous world. And happen what may to them, when they are at home, and gallantly balanced on the brow line of the steep, they make a bright show upon the dreariness of coast-land, hanging as ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... jerk I know he has argument ready for some one. I have felt him start as a sudden recollection or a new idea shot through his mind. I have felt grief in his hand. I have felt his soul wrap itself in darkness majestically as in a garment. Another friend has positive, emphatic hands which show great pertinacity of opinion. She is the only person I know who emphasizes her spelled words and accents them as she emphasizes and accents her spoken words when I read her lips. I like this varied emphasis better than the monotonous pound of unmodulated ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... him but with profitable pleasure and improvement. He was one or other, the most modest, the most patient of contradiction, and the most informing and entertaining I ever conversed with—at least, of any man who had so just pretensions to pertinacity and reserve." ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... stay by me! Think—" here her breath died away, and for a moment she seemed really to be dying. "Think," she gasped, and then sank away again. After a minute she opened her eyes, and, with characteristic pertinacity, took up the sentence just where she had left off. She had carefully kept her place throughout the period of unconsciousness. But now she spoke, not with a gasp, but in that shrill, unnatural falsetto so characteristic of hysteria; that voice—half yell—that ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... individuals and the class? Would they not, on the strength of it, be continually assuming to sit in judgment on the proceedings and claims of their betters, even in the most lofty stations; and demanding their own pretended rights, with a troublesome and turbulent pertinacity? Would they not, since their improvement cannot, from their condition in life, be large and deep, be in just such a half taught state, as would make them exactly fit to be wrought upon by all sorts of crafty schemers, fierce declaimers, ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... Hamilton the arrears of the French debt, which the Secretary had refused to pay until there was a stable government in France to receive it. Hamilton laughed, locked the doors of the Treasury, and put the key in his pocket. To Genet's excited volubility and pertinacity he paid as little attention as to Jefferson's arguments. Moreover, he reversed all Citizen Genet's performances in the South; and in course of time, even the captured British ships, to the wrath and disgust of Jefferson, were returned ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... then you jump up and dress, and go to a ball, and leave your cold and your fever behind you, because the ball won't wait till you are well, and the bores will. So don't ask me to be unkind to Zoe, brooch-day," said Fanny, skipping back to her first position with singular pertinacity. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been a monk of Bec, in Normandy, and who had signalized himself at Rouen by his fierce opposition to long hair, was still anxious to work a reformation in this matter. But his pertinacity was far from pleasing to the King, who had finally made up his mind to wear ringlets. There were other disputes, of a more serious nature, between them; so that when the Archbishop died, the King was so glad to be rid of him, that he allowed the see to remain vacant for five years. Still the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... the years from his shoulders. "No one seemed more unconscious of the celebrity to which he had attained," wrote one of his Saratoga acquaintances, long after. "In this there was not a particle of affectation. Nothing he shrank from with greater earnestness and sincerity and (I may add) pertinacity, than any attempt to lionize him." His name was used to conjure with too often for his comfort. An "Irving Literary Union" had been formed in New York. Irving's attitude toward it was amusing and characteristic; he was always invited to attend the anniversary ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... this seems no visionary dream, like those in which, with fatal pertinacity, you have so oft indulged; and, on recollection, the rent of his tenement is in arrears; 'twill offer favourable opportunity for my calling and sounding him; the contract must be ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... doors when she was walking in the villa with her old governess, the excellent Madame Bernard, or riding in the Campagna with her father. Giovanni's duties were light, and he had plenty of time to spare, and his pertinacity in finding her would have been compromising if he had been less ingeniously tactful. It was by no means easy to meet her in society either, for, in spite of recent social developments, Prince Chiaromonte still clung to the antiquated political ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... Joanna," whispered Lord Mar to her in an angry voice, "to make such a reference to the presence of our protector! I cannot stay to listen to a pertinacity as insulting to the rest of our brave leaders as it is oppressive to Sir William Wallace. Edwin, you will come for me when your aunt consents to be guided by right reason." While yet speaking he entered the passage that ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... easily forgotten; the thorough appointment of the dress, and evident thought bestowed on it, made but an incongruous whole with the dark, gloomy expression of his countenance. Because he was Lucy's father, I sought instinctively to meet him everywhere. At last he must have become aware of my pertinacity, for he gave me a haughty scowl whenever I passed him. In one of these encounters, however, I chanced to be of some service to him. He was turning the corner of a street, and came suddenly on one of the groups ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... possess'd a quality most rare;— I tremble when I mention it, I swear! Lest pretty Ladies question my veracity: 'Twas—when he had a secret in his care, To keep it, with the greatest pertinacity. ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... sought to add a sting to his grief, during the last days of his mother's illness, by declaring that she would assert her right to attend the funeral. In spite of any thing he could do or say, she held with wicked pertinacity to her word, and on the day appointed for the burial forced herself—inflamed and shameless with drink—into her husband's presence, and declared that she would walk in the funeral procession to his ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... my friends joined the Church of Rome. One I have already told about, who died, I am sure, from grief and disappointment.* Another became bigoted, and with a sullen, dogged pertinacity, set himself to work for Rome, looking very miserable all the time, although he used once to be happy in the Lord's work. The others, without exception, went back into the world, and made no secret of their conformity with it, ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... and minute guns were fired. After discharging some thirty rounds or more, we were relieved from the state of anxiety we were in by a pilot hailing the ship, and in a minute after he was on deck issuing orders with great pertinacity. ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... manner of each particular speaker, as Sir John Hawkins seems to think. But, indeed, what opinion can we have of his judgement, and taste in publick speaking, who presumes to give, as the characteristicks of two celebrated orators, 'the deep-mouthed rancour of Pulteney[437], and the yelping pertinacity ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... succeed despite all difficulties in his path: such an one may make himself Pope or Grand Vizier, he may overturn an ancient line of kings—provided that he knows how to seize on his opportunity, and be a man of wit and pertinacity. To succeed one must count on being fortunate and despise all ill success, but it is ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... appalling discovery that he had not a particle of fuel or a mouthful of food in the house. He was ill enough to be in bed himself, and his purse was entirely empty. It was a terrible position, made worse, too, by the fact that his friends who had formerly aided him had turned from him, vexed with his pertinacity, and abandoned him to his fate. In his despair, he bethought him of a mere acquaintance who lived several miles from his cottage, and who but a few days before had spoken to him with more of kindness than he had received of late. ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... His noble nature felt that their ignorance was a sort of reflection upon them. They had not looked carefully enough for their lost friends. They had not shown sufficient pertinacity in their inquiries. They were willing and ready to retrace their steps, when, in crossing the suburb which leads to the gates of the town, upon a white wall which was at the corner of a street turning around the rampart, Athos cast his eyes upon a drawing ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pretty certain that a powerful cross in any human breed, whatever effects it may have in other respects, leaves the intellect improved—if not in the very highest qualities, yet in mobility, activity, and pertinacity of attention. The Greek nation has also shown itself morally improved; their revolutionary war evoked and tried, as in a furnace, the very finest qualities of courage, both adventurous and enduring; and we heartily agree in the sentiment delivered so ably by ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... of history must be presumed to stick to the mind with much greater tenacity than a purely rational idea which has no visible symbol in the sensible world, and yet, even in regard to the events of history, the persistence and pertinacity of tradition is exceedingly feeble. The South Sea Islanders know not from whence, or at what time, their ancestors came. There are monuments in Tonga and Fiji of which the present inhabitants can give ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... you are not getting value for your money, but merely disputing for victory in a contest of ostentation. And it is hardly possible to spend your money in a worse or more wasteful way; for though you may not be doing it for ostentation yourself, you are, by your pertinacity, nourishing the ostentation of others; you meet them in their game of wealth, and continue it for them; if they had not found an opposite player, the game would have been done; for a proud man can find no enjoyment in possessing himself ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... horde of these tormentors had pursued him with more than their usual pertinacity, and had worn out his patience, he turned to them, saying—"What do you want with me you varlets? more obstinate than flies, more disgusting than Chinches,[54] and bolder than the boldest fleas. Am I, perchance, the Monte Testacio[55] of Rome, that you cast ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the dingy as quickly as possible, two men were ordered to pull to the strange smack, and, ascertaining her destination, to deliver the letters. This last action on our part took the poor craft by surprise; for it was curious to observe the pertinacity with which this little vessel avoided our boat, although we used every stratagem devised by seafaring men to allay the consternation of the weak: such as the waving of our caps, the hoisting of pacific ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... with much pertinacity to kiss his hands; but Don Quixote, who was in all things a polished and courteous knight, would by no means allow it, but made her rise and embraced her with great courtesy and politeness, and ordered Sancho to look to Rocinante's girths, and to arm him without a moment's ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... tied to the halberts, was requested to flog high, he did—to flog low, he did—to flog in the middle, he did,—high, low, down the middle, and up again, but all in vain; the patient continued his complaints with the most provoking pertinacity, until the drummer, exhausted and angry, flung down his scourge, exclaiming, "The devil burn you, there's no pleasing you, flog where one will!" Thus it is, you have flogged the Catholic high, low, here, there, and every where, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... contemplated these proceedings as matters belonging to the ordinary phenomena of feasting. We agreed that gentlemen were always the last to drop, and were assured, therefore, of our living out the field; but I dreaded the moment of the goose's appearance, and I think he did also. Saddlebank's pertinacity in withholding the cool ginger-beer and the apples offended us deeply; we should have conspired against him had we reposed confidence in our ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... half recognised its note; but he did not connect it with quite another set of sounds, which grew but gradually on his ear out of the bowels of the house. Somebody was knocking and ringing at the doctor's door, not furiously, but with considerable pertinacity. Pocket was thrilled to the marrow just at first, and flew from the open window to the landing outside his door. The house was in perfect darkness, and still as death in the patient intervals between each measured ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... came to nothing, and the Inchbalds eventually went to Hull, where they returned to their old profession. Here, in 1779, suddenly and somewhat mysteriously, Mr. Inchbald died. To his widow the week that followed was one of "grief, horror, and almost despair"; but soon, with her old pertinacity, she was back at her work, settling at last in London, and becoming a member of the Covent Garden company. Here, for the next five years, she earned for herself a meagre living, until, quite unexpectedly, deliverance came. In her moments ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... has been said in regard to the enervating effects of a southern climate, the inhabitants of the state of Louisiana have shown a pertinacity in maintaining their levee system which is almost unexampled. They have always asserted their rights to the lowlands in which they live, and have under the most trying circumstances braved inundation. They have built more than one thousand five hundred ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... in this one-sided pertinacity," I suggested, "and a wise man might humor and use it for the best ends. Instead of attempting to pull these hopeful people back into the church, cannot you urge the church forward to comprehend their position? This impulse,—fanatical as some of its manifestations doubtless are,—might it not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... I was told, are full of beautiful paths and seats, favorite walks and lounges of the poet; but the obdurate pertinacity of the rain compelled us to choose the very shortest path possible to the carriage. I picked a leaf of the Portugal laurel, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... The quiet pertinacity which characterizes this deliberate murder adds a creditable chapter to the voluminous "Newgate Calendar" of the sixteenth century. The murderers—first, second, third, and fourth—having executed ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... The pertinacity of Sarah, and her obduracy, alarmed the notary. This mother had not shown for a moment any feeling in speaking of her child; she had only seemed to consider her death as the loss of a means of action. Such dispositions are implacable in ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... generalize the minutiae of official labour or of legislative enactments with a masterly success. But as the road became clearer to his steps, his ambition became more evident and daring. Naturally dictatorial and presumptuous, his early suppleness to superiors was now exchanged for a self-willed pertinacity, which often displeased the more haughty leaders of his party, and often wounded the more vain. His pretensions were scanned with eyes more jealous and less tolerant than at first. Proud aristocrats began ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... served on deck, but I went into the saloon. Jasper was there but not Grace Mavis, as I had half expected. I asked him what had become of her, if she were ill (he must have thought I had an ignoble pertinacity), and he replied that he knew nothing whatever about her. Mrs. Peck talked to me about Mrs. Nettlepoint and said it had been a great interest to her to see her; only it was a pity she didn't seem more sociable. To this I replied that she ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... from the shrill pertinacity with which Miss Miggs repeated this form of acclamation, that she was calling the same through the keyhole of the door; but in the profound darkness she ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... butterflies, made before our eyes of little bits of tissue-paper, and kept them in the air during the remainder of the performance. I have a vivid recollection of the judge trying to catch one that had lit on his knee, and of its evading him with the pertinacity of a living insect. And, even at this time, Wang, still plying his fan, was taking chickens out of hats, making oranges disappear, pulling endless yards of silk from his sleeve, apparently filling the whole area of the basement with goods that appeared mysteriously from the ground, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... of auburn hair, the long eyelashes, and the small, delicate face. I tried to guess how she would be dressed. Memories came back of words she had said, expressions of the face, graceful motions, dresses. With strange pertinacity, the one memory remained with me,—her coming into the room after she had tried to disguise her emotion by applying powder to her face. At last these memories became so vivid as to equal a second-sight. "There she is again," I said to myself; and in order to pull myself together, I began ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... noisy gang, and undoubtedly gave poor Mrs. Leete a great deal of trouble. There was Boggs (who had lost part of one ear in some fracas with Jack Frost) who paced up and down his room declining Latin verbs with painful pertinacity, and Burton who loved a jest but never made one, and Joe Pritchard, who was interested mainly in politics and oratory, and finally that criminally well-dressed young book agent (with whom we had very little in common) ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... discipline, and worship; and they made little distinction between Popery and Prelacy, between the Mass and the Book of Common Prayer. Unfortunately for Scotland, the prince whom she sent to govern a fairer inheritance had been so much annoyed by the pertinacity with which her theologians had asserted against him the privileges of the synod and the pulpit that he hated the ecclesiastical polity to which she was fondly attached as much as it was in his effeminate nature to hate anything, and had no sooner mounted the English throne than ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for grunts and pantomime are not rapid means of communication, when it comes to detail. The great question in Christian's mind seemed to be, what should we take with us to eat and drink? and when he propounded this to me with steady pertinacity, I, with equal pertinacity, had only one answer—a cord and a hatchet. At last he provided these, vowing that they were ridiculously unnecessary, but comprehending that they must be forthcoming, as a preliminary to anything ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... Catholics, who were still smarting severely under the penal laws. Executions, it is true, had become less frequent, but the royal coffers were still replenished with the fines imposed on Catholics for their pertinacity in assembling to hear Mass by stealth. If a priest were caught, he was thrown into prison, tried, and punished with death. In dealing with the Catholic laity, Charles I. was never in favour of enforcing the extreme rigour of ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... have not gone under, and which altogether is so small that some old gentlewomen can enumerate all the members of it. Few as they are, these form "unquestionably a wealthy and remarkably generous, refined, and accomplished first class, clinging with some pertinacity, although with too evident an effort, to the traditional manners and customs ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... loyal and upright, they wanted no scandal, no rumpus in the family, no trouble or pain for anybody else; but they wanted to belong to each other much more than they wanted to belong to any class, artistic, proletarian, or capitalist. And they were desperate because of the pertinacity of the Obstacle, whom they both respected fully ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... one who, in addition to deformity, he also discovered to labor under the more serious curse of partial idiocy. Having done this, and flattered, in sundry other ways, the peculiarities of his companion, he pursued his other point with laudable pertinacity. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the sense one gains at times while watching an ingenious machine at its work—a sense of being in the presence of a living and conscious thing, with more than the industry, the pertinacity, the dexterity, of a man. There was a moment, while watching Brennan's car, when one had to summon an effort of reason to do away with this sense of life; it answered each movement of the men on board and each inequality in the makeshift track with ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... of matchless wealth, the discovery of which belonged entirely to the old overman. Ten years' sojourn in the deserted mine, an uncommon pertinacity in research, perfect faith, sustained by a marvelous mining instinct—all these qualities together led him to succeed where so many others had failed. Why had the soundings made under the direction of James Starr during the last years of the working stopped just at that limit, on the very frontier ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... The prolix pertinacity with which this old aged man adheres to the opinion that he had formed, without any intelligible reason, is characteristic of an English peasant; but however absurd his mode of judging may be, and however confused ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... desperate man to-night, whatever I may have been yesterday." The young man's tone was both earnest and convincing. "I think I've shown that by my pertinacity in ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... carpenters among them, were at work in the thicket opposite, cutting brush. We saw many large trees which had been cut down by them. The stumps looked as though some boy had chopped them down with a dull axe. It is surprising to reflect upon the pertinacity of these creatures which enables them to gnaw down such immense trees, and the wisdom with which they calculate the direction in which the ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... (Battle of the Peoples), as the Germans term it, decided that the future of Europe was not to be moulded by the imperial autocrat, but by the will of the princes and nations whom his obstinacy had embattled against him. Far from recognising the verdict, the great man struggled on until the pertinacity of the allies finally drove him from power and assigned to France practically the same boundaries that she had had in 1791, before the time of her mighty expansion. That is to say, the nation which in its purely democratic form had easily overrun and subdued the neighbouring States ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... framed in the red glow from the opened fire-box door. It was surging and bounding alarmingly over the uneven track, not without threatenings of derailment. Ford was willing to give the president the full benefit of his unreasonable pertinacity; but there were others to be considered—and ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... is to say, everything pertaining to vocal art and dramatic delivery, would follow naturally. In this way he picked up any clerical errors there might be in the libretto, and that with such incorrigible pertinacity, that he uttered the wrong words with just the same expression as if they were correct. He waved aside good- humouredly any expostulations or hints as to the sense with the remark, 'Ah! that will be all right soon.' And, in fact, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... has appeared thus far as a disinterested spectator of other people's affairs, had yet his own active and personal interests in life. Them he pursued, at odd times, and in odd ways, with admirable pertinacity; and as a crisis is now upon him and chance knits the outcome of it into the main fabric of this narrative, Billy and his ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... avoid all this. Why write at all? There was no heavy necessity laid upon you. That was the question which I used to put to myself. But you persisted in writing, and in sending to me over the seas, with diabolical pertinacity, those hideous letters in which every word was ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... a beetle or two, and then my merchant, with strange pertinacity, returned to the bull-frog. Not far distant stood our Model Man, working for his life. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... gathered around us to the number of a dozen or more, and were desirous of trading their horses for articles of clothing; articles which many of them appeared to stand greatly in need of, but which we had not to part from. Their pertinacity exceeded the bounds of civility, as I thought; but I was not in a good humour, for the fleas, bugs, and other vermin, which infested our miserable lodgings, had caused me a sleepless night, by goring my body until the blood oozed ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... are useful. We pelt each other with a hearty vigour, and discharge volleys of confetti at every window where a fair English face appears. The poor luckless nosegay or sugar-plum boys look upon us as their best friends, and follow our carriages with importunate pertinacity. Fancy dresses of any kind are few. There are one or two very young men—English, I suspect,—dressed as Turks, or Greeks, or pirates, after Highbury Barn traditions, looking cold and uncomfortable. Half a dozen tumble-down carriages represent the Roman element. ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... was the pertinacity with which he had been thrust forward, time after time, on the most desperate and deadly duty—a pertinacity so striking, that, eager as the young soldier was, and greedy of any chance of winning honor, it had not failed to strike him that he was frequently ordered on duty of a nature which, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... was almost uniformly successful: the one exception {7} was the Sanhedrim of the Jews, which obstinately refused the imperial cult and resisted Caligula's effort to introduce his statue with the same successful pertinacity as had repelled the efforts of Antiochus Epiphanes in the days of the Maccabees. The episode ended disastrously, for the spirit of nationalism and unreasoning hate to the government of Rome roused a rebellion which inevitably led to the fall of Jerusalem and the ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... o'clock the Harris Light plunged into the river at Kelly's Ford, leading the advance. A strong detachment of Stuart's cavalry, consisting of pickets and reserves, opposed our crossing with dogged pertinacity, but finally, yielding to our superior numbers and to the deadly accuracy of our carbines, gave way. He then advanced in the direction of Brandy Station. The farther we advanced the stronger grew the ever-accumulating ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... sensations, that the almost daily recurrence of my visions might ultimately lead to insanity, I came to the resolution of reducing my daily allowance of opium; and, confining myself, with the most rigid pertinacity, to a quantity not exceeding one third of what I had formerly taken, I became speedily sensible of a most essential change in my condition. A state of comparative health, mental and physical with calmer sleep and a more natural exercise of the organs of vision, succeeded. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... profitless to the alert student. These huge and flaring productions have objectionable features which are only too obvious, but they are conducted by the cleverest journalists in the world, and the invaluable journalistic instinct is apparent on every page of them. The splendid pertinacity and ingenuity of the American journalist in wringing copy out of any and every side of existence cannot fail to quicken the pulses of those who are accustomed to the soberer, narrower, sleepier ways of English newspapers. Fleet Street pretends to despise ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... whereof very intelligent young men flaunt very tattered gowns and smoke massive pipes with great skill for their years), skirting the Bank of Ireland, and on to the River Liffey and the street which local patriotism defiantly speaks of as O'Connell Street, and alien patriotism, with equal defiance and pertinacity, knows ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... again with apparently wearisome monotony, which is the attractive feature. And the amount of pleasure to be found in listening to any musical exercise is proportionate to the skill of the performer in beating out his even measure on drum, or pipe, with unwearied pertinacity. ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... he had been desired to call at eleven, and as the clock struck eleven he knocked at the Serjeant's door. "Serjeant Bluestone is not here yet," said the clerk, who was disposed to be annoyed by the man's pertinacity. ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... will pay you ten francs a day, sir," the soldier answered, returning to the charge with wonted pertinacity, "and you will do as you choose after that. We shall understand each other better, now that the question is settled," he added, grasping the doctor's hand with eager cordiality. "In spite of my ten francs, you shall see that I am by no means ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... eye off the offender, but attended him to the cabin, where he was supplied with a seaman's suit. Perth objected to changing his clothing with a pertinacity which ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... he even tried to make believe that he was invulnerable as well—to set up the thesis that if the book was really on the table he could find it. But in this he suffered so many reverses that only strong natural pertinacity ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... laughed dolefully, and, as it happened, Bates's grim humor prevented him from ascertaining the exact nature of Furneaux's pertinacity. Moreover, the time was passing. At 7:15 Theydon called a taxi and was carried swiftly to Mr. Forbes's house in Belgravia, while Bates disposed himself and the dressing case on top ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... diabolical bargain. We went into a cottage close by, and had some boiled eggs and cider. The inmates were at their meal—a bowl of milk, into which they broke their buckwheat "galette." We were much struck with the jealous pertinacity of the Breton, to show he considers himself as of a different people and country to the rest of France, a feeling which more than three hundred years has not dissipated. Our driver would talk of Bretons and ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... living spirits of feudalism, which have survived its human retainers by several hundred years, and now represent the defunct institution as pretentiously as in King Stephen's day. They are as fond of old Norman castles, cathedrals, and churches, as the very ivy itself, and cling to them with as much pertinacity. For several hundred generations of bird-life, they and their ancestors have colonised their sable communities in the baronial park-trees of England, and their descendants promise to abide for as many generations to come. In size, form, and ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... the passes blocked up. The few Indians who did occasionally appear in Cuzco from Uilcapampa said the friar could not get there "unless he should be able to change himself into a bird." However, with that courage and pertinacity which have marked so many missionary enterprises, Friar Marcos finally overcame all ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... the pertinacity of Lord LOREBURN and Lord SELBORNE, their lordships have done something very particular. They have proposed that the PRIME MINISTER shall announce, with any honour conferred, the reasons why he has recommended it, having previously satisfied himself that a contribution to party funds was not one ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... applied his principle and managed by means of it to take a definite side. As he worked at his last he would concentrate his mind on some chosen problem of social reform, and would ponder, with singular pertinacity, the ways and degrees in which alternative solutions of it would affect the happiness of men. He would sometimes spend weeks in meditating thus on a single problem, and, when a solution had been reached according to his method, he made it a regular practice to go down to the Nag's Head and announce ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... be wondered that the claims of Great Britain have been urged with the utmost pertinacity and supported by every possible form of argument. The territory in question is of great value to her, by covering the only mode of communication which can exist for nearly six months in the year, not only between two valuable colonies, but between the most important of all her possessions ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... was instinctively felt, even by his admirers. Miss Martineau said to Crabb Robinson in 1839, speaking of Wordsworth's conversation: "Sometimes he is annoying from the pertinacity with which he dwells on trifles; at other times he flows on in the utmost grandeur, leaving a strong impression of inspiration." Robinson tells us that he read "Resolution" and "Independence" to a lady who was affected by it even to tears, and ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... the junto was less fortunate. Three ministerial Aldermen were returned. But the fourth member, Sir John Fleet, was not only a Tory, but was Governor of the old East India Company, and had distinguished himself by the pertinacity with which he had opposed the financial and commercial policy of the first Lord of the Treasury. While Montague suffered the mortification of finding that his empire over the city was less absolute than he had imagined, Wharton, notwithstanding ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the weapons of the most formidable and orthodox of his adversaries against them, by showing from their writings that they had, in detail at least, acquiesced in the truths that they now, in a generalised form, seek to controvert and repudiate. So much adroitness and pertinacity in the author can hardly fail to provoke resistance, if not asperity, despite of the imperturbable temper in which he maintains the combat. The learned have been disturbed in their daily routine, by the discharge from an unknown hand, of ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... practiced by the companies belonging to this pool were one of the chief causes of the Granger movement in Iowa. It is indeed doubtful whether any other railroad combination ever maintained itself longer or pursued its ends with greater pertinacity than this pool. Another pool of national notoriety was the Southern Railway and Steamship Association, which was organized, though at first under a different name, in the State of Georgia, in 1875. It was probably the first ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... vast powers of resistance—powers which, had they been made use of to the utmost, might have tired out the patience of the Persians. That lively, active, but not over-persevering people would scarcely have maintained a siege with the pertinacity of the Babylonians themselves or of the Egyptians. If the stratagem of Cyrus had failed—and its success depended wholly on the Babylonians exercising no vigilance—the capture of the town would have been almost impossible. Babylon was too large to be blockaded; its walls were too lofty to be ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... unendowed with judgment to rightly use the little knowledge he already possesses—to properly interpret his own feelings or guide his own impulses—has not his church with its priestly control, he will have his secret-society with its secret executive control, its bovine fury, and its senseless pertinacity, the poison-bowl and the dagger. For my part, if a man must either seek liberty from ambush, and learn independence through treachery, or else be on his knees before a graven image, suited to his mental calibre—let us keep him on his knees till ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... ship being unable to return to New Zealand arose in his mind 'with sickening pertinacity,' and it was characteristic of him that at the moment when there was every prospect of a complete disarrangement of well-laid plans, he found his one [Page 238] consolation in determining that, whatever happened, nothing should interfere with ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... you would be at least seven," cried the mistress of the house, "and with all the pertinacity of Wordsworth's little girl." ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the poor Hedgehog oppose them. With all the pertinacity of ignorance, they maintained their certainty of his abnormal condition; and with all the officiousness of quackery, they insisted upon immediate amputation. Aided by two volunteer assistants, the self-made surgeons cut ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... landed at this place. Soon after, they were attacked by a party of English regulars and militiamen, who drove them into a windmill and two strong stone houses, which they loopholed, and defended themselves with a pertinacity which one would have called heroism, had it been in a better cause. They finally surrendered, and were carried prisoners to Kingston, where six of them were hanged. Their leader, a military adventurer, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... theatre. You have no more idea of George Douglass than a bear has of a lion. This mood of depression is only a cloud; it will pass and you will be glad to beg his pardon. My faith in him and in Lillian's Duty is unshaken. He has the artistic temperament, but he has also the pertinacity of genius. Come, let's all go to ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... bloodshed and alarms, the missionary stuck to his post. The obstinacy of hatred was being gradually overcome by the superior pertinacity of zeal in a good cause, and the invariable practice—so incomprehensible to the savage mind—of returning good for evil; the result was, that the Sabbath bell still sent its tinkling sound over the verdant slopes above Sandy Cove, and the hymn of praise still arose, morning and evening, from ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... few occasions on which a stray human being crossed his path, his manner was such as by no means encouraged the curious. Mr. Stamps was the only individual who had seen the woman face to face. There was an unmoved pertinacity in the character of Mr. Stamps which stood him in good stead upon all occasions. He was not easily abashed or rebuffed, the more especially when he held in view some practical object. Possibly he held some such object in ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... known me so long, that I have the vanity to believe, that if I promise to guard your child as if she were my own, you will trust her with me," her grace urged, with a pertinacity that could not fail to be flattering. "She will be as safe under my care as were she under the observance ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... pertinacity, and seeing no end to her cross-questioning, I replied, very impatiently, "Mrs. R—-, is it the custom in your country to catechise strangers whenever ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... monopoly of patronage confined to offices of importance or considerable emolument; it descended even to commissions in the army, and the disposal of small places which custom as well as expediency had delegated to the heads of those branches of service to which they belonged. His Majesty's pertinacity on these points frequently precipitated painful embarrassments of a personal nature, entailed much disagreeable correspondence, and sometimes produced misunderstandings and alienations of far greater moment than the paltry considerations in which they originated. Amongst the numerous ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... February 1660, when all persons of ordinary information saw that the restoration of monarchy was certain, Milton knew it not, and put out a tract to show his countrymen a Ready and easy way to establish a free Commonwealth. With the same pertinacity with which he had adhered to his own assumption that Morus was author of the Clamor, he now refused to believe in the return of the Stuarts. Fast as his pen moved, events outstripped it, and he ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... secure for himself the command against Mithridates, he found himself compelled to apply to a woman named Praecia, whose social gifts and good nature gave her immense influence, which she used with the pertinacity peculiar to such ladies. Her reputation, however, was very bad, and among other lovers she had enslaved Cethegus (afterwards the conspirator), whose power at the time was immense at Rome. Thus, says Plutarch, the whole power of the State fell into ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... smoked his cigar on the lawn. A great part, if not the whole of this, he imputed to his knowledge of Redclyffe's connections with the Doctor; but yet this hardly seemed sufficient to account for the pertinacity with which the old man haunted his footsteps,—the poor, nervous old thing,—always near him, or often unexpectedly so; and yet apparently not very willing to hold conversation with him, having nothing of importance ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Royal, on the right on entering the "Color Court," has a carved and painted ceiling of 1540. Madame d'Arblay describes the pertinacity of George III. in attending service here in bitter November weather, when the queen and court at length left the king, his chaplain, and equerry "to freeze ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... all the glass was over, the shelves and cases were torn down, and, with the table and chairs, carried out into the street, and cast into a heap. Other wood was brought; and it was owing to the pertinacity of the mob in front of the house, in attacking the shutters, that the rioters met with no opposition in the surgery. Hope, Enderby, and their assistants, had more on their hands than they could well manage, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... about two yards long, passed round the hips and falling to the knees. We resumed the negotiations of the day before, and were more successful. I remarked that when the bargain was concluded, he insisted with great pertinacity that part of the payment should be in Spanish dollars. We asked the reason, and he made answer that he wished to buy a frigate of his brother, King George, meaning the king of England. The bargain concluded, we prayed his majesty and his suite to dine ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... efforts to crush him by assuming the calm superiority of the older hand. But with Garstin's logic it was useless to be calm. It was worse than useless to try to be superior. The intruder stuck to his guns with respectful pertinacity. Perhaps the fire had warmed his brain into unwonted activity; Trevannion found himself wondering whether this was so, or whether it was a normal state—the ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... none the less his pictures were beginning to sell, and the family displayed a moderate content. The discomposing appearance of Sir John Tamworth, however, gave a different complexion to the matter. Sir John was rich, and had besides the confident pertinacity of success. In a word, Kitty ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... were to have the succession question settled, and how singular was the effect of that question's existence and overshadowing importance on the conduct of the Great Queen. The desire that she should marry, and the pertinacity with which she was urged to abandon her maiden state by Parliament, which strike us of the nineteenth century as being not simply indelicate, but utterly gross even in the coarse sixteenth century, must in fairness be attributed to the fear that prevailed throughout England ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... kind heart of dame Spikeman was not so easily to be diverted from its purpose, and she persisted, with some pertinacity, in a determination to remain, until her husband laid his commands upon her to ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... his eloquence might have been, it seems not to have prevailed with the council; for Logan had to interpose otherwise than by argument or entreaty, to succeed in the attainment of his object. Enraged at the pertinacity with which the life of Robinson was sought to be taken, and reckless of the consequences, he drew the tomahawk from his belt, and severing the cords which bound the devoted victim to the stake, led him in triumph, to the cabin of an old squaw, by ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... they had regained their lost footing in the house, and came day after day to know lucky numbers in the lottery; sometimes forcing themselves up the stairs, and into the Count's laboratory, in spite of the efforts of the servants to prevent them. Cagliostro, exasperated at their pertinacity, threatened to call in the assistance of the magistrates; and taking Miss Fry by the shoulders, pushed her into ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... short, his manner was pleasant, his eyes gray and soft, his movements gentle, his whole appearance that of a good fellow, simple and kindly. He called Pierre et Jean "my dear children," and had never seemed to prefer either, asking them both together to dine with him. And then Pierre, with the pertinacity of a dog seeking a lost scent, tried to recall the words, gestures, tones, looks, of this man who had vanished from the world. By degrees he saw him quite clearly in his rooms in the rue Tronchet, where he received his brother and himself ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... of all South Americans the Paraguayans are the most mild-mannered and lethargic; yet when these people are once aroused they fight with tigerish pertinacity. The pages of history may be searched in vain for examples of warfare waged at such odds; but the result is invariably the same, the weaker nation, whether right or wrong, goes under. Although the national mottoes vary with the different flags, yet the Chilian is the most universally ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... and ran down the stairs to find some traces of the intelligible members of his family. Happily Bobby, remembering their former altercation, and determining to have the last word, barred Benjamin's path with such pertinacity that Esther came out to quiet him and leapt into her brother's arms with a great cry of joy, dropping the book she held ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... her, haunted her, pursued her, week after week. To rid her of it, or to silence her, was impossible. She added no new facts to her first statement, but insisted that the long-lost dead was yet alive, with a quiet pertinacity that it was simply impossible to ridicule, frighten, threaten, or cross-question out of her. Clara was so thoroughly alarmed that she would not have slept alone for any mortal—perhaps not for any immortal—considerations. ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... end, the pertinacity with which we urged our good counsels became disagreeable to his Holiness. His retrograde court has a horror of us; it prefers the Austrians, who crush the people, but who never talk of liberty. The Cardinals say, sometimes ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... The same pertinacity was maintained with respect to the Indians. George Croghan informed Washington that the sachems considered themselves treated with slight, in never being consulted in war matters. That he himself had ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... am not unmindful of the pertinacity with which men adhere to old habits. Dr. Rush speaks of a venerable clergyman who closed a long sermon, in which he had controverted what he supposed an heretical opinion, with these words: "I tell you—I tell you, my brethren, I tell you again, ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler
... begun to set his traps yet; that's his stamping-ground, you know, during the winter, and he makes quite a haul of muskrats, 'coons, some mink and even an otter once in a long while," said Bluff, enthusiastically—he was always a leading spirit in new ventures, but lacked the pertinacity ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... nearly three months he had given all his working time to this. His knowledge of orchestration had already been considerable, even remarkable. But he wanted to be sure of all the most modern combinations. He had toiled with a pertinacity, a tireless energy that had astonished his "coach." But the driving force behind him was not what it had been when he worked alone in the long and dark room, with the dim oil-paintings and the orange-colored ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... were, consequently, broken up; and the Queen ceased to be seen in society. Then commenced the unconquerable power over her of those forebodings which have clung to her with such pertinacity ever since. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... Susceptibility Wheat Stalks, Riches Whin, Anger Whortleberry, Treason Willow, creeping, Love forsaken Willow, Water, Freedom Willow, Weeping, Mourning Willow Herb, Pretension Woodbine, Fraternal Love Wormwood, Absence Xanthium, Pertinacity Yew, Sorrow ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... t'ink 'e sight do a white man some good, too;" returned Euclid, who had all the pertinacity of a spoiled Dutch negro, singularly blended with affection for him in whose service he had been born. "I hear ebbery body say, 'er'e war' but two color man in he ship, and 'em bot' ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... form of heartless words, seemed to my startled mind so exceedingly terrible in unapproachable majesty, and so very angry with me in particular, that I became paralyzed with fear. I strove against this with characteristic pertinacity; I called to mind all the commonplace assurances respecting the sufficiency of a good intention, and magnified alike my doings and my sufferings. I persuaded myself it was only a holy awe, the effect of distinguished piety and rare humility, and that I was really an object of ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... point had not been made," is a thought radical enough to send a shudder along Pennsylvania Avenue. Under this ruling, a single player in a game of eight might spend a half-hour in running and rerunning a single bridge, with dog-in-the-mangerish pertinacity, waiting his opportunity to claim the most mischievous run as the valid one. It would produce endless misunderstandings and errors of memory. The only vexed case which it would help to decide is that in which a ball, in running ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... that were current in earlier days, namely, the noteworthy charge brought against the Christians that they changed and altered their sacred books; the orthodox accused the unorthodox of varying the Scriptures, and the heretics retorted the charge with equal pertinacity. The Ebionites maintained that the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew was the only authentic Gospel, and regarded the four Greek Gospels as unreliable. The Marcionites admitted only the Gospel resembling that of Luke, and were accused by the orthodox of having ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... the puppy home. I imagine I had more pertinacity than the average Folk, or else I should not have succeeded. They laughed at me when they saw me lugging the puppy up to my high little cave, but I did not mind. Success crowned my efforts, and there was the puppy. He was a plaything such as none of the Folk possessed. ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... in full summer foliage, or a meadow of so brilliant an emerald that it seemed to shine by its own lustre. As we approached the Lierfoss, the road was barred with a great number of gates, before which waited a troop of ragged boys, who accompanied us the whole of the way, with a pertinacity equal to that of the ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... been only a pleasant task to follow the windings of the childish fancy ingenious in its caprice; and only amusing to submit to the childish tyranny which pursues its own beau-ideal of sport with reckless pertinacity; there sometimes comes a change when the spoiled darling takes her first step upon the threshold of maturity; when, with all the fresh vigor of youth in her untutored will, she begins to assert her privilege, to cater for her own happiness, and fashion her future according to the ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... there is not a planter on the island, it is said, from whom it would be more difficult to get any work than from one of these. They subsist by begging altogether: they are not vicious, nor intemperate, nor troublesome particularly, except as beggars. In that calling they have a pertinacity before which a Northern mendicant would grow pale. They will not be denied. They will stand perfectly still and look through a window from the street for a quarter of an hour, if not driven away, with their ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... long set her mind upon this lustrous piece of attire, and was waiting, somewhat impatiently, the time when it should be allotted to her. So audibly had she made her vow that Ellen was reminded of her pertinacity in still hoarding this precious and coveted piece of finery, which Bridget looked upon as an unwarrantable detention of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... said Jasper, in a quick, excited voice, interrupting Mr. Melleville. "Our contract, regularly entered into, has expired by limitation. He was to have the care of her only until she reached her twelfth year. Of this fact he is clearly advised, and I wonder at his pertinacity in endeavouring to retain the child, when he knows that I, her guardian, wish to have her in ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... in a strange, bland fashion. He could have told Fenwick prosaically what a man with a grasp like his could do in connection with a water pipe. He could have told, also, how he had dogged and watched his victim within the last few hours, with the pertinacity of a bloodhound. But Zary could see how Fenwick was shaken and dazed by some terrible thing which he could not understand. It was no cue of Zary's to enlighten the miserable ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... not like himself; he was as he had been that day when Mr. May saw him at the Dorsets, determined, more than a match for his father, who had only the obstinacy of his own nature, not that dead resisting force of two people to bring to the battle. Clarence had all the pertinacity that was not in his mother, to reinforce his own. Mr. Copperhead stared at his son with that look of authority, half-imperious, half-brutal, with which he was in the habit of crushing all who resisted him; but ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... remember seeing, in 1893, standing around on the field as a member of the second or third scrub teams. I suppose he would not have been invited to preliminary training except for his own courage and pertinacity which caused him to demand to be taken. With no thought that he could possibly make the team I gradually found myself using him in 1894, until he was a fixture at tackle, although he dodged the scales throughout the entire fall in order that I ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... things that honour should be shown to her in her death; her mind often occupied itself with strange interest and pertinacity on the details of her funeral. All her wishes respecting it had long been known to her granddaughters, but her eldest surviving son had never been mentioned by name to them. She always spoke of him as "the ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow |
