"Importunate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... entreated with continual and ardent prayers, both that he would put into the hearts of all magistrates, zeal and care to cherish, defend, and guard the ecclesiastical discipline, together with the rest of Christ's ordinances, and to stop their ears against the importunate suits of whatsoever claw-backs who would stir them up against the church; and that, also, all governors and rulers of churches, being everywhere furnished and helped with the strength of the Holy Spirit, may diligently and faithfully execute this part also of ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... while had elapsed, a number of savage hungry-looking men came up the hill and settled themselves in my encampment, squatting on the date-bags and clamouring for food. The prince and camel-drivers joined them, and became so importunate, I was obliged to rebuke them with angry demonstration. No sooner did they see me vexed than they began hovering tauntingly around me, jeering and vociferating in savage delight at the impunity they enjoyed in irritating me when all alone and helpless. However, I stood by the date and rice ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... good few will try to palm themselves off upon her. If she is young and foolish, she will be for a short time in doubt; if she is older and wiser, she will butt away the little impostors with her head; but they are very importunate, and will stick to her for a long while. At last, however, she finds her true child, and is comforted. She kisses its nose and tail with the most affectionate fondness, and soon the lost lamb is seen helping himself lustily, and frolicking with his tail in the height of his contentment. I have ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... expiated. His fame was fairest of the fair, his name most honored among the, honorable. If not remorse, what then was the nature of his life-long sorrow? Many, many times she revolved this question in her mind. And as she matured in thought and affection, the question grew more earnest and importunate. Oh, that he would unburden his heart to her; oh! that she might share and alleviate his griefs. If "all earnest desires are prayers," then prayer was Miriam's "vital breath and native air" indeed; her soul earnestly desired, prayed, to ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... after they lost their friend. They had great comfort in the dog which Jean Jacques had given to them, and they roused themselves to a malicious pleasure when Bobon, as he had been called by Zoe, rushed out at the heels of an importunate local creditor who had greatly worried Jean Jacques at the last. They waited in vain for a letter from Jean Jacques, but none came; nor did they hear anything from him, or of him, for a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ascending with acceptance before the Father's throne. The answer may tarry;—these your supplications may seem to be kept long on the wing, hovering around the mercy-seat. A gracious God sometimes sees it meet thus to test the faith and patience of His people. He delights to hear the music of their importunate pleadings—to see them undeterred by difficulties—unrepelled by apparent forgetfulness and neglect. But He will come at last; the pent-up fountain of love and mercy will at length burst out;—the soothing ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... to "Elsie's Girlhood" having become too loud and importunate to be resisted, the pleasant task of writing it ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... hearty set of people could not be imagined, and the chaff flew about as thick as the dust clouds, while at every wayside inn the landlord and the drawers would be out with trays of foam-headed tankards to moisten those importunate throats. The ale-drinking, the rude good-fellowship, the heartiness, the laughter at discomforts, the craving to see the fight—all these may be set down as vulgar and trivial by those to whom they are distasteful; but to me, listening to the far-off and uncertain echoes of our ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... one of those rare souls who never dream of asking a favour for themselves, but can be shamelessly importunate on behalf of a fellow-creature. On receipt of Hester's resignation, which she submitted to him first in private and then sent to him formally through the post, he panted up the hill to seek an ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the country—a letter from him—which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness—of a mental disorder which oppressed him—and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his only personal ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... fill her life to overflowing; and now, in less than a moment, the simplest accident had pushed it into the background. In the place where it had been there was a restless longing which seemed at one instant a part of the universal stirring of the spring, and became the next an importunate desire for the coming of the lover to whom she had been taught to look as to the fulfilment of her womanhood. At times this lover appeared to have no connection with Oliver Treadwell; then the memory of his eager and searching look would flush the world with a magic enchantment. "He might ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... the long-protracted struggles, difficulties, and embarrassments of our infant Republic this portion of our Union has never been urgent or importunate in pressing its claims, but has submitted patiently to the force of circumstances which rendered it ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... intellect. I should only be afraid, by my inadequate replies, of giving you occasion to blaspheme and further reasons for hardening your heart. I feel a strong desire to help you; yet the sole fruit of my importunate efforts ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... at the White Mountains. Dr. Maverick found a good deal of sickness among the poorer classes, low fevers and various troubles, that he knew well enough came from insufficient diet. But what was to be done? There was so little work, so much lost time, the inexorable rent, and the importunate grocer's bill. Up on Hope Terrace the luscious grapes fell to the ground, and were swept up as so much litter; the fresh, lovely vegetables passed their prime unheeded, and ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... nearly three hundred pounds the previous evening which his account at his banker's did not enable him to pay; his Dublin agent had declined advancing him more money at present, and his tradesmen were very importunate. In fact, he was in a scrape, and Dot must advise him how ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... then was eclipsed by her whom, a few days before, she disdained. Instead of a succession of visiters, her house was deserted; and, at the expiration of the year, the proud fair, awakened from her golden dream by the clamours of her importunate creditors, found herself without one friend to rescue her valuables ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... monastically, he was entitled to the abbey and that the usurping gentleman wronged of his right, and therefore he called upon his majesty to have justice done to him. Nodding his peruke, the king promised to render him contented. This monk, importunate as are all hooded animals, came often at the end of the king's meals, who, bored with the holy water of the convent, called friend Tristan and said to him: "Old fellow, there is here a Turpenay who angers me, rid the world of him for me." ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... the palace at Greenwich along with the magister, in the barge that was taking the heralds to the King's marriage with Anne of Cleves, the young Poins was importunate with Udal to advance him in his knowledge of the Italian tongue. He thought that in the books of the Sieur Macchiavelli upon armies and the bearing of arms there were unfolded many secret passes with the rapier and the stiletto. But Udal laughed good-humouredly. He had, he said, little skill ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... pleasure in obeying. Do as I ask you, for Heaven's sake, or I will answer for nothing. Indeed, now I think of it," she added, with the manner of one who has just seen further into a difficulty, "I find a better plan of keeping importunate visitors away. Tell the porter to admit no one for you, except a person who may come that night to claim a debt; and speak with some feeling, as though you feared the interview, so that he may take your ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was importunate in urging his extravagant designs upon persons of influence. When the French Government in 1767 commissioned him to work in Madagascar, he believed that his dream was to come true, but a rude awakening and the accustomed quarrels followed. He landed on the Isle of France, purposing ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... have waved this Undertaking, had not I been put in mind of my Promise by several of my unknown Correspondents, who are very importunate with me to make an Example of the Coquet, as I have already done of the Beau. It is therefore in Compliance with the Request of Friends, that I have looked over the Minutes of my former Dream, in order to give the Publick an exact Relation to it, which I shall enter upon without ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... cannot eat stones and turfs, say. What, will he clem me and my followers? ask him an he will clem me; do, go. He would have me fry my jerkin, would he? Away, setter, away. Yet, stay, my little tumbler, this old boy shall supply now. I will not trouble him, I cannot be importunate, ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... exceedingly importunate with God in prayer, and would plead with God at an unusual rate; and he would beg and expostulate, and weep so, that sometimes it could not be kept from the ears of the neighbours: so that one in the next house was forced to cry out, "The prayers ...
— Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour - A Token for Children • John Wesley
... smile, your flute make music, only through delight in my love; therefore you are importunate even as I. ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... indignation in the last, is perfectly satisfied. We see the thing ourselves, and show it to others as we feel it to exist, and as, in spite of ourselves, we are compelled to think of it. The imagination, by thus embodying and turning them to shape, gives an obvious relief to the indistinct and importunate cravings of the will. We do not wish the thing to be so; but we wish it to appear such as it is. For knowledge is conscious power; and the mind is no longer in this case the dupe, though it may be the victim, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... carrying the timber for the platform of the battery. It was a bright, sunny morning, and the men were rowing lazily towards the fort, "when they saw this frigate at sea." The men were in merry heart, and eager for a game at handystrokes. They were "very importunate on him, to give chase and set upon this frigate, which they deemed had been a fit booty for them." He told them that they "wanted weapons to assail"; that, for all they knew, the frigate might be full of men and guns; and that their boat was cumbered up with planks, required for his brother's ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... Else, Duchess of Brabant, spent her days in tears. She was an orphan, and, as she possessed great wealth and extensive lands, many were anxious to secure her hand. Among these suitors her guardian, Frederick of Telramund, was the most importunate; and when he saw that she would never consent to marry him, he resolved to obtain her inheritance in ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... the means of drawing you into this ugly scrape, but for my poor father's sake you must forgive me. If you were to make a second application to your ungracious dad, he might, in the hope of ridding himself of such an importunate beggar, give down the two hundred pounds yet wanting. Such a decrease in your demand might work wonders. What think you? Matters cannot be worse between you than ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... morning he came out to walk a road shaded by a file of deodars, that coiled the hill round like importunate love. ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... the formation of roads through the wilderness. The rulers of Great Britain entertain the opinion that when they have once seized upon a distant country, and thrown into it a handful of troops and a few of their importunate friends, with the title of government officers, they have done all that is required of them. They wait with resignation for any account that may be brought of the progress of the new colony, by some wandering merchant-vessel. Despatches, frequently ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... confidence, which demanded, it seemed to him, a cordial response, a pressure of the hand, was seized with a strange uneasiness. This coolness, this absent look, so unnerved him that he was at the door with the awkward bow of one who feels himself importunate, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... of the road in front of us took my eyes down its quiet vista, until they were fixed suddenly by an alien object, a growing dot, accompanied by dust, whence came the small, distorted honks of an automobile. These fat, importunate sounds redoubled as the machine rushed toward the bridge, growing up to its full staring, brazen dimensions. Six or seven figures sat in it, all of the same dusty, shrouded likeness, their big glass eyes and their masked mouths suggesting some fabled, ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... efficient means of opposing the libertine tendencies of his day. "Nothing," he declared in one of his sermons (1662), "has appeared more insufferable to the arrogance of libertines than to see themselves continually under the observation of this ever-watchful eye of Providence. They have felt it as an importunate compulsion to recognise that there is in Heaven a superior force which governs all our movements and chastises our loose actions with a severe authority. They have wished to shake off the yoke of this Providence, in order to maintain, in independence, an unteachable liberty which moves them ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... eagerly scanned the figures about the station. Three or four swagger young drummers had scrambled off the smoker, and these ambassadors of fashion as many hotel bus drivers were inviting with importunate hospitality to honour their respective board and bed. There was the shirt-sleeved figure of Jim Ludlow, ticket agent and tenor of the Presbyterian choir. And leaning cross-legged beneath the station ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... death, there were two hundred dollars due an institute, for board and tuition of their two little boys. His death was the flood-gate opened, which let in a successive torrent of perplexities, losses, dilemmas, delays, law-suits, etc. She had not been able to pay that bill; the principal was importunate, persevering, bitter, and, at last, abusive. She cried to the Lord for a week, day and night, almost without ceasing. Then, a gentleman whom she had taken to her own house and carefully nursed through a dangerous illness, three years before, called to say good-bye. He was ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... churches sent forth joyous peals. Sprat was amazed to hear the bells of his own Abbey ringing merrily. He promptly silenced them: but his interference caused much angry muttering. The Bishops found it difficult to escape from the importunate crowd of their wellwishers. Lloyd was detained in Palace Yard by admirers who struggled to touch his hands and to kiss the skirt of his robe, till Clarendon, with some difficulty, rescued him and conveyed him home by a bye path. Cartwright, it is said, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Presidency, wrote many excellent letters, and too many—so many, indeed, that his adversaries indulged in pointless ridicule, and called him 'The Complete Letter Writer.' We allude, of course, to that brief letter to certain importunate individuals in Alabama, which lost for him the decisive and final vote of New York, and made Mr. Polk President—its consequences being the war with Mexico, the acquisition and annexation of California, the discovery of the gold mines—working an utter change ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... themselves agreeable to Lady Middleton. With her children they were in continual raptures, extolling their beauty, courting their notice, and humouring their whims; and such of their time as could be spared from the importunate demands which this politeness made on it, was spent in admiration of whatever her ladyship was doing, if she happened to be doing any thing, or in taking patterns of some elegant new dress, in which her appearance the day before had thrown them into unceasing delight. Fortunately for those ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... she said, "I—I quite understand now. I was importunate and at an infelicitous time. I recognize that I brought it upon myself. Well, people will forget about it presently—a new sensation will come ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... begging; mendicate^, mump^, cadge, beg one's bread. dance attendance on, besiege, knock at the door. bespeak, canvass, tout, make interest, court; seek, bid for &c (offer) 763; publish the banns. Adj. requesting &c v.; precatory^; suppliant, supplicant, supplicatory; postulant; obsecratory^. importunate, clamorous, urgent; cap in hand; on one's knees, on one's bended knees, on one's marrowbones. Adv. prithee, do, please, pray; be so good as, be good enough; have the goodness, vouchsafe, will you, I pray ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... enough question of that! Off the break-neck hillside still dropped hoarse importunate cries. "Wounded man here! Doctor wanted! Three of 'em here! A stretcher, for God's sake!" "A stretcher there! Is there no stretcher?" There was not ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... twenty-five miles of painful travel, without a drop of water, until they arrived at a small running stream. Here they eagerly slaked their thirst; but, this being allayed, the calls of hunger became equally importunate. Ever since they had got among these barren and arid hills where there was a deficiency of grass, they had met with no buffaloes; those animals keeping in the grassy meadows near the streams. They were obliged, therefore, to have recourse to their corn meal, which ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... I tried each fickle art, Importunate and vain; And, while his passion touch'd my heart, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... waiting outside the door of the office? Why had he followed her? How had he known that she was employed in the exacting services of Bonsfield & Co.? All these questions gyrated wildly in her mind, swept about, confused at finding no plausible answers to their importunate demands. ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... Colonel Feraud's attitude, made a gesture as if to put aside an importunate person. His thoughts were solicited by graver cares. He had had no time to go and see his family. His sister, whose royalist hopes were rising higher every day, though proud of her brother, regretted his recent advancement in a measure, because it put on him ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Upon his will I sealed my hard consent:] At or upon his earnest and importunate suit, I gave my full and final, though hardly ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... dusky gold Heavy white lilies, Love importunate Besets the soul,—as that wild Splendour told Pale Danae her haughty heavenly fate. Not speared in burning points but spun in strands My senses: drowsily burning webs are they That veil me head to foot. While on mine hands And hair and lids thy kisses ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... MSS. contain an importunate letter, dated July 3, 1751, from one Mitchell, a tradesman in Chandos-street, pressing Johnson to pay L2, due by his wife ever since August, 1749, and threatening legal proceedings to enforce payment. This letter Mr. Boswell had endorsed, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... cafe house on the Piazza Venezia, sit down quietly at a table on the terrace and try to look Jewish. You will soon be assailed by a number of postal-card venders coming one after another, until one importunate youth, discovering your identity, will of a sudden change his attitude, and, his obsequiousness gone, will enter with you into an intimate conversation. He will tell you his name, his pedigree, and of the "tempio," and of the street where many Jews ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... water, which may be to a great degree absorbed before it reaches the sea, as we find this to be the case with many of the rivers of this country. In the meantime the natives seemed dissatisfied about our going on the hills, and offended, and were very importunate with us to go down to the low grounds in the valley. "Koa yeka" ("Come this way," as I understood it) was their constant call; and when at last we did consent, as we were going down the side of a steep, rocky limestone ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... man of so abandoned a character should be the choice of a sister of Lord Orville! and how strange, that, almost at the moment of the union, he should be so importunate in gallantry to another woman! What a world is this we live in! how corrupt! how degenerate! well might I be contented to see no more of it! If I find that the eyes of Lord Orville agree with his pen,-I shall then think, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... gradually up to a request for a materialisation of the control of Vandam, but Mrs. Popper refused. She said she did not feel strong enough, and Farrington put in a hasty word that he, too, could feel that "there was something working against them." But Kennedy was importunate and at last she consented to see if "John" would do some rapping, even ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... begging me to interfere to save the lives of all, my own included. At first I declined to do anything,—told them that I had no intention of taking the command of the ship, and recommended them in that respect to follow my example. At last, however, as they became importunate, I sent Crealock[2] to the captain, with my compliments, to ask him whether we were going to sea. The answer was not encouraging, and went a small way towards raising the spirits of my nervous friends around me. 'Going ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... as they approached flights of steps, whilst a faint glimmering light twinkled from a distant room. He could not imagine where the old woman was conducting him, who, on her part, was highly diverted at his importunate inquiries. After much turning and winding, he was at last brought into the presence of Bello, who was sitting alone, and immediately delivered into his hands a letter for the king of England. He had previously sent to Clapperton to know what were ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... departure, and all that remained to be done was to raise the necessary funds for my undertaking. But in this respect the outlook was bad. The sale of our modest household furniture, the proceeds of a benefit concert, and my meagre savings only sufficed to satisfy the importunate demands of my creditors in Magdeburg and Konigsberg. I knew that if I were to devote all my cash to this purpose, there would not be a farthing left. Some way out of the fix must be found, and this our old Konigsberg friend, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... confidence, and the same might be said of the address. But it was enough for Rachel that she knew no one of the name. The Chief Warder, one of the kindliest mortals, displayed no little irritation under her repeated refusals; but it was the agent, and not the principal, who was so importunate; and the message was not repeated once the former could be induced to bear Mrs. Minchin's answer. The Chief Warder did indeed return, but it was not to make any further reference to the mysterious Mr. Steel who had craved an interview with Mrs. Minchin. And now the good ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... was impossible to spare the troops required, without hazarding the cause of the colonies, great irritation was excited by the refusal to comply with these demands of particular protection. They at length became so importunate, and the unavoidable refusal to comply with them was so ill received, that congress was induced to pass a resolution, declaring that the army before Boston was designed only to oppose the enemy at that place, and ought not to be weakened by detachments for the security ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... to Mr. Fulton right after luncheon. He yielded at last, from sheer languidness, and came silently into the house. Gertrude's moist face, her loud, anxious voice, her warm, clinging hand, were exceedingly disagreeable to him—so much so that finally the desire to escape them became more importunate than any other. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... agriculture has changed the arid wastes into fertile farms. Left in their savage and primitive state these uncultivated social and natural wastes give birth to discouragement, laziness, weakness resulting from poor food, and crime when needs become importunate. ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... were welcome to Tom. He finds about the house divers things that were your brother's (the late Edward's), and Betty sometimes tells him stories about him, so that he was importunate with her to write his life in a quarter of a sheet of paper, and read it unto him, and will ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... have seen me wear, my hat with plumes and bands, my flame-coloured military garments, and, in the eyes of my own folly, I seemed so engaging that I imagined all the women must fall in love with me! Well, I implored her to unveil. "Be not importunate," she replied; "I have a house; let a servant follow me; for though I am of more honourable condition than this reply of mine would indicate, yet for the sake of seeing whether your discretion corresponds to your gallant appearance, I will allow you to see me with less reserve." I kissed ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Maurepas, since the end of 1781, has been fixed in the frost of death: "Never more," said the good Louis, "shall I hear his step overhead;" his light jestings and gyratings are at an end. No more can the importunate reality be hidden by pleasant wit, and today's evil be deftly rolled over upon tomorrow. The morrow itself has arrived; and now nothing but a solid phlegmatic M. de Vergennes sits there, in dull matter of fact, like some dull punctual Clerk ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... to him the joys of contemplation had never been sounded. He was far from the time when he had found it hard that he should be obliged to give up the idea of distinguishing himself; an idea none the less importunate for being vague and none the less delightful for having had to struggle in the same breast with bursts of inspiring self-criticism. His friends at present judged him more cheerful, and attributed it to a theory, over which they shook their heads knowingly, that he would ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... notions. In theory it degenerated into a crude egoism, a vaunting and hyper-stoic hostility to nature, which, though intellectually godless, was not without that universal instinct for divinity which, by countless ways, seeks with an ever-present and importunate longing for the one sublimated and eternal source ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... that he had no wish for further honor, that he was weary of leadership, that he had found more gall than honey in the post, and that there were others more worthy than himself on whom to lay the crown. So importunate, however, were the delegates, that at last he yielded, accepted their allegiance, and took the royal oath. This done, the diet voted to levy a tax to defray the expenses of the war. Among the very first ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... attentive than I am; but it is impossible not to feel most deeply on occasions where the greatest objects may be impaired or destroyed, by indolence or neglect. I must, therefore, again reiterate my requests; and while I assure you, that nothing but the urgency of our affairs would render me thus importunate, I must also assure you, that while those affairs continue so urgent, I must ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... of composed movements, of deliberate superior manner, took a little run to catch up with him, and directly she had caught up with him tried to introduce her hand under his arm. Mrs Fyne saw the brusque half turn of the fellow's body as one avoids an importunate contact, defeating her attempt rudely. She did not try again but kept pace with his stride, and Mrs Fyne watched them, walking independently, turn the corner of the street side ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... very heavy during the succeeding fortnight, and the Viceroy quite importunate in his demand for my valuable suggestions. I was worked off my legs, and two or three times was obliged to deny myself in replying to notes from Dora suggesting Sunday breakfast or afternoon tea. Finally, I shook myself free; it ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... me, and I fell to work getting things in order to be left in the morning. Then I went back to the fire and waited for Jonathan. I picked up a book and tried to read, but the stillness of the house was too importunate, it had to be listened to. I leaned back and watched the fire, and the old house ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... "can justify a curiosity, which by its importunate attempts to be satisfied, embarrasses the investigation, and is, at all events, a punishable interference with the cause of justice. Why this unwonted gathering? Why these rumors and noises? ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... looking forward to this New Year's Eve with a foolish reckless longing, that made him half deaf to his importunate companion, Anxiety. ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... interviews he must resign office; and the news of Prince Leopold's renunciation seemed to cut away the ground upon which he had been manoeuvring for a quarrel with France. But his spirits revived on receiving by telegraph from the king a brief summary of the Ems incidents, stating that Benedetti's importunate requisition for guarantees had been rejected by his majesty, who ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... woman must find out something else to mortgage when her pin-money is gone. The husband has his lauds to dispose of, the wife her person. Now when the female body is once dipped, if the creditor be very importunate, I leave my reader to consider ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... has attended our efforts to His blessing, and believing that He has given us length of days, and strengthened our weakness, and poured consolation into our hearts when ready to sink in despair, in answer to persevering and importunate prayer, we come to direct our readers to this source of wisdom and aid,—to urge upon them to engage often in this first duty and highest privilege. Let us go forth, dear friends, to the work we have to do ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... subject to good order as it is graceful, and does not impair the natural goodness of their disposition. But perhaps I am wrong; and it were better I should assume a frowning aspect, and behold only attempts on life, importunate beggary, useless priests and monks, and reserve my praises for those happy nations where there are no crimes, no inequality of fortune, no misery. Impassioned men declaim, exaggerate, lie. For my part, I am neither an optimist nor ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... with labor and disease, and perhaps embittered by disappointment, and saddened to see the increasing tendency to elevate little men to power,—the "grasshoppers, who make the field ring with their importunate chinks, while the great cattle chew the cud and are silent,"—Webster died at Marshfield, Oct. 24, 1852, at seventy years of age. At the time he was Secretary of State. He died in the consolations of a religion in which he believed, surrounded with loving ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... Greece." Sabine in his Comment on the tenth of Ovid's Metamorphoses, at the tale of Orpheus, telleth us of a gentleman of Bavaria, that for many months together bewailed the loss of his dear wife; at length the devil in her habit came and comforted him, and told him, because he was so importunate for her, that she would come and live with him again, on that condition he would be new married, never swear and blaspheme as he used formerly to do; for if he did, she should be gone: [4678]"he vowed it, married, and lived ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the arrival and departure of Catholic priests posting to and from the Pei-t'ang about that little business of forty or fifty marines pour proteger nos personnes et nos biens, that is all. A singularly importunate fellow this Monseigneur F——, our most reverend Vicar Apostolic of the ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... sitting yonder, on the chair by the window-bench, and his crutch was standing in the corner by the door; and he had offered them all his hand in his odd, ingenuous way—that unpleasantly flabby hand, at whose touch they all felt a certain aversion, so importunate was it, and almost skinless in its warmth, so that one felt as if one had involuntarily touched some one on a naked part. Pelle was always reminded of Father Lasse; he too had never learned to put on armor, but had always ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Implacable vengxema. Implant enradiki. Implement ilo. Implicate impliki. Implied neesprimita. Implore petegi. Impolite malgxentila. Impolitic nesagxema. Import enporti. Importance graveco. Important grava. Importunate trudema. Importune trudi, trudigxi. Impose (put on) trudi. Impose on trompi. Impossible neebla. Impost imposto. Impostor trompanto. Impotence neebleco. Impoverish malricxigi. Impracticable nefarebla. Impregnable ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... each other's arms—Nan, trim as a model in fresh khaki, trying with a handkerchief hardly larger than a postage-stamp to wipe the flecks of dust from her pink cheeks, while de Spain, between dabs, covered them with importunate greetings. Looking engrossed into each other's eyes, and both, in their eagerness, talking at once, they led their horses into hiding and sat down to try to tell all that had happened since their parting. Wars and rumors ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... poking the big globe stove which was the primitive, but generally effective, way of heating the whole floor in winter. That it was not always effective, even after steam was introduced, may be inferred from the following importunate note written by Field to Collins Shackelford, the cashier, on one occasion when the former ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... to be the general care of humanity to escape. I can now look back upon threescore and four years, in which little has been done, and little has been enjoyed; a life, diversified by misery, spent part in the sluggishness of penury, and part under the violence of pain, in gloomy discontent, or importunate distress. But, perhaps, I am better than I should have been, if I had been less afflicted. With this I ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... at the increasing thunder of each repeated summons. Therefore the Gentleman-in-Powder, with his hand upon the latch, having paused long enough to vindicate and compose his legs, proceeded to open the portal of Number Five, St. James's Square; but, observing the person of the importunate knocker, with that classifying and discriminating eye peculiar to footmen, immediately frowned and shook ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... espoused the interests of that Charge d'Affaires, adding, with warmth, that gentleman will never be presented, unless to take leave and receive his present. I replied, that his Excellency would do me the justice to own, that I had been by no means importunate. That it was not my intention to be so, and that nothing but my duty, joined to my particular desire to cultivate a good understanding between our two countries, made me now press him for an explicit answer. He told me that he was convinced that I did not wish to ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... assailed him. Why had he believed Marker, knowing what he knew? He had been led by the nose like a crude school-boy. It was nothing to him that he had to believe or remain idle in Bardur. Another proof of his folly! This importunate sense of weakness was the weakest of all qualities. It made him a nervous and awkward follower of strength, only to plunge deeper into the ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... and intention of the ordinance. The congregation was larger than usual, and there was more solemn attention than had ever been witnessed in the chapel. Much anxiety was felt for Kasim, but he was not molested. His brother and his brother's wife also made a very importunate request for baptism, and the mission not long after ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... they had come up the staircase and along a narrow passage leading down between a dozen or so of small bedrooms on either side,—for the Green Cottage also had run out its addition of two stories since summer guests had become many and importunate,—and stood now where three open doors, one at the right and two at the left, invited their entrance upon what was to be their own especial territory for the next two months. From one side they looked up the river along the face of the ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... to the play and to the music-hall, and occasionally takes his 'old girl,' as he calls his wife, and even 'a kid' or two, to the Crystal Palace. But those I have in my mind have no such relaxation from compulsory duty and importunate care. 'I know it's very foolish, but I feel it sometimes to be a pinch,' says one of these ill-fated ones, 'to see them all [the daughters of her employer] going to the play, or the opera, while I am expected to be satisfied with a private view of their pretty dresses.' No doubt it is ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... alter for a thousand sighs, Nor prayers importunate, nor hopeless cries. The guardian of the store-house of the wind Cares nothing ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... poesy may charm for a while the importunate, teasing cares of life; but the teased and troubled man is not in a disposition ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... among the Fortunate, flew straight to Venice, where a happy-eyed princess welcomed him. She was living in a Palazzo on the Grand Canal, lent to her—that is the graceful Italian way of putting it—by some Venetian friends; and there, with Mademoiselle de Cressy to keep off the importunate, she received such acquaintance as floated from the ends of the earth through the ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... supplement my messages through Mr. Drake, I requested this young man to tell the General that I could see they were taking a cowardly advantage of me because I was a woman, and that they would never have detained a man under similar circumstances. In fact, I was on every occasion so importunate that I am quite sure the General's Staff only prayed for the moment that I should depart. That afternoon I had a long talk to two old German soldiers, then burghers, who were both characters in their way. Hoffman, before alluded to, had been a gunner in the Franco-German War, and ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... five importunate cab drivers with a brief shake of his head, Thayer went striding away up the Avenue towards Miss Gannion's house. As he went, he was half-consciously applying Arlt's words to the question of his own future. It was true enough that he must work out his own real purpose for himself; ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... was received with a cordiality that went far to remove from my mind the impression I had got from others, that Mr. Stanton was abrupt and unpleasant to approach. Both on this occasion and later, he was as affable as could be expected of a man driven with incessant and importunate duties of state. In the intervals of my constant visits to the railway offices (for getting my troops and my wagons together was the absorbing duty) I found time for a hurried visit to Secretary Chase, and found also my friend Governor Dennison in the city, mediating between the President ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... temptations which they did not long withstand. Bonaventura, who was made head of the Franciscan order in 1257, admits the general dislike aroused by the greed, idleness, and vice of its degenerate members, as well as by their importunate begging, which rendered the friar more troublesome to the wayfarer than the robber. Nevertheless the friars were preferred to the ordinary priests by high and low alike; it was they, rather than the secular clergy, who maintained and cultivated ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... From Adelaide to the Pacific, For an afternoon's run Half what these gentlemen did You would feel rather hot, But your legs would develop terrific— Yes, my importunate son, You'd be a ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... the storm was rising Count Hannibal had said no more than the truth. A new mob had a minute before burst from the eastward into the Rue St. Honore; and the roar of its thousand voices swelled louder than the importunate clangour of the bells. Behind its moving masses the dawn of a new day—Sunday, the 24th of August, the feast of St. Bartholomew—was breaking over the Bastille, as if to aid the crowd in its cruel work. The gabled streets, the lanes, and gothic courts, the stifling ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... debarred from fulfilling! Surely no bitterness must be so poignant as the bitterness of the woman who longs for motherhood—ceaselessly in her ears the Life Force is calling, and deep in her heart the dream children are stirring, crying, 'Give us life! give us life!' becoming more importunate every year, as each year finds the ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... fine bay horse, denotes a rise in fortune and gratification of passion. For a woman, it foretells a yielding to importunate advances. She ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... understand, it's as though all the conventional coverings were ripped off it. There is no falsehood, no hypocrisy, no sanctimoniousness, there are no compromises of any sort, neither with public opinion, nor with the importunate authority of our forefathers, nor with one's own conscience. No illusions of any kind, nor any kind of embellishments! Here she is—'I! A public woman, a common vessel, a cloaca for the drainage of the city's surplus lust. Come to me any one who wills—thou shalt meet no denial, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... If renewed, I shall remain here some time longer. How much, I cannot say; yet my wishes shorten the period. Among the strongest inducements will be, that of your society and Mrs. Gilmer's, which I am glad to find brought more within reach, by your return to Pen-park. My daughters are importunate to return also. Patsy enjoys good health, and is growing to my stature. Maria arrived here about a month ago, after a favorable voyage, and in perfect health. My own health has been as good as ever, after ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... that Father Francis, for by that name Xavier was usually called, had not spoken one word of going to the castle of Xavier, which was but little distant from their road: he remembered him of it, and was even so importunate with him, as to say, that since he was about to leave Europe, and perhaps never more to see it, he could not in decency dispense with giving a visit to his family, and taking his last leave of his mother, who was ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... started up. I saw in her eyes the light of old battles. "Oh, it was a horror!" she cried, beginning to pace the floor. "It seemed to me that I was living the agony of all the loveless marriages of the world. I felt myself pursued, not merely by the importunate desires of one man—I suffered with all the millions of women who give themselves night after night without love! He came to seem like some monster to me; I could not meet him unexpectedly without starting. I forbade him to mention the subject to me again, and for a long time he obeyed. ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... frame of mind prevailed. The sky was no lighter, save as the lightning came to relieve the overwhelming darkness by a still more overwhelming glare, nor were the waves less importunate or his hold on the spar more secure; but the horror seemed to have lifted, and the practical nature of the man reasserted itself. Other men had gone through worse dangers than these and survived to ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... seated between Alice Bridgenorth and her father—the being he most loved on earth, and the person whom he had ever considered as the great obstacle to their intercourse. The confusion of his mind was such, that he could scarcely reply to the importunate civilities of Dame Deborah; who, seated with them at table in her quality of governante, now dispensed the good things which had been ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Folsom's, Dean had then intended to reach Fort Emory in three easy marches. He was anxious to bring his horses in in best possible condition, despite all their hard service; yet now, barely two o'clock on this hot June afternoon, came most unlooked-for, most importunate interruption to his plans. Springing to the gate at the sergeant's summons, he first directed his gaze to the distant peak, recognized instantly the nature of the smoke puffs there rising, then turned for explanation to the swift-riding courier, whose ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... as they are thoroughly wearisome,—who, because they do not know what to do with their own time, think they have a right to waste that of others."[226] The more abruptly he treated visitors, persecuting dinner-givers, and all the tribe of the importunate, the more obstinate they were in possessing themselves of his time. In seizing the hours they were keeping his purse empty, as well as keeping up constant irritation in his soul. He appears to have earned forty sous for a morning's work, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... commemoration, in which the venerated college does dutiful honor to a son, and the assembled alumni crown with their affection the memory of a brother, I dismissed also, upon the same persuasion, all anxious solicitudes, which otherwise would have oppressed me, lest importunate and inextricable preoccupations of time and mind should disable me from presenting as considerable, and as considerate, a survey of the eminent character and celebrated career of Mr. Chase as should comport with them, or satisfy the just exigencies ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts
... at his boyish freak and received his confession kindly, granting a free pardon and expressing sincere pleasure at his amended fortunes. As he listened, Lillian saw him clench his hand hard and knit his brows, assuming the grim look she had often seen, as if trying to steel himself against some importunate emotion or ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us, let it pass: I do beseech thee, remember thy courtsy; I beseech thee, apparel thy head: and among other importunate and most serious designs, and of great import indeed, too, but let that pass: for I must tell thee it will please his Grace, by the world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder, and with his royal ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... of mountain path, as I have already acknowledged, I was nevertheless somewhat short-winded at the end. So long as I was in the woods, it was easy enough to loiter; but no sooner did I leave the last low spruces behind me than I was seized with an importunate desire to stand upon the peak, so near at hand just above me. I hope my readers are none of them too old to sympathize with the boyish feeling. At all events, I quickened my pace. The distance could not be more than half a mile, I thought. But ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... delicate homage at the same time. And it is in this latter intention that they are done by lovers; for the essence of love is kindness: and indeed it may be best defined as passionate kindness: kindness, so to speak, run mad and become importunate and violent. Vanity in a merely personal sense exists no longer. The lover takes a perilous pleasure in privately displaying his weak points and having them, one after another, accepted and condoned. He wishes to be assured that he is not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... compensation, then, for all those pangs, those sorrows, by causing me an everlasting joy. Let the poor Camille, who is no longer, still be something in the material comfort you enjoy. Dear, let me be like the fragrance of flowers in your life, mingling myself with it unseen and not importunate. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... this, expecting to see some importunate person bothering my father with a petition. What he did see was my father leaning back in his chair, with a white, confounded, bewildered look, and a woman, with a child on her lap, opposite. Her back was to the door, and Torwood's ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the clock. It was already half-past four. He had not the faintest hope that Luttrell would come. Stella had no doubt pressed him to come. She had probably been a little importunate. Luttrell's promise was an excuse, just an excuse to be rid ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... year, we find that these troublesome negotiations about the tomb were still pending. He still hung suspended between the devil and the deep sea, the importunate Duke of Urbino and the vacillating Pope. Spina, it seems, had been writing with too much heat to Rome, probably urging Clement to bring the difficulties about the tomb to a conclusion. Michelangelo takes the correspondence up again with Fattucci on November ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... unfamiliar, gloomy, mysterious place, is war-time Venice, but in certain respects I liked it better than the commercialized city of antebellum days. Gone are the droves of loud-voiced tourists, gone the impudent boatmen, the importunate beggars, the impertinent guides, gone the glare of lights and the blare of cheap music. No longer do the lantern-strung barges of the musicians gather nightly off the Molo. No longer across the waters float the strains of "Addio di Napoli" ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... persons the most distinguished in the civil and military departments of the state. The important question was agitated in their presence, and those ambitious courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent on them to second, by their eloquence, the importunate violence of the Caesar. It may be presumed, that they insisted on every topic which might interest the pride, the piety, or the fears, of their sovereign in the destruction of Christianity. Perhaps they represented, that the glorious work of the deliverance of the empire was left ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... belief that it was safe. It appeared also, that out of the great number of Irish members, who supported it in the former year, only nine were in the House, when it was lost. It appeared also that, previously to this event, a canvass, more importunate than had been heard of on any former occasion, had been made among the latter by those interested in the continuance of the trade. Many of these, unacquainted with the detail of the subject, like the English members, admitted the dismal representations, which were then ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... provide or find a remedy for their wickedness. They are filthy in their meat and drink, and in all their actions. Drunkenness is honourable among them; so that, when one has drank to excess and throws up, he begins again to drink. They are most importunate beggars, and covetous possessors, and most niggardly givers; and they consider the slaughter of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... my soul! You see how you are driven from this house, when I still need so many accessories. But let us be pressing, obstinate, importunate. Euripides, give me a little basket with ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... I met with rather an amusing adventurette. Seeing a church door open, I went in, and was led by most importunate finger-bills up a long stair to the top of the tower. The father smoking at the door, the mother and the three daughters received me as if I was a friend of the family and had come in for an evening visit. The youngest ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... before the most powerful thrones of Europe, begging them to accept a dominion which she herself could no longer protect. At last, but with difficulty—so despised at first was this state that even the rapacity of foreign monarchs spurned her opening bloom—a stranger deigned to accept their importunate offer of a dangerous crown. New hopes began to revive her sinking courage; but in this new father of his country, destiny gave her a traitor; and in the critical emergency, when the implacable foe was in full force before her very gates, Charles of Anjou ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... passive when all the world was in a hurry. He worried from top to bottom of the castle with an air of infinite anxiety; he continually called the servants from their work to exhort them to be diligent; and buzzed about every hall and chamber, as idly restless and importunate as a blue-bottle fly ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... frequently we remain deaf to that importunate cry. And, weary of crying in vain, conscience is silent. It no more casts its solemn serious note into the intoxicating music ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... written a week later from Dumfries. In that town, at the southern end of the bridge over the Nith, the charity of some devout Covenanting ladies had lately set up a large meeting-house. The clergy, as wild against the Covenanters as Lauderdale himself, were very importunate with Claverhouse to demolish this hotbed of disaffection; but he, though he confessed privately to his chief his annoyance at seeing a conventicle held with impunity "at our nose," answered all importunities with a calm reference to his orders. The southern ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... called him the Bison, and his life's energy seems to have been expended in trying, often with success, to frustrate every single practical reform which she suggested. To the objection that Mr. Strachey has depicted the heroine as "an ill-tempered, importunate spinster, who drove a statesman to his death," he might conceivably reply that if history, grown calm with the passage of years, does so reveal her, it is rather absurd to go on idealising her. Why not study the real Eagle in place of ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... however, yet utterly overcome, and had some fight left in him. Dashing the filthy importunate brutes aside, and, as it were, kicking his ugly remembrances away from him, Mr. Warrington seized a great glass of that fire-water which he had recommended to poor humiliated Parson Sampson, and, flinging off his fine damask ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tempest and brought the ships back laden with wheat. When the city was at length captured, King Childeric, although a paynim, saved at her intercession the lives of his prisoners, and one day, to escape her importunate pleadings for the lives of some criminals, fled out of the gates of Paris and shut them behind him. The saint lived to build a church over the tomb of St. Denis and to see Clovis become a Christian. She died in 509, ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... Lambert, retorted that other sums were owing, and he would accept all or none. The negotiation, which was the beginning of much litigation, thus proved abortive. Through 1585 and 1586 a creditor, John Brown, was embarrassingly importunate, and, after obtaining a writ of distraint, Brown informed the local court that the debtor had no goods on which distraint could be levied. {12b} On September 6, 1586, John was deprived of his alderman's gown, on the ground of his long absence from ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... hand, represents her as importunate with her love as a Phaedra, as consumed with passion as a Faustina. He states as a fact that it was for Fuseli's sake that she changed her mode of life and adopted a new elegance in dress and manners. He declares that when the latter made no return to her advances, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... distract me: the sun shining warm on my shoulder, as I lean against the window; the divine morning clamor of the birds; their invitations to come out that will take no nay; and last, but oh! not, not least, the importunate voices of Barbara and Tou Tou. Every morning at this hour they have a weary tussle with the verb "aimer," "to love." It is hard that they should have pitched upon so tender-hearted a verb for the battle-field of so grim ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Franklin's relationship was of a pleasanter sort. To the American navy and privateers Franklin was the American government; and, though he was often annoyed by the unreasonable conduct of importunate captains, yet he also shared in the glory of their deeds. John Paul Jones was one of the many forced to endure Arthur Lee's impertinences, and had it not been for Franklin's aid and friendship our navy would have lost the honor of that name. At one time Paul Jones was in Paris with ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... for an Adam and Eve who are still in the costume that might better have befitted Eden,—it so happens that their first visit is to a fashionable dry-goods store. No courteous and importunate attendants hasten to receive their orders; no throng of ladies are tossing over the rich Parisian fabrics. All is deserted; trade is at a stand-still; and not even an echo of the national watchword, "Go ahead!" disturbs the quiet of the new customers. But specimens of the latest earthly fashions, ...
— The New Adam and Eve (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Importunate! Although my heart is soft, It is not wax,—and these entreaties oft Repeated waste thy breath, and vex mine ear, For man is deaf to what he will not hear. I am the master! This let all men know, ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... mind was more occupied with literary projects than with steady application; nor had poesy, for which Nature peculiarly designed him, sufficient attractions to chain his wavering disposition. It is not certain whether his irresolution arose from the annoyance of importunate debtors, or from an original infirmity of mind, or from these causes united. A popular writer[3] has defended Collins from the charge of irresolution, on the ground that it was but "the vacillations of a ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... peasant, living by labor. The essential nature of the struggle is curiously indicated in relation to this monument by the two facts that the revolt of the Milanese burghers, headed by their archbishop, began by a gentleman's killing an importunate creditor, and that, at Venice, the principal circumstance recorded of Jacopo Cavalli (see my notice of his tomb in the "Stones of Venice," Vol. III. ch. ii. Sec. 69) is his refusal to assault Feltre, because the senate ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Ishmael sinks among the ferns and passes away, while the assassins fly back and tell how they settled the fool who could not keep the shot out of his carcass. If the observer sees this often, his disposition to moralise may become very importunate, for he sees an allegory of human life written in black specks on that sky that broods so softly, like a benediction, over the fair world. One may easily bring forward half a score of similar instances from the animal kingdom. ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... hung about the water, foot-sore from their long journeyings to the distant hills and too weary to return. At the spring-hole at Carrizo they found them gathered, the runts and roughs of the range; old cows with importunate calves bunting at their flaccid udders; young heifers, unused to rustling for two; orehannas with no mothers to guide them to the feed; rough steers that had been "busted" and half-crippled by some reckless cowboy—all the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge |
