"Pertinacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arm, clothed in pure white, emblematic, it struck him, of her pure gentle spirit. Friends were with him, all gaily attired, and very happy, but unaccountably silent. Perhaps it was the noise of the wedding-bells that rendered their voices inaudible. He was struck by the solemnity as well as the pertinacity of these wedding-bells as he entered the church. He was puzzled too, being a Presbyterian, why he was to be married in church, but being a man of liberal mind, he made no objection ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... sunshine that had shone forth while we were there was the only intermission vouchsafed by the rain, which afterwards poured down with a steady vehemence and pertinacity seldom seen on the Ligurian Riviera. The effects of this rare continuance of wet weather were soon made impressively perceptible to the four as they emerged upon the open road, after passing the Lighthouse of Genoa and the long straggling suburbs of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... that pertinacity is not opposed to perseverance. For Gregory says (Moral. xxxi) that pertinacity arises from vainglory. But vainglory is not opposed to perseverance but to magnanimity, as stated above (Q. 132, A. 2). Therefore pertinacity is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the statement of some geologist that 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 ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... behoveth thee not to show such pertinacity in grief. Do that, O best of kings, which the holy Vyasa has said. The Brahmanas, O mighty-armed one, and these thy brothers of great energy, stand before thee beseechingly like persons beseeching the deity of the clouds ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... legal profession, as soon as they had heard of it—by boldly affirming, that if this blot really existed, it would invalidate and utterly nullify the whole proceedings from the beginning to the end! They hammered away at this point accordingly, hour after hour—day after day—with desperate pertinacity; being compelled from time to time, during their hopeful argument, to admit, that up to that moment the rule or custom which they were seeking to impeach had been universally acted upon from time immemorial, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... them he 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 ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... 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
... 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 in ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... 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 bed and forget ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... left alone. Other vessels quickly gathered round them, and the combat spread fiercely to both sides. The new-comers attacked one another and assailed at every opportunity the two central ships. But the latter, beating off their assailants, clung together with unyielding pertinacity, as if upon them depended the whole ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... the ground was rapidly rising; but they were forced to hurry along, for every time they halted, they could hear the shouts of their pursuers, who seemed to be coming on with a pertinacity that there was no ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... make nations go to war, and for what a petty thing we set several kings and great lords to studying geography and treaties and international law, and boring themselves, and filling enterprising newspapers with dozens of columns of dull history; and you will wonder the more at the stupid pertinacity of these English in clinging to the little island of San Juan when you reach Victoria, and see that we shall presently take that dull little town too, not because we want it or need it, but to save it ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... comfort from me, they went "higher up," and became a kind of permanent committee in attendance upon the President. They were very influential men in the Houses, with whom it was important for the Administration to keep on good terms; and, moreover, they possessed a pertinacity as great as the widow who won her case from the unjust judge. Finally the President gave in and notified me to see that a ship was sent to the city in question. I was bound that, as long as a ship had to be sent, it should not be a ship worth anything. Accordingly ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... myself knows what I have suffered, nor what my books have gained, by your unsleeping watchfulness and admirable pertinacity. And now here is a volume that goes into the world and lacks your imprimatur: a strange thing in our joint lives; and the reason of it stranger still! I have watched with interest, with pain, and at length ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or Blackwood—in the hope that the prospect of being let in to the profits of the already established favorite, would overcome effectually the hesitation of one or other of these houses about venturing on the encumbrance which Constable seemed to shrink from with such pertinacity; but upon this ingenious proposition Scott at once set his veto. He writes (October ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the only result for which Dr Thirlwall contends, who on this subject approximates as nearly as possible to the opinion of Mr Grote. That there was a siege, however, Dr Thirlwall maintains with considerable pertinacity; but it happens, curiously enough, that his argument precisely supplies the last link that was wanting to complete the sceptical view of the subject. Most persons, we apprehend, are disposed to adhere to the belief that some famous siege ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... pertinacity, but allowed at last that if the plan, talked of by the Barons, of going to make their submission to the Emperor at Linz, with a view to which all violence at the ford had ceased, should hold good, it might be possible thus to drop ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... characteristic of the brutal pertinacity, and perhaps of the sagacity also, of Caius Crispus, that nothing could induce him to release the miserable Julia, who was but an incumbrance to their flight, and ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... with strange pertinacity. I must tell you again that there can not possibly be any thing in common between you and me. For my part, I consider you as my natural enemy. You are my jailer. I am your prisoner. That is all. I am at war with you. I would give half ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... countenance, where the blackness of the future seems to mingle with the shadows of the past, giving him the aspect of a fated man. Is it too wild a thought that my fate may have assumed this image of myself, and therefore haunts me with such inevitable pertinacity, originating every act which it appears to imitate, while it deludes me by pretending to share the events of which it is merely the emblem and the prophecy? I must banish this idea, or it will throw too deep an awe round my companion. At our ...
— Monsieur du Miroir (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... it certainly tends to explain the otherwise puzzling pertinacity with which the characters in these tales talk about God and act upon an assured knowledge as to Heaven's private intentions and preferences. These people are the members of one family engrossed, as all of us are apt to be when in the ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... represented could be defeated only by one man—and that not the Senator from Wisconsin. In any event the La Follette candidacy rapidly declined until it ceased to be a serious element in the situation. Although the Senator, with characteristic consistency and pertinacity, stayed in the fight till the end, he entered the Convention with the delegates of but two States, his own Wisconsin and North Dakota, pledged ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... despised—either for men or flowers—may {124} be no ill-fortune; the real ill-fortune is only to be despicable. These faults of human character, wherever found, observe, belong to it as ill-trained—incomplete; confirm themselves only in the vulgar. There is no base pertinacity, no overweening conceit, in the Black Douglas, or Claverhouse, or Montrose; in these we find the pure Scottish temper, of heroic endurance and royal pride; but, when, in the pay, and not deceived, but purchased, idolatry of Mammon, the Scottish persistence and pride become knit and vested in the ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... hurrying him to the gate, and giving him more hope of Sir Eustace's recovery than he felt; for he knew that nothing but the prospect of saving him was likely to inspire the yeoman with either speed or pertinacity enough to be of use. He fondly patted Brigliador, who turned his neck in amaze at finding it was not his master who mounted him, and having watched them for a moment, he turned to look round the court, which was ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... frequent gaps, which sometimes could only be traversed by a long detour. Above all, there was the furious sleet, which drove down the river, borne on by the tempest, with a fury and unrelaxing pertinacity that I never saw equalled. However, I managed to toil onward, and at length reached the centre of the river. Here I found a new and more serious obstacle. At this point the ice had divided; and in the channel thus formed there was a vast accumulation ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... proposed; but if I was once driven to make a choice, and felt piqued in honour to maintain my proposition, I have broken off from the whole party, rather than yield to any one. Time has sobered this pertinacity of mind; but it still exists, and I must be on ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... this memorable contest, which had extended over two months—carried on throughout with great pertinacity and skill, especially on the part of the opposition, who left no stone unturned to defeat the measure. The want of a third line of communication between Liverpool and Manchester had been clearly proved; ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... have to a great extent dispelled the mystery of the Indian origin, and proved the fallacy of the numerous and ingenious theories formerly advanced with so much pertinacity and zeal. Since the northwest coasts of America and the northeast of Asia have been explored, little difficulty remains on this subject. The two continents approach so nearly in that direction that they are almost within sight of each other, and small boats can safely ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... a short, heavily-built man, with dark hair, black eyes, and a jaw and chin indicative of bull-dog pertinacity. ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... and that which sets up progress: the one is for preserving things of which it would be better to be rid, while the other crushes all that is necessary and useful in its headlong course. I now speak of these opposing principles, as they are marshalled in parties, opposition giving pertinacity and violence to each. No sane man can doubt that, in the progress of events, much is produced that ought to be retained, and much generated that it would be wiser to reject. He, alone, is the safe and wise legislator, who ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 reputation to ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... forgotten writers whose works were carrying on the weak and tasteless traditions of the former age—it was at this moment that Boileau brought to the aid of the new movement the whole force of his admirable clear-sightedness, his dauntless pertinacity, and his caustic, unforgettable wit. No doubt, without him, the Classical school would have triumphed—ultimately, like all good things—but it would be hard to exaggerate the service which was rendered it by Boileau. During many years, ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... unceasingly. In 1587 one Nicholas Lane pursued him for a debt for which he had become liable as surety for his brother Henry, who was still farming their father's lands at Snitterfield. Through 1588 and 1589 John Shakespeare retaliated with pertinacity on a debtor named John Tompson. But in 1591 a creditor, Adrian Quiney, obtained a writ of distraint against him, and although in 1592 he attested inventories taken on the death of two neighbours, Ralph Shaw and Henry Field, father of the London ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... entertain evening parties of the beau-monde, where he had the gratification of meeting his charmer. Ethel was surprised and pleased, and Lady Kew surprised and angry, at meeting Clive Newcome at these fashionable houses; the girl herself was touched very likely at his pertinacity in following her. As there was no actual feud between them, she could not refuse now and again to dance with her cousin; and thus he picked up such small crumbs of consolation as a youth in his state can get; ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Monsieur Rambaud as she thus mumbled away. He listened to her with the composure of a brave man. The memories that were being called up before him brought no shadow to his unruffled face. Only it occurred to him that the pertinacity of the old beggar was annoying Helene, and so he hastened to fumble in his pocket, in his turn giving her some alms, and at the same time waving her away. The moment her eyes rested on another silver coin Mother Fetu burst into ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... rear; post equitem sedet atra cura; it was a torment like the undying worm of conscience. And, upon the whole, it presented a spectacle altogether unprecedented in the history of mankind. Private and personal malignity is not unfrequently immortal; but rare indeed is it to find the same pertinacity of malice in a nation. And what embittered the interest was, that the malice was reciprocal. Thus far the parties met upon equal terms; but that equality only sharpened the sense of their dire inequality as to other circumstances. The Bashkirs were ready to fight 'from ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... than myself; perhaps I might say there is no living man who has had equal opportunities of estimating them. You formed the mind of our country; you kindled and kept alive the sacred flame when all was gloom, and all were without heart. Such prodigious devotion, so much resource and pertinacity and patience, such unbroken spirit, were never before exhibited by man; and, whatever may be said by your enemies, I know that in the greatest hour of action you proved equal to it; and yet at this moment, when your ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... justice, there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed, nor secret that shall not be made known," answered the Abbe. "Prove that you were not in Quebec on the day the robbery was committed." There was silence. The Abbe's pertinacity was too difficult. The Seigneur saw the grim look in Charley's face, and touched the Abbe on the arm. "Let us walk a little outside. Come, Cure" he added. "It is right that Monsieur should have a few minutes alone. It is a serious charge against him, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "Excuse my pertinacity," said Sarrion. "I know that you prefer generalities to anything of a personal nature, but does Juanita ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... the quotation which I have italicised, fits the case of General Reed to a hair; but "the tale" of his patriotism, however "little evidence" there may to support it, does "deserve a disquisition," if only on account of the pertinacity with which it is endeavoured to engraft it ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... 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 ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... traditional piety, which, to our mind, if uttered at all, had been less objectionable in the retired closet of a diary, and in the sober raiment of prose. They do not clutch hold of the memory with the drowning pertinacity of Watts; neither have they the interest of his occasional simple, lucky beauty. Burns, having fortunately been rescued by his humble station from the contaminating society of the "best models" wrote well ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... the hazard of being pronounced monotonous, because of the pertinacity with which the attempt is made to force self-reflection. But this criticism can easily be endured, provided the attempt succeeds. Religious truth becomes almighty the instant it can get within the soul; and it gets within the soul, the instant real thinking begins. ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... never did monarch lead a more strenuous life. He was the central figure in a very critical period of history: his own character as well as the painstaking education he had received in the Netherlands conferred upon him a lively appreciation of his position and a dogged pertinacity in discharging its obligations. Both in administering his extensive dominions and in dealing with foreign foes, Charles was a zealous, hard-working, and calculating prince, and the lack of success which attended many of his projects was due not to ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... life-story of Hilda Lessways on a foreground behind which lies the already familiar story of Edwin Clayhanger. We remember Clayhanger living in the printing shop in the Potteries; his uncouthness, his shyness, his pertinacity; his desire to be an architect and to live the imaginative life, thwarted by his grim old father; and the manner in which Hilda dawned upon him, entered into his experience in a brief rapture of passion, and disappeared, leaving Clayhanger to grope again with the commonplaces. And in this new ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... "without a break." The abuses 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 ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... This intellectual weakness of town life is best expressed in terms which show the intimate relation between intelligence and morals. A lack of "grit," pertinacity of purpose, endurance, "character," marks the townsman of the second generation as compared with the countryman. As the intellectual powers of the townsman, though quantitatively impaired, are more highly developed than those of the countryman, so ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... were, he did not express them. He arose and recommenced his swinging trot with something like the pertinacity of a bloodhound on the scent. Perhaps he was thinking of his previous conversation with Tom Brixton about being guided by God in all circumstances, for the only remark that escaped him afterwards was, "It is my duty to act and ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... of these gentry; they are, in point of fact, invariably that description of mud-markers known in the purlieus of Liecester-square, and at all denominations of "boots"—great, little, red, and yellow—as eight-and-sixpenny Bluchers. But the afore-mentioned drabs are strapped down with such pertinacity as to leave the observer in extreme doubt whether the Prussian hero of that name is their legitimate sponsor, or the glorious Wellington of our own sea-girt isle. Indeed, it has been rumoured that (as there never was a pair of either of the illustrious heroes) these gentlemen, for the sake of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... heard his sister Mary's voice, he felt a little ashamed of his pertinacity. Lucy asked Mary what ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... Teddy's visit. She was treated with kindness, as the destined wife of a young chief; but the suit for her consent never was pressed by the chief, as it is in an Indian's code of honor never to force a woman to a distasteful marriage. The young brave, with true Indian pertinacity, could wait his time, confident that his kindness and her long absence from home would secure her consent to the savage alliance. She was denied nothing but her liberty, and her prayers to be returned to her ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... determination, pertinacity, persistence, steadfastness, constancy; resolve, purpose, determination; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... of Simancas, signed with Raleigh's name, and in perfect condition. It is evident that Raleigh could hardly endure the disappointment of repulse. He says, 'I know the like fortune was never offered to any Christian prince,' and losing his balance altogether in his extravagant pertinacity, he declares to Cecil that the city of Manoa contains stores of golden statues, not one of which can be worth less than 100,000l. If the English Government will not prosecute the enterprise that he has sketched out, Spain ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... judgment, and proceeded to sign; how Mr. Gladstone, standing with his back to the fire, began to demur; and when pressed by Manning to sign, asked him in a low voice whether he thought that as a privy councillor he ought to sign such a protest; and finally how Manning, knowing the pertinacity of his character, turned and said: We will not press him further.[233] This graphic relation looks as if Mr. Gladstone were leaving his friends in the lurch. None of them ever said so, none of them made any signs of thinking so. There is no evidence that Mr. Gladstone ever ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... poem? Why, he did not place Cibber in Theobald's shoes. Theobald walked off in his shoes into the shades. Samuel says, that by the substitution, Pope has "depraved his poem"—inasmuch as he has given to Cibber the "old books, the cold pedantry and sluggish pertinacity of Theobald." That is not true. Compare the places in the original Dunciad, in which Theobald figures at large, with that now filled by Cibber, and you will admire by what wizard power the transformation is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... choice fare was spread, And cosy comfort ready to receive Young Ninety-Two, and give him a "send-off" Such as should strengthen and encourage him To make fair start, and face those many moons Of multiform vicissitude with pluck, Good hope and patient pertinacity. And when men sought the Modern MERLIN's ear And asked him what these matters might portend, The shining angel, and the naked Child Descending in the glory of the seas, He laughed, as is his wont, and answered them In riddling triplets ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... which Lieutenant March accepted and discharged the responsible and dangerous duties of the day, and the pertinacity with which, assisted by his officers and men, he carried his guns over all obstacles to the very front of the firing line, was an exceptional display of warlike skill and good judgment, indicating the existence ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... outnumber the turfites of England, and they apply themselves to their business from early youth with far more exclusive pertinacity. The richest field for their talent is barren, now that the highroad of the Mississippi is closed; but still in every city of importance, North or South, he who would "fight the tiger," need not wander far without discovering his den. In Richmond, especially, the play never was so desperate ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... most suitable for the work I have to do, then do so, and I shall feel highly honoured and very proud; but, if a lighter, more trivial creation will, or would satisfy your (craving I will not call it, that suggests pertinacity, a great end being in view), say, passing fancy, then I would rather see vacant the place occupied by you, as in such an one I should take no interest whilst speaking or working, just as that one would appear of too shallow a nature to absorb lasting benefit from what was ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... 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 to recollect that a mushroom peerage was supported but by a ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... ordinarily, to bring it within the reach of the common man. The stress fell on the acquirement of that special personal skill, dexterity and judgment that would constitute the workman a master of his craft. Given a reasonable measure of pertinacity, the common man would be able to compass the material equipment needful to the pursuit of his craft, and so could make his way to a livelihood; and the inviolable right of ownership would then serve to secure him the product of his own industry, in provision for ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... not all the earthquakes that have rumbled in Ecuador or toppled over the spires and dwellings of Peru could compare, in the matter of dogged pertinacity, with that earthquake which diurnally and hourly shocked little Gertie's dwelling, quivered the white dimity curtains of little Gertie's bed and shook little Gertie's frame. A graceful, rounded little frame it was; yet strong, and firmly knit—perhaps in consequence of its having ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... our newly acquired positions, entrenched them well, and began to make ready for the night. Orders for outpost duty were given and the officers were again called to the brigadier- colonel, who in a few words outlined the situation to us, thanking us for the pertinacity and bravery shown by the troops, and adding that the success of the expedition lay in the fact that we had arrived in ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... will do all he can to that end. Of course it would be a satisfaction to know for certain how the tragedy came about: not that it matters much otherwise. But unfortunately he rather poses as an expert in criminology, and that will make for pertinacity." ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... tropical America have described the ravages of the leaf-cutting ants (OEcodoma); their crowded, well-worn paths through the forests, their ceaseless pertinacity in the spoliation of the trees—more particularly of introduced species—which are left bare and ragged, with the mid-ribs and a few jagged points of the leaves only left. Many a young plantation of orange, mango, and lemon trees has been destroyed by them. Again and again have I been told ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... 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 of Pitt[438].' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... disarm the Puritans, and to do what he could for the 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 the law, but he was so often in want of ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... upon them even to rudeness, but without effect. Mr Rothwell was evidently annoyed at his son's pertinacity, and tried to check him; but all in vain, for Mark had taken so much as just to make him obstinate and unmanageable. But, finding that he could not prevail, the young man hurried away in anger, and plied the other members of ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... suggested that it was doubtless his present purpose to get back to Connecticut as fast as possible. But no! The resolve to see the Queen was as strong in him as ever; and it was marvellous the pertinacity with which he clung to it amid raggedness and starvation, and the earnestness of his supplication that I would supply him with funds for a suitable ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... or accepting a resignation? Now, while it is proper that this question shall be settled, I do not perceive why either Governor Gamble or the government here should care which way it is settled. I am perplexed with it only because there seems to be pertinacity about it. It seems to me that it might be either way without injury to the service; or that the offer of the Secretary of War to let Governor Gamble make vacancies, and he (the Secretary) to ratify the making of ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... her pertinacity. "Is it possible," he thought, "that any danger can approach the Countess, of which this poor maiden has, by the extreme acuteness of her observation, obtained knowledge which ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... 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. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... if even now, at the eleventh hour, I would sweeten Woodward by bringing him along. I said, yes, if he, Braithwaite, would stand surety that he, Woodward, had fixed up his base hospitals and third echelon, but if not, no! Next came Woodward himself. With great pertinacity he represented that his subordinates could do all that had to be done at the base. He says he speaks for the Q.M.G., as well as for the Director General of Medical Services, and that they all want to accompany me on my reconnaissance of the coasts ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... comfortable irregularity; and, after feeling ourselves to be dreadful guys for two hours, returned to the hotel whence we were to start for the canal boats. You may think this account is exaggerated, but it is not; the pertinacity, vigour and screams of the Alexandrian donkey-drivers no description can do justice ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... as at Troyes, a Rue Thiers, and to see Thiers' portrait in every window. If there is one memory universally adored and respected throughout France, it is that of the "petit bourgeois." No one who gets a glimpse of Belfort with its double ramparts and commanding position, will wonder at Thiers' pertinacity on the one hand, and Bismarck's reluctance on the other. Fortunately the "petit bourgeois" gained his point, and the preservation of Belfort to France was the one drop of comfort ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Fairfield, the author of "The Cities of the Plain." Fairfield was born in Warwick, Mass., June 25, 1803. The sad story of his life of sickness and distress was told by his wife (Jane Frazee) in 1846. She collected the money that made the existence of the magazine possible, and her pertinacity and courage kept the magazine alive for five years. Concerning the origin of ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... violently, and the project was so revolting to her that she fled from the room. But Mrs. Allen, with her small pertinacity, kept recurring to it at every opportunity. Though it may seem a little strange, her mother's action did not so shock Edith as some might expect; nor did the proposition seem so impossible as it might ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... 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 ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... In 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 ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... form of being "put to the question" I will have nothing to do. If it gives amusement to the reviewers, they are welcome to their sport. But they stab at the summer air, so far as any writer is concerned who has the pertinacity of purpose ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... people," says William of Tyre, "had recourse before long, to procure themselves any food whatever, to all sorts of shameful means. Nobles, free men, did not blush to hungrily stretch out the hand to nobodies, asking with troublesome pertinacity for what was too often refused. There were seen the very strongest, those whom their signal valor had rendered illustrious in the midst of the army, now supported on crutches, dragging themselves half-dead along the streets and in the public ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the melted butter. On this occasion he seemed to think he was introduced expressly to keep Traddles at bay; and he barked at my old friend, and made short runs at his plate, with such undaunted pertinacity, that he may be said to have ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... that by attaining it they compensate for indignities they suffered in youth. In fact, when we analyze ambition and the horror of Minderwertigkeit that goes with it, we shall doubtless find this factor is never entirely absent, while if we were to apply the same pertinacity and subtlety that Jung in his "Wandlungen" has brought to bear in working over the treacherous material of mythology, we might prove with no less verisimilitude than he has shown the primacy of the libido that ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... women come to the place for the sake of it, as they go nowhere else. Through the system of calling just described official society is accessible to all, and the introductions obtained there to people of the more select circles, when fortified by wealth and pertinacity, open the whole charmed round of pleasure. Society in other cities is totally unlike Society in Washington. There it is an interchange of kindliness between households of friends: it is the festivity of happy anniversaries, the union ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... centuries the standing expression for performing the impossible. In 1768, James Bruce, a Scottish gentleman of position, set out with the determination of solving this mystery—a determination which he had made in early youth, and carried out with characteristic pertinacity. He had acquired a certain amount of knowledge of Arabic and acquaintance with African customs as Consul at Algiers. He went up the Nile as far as Farsunt, and then crossed the desert to the Red Sea, went over to Jedda, ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... honest Moslem, and feels that it is better to trust in God than in the Giaour. I have a sincere respect and no little admiration for Sultan Hamid. Had he been less a Caliph and more a Sultan, with his courage, industry, and pertinacity, he might have done for Turkey what he has failed to do for Islam. He might have revived and consolidated the empire. It is possible that he may do it yet, and should he attempt it he will have the sympathy ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... restraints of a state of being that is commonly thought to be so much superior. In every instance in which the youthful captive had liberty of choice, he disdainfully rejected the customs of the whites; adhering with a singular, and almost heroic pertinacity to the usages of ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... was not enough for one to live in the same style, and would have resigned his bride's fortune to her sister, but, as a rule, he never did what was expected of him, and he had, perhaps, been somewhat annoyed by Mr. Mohun's pertinacity about settlements, showing a certain distrust of commercial wealth. At any rate, all he did was to insist on paying handsomely for Maura's board; but still Miss Mohun believed she should have to give ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 still ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... Provoked by her 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
... on this great occasion that was all changed. The feasting was done in dead silence; and another very striking peculiarity of the occasion was that, while the six pairs of jaws kept moving with unflagging pertinacity, the twelve wide-open eyes kept glaring with unwinking intensity at the ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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
... condemned the system of equal representation, and moved that the representation of the people in parliament should be based upon population, without regard to any line of separation between Upper and Lower Canada. On this he was defeated, but with rare pertinacity he stuck to his guns, and urged his views upon the Assembly at every opportune and inopportune moment. The Macdonald-Cartier Government opposed the principle of representation by population because it was not in accord with the Union Act. That Act ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... to the southward, each vessel had to get into her leader's wake, which would be virtually throwing the whole French line, again, two miles to leeward of the English. Nevertheless, the stragglers in the rear of the French continued to hug the wind, with a pertinacity that denoted a resolution to have a brush with their enemies in passing. The vessels were le Scipion and la Victoire, each of seventy-four guns. The first of these ships was commanded by a young man of ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... or the monster of fatalism. We do not say that indifference at certain passes of life, and certain stages, is not healthy, and fatalism not powerful; but both we believe are factors as potent in commerce and trade as pertinacity and calculation. "But is there not room in the garden of delight for a wheat field?" asks Khalid. "Can we not apply the bow to the telegraph wires of the world and make them the vehicle of music as ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... 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 kept ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... body. The cough, which Wikkey scarcely remembered ever being without, increased to such violence as to shake him from head to foot, and his breathing became hard and painful; yet still he clung to his crossing with the pertinacity of despair, scanning each figure that approached with eager, hungry eyes. He had laid out part of Lawrence's half-crown on a woolen muffler, which at first had seemed a marvel of comfort, but the ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM
... observing dispositions conceal themselves in timorous silent characters, who have not yet experienced their strength; and that assiduous love, which cannot tear itself away from the secret instruction it is perpetually imbibing, cannot be easily distinguished from the pertinacity of the mere plodder. We often hear, from the early companions of a man of genius, that at school he appeared heavy and unpromising. Rousseau imagined that the childhood of some men is accompanied by this seeming and deceitful dulness, which is the sign of a profound genius; ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... in conversation, and there was scarcely a subject which could be mooted in any society, on which his multifarious attainments did not qualify him to say something. He was readily taken by novelty in doctrine, and followed a new lead with great pertinacity; and in this way he had been caught by the science of pantopragmatics, and firmly believed for a time that a scientific organisation for teaching everybody everything would cure all the evils of society. ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... yard, under normal kindly conditions, a colt may be the gentlest thing in the world, but when suddenly there descends upon its back a wild animal that clings with exasperating pertinacity, there is usually but one result. The colt plunged wildly, shaking its head and instinctively putting in practice all the ancient tricks that its kind had learned in fighting the leopard or the wolf of the ancestral wild ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... could not forget or forgive. She persisted in manifesting her displeasure, and recurred to the subject till her pertinacity wore ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... moment; but, tense as it was, I could not help being amused at the pertinacity with which Ito, like all the Japanese, dragged in the word "honourable" upon every possible and impossible occasion. It arises, of course, out of the desire, drilled into them, generation after generation, to be extremely polite; and doubtless ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... marine, like, but in a greater degree, than the mangrove and sea- wrack, and I will humbly apologise to you and all Botanists for having let my mind run riot on a subject on which assuredly I know nothing. But till I hear this, I shall keep privately to my own opinion with the same pertinacity and, as you will think, with the same philosophical spirit with which Koenig maintains that Cheirotherium-footsteps ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... 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 of what nobody disputes ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... Boltrope, with a little show of pertinacity, "I have an opinion that the cleaner a man takes his hands into the other world, of the matters of duty in this the better he will be fitted to handle anything new.—Now, the parson, here, undertook to lay down the doctrine last night that it was no matter how well or how ill a man ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... are conquered, and a long row of powerful pinnaces 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 they do above the gullet of the deep. Painted ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... to a world of de Courcy Vavasours, and Wraggs, and Burnham-Joneses, forgave this hawklike pertinacity for sake of the apparent sympathy of her catechist. And ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... neither again must we praise that rigid and stubborn insensibility, "that recklessness and frantic energy to rush anywhere, that seemed like a dog's courage in Anaxarchus."[640] But we must contrive a harmonious blending of the two, that shall remove the shamelessness of pertinacity, and the weakness of excessive modesty; seeing its cure is difficult, and the correction of such excesses not without danger. For as the husbandman, in rooting up some wild and useless weed, at once plunges his spade vigorously into ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... he feels that he has gained a victory over no ignoble antagonist, and he becomes a hero in his own eyes. Though a woman of much will, still she is a woman of much reason; and if he has many vexations with her pertinacity, he is never without hope in her good sense; but alas for him whose wife has only the animal instinct of firmness, without any development of the judgment or reasoning faculties! The conflicts with a woman ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... enough, in all conscience. Our incessant vigilance was most certainly justified by the pertinacity of these mysterious prowlers, for as long as they surreptitiously sought to enter the house, my belief that the ruby lay hid somewhere beneath its roof ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... study that I am suggesting to you. It means a certain amount of sustained effort. It means slightly more resolution, more pertinacity, and more expenditure of brain-tissue than are required for reading a newspaper. It means, in fact, "work." Perhaps you did not bargain for work when you joined me. But I do not think that the literary taste can be satisfactorily formed unless ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... 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 ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... treaties, since it enables each party to gain his point, and probably leaves as few openings for subsequent disputes, as any other mode that has yet been adopted. The new instrument ran as follows, it having been written, in duplicate, in English and in Monikin. It will be seen that the pertinacity of one of the negotiators gave it very much the character of ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 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 of discontented Flemings of whom I have spoken. Some words were exchanged, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... splenetic almost to misanthropy, and an austerity of principle urged to unsocial ferocity. In his fury he renounced the idea of reforming the stage; he was for abolishing it entirely. He attacked the poets with "unconquerable pertinacity, with wit in the highest degree keen and sarcastic, and with all those powers exalted and invigorated by just confidence in his cause."[3] Thus arose a controversy which lasted ten years, during which time authors found it necessary to become more discreet. "Comedy (says Dr. Johnson) ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... dispose of it all; and the children watched her in a gale of excitement, till the last thing was carried off, and Mrs. Ling began to shake out the napkins and fold them up. But then they came round Mr. Linden with their petition, urging it with such humble pertinacity, that he was fain at last to comply. It was only a child's Christmas hymn, set to a simple, bright, quick tune, which at first kept some of the smallest feet in a greater state of unrest than the older children thought at ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... widow was not her native place. My father had met her in Holland, when he was scarcely more than a beardless youth. The letter informing his relatives that he had determined not to give up the girl his heart had chosen was not regarded seriously in Berlin; but when the lover, with rare pertinacity, clung to his resolve, they began to feel anxious. The eldest son of one of the richest families in the city, a youth of nineteen, wished to bind himself for life—and to a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... something about stone coal, and had a slight inkling of its character. At hours of leisure, the governor was in the habit of experimenting upon the black rocks by subjecting them to wood fire upon his hearths; but the hard, almost flint-like anthracite of that region resisted, with most obdurate pertinacity, the oft-repeated attempts of the governor to set it on fire. It finally became a joke among the neighboring Pennsylvania Dutch farmers, and others of the vicinity, that Gov. Mifflin was studying out a theory to set his hills and fields on fire, and ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... 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, ...
— 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
... elements of wealth, and in statement of the laws which govern its distribution, modern political economy has been thus absolutely incompetent, or absolutely false. And the following treatise is not, as it has been asserted with dull pertinacity, an endeavour to put sentiment in the place of science; but it contains the exposure of what insolently pretended to be a science; and the definition, hitherto unassailed—and I do not fear to assert, unassailable—of the material elements with which political economy has to deal, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... embarrassed,—to a slight amount. He owed a tailor a trifle, and a bootmaker a trifle,—and something to the man who sold gloves and shirts; and yet he had done his best to keep out of debt with more than Irish pertinacity, living very closely, breakfasting upon tea and a roll, and dining frequently for a shilling at a luncheon-house up a court near Lincoln's Inn. Where should he dine if the Loughshaners elected him to Parliament? And then he painted to himself a not untrue picture of the probable miseries of a man ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... Rana, despairing of success, had fled to the jungles. But if he pressed the siege vigorously, the Rajputs defended themselves with equal courage and obstinacy. Never had Akbar met such sturdy warriors. As their pertinacity increased, so likewise did his pride and resolution. At length the breach was reported practicable, and on a night in the month of March, Akbar ordered the assault. He had a stand erected for himself, ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... and be dd," said I, wearied by the incorrigible pertinacity with which the villain assailed me. My most unexpected energy threw the whole table into a roar, at the conclusion of which Fin began his narrative ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... Lite agreed, with more than his usual pertinacity. "I'll have her out here by noon, and a supply of real grub. How are you fixed ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... Nageesa; the Bombay philologists refer it to a species of Garcinia, whilst the pundits on the Calcutta side of India consider it to be Mesua ferrea. Throughout our travels in India, we were struck with the undue reliance placed on native names of plants, and information of all kinds; and the pertinacity with which each linguist adhered to his own crotchet as to the application of terms to natural objects, and their pronunciation. It is a very prevalent, but erroneous, impression, that savage and half-civilised people have an accurate ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... Buckingham, were received by Lord Glenvarloch with a positive and contemptuous refusal. His friend shrugged his shoulders, as one who claims the merit of having given to an obstinate friend the best counsel, and desires to be held free of the consequences of his pertinacity. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... 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
... higher value for what he utters than any hearer, and therefore it gets spoken. The strong, self-complacent Luther[517] declares with an emphasis, not to be mistaken, that "God himself cannot do without wise men." Jacob Behmen[518] and George Fox[519] betray their egotism in the pertinacity of their controversial tracts, and James Naylor[520] once suffered himself to be worshiped as the Christ. Each prophet comes presently to identify himself with his thought, and to esteem his hat and shoes sacred. However this may discredit ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... his 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 provoked the boatswain. ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... lots were put up, and regularly knocked down but always to Bellew, or Adam. Which last, encouraged by Bellew's bold advances, gaily roared down, and constantly out-bid all competitors with such unhesitating pertinacity, that murmurs rose, and swelled into open complaint. In the midst of which, the fiery-visaged Corn-chandler, purple now, between heat, and vexation, loudly demanded that he lay down some substantial deposit upon what he had already purchased, failing which, he should, there and then, ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... his cheese, ate the sweets, and foraged everywhere. This the shrew-mouse permitted to the empress of his heart, although he was ill at ease, having broken his oath made to Gargantua, and betrayed the confidence placed in him. Pursuing her advantage with the pertinacity of a woman, one night they were joking together, the mouse remembered the dear old fellow her father, and desiring that he should make his meals off the grain, she threatened to leave her lover cold and lonely in his domain if he did not allow her to indulge her filial piety. In the twinkling of ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... upon the table to the evident danger of those unhappy flowers; the president was calling across the tumult in stentorian tones; but the tumult refused to fall, and the imperturbable pages were bawling upon the skirts of the crowd with stolid pertinacity. The noise was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... at the presiding officer, they say that John Q. made them pay attention. Seward says, "with unwavering firmness, against a bitter and unscrupulous opposition, exasperated to the highest pitch by his pertinacity—amidst a perfect tempest of vituperation and abuse—he persevered in presenting his anti-slavery petitions, one by one, to the amount sometimes of 200 in one day." As one of his eminent biographers has truly said: "John Quincy ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... looking round her with an unholy sense of superiority, and as we passed she said to her governess in a clear-cut, complacent tone, "We're quite exceptional, aren't we?" To which the governess replied briskly, "Laura, don't be ridiculous!" To which exhortation Laura replied with self-satisfied pertinacity, "No, but ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... 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 force of the enemy, who disputed every ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... 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 ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... them was carried; the king undertook to discourage them, and the commander-in-chief issued a stringent order for their suppression. The struggle, however, was continued by the pertinacity of the radicals in demanding a more extended inquiry, and the obstinacy of the Orangemen in defying both the house of commons and the horse guards. Early in the session of 1836 Finn and Hume renewed their assaults, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... will keep the position of a great Power, and the Japanese that of a great people, just because of the preponderating mental abilities of the population of the country, its capacity for assimilation, its desire for knowledge, its pertinacity, strenuousness, and aspirations to possess and acquire by the process of selection the very best ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery |
