"Adamant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... creation. Bulwer himself, when his fit is past, and his critical faculty re-awakens, probably knows as well as another that these labored and meritorious pages of his are not graven on the eternal adamant. But they are the best he can do, and perhaps there is none better of their kind. They have a right to be; for while genius may do harm as well as good, Bulwer never does harm, and in spite of sickly sentiment and sham ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... nearing the summit of the pass. It was still a thousand feet below the snow. To the left a mighty chasm trenched the adamant, its bottom lowered away to depths of mysterious blue. Its side, above which the three stout ponies picked their way, was a jagged set of terraces, over the brink of which the ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... loftiest speech, Sweet with persuasion, eloquent In passion, cool in argument, Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes As fell the Norse god's hammer blows. Crushing as if with Talus' flail Through Error's logic-woven mail, And failing only when they tried The adamant of the righteous side,— Thou, foiled in aim and hope, bereaved Of old friends, by the new deceived, Too soon for us, too soon for thee, Beside thy lonely Northern sea, Where long and low the marsh-lands spread, Laid ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... Connecticut and Vermont. A provision in the State constitution of Tennessee prevented action by its Legislature. The Republican Governors of Connecticut and Vermont refused absolutely to call a special session. The former declared that there was no emergency requiring it and was adamant to every argument. Mrs. Catt and her Board then undertook another Herculean task of bringing to Connecticut an influential woman from every State, and, cooperating with those of Connecticut, a mass meeting was held in Hartford. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... keep also a diary. Let him not stay long, in one city or town; more or less as the place deserveth, but not long; nay, when he stayeth in one city or town, let him change his lodging from one end and part of the town, to another; which is a great adamant of acquaintance. Let him sequester himself, from the company of his countrymen, and diet in such places, where there is good company of the nation where he travelleth. Let him, upon his removes from one place to another, procure ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... messengers of God and despised His word;" that in the language of the prophet, "they had refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears that they should not hear; yea, had made their heart like an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law and the words which the Lord of Hosts had sent in his spirit by the former prophets." He admitted that great sins require great chastisement, and that the sins of London were enormous; that it was filled with strifes, seditions, heresies, murders, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... She had a way of becoming adamant on rare occasions that really struck terror to Split's facile soul, which resented a grudge promptly and as promptly ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... knew, also, that there was no reserve—no reinforcements behind to support them when they went to battle; their alternative was life or death. It was the consciousness of this fact that made the black phalanx a wall of adamant to the enemy. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... single tree, seamless and stoutly fashioned to be the unharmed plaything of such rocks and boisterous waters as these. In these rapids the river waked to consciousness of mighty life, tossing our little craft through a riot of dancing waves, whirling it round the base of perpendicular rocks set like adamant in the hissing waters, sweeping it helpless as a petal down some glassy plane stilled, as it were, into a concentrated wrath of movement. The men sprang from side to side, from bow to stern, staving the craft with ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... him, act towards men and women as he acted, face life as he faced it. Yet he was too subtle ever to be dogmatic. He never shouted in the market-place. He led those with whom he came in contact as adroitly as if he had been evil, and to the influence of others he was as adamant. ...
— The Collaborators - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... he not so wound himself into every recess of her heart as to make life without seeing him insupportable? Could it be possible that, after having done all this, he had no regard for her? Was he so hard, so cruel, such adamant as to deny her at least a farewell? As for herself, she was now beyond all fear of consequences. She was ready to die if it were necessary,—ready to lose all the luxuries of her husband's position rather than never see him again. She had a heart! She was inclined to doubt whether ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... roof of St Mark's before they died. Moreover, Kublai Khan was growing old himself, and the favour which he had always shown to them had excited some jealousy among his own people, and they feared what might happen when he died. But the old Khan was adamant to all their prayers; wealth and honours were theirs for the asking, but he would not let them go. They might, indeed, have died in China, and we of the West might never have heard of Marco Polo or of Kublai Khan, but for a mere accident, a stroke of fate, which gave them their ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... remained adamant. The contest lasted for nine days. On the first day Hugh was studiedly courteous. It was, 'I could not dream, my dear Arthur,' et-cetera. On the second day he was visibly aggravated. It was, 'But, my dear Arthur, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... strengthened? It grows weaker and weaker. The popular torrent gains upon it every hour. Let us learn from our experience. It is not support that is wanting to Government, but reformation. When Ministry rests upon public opinion, it is not indeed built upon a rock of adamant; it has, however, some stability. But when it stands upon private humour, its structure is of stubble, and its foundation is on quicksand. I repeat it again—He that supports every Administration, subverts all Government. The reason is this. The whole business in ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... the warrior worthy of his birth In a soil where the mothers bring forth men: Not so with those whose souls are little worth; For them no fortress can avail,—the den Of the poor reptile which preserves its sting Is more secure than walls of adamant, when The hearts of those within are quivering. 130 Are ye not brave? Yes, yet the Ausonian soil Hath hearts, and hands, and arms, and hosts to bring Against Oppression; but how vain the toil, While still Division ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... handsome youth has found you adamant," he said, after a thoughtful silence. "Yet you might easily choose a worse suitor. Your sister has often the strangest whims about marriage-making; but in this fancy I did not oppose her. It would be a ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... get possession of the districts of Bremen and Verden, which had been handed over to Sweden at the Peace of Westphalia. Reckless enterprise had carried Charles the Twelfth—"Swedish Charles," with "a frame of adamant, a soul of fire," whom no dangers frighted, and no labors tired, the "unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain"—too far in the rush of his chivalrous madness. His vaulting ambition had overleaped itself, and fallen on the other side; and after ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... silence and demur Seized us, though undismayed. Long is the way And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light. Our prison strong, this huge convex of fire, Outrageous to devour, immures us round Ninefold; and gates of burning adamant, Barred over us, prohibit all egress. These passed, if any pass, the void profound Of unessential Night receives him next, Wide-gaping, and with utter loss of being Threatens him, plunged in that ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... was on the bed, lying there black like ink, transformed before my eyes. The skin, and the flesh, and the muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of the human body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent as adamant, began to ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... have set aside. Our walls of brick and stone we have manned with invisible guards. We have thronged with fiery faces and arms the fences of our gardens and parks. The plate-glass of our windows we have made more impenetrable than adamant. To our very infants we have given the strength of giants. Babies surfeit, while strong men starve; and the foetus in the womb stretches out unformed hands to annex a principality. Is this liberty? ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... over to the care of an amused young woman, who proceeded to show him feather boas of all descriptions and qualities. Christopher was adamant. ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... the above incident several families moved into Honan, and a permanent occupation was effected; but the hearts of the people seemed as adamant against us. They hated and distrusted us as if we were their worst enemies. The district in which we settled was known for its turbulent and anti-foreign spirit, and as a band of missionaries we were frequently in ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... why should we demand of Heine that he should be a hero, a patriot, a solemn prophet, any more than we should demand of a gazelle that it should draw well in harness? Nature has not made him of her sterner stuff—not of iron and adamant, but of pollen of flowers, the juice of the grape, and Puck's mischievous brain, plenteously mixing also the dews of kindly affection and the gold-dust of noble thoughts. It is, after all, a tribute which his enemies pay him when they utter their bitterest ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... at the hands of his fellow-citizens—treatment which still rankled—here was no Coriolanus to depart in a huff to Antium. The Admiral had a duty to perform, a service due to this ungrateful Town, and on the subject of going to bed he was adamant. ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... AEneas, false AEneas stay. Then gan he wagge his hand, which yet held vp, Made me suppose he would haue heard me speake: Then gan they driue into the Ocean, Which when I viewd, I cride, AEneas stay, Dido, faire Dido wils AEneas stay: Yet he whose heart of adamant or flint, My teares nor plaints could mollifie a whit: Then carelesly I rent my haire for griefe, Which seene to all, though he beheld me not, They gan to moue him to redresse my ruth, And stay a while to heare what I could say, But he ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... time as about the Guards, just as Kansans at home would want to read about the Kansas regiment and Georgians about the Georgia regiment. The most trying feature of the censorship to the British public was its refusal to allow the exploitation of regiments. The staff was adamant on this point; for the staff was thinking for the whole and of the interests of the whole. In the French and the German armies, as in our regular army, regiments are ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Joseph carved a spoon From out a brand; To ivory it changed full soon And adamant. When Mary gave the Babe the food, He became Jesus, Son of God. ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... whence This rapture of the sense Which, by thy whisper bid, Reveres with obscure rite and sacramental sign A bond I know not of nor dimly can divine; This subject loyalty which longs For chains and thongs Woven of gossamer and adamant, To bind me to my unguess'd want, And so to lie, Between those quivering plumes that thro' fine ether pant, For hopeless, sweet eternity? What God unhonour'd hitherto in songs, Or which, that now Forgettest the disguise That Gods must wear who visit ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... hopelessness blank and dreary, invaded me with the knowledge: between me and my Lona lay an abyss impassable! stretched a distance no chain could measure! Space and Time and Mode of Being, as with walls of adamant unscalable, impenetrable, shut me in from that gulf! True, it might yet be in my power to pass again through the door of light, and journey back to the chamber of the dead; and if so, I was parted from that chamber only by a wide heath, and by the pale, starry night betwixt me and the sun, which ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... early Church, but especially Justin, Apol. I. 26, 58; Iren. I. 27; Tertull., adv. Marc. I-V.; de praescr.; Hippol., Philos.; Adamant., de recta in deum fidei; Epiph. h. 42; Ephr. Syr.; Esnik. The older attempts to restore the Marcionite Gospel and Apostolicum have been antiquated by Zahn's Kanonsgeschichte, l. c. Hahn (Regimonti, 1823) has attempted to restore the Antitheses. We are still in want of a German monograph on Marcion ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... health was drunk. When I drank it, I affected to interrupt my conversation for that purpose, and to resume it immediately afterwards. I caught Dora's eye as I bowed to her, and I thought it looked appealing. But it looked at me over the head of Red Whisker, and I was adamant. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... Jessie had or had not a bed, or if she slept on the doorstep; but he cared very much about his friend, and he meant to have his own way. But though he stormed, and bullied, and even struck his wife, he found her, for the first time, as firm as adamant, and quite as indifferent to him. His orders meant nothing to her, and the change in her impressed ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... grisly countenance made others flye, None durst come neere, for feare of suddaine death. In Iron Walls they deem'd me not secure: So great feare of my Name 'mongst them were spread, That they suppos'd I could rend Barres of Steele, And spurne in pieces Posts of Adamant. Wherefore a guard of chosen Shot I had, That walkt about me euery Minute while: And if I did but stirre out of my Bed, Ready they were to shoot me to the heart. Enter the Boy ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... and said that spring had come. Spring comes when it comes. The frozen snows of January still lay like adamant in the crosstown streets. The hand-organs still played "In the Good Old Summertime," with their December vivacity and expression. Men began to make thirty-day notes to buy Easter dresses. Janitors shut off steam. And when these things ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... the other medical gentlemen subsequently refused to impart the slightest information as to the reasons that led the police to seek their services, and the Scotland Yard authorities are adamant in the matter. ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... fall—Burton's connection with the Crimean army abruptly ceased. Having sent in his resignation, he returned to England and arrived here just in time to miss, to his disappointment, his brother Edward, who had again left for Ceylon. Edward's after career was sad enough to draw tears from adamant. During an elephant hunt a number of natives set upon him and beat him brutally about the head. Brain trouble ensued, and he returned home, but henceforth, though he attained a green old age, he lived a life of utter silence. Except on one ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... he speaks, it is in the style of a glorious vapourer, full of lofty airs and mock thunder. Nothing could be further from the truth of the man, whose character, even in his faults, was as compact and solid as adamant, and at the same time as limber and ductile as the finest gold. Certain critics have seized and worked upon this, as proving Shakespeare's lack of classical knowledge, or carelessness in the use of his authorities. It proves neither the ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... to tell what the sign or secret was which she had revealed to the King on first seeing him at Chinon; but about this she was firm as adamant, and refused to give any information. To reveal that sign or secret would, she felt, be not only a breach of confidence and disloyalty between her and her King, but a crime to divulge a sacred secret, which Charles kept sealed in his breast, ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... people have no excuse for ruining themselves. As for example in a barber's shop one day there was some conversation about the tyranny of Dionysius, that it was as hard as adamant and invincible, and the barber laughed and said, "Fancy your saying this to me, who have my razor at his throat most days!" And Dionysius hearing this had him crucified. Barbers indeed are generally ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... prejudged the whole case. Her look plainly said: "Young man, I know your pitiful story. You needn't tell me. You may be very well as young men go, you fancy you can more than fill a mother's place in Bessie's inexperienced heart, but you can't get me out. I am Adamant. Your intentions are all very honorable, but you are a graceless intruder. Your credentials are rejected on sight." I saw the difficult task I had undertaken. "Mrs. Pinkerton," I said, mustering all my forces, "it is no use mincing the matter, or beating about ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... but I want to do right. I've been reading some in Zeke's book, 'Science and Health,' and there was one sentence just got hold of me:[1] 'Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error—self-will, self-justification, and self-love!' Jewel's helped me to dissolve enough so I could face handing over the keys of this house to her mother. I'm not saying I could have offered ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... that inherent impulse, and thereafter, although intermittently convulsed with remorse, fights with tremendous energy against the goodness that he scorns and defies, till at last he dashes himself to pieces against the adamant of ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... you, what would you say if you should have seen the Stygian lakes, and the shores burning with sulphur unconsumed, if the Furies stood before you, and Cerberus with his mane of vipers, and the Giants chained in eternal adamant? Yet all these you might have witnessed unharmed; for all these would quail at the terror of ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... been wantonly burned, killed, or carried off. The land was filled with widows and orphans crying for aid, which the universal destitution prevented them from receiving. Humanitarians shuddered with horror and wept with grief for the imaginary woes of Africans; but their hearts were as adamant to people of their own race and blood. These had committed the unpardonable sin, had wickedly rebelled against the Lord's anointed, the majority. Blockaded during the war, and without journals to guide opinion and ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... adamant. "It's his last night," she said, "and he has promised not to smoke any cigarettes and I've given him two pepsin tablets. This is the land of ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... civil thing, said I;—and as I generally act from the first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these cabals, which serve no purpose, that I know of, but to encompass the heart with adamant—I turned instantly about to ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... first'; Phalguna, however, disregarding these words, struck the boar. The Kirata also blazing splendour, let fly an arrow like flaming fire and resembling the thunderbolt at the same object. And the arrows thus shot by both fell at the same instant of time upon the wide body of Muka, hard as adamant. And the two shafts fell upon the boar with a loud sound, even like that of Indra's thunderbolt and the thunder of the clouds falling together upon the breast of a mountain. And Muka, thus struck by two shafts which produced numerous arrows ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... adamant: he was tired; she was tired; they would rest. To-morrow with the rising ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... to say, a few months ago, "The bubble has burst." How, if the great empire should prove not to have been shattered? how, if the bubble has not burst?—nay, if that great system of intelligent self-government which was taken for a bubble prove to be a sphere of adamant, rounded in the mould of Divine Law, and filled with the pure light ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... the remotest and the loneliest star. Look at those stars. Don't they look as if they were single diamonds and sapphires? Well, you can imagine any mad botany or geology you please. Think of forests of adamant with leaves of brilliants. Think the moon is a blue moon, a single elephantine sapphire. But don't fancy that all that frantic astronomy would make the smallest difference to the reason and justice of conduct. On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of pearl, you would still find a notice-board, ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... is it? Where is her cave? I will go instantly and rescue my beloved Princess!" and he drew his sword of adamant and waved ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... paleness turns the glowing red. His blood, scarce liquid, creeps within his veins, Like water which the freezing wind constrains. Then thus he said: Eternal Deities, 470 Who rule the world with absolute decrees, And write whatever time shall bring to pass, With pens of adamant on plates of brass; What! is the race of human kind your care, Beyond what all his fellow-creatures are? He with the rest is liable to pain, And like the sheep, his brother-beast, is slain; Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a cure, All these ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... accused of envy to the living Muse? What would a linen-draper from Holborn think, if I were to ask him after the clerk of St. Andrew's, the immortal, the forgotten Webster? His name and his works are no more heard of: though these were written with a pen of adamant, 'within the red-leaved tables of the heart,' his fame was 'writ in water.' So perishable is genius, so swift is time, so fluctuating is knowledge, and so far is it from being true that men perpetually accumulate the means of improvement ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... glittering torrents flow; —Quick whirls the wheel, the ponderous hammer falls, Loud anvils ring amid the trembling walls, Strokes follow strokes, the sparkling ingot shines, 190 Flows the red slag, the lengthening bar refines; Cold waves, immersed, the glowing mass congeal, And turn to adamant ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... to visit the girl with him, and, being an ordinary mortal and unused to horrible sights, I was shocked at her appearance. She had nasty open sores on her cheeks, arms and forehead. She was certainly an imbecile. Her father was adamant in his belief that "Jadoo" and nothing else accounted for her state. Her imbecility was due, we found, to her having had a fall as a baby. In order to ascertain the cause of the sores the medical officer removed her to the cantonment (Government) ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... sense of his wrong, the sight of the man who had deceived him, made him hard as adamant. Could he desire a fuller satisfaction than was ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... Emperor, "in this strong case of steel and adamant have we found it necessary to enclose the redoubted Ursel, whose fame is spread through the whole world, both for military skill, political wisdom, personal bravery, and other noble gifts, which we have been obliged to obscure for a time, in order that we might, at the fittest conjuncture, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... loosely tied by a thousand separate strings, but should be held firm by one cable. Our relations to fellow creatures are those threads; our supreme relation to God, that cable. Those are the gossamer of time; this the adamant ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... I pointed out to him, but he was adamant on the matter and became dreadfully irritable and excited. I did not dare to press the point, so of course—" ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... Absolute coalescence is absolute density. Where there are no interspaces, there can be no yielding. An ether, absolutely dense, would put an infinitely more effectual stop to the progress of a star than would an ether of adamant ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... I'll give it ter you extry clarified, you's a mean nigger man—mean an' low lifed. I axes you, politeful like, wha' you an' Miss Ann a goin' an' all you kin give me is sass." Aunt Em'ly was full of curiosity and was greatly irritated not to have her curiosity satisfied. But Billy was adamant and Miss Ann more dignified than usual, as she doled out her small tips—all the poor old lady could afford, but presented to the servants whenever she departed ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... a lieutenant named Lindsay, marched to Glencoe. Captain Campbell was commonly called in Scotland Glenlyon, from the pass in which his property lay. He had every qualification for the service on which he was employed, an unblushing forehead, a smooth lying tongue, and a heart of adamant. He was also one of the few Campbells who were likely to be trusted and welcomed by the Macdonalds; for his niece was married to Alexander, the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Engaged in links of adamant to a "monster in human form"—a remarkable expression I think I remember to have once met with in a newspaper—whom I encountered at Franconi's, whence I have just returned, otherwise I would have done all three things right heartily and with my accustomed ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... Foundation stands the Warrior's Pride? How just his Hopes let Swedish Charles decide; A Frame of Adamant, a Soul of Fire, No Dangers fright him, and no Labours tire; O'er Love, o'er Force, extends his wide Domain, Unconquer'd Lord of Pleasure and of Pain; No Joys to him pacific Scepters yield, War sounds the ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... Antandre, and Bremusa, Hippothoe, dark-eyed Harmothoe, Alcibie, Derimacheia, Antibrote, And Thermodosa glorying with the spear. All these to battle fared with warrior-souled Penthesileia: even as when descends Dawn from Olympus' crest of adamant, Dawn, heart-exultant in her radiant steeds Amidst the bright-haired Hours; and o'er them all, How flawless-fair soever these may be, Her splendour of beauty glows pre-eminent; So peerless amid all the Amazons Unto Troy-town Penthesileia came. To right, to left, from all sides hurrying thronged The ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... comes to learn how it happened, a fortnight sooner than they intended; and fully persuaded that the new arrangement cannot last a month. The Parliament opens; everybody is bribed; and the new establishment is perceived to be composed of adamant. November passes, with two or three self-murders, and a new play. Christmas arrives; everybody goes out of town; and a riot happens in one of the theatres. The Parliament meets again; taxes are warmly opposed; and some citizen makes ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... others begot offspring upon the wives of the foremost of monkeys and bears. And those sons equaled their sires in strength and fame. And they were capable of splitting mountain peaks and their weapons were stones and trees of the Sala and the Tala species. And their bodies were hard as adamant, and they were possessed of very great strength. And they were all skilled in war and capable of mustering any measure of energy at will. And they were equal to a thousand elephants in might, and they resembled the wind in speed. And some ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... stormed and blustered, but I was adamant; and in the end they had to take me back to my cell to be tried again. I was condemned to be shot at sunrise next morning, and they went to the trouble of giving me an alarm clock and setting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various
... oak-tree, and scrambling over the lichened boulders. It was a source of deep regret to the hardier spirits that they were not allowed to take their morning dip in the stream all the year round; but on that score mistresses were adamant, and with the close of September the naiads perforce withdrew from their favourite element till it was warmed ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... an amused glance at him, but he was watching a small steamer puffing against the tide, and his face was adamant. ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... stretched himself, and reached for his cap. It was plain that he considered the interview at an end. The persuasive Mr. Morrissey tried to get a wedge in somewhere to reopen it, but he tried in vain. Enos Walker was adamant. So, disappointed and discomfited, the emissaries of Colonel Richard Butler bade "good-day," to the oracle of Cobb's Corners, and drove back ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... agonized fears, resolved to create for her some place of refuge, however humble, where she might feel herself safe from the venomous attacks of the serpent. He therefore brought her to Delos, a floating island in the AEgean Sea, which he made stationary by attaching it with chains of adamant to the bottom of the sea. Here she gave birth to her twin-children, Apollo and Artemis (Diana), two of the most beautiful ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... he suffered, Ben Zoof, constant to his principles, expressed no surprise at the unwonted heat. No remonstrances from his master could induce him to abandon his watch from the cliff. To withstand the vertical beams of that noontide sun would seem to require a skin of brass and a brain of adamant; but yet, hour after hour, he would remain conscientiously scanning the surface of the Mediterranean, which, calm and deserted, lay outstretched before him. On one occasion, Servadac, in reference to his orderly's indomitable perseverance, happened to remark that he thought he must ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... to reckon up his defects, but it is not easy to hide from sight the Roman virtues that redeemed them. Beset by a throng of enemies, he stands, like the King of Israel, head and shoulders above them all. He was a tower of adamant, against whose impregnable front hardship and danger, the rage of man and of the elements, the southern sun, the northern blast, fatigue, famine, and disease, delay, disappointment, and deferred hope, emptied their quivers ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... None durst come near for fear of sudden death. In iron walls they deem'd me not secure: So great a fear my name amongst them spread, That they suppos'd I could rend bars of steel, And spurn in pieces posts of adamant. Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had: They walk'd about me every minute-while; And if I did but stir out of my bed, Ready they were to shoot ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... how much she dared charge each guest, according to his appearance. But at least Mexico feeds well the traveler who is too hungry to be particular. He who will choose his dishes leads a sorry life, for the hotels are adamant in their fare and restaurants are almost unknown, except the dozens of little outdoor ones about the market-places where a white man would attract undue attention—if nothing less curable—among the "pela'os" that make up 80 per cent. of ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... the first," says Leir, "I should relate the cause, I would make a heart of adamant to weep. And thou, poor soul, kind-hearted as thou art, Dost weep already, ere I ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... paused the beauteous Teacher, and awhile Gazed on her train with sympathetic smile. 'Beware of Love! she cried, ye Nymphs, and hear 'His twanging bowstring with alarmed ear; 'Fly the first whisper of the distant dart, 'Or shield with adamant the fluttering heart; 430 'To secret shades, ye Virgin trains, retire, 'And in your bosoms guard the vestal fire.' —The obedient Beauties hear her words, advised, And bow with laugh ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... be adamant. They vowed it with many oaths. In fact, the rage of the cowpunchers was steadily growing. Red Perris was more than a mere insolent interloper who had dared to scoff at the banded powers of the Valley of the Eagles. ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... an Iron Cross in cardboard. He holds up his two wooden pink hands to a French officer, whose curly wig makes a cushion for a juvenile cap, who has bulging, crimson cheeks, and whose infantile eye of adamant looks somewhere else. Beside the two personages lies a rifle bar-rowed from the odd trophies of a box of toys. A card gives the title of ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... ordered, and (whether or no the good Genius strengthened it with any supernatural force, or dissipated part of the mist that was before too thick for the eye to penetrate) I saw the valley opening at the farther end and spreading forth into an immense ocean, that had a huge rock of adamant running through the midst of it and dividing it into ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... art nor force can unto pity move Her stony heart that makes my heart to pant; No pleading passions of my extreme love Can mollify her mind of adamant. Ah cruel sex, and foe to all mankind, Either you love or else you hate too much! A glist'ring show of gold in you we find, And yet you prove but copper in the touch. But why, O why, do I so far digress? Nature you made of pure and fairest mould, The pomp and glory ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... resented because of Brown's and the Greek's behavior the night before. They begged to get a little drunk—to get half as drunk as Brown had been—half as drunk as Coutlass had been—not drunk at all, but just to drink a little. We were adamant, and Brown added to their resentment by preaching them a sermon in their own tongue on the importance of being respectful toward ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... butcher-knife. Their supper bleated miserably some twenty yards away, tied to a tree, and a lean. Punjabi squatted near it in readiness to buy the skin. It was a big goat, but it was mangy, so he held only two annas in his hand. The other anna (in case that Brown should prove adamant) was twisted in the folds of his pugree, but he was prepared to perjure himself a dozen times, and take the names of all his female ancestors in vain, before he ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... his shining palace stands, Eternal frame! not raised by mortal hands: This having reach'd, his brass-hoof'd steeds he reins, Fleet as the winds, and deck'd with golden manes. Refulgent arms his mighty limbs infold, Immortal arms of adamant and gold. He mounts the car, the golden scourge applies, He sits superior, and the chariot flies: His whirling wheels the glassy surface sweep; The enormous monsters rolling o'er the deep Gambol around him on the watery way, And heavy whales in awkward measures play; The sea ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... change of some of the final letters:) as, danger, dangerous; glory, glorious; right, righteous; rock, rocky; clay, clayey; poet, poetic, or poetical; nation, national; method, methodical; vertex, vertical; clergy, clerical; adamant, adamantine. Adjectives thus formed, generally apply the properties of their primitives, to the nouns ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Vainly had she plead his talents which she believed should be cultivated, and the injustice (since they had voluntarily assumed the responsibility of rearing him) of cutting short his education at such an early age. John Allan was adamant. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... chance of shelling the newcomers from the high kopje we occupied, General Kock, who was in supreme command of our corps, for some reason which has never been explained, refused to permit us to fire upon them. I went to General Kock and pleaded with him, but he was adamant. This was a bitter disappointment to me, but I consoled myself with the thought that the General was much older than myself, and had been fighting since he was a baby. I therefore presumed he knew better. Possibly if we younger commanders had had more authority in the earlier stages of ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... protection it afforded to women in the distribution of lots in their prospective city, and the terrible punishment with which it visited any man who dared offer one of them an insult. They certainly founded their republic on principles of adamant, but in spite of high hopes and wise laws the boulders refused to move. Even Iowa enterprise at last gave way under constant disaster, and the people of the little city are one by one forsaking it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... neighbors engaged, or that it was his lack of persistence and purpose that hindered him. It is not true that he was poor because he looked upon money as an unmixed evil. Thoreau's purpose was like adamant, and his industry in his own proper pursuits was tireless. He knew the true value of money, and he knew also that the best things in life are to be had without money and without price. When he had need of money, ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... to the room in which they had supped the night before. Surely Girdlestone must have had a heart of flint not to be melted by the sight of that fair, fresh face. His features set as hard as adamant as she entered the room, and he looked at her with eyes which ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... parlour at Spindrift House with his father and mother, reading the Tribune or the Evening Post or poring over some ancient tome of travels, or looking out across the cliffs at an icy sea splintering and glittering against a coast of frozen adamant. ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... runne headlong to destruction! I like thy temper that canst change a heart From yeelding flesh to Flinte and Adamant. Thou hitst it home, where thou doost fasten holde; Nothing can separate the ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... more was cast the burden of the young man's troubles, and once more he walked deep into the peace of the big hills. And the mountains smiled not, neither wept, but gravely and kindly folded over, about, behind, the gray mantle of the canyon walls, and locked fast doors of adamant against all following, and swept a pitying hand of shadow, and breathed that wondrous unsyllabled voice of comfort which any mountain-goer knows. Ay! the goodness of such strength! Up by the clean snow; over the big rocks; by the lace-work stream where the trout are—why, it's all ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... flesh faileth us, and we become ignorant and brutish. Our affections cleave to the earth, and temptations with their violence turn our souls towards another end than God. As there is nothing more easily moved and turned wrong than the needle that is touched with the adamant, yet it settles not in such a posture, it recovers itself and rests never till it look towards the north, and then it is fixed—even so, temptations and the corruptions and infirmities of our hearts disturb our spirits easily, and wind them about ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... be that insatiate pride, Which, turning on itself, drinks up the tide Of natural light; 'till one eternal gloom, Like walls of adamant enclose the tomb. Tremendous thought! that this transcendant Power, Fell'd with the body in one fatal hour, With all its faculties, should pass like air For ages without end as ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... eyelid throbs, is it a sign that I am to see her? Here will I lean me against this pine tree, and sing, and then perchance she will regard me, for she is not all of adamant. ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... roofs and ancient stems, Nor yet a plenteous, lasting flood Of gold, that makes man truly good. Leave to inquire in what fair fields A river runs which much gold yields; Virtue alone is the rich prize Can purchase stars, and buy the skies. Let others build with adamant, Or pillars of carv'd marble plant, Which rude and rough sometimes did dwell Far under earth, and near to hell. But richer much—from death releas'd— Shines in the fresh groves of the East The ph[oe]nix, or those fish that ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... wrapped, and sitting on king's thrones; Against young reason, in a peasant's robe His king's brow hiding. For the infant race Weaves for itself the chains its manhood scorns, (When time hath made them adamant, alas!—) The reverence of humanity, that gold Which makes power's glittering round, ordained of God But for the lovely majesty of right, Unto a mad usurper, yielding, all, Making the low and lawless will of man Vicegerent ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... the widow nor the fatherless, the resident alien nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against your brother in his heart. But they refused to heed, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant lest they should hear the teaching, and the words which Jehovah of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets. Therefore there came great wrath from Jehovah of hosts. And even when I cried they would not hear, so when they cried I did not hear, saith Jehovah of hosts. And ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... "They whose souls have been tried in the furnace, who have the temper of fine steel, pliant as gold, but incorruptible as adamant,—heroes and saints, they stand so low in your favor? Come, then, come with me now,—for the bells have struck the hour, and shadows clothe the earth,—come to their conclave where discovery is death, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend with and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the centre of a Christmas pie; and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... Heav'n, Empyreal Thrones, 430 With reason hath deep silence and demurr Seis'd us, though undismaid: long is the way And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light; Our prison strong, this huge convex of Fire, Outrageous to devour, immures us round Ninefold, and gates of burning Adamant Barr'd over us prohibit all egress. These past, if any pass, the void profound Of unessential Night receives him next Wide gaping, and with utter loss of being 440 Threatens him, plung'd in that abortive gulf. If thence he scape into what ever world, Or unknown Region, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... nowhere else for a wife; I will have no wife but you. I have had a wife of other people's choosing; I will choose one for myself this time. Let us be friends, Diane, since your decision is as irrevocable as the laws of Draco. You are stone, you are adamant; but no matter, we can be friends. Your father will be disappointed. But what then? He is no doubt accustomed to disappointments. My daughters—for them it is a profound affliction to be motherless, but they must support it. Cotenoir must go ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Beyond all change and chance thou sit'st serene! In easy flow can pass thy love new-born From cold indifference to colder scorn; Such resolution is the equal mate Of god or monster, love, aversion, hate. This fine-spun adamant Ithuriel's spear Could never pierce: for other stuff is here! (Points to himself.) No faint 'Alas!' no swift-repented sigh Can heal the cureless wound from which I die. Sure, reason finds that love his easy prey With Lethe aye at hand to ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... adamant, pierced by the needles of the frost; to awake shivering and famished, until the meaning of an inch of ice on the backwater comes to your mind,—these are not calculated to put a man into an equable mood to listen to oratory. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... she pleased, on one point he was firm. Mignon must not merely study music; she must each day practice the required number of hours. In the beginning she had rebelled, but finding her too indulgent parent adamant in this one particular, she had been forced to bow her obstinate head to his decree. In consequence she profited by the enforced practice hours to the extent of becoming a really creditable performer on the piano for a girl of her years. At fourteen she had begun ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... recollected perfectly that in the center of the rig was a singing, maudlin man, apparently "Sissie" Larsen. And they asked questions. They cornered Harry, they shot their queries at him one after another. But Harry was adamant. ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... outsiders, who yearned to step over the danger line and look and handle and if possible go off with a bit of wire or string or what not, as a keepsake. But Webby was adamant, although he was obliged to make dates for the following day with three boys who insisted on fighting ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... in these bands? Forget the dutie of my love to you? Were they of Iron, or strong Adamant, My hands should teare them from my ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... her knowledge that they soon must part. Notice the effect of the two griefs on Paul. The first, with its undefined hope, making him do well in all things—even his prowess as a hunter—to raise himself to be more worthy in her eyes; the second and paralysing one of death, turning him into adamant until his soul awakens again with the returning spring of her spirit in his heart, and the consolation of the living essence of ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... I could, and I'm quite sure I don't want to,' replied Michael. 'But I say, Teena, I really don't believe this claret's wholesome; it's not a sound, reliable wine. Give us a brandy and soda, there's a good soul.' Teena's face became like adamant. 'Well, then,' said the lawyer fretfully, 'I ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... take the bank by storm, sometimes by surprise, anon by stealth, and not rarely by digging a mine, laying intrenchments and opening a fire of field-pieces, heavy ordnance, and flying artillery; but the fortress, proud and conscious of its superior strength, built on a rock of adamant, laughs at the fiery attacks of its foes, nay, itself invites ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... objected to all strife in which he had no part, and since the opening of the winter term he had set his face like adamant against this international warfare. But his opposition served only to increase the ardour of the combatants. In vain he scolded and thrashed. In vain he imprisoned the Scots until the Hibernians had had a reasonable time to make ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... books, that neither the multitude of first-comers could produce a fastidiousness of the last, nor the benefit conferred yesterday be prejudicial to that of to-day. Wherefore, as we were continually resorted to by all the aforesaid persons, as to a sort of adamant attractive of books, the desired accession of the vessels of science, and a multifarious flight of the best volumes were made to us. And this is what we undertook to relate at large in ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... oppose this young man in any thing; he knew so well what he wanted, and demanded it so uncompromisingly. But Sophie's sense of fitness and propriety was as sound and impenetrable as adamant, and scarcely to be affected by any human will or consideration. She felt there was something not quite right in his manner and in the nature of his demand; and, being in the habit of making people conform to her ideas, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... flower-borders, tulips, dahlias, lilies of the valley; all in their moving flower-pots (of new-gilt carriages): pleasure of the eye, and pride of life! So rolls and dances the Procession: steady, of firm assurance, as if it rolled on adamant and the foundations of the world; not on mere heraldic parchment,—under which smoulders a lake of fire. Dance on, ye foolish ones; ye sought not wisdom, neither have ye found it. Ye and your fathers have sown the wind, ye shall reap the whirlwind. Was ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... which is possible. Seeing all things in their place in the everlasting order, Past and Future will not affect us. The temptation of present pleasure will not overcome the certainty of future pain, for the pain will be as sure as the pleasure, and we shall see all things under a rule of adamant. The foolish and the ignorant are led astray by the idea of contingency, and expect to escape the just issues of their actions; the wise man will know that each action brings with it its inevitable consequences, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... His doings?" (103) Zech. iv:6, "Not by might or by power, but My Spirit [i.e. mercy], saith the Lord of hosts." (104) The twelfth verse of the seventh chapter of the same prophet must, I think, be interpreted in like manner: "Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in His Spirit [i.e. in His mercy] by the former prophets." (105) So also Haggai ii:5: "So My Spirit remaineth among you: ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... Otter—twenty miles away—lifting their proud heads far into the clouds, like giant watch-towers sentineling the gateway that the mighty waters of the James had forced through the barriers of solid adamant lying across their path to the far-off sea. What we had seen many miles back start from the mountain sides as slender rivulets, brawling over the worn boulders, were now great, rushing, full-tide streams, enough of them in any fifty ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... against one set of passages, or supposing that Inspiration has anywhere forgotten her office, or discharged it imperfectly. All the Books of the Bible must stand or fall together. "Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it[400]." It is a fabric hard as adamant; and the gates of Hell will assuredly never prevail against it. But remove in thought a single stone; and in thought, that goodly work of Lawgivers and Judges—Kings and Prophets—Evangelists and Apostles,—collapses into a shapeless and ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... in vain the adamant gates of a brazen iniquity; we may bruise our breasts there till we die; there is no entrance possible. For that which is vile is stronger than all love, all faith, all pure desire, all passionate pain; that which is vile has all the forces ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... of her to treat you thus!" she said. "Can nothing move her—nothing melt that heart of adamant? But, Janet, dear, you must not let her sharp words wound you so deeply. Would that my love could shield you from such trials in future. But that cannot always be. You must strive to regard such things as part of that stern discipline of life which is designed to ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various |
