"Pertinacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of his own," said Mr. Grey, impatiently, not liking John's pertinacity. "Of course he prefers to ride on his ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... seemed to be closing in on De Wet. The noose was being drawn tighter and tighter daily, and the Boers' position became more and more precarious. What would have happened but for Lord Kitchener's arrival it is hard to say, as General Hart, ever impatient of passivity, a very Ney for pertinacity of attack, personal bravery, and confidence in his troops, was undoubtedly on the eve of launching an attack. But in the light of the succeeding events, it is clear now that such an attack would have been premature and ill-timed. In the event of ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... long years of patient waiting and silent labor, the struggle with listlessness and pain, the loss of time by illness, the hope deferred, the doubt that lays hold on delay—these are the tests of that pertinacity in man which is but a step below heroism. The exhibition of them in the novel, however, is prevented by that rapidity of movement which is essential to its fascination; and hence to one whose acquaintance with life was derived simply ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... am not unmindful of the pertinacity with which men adhere to old habits. Dr. Rush speaks of a venerable clergyman who closed a long sermon, in which he had controverted what he supposed an heretical opinion, with these words: "I tell you—I tell you, my brethren, I tell you again, that an old error is better than a new truth." ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler
... to 1808 England's navy and English privateers pursued both French and Spanish ships with dogged pertinacity. In August, 1803, British privateers boarded and captured a French frigate in the port of Salinas in this island. Four Spanish homeward-bound frigates fell into their hands about the same time. Another ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... said, with a curious pertinacity; "I'm sure he's about here still. He looked like a man with no home. Ugh! how dreary ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... it as even a greater desideratum than the efficient discharge of duties. The mistress must not lose her temper. She must be calm, imperturbable, and dignified, always. If she gives an order, she must insist, at whatever personal cost, that it shall be obeyed. Pertinacity and inflexibility on this ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... that he had ceased to attempt climbing the tree, we were in hopes he would get tired of the attack and go off altogether. But those hopes gradually forsook us, as we observed the pertinacity with which he still continued to watch us. If either of us made a motion among the branches, he would instantly spring to his feet—as though he fancied we were about to descend and was determined to intercept us. This, of itself, ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... she-bears came out of the wilderness and ate up a drove of small boys for guying a holy man, who was unduly sensitive about his personal dignity, the female of the ursine species, however, has been notorious for ill-temper and vindictive pertinacity, and she maintains ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... 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 ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... the puppy home. I imagine I had more pertinacity than the average Folk, or else I should not have succeeded. They laughed at me when they saw me lugging the puppy up to my high little cave, but I did not mind. Success crowned my efforts, and there was the puppy. He was a plaything such as none of the Folk possessed. He learned ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... which I felt at the unlooked for popularity of the first part of the present story, was much lessened by the pertinacity with which many persons, acquaintance as well as strangers, would insist (both in public and in private) on identifying the hero and the author. On the appearance of the first few numbers of the present continuation ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... no such idea ever had entered, or ever could enter, Miss Bygrave's mind. Noel Vanstone returned to the subject nevertheless, again and again, with his customary pertinacity. Would it be indiscreet if he asked leave to set himself right personally with Miss Bygrave? Was there any hope that he might have the happiness of seeing her on that day? or, if not, on the next day? or if not, on the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... more, clung to the girl's mind with a horrible pertinacity. And then, through the silence, she heard the Oldchurch bells awaking again, in the dull minute-peal which told that service-time was ended, and the afternoon funerals were taking place. Olive, shuddering, closed her ears against the sound, and then, gazing out once more, she saw her mother ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... get it from the Crown. Still more amazing, this sum was not all provided by the Crown; 167,000 maravedis were found by Columbus, and the Crown only contributed one million maravedis. One can only assume that Columbus's pertinacity in petitioning the King and Queen to undertake the expedition, when he could with comparative ease have got the money from some of his noble acquaintance, was due to three things—his faith and belief ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... foreign cabinet. Though Portugal was an ally to whom we regarded ourselves as bound by special ties, as well as by the great benefits we had conferred on her, yet, as she clung with the greatest pertinacity to the trade, he did not scruple to endeavor to put a constraint upon her which should compel her submission, and instructed Lord Castlereagh "to induce the Congress to take the best means in their power to enforce it by the adoption ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... which I gave myself most earnestly to the household tasks, going through them with dogged pertinacity, and accomplishing an amount of work which made my step-mother declare that Janet was coming back to her senses after all. It was only my effort to forget ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... depths around Tartarus. Wherefore advise thee, since this is no fictitious vaunt, but uttered in great earnestness; for the divine mouth knows not how to utter falsehood, but will bring every word to pass. But do thou look around and reflect, and never for a moment deem pertinacity ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... smoke massive pipes with great skill for their years), skirting the Bank of Ireland, and on to the River Liffey and the street which local patriotism defiantly speaks of as O'Connell Street, and alien patriotism, with equal defiance and pertinacity, knows as ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... 8, 9, &c., 1865.—The arrivals, swarms, &c., of the $20,000 men seeking pardons, still continue with increas'd numbers and pertinacity. I yesterday (I am a clerk in the U. S. Attorney General's office here) made out a long list from Alabama, nearly 200, recommended for pardon by the Provisional Governor. This list, in the shape of a requisition from the Attorney General, goes to ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... considerable emolument; it descended even to commissions in the army, and the disposal of small places which custom as well as expediency had delegated to the heads of those branches of service to which they belonged. His Majesty's pertinacity on these points frequently precipitated painful embarrassments of a personal nature, entailed much disagreeable correspondence, and sometimes produced misunderstandings and alienations of far greater ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... which few, perhaps, would care to contend about. It is 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 must have taken place, or why should the poet's imagination ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... meditations. It was only about six months since she had resolutely banished every thought of Mr. Imlay; but it was at least eighteen that he ought to have been banished, and would have been banished, had it not been for her scrupulous pertinacity in determining to leave no measure untried to regain him. Add to this, that the laws of etiquette ordinarily laid down in these cases, are essentially absurd, and that the sentiments of the heart cannot submit to be directed by the rule and the square. But Mary had an extreme ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... around us to the number of a dozen or more, and were desirous of trading their horses for articles of clothing; articles which many of them appeared to stand greatly in need of, but which we had not to part from. Their pertinacity exceeded the bounds of civility, as I thought; but I was not in a good humour, for the fleas, bugs, and other vermin, which infested our miserable lodgings, had caused me a sleepless night, by goring my body until the blood oozed from the skin in countless places. These ruinous missions are ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... took up 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 time to save ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... 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 you ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... adoption of so violent a measure I have no doubt—his pride and aristocratic principles would naturally make him so—but he is easily governed, constantly yielding to violence and intimidation, and it is not unlikely that the pertinacity of those about him, the interests of his party, and the prolongation of his power may induce him to sacrifice his natural feelings and opinions. It is very probable that, although he may have allowed ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... The young fellow took little notice of her except to observe "that she hadn't grown any handsomer;' but Elizabeth watched him with a keen severity that overlooked nothing, and resisted, with a passive pertinacity that was quite irresistible, all his encroachments on the family habits, all the little self-pleasing ways which Ascott had been so used to of old, that neither he nor his aunts ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... resistance until the 18th of March, when his army appeared before Acre. Smith was then lying in the roads with two ships-of-the-line. The siege which ensued lasted for sixty-two days, so great was Bonaparte's pertinacity, and anxiety to possess the place; and in its course Smith displayed, not only courage and activity, which had never been doubted, but a degree of conduct and sound judgment that few expected of him. His division was fortunate ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... topics of falsehood." That portion of 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 upon ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... other solemnly, "your pertinacity shan't go unrewarded: I will be frank with you. You shall know all. I ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... the case in the light of to-day, can any one wonder at the pertinacity and zeal with which Dr. Ryerson resisted the unnatural and unwise system of foreign dictation sought to be imposed upon the Canadian Connexion. This he did at a great sacrifice of personal feeling, and of personal friendship, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... "Strange pertinacity," he said, "in this Hakim, and a wonderful chance to interfere between that audacious Scot and the chastisement he has merited so richly. Yet let him live! there is one brave man the more in the world. And now ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... cholera appeared in England, he was sure to be found where the cases were most numerous. He followed up the pest with so much pertinacity and publicity, that it was no unusual thing to find it announced in the newspapers that Philipson and the cholera had arrived in such and ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... pertinacity of the good lady's opposition. "I know, Mountain," said he, "that Harry would be the better soldier; but, after all, to go ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hung her head and remained silent; and Smith was obliged to repeat his question before he obtained an answer. His pertinacity seemed cruel, but he had an object ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... man had more the confidence of his clients, for he trusted nothing to chance or accident when certainty could be attained, and felt his way cautiously to his conclusions, which, once reached, rested upon sure foundations, and to which he clung with remarkable pertinacity. Judges soon learned to repose confidence in his opinions, and he always gave them the strongest proofs of the weight justly due to ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... for one that loves his chair or his bed. Speculation may be pursued on a soft couch, but nature must be observed in the open air. I have collected materials with indefatigable pertinacity. I have gathered glow-worms in the evening, and snails in the morning; I have seen the daisy close and open, I have heard the owl shriek at midnight, and hunted insects in the heat ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... to Mary than these personal grievances was the pertinacity with which the council continued, in their public documents, to describe her as Head of the Church, the execrable title which was the central root of the apostasy. In vain she protested; the hateful form—indispensable till it was taken away by parliament—was ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... 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 ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... after he had tried, with that strange Greek pertinacity that understands no refusals, all the hotels and tourist agencies he had called at the day before, he became weary and disconsolate. The march had become a dirge; no longer it suggested happiness to be, but failure. An Englishman threw him a piastre, and he turned into a cafe. ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... share. Horne Tooke's Radicalism (I use the word by anticipation) was that of the sturdy tradesman. He opposed the government because he hated war, taxation and sinecures. He argued against universal suffrage with equal pertinacity. A comfortable old gentleman, with a good cellar of Madeira, and proud of his wall-fruit in a well-tilled garden, had no desire to see George III. at the guillotine, and still less to see a mob supreme in Lombard Street or banknotes superseded by assignats. He might be jealous ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... importunate love of sad-faced, pretty women in close-fitting coifs and old silver-clasped cloaks. And indeed, though his figures are very "tender," his landscape is to my sense tenderer still. Moreover, Mr. Boughton bristles, not aggressively, but in the degree of a certain conciliatory pertinacity, with contradictious properties. He lives in one of the prettiest and most hospitable houses in London, but the note of his work is the melancholy of rural things, of lonely people and of quaint, far-off legend and refrain. There is a delightful ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... these fertile plains through which ran the great rivers. The scarcity of minerals in these districts had now become sufficiently obvious to them; yet even to men in quest of little beyond gold the extraordinary fertility of the alluvial soil was not altogether lost. With a courage and pertinacity which does the adventurers every credit, they determined, instead of abandoning the river and putting out to sea, to sail far up-stream into the unknown, and to seek their ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... not make up his mind either to stay or to depart. Though overcome in this struggle of pertinacity, he deferred from day to day the avowal of his defeat. Amid the threatening storm of men and elements which was gathering around him, his ministers and aids-de-camp saw him pass whole days in discussing the merits of some new verses ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... money!" Vaniman, exasperated by this pertinacity, was not able to control his feelings ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... possessed sufficient mathematical skill for the examination of the Newtonian doctrines, viewed them at first as reviving the occult qualities of the ancient physics, and resisted their introduction with a pertinacity which it is ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... that the house afforded. Before starting from home they had drunk as much as was good for them; so that their potations here soon began to have a marked effect upon their tongues. The rain beat upon the windows with a dull dogged pertinacity which seemed to signify boundless reserves of the same and long continuance. The wind rose, the sign creaked, and the candles waved. The weather had, in truth, broken up for the season, and this was the first night of ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... played to-day calls for agility and pertinacity more than heft. And we've got the boys who can do stunts, believe me, fellows!" ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... 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 ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... not be vexed with her,' she said, rousing herself to defend the absent. 'She is very unhappy, and of course it troubled me.' Audrey spoke with her usual simplicity—what was the use of trying to hide it any longer? Cyril's impetuous pertinacity gave her no chance ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the bondage of civilised life, and the shackles of slavish routine, and who need not get up until noon, unless of our own good pleasure. Arthur was inexorable, and finding that further sleep was out of the question, we yielded at last to his despotic pertinacity, and groped our way into the boat, yawning desperately, and not more than ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... 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 to some girls. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... must die, to Vauban's pity for the misery of the common people;[31] from Corneille and Racine to La Bruyere's picture of "certain wild animals, male and female, scattered over the fields, black, livid, all burned by the sun, bound to the earth that they dig and work with unconquerable pertinacity; they have a sort of articulate voice, and when they rise on their feet they show a human face, and, in fact, are men." The contrast had existed for generations. The material misery caused by the wars of the great Louis deepened the dark side, and the lustre of genius consecrated to the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... humble of them all was Mr. Gale, and, with a pertinacity which was almost proof against insult, he strove to force his company upon the indignant Mr. Wragg. Debarred from that, he took to haunting the road, on one occasion passing the house no fewer than fifty-seven times in one afternoon. ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... 1447—a discrepancy of twelve years. His birthplace is claimed by more towns than that of Homer, although his own statement, that he was a native of Genoa, has met general concurrence. His knowledge of geography, astronomy, and navigation is asserted and denied with various degrees of pertinacity. His treatment by the sovereigns of Portugal, Castile, and Aragon is so far in question that irreconcilable differences of opinion exist. How much Columbus really owed to the aid of the crown, and how much to private enterprise, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... 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
... his Flemish Stadtholder was never any warmth of feeling. When Orange, pursuant to his resolution formed in the French king's presence, spurred the States to demand the removal of the Spanish soldiers from the Netherlands, with a pertinacity dogged and changeless till the king, in sheer desperation, acquiesced in the just demand, though with a chagrin of spirit toward the instrument of his defeat which became settled hatred, and never lifted from his heart for a moment in those ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... 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 ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... given of the noise and pertinacity of the traders calling to you, and even pulling you by the sleeve; and in the midst of all this bustle there is an ample supply of edibles undergoing various culinary operations; along with fish and other sorts of meat, eaten with black bread made of rye; they have various fancy cakes, ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood
... story. I conjured him to allow me to sit up with him and share any danger which might arise, but he implored me with irresistible earnestness not to add to his troubles by thwarting his arrangements. Seeing that I was really distressing him by my pertinacity, I at last allowed him to close the door and to turn the key upon the outside. I shall always reproach myself for my want of firmness. But what can you do when your own father refuses your assistance or co-operation? You cannot force yourself ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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
... the intoxicants 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 the company ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... worst casuist out. She was seldom certain about her facts, and when she happened to be so, had not sufficient pertinacity or confidence to push her advantage. Her favorite argument was ever ad misericordiam. "I wish I could quite believe you," she said, plaintively; "but I can't, and it makes me very unhappy. You must see ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... suggestions arising from this ballad, led us into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an opinion of Usher's which I mention not so much on account of its novelty (for other men[1] have thought thus), as on account of the pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things. But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganisation. I ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... failed the sledge-hammer strategist, and nothing was left but to transfer his army to the south side of the James. Lingering with dogged pertinacity on his slow retreat—turning at every road leading to the prize he yearned for, only to be beaten back—Grant finally crossed the river with his whole force ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... 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 ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a mendicant and made this vow to Allah Almighty that, as a punishment for this my unlucky greed and cursed covetise, I would require a cuff upon my ear from everyone who might take pity on my case and give an alms. On this wise it was that yesterday I pursued thee with such pertinacity.—When the blind man made an end of his story the Caliph said, "O Baba Abdullah! thine offence was grievous; may Allah have mercy on thee therefor. It now remaineth to thee to tell thy case to devotees and anchorites that they may offer up their potent ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... feeling particularly cheerful. He was deriving a keen amusement at present from the manoeuvres of Mr. Samuel Galer, of New York. This lynx-eyed man, having been instructed by Mr. McEachern to watch Jimmy, was doing so with a pertinacity which would have made a man with the snowiest of consciences suspicious. If Jimmy went to the billiard room after dinner, Mr. Galer was there to keep him company. If, during the course of the day, he had occasion to fetch a handkerchief ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... who represents Arras, a shabby, clumsy, timid dullard, who will make speeches through his nose to which nobody listens—an ultra-royalist whom the royalists and the Orleanists are using for their own ends. He has pertinacity, and he insists upon being heard. He may be listened to some day. But that he, or the others, will ever make anything of Orleans... pish! Orleans himself may desire it, but the man is a eunuch in crime; he would, but he ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... chemistry. The Turks, on the other hand, though they are said to have a literature, and though certain of their princes have been patrons of letters, have never distinguished themselves in exercises of pure intellect; but they have had an energy of character, a pertinacity, a perseverance, and a political talent, in a word, they then had the qualities of mind necessary for ruling, in far greater measure, than the people they were serving. The Saracens, like the Greeks, carried their arms ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... from the others, Middleton repeated his orders and departed. The pertinacity of the deceased, and all the circumstances united, induced him to set on foot some secret enquiries. He found that a family answering the description which had been given him, had in fact passed the place the day of his nuptials. They were traced along the margin of the Mississippi, for ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... difficult to get any work than from one of these. They subsist by begging altogether: they are not vicious, nor intemperate, nor troublesome particularly, except as beggars. In that calling they have a pertinacity before which a Northern mendicant would grow pale. They will not be denied. They will stand perfectly still and look through a window from the street for a quarter of an hour, if not driven away, with their imploring eyes fixed upon you, like a stricken deer, without saying a word or moving ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... young gentleman in the county? These and like questions occurred to Campbell, and more than once made him almost despair of securing the lady's affections. Again and again his drooping spirits revived; his pertinacity had no bounds. What could not be secured, thought he, by ordinary means, might ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... Chin Jung, with obstinate pertinacity, clung to his version. "Just a short while back," he said, "I actually came upon them, as they were indulging in demonstrations of intimate friendship in the back court. These two had resolved to be one in close friendship, and were eloquent in their protestations, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... damsel strove with much pertinacity to kiss his hands; but Don Quixote, who was in all things a polished and courteous knight, would by no means allow it, but made her rise and embraced her with great courtesy and politeness, and ordered Sancho to look to Rocinante's ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... which Hood faced the problem. Even at the close of November, when all hope of the arrival of the 5,000 Austrians was past, he refused to listen to David Dundas's advice for the evacuation of Toulon; and surely this pertinacity was consonant with the traditions of the British navy, and of the army in its better days; but out of this question arose a feud between army and navy which developed in Corsica with disastrous results. Ministers strove ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... rise in the law are the men who decline to take No for an answer. Mr. Pedgift the elder had risen in the law; and Mr. Pedgift the elder now declined to take No for an answer. But all pertinacity—even professional pertinacity included—sooner or later finds its limits; and the lawyer, doubly fortified as he was by long experience and copious pinches of snuff, found his limits at the very outset of the interview. It was impossible that Allan could respect the confidence ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... two personages was busy examining, through his spectacles, some papers which lay on the table before him— occasionally diverted from his task by the pertinacity of some flies, which seemed to have taken a particular fancy to his bald forehead and scalp, which, in spite of his constant brushing off, they thought proper to consider as a pleasant and smooth sort of coursing-plain, placed ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... its inception, since resistance only led to a temporary outburst of self-assertion on his part. He was a man of so much impulse,—impulse often as violent as lawless—that to oppose him merely provoked anger to no good purpose, for as often as not the position at first adopted with so much pertinacity was afterwards silently abandoned, and your own aims quietly acquiesced in. On this subject of a title he wrote a further letter, which is interesting from more than one point ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... characters in the play were not filled yet. With this lamentable story, and with the humblest apologies for presuming on a slight acquaintance, the Marrables appeared at Combe-Raven, to appeal to the young ladies for a "Lucy," and to the universe for a "Falkland," with the mendicant pertinacity of a family ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... Cecil had that pertinacity of nature that is stimulated to resistance by opposition; and she thought of the Egyptian campaign, and her desire to understand the siege of Acre. Then she recollected that Miss Vivian had spoken of ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was the mirror of her exultation; it was a temple to the gods of Victory, a sort of triumphal arch. In her earlier days she had swallowed experiences that would have unmanned one of less torrential enthusiasm or blind pertinacity. But, of late years, her determination had told; she saw less and less of those mysterious persons with mysterious obstacles in their path and mysterious grievances against the world, who had once frequented her house on Prairie Avenue. In the stead of this multitude of the unarrived, she had ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... interest on his money! Then there's the risk of bad debts, too—that falls to be considered. But there was little risk of bad debts when Wilson took to cloth-distributing. For success in that game depends on pertinacity in pursuit of your victim, and Wilson was the ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... 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
... earlier days, namely, the noteworthy charge brought against the Christians that they changed and altered their sacred books; the orthodox accused the unorthodox of varying the Scriptures, and the heretics retorted the charge with equal pertinacity. The Ebionites maintained that the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew was the only authentic Gospel, and regarded the four Greek Gospels as unreliable. The Marcionites admitted only the Gospel resembling that of Luke, and were accused by the orthodox of having ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... cavalry, to continue the pursuit of Hiller, he turned back toward Eckmuehl at three in the morning of the twenty-second. Here, again, a great resolve was taken in the very nick of time and in the presence of the enemy. With the same iron will and burning genius, the same endurance and pertinacity, as of old, he pressed on at the head of his soldiers. It was one o'clock when the eighteen-mile march was accomplished and the enemy's outposts before Eckmuehl ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... the birth of a man who was destined to achieve a revolution in science not less fertile in consequences, and still more difficult to accomplish. This man was Kepler. Endowed with two qualities which seem incompatible,—a volcanic imagination, and a dogged pertinacity which the most tedious calculations could not tire,—Kepler conjectured that celestial movements must be connected with each other by simple laws; or, to use his own expression, by harmonic laws. These laws he undertook to discover. A thousand fruitless attempts—the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... been said in regard to the enervating effects of a southern climate, the inhabitants of the state of Louisiana have shown a pertinacity in maintaining their levee system which is almost unexampled. They have always asserted their rights to the lowlands in which they live, and have under the most trying circumstances braved inundation. They have built more than one thousand five hundred miles of levees within the state ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... hints you strove to give, and wandering aimlessly away from the fire-irons he should have shouldered—the book he should have read upside down—the little sister he should have kissed or tickled—what not? You remember the obdurate pertinacity with which he missed fire, and balked the triumphant outburst that should have greeted his success? Surely, if some well-wisher among the choir of Angels, harping with their harps, had been at Chorlton then and there, under ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... was told, are full of beautiful paths and seats, favorite walks and lounges of the poet; but the obdurate pertinacity of the rain compelled us to choose the very shortest path possible to the carriage. I picked a leaf of the Portugal laurel, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... phrases of length and Latinity, Like honorificabilitudinity, Where is the maid could resist your vicinity, Wiled by the impudent grace of your plea? Then your vivacity and pertinacity Carry the day with the divil's audacity; No mere veracity robs your sagacity Of perspicacity, Barney McGee. When all is new to them, What will you do to them? Will you be true to them? Who shall decree? Here's ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... arched with the influx of new life and feeling. He moved his pieces on the board with the promptness and skill of one accustomed to the game, and, though he played with an opponent whose clearer head gave him an advantage, he yet held his own with remarkable pertinacity, and was not beaten until after a long and well-balanced struggle. But beaten he was; and one-third of all he possessed in the world passed ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... ajar, exactly as she had left it a couple of hours earlier. Probably Louis had not stirred. She listened vainly for a sign of life from him. Probably he was reading, for on rare occasions when he read a novel he would stick to the book with surprising pertinacity. At any rate, he would be too lofty to give any sign that he had heard her return. Under less sinister circumstances he might have yelled gaily: "I say, Rache!" for in a teasing mood he would sometimes ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... A fact of history must be presumed to stick to the mind with much greater tenacity than a purely rational idea which has no visible symbol in the sensible world, and yet, even in regard to the events of history, the persistence and pertinacity of tradition is exceedingly feeble. The South Sea Islanders know not from whence, or at what time, their ancestors came. There are monuments in Tonga and Fiji of which the present inhabitants can give no account. How, then, can a pure, abstract idea which can ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... No-o-o-o-o! HOO-HOO-oo-OO! You musn't. You shan't. Send Jonas, and you stay by me! Think—" here her breath died away, and for a moment she seemed really to be dying. "Think," she gasped, and then sank away again. After a minute she opened her eyes, and, with characteristic pertinacity, took up the sentence just where she had left off. She had carefully kept her place throughout the period of unconsciousness. But now she spoke, not with a gasp, but in that shrill, unnatural falsetto so characteristic ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... the conflict had only begun. And now—although the great leaguers of Harlem, Leyden, and Antwerp, as well as the more recent masterpieces of Prince Maurice in Gelderland and Friesland were still fresh in men's memory—there was to be a siege, which for endurance, pertinacity, valour, and bloodshed on both sides, had not yet been foreshadowed, far less equalled, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... with such an intent stare, that she said to some one, "Who is that man whose eyes bode me no good?" This was the first occasion of their personal meeting, and it may be fancied that Berlioz followed up the introduction with his accustomed vehemence and pertinacity, though without immediate effect, for Miss Smithson was more inclined to fear than to ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... believing and maintaining in controversy that his own government is in the right. It was natural that the French government should be disturbed by the vivid light which he had flashed upon their pernicious intrigues with Spain to the detriment of the Republic, and at the pertinacity with which he resisted their preposterous claim to be reimbursed for one-third of the money which the late king had advanced as a free subsidy towards the war of the Netherlands for independence. But no injustice could be more outrageous than for the Envoy's own government to unite with the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... same price that she had asked for the nine; and when he laughed at her and again refused, she went as before and burned three more books, and came back and asked still the same price for the three that were left. Then the king was struck by her pertinacity, and he consulted his augurs what this might be; and they bade him by all means buy the three, and said he had done wrong not to buy the nine, for these were the books of the Sibyl and contained great secrets. So the books were kept underground in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... did the poor Hedgehog oppose them. With all the pertinacity of ignorance, they maintained their certainty of his abnormal condition; and with all the officiousness of quackery, they insisted upon immediate amputation. Aided by two volunteer assistants, the self-made surgeons cut off limb after limb before ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... old friend Duncan had regained his situation under the new DOMINUS, or proprietor.' The Bailie ducked, bowed, and fidgeted, and then again insisted upon his invitation; until the Baron, though rather piqued at the pertinacity of his instances, could not nevertheless refuse to consent, without making evident sensations which ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... At half-past two o'clock Monsieur Desmarets reached the Treasury. At four o'clock, as he left the Bourse, he came face to face with Monsieur de Maulincour, who was waiting for him with the nervous pertinacity of hatred and vengeance. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... from any general and systematic conviction, but from a sound practical instinct, he readily perceived the necessity of a strong attachment from the leader to his army, to secure a reciprocal feeling from the army to its chief. He paid dearly for this pertinacity; for it justly condemned him to bear the weight of errors which, had he been unfettered, he would never in all probability have committed; but through this sacrifice he held power for six years, and saved his party, during that period, from the extreme ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... that it seemed to shine by its own lustre. As we approached the Lierfoss, the road was barred with a great number of gates, before which waited a troop of ragged boys, who accompanied us the whole of the way, with a pertinacity equal to that of the ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... but another and a larger phase of a phenomenon which all of us have become familiar with who have ever had a large acquaintance with young ladies' poems. They all write about death with a pertinacity that is positively astounding. It is not that the young people actually want to die. But they like the idea that their family circle will find out, when it is too late, all the mistakes and injustices it has committed towards them, and that this world will perceive ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... But it is multifarious, and demands a special intellect for itself. The master should have an eye like an eagle's, an ear like a thief's, and a heart like a dog's that can be either soft or ruthless as occasion may require. How he should love his foxes, and with what pertinacity he should kill them! How he should rejoice when his skill has assisted in giving the choice men of his hunt a run that they can remember for the next six years! And how heavy should be his heart within ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... church is entrusted (1 Tim. 5:17; 1 Pet. 5:1, etc.).... In [several] passages of the New Testament and of Clement we read of many bishops in one and the same church. In the face of such indubitable evidence, it is difficult to account for the pertinacity with which Romish and Anglican theologians insist that these two offices had from the first been different in name and functions.... Even Jerome, Augustine, Urban II. (1091) and Petrus Lombardus admit that originally the two had been ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... confronting each other had, therefore, nothing in common, unless, perhaps, an excessive pertinacity of purpose. The new comers belonged to a stern, unyielding, systematic stock, which was destined to give to Europe that great character so superior in our times to that of southern or eastern nations. The natives possessed ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... their absurd opposition to all the old and tried forms of things, and rancorous dislike of those who uphold them; and in their pertinacity on every point where they might be set right, and impatience of ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... 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 ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... passed in accordance with the secretary's policy. Whether this policy was meant to destroy the Union, subvert the republic, and establish a monarchy upon its ruins, at any rate such must be the inevitable result of those mischievous measures. He urged this view of the subject with such pertinacity that Washington, either because he was impressed by so much earnestness, or because he was curious to know how the assertions could best be answered, sent them to Hamilton, with other objections of a similar character ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... in Edinburgh, then in London, and afterwards in Madras and Calcutta, he persevered in an indomitable aversion to the use of the English tongue, which he so well knew how to write with precision and power. He spoke the broadest provincial Scotch with singular pertinacity. His voice was extremely dissonant, but, seemingly unconscious of the defect, he talked loud; and if engaged in argument, raised his voice to a pitch which frequently proved more powerful than the strength of his reasoning. He was dogmatical in ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... said they did not understand what they were dealing with, and released him. He cared little for common pastimes; but his love for such as mimicked war was extreme; and the skill of his fortifications, reared of turf, or of snow, according to the season, and the address and pertinacity with which he conducted their defence, attracted the admiration of all observers. Napoleon was poor and all but a foreigner[4] among the French youth, and underwent many mortifications from both causes. His temper was reserved and proud; he had few friends—no ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... grown so rich that they hold mortgages on the very best plantations in the State, and offer themselves candidates for the Governorship. Indeed, Mr. McArthur says, one of these knights of the goose, not long since, had the pertinacity to imagine himself a great General. And to show his tenacious adherence to the examples set by the State, he dresses exactly as his grandfather's great-grandfather used to, in a blue coat, with small brass buttons, a narrow ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... o'clock he had been desired to call at eleven, and as the clock struck eleven he knocked at the Serjeant's door. "Serjeant Bluestone is not here yet," said the clerk, who was disposed to be annoyed by the man's pertinacity. ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... liberty, however, of warning that lady, sir," said Mr. Shanks, with the pertinacity of a parrot, which he so greatly resembled, "as her ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... six weeks old, in fine condition, and clung to the teats of their foster parent with wolf-like pertinacity. As long as she lay licking their little black bodies and dark chestnut heads, or permitted them to hide their sulky faces and ugly bare tails under her body, they lay quiet enough, but when she raised her emaciated form to stretch ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... 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 at the close of summer. The unslain remnant of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... less favored persons talked of tyranny and oppression, because they were not permitted to see themselves and their neighbors delightfully laughed at by Figaro. Poor Louis held out against the solicitations of the people about him with a pertinacity which he seldom showed in greater matters. At last his resolution weakened, and permission was accorded to play the piece at a private entertainment given by the Count of Vaudreuil. After that, the public performance became only a question of time and of the suppression ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... at such a crisis as the present; especially as the passage of one of the resolutions by a vote of 36 to 8, exhibits a shift of position on the part of the South, as sudden as it is unaccountable, being nothing less than the surrender of a fortress which until then they had defended with the pertinacity of a blind and almost infuriated fatuity. Upon the discussions during the pendency of the resolutions, and upon the vote, by which they were carried, I make no comment, save only to record my exultation in the fact there ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Governor Gamble make a vacancy by removing an officer 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 them, ought to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... continuance &c (inaction) 143; permanence &c (absence of change) 141; firmness &c (stability) 150. constancy, steadiness; singleness of purpose, tenacity of purpose; persistence, plodding, patience; sedulity &c (industry) 682; pertinacy^, pertinacity, pertinaciousness; iteration &c 104; bottom, game, pluck, stamina, backbone, grit; indefatigability, indefatigableness; bulldog courage. V. persevere, persist; hold on, hold out; die in the last ditch, be in at the death; stick to, cling to, adhere to; stick to one's text, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget |
