"Pertinacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that had shone forth while we were there was the only intermission vouchsafed by the rain, which afterwards poured down with a steady vehemence and pertinacity seldom seen on the Ligurian Riviera. The effects of this rare continuance of wet weather were soon made impressively perceptible to the four as they emerged upon the open road, after passing the Lighthouse of Genoa ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... nobly. The Eastern church has no more honoured name than that of Athanasius, yet even Athanasius rises above himself in his De Synodis. He had been a champion of controversy since his youth, and spent his manhood in the forefront of its hottest battle. The care of many churches rested on him, the pertinacity of many enemies wore out his life. Twice he had been driven to the ends of the earth, and twice come back in triumph; and now, far on in life, he saw his work again destroyed, himself once more a fugitive. We do not look for calm impartiality in a Demosthenes, and cannot ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... of the lawyer by his impatience of the interviewing tribe. Half-a-dozen of them found him out at different times, and would not take his no for an answer. At last worried by the pertinacity of one bolder and clumsier than all the rest, he took him by the shoulders and bundled him out of his room, and the insulted ambassador, as he called himself, wrote to his employer a particularly spiteful account of his reception, with sundry embellishments ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... fever behind you, because the ball won't wait till you are well, and the bores will. So don't ask me to be unkind to Zoe, brooch-day," said Fanny, skipping back to her first position with singular pertinacity. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... advancement," said the Curate of St Roque's, "it must be in social estimation, and not in worldly wealth, which is out of my way;" and he went down to Wharfside rather cheerfully than otherwise, having begun to experience that pertinacity carries the day, and that it might be possible to goad Lucy into the experiment of how much her housekeeping talents were good for, and whether, with a good wife, even a Perpetual Curate might be able to live without any particular bother ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... becoming actual and apparent—namely, the face of death looking through the mask of life. Yet he did not loosen his arms from about her waist; on the contrary he clasped her even more closely, and kept his eyes fixed upon her with such pertinacity that it seemed as if he expected her to vanish from his sight while he still ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... the Harris Light plunged into the river at Kelly's Ford, leading the advance. A strong detachment of Stuart's cavalry, consisting of pickets and reserves, opposed our crossing with dogged pertinacity, but finally, yielding to our superior numbers and to the deadly accuracy of our carbines, gave way. He then advanced in the direction of Brandy Station. The farther we advanced the stronger grew the ever-accumulating force of the enemy, who disputed every inch ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... make nations go to war, and for what a petty thing we set several kings and great lords to studying geography and treaties and international law, and boring themselves, and filling enterprising newspapers with dozens of columns of dull history; and you will wonder the more at the stupid pertinacity of these English in clinging to the little island of San Juan when you reach Victoria, and see that we shall presently take that dull little town too, not because we want it or need it, but to save it from perishing ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... predilection. Thus Siena, excluded from maritime commerce by its situation, remained, broadly speaking, faithful to the Ghibelline party; while Perugia at the distance of a few miles, equally debarred from mercantile expansion, maintained the Guelf cause with pertinacity. The annals of the one city record a long succession of complicated party quarrels, throughout the course of which the State continued free; the Guelf leanings of the other exposed it to the gradual encroachment of the Popes, while its civic independence was imperiled and enfeebled by the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... that the philosopher fits in his airy eminence, and seeks to reduce the shapeless mass into form, and endeavours to lay down rules for so variable and inconstant a system. Nature mocks his efforts, and the pertinacity of ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... be sufficient to make them the richest, largest, and most powerful nation in the world. But they also fear that this nation will be an armed and aggressive democracy, deficient in public reason and public conscience, disposed to push unjust claims with insolent pertinacity, and impelled by a spirit of propagandism which will continually disturb the peace of Europe. It is curious that this impression is derived from the actions of the government while it was controlled by the traitors now in rebellion against ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... sagacity, I should say that his judgment respecting the warmest place and the softest cushion in the room is infallible, his punctuality at meal-time is admirable, and his pertinacity in jumping on people's shoulders till they give him some of the best of what is going ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... grounds by which peace may be preserved; and it is to this which we must look and trust for a settlement of the kingdom, alas! and for the chance of protecting my obstinate kinsman from the consequences of his honest though absurd pertinacity." ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... a little troublesome after sunset and in the early part of the night; but, after that time, it was too cold for them. The flies were a much greater nuisance; at times absolutely intolerable, from the pertinacity with which they clung to the corners of our eyes, to the lips, to the ears, and even to the sores on our fingers. The wind was generally from the eastward during the morning, with cumuli; but these disappeared in ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... Hamilton the arrears of the French debt, which the Secretary had refused to pay until there was a stable government in France to receive it. Hamilton laughed, locked the doors of the Treasury, and put the key in his pocket. To Genet's excited volubility and pertinacity he paid as little attention as to Jefferson's arguments. Moreover, he reversed all Citizen Genet's performances in the South; and in course of time, even the captured British ships, to the wrath and disgust of Jefferson, were ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... 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 in Macmillan's Magazine, the same thing ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... to set bounds to the hypocrisy and the mendacity and the pertinacity of woman, but, after another conversation with Petronilla, I am shaken in my belief that she still holds her prisoners. She may, in truth, have surrendered them. What makes me inclined to think it, is the fierceness ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... of bloodshed and alarms, the missionary stuck to his post. The obstinacy of hatred was being gradually overcome by the superior pertinacity of zeal in a good cause, and the invariable practice—so incomprehensible to the savage mind—of returning good for evil; the result was, that the Sabbath bell still sent its tinkling sound over the verdant slopes above Sandy Cove, ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... shouted Morton, laying about him with his cutlass more furiously than ever. He began to be afraid, from the pertinacity of the Frenchmen, that they expected reinforcements. Again the British seamen made a fierce charge; those of the enemy in the front rank were cut down or driven back upon their companions in the rear. They in their turn gave way, and the whole body of Frenchmen took a hurried ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... This was instinctively felt, even by his admirers. Miss Martineau said to Crabb Robinson in 1839, speaking of Wordsworth's conversation: "Sometimes he is annoying from the pertinacity with which he dwells on trifles; at other times he flows on in the utmost grandeur, leaving a strong impression of inspiration." Robinson tells us that he read "Resolution" and "Independence" to a lady who was affected by it even to tears, and then said, "I have not heard anything for years ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... unintelligible, and he simply gave his father credit for being a consummate and accomplished hypocrite, who found a mantle of piety a very convenient one under which to conceal his real character. He had himself inherited the old man's dogged pertinacity and commercial instincts, and was by nature unscrupulous and impatient of any obstacle placed in his way. He was now keenly alive to the fact that the existence of the firm depended upon the success of his suit, and he knew also how lucrative a concern the African business would prove were it ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fact, a body with but a soul. The martinet, who is seldom a man of much intellect, is satisfied as long as the bodies of his men are drilled to his liking; his narrow mind comprehends only one of the principles which influence mankind—fear; and upon this he acts with all the pertinacity of a slave-driver. If he does not disgrace himself when he comes before the enemy, as he commonly does, by his own incapacity, his men will perhaps try to disgrace him, even at the sacrifice of what they hold dearer than ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... received most disinterested kindness, and I ought to speak well forever of Portuguese hospitality. I have noted each little act of civility received, because somehow or other we have come to hold the Portuguese character in rather a low estimation. This may have arisen partly from the pertinacity with which some of them have pursued the slave-trade, and partly from the contrast which they now offer to their illustrious ancestors—the foremost navigators of the world. If my specification of their kindnesses will tend to engender a more respectful feeling to the nation, I shall consider myself ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... brought to bear on the authorities, there was little doubt but that he would be let out on bail in a day or two, even if the proceedings were not quashed altogether. Some delay, however, there was sure to be owing to the pertinacity of Mary Trent's assertion that she saw him struggling with Oliver on the stairs, but in the meantime his detention was allowed to press as lightly upon ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... 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
... silent. Her pertinacity annoyed and yet piqued him. Being unmarried, he was not accustomed to opposition from a woman. He had no intention of allowing her to pay her brother's debt, and he wished she would drop the subject gracefully, now that he ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... people were tortured and murdered in the name of religion, but the real cause was their opposition to the will of an arbitrary tyrant; whereas those who suffered under Mary, were martyred because the Queen conscientiously believed in those principles to which she clung with such pertinacity."[404] One of the principal of these victims was Archbishop Cranmer, who had already caused several persons to suffer in the flames for differing from his opinions, and thus almost merited his fate. It is a curious fact that several Protestants came to Ireland during ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... which custom has consecrated from the earliest period among us who are Eleuths." Kanghi, undeterred by this homily, continued to press his demand, and sent several missions to the Eleuth camp to obtain the surrender of Galdan's remains and relations. His pertinacity was at last rewarded, and the bones of his old opponent were surrendered to be scattered as those of a traitor throughout China, and his son was sent to Pekin, where, however, he received an honorable appointment in lieu of being handed over to the public executioner. ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... May, landed at this place. Soon after, they were attacked by a party of English regulars and militiamen, who drove them into a windmill and two strong stone houses, which they loopholed, and defended themselves with a pertinacity which one would have called heroism, had it been in a better cause. They finally surrendered, and were carried prisoners to Kingston, where six of them were hanged. Their leader, a military adventurer, a Pole ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... 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, ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... sought to add a sting to his grief, during the last days of his mother's illness, by declaring that she would assert her right to attend the funeral. In spite of any thing he could do or say, she held with wicked pertinacity to her word, and on the day appointed for the burial forced herself—inflamed and shameless with drink—into her husband's presence, and declared that she would walk in the funeral procession to his ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... know he has argument ready for some one. I have felt him start as a sudden recollection or a new idea shot through his mind. I have felt grief in his hand. I have felt his soul wrap itself in darkness majestically as in a garment. Another friend has positive, emphatic hands which show great pertinacity of opinion. She is the only person I know who emphasizes her spelled words and accents them as she emphasizes and accents her spoken words when I read her lips. I like this varied emphasis better than the monotonous pound of unmodulated people who hammer their meaning ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... a babel of voices as the long train came to a stand-still in the harbour station at Ostend. Selingman, with characteristic forcefulness, pushed his way down the narrow corridor, driving before him passengers of less weight and pertinacity, until finally he descended on to the platform itself. Norgate, who had followed meekly in his wake, stood listening for a moment to the confused stream of explanations. He understood well enough what had happened, but with ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... torrents. At half-past two o'clock Monsieur Desmarets reached the Treasury. At four o'clock, as he left the Bourse, he came face to face with Monsieur de Maulincour, who was waiting for him with the nervous pertinacity of hatred ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... watch than did Jimmy during those hours. There was no rehearsal that afternoon, and the members of the company, in various stages of nervous collapse, strayed distractedly about the grounds. First one, then another, would seize upon Molly, while Jimmy, watching from afar, cursed their pertinacity. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... charm for me than the richest scenery I had beheld in England. I could not help giving utterance to my thoughts. Scott hummed for a moment to himself, and looked grave; he had no idea of having his Muse complimented at the expense of his native hills. 'It may be pertinacity,' said he at length; 'but to my eye, these gray hills, and all this wild Border country, have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like the very nakedness of the land; it has something bold, and stern, and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... senator substituted another, and demonstrated by it and the statement of some geologist that the black soil of the valley and the red soil of the hills united at Arcade. The President relied on the statements given to him, and decided accordingly. “Here you see,” said the senator, “how my pertinacity and Abraham's faith ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... consequently, broken up; and the Queen ceased to be seen in society. Then commenced the unconquerable power over her of those forebodings which have clung to her with such pertinacity ever since. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... his own standing, because he knows that he can in a moment reduce him to the dust at pleasure. In the north, the white no longer distinctly perceives the barrier which separates him from the degraded race, and he shuns the negro with the more pertinacity, because he fears lest they should ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... I have cited from Richard II. strongly reminds me of an old lady whom I met last autumn on a tour through the Lakes of Cumberland, &c.; and who, during a severe thunderstorm, expressed to me her surprise at the pertinacity of the lightning, adding, "I should think, Sir, that so much water in the heavens would have ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... them even to rudeness, but without effect. Mr Rothwell was evidently annoyed at his son's pertinacity, and tried to check him; but all in vain, for Mark had taken so much as just to make him obstinate and unmanageable. But, finding that he could not prevail, the young man hurried away in anger, and plied the other members of ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... 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 ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... me to speak of the pertinacity of our weasels in hunting their prey, say a hare, as above, or a rabbit. On one occasion, as I was riding by the side of a strip of low whinbushes and long grass, a rabbit rushed out just in front of me, its fur apparently ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... with. I left Kate with a lady and gentleman who manifested an interest in her, and went down to my dinner, and when I paid for it I paid for Kate's also. When I went on deck, I found that I was a lion, and the passengers insisted upon hearing me roar. They asked questions with Yankee pertinacity, and I finally told a select party of them that I had taken Kate out of her step-mother's house by the way of the attic window, but I was careful not to call any names, for if Mrs. Loraine behaved herself, I did not care to expose her ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... had, and I hope will never have, a rival. Far from fostering the growth of those great expansive instincts—sympathetic, aesthetic, and scientific—which Nature has implanted in every child, it set itself to extirpate them, one and all, with ruthless pertinacity. As a partial compensation for this work of wanton destruction, it made the child blindly obedient, mechanically industrious, and (within very narrow limits) accurate and thorough. I have described it at some length because I see clearly that no one who does not realise what the elementary school ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... which the Jews of that age had from their infancy been instructed; and those who cannot see enough in the force of this reason to account for their conduct towards our Saviour, do not sufficiently consider how such opinions may sometimes become very general in a country, and with what pertinacity, when once become so, they are for that reason alone adhered to. In the suspense which these notions and the prejudices resulting from them might occasion, the candid and docile and humble-minded would probably decide in Christ's favour; the proud and obstinate, together with the giddy and the thoughtless, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... course of study that I am suggesting to you. It means a certain amount of sustained effort. It means slightly more resolution, more pertinacity, and more expenditure of brain-tissue than are required for reading a newspaper. It means, in fact, "work." Perhaps you did not bargain for work when you joined me. But I do not think that the literary taste can be satisfactorily formed unless ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... self-raised pinnacle of honour. He despises me, I thought; but he shall learn that I despise him, and hold in equal contempt his punishments and his clemency. On the second night after my release, I was again taken by the gamekeepers—again imprisoned, and again released; and again, such was my pertinacity, did the fourth night find me in the forbidden park. The gamekeepers were more enraged than their lord by my obstinacy. They had received orders that if I were again taken, I should be brought to the Earl; and his lenity made them expect ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... organ, persisting through a babel of discordant noises. It was met with indifference, and it sounded on. It provoked angry antagonism and still it spoke. Violence was used to stifle it in vain. And it was not only Jeremiah's courageous pertinacity that spoke through that persistent voice, but God's unwearied love, which being rejected is not driven away, being neglected becomes more beseeching, 'is not easily provoked 'to cease its efforts, but 'beareth all' despite, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... me so long, that I have the vanity to believe, that if I promise to guard your child as if she were my own, you will trust her with me," her grace urged, with a pertinacity that could not fail to be flattering. "She will be as safe under my care as were she under ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... charitable inducements, whereby I could scarce contain my prayers for a friend at the ringing of a bell, or behold his corpse without an orison for his soul. 'Twas a good way, methought, to be remembered by posterity, and far more noble than a history. These opinions I never maintained with pertinacity, or endeavoured to inveigle any man's belief unto mine, nor so much as ever revealed, or disputed them with my dearest friends; by which means I neither propagated them in others nor confirmed them in ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... great occasion that was all changed. The feasting was done in dead silence; and another very striking peculiarity of the occasion was that, while the six pairs of jaws kept moving with unflagging pertinacity, the twelve wide-open eyes kept glaring with unwinking intensity at ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... February, he had proceeded with slight 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 enough to capture the French siege train, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... a little when she saw how kind he was to Emma Thornycroft, who alternately screamed at the beasts, and made foolish remarks concerning them; also, how carefully he watched over little Missy and James, the latter of whom, with infantile pertinacity, would poke his small ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the last limber, so that the first light of day fell upon the black sinuous line winding down between the hills. A spectator upon the occasion says of them: 'Their faces were a study. For the most part the expression worn was one of determination and bulldog pertinacity. No sign of fear there, nor of wavering. Whatever else may be laid to the charge of the Boer, it may never truthfully be said that he is a coward or a man unworthy of the Briton's steel.' The words were written ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... underneath his calm exterior were serious trouble and keen anxiety; and, in fact, the strain which he underwent during the Civil War made itself felt in later years. Adams was instrumental in getting Lord John Russell to stop the "Alexandra,'' and it was his industry and pertinacity in argument and remonstrance that induced Russell to order the detention in September 1863 of the two ironclad rams intended for the Confederate States. Adams remained in England until May 1868. His last important work was as a member, in 1871—1872, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... companies belonging to this pool were one of the chief causes of the Granger movement in Iowa. It is indeed doubtful whether any other railroad combination ever maintained itself longer or pursued its ends with greater pertinacity than this pool. Another pool of national notoriety was the Southern Railway and Steamship Association, which was organized, though at first under a different name, in the State of Georgia, in 1875. It was probably the first money pool formed ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... torture, and even unto death, with a firmness truly marvellous under the circumstances—the zealous magistrate carefully examined every document that was laid before him, and interrogated their authors with a pertinacity which created great alarm among the accused parties, of whom none were so prominent as Madame de Verneuil and the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... life had been passed on (p. 218) the quarter-deck. No greater evidence of self-reliance, of indifference to the opinion of the world, and to that of his countrymen in particular, of the rarest descriptive talent, of pertinacity, loyalty to personal conviction, and a manly, firm, yet not unkindly spirit, could be imagined than the position thus assumed, and the manner in which he met the exigency. As we gazed and listened, we understood clearly why, as a man, Cooper had been viewed from such extremes of prejudice and partiality; ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... nothing for you but patience, and when restored you can follow the army, and rejoin your master before he embarks at Marseilles. But how is it that a lad so young as you can have incurred the enmity of those who sought your life? For it is clear from the pertinacity with which they urged their attack that their object was not plunder, of which indeed they would get but little from you, but to take ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... a curious pertinacity; "I'm sure he's about here still. He looked like a man with no home. Ugh! how dreary it is! ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... native American weeds, and they would not consequently be able to beat their European rivals when put in contest with them on cultivated land. Here is a bit of wild theory! (342/1. See Asa Gray, "Scientific Papers," 1889, Volume II., page 235, on "The Pertinacity and Predominance of Weeds," where the view here given is adopted. In a letter to Asa Gray (November 6th, 1862), published in the "Life and Letters," II., page 390, Darwin wrote: "Does it not hurt your Yankee pride that we thrash you so confoundedly? I am sure Mrs. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... nights—and galled as he must have been by the constant annoyances, he yet showed no sign of impatience. I saw him give way but once to anger, which was, then, provoked by the most stupid and insolent pertinacity. It was interesting to watch the struggle which would sometimes occur between his naturally violent temper and the restraint he imposed upon it. His eye would glow, his face and his lips turn pale, and his frame shake ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... it was a few days later, but the victors soon found that the city they had won with so much daring would have to be defended with the utmost courage and pertinacity. St. Luc, fast recovering from his wound, was sent a prisoner to New York, together with De Galissonniere, who had been taken unhurt, but Robert did not get away as soon as he had expected. Quebec was in peril again, but now from the French. De Levis, who succeeded Montcalm as ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the moral and intellectual. Pluck is the first;—it always is the first quality. Then enthusiasm. Then patience. Then pertinacity. Then a fine aesthetic faculty,—in short, good taste. Then an orderly and submissive mind, that can consent to act in accordance with the laws of Art. Circumstances, too, must have been reasonably favorable. That well-known skeptic, the King of tropical Bantam, could not skate, because ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... 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 ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... frigid reception seemed only to tickle Lawyer Ed's sense of amusement. He leaned back in his seat, shut up his eyes, and laughed loudly. "Well, for downright pigheadedness and idiotic pertinacity, commend me to a Scotchman every time," he ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... commission when I have told you my 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 ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... little show of pertinacity, "I have an opinion that the cleaner a man takes his hands into the other world, of the matters of duty in this the better he will be fitted to handle anything new.—Now, the parson, here, undertook to lay down the doctrine last night that it was no matter how well or how ill a man behaved ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... tender ties of our friendship and common pursuits, to have carefully revised, altered, and augmented, at my judgment and discretion. But the will of the dead must be scrupulously obeyed, even when we weep over their pertinacity and self-delusion. So, gentle reader, I bid you farewell, recommending you to such fare as the mountains of your own country produce; and I will only farther premise, that each Tale is preceded by a short introduction, mentioning the persons by whom, and ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 its ...
— 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
... often said, by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has been my good angel, always pushing and goading me to work, and that but for her pertinacity I should never have accomplished the little I have. On the other hand it has been said that I forged the thunderbolts and she fired them. Perhaps all this is, in a measure, true. With the cares of a large family ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... walk, the shorter the way,' with you, Miss Leah. Allow me to attend you, I pray." His pertinacity prevailed; and falteringly she replied, "As you like, Mr. Le Grande," resolving in her heart though, that this should be the last time. "Only this morning," thought she, "what did I promise Lizzie? And before the day is ended, I have broken that promise. What an irresolute creature I am! ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... became wonderfully excited, and proceeded to such lengths that, when I endeavoured to overcome their pertinacity with my entreaties, they came close up to me, threatening me with instant death. At last I was overcome, and arguing with myself that if I were murdered by them some one else would willingly accept the dignity of ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... conciliate the ministers, disarm the Puritans, and to do what he could for the Catholics, who were still smarting severely under the penal laws. Executions, it is true, had become less frequent, but the royal coffers were still replenished with the fines imposed on Catholics for their pertinacity in assembling to hear Mass by stealth. If a priest were caught, he was thrown into prison, tried, and punished with death. In dealing with the Catholic laity, Charles I. was never in favour of enforcing the extreme rigour of the law, but he was so often in want of money that he found ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... difficulties in his path: such an one may make himself Pope or Grand Vizier, he may overturn an ancient line of kings—provided that he knows how to seize on his opportunity, and be a man of wit and pertinacity. To succeed one must count on being fortunate and despise all ill success, but it is ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... with pretended annoyance at his pertinacity. "She may be, or she may not be; it is quite impossible to express a more decided opinion, under the circumstances, and I therefore must ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... place Cibber in Theobald's shoes. Theobald walked off in his shoes into the shades. Samuel says, that by the substitution, Pope has "depraved his poem"—inasmuch as he has given to Cibber the "old books, the cold pedantry and sluggish pertinacity of Theobald." That is not true. Compare the places in the original Dunciad, in which Theobald figures at large, with that now filled by Cibber, and you will admire by what wizard power the transformation is effected. Many lines, far ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... the most powerful orator he ever heard. But commanding as his eloquence might have been, it seems not to have prevailed with the council; for Logan had to interpose otherwise than by argument or entreaty, to succeed in the attainment of his object. Enraged at the pertinacity with which the life of Robinson was sought to be taken, and reckless of the consequences, he drew the tomahawk from his belt, and severing the cords which bound the devoted victim to the stake, led him in triumph, to the cabin of an old squaw, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... spear, he feels that he has gained a victory over no ignoble antagonist, and he becomes a hero in his own eyes. Though a woman of much will, still she is a woman of much reason; and if he has many vexations with her pertinacity, he is never without hope in her good sense; but alas for him whose wife has only the animal instinct of firmness, without any development of the judgment or reasoning faculties! The conflicts with a woman whom a man respects and admires are often extremely trying; but the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... allow France to keep its contract with Spain, whose attacks on Gibraltar were pushed all through the summer. As it was, the negotiators managed to agree on a treaty of peace which reflected the Whig principles of Shelburne and the skill and pertinacity of the three Americans. Little trouble was encountered over boundaries, Shelburne ceding everything east of the Mississippi and north of Florida, and designating as a boundary between the United States and Canada in part the same line as that in the Proclamation of 1763, from ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... in the world of our fashionable tailors, who are 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 crimpy collar, and tails long enough and sharp enough for a clipper-ship's ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... not help it, seeing how she clung, to them and put her arms about their necks and found-no solace but in their kind eyes and comforting words: There was a question in both their hearts—a question that rose up and asserted itself with more and more pertinacity as the hours wore on—but both hesitated to give it voice—both kept silence —and—waited. But a time came at last when the matter would bear delay no longer. The boat had landed, and the dead and the wounded were being conveyed to the shore. The tired child was asleep in the arms of Mrs. ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... to assume his new dignity, until he had written to the King to announce the appointment, and to ask his permission to accept the honor. The Duchess, justly wounded at his refusal to accept from her hands the favor which she, and she only, had obtained for him, endeavored in vain to overcome his pertinacity. She represented that although Philip was not aware of the application or the appointment, he was certain to regard it as an agreeable surprise. She urged, moreover, that his temporary refusal would be misconstrued at Rome, where it would certainly excite ridicule, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... 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
... Be it remembered I have nothing to do with origin of memory, attention, and the different faculties of the mind{88}, but merely with their differences in each of the great divisions of nature. Disposition, courage, pertinacity , suspicion, restlessness, ill-temper, sagacity and reverse unquestionably vary in animals and are inherited (Cuba wildness dogs, rabbits, fear against particular object as man Galapagos{89}). Habits purely corporeal, breeding ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... 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
... distance, or from the obscurity of the room in which he sat,—or from a corridor, while he smoked his cigar on the lawn. A great part, if not the whole of this, he imputed to his knowledge of Redclyffe's connections with the Doctor; but yet this hardly seemed sufficient to account for the pertinacity with which the old man haunted his footsteps,—the poor, nervous old thing,—always near him, or often unexpectedly so; and yet apparently not very willing to hold conversation with him, having nothing of ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the minstrel, "I believe that there is much truth in what you say. I never had a friend among the cliques. And Heaven knows with what pertinacity those from whom I, in utter ignorance of the rules which govern so-called organs of opinion, had hoped, in my time of struggle, for a little sympathy, a kindly encouragement, have combined to crush me down. They succeeded long. But at last ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the elements of wealth, and in statement of the laws which govern its distribution, modern political economy has been thus absolutely incompetent, or absolutely false. And the following treatise is not, as it has been asserted with dull pertinacity, an endeavour to put sentiment in the place of science; but it contains the exposure of what insolently pretended to be a science; and the definition, hitherto unassailed—and I do not fear to assert, unassailable—of the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... feel that your constancy—your pertinacity shall I call it?" and there was a slight touch of sarcasm in the voice,—it was my mother who spoke, "deserves to be rewarded; but at the same time I confess that I cannot bring myself to undertake to recompense you as you desire. All I can do is to give you my best advice, and that ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... that he was averse to the 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 himself to be at the head ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... if they confessed I repeated the question twice again, adding threats at the same time; and if they still persevered I ordered them to execution. For I was persuaded that whatever the nature of their opinions might be, their pertinacity and inflexible obstinacy ought certainly to be punished. Others also were brought before me possessed by the same madness, but as they were Roman citizens I ordered them to be sent to Rome. As this crime spread while it was actually under prosecution, many fresh cases were brought up. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... the utter amazement of each of the girls, she quietly refused to be taken to Saratoga; nor did she offer any other excuse for this astonishing piece of self-assertion than that she was having a good time and meant to finish it. And to this she adhered with a pertinacity that was very bewildering, because it was so very new. Marion laughed over her writing, to which she had returned the moment dinner ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... confined to offices of importance or considerable emolument; it descended even to commissions in the army, and the disposal of small places which custom as well as expediency had delegated to the heads of those branches of service to which they belonged. His Majesty's pertinacity on these points frequently precipitated painful embarrassments of a personal nature, entailed much disagreeable correspondence, and sometimes produced misunderstandings and alienations of far greater moment than the paltry considerations in which they originated. Amongst the ...
— 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
... now to the rain which pelted the window-panes. She was two years younger than her companion, yet felt that she was immeasurably stronger. Often during their acquaintance a painful suspicion had crossed her mind; as often she had banished it, but now it haunted her with a pertinacity which she could not subdue. While her feet trod the chamber floor, memory trod the chambers of the past, and gathered up every link which could strengthen the chain of evidence. Gradually dim conjecture became sad conviction, and she was conscious of a degree of pain and sorrow for which she could ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... stated to him the pertinacity of our hero, and the impossibility of saving him from condemnation, remarking, at the same time, that there was a mystery ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... scolded and grows discouraged. She has an immense sense of growth and transformation, so that not a trace of her old nature remains; feels that she has far too much of some things, and far too little of others in her nature; sees defects in her mother's character, whose pertinacity is like a disease; realizes that one of her chief passions is to inspire rather than to feel love; that her temper is profoundly affected by her dress; deplores that her family expect her to achieve ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... tranquillity, avoid occasions of stumbling. We can undertake small responsibilities, which we shall be ashamed to neglect; we can, so to speak, diet our minds and hearts, avoiding unwholesome food and debilitating excesses. To a certain extent, I say, for the old fault has a horrid pertinacity, and even when felled in fair fight, has a vile trick of recovering its energies and leaping on us from some ambush by the way, as we saunter, blithely conscious of our victory. It may be a discouraging and an oppressive ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hostility with which she falls upon him in his absence, in the pertinacity and bitterness of her satire, there is certainly great argument that he occupies much more of her thoughts than she would have been willing to confess, even to herself. In the same manner Benedick betrays a lurking partiality for his fascinating ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... thought bestowed on it, made but an incongruous whole with the dark, gloomy expression of his countenance. Because he was Lucy's father, I sought instinctively to meet him everywhere. At last he must have become aware of my pertinacity, for he gave me a haughty scowl whenever I passed him. In one of these encounters, however, I chanced to be of some service to him. He was turning the corner of a street, and came suddenly on one of the groups ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and 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 long succeeding years, when the king, like a ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... and turned into sleet and rain which filled the streets with melted snow, and made walking a fearsome thing. Tembarom had plenty of walking to do. This week's page was his great effort, and was to be a "dandy." Galton must be shown what pertinacity could do. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bull-dogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was Conquer or Die. In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hill-side of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... 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 ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood
... profession, as soon as they had heard of it—by boldly affirming, that if this blot really existed, it would invalidate and utterly nullify the whole proceedings from the beginning to the end! They hammered away at this point accordingly, hour after hour—day after day—with desperate pertinacity; being compelled from time to time, during their hopeful argument, to admit, that up to that moment the rule or custom which they were seeking to impeach had been universally acted upon from time immemorial, to the contrary of that for which they were contending. This strange and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... another body of troops to make conquests in the vicinity, for the Rana, despairing of success, had fled to the jungles. But if he pressed the siege vigorously, the Rajputs defended themselves with equal courage and obstinacy. Never had Akbar met such sturdy warriors. As their pertinacity increased, so likewise did his pride and resolution. At length the breach was reported practicable, and on a night in the month of March, Akbar ordered the assault. He had a stand erected for himself, whence he could watch and ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... short experience of Kashmiri pertinacity and business methods, you cease from politeness and curtly threaten ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... queen of everything, nibbled his cheese, ate the sweets, and foraged everywhere. This the shrew-mouse permitted to the empress of his heart, although he was ill at ease, having broken his oath made to Gargantua, and betrayed the confidence placed in him. Pursuing her advantage with the pertinacity of a woman, one night they were joking together, the mouse remembered the dear old fellow her father, and desiring that he should make his meals off the grain, she threatened to leave her lover cold and lonely in his domain if he did not allow ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... praise that rigid and stubborn insensibility, "that recklessness and frantic energy to rush anywhere, that seemed like a dog's courage in Anaxarchus."[640] But we must contrive a harmonious blending of the two, that shall remove the shamelessness of pertinacity, and the weakness of excessive modesty; seeing its cure is difficult, and the correction of such excesses not without danger. For as the husbandman, in rooting up some wild and useless weed, at once ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... punishment to a friend tied to the halberts, was requested to flog high, he did—to flog low, he did—to flog in the middle, he did,—high, low, down the middle, and up again, but all in vain; the patient continued his complaints with the most provoking pertinacity, until the drummer, exhausted and angry, flung down his scourge, exclaiming, "The devil burn you, there's no pleasing you, flog where one will!" Thus it is, you have flogged the Catholic high, low, here, there, and every where, and then you wonder he is not ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... publisher's table, and conscientiously reads them through. With this form of being "put to the question" I will have nothing to do. If it gives amusement to the reviewers, they are welcome to their sport. But they stab at the summer air, so far as any writer is concerned who has the pertinacity of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... whirring birds and crawling things, intimidated and harmless in the stifling breath of the fire. The flame, leaping from sedge to sedge, from trunk to trunk, seems to seek, with a human instinct, and more than human pertinacity, food for its ravening hunger; far upward, where festoons of moss hung from the sycamores in the day, airy banners of starry sparks, swayed, coiled, and flamed among the branches. But Dick was soon reminded that the scene was not for enjoyment, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... unceasingly. In 1587 one Nicholas Lane pursued him for a debt for which he had become liable as surety for his brother Henry, who was still farming their father's lands at Snitterfield. Through 1588 and 1589 John Shakespeare retaliated with pertinacity on a debtor named John Tompson. But in 1591 a creditor, Adrian Quiney, obtained a writ of distraint against him, and although in 1592 he attested inventories taken on the death of two neighbours, Ralph Shaw ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... by pertinacity,' said poor Lord St. Erme, submissively. 'It has been a happy dream while I was bold enough to indulge in it. Farewell to it, though not, I trust, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him to the gate, and giving him more hope of Sir Eustace's recovery than he felt; for he knew that nothing but the prospect of saving him was likely to inspire the yeoman with either speed or pertinacity enough to be of use. He fondly patted Brigliador, who turned his neck in amaze at finding it was not his master who mounted him, and having watched them for a moment, he turned to look round the court, which was empty, save for the bodies of those whom he had slain in ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mary's voice, he felt a little ashamed of his pertinacity. Lucy asked Mary what the ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... I haven't the money!" Vaniman, exasperated by this pertinacity, was not able to control his feelings or ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... was very ready to make this admission, because the party with which he was connected was not in power. There was then some truth in it, owing to the pertinacity of factious clamour. Had he lived till now, it would have been impossible for him to deny that his Majesty possesses the warmest affection of his people. BOSWELL. See post, March ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... 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
... the Tariffadicals—as, to avoid plunging the country into Civil War, I must call them. This was at a by-election, and the Liberatives had immediately dissolved, only to come into power after the General Election with an increased majority. Through the years that followed, Rupert Meryton, by his pertinacity in asking the Invasion Secretary questions which had been answered by him on the previous day, and by his regard for the dignity of the House, as shown in his invariable comment, "Come, come—not quite the gentleman," upon any display of bad manners opposite, established a clear right ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... had met her in Holland, when he was scarcely more than a beardless youth. The letter informing his relatives that he had determined not to give up the girl his heart had chosen was not regarded seriously in Berlin; but when the lover, with rare pertinacity, clung to his resolve, they began to feel anxious. The eldest son of one of the richest families in the city, a youth of nineteen, wished to bind himself for life—and to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... mother's bosom the babe learns his first lessons; from her smile he catches the glow of affection; and by her frown, or her gentle sighs he persuaded to give up what his ignorance or selfishness prompt him with pertinacity to retain. Happy where this sweet, this powerful influence is well directed,—where the mother's judgment ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... Sol's Arms. Before night his doubt whether he may not be responsible for some inconceivable part in the catastrophe which is the talk of the whole neighbourhood is almost resolved into certainty by Mrs. Snagsby's pertinacity in that fixed gaze. His mental sufferings are so great that he entertains wandering ideas of delivering himself up to justice and requiring to be cleared if innocent and punished with the utmost rigour ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... further sums," said Jasper, in a quick, excited voice, interrupting Mr. Melleville. "Our contract, regularly entered into, has expired by limitation. He was to have the care of her only until she reached her twelfth year. Of this fact he is clearly advised, and I wonder at his pertinacity in endeavouring to retain the child, when he knows that I, her guardian, wish to have her in my ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... 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, ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... fiddlesticks! as Bob Acres would genteelly have exclaimed. So this was the Etruscan Ravanastron I had dreamed about; this was the Greek fiddle I had discoursed so learnedly of when my pupils with childlike pertinacity questioned me as to the origin of ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... her pertinacity. "Is it possible," he thought, "that any danger can approach the Countess, of which this poor maiden has, by the extreme acuteness of her observation, obtained knowledge which has ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 or a cigarette case from his bedroom, ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse |
