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Refractory   /rəfrˈæktəri/   Listen
Refractory

noun
1.
Lining consisting of material with a high melting point; used to line the inside walls of a furnace.  Synonym: furnace lining.



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"Refractory" Quotes from Famous Books



... I realized how delicate his task really had been, and how well he had performed it. It had been to settle this matter and to rearrange our copper plans that he had summoned me to New York, and if I had proved refractory I can see he would have been badly snagged in his negotiations with the Lewisohns. If there had been a trace of dissension in our camp, that firm would never have surrendered their great business on such terms as Rogers ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... apparel (including footwear), food and beverages, metals and metal manufactures, chemicals, shipbuilding, automobiles, machine tools, tourism, clay and refractory products, footwear, ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... many things besides sewing a seam. There are attachments which make buttonholes, darn, embroider, make ruffles or hems, and dozens of other things. There are special machines for every trade, some of which deal successfully with refractory materials. ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson

... advice. The parent birds, however, had not a little to do, for by this time they had hatched a second brood, and, just now, these last required their constant attention, although they hoped that by the end of the month their young ones would be able to fly a little. This brood had proved more refractory than the first one, and they were continually getting into trouble and mischief. One of them tumbled into a pool of water, and was as nearly as possible drowned; another was pursued by a cat and had his leg very much hurt; while a third, alas! a poor little fellow, tumbled right out of the ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker

... seems unfeeling, it should also be mentioned that in the book called Songs of the Nuns[387] women relate how they were crazy at the loss of their children but found complete comfort and peace in his teaching. Sometimes we are told that when persons whom he wished to convert proved refractory he "suffused them with the feeling of his love" until they yielded to his influence[388]. We can hardly doubt that this somewhat cumbrous phrase preserves a tradition of his ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... red brick, or, rarely, of brick and stone together. Occasionally, refractory brick is used, but it is not necessary. The foundations are usually made of stone. There are several precautions necessary in constructing the walls. The brick should be sufficiently hard to resist the fire, and should therefore be tested before using. It is an unnecessary expense ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various

... of applying correction in Gnadau, and Madame Torvestad remembered well how it would bend even the most refractory. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... inoculated with this sputum germ. Mohler also inoculated subcutaneously a 1-year-old heifer with a culture derived from the tuberculosis mesenteric gland of a boy 4 years of age. This culture was always refractory in its growth under artificial conditions, and the bacilli were short, stubby rods, corresponding in appearance to the bovine type. At the autopsy, held 127 days after the inoculation, the general condition was seen to be poor and unthrifty, and large, hard tumors ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... Tuxedo, and he evidently wanted to do so, for he proposed to Amy that she bring him. Of course, I'd no idea he and Miss Lang had ever met before, and when I innocently ordered her in, I did it simply because Radcliffe was refractory and refused to come without her, and I couldn't ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann

... that Mr. Stephen Orcott, of Plymley Rise farm, near Barlingford, being at a loss what to do with a somewhat refractory younger son, resolved upon planting his footsteps in the path so victoriously trodden by Philip Sheldon. He wrote to Philip, asking him to receive the young man as clerk, assistant, secretary—anything, with a view to an ultimate junior partnership; ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... That refractory umbrella was hoisted at last, and its owner placed himself on the sand beside me, holding it not seaward, but like a tent, shading us two from the whole world, while the sun took ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... lank, leathern-faced man, of incorruptible zeal and stately gravity, who held under his stern dominion a little flock of two hundred souls, and who, eking out a narrow parochial stipend by the week-day office of teaching, had gained large repute for his subjugation of refractory boys. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... a Refractory Steed." Seymour's horse is infinitely more spirited and better drawn than Phiz's. Its struggling attitude is admirable. Seymour's landscape is touched more delicately; the faces ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald

... put an abrupt end to the remarks of his refractory seaman by starting up suddenly in fierce anger and seizing the tiller, apparently with the intent to fell him. He checked himself, however, as suddenly, and, breaking into a loud laugh, cried—"Come, Jo, you must admit ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... place, in which some of the fiercer animals were put from time to time to train them. It really consisted of a huge box without windows, but with one or two small ventilating shafts in the door. On rare occasions, when thoroughly enraged, the manager had been known to lock a refractory member of the troupe up there; but such a punishment had never been given to ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade

... city, has been entirely ruined in the wars of the Moguls. It has still a strong castle, held by a refractory chief of the Rajapoots, and was besieged by the nabob, having fifty or sixty thousand men in his camp. The nabob dwelt in a magnificent tent, covered above with cloth of gold, and spread below with Turkey carpets, having declared he would not desist from the siege till he had ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... course, to be eaten with the fingers; the salt should be laid upon one's plate, not upon the cloth. Fish is to be eaten with the fork, without the assistance of the knife; a bit of bread in the left hand sometimes helps one to master a refractory morsel. Fresh fruit should be eaten with a silver-bladed knife, especially ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... the dedication page, the table of contents, the preface, the index, present so many opportunities to make or mar the whole. Especially is this true of the title-page. This the earliest books did not have, and many a modern printer, confronted with a piece of refractory title copy, must have sighed for the good old days of the colophon. Whole books have been written on the title-page; it must suffice here to say that each represents a new problem, a triumphant solution of which gives the ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

... had headed us, that all the sails were furled, and the ship poking her nose into a nasty sea. But this was a blind: the clerk of the weather was evidently meditating a stronger blow from the original direction, and had only gone on ahead to seek some of his refractory forces to give us the full benefit of the combination. All sail again, fast and furious we drove through it, and succeeded in knocking "seven and a bit" out of the old "Duke;" 'twould take something like a hurricane to persuade ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... born in the state of Rhode Island, in 1794; his parents and connexions were of the first respectability. When at school, he was very apt to learn, but so refractory and sulky, that neither the birch nor good counsel made any impression on him, and he was ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... in men, even the best of them, when a woman gets into straits by attempting manly employments. He has done us great good though, and may be allowed his little feeling of superiority. The parting salute he bestowed on our steed, in the shape of an astounding crack of his huge whip, has put that refractory animal on his mettle. On we go! past the glazier's pretty house, with its porch and its filbert walk; along the narrow lane bordered with elms, whose fallen leaves have made the road one yellow; past that little farmhouse with the ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... sat by the fire, never allowing it to sink low for want of fuel; always studying the pot when it was on to simmer, and at the same time attending to the movements of the others about her, ready at a moment's notice to give assistance or to dart out on a stray chicken or refractory child. ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... flame-dazzled eyes, from going unawares down the precipice, a fate from which the passing through the fire was evidently not supposed to ensure them. The swine, those special German delights, were of course the most refractory of all. Some, by dint of being pulled away from the lane of fire, were induced to rush through it; but about half-way they generally made a bolt, either sidelong through the flaming fence or backwards ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that see had been vacant for three years and a half. An epitaph written on him by pope Damasus, who also mentions himself in it, says, that by enforcing the canons of holy penance, he drew upon himself the contradictions and persecutions of many tepid and refractory Christians, and that for his severity against a certain apostate, he was banished by the tyrant Maxentius.[1] He died in 310, having sat one year, seven months, and twenty days. Anastatius writes, that Lucina, a devout widow of one Pinianus, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... moment you begin to "paddle your own canoe," lively and—to the lookers-on—mirth-provoking exercises ensue. When you stick your hand under to make a stroke your feet decline to stay anywhere but on top; and when, after an exciting tussle with your refractory pedal extremities, you again get them beneath the surface, your hands fly out with the splash and splutter of a half-dozen flutter wheels. If, on account of your brains being heavier than your heels, you chance to turn a somersault, and your head goes under, your heels will ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... English fleet. In a letter from Sir William Coventry to Secretary Bennet, dated November 13th, 1664, we read, "Rear Admiral Teddeman with four or five ships has gone to course in the Channel, and if he meet any refractory Dutchmen will teach them their duty" ("Calendar of State Papers," ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... appear that the majority of instances indicated a general rule of propriety and convenience, and this would immediately decide all doubtful cases, and these, when once recognized and established in educated practice, would win over many other words that are refractory in the absence of rule. What exceptions remained would be tabulated as ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English

... complains especially of one Clement, who sells liquor within twenty yards of Johnson's house, and immediately gets from the Indians all the bounty money they receive for scalps, "which leaves them as poor as ratts," and therefore refractory and unmanageable. Johnson says further: "There is another grand villain, George Clock, who lives by Conajoharie Castle, and robs the Indians of all their cloaths, etc." The chiefs complained, "upon which I wrote him twice to ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman

... fought the most memorable battle recorded in the annals of English history, between Simon de Mountfort, the powerful Earl of Leicester, and Prince Edward, afterwards King Edward the First; in which the earl was completely defeated, and the refractory barons, with most of their adherents taken or slain. This important battle restored Henry the Third to his throne and liberty. When he had ascended the throne, he determined to still further curtail the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various

... much occupied at present. We have been outvoted in the cortes, and this afternoon we intend to dissolve them. It is believed that the rascals will refuse to depart, but Quesada will stand at the door ready to turn them out, should they prove refractory. Come along, and you will perhaps ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... night-visiting one) is the name of a night spectre, said to have been Adam's first wife, but who, for her refractory conduct, was transformed into a demon endowed with power to injure and even destroy infants unprotected by the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... nothing. Canning was with him yesterday evening, and the result of his audience will be very interesting, because it will appear whether he has insisted upon, and the King consented to, the dismissal of the refractory Lords, as well as what he will do about the Irish Chancellor. Government are indignant with the Duke of Wellington and the other ex-Ministers for opposing the Corn Bill, which they had been themselves (when in office) instrumental in framing, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... was intended is not clear.] It consisted in making the latter see the difference between the two German verbs "verwundern" (to amaze) and "bewundern" (to admire), and to translate clearly, according to her wits, which are sometimes so ingeniously refractory, what progress there is from Verwundern (amazement) to Erstaunen (astonishment). Imagine, now, with what a wonderful solution of the difficulty your packet and letter furnished us, and how pleased I was at ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... not destitute of a sense of humour, never thought of Mr. Gall without a smile, so much out of keeping did the man's occupation seem with his jovial humour. Mr. Gall, he said, was the kind of policeman who would bribe a refractory tramp to move on by the present of a pint of beer. But Gall had a good point. He was very proud of his profession, and in the exercise of it he showed a discretion which, if it was the better part of his valour, ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... first lesson. "Honor thy father and mother, that thy days may be long in the land," was familiar to the ears of every child before they could lisp their a, b, c; and upon the first demonstration of a refractory disobedience, a severe punishment taught them that the law was absolute and inexorable. To lie, or touch what was not his own, was beyond the pale of pardon, or mercy, and a solitary aberration ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... introduced a bill into the Reichstag asking for power to punish any member who abused his parliamentary position. There was to be a court established consisting of thirteen deputies, and this was to have power to punish refractory delegates by censuring them, by obliging them to apologize to the House, and by excluding them from the House. It was also proposed that the Reichstag should in certain instances prevent the publicity of its proceedings. This bill of Bismarck's ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... Susan snipped and ripped and rebasted the refractory seam, Elizabeth brought out her little stores of finery to ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... virtue. Bat the years glided on, and gradually the impression faded away. Ivan, with extraordinary energy and sagacity, devoted himself to the consolidation of the Russian empire, and the development of all its sources of wealth. The refractory princes he assailed one by one, and, favored by a peculiar combination of circumstances, succeeded in chastising them ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... was lifted up, higher and higher, borne by strong hands. A man bit him in the hand. The fact was he had scratched his hand on a refractory horsehair, which had become tired of acting ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... himself to be an adept in the business of subduing refractory breaker boys, by giving his orders promptly, and in such a manner as would soonest accomplish the work. Under his energetic directions Fred's hands were soon tied behind his back, a gag was fastened in his mouth, and the rope placed ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis

... announced Teddy Grant exultantly, as he sat on the floor struggling manfully with a refractory bootlace that was knotted and tagless and stubbornly refused to go into the eyelets of Teddy's patched boots. "Ain't I ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... at Bellevue, of which Jaspar Dumont was now in actual possession, was a small slave jail. It had been constructed under the immediate direction of Jaspar, to afford a place of confinement for the runaway or refractory negroes of the plantation. It was located at some distance from the proprietary mansion, and from the quarters of the negroes. Jaspar's taste in matters of this kind was of the most refined character, and he had caused it to be constructed ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton

... of his teachers, a scheme of rewards and punishments has had to be devised for his benefit. As there is no better nature for the scheme to appeal to, an appeal has had to be made to fears and hopes which are avowedly base. The refractory child has had to be threatened with corporal punishment in the form of an eternity of torment in Hell. And he has had to be bribed by the offer of prizes, the chief of which is an eternity of selfish enjoyment in Heaven,—enjoyment so selfish that ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... she rather expected the pictures to fall from the walls at the bare idea. In this survey she perceived that one picture hung slightly askew. She sighed, and made a motion to rise; but Hildegarde flew to straighten the refractory frame, and then returned to ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... beat, beat, not as one who beateth the air. This often lasts for two hours or more; it might be said that the cream remains in chrysalis, and refuses to butterfly! Indeed, there is no reason why a small bowl of cream shouldn't be as refractory as a wooden churnful. But when it "won't come," my distress is not at all proportioned to the size of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... own house, not mine," says George, very haughtily. And the caution, far from benefiting him, only rendered the lad more supercilious and refractory. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... again, where the SPEAKER-ELECT, attired in Court dress and accompanied by the SERGEANT-AT-ARMS dandling the Mace as if it ware a refractory infant, presented himself at the Bar to hear from the LORD CHANCELLOR the pleasing intelligence that HIS MAJESTY was convinced of his "ample sufficiency" to execute his arduous duties, and readily approved his election. Thereupon Sir ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various

... and whistled. Jose's oft-repeated threat to disembowel a refractory member of the crew had at last ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... to marry the man her father had chosen to be her husband, the father was empowered by this law to cause her to be put to death; but as fathers do not often desire the death of their own daughters, even though they do happen to prove a little refractory, this law was seldom or never put in execution, though perhaps the young ladies of that city were not unfrequently threatened by their parents with the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... had a cruel satisfaction in replying, "No, Master Babington; the Tower is not for refractory boys. You are going to ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... under any form whatever to take part in hostilities the severest punishment will be inflicted on the refractory. ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... accomplish in one day the work of years. He issued a decree commanding the people to bring all their coin, gold and silver, to their respective governors—where they would receive less than half its value! He threatened the refractory with death. The capital resounded with the dreaded cry of rebellion; and the exasperated multitude that had surrounded the royal palace was not appeased until it witnessed the public execution of the mint officers, whose only crime was obedience to their master. This impolitic measure in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... to their climax by an awkward love adventure of Ralph's with one of our tenants' daughters. My father acted with his usual decision on the occasion. He determined to apply a desperate remedy: to let the refractory eldest son run through his career in freedom, abroad, until he had well wearied himself, and could return home a sobered man. Accordingly, he procured for my brother an attache's place in a foreign embassy, and insisted on his leaving England forthwith. For once in a way, Ralph was docile. ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... do these people owe me? I found them—I left them—poor. The instinct of necessity enlightens them; the voice of the country speaks by their months; and if I choose, if I permit it, in an hour the refractory Chambers will have ceased to exist. But the life of a man is not worth purchasing at such a price: I did not return from the Isle of Elba that Paris should be inundated with blood: He did not like the idea of flight.' 'Why should ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... which hang twenty or thirty rusty Irish, playing pitch and toss and waiting for employment; - on along the railway, which came in at the same gates and which branches down between each vast block - past a pilot-engine butting refractory trucks into their places - on to the last block, [and] down the branch, sniffing the guano-scented air and detecting the old bones. The hartshorn flavour of the guano becomes very strong, as I near the docks where, across the ELBA'S decks, a huge vessel ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ailed me, Home leaving I leaped o'er those bars of vexation. What I met on the journey, what I thought in each case, What arose in my soul in the new-chosen place, Where the future was lying,—this to tell is refractory, But I'll give you a ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... generally carried in favour of the tory interest, the ministry had secured but one part of that faction. Some of the most popular leaders, such as the duke of Leeds, the marquis of Normanby, the earls of Nottingham, Seymour, Musgrave, Howe, Finch, and Showers, had been either neglected or found refractory, and resolved to oppose the court measures with all their influence. Besides, the French king, knowing that the peace of Europe would in a great measure depend on the resolutions of the English parliament, is said to have distributed great sums of money in England, by means ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... the house which sheltered Aaron save those who were adherents of her brothers, the leaders of the people. If such men's blitheness was already waning, what must the outlook be to the lukewarm and refractory! ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... to take account of the state of the pituitary in estimating the normal intelligence, or influencing the abnormal or subnormal intelligence. As well will he have to consider the thyroid in the child whose conduct is refractory, even though his proficiency in his studies is excellent. And the condition of the adrenal will be ascertained in the types that tire easily, and that seem unable to make the effort necessary or desirable. ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... valiant Metak held manfully to his purpose, and would not let her go. He reached the sledge, and put her on it; he tied her there, and, springing on himself, he whipped up his dogs, and started for his home. But the refractory damsel would not stay tied. She cut the lashings with her teeth, she seized the whip out of Metak's hands, she pushed Metak off the sledge, and sent him sprawling on the snow; and then she wheeled the dogs around, and fairly made them ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... a leaning toward generosity, and much independence of opinion. It was not a custom among election candidates to ask Leslie Bell for his vote. It was pretty well understood that nothing would influence it except his "views," and that none of the ordinary considerations in use with refractory electors would influence his views. He was a man of large, undemonstrative affections, and it was a matter of private regret with him that there should have been only one child, and that a daughter, to bestow them upon. His ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... Noemi's golden locks and blue eyes, I am quite mad about her. And then she struck me in the face, and drove me away; I must have payment for that. Is there a nobler revenge than to give a kiss for a blow? I will be the master of the refractory witch; that is my fancy. And by what right do you deny her to me? Am I not Noemi's betrothed, who would make her my legal wife and bring her to honor, while you can never marry her, and can only make ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... side of the mountain, through underbrush and fallen timber, until, just before daylight, I found that we were immediately in rear of the village, and thence in rear, also, of the line occupied by the refractory Indians, who were expecting to meet me on the direct road from the post. Just at break of day we made a sudden descent upon the village and took its occupants completely by surprise, even capturing the chief of the tribe, "Sam," ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... that they are rather peculiar in temper, and you must mind how you talk to them. There are human beings whom to manage into doing the simplest and most obvious duty, needs, on your part, the tact of a diplomatist combined with the skill of a driver of refractory pigs. In short, there are in human beings all kinds of mental twists and deformities. There are mental lameness and broken-windedness. Mental and moral shying is extremely common. As for biting, who does ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... I went to the "Refractory building," under special charge of Dr. Beemer, and through the wards pretty thoroughly, both the men's and women's. I have since made many other visits of the kind through the asylum, and around among the detach'd cottages. As far as I could see, this is among the most advanced, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... connected the links of ratiocination. Very often has it happened to myself when I have said to Thought peremptorily, "Bestir thyself: a serious matter is before thee, ponder it well, think of it," that that same thought has behaved in the most refractory, rebellious manner conceivable; and instead of concentrating its rays into a single stream of light, has broken into all the desultory tints of the rainbow, colouring senseless clouds, and running off into the seventh heaven, so that after ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the contrary, and made him acquainted with the true circumstances; not failing to tell him of Mistress Penwick's unsettled disposition; her ambitions, and intractable nature; that she was refractory and vexatious; petulant and forever ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... hostelry, and one of those houses of the road in which the traveler is lucky if he finds the bedrooms all occupied; for then he may, without giving offense, sleep more comfortably in the hayloft. Here, night and day, the clink of bells and the gruff admonition of refractory mules told of travel, and the constant come and go of strange, wild-looking men from the remoter corners of Aragon, far up by the foothills of the Pyrenees. The huge two-wheeled carts drawn by six, eight or ten mules, came lumbering through the dust at all hours of the twenty-four, bringing ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... country, from north to south, in the name of the Emperor, by whom he was appointed Regent (Kwambaku). Thus universal peace was temporarily established. But the vast military powers which Hideyoshi had collected and disciplined, threatened to become refractory. He found employment for them by declaring unprovoked [277] war against Korea, whence he hoped to effect the conquest of China. The war with Korea opened in 1592, and dragged on unsatisfactorily until 1598, when Hideyoshi died. He had proved himself one of the greatest soldiers ever born, but ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... turned out to be less serious than had been expected. She herself had proved a much less refractory patient than her mother ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... important substances entering into the composition of coal are moisture and the refractory earths which form the ash. The ash varies in different coals from 3 to 30 per cent and the moisture from 0.75 to 45 per cent of the total weight of the coal, depending upon the grade and the locality in which it is mined. A large ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... in the house a strong-room, in which occasionally very refractory boys were locked up. Confinement in it was looked upon with peculiar dislike, and considered a great disgrace. It was furnished with books and slates, and pens, ink, and paper, and the boy who was put in was always awarded a task, which he had to perform before he was let out. Any of the masters ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... what on earth is troubling you in connection with me? Have you had me on your conscience more than usual recently? Can't you ever get over your unattractive habit of treating me as if I were a refractory pupil and you an offended schoolmarm? In spite of being born in New England, there is no reason to affect this pose, as it is unnecessary and I think ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook

... had tired himself, and spent his money, he was fain to leave all for quietness' sake, and give it up to his adversary. Or else we are insulted over, and trampled on by domineering officers, fleeced by those greedy harpies to get more fees; we stand in fear of some precedent lapse; we fall amongst refractory, seditious sectaries, peevish puritans, perverse papists, a lascivious rout of atheistical Epicures, that will not be reformed, or some litigious people (those wild beasts of Ephesus must be fought with) ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... next morning and after getting her father off to work as usual, she took the children into hand. First she scrubbed them assiduously, burnishing their brown faces until they shone again. Then she tussled with their refractory locks, and after that she dressed them out in all the ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... is well known, that there sometimes occurs a sullen and hardy resolution, that laughs at all common punishment, and bids defiance to all common degrees of pain. Correction must be proportioned to occasions. The flexible will be reformed by gentle discipline, and the refractory must be subdued by harsher methods. The degrees of scholastick, as of military punishment, no stated rules can ascertain. It must be enforced till it overpowers temptation; till stubbornness becomes ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... arrangements of the paper—a business of no small difficulty—he had often occasion to exercise promptness and boldness of decision in cases of emergency. Printers in those days were a rather refractory class of work men, and not unfrequently took advantage of their position to impose hard terms on their employers, especially in the daily press, where everything must be promptly done within a very limited time. Thus on one occasion, ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... she at last, "I have had a great experience in refractory servants, and take a pride in breaking them. You really tempt me; and if I had not other affairs, and these of more importance, on my hand, I should certainly buy you at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and I had had little idea that the old Squire would whip the boys. It was never easy to induce him to whip even a refractory horse or ox. Now he took the paper, read their names, then folded it and ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... Uncle Daniel, softly, as he stroked Toby's refractory red hair, "my love for you was greater than I knew, and when you left me I cried aloud to the Lord as if it had been my own flesh and blood that had gone afar from me. Stay here, Toby, my son, and help to support this poor old body as it goes down into the dark valley of the shadow of death; and ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis

... before I pulled up the refractory Venetian blind—the right rope so eager to rise, the left so indifferent to its improvement—an instant's dread. I was afraid "they" would be hopping about even this early in the morning, hopping, hopping—the jerking ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... slip of platinum rolled in a spiral is placed in a small crucible of retort carbon closed by a turned cover of the same material. This is placed in a second larger crucible of refractory clay, and the intervening space filled with lampblack tightly packed. The whole is then heated to white heat for an hour and a half in a good wind furnace. After cooling, the platinum is generally found to have been fused into a button, with a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various

... presented the famous register, pointing to a place where sentence of banishment was passed on a refractory who was stated to have been forced, for acts of dishonesty, to ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac

... fallen after a heroic defense, was annexed to Austria. Magdeburg offered the longest resistance and was outlawed three times. Defiantly its citizens declared: "We are saved neither by an Interim nor by an Exterim, but by the Word of God alone." (Jaekel 1, 166.) Refractory magistrates were treated as rebels. Pastors who declined to introduce the Interim were deposed, some were banished, others incarcerated, still others even executed. In Swabia and along the Rhine about four hundred ministers were willing to suffer imprisonment and banishment rather ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... the pop. term for one who refuses to obey a constituted authority and syn. with Pers. "Yaghi." "Ant 'Asi?" Wilt thou not yield thyself? says a policeman to a refractory Fellah. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... them back he seemed to feel nothing but surprise and disgust at the mere fact of possessing such unruly organs. 'It seems as though some of our party will find spring journeys pretty trying. Oates' nose is always on the point of being frost-bitten; Meares has a refractory toe which gives him much trouble—this is the worse prospect for summit work. I have been wondering how I shall stick the summit again, this cold spell gives ideas. I think I shall be all right, but one must be prepared for ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... reduction works for refractory ore, but they are on a grand scale, some of them handling one hundred thousand tons daily, and as the government owns and operates all the railways the cost of transporting ore is under two mills a ton per mile. We employ a corps of metallurgists experimenting ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans

... having called in two men that were passing to help us to take them prisoners, in case of their being refractory, we carried them by the lug and the horn ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... could tell to a fraction how long a slave could be worked on a given quantity of corn, also put in their claims for consideration. Short, thick-set men, with fierce faces, who gloried in the fact that they had at various times killed refractory negroes, also presented themselves to ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... instruction, or redeemable from vice only by reason, but that it needed some other persuasion and moulding and softening influence to co-operate with reason, unless it were to be altogether intractable and refractory to philosophy. And Plato saw very plainly and confidently and decidedly that the soul of this universe is not simple or uncomposite or uniform, but is made up of forces that work uniformly and differently, in the one case it is ever marshalled in the ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... tables are simply a continuation of the mercury tables, but covered with strips of coarse blanket, green baize, or other flocculent material, intended to arrest the heavier metallic particles which, owing to their refractory nature, ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... Section, headed Natural Supernaturalism, that the Professor first becomes a Seer; and, after long effort, such as we have witnessed, finally subdues under his feet this refractory Clothes-Philosophy, and takes victorious possession thereof. Phantasms enough he has had to struggle with; 'Cloth-webs and Cob-webs,' of Imperial Mantles, Superannuated Symbols, and what not: yet still did he courageously pierce through. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... popular sovereignty is proclaimed thus actually ends in a dictatorship of the few, and a proscription of the many. Outside of the sect you are outside of the laws. We, the five or six thousand Jacobins of Paris, are the legitimate monarch, the infallible Pontiff, and woe betide the refractory and the lukewarm, all government agents, all private persons, the clergy, the nobles, the rich, merchants, traders, the indifferent among all classes, who, steadily opposing or yielding uncertain adhesion, dare to throw ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... This refractory, capricious, and independent spirit, and the inexplicable wild shyness of the woman for whom the Baron had four times found a match—an employe in his office, a retired major, an army contractor, and a half-pay captain—while ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... all directions. On the outskirts were the still more stately men-of-war, their bright-coloured signal flags continually moving up and down, while they occasionally fired a gun either on one side or the other, in rather a difficult attempt to keep their somewhat refractory charges on their proper course. Mary, after watching the manoeuvres of the men-of-war and the fleet of merchant vessels for ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston

... hearing its mournful croaking shot it with an arrow, which flew up through the ether and landed in the plains of heaven. The arrow was shot down again and killed the envoy. Finally two other envoys were sent down, who landed in Izumo, and after some parley with the refractory deities of the land received their adhesion and settled and pacified the land. Then they returned to the heavenly plains and reported that peace ...
— Japan • David Murray

... years that our expedition against the East has lasted, owing to my reliance on the majesty of Imperial Heaven, the wicked bands have met death. It is true that the frontier lands are still unpurified, and that a remnant of evil is still refractory. But in the region of the Central Land there is no more wind and dust. Truly we should make a vast and spacious capital and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... election of 1906. Early in the year the Executive Council urged affiliated unions to use their influence to prevent the nomination in party primaries or conventions of candidates for Congress who refused to endorse labor's demands, and where both parties nominated refractory candidates to run independent labor candidates. The labor campaign was placed in the hands of a Labor Representation Committee, which made use of press publicity and other standard means. Trade union speakers were sent into the districts ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... top but bearing no banners. Our halting place was near the Temple of Justice, where instruments of punishment were piled up. There were rattans and bamboos for flogging purposes by the side of yokes, collars, and fetters, carefully designed for subduing the refractory. There was a double set of stocks like those now obsolete in America, and their appearance indicated frequent use. To be cornered in these would be as unpleasant ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... quotations), that he had not only ruined his own soul, but also the souls of his ancestors—a truly Oriental point of view. "If thou art upright and pious," he writes, "why wert not thou willing to suffer at the hands of me, thy refractory sovereign lord, and receive from me the crown of life?... Thou hast destroyed thy soul for the sake of thy body ... and hast waxed wroth not against a ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... to liberty and to luxury, would not easily submit to these Spartan restraints. The King could not venture to keep them in order as he kept his own subjects in order. Situated as he was with respect to England, he could not well imprison or shoot refractory Howards and Cavendishes. On the other hand, the example of a few fine gentlemen, attended by chariots and livery servants, eating in plate, and drinking champagne and tokay, was enough to corrupt his whole army. He thought it best to make ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... grinding stone—and it was held there with an iron grasp. It seemed indeed the privilege of their superior nature to kick me about, like the dog or cat. If I were attentive, I was called fawning, if refractory, an obstinate mule, and like a mule I received their censure on my loaded back. Often has my mistress, for some instance of forgetfulness, thrown me from one side of the kitchen to the other, knocked my head against the wall, ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... miles a day; sometimes it took from dawn to dusk to cross a stream by ferrying our packages, and emptied wagons, on such rafts as could be extemporised. Before the end of a fortnight, both wagons were shattered, wheels smashed, and axles irreparable. The men, who were as refractory as the other animals, helped themselves to provisions, tobacco and whisky, at their own sweet will, and treated our remonstrances with ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... him to be running along to meet him. From a trot he soon subsided into a walk. It was a hot day, the road was dusty, and few vehicles passed him. At length he paused to rest, and it was at this juncture that some drovers, taking some refractory cattle to market, came along ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre

... creature, having much of the quality of a complicated insect, with whip-like tentacles and a clanging arm projecting from his shining cylindrical body case. The form of his head was hidden by his enormous many-spiked helmet—we discovered afterwards that he used the spikes for prodding refractory mooncalves—and a pair of goggles of darkened glass, set very much at the side, gave a bird-like quality to the metallic apparatus that covered his face. His arms did not project beyond his body case, and he carried himself upon short ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... last night about five miles away, and a refractory passenger shot. The son had been out 'possum shooting' all night ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... independence so dear to them, or beneath the protection of their confederates. It would appear that in proportion as the law was harsh and severe, so was the Gitano bold and secure. The fiercest of these laws was the one of Philip the Fifth, passed in the year 1745, which commands that the refractory Gitanos be hunted down with fire and sword; that it was quite inefficient is satisfactorily proved by its being twice reiterated, once in the year '46, and again in '49, which would scarcely have been deemed necessary had it quelled the Gitanos. This law, with some ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... I cannot at this distant period of time recollect them with a sufficient degree of distinctness. They were chiefly directed to the preservation of personal cleanliness, and the prevention of immorality. For a refusal to comply with any of them, the refractory person was subjected to a stated punishment. It is an astonishing fact that any rules, thus made, should have so long existed and been enforced among a multitude of men situated as we were, so numerous and composed ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... overlook the question of pressure, we should certainly say that the earth's interior must be in a fluid state. It seems at least certain that the temperatures to be found at depths of two score miles, and still more at greater depths, must be so high that the most refractory solids, whether metals or minerals, would at once yield if we could subject them to such temperatures in our laboratories. But none of our laboratory experiments can tell us whether, under the pressure of thousands of tons on the square inch, the application of any heat whatever would ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... Ivanovitch, the one-eyed, pushed Ivan Nikiforovitch, with tolerable success, towards the spot where stood Ivan Ivanovitch. But the chief of police directed his course too much to one side, because he could not steer himself with his refractory leg, which obeyed no orders whatever on this occasion, and, as if with malice and aforethought, swung itself uncommonly far, and in quite the contrary direction, possibly from the fact that there had been an unusual amount of fruit wine after dinner, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... hearing what had occurred, while all the suspected men whom we had not secured were in their berths. Our difficulty was to secure those we had captured, to guard against their being liberated. We had a dozen pair of irons on board, which we clapped on those most likely to prove refractory, and so there was little chance of their escaping. The third mate came out of his cabin soon after eight bells, as he was to have had the morning watch, but by that time all the mutineers were secured. The remainder ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... travel. Sekeletu tried again to remove Mashotlane from the Falls, but without success. In theory the chief is absolute and quite despotic; in practice his authority is limited, and he cannot, without occasionally putting refractory headmen to death, force his subordinates to do ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... it, said sternly, 'Let him have his own.' Usually, when he had emptied the second bottle, a desire of converting the Mohammedans came over him: and they showed themselves much less obstinate and refractory than they are generally thought. He selected those for edification who swore the oftenest and the loudest by the Prophet; and he boasted in his heart of having overcome, by precept and example, the stiffest tenet of their abominable creed. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... who could be useful; his cleverness in upsetting the plot against Dorn and turning all to his advantage demonstrated that. Therefore, Hull should be elected and passed up higher. It did not enter his calculations that Hull might prove refractory, might really be all that he professed; he had talked with Davy, and while he had underestimated his intelligence, he knew he had not misjudged his character. He knew that it was as easy to "deal" with the Hull stripe of honest, high minded men as it was ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... cases occurred in the Pretoria Gaol which are surely difficult to justify. Du Plessis stated to the Reform prisoners that he had with the sanction of the Landdrost inflicted upon one prisoner named Thompson, who was undoubtedly refractory and disobedient, upwards of eighty lashes within three weeks. He added that this was as good as a death-sentence, because neither white nor black could stand two inflictions of twenty-five lashes, as they were given in Pretoria Gaol, ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... a child is quick, neat, and careful, if he has finished his bit of work, he may go and help the babies, and very gently and very patiently he guides the chubby fingers, threads the needles, or ties on little caps, and conquers refractory buttons. ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... well knew, that the spirit of liberty was too high among them to endure it. When the queen of Alfonso the Fourth urged her husband, by quoting the example of her brother the king of Castile, to punish certain refractory citizens of Valencia, he prudently replied, "My people are free, and not so submissive as the Castilians. They respect me as their prince, and I hold them ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... places their rude age high in the scale of civilization, respected religion. They lowered the sword before the Cross. The Church had for the disobedient and the refractory one terrible weapon, which she was loath to use, but which she occasionally used with swift and tragic effect, the weapon of excommunication. Many a modern historian or philosopher has smiled good-naturedly and in mild contempt ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... those of his opponent. He believed that the Confederate "discipline and drill were far better than our own;" wherein he was probably in error, for General Lee admitted that, while the Southerners would always fight well, they were refractory under discipline. Moreover, they were at this time very ill provided with equipment and transportation. Also McClellan said that the Southern army had thrown up intrenchments at Manassas and Centreville, and therefore the "problem was to attack victorious and finely drilled troops ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... semblance of manly beauty, and, though the shadow of a man is but little calculated to satisfy the affections of a lovesick girl, yet where the substance is not to be had even that is consoling. The aunt declared she would never sleep in that chamber again; the niece, for once, was refractory, and declared as strongly that she would sleep in no other in the castle: the consequence was, that she had to sleep in it alone; but she drew a promise from her aunt not to relate the story of the spectre, lest she should be denied the only melancholy pleasure left her on earth—that ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... masters, as, indeed, he did himself, but at the same time he wished those in authority to be somewhat strict, and those subject to them to be less sensitive and selfish, and consequently less impatient, less refractory, and less given to grumbling ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... Constance warningly to her refractory and dilatory nephew, "if thou get into bed again, we will leave thee behind, and crown Roger, that is worth ten of thee. By my Lady Saint Mary! a pretty ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... itself: by a proper regulation of the blast, an oxygenating or a deoxygenating flame might be procured; and from the intensity of the flame, combined with its chemical agency, we might expect the most refractory ore to be smelted, and that ultimately the metals at present almost infusible, such as platinum, titanium, and others, might be brought into common use, and thus effect a revolution ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... inimitable quickness are the qualities by which he lives. Athelred, on the other hand, presents you with the spectacle of a sincere and somewhat slow nature thinking aloud. He is the most unready man I ever knew to shine in conversation. You may see him sometimes wrestle with a refractory jest for a minute or two together, and perhaps fail to throw it in the end. And there is something singularly engaging, often instructive, in the simplicity with which he thus exposes the process as well as the result, the works as well as the dial of the ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... stood side by side Lossing dismounted, stood a moment beside his refractory steed, and then, with a gentle pat and a low word as if of reproof, he turned and, after patting the other animal a moment, sprang to its back and sent it galloping around the place; then bringing ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... the emperor occasioned a conspiracy among the vicious and refractory of his subjects; and finding the means of accomplishing their purposes somewhat difficult, they engaged a barber, by large promises, to cut his ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... had sat on the throne before her,—would adopt as her own representative in Scotland the favourite of William; yet she continued Queensbury in that high station which it was believed none could fill so adequately in the disturbed and refractory kingdom of Scotland.[18] ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... positions; among them, some which Rutherford had taken of his friend, Tom Durston, and his family, at the ranch where he had stopped over night on his way out. There was one of Tom himself, in a futile attempt to milk a refractory cow, where he lay sprawling ingloriously upon the ground, the milk bucket pouring its foaming contents over him, the excited cow performing a war dance, while two others, more peaceably inclined, looked on in mild-eyed ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... genial engineer of the building, was sent down to the basement to see what he could do with the refractory machinery, for although the elevator people had been telephoned to, their men had not yet put in an appearance. Pat's contribution was to create a horrible din by hammering on every pipe he came to, stopping at three-minute intervals to yell, "Can ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... considerable hills, have been the work of unlettered peasants. In one place I found that 80 miles or more of irrigation was based on a canal made two centuries ago. It is good to see so many embankings of refractory streams and excavations of river beds commemorated by slabs recording the public services of the men who, often at their own charges, carried out ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... mount the hill, their crimson sweaters making a zigzag line of color in the sunshine; even their laughter, care-free as if nothing had happened, floated back to him on the still air, demonstrating how little concern they felt for him and his refractory automobile. Well might they proceed light-heartedly to the village, spend their money on sodas and ice-cream cones, and shout themselves hoarse at the game. No thought of future punishment marred their enjoyment and the program was precisely the one ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett

... to push on. That is the signal for a general shout, cracking of whips, barking of dogs, and yells from the niggers: soon there is one vast crowd of living animals in front of them. Now and then a refractory beast breaks away and rushes the ranks, but the horses are on the alert, and they soon round him in, for there is no tugging required—you merely stick to your pigskin. Hil and Susy are doing their share along the line and are about four hundred yards ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... After the refractory plate-chest had been made to disgorge, Mr. Morgan had visited the drawing-room. By the time he had garnered what precious metal was there, his two capacious bags had become extremely heavy. So much so, that he almost regretted that he had not ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... conversation is impossible where there is too much talk. Some sort of order must be imperceptibly if not unconsciously maintained, or the sentences clash in general conversation. Leading conversation is the adroit speech which checks the refractory conversationalist and changes imperceptibly the subject when it is sufficiently threshed or grows over-heated; it is guiding the talk without palpable break into fresh fields of thought; it is the tact with which, unperceived, ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin

... we have seen, had been a diligent reader of Hume, had also been led to compare the proceedings of the refractory Notables with the conduct of our English parliamentary parties, and to an English reader some of her comments can not fail to be as interesting as they are curious. The Duchess de Polignac was drinking the waters at Bath, which at that time was a favorite resort of French valetudinarians, and, while ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... did the man appear, popping out of the hole beside the stump like a Jack in the Box, that Sock was startled, and pranced back, exactly as he would have done in order to drag a refractory steer off its feet. And this was just what took place with ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... lords, and ecclesiastical dignitaries were being compelled far and wide to save their lives, after their property was probably already confiscated, by swearing allegiance to the Christian League or Brotherhood of the peasants and by countersigning the "Twelve Articles" and other demands of their refractory villeins and serfs. So threatening was the situation that the Archduke Ferdinand began himself to yield, in so far as to enter into negotiations with the insurgents. In many cases the leaders and chief men of the bands were got up in brilliant costume. We read ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... ignorant and vicious, without property, and without habits of industry or enterprise. The colored people in our slave States must, almost without exception, be destitute of information; and in choosing negroes to send away, the masters would be very apt to select the most helpless and the most refractory. Hence the superintendents of Liberia have made reiterated complaints of being flooded with shiploads of "vagrants." These causes are powerful drawbacks. But the negroes in Liberia have schools and churches, and they have freedom, which, wherever it exists, is always striving ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... never once mutinied during all the ten years of the Gallic war, but were sometimes refractory in the course of the civil war. However, they always returned quickly to their duty, and that not through the indulgence, but in submission to the authority, of their general; for he never yielded to them when they were insubordinate, but constantly resisted their demands. ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... thanked by the King for so readily agreeing to assist in reducing the Covenanters to obedience to "Us and Our laws," and were told to take up free quarters among the disaffected, to disarm such persons as they should suspect, to carry with them instruments of torture wherewith to subdue the refractory, and in short to act very much in accordance with the promptings of their own desires. Evidently the mission suited these men admirably, for they treated all parties as disaffected, with great impartiality, and plundered, tortured, ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... form appeared. She had dressed Miss Ada and came to see what she could do for the young people, being of that delightful class of old servants who are charmed to have anything young in the house, especially a boy. She took Valetta's refractory mane in hand, tied her sash, inspected Fergus's hands, which had succeeded in getting dirty in their inevitable fashion, and undertook all the unpacking and arranging. To Val's inquiry whether there was any place for making 'a dear delightful mess' she ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... serfs, habituated to the irregularities of war, bring back their former submission? Undoubtedly not: they would return full of new sentiments and new ideas, with which they would infect the villages; they would there propagate a refractory spirit, which would give infinite trouble to the master ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... of course you will. I was trying to tie this grapevine into place when you surprised me, but I could not hold on with one hand and tie with the other. See what I mean?" And placing one slender foot upon a slat of the trellis she lifted herself up until she could barely reach the refractory branch. "Now," she said, smiling down upon me, "please just hold me here for a moment ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... glass of wine. She was astonished: she was not at all thirsty: she never drank wine, especially pure wine, of a morning. The lay-sister, a rough, strong menial, such as they keep in convents to manage crazy or refractory women, and to punish children, overwhelmed the feeble sufferer with remonstrances that looked like threats. Unwilling as she was, she drank. And she was forced to drink it all, to the very dregs, ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... who used to board here was accustomed sometimes, in a pleasant way, to call himself the Autocrat of the table,—meaning, I suppose, that he had it all his own way among the boarders. I think our small boarder here is like to prove a refractory subject, if I undertake to use the sceptre my friend meant to bequeath me, too magisterially. I won't deny that sometimes, on rare occasions, when I have been in company with gentlemen who preferred listening, I have been guilty of the same kind of usurpation which my ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... something else in it, too,—a young man of about six and twenty, who steps lightly on to the bank, though it is a miracle he doesn't lose his footing and come ignominiously to the ground, so bent is his gaze on the gracious little figure at the other side of the boundary-fence struggling with the refractory rope. ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... though every one got lost in the second line, and, after much independent exertion of the lungs, just came up in time to join in the grand final rally. He saw the mild-faced, gray-haired parson mounting slowly the pulpit stairs, adjusting and manoeuvring the refractory gown that would come off his shoulders with the nervous gesture which, beginning in timidity, had grown into a habit that was part of the man. More plainly than all—he saw a low, green mound, just beyond ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... of her profession, Meg Dods, or Meg Dorts, as she was popularly termed, on account of her refractory humours, was still patronised by some steady customers. Such were the members of the Killnakelty Hunt, once famous on the turf and in the field, but now a set of venerable grey-headed sportsmen, who had sunk ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... were we to leave the waggon and the cattle, but that was very far from Uncle Mark's thoughts. By voice and whip we urged on the oxen, and shouting, shrieking, and using our thick sticks, we endeavoured to drive forward our refractory charges. ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston

... this second law is, that if you don't want the qualities of the substance you use, you ought to use some other substance: it can be only affectation, and desire to display your skill, that lead you to employ a refractory substance, and therefore your art will all be base. Glass, for instance, is eminently, in its nature, transparent. If you don't want transparency, let the glass alone. Do not try to make a window look like an opaque picture, but take an opaque ground to begin with. ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... George proved to be a truthful prophet. By the time those five minutes were up, he had succeeded in coaxing the refractory motor to behave itself; and suddenly the Wireless shot off amid a rattling volley of explosions that told full well how her muffler was ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... anyway, so," and Polly crushed the refractory folds recklessly in one hand; "that's the way Mary Gibbs's hat trimmings look, and I'm sure they're a complete success. Oh! that's lovely," cried Polly, at the effect. "Now, that's the treatment the whole drapery needs," she added in the tone of an ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney

... Judges had all conspired to trample underfoot the liberties of the subject." Gentlemen, the fact was as notorious as the advance of the Slave Power now is in America. But a few days after the king (Charles I.) had dismissed his refractory Parliament, Eliot, with Hollis, Long, Selden, Strode, and Valentine, most eminent members of the commons, and zealous for liberty and law, was seized by the king's command and thrown into prison. The Habeas Corpus was demanded—it was all in vain, ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker



Words linked to "Refractory" :   medical specialty, aluminum oxide, refractoriness, fireclay, aluminium oxide, liner, alumina, lining, unresponsive, disobedient, intractable, medicine



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