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More "Importunity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... often, much oftener than Nancy desired; not only was her talk wearisome, but it consumed valuable time. She much desired to see the baby, and Nancy found it difficult to invent excuses for her unwillingness. When importunity could not be otherwise defeated, she ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... Fite, whose indiscreet zeal for us both would lead her to tell her successful mediation to everybody she could make hear her. Already she has greatly distressed me upon this subject. Not content with continual importunity to me to write, ever since my arrival, which I have evaded as gently as possible, to avoid giving her my bumiliating reasons, she has now written Madame de Genlis word that I am here, belonging to the same royal household as herself; and then came to tell me, that ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... beam from the fame and glory which I was to win by my genius; for by that mystical name was the mere musty talent of a nelluo librorum called. The consequence was that I was sent when eight years of age to a public school. I had however before this tormented my elder brother with ceaseless importunity until he had consented to teach me Latin, and by secretly poring over my sister's books I had contrived to gain a tolerable ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... part without any Concern, but it was not upon the account of any Aversion she had to him. Don Alvaro began then to make his Importunity an open Persecution; he forgot nothing that might touch the insensible Agnes, and made use, a long time, only of the Arms of Love: But seeing that this Submission and Respect was to no purpose, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... the sofa, havin' just come in to tell him as how you'd be down shortly. He was standin' before the lookin'-glass lookin' at himself, an' when I come in he turns around and goes down on his knees and says such an importunity may not occur again, mum; I've loved you very long; and then he recited some pottery, mum, and said ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... Rustical, than to design those Goats for Alexis, at that very time when {59} he believes Thestylis's winning importunity will be able to prevail? yet there is nothing Clownish in the words. In short, Bucolicks should deserve that commendation which Tully gives Crassus, of whose Orations he would say, that nothing could be more free from childish painting, and affected finery. ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... was forced to go to Northwold on business, Louis put on a fit of coaxing importunity. Nothing would serve him but some of Jane Beckett's choice dried pears, in the corner of the oaken cupboard, the key of which was in Aunt Kitty's pocket, and no one must fetch them for him but Aunt Kitty ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my dear patron, was brutality itself. 'Why should you visit him?' he asked, sneering. 'The prison chaplain will do all that is needful for his soul.' 'Let it be, Manske,' said my dear patron, but still I prayed. 'I cannot give you permission,' said the man at last, weary of my importunity, 'it rests with my chief. ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... seated on his high horse, was in urgent need of being saved from himself. Hitherto Japhet's importunity and the attacks of less conscientious opponents had had the natural effect of rousing his supporters to greater enthusiasm and greater zeal. When his fresh step began to be understood, when Lady Mildmay came with him ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... among the trees or blocking the roadway with an importunity which required some zigzagging—was a series of pools, all alike, of regular geometrical circles. To Desnoyers, they seemed like sunken basins for the use of the invisible Titans who had been hewing the forest. Their great depth extended to ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... doctrines of Calvin. But not a single man listened to the words of the priests who had been appointed for this duty by the Cardinal of Lorraine; among whom the gentlemen no doubt feared to find spies of the Guises. In order to avoid the importunity of these antagonists they chanted a psalm, put into French verse by Clement Marot. Calvin, as we all know, had ordained that prayers to God should be in the language of each country, as much from a principle of common sense as in opposition to the ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... tell me that it is a medicine too dear bought: for what avail so many stinking draughts, so many caustics, incisions, sweats, setons, diets, and so many other methods of cure, which often, by reason we are not able to undergo their violence and importunity, bring us to our graves? So that when I have the stone, I look upon it as physic; when free from it, as an ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... had displaced the Swedish," while in the House of Nobles a member declared that Norway ought to be "an accessory" to Sweden; that "young, inexperienced" Norway's demand of equality with Sweden was like a commoner's importunity for equality with a nobleman. He went on to say that the Swedish nation must crave again its (pure) flag: "For in our ancient blue-yellow Swedish flag, that waved over Ltzen's blood-drenched battlefield, are our honor, our memories, and thousand-fold deaths." ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... saying that he was like a wild beast, and lay, without clothes, upon the straw. I knew nothing of lunatics; and the idea of a wild man stimulated my curiosity to such an extent, that, from that time, I teased my grandfather incessantly to let me see Jacob, until he finally yielded, to be rid of my importunity, and led me to the cell in which he was confined. What a spectacle presented itself in the house that I had looked on as the abode of so much comfort! On a bundle of straw, in a corner of a room, with no furniture ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... of your privacy and friends, and scarce any hour of your life you can call your own. Those, who envy your fortune, if they wanted not good-nature, might more justly pity it; and when they see you watched by a crowd of suitors, whose importunity it is impossible to avoid, would conclude, with reason, that you have lost much more in true content, than you have gained by dignity; and that a private gentleman is better attended by a single servant, than your lordship with so clamorous a train. Pardon me, my lord, if ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... "Primrose, Periwinkle, and the rest of them, allow me no comfort of my life unless I tell them a story every day or two. I have run away from home partly to escape the importunity of these little wretches! But I have written out six of the new stories, and have brought them for you ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... they think they know not enough to make a Volume, or for not being prompted to, or earnestly solicited for it, neglect to do it; others delay to do it so long till they have forgotten what they intended. Such as these Importunity would prevail upon to disclose their knowledge, if fitting Persons were found to Discourse and ask them Questions, and to Compile the Answers into a History. Of this kind was lately produc'd in High Dutch a History of Greenland, by ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... confused, shamed, irritated in turn with every new importunity. But she remained sensible enough to be quite frank and truthful with Kathleen, except for an exciting secret engagement with Bunbury Gray which lasted for two weeks. And Kathleen was given strength sufficient ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... the gospels rises up at length to give a just decision because justice comes daily knocking at his door: and at night time the friend, in whose heart there is no real friendship, yields at length to his friend "because of his importunity." There is no prison in any world into which love cannot force an entrance. If you did not understand that, you did not understand ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... for her return, when lo! Ascalaphus, son of Acheron and Gorgyra, discovered that he saw Proserpine, as she walked in the garden of Pluto, eat some grains of a pomegranate, upon which her departure was stopped. At last, by the repeated importunity of her mother to Jupiter, she extorted as a favor, in mitigation of her grief, that Proserpine should live half the year in heaven, and the other half ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... be, if this point be duly weighed, that a man who thinks alike of all the sex, and knows it to be in the power of a wife to do him the greatest dishonour man can receive, and doubts not her will to do it, if opportunity offer, and importunity be not wanting: that such a one, from principle, should be a good husband to any woman? And, indeed, little do innocents think, what a total revolution of manners, what a change of fixed habits, nay, what a conquest of a bad nature, and what a portion of Divine GRACE, is required, to make ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... must the gentlewoman receive thee incontinent in her arms. A fine thing, indeed! Here's a pretty fellow! Here's an honourable man! He's grown a nighthawk, a garden-breaker, a tree-climber! Thinkest thou by importunity to overcome this lady's chastity, that thou climbest up to her windows anights by the trees? There is nought in the world so displeasing to her as thou; yet must thou e'en go essaying it again and again. Truly, thou hast profited finely by my admonitions, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... nothing is done.—My debts are daily increasing, and it is with difficulty I can command a shilling. As soon as possible I shall get quit of this country, but I wish to do justice to my creditors (though I do not like their importunity), and particularly to my securities, for their annuities must be paid off soon, or the interest will swallow up everything. Come what may, in every shape and in any shape, I can meet ruin, but I will ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... yielded to your importunity and granted you the satisfaction which under the same circumstances I would have denied myself. But it has not made me less hard toward you; indeed, the steel with which you say my heart is bound seems tightening ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... deeds of violence. "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword," is a saying of wide application, and had it been so in this case; had this brave and self-possessed man been moved from his high purpose by the importunity of friends, and when slain by his enemy, had been found armed in like manner with the murderer himself, what a stain would it have been upon his name and honor? And how would our whole country have been disgraced ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... desert islands, with little or no food on which to subsist, of boats long floating on the ocean, till one by one those on board had died of starvation or thirst, or from the exposure they were doomed to endure. To them all was bright and attractive, and Fitz Barry, therefore, by dint of importunity, at length prevailed upon his easy-going father, to allow him to join Captain Falkner's beautiful frigate, the Cynthia, provided that officer would take him. That matter he had left in the hands of his cousin, Sophy, and he had no doubt that she would induce the captain to receive him on board. ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... that some armies already yielding and ready to fly, have been by women restored, through their inflexible importunity and entreaties, presenting their breasts, and showing their impending captivity; an evil to the Germans then by far most dreadful when it befalls their women. So that the spirit of such cities as amongst ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... to confide herself to the care and devotion of one who, by God's help, would never forsake her. And then the tender matron, as beautiful in her Autumn, and as pure as virgins in their spring, with blushes of love and "eyes of meek surrender," yielded to my respectful importunity, and consented to share my home. Let the last words I write thank her, and bless her ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... It was in vain that I exhorted them to persevere; they would not listen to argument, and expressed their wish rather to meet with immediate death on shore, than to be starved to death in the boats. Yielding to their importunity, I at length determined to land them on the north-west extremity of the island of Ceram, from whence they might travel to Amboyna in two or three days. Being off that part of the island on the ninth of June, Mr. Robson volunteered to land a portion of the people in the cutter, to return to the ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... upon a steel buckler, the centre of which was raised, and the border encrusted with diamonds and rubies. Shortly after our entrance the rajah proposed that we should retire from the heat and importunity of the crowd. We took our seats on the ground, according to Indian custom, and the rajah delivered a discourse, in which he said he was the vassal of the sovereign of Delhi, and that as Delhi was in the possession ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Dwarf, as if worn out by his importunity, "since thou hast not enough of woes of thine own, but must needs seek to burden thyself with those of a partner, seek her whom thou hast lost ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... St. Peter's knife to a German monastery by a benevolent abbot was deemed a most illustrious act. About the same time a noble pilgrim succeeded, after great importunity and a lavish outlay of money, in obtaining trifling particles of the relics of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which he enclosed in a priceless box and donated to the monastery of St. Gall. This gift ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... weakness, and work up in our minds an opinion that the measure which we fall into by the natural or habitual imperfection of our character is the effect of a principle of prudence or of some other virtue. Thus the Regent, who saw the Duke of Ormond because he could not resist the importunity of Olive Trant, and who gave hopes to the duke because he can refuse nobody, made himself believe that it was a great strain of policy to blow up the fire and to keep Britain embroiled. I am persuaded that I do not err in judging ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... he would have me that I made no difficulty of complying with his desire. Two days after this, I was very much surprised at perceiving such a melancholy in his countenance, and alteration in his behavior, as I could no way account for; but, by importunity, at last I got from him that cardinal Wolsey, for what reason he knew not, had peremptorily forbid him to think any more of me: and, when he urged that his father was not displeased with it, the cardinal, in his imperious manner, answered him, he should give ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... such a monastery. "Then see it—(said, he) and see it carefully; for the library contains Incunabula of the most curious and scarce kind. Besides, its situation is the noblest in Austria." You will give me credit for not waiting for a second importunity to see such a place, before I answered—"I will most assuredly visit ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Clay was unable to explain the firing, but wisely concluded, from the information received in the morning by captain M'Cune, that there could be no reinforcements in the neighborhood of the fort. He had the prudent firmness to resist the earnest importunity of his officers and men, to be led to the scene of action. The enemy finding that the garrison could not be drawn out, and a heavy shower of rain beginning to fall, terminated their sham-battle. It was subsequently ascertained that this was a stratagem, devised ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... exhibited reporting any important news, the restlessness of public impatience seems often as though it would extort an answer to its further curiosity from the inanimate pillar or post to which the placard is affixed: it may be supposed how much more liable to such importunity is the bearer of a placard that happens to be no stone pillar but a living man. Bertram was pressed upon from all sides for his narrative of the catastrophe, which he gave in substance as the reader has already heard it. Of Nicholas, whom he now understood ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... in Baddeck, not-withstanding our different nationality, would insist upon taking us to his house, to sip provincial tea with Mrs. Brown and Victoria Louise, his daughter. When, therefore, Mr. Brown whisked into his dingy office, and, but for our importunity, would have paid no more attention to us than to up-country customers without credit, and when he proved to be willingly, it seemed to us, ignorant of Baddeck, our feelings received a great shock. It is incomprehensible ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... opportunity," says Prynne, "to debate the late unhappy differences sprung up amongst us touching Church-government (disputed at large by Master Herle, Doctor Steward, Master Rutherford, Master Edwards, Master Durey, Master Goodwin, Master Nye, Master Sympson, and others), ... I have (at the importunity of some Reverend friends) digested my subitane apprehensions of these distracting controversies into the ensuing considerable Questions." Accordingly, the Tract consists of 12 Queries propounded for consideration, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... part of a child neither swaddled nor out of health, a child who lacks nothing, is merely the result of habit or obstinacy. Such tears are no longer the work of nature, but the work of the child's nurse, who could not resist its importunity and so has increased it, without considering that while she quiets the child to-day she is teaching ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... importunity and yours likewise. Where are you taking me? I warn you in advance, you are 'shearing an ass,'—attempting the impossible,—if you deceive yourself as to my power. I can do nothing more to prevent the war from being ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... men, and some such as by the world were called good offers, soon got them the name of jilts; and by that means they were freed from any farther importunity, and for some years enjoyed that peace and quiet they had long wished. Their aunt, from being their mother and their guardian, was now become their friend. For, as she endeavoured not in the least to force their inclinations, they never kept anything concealed from ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... Yielding to his importunity, Penn quitted the ledge. On the shelf of rock Cudjo paused to gnash his teeth at the flames sweeping up towards them. He had long since recovered from his fit of superstitious frenzy. He had seen the fire burning the woods that sheltered him in his mountain retreat, instead of going intelligently ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... jealousy of his eldest son—all these facts and shadows of facts give colour to the impression that not least among the forces which led the Emperor on that fateful first of August to declare war against Russia was the presence and the importunity of the Crown Prince. What kind of man was it, then, whom the invisible powers of evil were employing ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... collection of the monk or nun that came to a man's own door to solicit funds for the trial of the Protestants, was equally perilous. In short, it was no unfrequent device for a debtor to get rid of the importunity of his creditor by raising the cry, "Au Christaudin, an Lutherien!" It went hard with the former if he did not both free himself from debt and spoil ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... perceive, and it must be distinctly understood between us that you need never intercede with me in favor of that scoundrel Charles. I won't have it. You wouldn't succeed, of course, but if I ever happen to get fond of you—I mean foolishly fond of you, of course—your importunity might be annoying. When you are once my wife, however, and keeping your own carriage, I confidently expect that you will behave as other people do in that station of life, and show no weakness in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... eagerness to have their exploits celebrated, though common to all men, is, in its extreme development, peculiarly Roman. Witness the importunity of Cicero to his friends, his epic on himself; and the ill- concealed vanity of Augustus. We know not to how many poets he applied to undertake a task which, after all, was never performed ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... It seems fairly safe, however, to say that after the winter of 1812-13 American commerce dwindled very rapidly, till in 1814 it was practically annihilated; but that, prior to Napoleon's downfall, the necessities of the British Government, and the importunity of the British mercantile community, promoted a certain collusive intercourse by licenses, or by neutrals, real or feigned, between the enemy and the Eastern States of the Union, for the exportation of American ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... counsels to which they give credence, so that they do not keep loyalty. Often do his men come to the emperor, and they give him counsel, and exhort him to take a wife. So much do they exhort and urge him, and each day do they so much beset him, that through their great importunity, they have turned him from his loyalty, and he promises to do their will. But he says that she who is to be lady of Constantinople must needs be very graceful and fair and wise, rich and of high degree. Then his counsellors say to him that they will make ready and will hie ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... Pedrarias, overcome by the arguments or importunity of the churchman, yielded a reluctant assent to the application, he took care to testify his displeasure with Pizarro, on whom he particularly charged the loss of his followers, by naming Almagro as his equal in command in the proposed expedition. This mortification sunk deep into Pizarro's ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... ministerial duties—Dr. Ker, foreseeing no doubt that there was a large and ample field in Glasgow for the exercise of his energy and talents, at last agreed to accept the call. His ultimate consent was given, we believe, mainly through the importunity of the Rev. Dr. Taylor, who has for many years been his most attached and intimate friend. Dr. Taylor went to Alnwick with the view of seeing and arranging personally with Dr. Ker; and it is a notable fact that although Dr. Ker had determined to treat the second call as he ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... the habit in the Indias persisted all the more in persuading their judge to hurry forward the legal proceedings and to urge on the acts of violence which he was executing against us; and in this importunity, and in the opposition which the said religious made to the letters and advices of the general and of the assistant in the Spanish provinces, was admirably displayed the obedience and respect that they have for their superior. At this juncture also arose disturbances made by ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... between the Jew and Antonio the merchant: we turned o'er many books together: he is furnished with my opinion: which, bettered with his own learning, the greatness whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him, at my importunity, to fill up your grace's request in my stead. I beseech you, let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation; for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... To be so chosen, I should indeed consider as a high and enviable honour; but I should think it no honour to be returned to Parliament by persons who, thinking me destitute of the requisite qualifications, had yet been wrought upon by cajolery and importunity to poll for me in despite of ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... field, although thou chase 755 The Trojans hence, yet less shall be thy praise. Then thus Achilles, matchless in the race. Phoenix, my guide, wise, noble and revered! I covet no such glory! the renown Ordain'd by Jove for me, is to resist 760 All importunity to quit my ships While I have power to move, or breath to draw. Hear now, and mark me well. Cease thou from tears. Confound me not, pleading with sighs and sobs In Agamemnon's cause; O love not him, 765 Lest I renounce thee, who am now thy friend. Assist ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... not to be slow and tardy in his giving, nor to seek everywhere for reasons to withhold his gift. He is not to give in a way calculated to spoil the recipient's enjoyment of the favor. Nor is he to delay until the gift loses its sweetness because of the importunity required to secure it; rather he should be ready and willing. Solomon says (Prov 3, 28): "Say not unto thy neighbor, Go, and come again, and to-morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee." "Bis dat qui cito dat." He gives doubly who gives quickly. Again, "Tarda ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... deepest-rooted in his life, it had never, for many minutes together, been his portion not to feel himself surrounded and committed, never quite been his refreshment to make out where the many-coloured human appeal, represented by gradations of tint, diminishing concentric zones of intensity, of importunity, really faded to the blessed impersonal whiteness for which his vision sometimes ached. It shaded off, the appeal—he would have admitted that; but he had as yet noted no point ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... cause in Controuersie, betweene the Iew and Anthonio the Merchant: We turn'd ore many Bookes together: hee is furnished with my opinion, which bettred with his owne learning, the greatnesse whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him at my importunity, to fill vp your Graces request in my sted. I beseech you, let his lacke of years be no impediment to let him lacke a reuerend estimation: for I neuer knewe so yong a body, with so old a head. I leaue him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his commendation. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... there any book available save the portuary, crookedly and contractedly written on vellum, so as to be illegible to anyone unfamiliar with writing, with Latin, or the service. However, the anchoret yielded to his importunity so far as to let him learn the alphabet, traced on the door in charcoal, and identify the more sacred words in the book—which, indeed, were all in ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their country, although their true and only motive for visiting their quarters was the expectation of obtaining rum, which is the great object of attraction to all of them. They had been annoyed during the greater part of this day by a tribe of ragged beggars, whose importunity was really disgusting. The men were in general old, flat-headed, and pot-bellied. The women skinny and flap-eared. To these garrulous ladies and gentlemen they were obliged to talk and laugh, shake hands, crack fingers, bend their bodies, bow their heads, and ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... never be granted him. If necessity has made him speak, you ought to know it, and at once to grant what he demands. But yielding to his tears is encouraging him to shed them: it teaches him to doubt your good will, and to believe that importunity has more influence over you than your ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... this, General Schomberg, who was in command of the auxiliaries furnished to Henry by Germany, urged by the importunity of his troops, ventured to ask for their pay, which was in ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... MR.NASMYTH—When I asked you to send me your book on the Moon, I had no idea of its bulk and value, and I feel ashamed of my importunity, yet more than half ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... make water as religiously as a virgin, shy to discover to his physician or any other whomsoever those parts that we are accustomed to conceal. I myself, who have so impudent a way of talking, am, nevertheless, naturally so modest this way, that unless at the importunity of necessity or pleasure, I scarcely ever communicate to the sight of any either those parts or actions that custom orders us to conceal, wherein I suffer more constraint than I conceive is very well becoming ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... to think all definite forms of being, the warm pressure of life, the cry of nature itself, no more than a troublesome irritation of the surface of the one absolute mind, a passing vexatious thought or uneasy dream there, at its height of petulant importunity in the eager, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... monarch, jealous, full of vanity, who gives that it may be restored to him again; who exacts continual signs of submission and respect; who desires, without ceasing, that men may reiterate their marks of respect for him; who wishes to be solicited; who bestows no grace unless it be accorded to importunity for the purpose of making it more valuable; and, above all, who allows himself to be appeased and propitiated by gifts from which his ministers ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... It was in this process of condensation that the self-sacrificing side of true genius was most convincingly shown. But, great as was the strain involved in this painful process, even greater was that imposed on a successful author by the cruel importunity of the interviewer on the eve of publication. Such methods were absolutely alien to his nature, but he had to set against his own convenience the immeasurable disappointment which his refusal would cause his readers. It was one of the most pathetic tragedies of genius that the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... desire to see Rodney sickened her with its importunity. Each time she beat it back, in an instant, to its burrow below the threshold, and it hid there, it ran underground. There were ways below the threshold by which desire could get at him. Therefore, one night—Tuesday of the fourth week—she cut him off. She refused to hold him even by a thread. ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... entirely creditable to seek public office by proper methods and with proper motives, and all applicants will be treated with consideration; but I shall need, and the heads of Departments will need, time for inquiry and deliberation. Persistent importunity will not, therefore, be the best support of an application for office. Heads of Departments, bureaus, and all other public officers having any duty connected therewith will be expected to enforce the civil-service law ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... concealed in a drop of water? Do they think they have invented what they see and that their lenses and microscopes make the law of nature? What did the first law-giver think when, seeking for the corner-stone in the social edifice, angered doubtless by some idle importunity, he struck the tables of brass and felt in his bowels the yearning for a law of retaliation? Did he, then, invent justice? And the first who plucked the fruit planted by his neighbor and who fled cowering under his mantle, did he invent shame? And he who, having overtaken that same thief who had ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... beyond the Athabasca Lake, which is the boundary of their peregrinations to the northward. Having been apprized of our coming, they had prepared an encampment for us; but we had witnessed too many proofs of their importunity to expect that we could pass the night near them in any comfort, whilst either spirits, tobacco, or sugar remained in our possession; and therefore preferred to go about two miles further along the ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... childish overflow of passion [for if I would succeed childish it is] I had played a master stroke, in which indeed I must own passion was for once my best ally. With most ardent importunity, I with great difficulty wrested a promise from her to be mine. These romancers, Fairfax, hold love promises to be binding and sacred. And this obtained I thought a fair ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... visitor was in sore distress admitted of no doubt, and the yeoman's natural humanity assisted the other's sad importunity and gentle voice. Swetman took him in, not without a suspicion that this man represented in some way Monmouth's cause, to which he was not unfriendly in his secret heart. At his earnest request the new-comer was given a suit of the yeoman's old clothes in exchange for his own, which, with ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... Lettice, wearied through his importunity, and hoping by compliance to rid herself from these solicitations, went to the Doctor's private chamber, where, having delivered her message through the thumb-hole of the latch—for on no account would he allow of personal intrusion—to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... hours, has no sooner opened his eyes than he is perfectly informed. Ideas recur to him with abrupt lucidity; the obliteration of intoxication, a sort of steam which has obscured the brain, is dissipated, and makes way for the clear and sharply outlined importunity ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and disturb my life a second time?' she harshly asked. 'Why did you pester me with your conscience, till I was driven to accept you to get rid of your importunity? Frances and I were doing well: the one desire of my life was that she should marry that good young man. And now the match is broken off by your cruel interference! Why did you show yourself in my world again, ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... happy if our feeble voice could be, if not counted, at least heard, among all those which, more imposing, more eloquent than ours, demand, with so just and so impatient an importunity, the complete, absolute adoption of the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... accustomed to flattery, to importunity, to the ordinary variety of masculine solicitation; to the revelation of genuine feeling, too, in its various modes of ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... himself to have an air of embarassment. With his eyes on the ground, he bowed several times, drew nearer, and at last, without looking up, addressed me in a low and hesitating voice, almost in the tone of a suppliant: "Will you, sir, excuse my importunity in venturing to intrude upon you in so unusual a manner? I have a request to make—would you most graciously be pleased to allow me—?" "Hold! for Heaven's sake!" I exclaimed; "what can I do for a man who—" I stopped in some confusion, which he seemed to ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... ever afterwards put him on his guard. This prince went on his knees to Sendivogius, and entreated him in the most pressing terms to satisfy his curiosity by converting some quicksilver into gold before him. Sendivogius, wearied by his importunity, consented, upon a promise of inviolable secrecy. After his departure, the Prince called a German alchymist, named Muhlenfels, who resided in his house, and told him all that had been done. Muhlenfels entreated that he might have a dozen mounted horsemen at his command, that he might instantly ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... obtain his cooeperation, with apparent cordiality, and gave his full consent to their preaching in all the dioceses. He told them that his letter from Mosul, forbidding preaching and schools, was written through the importunity of Mr. Rassam. He spent a month at Seir, where he had much friendly intercourse with the missionaries. He even invited Dr. Perkins to preach in his tent, and Messrs. Wright and Stoddard led in prayer, before and after the sermon, while the Patriarch himself pronounced the benediction at the close. ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... dinner, &c." Augusta Ada was born in London on the 10th of December, 1815. During the next months a few cynical mutterings are the only interruptions to an ominous silence; but these could be easily explained by the increasing embarrassment of the poet's affairs, and the importunity of creditors, who in the course of the last half-year had served seven or eight executions on his house and furniture. Their expectations were raised by exaggerated reports of his having married money; and by a curious ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... dress, and thus may be seen in the skull-cap, waist-coat, long white shirt and trousers which constitute his shop or business-attire, attended not infrequently by little miniatures of himself in similar garb. Reaching the Bunder he silences the importunity of the children by a liberal purchase of salted almonds and pistachios or grain fried in oil, and passes an hour or so in discussing with a friend the market-rate of grain, cotton, ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... He told me that the horse pleased him more than ever, he having examined his points with more accuracy than he had an opportunity of doing on the first occasion, concluding by pressing me to buy him. I begged him to desist from such foolish importunity, assuring him that I had never so much money in all my life as would enable me to purchase the horse. Whilst this discourse was going on, Mr. Petulengro and myself were standing together in the midst of the dingle. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... constantly on the watch. To be continually in a state of fear and strife was very trying. And Maslova was specially exposed to attacks, her appearance being attractive and her past known to every one. The decided resistance with which she now met the importunity of all the men seemed offensive to them, and awakened another feeling, that of ill-will towards her. But her position was made a little easier by her intimacy with Theodosia, and Theodosia's husband, who, having heard of the molestations his wife was subject to, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... for her sake so much, she said, but because they were in themselves sinful and beneath him. She sought to train him down too fine for the rugged metal of the veteran soldier, and the fabric snapped in her hands. She had sent him forth sore-hearted over her ceaseless importunity. She had told him he must not only give up all his ways, but, if he would make her happy, he must put the words of Ruth into his mouth, and that ended it. He transferred into another corps when she broke with him; carried his ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... pair, For ye are worthy; choosing rather far A dry but independent crust, hard-earned And eaten with a sigh, than to endure The rugged frowns and insolent rebuffs Of knaves in office, partial in their work Of distribution; liberal of their aid To clamorous importunity in rags, But ofttimes deaf to suppliants who would blush To wear a tattered garb however coarse, Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth; These ask with painful shyness, and, refused Because deserving, silently retire. But be ye of good courage! Time itself Shall ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... two years had elapsed since he first saw Lucie de Courcy, then residing in the north of England, whither she had accompanied a maternal aunt, the widow of an Englishman of rank and fortune. Madame Rossville, who was in a declining state of health, had yielded to the importunity of her husband's connexions, and left her native land for the summer months, hoping to receive benefit from change of scene and climate. She had no children, and Lucie, whom she adopted in infancy, was dear to her, as a daughter could have been. They resided at a short distance from ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... he held his peace, to wit whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not." It seems strange that he should have felt even a momentary hesitation upon the subject, but it exemplifies the frequent state of our minds respecting anticipated blessings. We seek them with an importunity which procures their communication, but, when actually bestowed, we scarcely believe them to be in our possession, and are too reluctant to recognize the divine bounty. But what has been sought with eagerness ought to be acknowledged ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... sent as many reenforcements as the dreadful importunity of his viceroy demanded. Fugitives, whom their country rejected, sought a new home on the ocean, and turned to the ships of their enemy to satisfy the cravings both of vengeance and of want. Naval heroes were now formed out of corsairs, and a marine collected ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... to exercise their utmost ingenuity to keep their children from starving. Abstinence, on the part of the elder members of the family, is regarded both as a duty and a merit. Every effort is made to satisfy the importunity of the little ones for food, and if there be a story-teller in the lodge, he is sure to draw upon his cabin lore, to amuse their minds, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... found myself at last believing her, pitying her more than I pitied the subject of her dreadful analysis. It was as if she had held her tongue for longer than she could bear, suffering more and more the importunity of the truth. It relieved her thus to drag that to the light, and still she kept up the high and most unholy sacrifice. "God in his mercy has let me see it in time, but his ways are strange that he has let me see it in my daughter. It's myself ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James
... strides of advance made in 1884-5 and 1890 have been as bold and large as those of earlier days were timid and halting; and the last expiring struggles of the old policy were seen in 1884, when Lord Derby, who belonged to the departing school, yielded a new convention to the importunity of the Transvaal Boers and allowed Germany to establish herself in Damaraland. But it is due to Britain, which has been accused, and so far as regards South Africa unjustly accused (down to 1896), of aggressive aims, to ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... therefore, to master the anxiety which might betray him into some overt importunity, he decided to devote the day to a persistent canvass of the possibilities offered ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... conquered reserve, thrust pride from me: I asked, I persevered, I remonstrated, I dunned. It is so that openings are forced into the guarded circle where Fortune sits dealing favours round. My perseverance made me known; my importunity made me remarked. I was inquired about; my former pupils' parents, gathering the reports of their children, heard me spoken of as talented, and they echoed the word: the sound, bandied about at random, came at last to ears which, but for its universality, it might never have reached; and at ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... fully convinced that judges and governors are, or ought to be, made of brass, so as that they may not feel the importunity of people of business, who expect to be heard and despatched at all hours and at all seasons, come what will, attending only to their own affairs; and if the poor devil of a judge does not hear and despatch them, either because it is not in his power, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... on till this very hour, was scarcely logical. The trouble lay not in the way, but in the will. The man had repented him of his promise. Things look differently as certainties in the morning from what they do as possibilities overnight. Fortunately he proved amenable to importunity, and finally consented to go. His fellow was much worried, and followed him distressfully to the outer threshold; whence in perturbation of spirit he watched us depart, calling out pathetically to his mate to be very careful of himself. ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... considerations, he yielded to the first importunity of the beldame, whom he dismissed at a very small distance from the village, after he had earnestly exhorted her to quit such an atrocious course of life, and atone for her past crimes, by sacrificing her associates to the demands of justice. She did not fail to vow a perfect reformation, and to ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... enthusiasm, devotion,—all are needed, and all will be tasked to the utmost. For the education of the people's children, everywhere the most pressing of common concerns, and the most perplexing in the transition from old to new ideas and methods—bears with especial weight and importunity upon the South. Its thinly-spread population, its still limited resources of finance, the presence of the two races with their separate and common needs,—all set a gigantic task to the South, and one that calls for sympathy and aid from the ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... opportunity of going away, and did not wish to stay. To shorten the story, the wine was of the strongest description, so that on drinking it a man would become a beast. She plied the young man with two or three cups in succession of that fiery liquor, and I also bitterly swallowed half a cupfull at the importunity of the youth; at last, the shameless harlot likewise got beastly drunk, and took very unbecoming liberties with that vile youth; and the mean wretch also, in his intoxication, having become regardless, began to be ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... your prize." He laughed as he pressed his knees against the flanks of his bay and trotted slowly away, while the Cypriotes gave Klea ample time to reach the second court, which was more brightly lighted even than the first, that they might there surround her with insolent importunity. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... this woman, and he was frightened. But he did not turn and fly, as she meant that he should. He had learned, young as he was, that if he were driven off by every rebuff, he would starve. It was only through importunity and perseverance that he lived. So he held his ground, his large, clear eyes fixed steadily on the woman's face as she advanced upon him. Something in those eyes and in the firmly-set mouth checked the woman's purpose if she had meant violence, but she thrust him ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... plainly, without meaning to undervalue Miss Mac-Ivor's admitted beauty and accomplishments, that I would not take the hand of an angel, with an empire for her dowry, if her consent were extorted by the importunity of friends and guardians, and did not flow from her own ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... rudely repulse these latter representations, as has been circulated. On the contrary, he listened to them with kindness, and was not uninfluenced by them. Enfeebled by illness, he had nearly brought himself to a compliance with a request urged with affectionate importunity, but from which his reason and sense of duty held him aloof. After long and deep and painful pondering, when the hour arrived, he rose from his bed of sickness, walked into the House of Commons, and not only voted, but spoke in favour of his convictions. His speech remains, ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... long, was curious and interesting, forming a sort of open bazar, where every establishment in the place had a representative and samples of its goods. All tourists are presumed to have come to purchase, and importunity is a part of the natives' business. Photographs, models of the Taj, precious stones, sandal-wood boxes, mosaics, and swords, the variety is infinite, the patience of the dealers equally inexhaustible. Nothing but absolute force could drive them away, and no ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... to receive every indulgence in our trade, that is allowed to the most favored nations. Feeling ourselves assisted in other respects, cordially and essentially, we are the more readily induced to let them take their own time, and to avoid making ourselves troublesome by an unreasonable importunity. The interest of France and Spain, however, in securing our friendship and commerce, seems daily more and more generally understood here, and we have no doubt of finally obtaining the establishment of that commerce with all ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... could devise, to intimate that there was no danger, and that he would return presently; and having succeeded in extricating his cloak from her grasp, and in passing her on the stair, he began to descend the steps as speedily as he could, in order to avoid farther importunity. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... of obtaining that knowledge of himself which is Understanding, Wisdom, Power. In this direction, as in no other, is the law absolute that "He that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened;" for only by patience, practice, and ceaseless importunity can a man enter the Door of the Temple ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... time of payment approached, and I ventured to represent my case to Lord Rochford. I begged to be credited for this sum till I received it of my subscribers, which I believe will be within one month: but to this letter I had no reply, and I have probably offended by my importunity. Having used every honest means in vain, I yesterday confessed my inability, and obtained with much entreaty and as the greatest favour a week's forbearance, when I am positively told that I must, pay the money or ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... into a slight laugh: her friend's importunity was beginning to strike her as irrelevant. "I'm sorry I have been negligent about the Brys——" ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... strengthens and purifies the affections, enlarges the imagination, and adds spirit to sense, is useful. But a narrower meaning may be assigned to the word utility, confining it to express that which banishes the importunity of the wants of our animal nature, the surrounding men with security of life, the dispersing the grosser delusions of superstition, and the conciliating such a degree of mutual forbearance among men as may consist with the ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... refused with disdain, saying that they cared for nothing written in the language of the Busne or Gentiles. They then persisted in their demand, to which I at last yielded, being unable to resist their importunity; whereupon they accompanied me to the inn, and received what ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... else could do, and he fell asleep again; but Mr. Lipscombe declared it was of no use to remain— nothing but madness; and they could not gainsay him. He left the two clergymen together, feeling himself to have done a very valiant and useless thing in the interests of justice, or at the importunity of ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the time alone; I entreating them to yield their hearts unto God, they in listening to the words of their mother as though they felt and understood their import. I begged them not to be wearied with my importunity, and wearied they had been had they not cared for the things belonging to their everlasting peace. I knew not how to part with them that night until they should yield themselves, body, soul and spirit, to Whom they had been invited often to go." After this, Joseph's disease rapidly ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... continued Sir Henry, "yet upon his importunity I offered it to his view very secretly, still holding it in my hand. He beheld it with passion and admiration, saying that I was in the right." "I give in," said the king, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... be my undoing, one of these days; I yielded to her importunity and gave it to her before I had used it myself, Metro dear, but to her it was a godsend—, now she takes it and gives it to some one who ought not to have it. I bid a long farewell to such a friend as she; let her look out for another friend instead of me. As for Nossis, Adrasteia forgive ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... everywhere active, and, after the fences were as well secured as time would allow, he ordered the tools taken to Bunker Hill for the establishment of a second line on higher ground, in case the first could not be maintained. His importunity with General Ward had secured the detail of the whole of Reed's, as well as the balance of Stark's, regiment, so that the entire left was protected by New Hampshire troops. With all their energy they were able to gather from the shore only stone enough ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... denied themselves the orthodox anaesthetic of the confessional, these peoples have been obliged to take to the sea as a means of preventing their consciences from harrying them. Driven forth across the waves by the clamorous importunity of the voice within, they, of very necessity, acquire a certain skill in the management of boats, a skill which sooner or later leads to the burdensome possession of a navy and so to maritime importance. It is interesting ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... reason and all good gifts, needs not that we should remind him of anything; therefore to ask him to give us the thing we desire is to make him like ourselves, and charge him with an oversight; or worse, we attribute weakness and irresolution to him, since the petitioner thinks my importunity to incline ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... suffered myself to be overcome by the importunity of this lady, your friend, and am content you shall enjoy your own proper estate during life, on condition you oblige yourself never to marry, under such ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... order on some of his agents and will send after thee to say to them, "Give him nothing." So as often as thou shalt go to seek the money, they will say, "We will pay thee presently," and so they will put thee off day after day, for all thy high spirit, till at last, when they are tired of thine importunity, they will say, "Show us the bill." Then, as soon as they get hold of it, they will tear it up, and so thou wilt lose the girl's price.' When Noureddin heard this, he looked at the broker and said to him, 'What is to be ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... Mr. and Madame Sagittarius to their fate, thankful, indeed, to be rid for a moment of their prophetic importunity. ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... rejection from her without an appeal to your interest, I will tell you plainly, without meaning to undervalue Miss Mac-Ivor's admitted beauty and accomplishments, that I would not take the hand of an angel, with an empire for her dowry, if her consent were extorted by the importunity of friends and guardians, and did not flow ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... council engaged him to present an humble petition in their behalf.[22] Winslow was a shrewd diplomat, but was so far from succeeding with his suit that upon his appearance before the lords commissioners in 1635 he was, through Laud's "vehement importunity," committed to Fleet Prison, where he lay ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... oracle—he refused it, and exclaimed joyously:—'Now then, noble priestess, farewell; I have the oracle—I have your answer, and better than any which you could deliver from the tripod. I am invincible—so you have declared, you cannot revoke it. True, you thought not of Persia—you thought only of my importunity. But that very fact is what ratifies your answer. In its blindness I recognise its truth. An oracle from a god might be distorted by political ministers of the god, as in time past too often has been suspected. The oracle has been said to ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... seriousness, and even consternation, which I had never before beheld in him. The steps with which he measured the floor betokened the trouble of his thoughts. My inquiries were suspended by the hope that he would give me the information that I wanted without the importunity of questions. I waited some time, but the confusion of his thoughts appeared in no degree to abate. At length I mentioned the apprehensions which their unusual absence had occasioned, and which were increased by their behaviour ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... without stopping from the north arrived at the royal quarters and demanded immediate admittance to the king. Henry had retired to rest, and his servants would not at first allow him to be disturbed, but the messenger insisted: his news was good, and the king must know it at once. At last his importunity prevailed, and at the king's bedside he told him that he had come from Ranulf Glanvill, his sheriff of Lancashire, and that the king of Scotland had been overcome and taken prisoner. The news was confirmed by other messengers ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... more years than themselves. They did not love to deny, ... not out of bounty or generosity, which was a flower that did never grow naturally in the heart of either family—that of Stuart or the other of Bourbon—and when they prevailed with themselves to make some pause rather than to deny, importunity removed all resolution." [Continuation of Life, p. ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... and rose. The reality of the cry in its tenuous, piercing importunity, grew as his mind cleared. He could not believe but that he had heard it, that she might not be somewhere near calling to him in distress. He opened the door and looked into the hall—not a sound. At the foot of the stairs the light from his mother's room fell across the darkness ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... Caesar is uneasy at the omens and portents, and gives heed to Calpurnia's entreaties to remain at home, but he yields to the importunity of Decius and starts for the Capitol, thus advancing the plans of the conspirators. The dramatic contrast between Caesar and Brutus is strengthened by that between Calpurnia in this scene and Portia ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... became impatient to be put on shore. It was in vain that I exhorted them to persevere; they would not listen to argument, and expressed their wish rather to meet with immediate death on shore, than to be starved to death in the boats. Yielding to their importunity, I at length determined to land them on the north-west extremity of the island of Ceram, from whence they might travel to Amboyna in two or three days. Being off that part of the island on the ninth of June, Mr. Robson volunteered to land a portion of the people in the ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... closer, and at length, in a tone scarcely articulate, and suffocated with emotion, he spoke:—"Excellent but fatally-obstinate youth! Know at least the cause of my importunity. Know at least the depth of my infatuation and the enormity of ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... instead of letting our Hearts Rise against one another, our Prayers might Rise unto an high pitch of Importunity, for such a Rising of the Lord! Especially, Let them that are Suffering by Witchcraft, be sure to stay and pray, and Beseech the Lord thrice, even as much as ever they can, before they complain of any Neighbour for afflicting them. Let them also that are accused ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... fancy that her ladyship was tired of her task before it was completed. The party was to take place on Wednesday, the 27th of July, and before the day had come, men and women had become so hardy in the combat that personal applications were made with unflinching importunity; and letters were written to Lady Glencora putting forward this claim and that claim with a piteous clamour. "No, that is too bad," Lady Glencora said to her particular friend, Mrs. Grey, when a letter came from Mrs. Bonteen, stating all that her husband ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... departure of the troops by land—the only point then left in dispute. Don John, still clinging to his secret scheme, with which the sea voyage of the troops was so closely connected, refused to concede. He reproached the envoys, on the contrary, with their importunity in making a fresh demand, just as he had conceded the Ghent treaty, upon his entire responsibility and without instructions. Mentally resolving that this point should still be wrung from the Governor, but not suspecting ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... out by his captive's importunity, the knight, coming close up to the bridle-rein of the Lady Augusta, said ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... have been at, to take his business out of our hands and give it to somebody else. It is impossible to collect money on that or any other claim here now; and although you know I am not a very petulant man, I declare I am almost out of patience with Mr. Everett's importunity. It seems like he not only writes all the letters he can himself, but gets everybody else in Louisville and vicinity to be constantly writing to us about his claim. I have always said that Mr. Everett is ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... blocked tip the ante-chambers of the regent, praying for mercy on the misguided youth, and alleging that he was insane. The regent avoided them as long as possible, being determined that, in a case so atrocious, justice should take its course. But the importunity of these influential suitors was not to be overcome so silently; and they at last forced themselves into the presence of the regent, and prayed him to save their house the shame of a public execution. They hinted that the Princes d'Horn were allied to the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... travelled over mountains and by bad roads till he arrived at Xaragua, in the west of Hispaniola, where the governor then was, who seemed rejoiced to see him, though he afterwards was extremely tedious in dispatching him, owing to the reasons already mentioned. After much importunity Mendez obtained permission to go to St Domingo, where he bought and fitted out a vessel from the private funds of the admiral, which was sent to Jamaica at the latter end of May 1504, and sailed thence for Spain by the admirals direction, to give their Catholic ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... between us that you need never intercede with me in favor of that scoundrel Charles. I won't have it. You wouldn't succeed, of course, but if I ever happen to get fond of you—I mean foolishly fond of you, of course—your importunity might be annoying. When you are once my wife, however, and keeping your own carriage, I confidently expect that you will behave as other people do in that station of life, and show no weakness in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... and devotion of one who, by God's help, would never forsake her. And then the tender matron, as beautiful in her Autumn, and as pure as virgins in their spring, with blushes of love and "eyes of meek surrender," yielded to my respectful importunity, and consented to share my home. Let the last words I write thank her, and bless ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... impulsive gentleman, seated on his high horse, was in urgent need of being saved from himself. Hitherto Japhet's importunity and the attacks of less conscientious opponents had had the natural effect of rousing his supporters to greater enthusiasm and greater zeal. When his fresh step began to be understood, when Lady Mildmay came with him no more, ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... trivial, everyday occurrence, as a means of obtaining that knowledge of himself which is Understanding, Wisdom, Power. In this direction, as in no other, is the law absolute that "He that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened;" for only by patience, practice, and ceaseless importunity can a man enter the Door of the Temple ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... knife to a German monastery by a benevolent abbot was deemed a most illustrious act. About the same time a noble pilgrim succeeded, after great importunity and a lavish outlay of money, in obtaining trifling particles of the relics of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which he enclosed in a priceless box and donated to the monastery of St. Gall. This gift was considered the greatest event of the year, but when it is considered that this ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... was waiting for some moment, or some event, to make revelation of himself. Since Joseph's appearance, it had become more noticeable than ever that Snowdon suffered from some agitation of the mind; Sidney had met his eyes fixed upon him in a painful interrogation, and seemed to discern the importunity of a desire that was refused utterance. His own condition was affected by sympathy with this restlessness, and he could not overcome the feeling that some decisive change was at hand for him. Though nothing positive justified the idea, he began to connect this anticipation ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... the girl at once. There was a violent scene between us, which was typical of all our subsequent altercations. I had obviously gone too far in treating a woman who was not passionately in love with me, as if I had a real right over her; for, after all, she had merely yielded to my importunity, and in no way belonged to me. To add to my perplexity, Minna only needed to remind me that from a worldly point of view she had refused very good offers in order to give way to the impetuosity of a penniless young man, whose talent ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... impossible to avoid them, and in spite of all my efforts I do not believe I ever made this little excursion alone with impunity. I arrived at Eaubonne, weak, exhausted, and scarcely able to support myself. The moment I saw her everything was repaired; all I felt in her presence was the importunity of an inexhaustible and useless ardor. Upon the road to Raubonne there was a pleasant terrace called Mont Olympe, at which we sometimes met. I arrived first, it was proper I should wait for her; but how dear this waiting cost me! To divert my attention, I endeavored to write ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... against love forever. The unjust judge in the gospels rises up at length to give a just decision because justice comes daily knocking at his door: and at night time the friend, in whose heart there is no real friendship, yields at length to his friend "because of his importunity." There is no prison in any world into which love cannot force an entrance. If you did not understand that, you did not understand anything about ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... earnest importunity, has just given me leave to write, and to receive your letters—but fastened this condition upon the concession, that your's must be under cover to Mr. Hickman, [this is a view, I suppose, to give him consideration with me]; and upon this further consideration, that she is to see all we ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... and thought justifiable enough. But to come to my Beagle again. I have heard no more of him, though I have seen him since; we meet at Wrest again. I do not doubt but I shall be better able to resist his importunity than his tutor was; but what do you think it is that gives him his encouragement? He was told I had thought of marrying a gentleman that had not above two hundred pound a year, only out of my liking to his person. And upon ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... it is giving a hearing. It is not only speaking to God; it is listening to God. And as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are the words we hear greater than the words we speak. Let us not forget this. Let us not pauperize ourselves by our very importunity. Maybe we are vociferous when God is but waiting for a silence to fall in His earthly temples that He may have speech with His children. We talk about 'prevailing prayer,' and there is a great truth ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... base of embankments, looped itself around stations, flickered on the skyline above us, raced us along the levels, dipped into pools, shot up again on their farther banks, chivvied us into tunnels, ran round and waited for us as we emerged. Its importunity drove me to the other side of the carriage, only to find another quickset hedge behaving similarly. Now I can understand that a railway company has excellent reasons for planting quickset hedges alongside ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of human life is doing the business of the creation; and which way is that to be compassed very easily? Most certainly by the practice of general kindness, by rejecting the importunity of our senses, by distinguishing truth from falsehood, and by contemplating the works of ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe
... "Talbot, here have been half a dozen of the most respectable gentlemen and best friends to government north of the Forth, Major Melville of Cairnvreckan, Rubrick of Duchran, and others, who have fairly wrung from me, by their downright importunity, a present protection and the promise of a future pardon for that stubborn old rebel whom they call Baron of Bradwardine. They allege that his high personal character, and the clemency which he showed to such of our people as fell into the rebels' hands, should weigh in his favour, especially ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... before the king, who protests that his whole heart is in her preservation, and that any harm done by his officers to our tenants has been done against his will. He says too, and with tears in his eyes regrets, that the importunity of his soldiers has forced him to lay burdens on the Church. Nor is it his Majesty's intention to compel our weary priests to give up the care of souls. His excuse for exacting tribute from the churches to aid the kingdom is that he undertook the war as much for ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... into a bag and left the house. She had decided to go to Mrs. Earle's lodgings where she would be certain to find shelter and sympathy. Were she to go to her aunt's she would be exposed to importunity on her husband's behalf from Mrs. Farley, who was partial to Lewis. Her mind was entirely made up that there could be no question of reconciliation. Her duty was plain; and she would be doing herself an injustice were she to continue to live with one so weak and regardless of ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... and its editor would make any repetition of my visit very distasteful to you. I was conscious of nothing in my literary life that could justly offend you—and at this day I can say the same—but I shrank from the appearance of importunity, and for some months I was deeply distressed by the fear that what I most desired in life had become unattainable. My means were very slight; I had no choice but to take such work as offered, and mere chance had put me into a ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... reforming the Church, or beating the Turk, or parcelling the empire into circles, or, maybe, of a new touch-hole for a cannon—nay, of a flower-garden, or of walking into a lion's den. He just says, 'Yea, well,' to be rid of the importunity, and all is over with my poor little maiden. Hare- brained and bewildered with schemes has he been as Romish King—how will it be with him as Kaisar? It is but of his wonted madness that he is here at all, when his Austrian states must be ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... likewise: the time of payment approached, and I ventured to represent my case to Lord Rochford. I begged to be credited for this sum till I received it of my subscribers, which I believe will be within one month: but to this letter I had no reply, and I have probably offended by my importunity. Having used every honest means in vain, I yesterday confessed my inability, and obtained with much entreaty and as the greatest favour a week's forbearance, when I am positively told that I must, pay the money or prepare ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... Sir James Graham's oldest daughter had expressed herself very favourably respecting her kinsman's pretensions to her hand, should he presume so high! However, his heart was not in the match, and he had made this visit to his father's intimate friend, in order to avoid all importunity on a subject which was irksome to him. It is useless to mince the matter. Helen, in spite of her father's remonstrances and representations, was deeply and irrecoverably in love with the gallant Graham, and he, in his turn, was ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... gives that it may be restored to him again; who exacts continual signs of submission and respect; who desires, without ceasing, that men may reiterate their marks of respect for him; who wishes to be solicited; who bestows no grace unless it be accorded to importunity for the purpose of making it more valuable; and, above all, who allows himself to be appeased and propitiated by gifts from which his ministers derive the ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... of this constant intercourse with Eugenia may easily be anticipated. I do not attempt to extenuate my fault—it was inexcusable, and has brought its punishment; but for poor, forlorn Eugenia I plead; her virtue fell before my importunity and my personal appearance. She fell a victim to those unhappy circumstances of which I basely ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... complying with his desire. Two days after this, I was very much surprised at perceiving such a melancholy in his countenance, and alteration in his behavior, as I could no way account for; but, by importunity, at last I got from him that cardinal Wolsey, for what reason he knew not, had peremptorily forbid him to think any more of me: and, when he urged that his father was not displeased with it, the cardinal, in his imperious manner, answered him, he should give his father such convincing ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... asserting his innocence, though he admitted he had made the above-mentioned confession; which he however endeavoured to account for, by protesting that he was forced into it by the continued importunity she used: who vowed, that, as she was sure of his guilt, she would never leave tormenting him till he had owned it; and faithfully promised, that, in such case, she would never mention it to him more. Hence, he said, he had been induced falsely to confess himself guilty, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... he could not be dissuaded, my father gave a reluctant consent; and let me here record an instance of generous kindness on the part of the bishop. He went to London, and by dint of personal, persevering importunity, obtained in a few days a commission in the army, at a time when seven hundred applicants, many of them backed by strong interest, were waiting for the same boon. The suddenness of the thing was quite stunning; we calculated on a delay of this sore trial; but it was done, and he ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... needy man came to his friend's house and asked for three loaves. And He says that he sleepily replied to him: "I am resting, and my children are with me asleep." But he persevered in his request, and wrung from him by his importunity what his deserts could not get. But God wishes to give; yet only to those who ask—lest He should give to those who understand not. He does not wish to be stirred up by your weariness! For when you pray you are not being ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... proper methods and with proper motives, and all applicants will be treated with consideration; but I shall need, and the heads of Departments will need, time for inquiry and deliberation. Persistent importunity will not, therefore, be the best support of an application for office. Heads of Departments, bureaus, and all other public officers having any duty connected therewith will be expected to enforce the civil-service law fully and without ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... possess. "You cannot," he observes, "be certain that the names on a subscription list have been put down by sufficient authority; or, should that be ascertained, it still remains to be known whether they were not extorted by some over-zealous friend's importunity; whether the subscriber had not yielded his name merely from want of courage to say no! and with the intention of dropping the work as soon as possible." Thus out of a hundred patrons who had been obtained for the Friend by an energetic canvasser, "ninety threw up the publication ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... to write miscellaneously for reviews and other periodical publications, but without making any decided hit, to use a technical term. Indeed, as yet he appeared destitute of the strong excitement of literary ambition, and wrote only on the spur of necessity and at the urgent importunity of his bookseller. His indolent and truant disposition, ever averse from labor and delighting in holiday, had to be scourged up to its task; still it was this very truant disposition which threw an unconscious ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... the building from garret to cellar, searching each corner, ferreting through every old box and trunk and barrel, groping about on the top shelves of closets, peering into rag-bags, exasperating the lodgers with her persistence and importunity. She was collecting junks, bits of iron, stone jugs, glass bottles, old sacks, and cast-off garments. It was one of her perquisites. She sold the junk to Zerkow, the rags-bottles-sacks man, who lived in a filthy den in the alley just back of the flat, and who sometimes paid her as much as ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... flick of a page argued his awful attention to the recital of crime: then the keen grey eyes slid back to the glowing coals, and the longhand went by the board. It was evident that there was some extraneous matter soliciting his lordship's regard, and in some sort gaining the same because of its importunity. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... through his importunity, and hoping by compliance to rid herself from these solicitations, went to the Doctor's private chamber, where, having delivered her message through the thumb-hole of the latch—for on no account would he allow of personal intrusion—to her great surprise, he bade ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... no school, and as there is a possibility I shall soon leave the city for an extended season, I have been unable to devise any other means of declaring myself before the time for my departure. Pray pardon me for the abruptness and importunity of my declaration, pray forgive me for the unusual way which I have taken to secure an interview alone with you. But if you only knew the ardor of my love, my impatience—oh, would that our union could ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... lo! Ascalaphus, son of Acheron and Gorgyra, discovered that he saw Proserpine, as she walked in the garden of Pluto, eat some grains of a pomegranate, upon which her departure was stopped. At last, by the repeated importunity of her mother to Jupiter, she extorted as a favor, in mitigation of her grief, that Proserpine should live half the year in heaven, and the ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... process of dunning a man across half the globe, the hopelessness of appeals that took two months to come to hand, and the inefficacy of threats that were wafted over miles of ocean! And certainly he smiled as he thought of these, and rather maliciously bethought him of the truculent importunity that menaced him with some form of publicity in the more insolent appeal to some Minister at home. 'Our tailor will moderate his language, our jeweller will appreciate the merits of polite letter-writing,' thought he. 'A few parallels of ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... on the neighboring mountains, and the storm had given fair warning of its approach. Miss Garland stood there very pale, saying nothing, but looking at him. He expected that she would check her cousin's importunity. "Could you find him?" she suddenly asked. "Would it ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... intimated that Mr. Geraldin Neville was not my father. The convent was burned by the enemy, and several nuns perished, among others this woman. I wrote to Mr. Neville, and on my return implored him to complete the disclosure. He refused, and, on my importunity, indignantly upbraided me with the favours he had already conferred. We parted in mutual displeasure. I renounced the name of Neville, and assumed that of Lovel. It was at this time, when residing with a friend ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... word with his mother. He would tell neither her nor his sister anything about the child. They knew his temper and disposition, and gradually resigned an importunity which had the effect of making him more obstinate. At night, when the child's clothes were taken off, with a view to putting it to bed, Geordie got hold of them and carried them off, unknown to his ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... desire peace. On the other hand the Indians, seeing also that it was time to plant maize, were not less solicitous for peace, so that after some negotiation, peace was concluded in May Ao. 1643 [more] in consequence of the importunity of some than because it was generally expected that it would ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... us marry? Why do I marry? It is a function craving fulfilment. If you do not marry betimes from choice, you will be driven to do so later on by the importunity of your suitors and of your family, and by weariness of the suspense that precedes a definite settlement of oneself. Marry generously. Do not throw yourself away or sell yourself; give yourself away. Erskine has as much at stake as you; and yet ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... because of her father's opposition. Dependent thereafter for years on the generous kindness of unrelated friends, he yet for conscience' sake refused to take orders when a good living was offered him; and it was only after prolonged thought that he yielded to the importunity of King James, who was so convinced of his surpassing fitness for the church that he would speed him towards no other goal. When at length he dared hope that God might have called him to the high office, never man gave himself to its duties ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... because he wished to be on the spot for legal consultation as to the arrangements of his will, the transference of mortgages, and that transaction with his uncle about the succession to Diplow, which the bait of ready money, adroitly dangled without importunity, had finally won him to agree upon. But another acceptable accompaniment of his being in town was the presentation of himself with the beautiful bride whom he had chosen to marry in spite of what other people might have expected of him. It is true that Grandcourt went ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Balthasar: I acquainted him with the cause in Controuersie, betweene the Iew and Anthonio the Merchant: We turn'd ore many Bookes together: hee is furnished with my opinion, which bettred with his owne learning, the greatnesse whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him at my importunity, to fill vp your Graces request in my sted. I beseech you, let his lacke of years be no impediment to let him lacke a reuerend estimation: for I neuer knewe so yong a body, with so old a head. I leaue him to your gracious acceptance, whose ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... among whom are found many who, by their frequent intercourse with the English, have acquired a smattering of our language; but they are commonly very noisy, and very troublesome; begging for every thing they fancy with such earnestness and importunity, that traders, in order to get quit of them, are frequently obliged to grant ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... talking to an English gentleman on particular business at a ferry slip in Dublin, waiting for the boat. A boy, also waiting for it, several times came up to shew some books he had for sale, and really annoyed my friend by importunity, who suddenly turned round and exclaimed, "Get away, you scamp, or I shall give you a kick that will send you across the river." In an instant the reply came—"Whi-thin thank yur hanur fur thit same—fur 'twill ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... which these precious "folia Sibyllae" of Gray's lie interred; they would no doubt be found among other Sibylline leaves of Mason, in two large boxes, which he left to the care of his executors. These gentlemen, as I am informed, are so extremely careful of them, as to have intrepidly resisted the importunity of some lovers of literature, whose curiosity has been aroused by the secreted treasures. It is a misfortune which has frequently attended this sort of bequests of literary men, that they have left their manuscripts, like ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... minister by the repetition of satirical stanzas, which contrasted Alfonso's years with the youthful graces of Ferdinand. [49] Notwithstanding this popular expression of opinion, however, the constancy of Isabella might at length have yielded to the importunity of her persecutors, had she not been encouraged by her friend, the archbishop of Toledo, who had warmly entered into the interests of Aragon, and who promised, should matters come to extremity, to march in person to her relief ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... frightened at the terrible face and threatening words of this woman, and he was frightened. But he did not turn and fly, as she meant that he should. He had learned, young as he was, that if he were driven off by every rebuff, he would starve. It was only through importunity and perseverance that he lived. So he held his ground, his large, clear eyes fixed steadily on the woman's face as she advanced upon him. Something in those eyes and in the firmly-set mouth checked the woman's purpose if she had meant violence, but she thrust ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... indulged in her infancy, that by the time she arrived at her sixth year, every one disliked her. She was proud and ill-tempered, she wanted whatever she saw, and when any thing was refused her, she immediately began crying and teazing her mamma for it, who being at last quite tired of her importunity, generally gave up the point, and Fanny obtained what she wished for. Now, though the mamma certainly intended to be very kind to her child, yet I think she did wrong in this respect, because children should never have what ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... the rest of his family, none of whom had made their military service a passport to the honors and emoluments of civil stations, he was averse to relinquish the attitude he occupied to enter on a party struggle. The importunity of friends prevailed; and he was elected to two successive terms in Congress, absolutely refusing to be a candidate a third time. He spoke seldom in Congress, but in two or three fine speeches which ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... heavily together, till great branches broke off. The Kaffers, as they slept in their straw huts, whispered one to another that before morning there would not be an armful of thatch left on the roofs; and the beams of the wagon-house creaked and groaned as if it were heavy work to resist the importunity of ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... hours before this, General Schomberg, who was in command of the auxiliaries furnished to Henry by Germany, urged by the importunity of his troops, ventured to ask for their pay, which was ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... you influence it for yourself. But it is useless to discuss the question. I am, as you say, at a disadvantage. These little instruments of correction, these gentle aids to the power and honor of families, these slight favors that might so incommode you, are only to be obtained now by interest and importunity. They are sought by so many, and they are granted (comparatively) to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... great that I began to feel ill, and had to be carried out. Out in the square I was sick and had to be taken home. Unfortunately for me, that was precisely what happened the second time, when, in response to my importunity, another try was made. My excitement, my delight, my attention to the unintelligible were too overwhelming. I nearly fainted, and at the close of the first act had to leave the theatre. After that, it was a very long time before I was regarded as old enough ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... not my Husband, Sister, 'twas my fault, I strove 'gainst Reason to oppose his Will. Had I forborn my importunity, 'Tis ten to one he had not been so wilful; Husband's prerogatives are absolute, Their wills we ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... first saw Lucie de Courcy, then residing in the north of England, whither she had accompanied a maternal aunt, the widow of an Englishman of rank and fortune. Madame Rossville, who was in a declining state of health, had yielded to the importunity of her husband's connexions, and left her native land for the summer months, hoping to receive benefit from change of scene and climate. She had no children, and Lucie, whom she adopted in infancy, was dear to her, as a daughter could have been. They resided at a short distance from ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... mothers it is more valued in their children than in their own persons. I rejoice with you over our restored J——y. O that our covenant God may give the more important blessing of divine life. You had need to be importunate for this, after the importunity exercised for natural life. I thank God also for the alleviation of your own distress, for our dear D——'s restoration from complaints less alarming so far as they existed, but which might have been the seeds ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... in Cronshaw's attitude, and you disturb it by your importunity. You should make allowances for the delicate imaginings which you ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... is scarce worth notice, save that Iniquity with his wooden dagger has a leading part in the action. He, together with Importunity and Partiality, has several contests with Equity, Charity, and Constancy: for a while he has the better of them; but at last they catch him alone, each in turn threatens him with sore visitings, and then follows the direction, "Here somebody ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... same either, for mine was far simpler than yours. But I considered neither his happiness nor my own, simply because I lost sight of the years and years to come, in the momentary joy I found in his—his importunity. He was very big and strong and cheerful, like Stephen, Barbara, and I was sure he would not grudge me my last moment of girl-vanity, when I ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... through the orchards to the Ras-el-Ain (Promontory of the Fountain), on the side of Mount Gerizim. A multitude of beggars sat at the city gate; and, as they continued to clamor after I had given sufficient alms, I paid them with "Allah deelek!"—(God give it to you!)—the Moslem's reply to such importunity—and they ceased in an instant. This exclamation, it seems, takes away from them the power of ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... Rhine below rises the lament of the Rhine-daughters, begging that their gold may be given back to them. Wotan pauses with his foot on the bridge: "What wail is that?" Loge enlightens him, and, at Wotan's annoyed, "Accursed nixies! Stop their importunity!" calls down to them, "You, down there in the water, what are you complaining about? Hear what Wotan bids: No longer having the gold to shine for you, make yourselves happy basking in the sunshine of this new pomp of the gods!" Loud laughter ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... fastidiousness, conquered reserve, thrust pride from me: I asked, I persevered, I remonstrated, I dunned. It is so that openings are forced into the guarded circle where Fortune sits dealing favours round. My perseverance made me known; my importunity made me remarked. I was inquired about; my former pupils' parents, gathering the reports of their children, heard me spoken of as talented, and they echoed the word: the sound, bandied about at random, came at last to ears which, but for its universality, it might never ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... divulge his plot except with his arms about her and his lips at her cheeks. That would not have been easy telling, but it was all too easy imagining for Davidge. He was thrown into an utter wretchedness by the vision he had of her surrender to the opportunity and to the undoubted importunity of her companion. He had a morbid desire to make her confess, and confessors have ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... on which the young soldier, doubly solicitous on his kinswoman's account, to avoid mistake, was not so easily satisfied: seeing which, the Kentuckian yielded to his importunity,—perhaps somewhat ashamed of suffering his guests to depart entirely alone,—and began to cast about him for some suitable person who could be prevailed upon to exchange the privilege of fighting Indians for the inglorious duty of conducting wayfarers through the forest. This was no easy ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... subject of my last letter," says Dr. Henry Power, then a student, writing to Browne in 1648, the last year of Charles the First, "being so high and noble a piece of chemistry, invites me once more to request an experimental eviction of it from yourself; and I hope you will not chide my importunity in this petition, or be angry at my so frequent knockings at your door to obtain a grant of so great and admirable a [152] mystery." What the enthusiastic young student expected from Browne, so high and noble a piece ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... or petulance repressed, A selfish inclination firmly fought, A shadow of annoyance set at naught, A measure of disquietude suppressed, A peace in importunity possessed, A reconcilement generously sought, A purpose put aside, a banished thought, A word of self-explaining unexpressed,— Trifles they seem, these petty soul-restraints; Yet he who proves them so must needs possess A constancy ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... were to see him, he might, upon my importunity, tell me all he knows concerning the affair and those connected with it if he knows anything more than he has already told," said Dorothy, by a great effort suppressing her eagerness. "I am sure, your Majesty, he would tell me all Should he tell me the names of any persons connected with any ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... unable to give us any information respecting the country beyond the Athabasca Lake, which is the boundary of their peregrinations to the northward. Having been apprized of our coming, they had prepared an encampment for us; but we had witnessed too many proofs of their importunity to expect that we could pass the night near them in any comfort, whilst either spirits, tobacco, or sugar remained in our possession; and therefore preferred to go about two miles further along the river, and to encamp among a cluster of fine pine-trees, after ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... lay down to sleep on a cold bank beside the gate, determining to enter early in the morning. It was long before he slept, but at last weary nature demanded her privilege with importunity, and gentle sleep floated over him like a dark dewy cloud, and the sun was high in heaven ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... could not restrain her from covering me with crosses, said to me, "What that child does appears to be significant." Turning to the little girl, she said, "Give me some crosses, too, my pretty pet." "No," she replied, "they are all for my dear mother." Soon she gave her one to stop her importunity, then continued putting more on me; after which she desired some river-flowers, which floated on the water, to be given her. Braiding a garland she put it on my head, and said to me, "After the cross you shall be crowned." I admired ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... "If without importunity a licence can be procured for me to go on mule-back, I will try to leave for the Court after January, and I will even go without this licence. But haste must be made that the loss of the Indies, which ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... reveal the events of the evening. But, alas! the secret came out on the following day, for before twelve o'clock had struck, a peasant came knocking at the door, howling, crying, bawling like a blind beggar, and demanding who had killed his ass. His importunity succeeded; the murderer was brought to light, the banker cheerfully paid for his shot, and laughed heartily at the adventure; but in spite of his apparent philosophy, I remarked that from that moment he never met an ass that he did ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... impatience seems often as though it would extort an answer to its further curiosity from the inanimate pillar or post to which the placard is affixed: it may be supposed how much more liable to such importunity is the bearer of a placard that happens to be no stone pillar but a living man. Bertram was pressed upon from all sides for his narrative of the catastrophe, which he gave in substance as the reader has already heard it. Of Nicholas, whom ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... perfected for many years. You cannot force a change of mind, as you can force the growth of a plant in a hot-house. An attempt to do so might stop it altogether. Baxter said, two hundred years ago, 'Nothing so much hindereth the reception of the truth, as urging it on men with too much importunity, and falling too heavily ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... to her; work which a few months before would have been a delight. For Felicita, yielding to the urgent entreaties of Felix and Hilda, had consented to sit for her portrait. She was engaged in no writing, and had ample leisure. Until now she had resisted all importunity, and no likeness of her existed. She disliked photographs, and had only had one taken for Roland alone when they were married, and she could never bring herself to sit for an artist comparatively a stranger to her. It was opposed to her reserved and somewhat haughty temperament that any ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... god can have sent such a pestilence to plague us during our dinner? Get out, into the open part of the court, {145} or I will give you Egypt and Cyprus over again for your insolence and importunity; you have begged of all the others, and they have given you lavishly, for they have abundance round them, and it is easy to be free with other people's property when there ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... as well as the seminaries, had enjoyed special seasons of revival. A sunrise prayer-meeting of an hour was held each day of the session, was well attended, and characterized by much fervor and importunity in prayer, and the last evening was spent in devotional exercises. The burden of prayer seemed to be for the outpouring of the Spirit on the churches and the conversion of souls, and many of the congregation were at times ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... day long, was curious and interesting, forming a sort of open bazar, where every establishment in the place had a representative and samples of its goods. All tourists are presumed to have come to purchase, and importunity is a part of the natives' business. Photographs, models of the Taj, precious stones, sandal-wood boxes, mosaics, and swords, the variety is infinite, the patience of the dealers equally inexhaustible. Nothing but absolute force could drive them away, and no one uses that. ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... settling beside the same baggage. The chief comes to declare that they belong to some Arab of a neighbouring village; but as this is a plan with which they are all equally acquainted, the visitor generally is not discouraged, he remains there; but in this case they revenge themselves on his importunity, by giving him a very slender portion of victuals. Then he keeps a sharp lookout, and if he sees any fire, he runs towards it in the hope of getting some flesh or broth. He takes great care to keep himself at first concealed behind the ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... union, and to enter into a league with them as free states; which is continued by his majesty now reigning, unto this day; who both by his expedition for relief of Rochel in France, and his strict confederacy with the prince of Orange, and the states general, notwithstanding all the importunity of Spain to the contrary, hath set to his seal that all that had been done by his royal ancestors, in maintainance of those who had so engaged and combined themselves, was just ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... continually in a state of fear and strife was very trying. And Maslova was specially exposed to attacks, her appearance being attractive and her past known to every one. The decided resistance with which she now met the importunity of all the men seemed offensive to them, and awakened another feeling, that of ill-will towards her. But her position was made a little easier by her intimacy with Theodosia, and Theodosia's husband, who, having heard of the molestations his wife was subject to, had in ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... that her most ancient life ought not to be esteemed of irrefragable authority, and that the words of St. Germanus are {083} not perhaps related with a scrupulous fidelity.[4] The author of her life tells us, that the holy virgin begging one day with great importunity that she might go to the church, her mother struck her on the face, but in punishment lost her sight, which she only recovered, two months after, by washing her eyes twice or thrice with water which her daughter fetched from the well, and upon which she had made the sign ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... had packed up the carriage, stared at each other in mute and appalling astonishment; they felt conscious that no child was within the vehicle; and when at last they recovered from the stupor of amazement, they resisted the importunity of the multitude to strip the chariot, and manfully swore, that if any one was inside, it must be the Devil himself, or one of his imps, and no human ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... you say that sometimes you are forced by the importunity of your customers to buy their goods?-Yes; we may be induced to do it by ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... celebrated (in his Annus Sacer Poeticus) for her beard—a mark of Divine favour bestowed upon her in answer to her prayers. She was a beautiful girl, who wished to lead a single life, and that she might be suffered to do so free from importunity, she prayed earnestly to be rendered disagreeable to look upon, either by wrinkles, a hump on the back, or in any other efficacious way. Accordingly the beard was given her; and it is satisfactory to know ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... the admiration which was felt for his epistolary style, that it was with difficulty that his letters reached the place of their destination. The poet describes, with pretended regret and real complacency, the importunity of the curious, who often opened, and sometimes stole, these favourite compositions. It is a remarkable fact that, of all his epistles, the least affected are those which are addressed to the dead and the unborn. Nothing can be more ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... OVER HER FALLEN SON.—Do you see yonder godly mother, weeping over her fallen son, and remonstrating with him in tones of a mother's tenderness and importunity? That very mother prevented that very son marrying the girl he dearly loved, because she was poor, and this interruption of his love was the direct and procuring cause of his ruin; for, if she had allowed him to marry this beloved one, he never would have ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... had simply desired to learn the truth, and place the clergyman above suspicion. Latterly, being bound as he was to follow the matter up officially, he would not have seen Mrs Crawley had he been able to escape that lady's importunity. "Mr Walker," she had said, at last, "you do not know my husband. No one knows him but I. It is hard to have to tell you of all our troubles." "If I can lessen them, trust me that I will do so," said the lawyer. "No one, I think, can lessen them in ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... 10th of December, 1815. During the next months a few cynical mutterings are the only interruptions to an ominous silence; but these could be easily explained by the increasing embarrassment of the poet's affairs, and the importunity of creditors, who in the course of the last half-year had served seven or eight executions on his house and furniture. Their expectations were raised by exaggerated reports of his having married money; and by a curious pertinacity ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... must be pronounced on the whole poor and contemptible. His ready belief of the charge brought by Artabanus against his brother, Darius, admits perhaps of excuse, owing to his extreme youth; but his surrender of Inarus to Amestris on account of her importunity, his readiness to condone the revolt of Megabyzus, and his subjection throughout almost the whole of his life to the evil influence of Amytis, his sister, and Amestris, his mother—both persons of ill-regulated lives—are indications of weakness and folly quite unpardonable ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... Senators, Congressmen, officers, clergymen, bankers, merchants—all classes approached him with familiarity. This incessant labor, the study of the great problems he had to decide, the worry of constant importunity, the quarrels of officers of the army, the care, anxiety, and responsibility of his position, wore upon his ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... money was coming in, and therefore it would be insane to add to their expenses. Rosa persisted, and at last worried Staines with her importunity. He began to give rather short answers. Then she quoted Miss Lucas against him. He treated the authority with marked contempt; and then Rosa fired up a little. Then Staines held his peace; but did not buy a carriage ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... despite the prodigious care that the great magnifico, Don Juan Belvidero, took of himself, the days of decrepitude came upon him, and with those days the constant importunity of physical feebleness, an importunity all the more distressing by contrast with the wealth of memories of his impetuous youth and the sensual pleasures of middle age. The unbeliever who in the height of his cynical humor had been wont to persuade others to ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... and his accomplices by sharing the plunder with his master. The widow cried for redress in vain. The ears of magistrates were stopped against her, and she was too poor to pay her way; but still she went from one court to another, until her importunity irritated the judges, who, to intimidate her, seized her eldest son, on some monstrous pretext, and cast him into prison. This double cruelty completed the despair of the unhappy mother. She came to me fairly frenzied, and "commanded" me to go at once into the presence ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... deprecate the importunity and pressure to which Congress and its members are subjected by the representatives of great industrial combinations, whose enormous wealth tends to suggest undue influence, and to create in the public mind a demoralizing belief in the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... the morning after the last interview recorded, and found where she was gone, he did not doubt she had taken refuge with her new friends from his importunity, and was at once confirmed in the idea he had cherished through the whole wakeful night, that the cause of her agitation was nothing else than the conflict between her heart and a false sense of duty, born of prejudice and superstition. She was not willing ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... with him. If one prima donna is good, she argued, why would not two be better? So she never desisted from her importunity until she was permitted to become a pupil of Professor Coccherani, vocal instructor at the Lycee. At this time she had committed to memory more than a dozen grand opera roles, and at the end of six months the professor confessed that he could ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... read, but it was not encouraged by the hermit, nor was there any book available save the portuary, crookedly and contractedly written on vellum, so as to be illegible to anyone unfamiliar with writing, with Latin, or the service. However, the anchoret yielded to his importunity so far as to let him learn the alphabet, traced on the door in charcoal, and identify the more sacred words in the book—which, indeed, were all ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... we find, that some armies already yielding and ready to fly, have been by women restored, through their inflexible importunity and entreaties, presenting their breasts, and showing their impending captivity; an evil to the Germans then by far most dreadful when it befalls their women. So that the spirit of such cities as amongst their hostages are enjoined to send their damsels of quality, ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... from that young lady, that she would grant her a request she had to make. She hung round her neck, and endeavoured to prevail by a thousand engaging infantine arts; and when she found they would not succeed, she knelt down before her, and with all the grace and importunity of the most amiable suppliant, tried to win her to compliance. Nothing would avail, for Miss Melvyn was convinced by her earnestness that her design was to confer some favour; she knew the generosity of her youthful mind too well to believe she so ardently aimed ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... fatherland. This slight did not disconcert Barinskoi; he endeavored to produce an impression on Wilhelm, and if one shut one's eyes to his ugliness and fawning ways he was a well-informed man; harshness was not in Wilhelm's nature, so he held out no longer against Barinskoi's importunity—who very soon accompanied him home from the laboratory, visited him uninvited in his rooms, invited him to supper at his restaurant, which Wilhelm twice declined, the third time, however, he had not the courage to refuse. In spite of this Barinskoi ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... shall be recalled for my importunity. But, in for a penny in for a pound, and I have fired off the following protest to a really disastrous cable from the War Office saying that the New Army is to bring no 4.5-inch howitzers with it; no howitzers ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... come at me, as I have to come at him: Therefore he will conclude, that the man who would make a figure, especially in a military way, must get over all false modesty, and assist his patron against the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper assurance in his own vindication[27]. He says it is a civil[28] cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candour does the gentleman speak of himself and others. ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... confidence is slow in gathering way. The creditor who has once turned into the narrow path of commercial fears and precautions speedily takes a course of malignant meanness which puts him below the level of his debtor. He passes from specious civility to impatient rage, to the surly clamor of importunity, to bursts of disappointment, to the livid coldness of a mind made up to vengeance, and the scowling insolence of a summons before the courts. Braschon, the rich upholsterer of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, who was not invited to the ball, and was therefore ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... while he could not shew himself in the street but the boys would point the finger at him and say:—"There goes he that lay with Ciutazza." Which was such an affliction to him that he was like to go mad. On this wise the worthy lady rid herself of the rector's vexatious importunity, and Ciutazza had a jolly night ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... invented work, and thereby bound The holiday rejoicing spirit down To the never-ceasing importunity Of business in the green fields and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Reformer was a name of reproach, of men, all of whom were Reformers before the nation had begun to demand Reform in imperative and menacing tones. But you are notoriously Reformers merely from fear. You are Reformers under duress. If a concession is to be made to the public importunity, you can hardly deny that it will be made with more grace and dignity by Lord ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... however, the children give me great joy, though also not a little annoyance owing to their importunity. Fortunately, during my activity in connection with the school children's gymnastic society at —— I have gained so much patience that I never permit myself to lose my temper. While I am writing this already ten or twelve children have invaded my room asking for bread. Everyone of them ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... encouraged by Narbonne, he resolved on making his appearance. When his arrival was announced to the emperor, the latter grew angry, and at first refused to see him:—"What did this prince want of him? Was not the constant importunity of his letters, and his continual solicitations sufficient? Why did he come again to persecute him with his presence? What need had he of him?" But Duroc insisted; he reminded Napoleon of the want that he would experience of Prussia, in ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... manner if not with my argument, they yielded to my importunity and allowed me to pass down. The stroke of the spade and the harsh voice of the man directing the work greeted my disquieted ears. With a bound I cleared the last half-dozen steps and, alighting on the cellar bottom, was soon ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... was misled by a mere resemblance. Forgive me for my importunity—let me thank you most sincerely for your great kindness." He ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... Prince, with some haughtiness of manner, "your life is absolutely your own. I only looked for obedience; and when that is unwillingly rendered, I shall look for that no longer. I add one word: your importunity in this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... access to me as President to any one, of any color; and, in my opinion of the duties of that office, it never ought to be denied. Place-hunters are not pleasant visitors, or correspondents, and they consume an enormous disproportion of time. To this personal importunity the President ought not to be subjected; but it is, perhaps, not possible to relieve him from it, without excluding him from interviews with the people more, perhaps, than comports with ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... with the positive refusal of Mrs. —— to see me. There was one thing that I did not want to do—one thing that I hesitated to do, and that was to force myself upon my estranged friend by intruding upon her, even in her own chamber, where she had retired to be secure from my importunity. But I looked to the end I had in view. 'Is not the end a good one?' I said, as I mused over the unpleasant position in which I found myself. 'Will not even Mrs. —— thank me for the act after ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... and regretting deeply, as she had often done, that such a careless speech should ever have passed her lips, she fairly broke down under Sir John's importunity, and accepted his hand. They were married on a fine spring morning, about the very time at which the unfortunate Sir William discovered her preference for him, and was beginning to hasten home from a foreign court to declare his unaltered devotion to her. On his ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... his Friend of All the World. We would not leave him and his Wheel of Things, the River he sought in simple faith, the trust he had in the charity of men, the message that bade him seek release in Nirvana from the importunity of life quaintly warring with instinctive gestures of delight and sympathy with all that made life precious—we would not leave this exquisite story so soon, were it not that it brings forward the imperishable side of Mr Kipling's work to which we shall have shortly ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... The importunity of these ruffians is a ludicrous annoyance to which a traveller must submit. For two miles before you reach the Pyramids they seize on you and never cease howling. Five or six of them pounce upon one victim, and never leave him until they ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Though all to shivers dash't, the assault renew, Vain battry, and in froth or bubbles end: 20 So Satan, whom repulse upon repulse Met ever; and to shameful silence brought, Yet gives not o're though desperate of success, And his vain importunity pursues. He brought our Saviour to the western side Of that high mountain, whence he might behold Another plain, long but in bredth not wide; Wash'd by the Southern Sea, and on the North To equal length back'd with a ridge of hills That screen'd the fruits of the earth and seats of men ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... up into the possession of the public. You are robbed of your privacy and friends, and scarce any hour of your life you can call your own. Those, who envy your fortune, if they wanted not good-nature, might more justly pity it; and when they see you watched by a crowd of suitors, whose importunity it is impossible to avoid, would conclude, with reason, that you have lost much more in true content, than you have gained by dignity; and that a private gentleman is better attended by a single servant, than your lordship with ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... much moved by the importunity of that weak, honest man, nevertheless withstood his entreaties, telling him that he was minded to depart forthwith from St Andrews, and make the best of his way back to Edinburgh, and so could ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... through the importunity of friends, to interrupt the scheme I had begun in my last paper, by an Essay upon the Art of Political Lying. We are told, "the Devil is the father of lies, and was a liar from the beginning"; so that beyond contradiction, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... I presume to ask who this prince you speak of is?" "Know," answered Maimoune, "the same thing has happened to him as to your princess. The king his father would have married him against his will; but after much importunity, he frankly told him he would have nothing to do with a wife. For this reason he is at this moment imprisoned in an ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... him, it came to this; that if I would come to him again, and say some certain words to him, I should be released. Which when they told me, I said if the words were such that might be said with a good conscience, I should, or, else, I should not. So through their importunity I went back again, but not believing that I should be delivered: for I feared their spirit was too full of opposition to the truth to let me go, unless I should in something or other dishonour my God, and wound my conscience. Wherefore, as I went, I lifted up my heart to God for light ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... parties should be put off and await his coming and presence on his return. But when he had come back from Rome and entered his own country in safety, certain of our Brothers came to him and asked him once more to give permission for the consecration of the burial-ground, and he, yielding to the importunity of his friends, did freely grant their petition. So he issued his commands again and ordered the consecration of this place, for he loved it and paid no heed to the complaints of the adversaries, since he preferred the honour of God and ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... enforce the precious truths Christ preaches so continually: the blessing of prayer is that you can ask and receive what you will: the highest exercise and the glory of prayer is that persevering importunity can prevail and obtain what God at first could ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... vacation, and who think there is something wrong in the foundations of society, because this is not possible. Out of every ten letters of this kind, nine will allege, as the reason of the writers' importunity, their desire to keep their families in such and such a "station of life." There is no real desire for the safety, the discipline, or the moral good of the children, only a panic horror of the inexpressibly ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... incredible, even with the fact before our eyes. A Chinese gentleman spends an hour in imploring a relative to dine with him,—utterly refusing, so urgent is his desire of company, to accept No for an answer,—and then flies into a rage because the cousin commits the faux pas of yielding to his importunity, and agreeing to dine. Louis Napoleon perpetrates the king-joke of the century by solemnly presenting the Russian Czar with a copy of Thomas a Kempis's "Imitation of Christ,"—a book whose great inculcation is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... her for her condescension; he would wait for Mr. Vane in the hall. "I came by appointment, madam; this is the only excuse for the importunity you have just witnessed." ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... an age of magic) was efficient only if no slip were made, seems to have gained in strength instead of diminishing, as we might have expected it to do with advancing civilisation; and the pontifices not only responded to its importunity, but actually stimulated it. Vires acquirit eundo are words which apply well in all ages to the passion for organisation and precision. Though we cannot prove it, I myself have little doubt that the members ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... Conway's merit, then, as an officer, and his importance in this army, exists more in his imagination, than in reality. For it is a maxim with him, to leave no service of his own untold, nor to want anything, which is to be obtained by importunity.[1] ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... Trojans hence, yet less shall be thy praise. Then thus Achilles, matchless in the race. Phoenix, my guide, wise, noble and revered! I covet no such glory! the renown Ordain'd by Jove for me, is to resist 760 All importunity to quit my ships While I have power to move, or breath to draw. Hear now, and mark me well. Cease thou from tears. Confound me not, pleading with sighs and sobs In Agamemnon's cause; O love not him, 765 Lest I renounce thee, who am now thy friend. Assist me rather, as thy duty bids, Him ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... and other animals, especially elephants, have this faculty, cannot be doubted. There is an instance on record of a dog having, by his importunity and peculiar gestures, induced his mistress to quit a washhouse in which she was at work, the roof of which fell in almost immediately afterwards. Dogs have been known to give the alarm of fire, by howling and other signs, before it was perceived by any of the inmates of the house. Their apprehension ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
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