"Importunate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... myself in a dilemma; and the importunate savage—no doubt some friend of Wakono himself—appeared determined to stick to me. How was I to get rid ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... how many bearers I should have. What I did appreciate was the extreme comfort of my travelling arrangements. Seated in my chair, which was open above and enclosed below, and furnished with a water-proof top and with curtains that could be lowered to protect me against sun or rain, wind or importunate curiosity, I felt as though on a throne. Under the seat was a compartment just large enough for dressing-bag, camera, and thermos bottle, while at my feet there was ample room for Jack. For my interpreter there was a two-bearer chair, with which ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... at "White Nights". Under the spell of the Apostle of Culture, whose golden precept: "BE PERFECT IN REGARD TO WHAT IS HERE AND NOW," had appealed powerfully to her earnest exalted nature, she failed to observe the signals of her pet ring-doves cooing on the ledge outside. Finally their importunate tapping on the glass arrested her attention, and she raised the sash and scattered a handful of rice and millet seed; whereupon a cloud of dainty wings swept down, and into the library, hovering around her sunny head, and pecking the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... had twenty-five miles of painful travel, without a drop of water, until they arrived at a small running stream. Here they eagerly slaked their thirst; but, this being allayed, the calls of hunger became equally importunate. Ever since they had got among these barren and arid hills where there was a deficiency of grass, they had met with no buffaloes; those animals keeping in the grassy meadows near the streams. They ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... roadside; the chestnuts left off along a line as level as though cut with a knife; stone-roofed cascine began to abound, with goats and cattle feeding near them; the booths of the religious trinket-mongers increased; the blind, halt, and maimed became more importunate, and the foot-passengers were more entirely composed of those whose object was, or had been, a visit to the sanctuary itself. The numbers of these pilgrims—generally in their Sunday's best, and often comprising ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... assume a gaiety suitable to his situation in the eyes of the world. She knew he could never be entirely free to love so long as the cry of the child rang in his ears. And he told her that, strangely enough, since their engagement it had become more importunate. Once he even tried to ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... but suffering under the cravings of hunger, which now assailed me. I had been three days without food; but hitherto I had not felt the want of it, as my more importunate thirst had overcome the sensation. Now that the greater evil had been removed, the lesser increased and became hourly more imperious. I walked out and scanned the horizon with the hopes of some caravan appearing in sight, but I watched ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... first, although afterwards she finds her pleasure in obeying. Do as I ask you, for Heaven's sake, or I will answer for nothing. Indeed, now I think of it," she added, with a manner of one who has just seen further into a difficulty, "I find a better plan of keeping importunate visitors away. Tell the porter to admit no one for you, except a person who may come that night to claim a debt; and speak with some feeling, as though you feared the interview, so that he may take your words ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... felt like breaking, and once more she was falling beneath love's resistless spell, when a new interruption occurred, shaking her roughly out of her ecstasy; but this time the young count was able to pass quietly and calmly into a room adjoining, and Joan prepared to receive her importunate visitor with severe and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Lonesome Cove nestles, sequestered from the world. Naught emigrates thence except an importunate stream that forces its way through a rocky gap, and so to freedom beyond. No stranger intrudes; only the moon looks in once in a while. The roaming wind may explore its solitudes; and it is but the vertical sunbeams that strike to the heart of the little basin, because ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... thee rather, that through every grade Of less and less affection we decline, As month by month thy strong importunate fate Thrusts back my claims, and draws thee toward the great, And shares amongst a hundred what ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... as they now do in morality, uprightness, &c. The ace of diamonds puts you on the qui vive for the postman; it means a LETTER. It is only to be hoped that it is not one of those nasty things, yellow outside and blue within—a dun from some importunate butcher, baker, grocer, or—tailor. The king of diamonds shows a revengeful, fiery, obstinate fellow of very fair complexion in your circle; the queen of diamonds is nothing but a gay coquette, of the same complexion as the king, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... shook the dust of Ramnagar from his feet and returned home to lay his sorrows before Nalini, seasoning the story with remarks highly derogatory to Kaliprasanna Babu's character. In order to get rid of an importunate suitor Nalini gave him another letter of introduction, this time to an old acquaintance named Debnath Lahiri who was head clerk in the office of Messrs. Kerr & Dunlop, one of the largest mercantile firms of Calcutta. Pulin was heartily ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... twice; then, hearing at a little distance the shrill voice of the importunate newsvender, I plunged after him and stopped him, just ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... was but a starting point in a general scheme of transferring hostilities from the north. Early in 1779, General John Ashe reached Charleston with two or more brigades of militia. These were hurried off, at the importunate demand of the Governor of South Carolina, to attack the British ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... Froude—but, for the present, only in America, where those opportunities are really free and open to all. There no parasitical non-workers are to be found, eager to eat bread, but in the sweat of other people's brows; no impecunious title-bearers; no importunate bores, nor other similar characters whom the Government there would regard it as their duty "to provide for"—by quartering them on the revenues [137] of Colonial dependencies. But in the British Crown—or ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... head, and drew her body to one side of the sofa, as though to 'make room.' But no sooner had she done this than she appeared to feel that she was perhaps suggesting a particular position to her friend, with an emphasis which might well be regarded as importunate. She thought that her friend would prefer, no doubt, to sit down at some distance from her, upon a chair; she felt that she had been indiscreet; her sensitive heart took fright; stretching herself out again over the whole of the sofa, she closed her eyes and began to ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... night of the 2nd of August, Michael Strogoff remained confined to his inn, at the entrance of the town; which was little frequented and out of the way of the importunate and curious. ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... at that time who held and publicly expressed views similar to my own, so far as I knew, was Ruskin. Of the riddle which I found so importunate, he did not profess to have discovered any adequate solution of his own. On the contrary, he confessed himself a victim of a tragic and desolating doubt, but he did boldly proclaim that until some solution was found ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... relationship was of a pleasanter sort. To the American navy and privateers Franklin was the American government; and, though he was often annoyed by the unreasonable conduct of importunate captains, yet he also shared in the glory of their deeds. John Paul Jones was one of the many forced to endure Arthur Lee's impertinences, and had it not been for Franklin's aid and friendship our navy would ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... one accountable for this money, which surely has been idle long enough, and if I leave it still unused, I shall be doing wrong, and there are things I have to do with it which ought to be set about immediately. I am sorry to seem importunate, but if by twelve o'clock you have not gone with me to Mr. Torrie, I will go to Messrs. Hope & Waver, who will tell me what I ought to do next, in order to be put in possession. It makes me unhappy to write like this, but I am not a child any longer, and having a man's work to do, I cannot consent ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... appeals; but M. Fille and his sister never were the same after they lost their friend. They had great comfort in the dog which Jean Jacques had given to them, and they roused themselves to a malicious pleasure when Bobon, as he had been called by Zoe, rushed out at the heels of an importunate local creditor who had greatly worried Jean Jacques at the last. They waited in vain for a letter from Jean Jacques, but none came; nor did they hear anything from him, or of him, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... this sort of work Craig led gradually up to a request for a materialisation of the control of Vandam, but Mrs. Popper refused. She said she did not feel strong enough, and Farrington put in a hasty word that he, too, could feel that "there was something working against them." But Kennedy was importunate and at last she consented to see if "John" would do some rapping, even if he could ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... papers on his old green shutters. By the time he looked at his watch he had been for a quarter of an hour at this post of observation and reflexion; but by the time he walked away again he had found his answer to the idea that had grown so importunate. Since a proof of his will was wanted it was indeed very exactly in wait for him—it lurked there on the other side of the Canal. A ferryman at the little pier had from time to time accosted him; but it was a part of the play of his nervousness to turn his back ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... to read them in her room. And she read at night, lying in bed. When the clock in the corridor struck two or three, and her temples were beginning to ache from reading, she sat up in bed and thought, "What am I to do? Where am I to go?" Accursed, importunate question, to which there were a number of ready-made answers, and in reality ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of the pier by thousands of citizens who seemed to envy the very recruits who, only half-uniformed and drilled, brought up the rear of the column. Once within the massive wooden portals, the guards and sentries holding back the importunate crowd, the soldiers flung aside their heavy packs, and were marshalled before an array of tempting tables and there feasted, comforted and rejoiced under the ministrations of that marvelous successor of ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... daughter-in-law should be secured in a jointure of four hundred — Tabby proposed, that, considering their youth, they should undergo one year at least, of probation before the indissoluble knot should be tied; but the young gentleman being very impatient and importunate, and the scheme implying that the young couple should live in the house, under the wings of his parents, we resolved to make them happy ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... fashion with Prince Bismarck in Berlin Lord Russell asked the Chancellor how he managed to rid himself of importunate visitors whom he could not refuse to see, but who stuck like burrs ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... its origin on this wise. In my Irish Witchcraft and Demonology, published in October 1913, I inserted a couple of famous 17th century ghost stories which described how lawsuits were set on foot at the instigation of most importunate spirits. It then occurred to me that as far as I knew there was no such thing in existence as a book of Irish ghost stories. Books on Irish fairy and folk-lore there were in abundance—some of which could easily be spared—but there was ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... all contraries to gladness; Thence sickness comes, and overwhelming sadness, Mistrust and jealousy, despite, debate, Dishonour, shame, envy importunate, Pride, anger, mischief, poverty, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... and pain could I remember the fate of Prince Zaleski—victim of a too importunate, too unfortunate Love, which the fulgor of the throne itself could not abash; exile perforce from his native land, and voluntary exile from the rest of men! Having renounced the world, over which, lurid ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... the palace at Greenwich along with the magister, in the barge that was taking the heralds to the King's marriage with Anne of Cleves, the young Poins was importunate with Udal to advance him in his knowledge of the Italian tongue. He thought that in the books of the Sieur Macchiavelli upon armies and the bearing of arms there were unfolded many secret passes with the rapier and the stiletto. But Udal ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... into France, and found a home at Pau, in the shadow of the Pyrenees, the French caddie sprang, so to speak, from the ground, the perfect likeness of his Scottish brother. He was just as sly, just as importunate in his demands to be employed, just as fond of "putting at short holes," more profane, and every bit as contemptuous of all non-golf- playing humanity as the boyish Scotch caddie, in whom contempt has reversed the usual process, and bred familiarity with ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... of those rare souls who never dream of asking a favour for themselves, but can be shamelessly importunate on behalf of a fellow-creature. On receipt of Hester's resignation, which she submitted to him first in private and then sent to him formally through the post, he panted up the hill to seek an interview ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... The answer may tarry;—these your supplications may seem to be kept long on the wing, hovering around the mercy-seat. A gracious God sometimes sees it meet thus to test the faith and patience of His people. He delights to hear the music of their importunate pleadings—to see them undeterred by difficulties—unrepelled by apparent forgetfulness and neglect. But He will come at last; the pent-up fountain of love and mercy will at length burst out;—the soothing ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... men of old, in which he could indulge his irresistible craving for some solution of the great problems of life and philosophy. Men like Maecenas, whose power and wealth are practically unbounded, are apt to become importunate even in their friendships, and to think that everything should give way to the gratification of their wishes. Something of this spirit had obviously been shown towards Horace. Maecenas may have expressed himself in a tone of complaint, either to the poet himself, ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... room at the Duke of Devonshire Hotel half an hour later, in complete ignorance as yet of the bare fact of the murder, he found on his table an envelope addressed, in an unknown hand, "Guy Waring, Esq.," while below in the corner, twice underlined, were the importunate words, ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... liquefaction being somewhat delayed, the great crowd of people burst out into more and more impassioned expostulations and petitions to the saint. Just in front of the altar were the lazzaroni who claimed to be descendants of the saint's family, and these were especially importunate: at such times they beg, they scold, they even threaten; they have been known to abuse the saint roundly, and to tell him that, if he does not care to show his favor to the city by liquefying his blood, St. Cosmo and St. Damian are just as good saints as he, and will, no doubt, be very glad to ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... because of the scene, a scene that quelled even the haunting strain of song, that other note, that wail which, the long day through, had writhed unreleased in her bosom, rose, silent still, yet only the stronger and more importunate— ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... restored him to health, but not to his former frame of mind. He remained moody and indolent, incapable of exertion, and a prey to the darkest humours; circumstances, however, occurred which rendered some energy on his part absolutely necessary. His creditors grew importunate, and the arrangement of his affairs or departure from his native land was an alternative now inevitable. The month of April, which witnessed the arrival of the Temples and Lord Montfort in England, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... steamers on the Sea of Azof the privacy of the sleeping-cabin is disturbed by still more objectionable intruders; I mean rats. During one short voyage which I made on board the Kertch, these disagreeable visitors became so importunate in the lower regions of the vessel that the ladies obtained permission to sleep in the deck-saloon. After this arrangement had been made, we unfortunate male passengers received redoubled attention from our tormentors. Awakened early one morning by the sensation of something running ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... that of John Penry, who wished to appeal to the intellect of the people by means of the pulpit and the printing press. The apostle of the new creed was crushed, like those who wished to revive the old; he was put to death as a traitor in 1593, after a short life of importunate pleading that he might preach the ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... hereditary with the girl. It was historical, in fact, that, during the life of Sarah's good-looking father, so importunate had been Old Baumgartner for the purchase of at least the meadow—he could not have ventured more at that time—and so obstinate had been the father of the present owner—(he had red hair precisely as his daughter had)—that ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... risen during the last few months. In addition to this, an attack of nervous melancholy, caused by his malady, had seized him as he left the protracted council which had taken place in his private cabinet. Marie saw that he was in one of those crises when the least word, even of love, would be importunate and painful; so she remained kneeling quietly beside him, her head on his knee, the king's hand buried in her hair, and he himself motionless, without a word, without a sigh, as still as Marie herself,—Charles ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... respects the central event of the French Revolution. The incident aroused both democrats and royalists to a fury which foredoomed to failure all attempts at compromise between the old order and the new. The fierceness of the strife in France incited monarchists in all lands to importunate demands for the extirpation of "the French plague"; and hence were set in motion forces which Pitt vainly strove to curb. War soon broke out in Central Europe. His endeavours to localize it were fruitless; and thenceforth his chief task was to ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... obscure rival suddenly started into fashion. She then was eclipsed by her whom, a few days before, she disdained. Instead of a succession of visiters, her house was deserted; and, at the expiration of the year, the proud fair, awakened from her golden dream by the clamours of her importunate creditors, found herself without one friend to rescue her valuables from ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... hand. It was an unprecedented postponement and an infringement of a time-honoured habit; and Rainham had for his habit all the respect of a man who is always indolent and often ill; though it must be admitted that to his clerks, who viewed the trait complacently, and to the importunate Bullen, who resented it, he seemed to be only regular in his irregularity. He decided that at least this occasion should not be allowed to slip; a free afternoon would benefit him. He was always rather lavish of those licenses; ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... gathered over the head of the aristocratic prisoner, raised less by his own words than by the manner of the keeper. The latter, sure of quelling the tempest when the waves became too violent, allowed them to rise to a certain pitch that he might be revenged on the importunate Andrea, and besides it would afford him some recreation during the long day. The thieves had already approached Andrea, some screaming, "La savate—La savate!" [*] a cruel operation, which consists in cuffing a comrade ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... between Alice Bridgenorth and her father—the being he most loved on earth, and the person whom he had ever considered as the great obstacle to their intercourse. The confusion of his mind was such, that he could scarcely reply to the importunate civilities of Dame Deborah; who, seated with them at table in her quality of governante, now dispensed the good things which had been prepared under ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Grynaeus had been scandalized at a sermon by Faber, a leading papal doctor; and at the close, remonstrated with him for defending "certain detestable errors." "Faber dissembled his anger, but immediately after repaired to the king, from whom he had obtained an order against the importunate professor of Heidelberg. Melanchthon doubted not that God had saved his friend by sending one of His ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... they have the privilege of rejecting your Christian ministrations, dear Sister Argalls, you are free to judge when you may be patient or importunate with them?" ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... afforded by each innovation, very little would ever be heard about reform of any kind. But every change, every act of abolition, affords am irresistible opportunity for providing for poor relations and importunate constituents. The Secretary of State, therefore, reserves to himself the choice of the "fit person or persons," which might more decently have been left to the citizens themselves. It is true the ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... very troublesome and importunate," replied Abou Hassan, rubbing his eyes; "I am not the commander of the faithful, but Abou Hassan; I know it well, and you shall not persuade me otherwise." "We do not know that Abou Hassan you majesty speaks of, nor desire to know him," answered the lady; ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... civil and military departments of the state. The important question was agitated in their presence, and those ambitious courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent on them to second, by their eloquence, the importunate violence of the Caesar. It may be presumed, that they insisted on every topic which might interest the pride, the piety, or the fears, of their sovereign in the destruction of Christianity. Perhaps they represented, that the glorious work of the deliverance ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... convocation of the estates. Notwithstanding Philip's deliberate but secret determination never to assemble that body, although the hope was ever to be held out that they should be convened, Margaret had been most importunate that her brother should permit the measure. "There was less danger," she felt herself compelled to say, "in assembling than in not assembling the States; it was better to preserve the Catholic religion for a part of the country, than to lose it altogether." "The more it was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... but resolute. "I know it," he said. "But love doesn't stand on ceremony; lovers are importunate; they come without bidding.—Good morning, Miss Hill; you mustn't ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... above-named director-general, who asked me for the score through Weber, and afterwards sent me really a very handsome present in return. I hope Y.R.H. will excuse my intruding such a request on you, but Y.R.H. knows that I am not usually importunate. Should, however, the slightest obstacle arise to render my request disagreeable to you, I shall not be the less convinced of your generosity and kindness. Neither avarice, nor the love of speculation, which I have always avoided, prompted ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... impassive, silent, with his grave and noble countenance, his buttoned frock coat, and his broad-brimmed hat, which gave him the appearance of an Anglican clergyman. He himself opened the entrance door, scanned the faces of those who came, and kept away the importunate and the useless. Besides, he was always cheerful, and ready to say unceasingly, "Things are looking well." We were lost, yet he ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... the Democratic members would support him, with a view of defeating Sherman; while the Independent or anti-Sherman Republicans, who held the balance of power, were importunate that he should allow himself to be their compromise candidate. But he firmly rejected all these overtures, and forbid the use of his name in connection with the matter in any manner whatever. A leading State Senator declared ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... which was given to him; but the obstructed, tender state of the part rendered it impracticable. 'Bado, bado' (water), was his cry: when brought to him, he drank largely at intervals of it. He was equally importunate for fire, being seized with shivering fits; and one was kindled. Fish were produced, to tempt him to eat; but he turned away his head, with signs of loathing. Nanbaree (the boy), on the contrary, no sooner saw them than he leaped from his cradle, and eagerly seizing ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... read; but a hundred thousand things distract me: the sun shining warm on my shoulder, as I lean against the window; the divine morning clamor of the birds; their invitations to come out that will take no nay; and last, but oh! not, not least, the importunate voices of Barbara and Tou Tou. Every morning at this hour they have a weary tussle with the verb "aimer," "to love." It is hard that they should have pitched upon so tender-hearted a verb for the battle-field ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... prayer with a fierce urging that had rendered actual repose an impossibility. She had never in her life prayed with so intense a force. It was as if she were staking the whole of her faith upon that one importunate plea, and though no answer came to her striving spirit, she told herself that it could not be in vain. In all her maddening anxiety and impatience she never for a moment dwelt upon the chance of failure. God could not suffer ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... will be in the music, cousin, if you be not woo'd in good time: if the prince be too important [importunate], tell him, there is measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero; wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... front of the "Funny Folks" booth went "Bang! bang!" Opposite, the fife and drum spoke for the temple of the legitimate drama. At the selling-stalls importunate vendors of tin-ware rattled their stock-in-trade and roared at the world in general, as if buyers could be forced to attend to the most noisy—which, ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... the way of his leaving Rome, and were clamorous, he applied to Crassus, then the richest man in Rome, who stood in need of the vigour and impetuosity of Caesar to support him in his political hostility to Pompeius. Crassus undertook to satisfy the most importunate and unrelenting of the creditors, and having become security for Caesar to the amount of eight hundred and thirty talents, thus enabled him to set out for his province. There is a story that as Caesar ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... failing stroke. She saw his strength giving out in that unequal struggle, saw his arm frenziedly but ineffectually beating the water, saw his head disappear . . . for longer and still longer periods . . . She caught a last vision of his white upturned face, of his eyes, filled with importunate devotion, gazing directly at her from out the blinding waters ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... of a continental war, the Grand Duchy of Rittersheim was absorbed into the neighbouring great state, and the Grand Duke Adalbert, deposed and impoverished, became simply a pensioner, and a most importunate blackmailer of myself. ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... as a cavalier; and was she, as the host suggested, going to rejoin her lover in Flanders? Had Remy lied when he spoke of an eternal regret? was this fable of a past love, which had clothed his mistress forever in mourning, only his invention to get rid of an importunate watcher? ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... night. She came to his house on her old mare, in the rain and snow the night before, to get him to go to see someone, some "friend" of hers who was sick. He said she had more sick friends than anyone he ever knew; he told her that he was sick himself and could not go; but she was so importunate that he promised to go next morning (she was always very worrying). He said she was wet and shivering then (she never had any idea about really protecting herself), and that she appeared to have a wretched cold. She had ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... their friends: how peaceful, light-hearted, and obliging. They are charmed by their simplicity; they sleep among them without fear: but these notes soon change; and passing from censure to hatred, they speak of them as improvident, importunate, and instrusive; as rapacious and mischievous; then as treacherous and blood-thirsty—finally, as devils, and beasts of prey. Their appearance is offensive, their proximity obstructive: their presence renders everything insecure. Thus the muskets of the soldier, and of the bandit, are equally ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... sensitive, yet not vain, for he was neither afraid nor ashamed to expose his ignorance, his amazing lack of experience. He had a greater trouble, one that I had not fathomed. Sometimes there came over his face a look of importunate wistfulness and distressed perplexity, and he seemed on the point of breaking out with something that he wished to tell me—or to ask me, for it might have been a question—but he always kept it back. Keredec's training seldom lost its ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... curiosity often brings us care. Let well alone, and it will continue to be well with you; but why should you thus persist to peer into the bottom of your past; as it were, asking the fashion of your swaddling clothes? Fie! you are too impatient; too importunate. Pray, no longer question me against my will, making enquiries that may not be answered. Live without asking why you live. No more of this. Does not your guardian love you as though you were his child; and is he not wiser than yourself; to judge of what knowledge is ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... which demanded, it seemed to him, a cordial response, a pressure of the hand, was seized with a strange uneasiness. This coolness, this absent look, so unnerved him that he was at the door with the awkward bow of one who feels himself importunate, when ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... enterprise undertaken—for example, a magnificent residence or a fancy farm. In the city no forethought is required to spend great wealth. The opportunity is ever at one's elbow. The difficulty is not to accept the importunate invitations." ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... about an hour's ride south of the Wady 'Afal. Finally, a tablet in the Wady Hawwayi', adorned with a dragon and other animals, was reported to me; and the memory of inscriptions mentioned in the Jihan-numa was still importunate. Evidently all these were mere fancies; or, at best, gross distortions of facts. The Bedawin repeat them in the forlorn hope of "bakhshish," and never expect action to be taken: next morning they ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... "Oh! your importunate Inspector did make an effort on my behalf, but I was firm. Nearly had a lodging in the Police Station though, but I told him who we were and swore to having marks the size of flat-irons on both arms, so he let ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... knows pretty well the circumstances of most of your people, and may be able to tell you where your alms may be well bestowed, and where they would do more harm than good. The worthless are ever the most importunate, and for every honest man in need ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... in singing. Now I have a cousin, the son of my father's brother, who is fairer than I in face and higher of rank and better of breeding; and he is the most intimate of Allah's creatures with Isaac.' Quoth she, 'Art thou a parasite[FN179] and an importunate one?' Quoth I, 'It is for thee to decide in this matter;' and she, 'If thy cousin be as thou hast described him, it would not mislike us to make acquaintance with him.' Then, as the time was come, I left her and returned to my house, but hardly had I reached it, ere the Caliph's ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... of the quaint Passage du Commerce, under the arch that leads into the rue Saint-André-des-Arts, stands a hotel, where for years Sainte-Beuve came daily to work (away from the importunate who besieged his dwelling) in a room hired under the assumed name of Delorme. It was there that we sent him a basket of fruit one morning addressed to Mr. Delorme, né Sainte-Beuve. It was there that most of ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... and free in begging for unjust and foolish things, and this without considering time or season. When I remember the circumstance which happened to Sancho Pancha when he was governor of the island of Barataria, one day after eating [146] with an importunate and intrusive farmer, who said that he was from Miguel Turra, I am reminded of the Indians when they beg. [147] And we shall say that if they bring four eggs, they think that with justice they ought to be given a price ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... answer in his own hand was desired. His hand was copied so well, that he confessed it might have deceived himself. Blackhead, who had carried the letter, being sent again with a plausible message, was very curious to see the house, and particularly importunate to be let into the study; where, as is supposed, he designed to leave the association. This, however, was denied him; and he dropped it in a flower-pot in the parlour. Young now laid an information before the privy council; and May 7, 1692, the bishop was arrested, and kept at a messenger's, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... next period of doubling, where will the food be found to satisfy the importunate demands of the increasing numbers? Where is the fresh land to turn up? Where is the dressing necessary to improve that which is already in cultivation? There is no person with the smallest knowledge of land but would say that it was impossible that the average ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... mid the deafening shouts of those about him, declared that he had no wish for further honor, that he was weary of leadership, that he had found more gall than honey in the post, and that there were others more worthy than himself on whom to lay the crown. So importunate, however, were the delegates, that at last he yielded, accepted their allegiance, and took the royal oath. This done, the diet voted to levy a tax to defray the expenses of the war. Among the very first Acts to which the newly chosen monarch ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... suddenly realized the indisputable truth that in Brent was an enemy to his ambitions more formidable than poor Tusk had been, a blinding rage swept through his brain which turned all things fiery as the west. Stealthily his hand felt over the ground for a stone large enough to crush this importunate engineer—this thief, who would steal his teacher and leave him stranded in a barren school! One was there, and his fingers, feverishly yet with caution, began to scratch away the loam which held it down. But then he hesitated. Had he not told ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... excitement, declared that he could almost swear that Loring received three packages and one of them must have been that now demanded by the Escalante's agent. Hence the visit of that somber person to headquarters and his importunate appeals to Loring, who told him the whole ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... can only be made manifest through the body, so a thought can only be made manifest by means of words. An importunate, living thought is framed in a perfect phrase which reflects the life of the thought. Then you have genuine religious utterance. The conditions change and the thought is outworn: if the phrase ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... these exercises are difficult. Failure in practicing them is certain—and may even extend over years. But the power equally certainly grows WITH practice. And ultimately there may come a time when the learner is not only able to efface from his mind any given thought (however importunate), but may even succeed in effacing, during short periods, ALL thought of any kind. When this stage is reached, the veil of illusion which surrounds all mortal things is pierced, and the entrance to the Paradise of Rest (and ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... ill-boding Cassandras in Sieges of Troy. Imminent perdition is not usually driven away by words of warning. Didactic Destiny has other methods in store; or these would fail always. Such words should, nevertheless, be uttered, when they dwell truly in the soul of any man. Words are hard, are importunate; but how much harder the importunate events they foreshadow! Here and there a human soul may listen to the words,—who knows how many human souls?—whereby the importunate events, if not diverted and prevented, will be rendered ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... of dreams, born out of my due time, Why should I strive to set the crooked straight? Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme Beats with light wing against the ivory gate, Telling a tale not too importunate To those who in the sleepy region stay, Lulled by the singer of an empty day. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... bride and Clementina, who had begged and prayed so urgently to be allowed to accompany the young lady that to get rid of her they had at last consented. The poor thing fancied she would better her position thereby: it was not from pure love of Henrietta that she had been so importunate. In the second carriage sat the baron and Margari. Margari was just the sort of man the baron wanted. He was a scholar who could be converted into a domestic buffoon whenever one was required. Now-a-days ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... alley, and managed to grow poorer in all these various occupations. The last I saw of him he was reduced to peddling books in a small way, carrying his whole stock in a new market basket. He was very importunate in his appeals to customers to purchase, putting it upon the ground that he had been unfortunate and had a claim to their charity. I happened to see him in the office of the popular hotel in Podgeville, when he was more than usually clamorous for patronage. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... brother was not less artful. He told him at once that Lucy's preference of the suit of a handsome fortune-hunter was the public talk, and besought him to lose not a moment in quelling the rumour. "You may do so easily," he wrote, "by avoiding the young man; and should he be very importunate, return at once to Warlock. Your daughter's welfare must be dearer to you ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and affectionate remembrance, would be distasteful, discordant, and impossible. I should be heartily sorry if there were no signs of partiality and no evidence of prepossession. On the other hand there is, I trust, no importunate advocacy or tedious assentation. He was great man enough to stand in need of neither. Still less has it been needed, in order to exalt him, to disparage others with whom he came into strong collision. His own funeral orations from time to ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... cornetcy in the Horse Guards; another a chief clerkship in the annuity office; and her nephew was sent out with Lord Albemarle to Spain. A more remarkable relative was Clayton, Bishop of Clogher, who evidently knew the value of her patronage, for a more importunate suitor, and a more persevering sycophant, never kissed hands. Finally, she obtained a peerage for her husband, a distinction in which, of course, she herself shared, but which probably she desired merely to throw some eclat round a singularly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... carrying the timber for the platform of the battery. It was a bright, sunny morning, and the men were rowing lazily towards the fort, "when they saw this frigate at sea." The men were in merry heart, and eager for a game at handystrokes. They were "very importunate on him, to give chase and set upon this frigate, which they deemed had been a fit booty for them." He told them that they "wanted weapons to assail"; that, for all they knew, the frigate might be full of men and guns; ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... many obvious temptations which they did not long withstand. Bonaventura, who was made head of the Franciscan order in 1257, admits the general dislike aroused by the greed, idleness, and vice of its degenerate members, as well as by their importunate begging, which rendered the friar more troublesome to the wayfarer than the robber. Nevertheless the friars were preferred to the ordinary priests by high and low alike; it was they, rather than the secular clergy, who maintained ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... handed over to the stern mercy of crop-eared Puritans; Moll herself had fallen upon evil times; and Ralph Briscoe determined to make a last effort for wealth and retirement. At the very moment when his expulsion seemed certain, an heiress was thrown into Newgate upon a charge of murdering a too importunate suitor. The chain of evidence was complete: the dagger plunged in his heart was recognised for her own; she was seen to decoy him to the secret corner of a wood, where his raucous love-making was silenced for ever. Taken off her guard, she had even hinted confession ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... voyage, he asked the captain to run in and set him ashore on the coast of England. The captain dissuaded him. The old man urged his request at every opportunity, and said, at last, 'I give you tousand dollars to put me aboard a pilot boat.' He was so vehement and importunate, that one day the captain, worried out of all patience, promised him that if he did not get out of the channel before next morning, he would run in and put him ashore. It happened that the wind changed in the afternoon and wafted ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... more solid studies of the philosopher and the linguist were fostered with equal care. Vatable, Melchior Wolmar, and other scholars of note were invited to France, to give instruction in Greek and Hebrew. Erasmus himself might have been induced to yield to the king's importunate messages, could he have been able to divest himself of the apprehension of annoyance from the bigoted "Sorbonnists;" while even Melanchthon was, at a later period, on the point of accepting a pressing summons to visit the French court on a mission ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... accuse us Highland folk of being rather too importunate as hosts; but we will try not to harass you; and if you have friends in Aberdeen, it would not be fair to beg of you to leave them aside this time. But surely you are not thinking of going to Aberdeen yet, when it is many a place you have yet to see ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... the most convinced believer in the aphorism "Bene qui latuit, bene vixit,"[3] is not always able to act up to it. An importunate person informs him that his portrait is about to be published and will be accompanied by a biography which the importunate person proposes to write. The sufferer knows what that means; either he undertakes to revise the "biography" ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... diffusive, like the letter of the young maiden, in which she asks a hundred questions, which are forgotten as soon as she has attached the seal. Others want warmth; they are too formal, like a petition to a sovereign; which may, or may not, receive a gracious and condescending reply. Others are importunate, and earnest enough, like the beggar's appeal for relief, but without much hope of success. But how few, like the cry of a child, who runs to his father with his one, for the moment, all-absorbing request, never dreaming ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... 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 an importunate woman. ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... Hindu philosophy and my porings over sacred books. The vague insistence of these misgivings made me surely aware that even in this eastern paradise all was not well; but at first I refused to listen, and plunged deep into the maze of the Vedanta to escape the importunate voice. Yet anxiety came up around me like a heavy atmosphere; an indescribable sense of disillusion, clinging as a damp mist, brought its mildew to the soul, until my new heaven was overcast and my new ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... than that it should be definite and fixed, based upon intelligent and well-considered principles, and adhered to, irrespective of the taste and fancies and crude speculations of the students or their friends. The young women who, all over the land, were urging so importunate a claim for thorough intellectual culture should first of all be taught what are the unalterable conditions of a thorough culture, alike for women and for men, and should be held to those conditions, just as young men are held, whether they 'like' the discipline or not. The ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... even their joviality is as admirably subject to good order as it is graceful, and does not impair the natural goodness of their disposition. But perhaps I am wrong; and it were better I should assume a frowning aspect, and behold only attempts on life, importunate beggary, useless priests and monks, and reserve my praises for those happy nations where there are no crimes, no inequality of fortune, no misery. Impassioned men declaim, exaggerate, lie. For my part, I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... principal charm to my life at Chartres; it occupied and comforted me when I was suffering from finding my soul so importunate and yet ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... how my time has been employed since my return to you. Whilst you have nightly laughed with me at the playhouse, I have nightly had the devil[1] waiting for a contribution at home, and he is an imp importunate and insatiable. To soothe him, I have worked ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... An importunate beggar could not have been more humiliatingly dismissed. St. Genis had flushed to the very roots of his hair. He would have given much to be able to chastise the insolent Englishman then and there. But the latter had not boasted when he said that he could wring Maurice's neck as easily ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... ennui; I repose myself on your fidelity; I have no company but your lordship's sermons or the conversations of that adorable young lady, and you take her from me, and you, you rest! Merci, Monsieur! I shall thank you when I have the means; I shall know to recompense a devotion a little importunate, my lord—a little importunate. For a month past your airs of protector have annoyed me beyond measure. You deign to offer me the crown, and bid me take it on my knees like King John—eh! I know my history, Monsieur, and mock myself of frowning barons. ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... other's arms—Nan, trim as a model in fresh khaki, trying with a handkerchief hardly larger than a postage-stamp to wipe the flecks of dust from her pink cheeks, while de Spain, between dabs, covered them with importunate greetings. Looking engrossed into each other's eyes, and both, in their eagerness, talking at once, they led their horses into hiding and sat down to try to tell all that had happened since their parting. Wars and rumors of wars, feuds and raidings, ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... leisure, and repented in hot haste. Six months later a daughter was born to him, and was baptized in the name of Susanna at Stratford Parish Church on the 26th of May, 1583. There was, therefore, an importunate reason for the wedding, as Sandells, no doubt, ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... engaged for some entertainment; and those who wished to regale him in their turn, were obliged to take their measures in time, and to invite him eight or ten days before hand. These importunate civilities became tiresome in the long run; but as they seemed indispensable to a man of his disposition, and as they were the most genteel people of the court who loaded him with them, he submitted with a good ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... opinion in India? It is declared that there is none. And yet people agree in saying that the natives who have been educated in the State colleges have become singularly importunate of late years, that they are beginning to adopt a high tone, and that they take especial delight in criticising the acts of the Government, who, unwisely, as it seems to me, encourage if not provoke such criticism. These ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... but to offer the most delicate homage at the same time. And it is in this latter intention that they are done by lovers; for the essence of love is kindness: and indeed it may be best defined as passionate kindness: kindness, so to speak, run mad and become importunate and violent. Vanity in a merely personal sense exists no longer. The lover takes a perilous pleasure in privately displaying his weak points and having them, one after another, accepted and condoned. He wishes to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... monastically, he was entitled to the abbey and that the usurping gentleman wronged of his right, and therefore he called upon his majesty to have justice done to him. Nodding his peruke, the king promised to render him contented. This monk, importunate as are all hooded animals, came often at the end of the king's meals, who, bored with the holy water of the convent, called friend Tristan and said to him: "Old fellow, there is here a Turpenay who angers ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... against imposture, and to hedge himself about against the swarms of solicitors who pervade a large and wealthy city. If he did not, he would be overwhelmed and devoured. His time would be all consumed and his estate squandered in satisfying the demands of importunate impudence. Still, among the crowd of applicants there is here and there one whose claim upon the aid of the rich man is just. It were much to be desired that a way should be devised by which these meritorious askers could be sifted from the mass, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... "Importunate! But I haven't seen you for three nights. And I can't get on without you, Ruby. Thank God, to-night we shall be alone together. After dinner I want you to play ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... Strada di Chiaia I find little tumult; it used to be deafening. Ten years ago a foreigner could not walk here without being assailed by the clamour of cocchieri; nay, he was pursued from street to street, until the driver had spent every phrase of importunate invitation; now, one may saunter as one will, with little disturbance. Down on the Piliero, whither I have been to take my passage for Paola, I catch but an echo of the jubilant uproar which used to amaze me. Is Naples really so much quieter? If I had time I would go out to Fuorigrotta, ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... be carefully prepared for my departure, and all that remained to be done was to raise the necessary funds for my undertaking. But in this respect the outlook was bad. The sale of our modest household furniture, the proceeds of a benefit concert, and my meagre savings only sufficed to satisfy the importunate demands of my creditors in Magdeburg and Konigsberg. I knew that if I were to devote all my cash to this purpose, there would not be a farthing left. Some way out of the fix must be found, and this our ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... was exceedingly importunate with God in prayer, and would plead with God at an unusual rate; and he would beg and expostulate, and weep so, that sometimes it could not be kept from the ears of the neighbours: so that one in the next house was forced to cry out, "The prayers and tears ...
— Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour - A Token for Children • John Wesley
... infirmities that attend religion; but at last I told him it was but in vain to attempt further in this business; for those things that he disdained, in those did I see most glory; and so at last I got past this importunate one. And when I had shaken him off, then I began ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in the frame. But suddenly she disappeared; and an opaque body interposed itself between her and Bussy, moving slowly, and stretching its arms out as though it were playing blindman's buff. Bussy felt in such a passion at this, that, had he been able, he would certainly have attacked this importunate vision; but as he made a vain effort, ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... squeamishness, dry and hungry, [then let me see you] despise mean viands; and don't drink anything but Hymettian honey qualified with Falernian wine. Your butler is abroad, and the tempestuous sea preserves the fish by its wintery storms; bread and salt will sufficiently appease an importunate stomach. Whence do you think this happens? and how is it obtained? The consummate pleasure is not in the costly flavor, but in yourself. Do you seek for sauce by sweating. Neither oysters, nor scar, nor the far-fetched ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... square foot of green baize. Nor was his commonplace book neglected; and in August we come upon an entry which shows that poetical aspirations were again possessing him; this time not to be cast forth, either at the timorous voice of Prudence or the importunate bidding of Poverty. Burns has calmly and critically taken stock—so to speak—of his literary aptitudes and abilities, and recognised his fitness for a place in the ranks of Scotland's poets. 'However I am pleased with the works of our Scotch poets, particularly the excellent Ramsay, and the still ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... should have made themselves masters of the small principalities and should come to attack the duchies and republics. It was clear that in Savonarola, the pope had an enemy at once temporal and spiritual, whose importunate and threatening voice must be ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the letter over Charity understood what it must have cost him to write it. He was not trying to evade an importunate claim; he was honestly and contritely struggling between opposing duties. She did not even reproach him in her thoughts for having concealed from her that he was not free: she could not see anything ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... would meet, and where Mr. Wainwright's presence would be conducive to their coming to terms. Mr. Wainwright at first refused to accede to this request, having important business of his own to attend to, but Smith was so importunate that he at length consented to accompany him, and they set out on the same afternoon in a chaise and pair. On their way, Smith was very friendly with Mr. Wainwright, and conversed with him as any man would with a friendly traveller on a long journey. On arriving within a mile ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... of deliberate superior manner, took a little run to catch up with him, and directly she had caught up with him tried to introduce her hand under his arm. Mrs Fyne saw the brusque half turn of the fellow's body as one avoids an importunate contact, defeating her attempt rudely. She did not try again but kept pace with his stride, and Mrs Fyne watched them, walking independently, turn the corner of the street side by side, disappear ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... never having seen the testimony. He then produced papers which General Forrest wished me to sign. Upon examination, I found them about the same as those previously shown me, and refused again to sign them, but the Judge was very importunate, and finally prevailed on me to sign the papers you have in your possession, pledging himself that if I wished it they should only be seen by General Forrest himself, that they were not intended to be used by him as testimony, but merely ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... sought leave to seek him, and to recover him: "Peradventure," they said, "the Spirit of the Lord hath taken him up and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley." Elisha peremptorily refused to grant them leave. They were importunate; and when, at last, it would, perhaps, seem like obstinacy in him, or like jealousy of their superior love for Elijah, to forbid the search, which at the worst would only be fruitless, he yielded. Three days they explored the valleys, ransacked the thickets, groped in the caves, traversed ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... the evening, evinced their attentions. But as Mr. Robinson's deranged state of affairs did not admit of our receiving parties at home, I made my excuses by saying that we were at a friend's house and not yet established in a town residence. Lord Lyttelton was particularly importunate; but he received the same answer which I had ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink while thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field—that, of course, they are ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... with a rupee and a half batta upon each mohur, and on this account laid claims upon me to the amount of six lacs some thousand rupees, and sent Major Gilpin to exact the payment. Major Gilpin, according to orders, at first was importunate; but being a man of experience, and of a benevolent disposition, when he was convinced of my want of means, he changed his conduct, and was willing to apply to the shroffs and bankers to lend me the money. But with the loss of my jaghire my credit was sunk; I could not raise the sum. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... village of Tanpaca. He is willing and anxious for it and has already embarked to come to see me. As he is a boy, although he is respected by all, his uncles Sali and Silonga would not let him do so. They have hindered him, warning him that he will be hanged. He is importunate in his desire to come, saying that he has no fear of the Spaniards, because he has done them no harm; and his father, Dimasanca, was their friend and paid them tribute, and why should they do him harm? As his uncles are so much ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... kingdom of heaven," says: "Not by maiming themselves, but by destroying evil thoughts, for a man is accursed who maims himself, since they are murderers who do such things." And further on he says: "Nor is lust tamed thereby, on the contrary it becomes more importunate, for the seed springs in us from other sources, and chiefly from an incontinent purpose and a careless mind: and temptation is curbed not so much by cutting off a member as ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... contradiction. In 1834 he entirely and for ever abandoned the province of the history of development, at which for twenty years he had laboured incessantly, and where he had earned splendid laurels. To escape from the haunting and importunate ideas of the science which had so wholly absorbed him, he fled from Koenigsberg to Petersburg, and subsequently busied himself in scientific inquiries of a quite different character. Twenty-five long years passed by, and when Darwin's work appeared in 1859, Von Baer had too ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... do with libraries or book stores. Living friends, male and female, were happily forgotten in the delighted acquaintance- making with those quiet companions, which, whatever their deficiencies in other respects, are at least never importunate nor variable. Fleda had come home rather late, and was dressing for dinner, with Constance's company and help, when Mrs. Evelyn came ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... States, there should be no old castles. Putting aside the old castles, I should say, like Mr. Ruskin, that life loses a certain indispensable charm in a country destitute of an apparent standing army. Certainly, the army may be too apparent, too importunate, too terrible a burden to the state and to the conscience of the philosophic observer. This is the case, without a doubt, just now in the bristling empires of the Continent. In Germany and France, in Russia ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... imagine they were talking of him, and he saw in the pretty Face of Charlot, that what she said was not to his Disadvantage, and by the Blushes of Atlante, that she was not displeas'd with what was spoken to her; he perceiv'd the young one importunate with her; and Atlante jogging her with her Elbow, as much as to say, Hold your Peace: all this he made a kind Interpretation of, and was transported with Joy at the good Omens. He was willing to flatter his new Flame, and to compliment his young Desire with a little Hope; ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... to bring success to our beloved Major Brighten—feelings which we all cordially reciprocated. But Colonel Best-Dunkley would not hear of it. He implored the General to allow him to lead his battalion over the top; he waxed most importunate in his entreaties, almost bursting into tears at the thought of being debarred from going over with the Battalion; and, at last, his request was granted and the General agreed that Best-Dunkley ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... and the segregation of a specified portion toward the ultimate payment of the debt. The treaty was submitted to the United States Senate, but that body adjourned in March, 1905, without final action. The creditors again became importunate and an interim modus vivendi was therefore arranged, under which the Dominican customs were to be collected by a receiver designated by the President of the United States, and the proportion mentioned in the pending treaty was reserved as a creditors' fund. The temporary arrangement ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... "they sing so sweetly!" But Fido would not stop; his blood seemed on fire, and he barked so furiously that Graceful forgot the grasshoppers to follow his importunate companion. ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... in Russia, he was importunate in urging his extravagant designs upon persons of influence. When the French Government in 1767 commissioned him to work in Madagascar, he believed that his dream was to come true, but a rude awakening and the accustomed quarrels followed. He landed on the Isle of France, purposing to work as ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden |
