"Peremptory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were slow for a few moments, but they soon grew quicker, for he could hear Captain Marsham giving orders in a sharp, peremptory way. ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... when you are once outside, you may depart as soon as you please;" Xenophon replied that this matter must be settled with Anaxibius, to whom accordingly both of them went, and who repeated the same directions, in a manner yet more peremptory. Though it was plain to Xenophon that he was here making himself a sort of instrument to the fraud which Anaxibius had practised upon the army, yet he had no choice but to obey. Accordingly, he as well as the ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... by some untoward accident, found out what was going on, and at once expounded the law and the necessities of the case to their children, forbidding them in the most peremptory manner, and on penalty of the severest chastisement, ever to attempt again to give Tidy or any other slave a lesson. What the punishment was with which they were threatened she never knew, for the little girls never dared even to speak upon the subject; but she knew it must be something very ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... in a peremptory shout from the next room caused him to pick up the brooch and hasten thither. The first sight that met his eye was the flushed triumphant face of Merrington bending over some articles on the table. Caldew's ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... continued Edgar, "which I agreed to pay, I have paid." He made a peremptory gesture. "I won't detain you any longer," he ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... history of real or fictitious biography. "In wisdom," writes Professor Ferrier, "the Shepherd equals the Socrates of Plato; in humour, he surpasses the Falstaff of Shakspeare; clear and prompt, he might have stood up against Dr Johnson in close and peremptory argument; fertile and copious, he might have rivalled Burke in amplitude of declamation; while his opulent imagination and powers of comical description invest all that he utters, either with a picturesque mildness or a graphic quaintness ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... me if I interrupt your interesting conversation, but state affairs are peremptory, and supersede all other considerations. Your majesty has commanded my presence that I might sign the act of partition. The courier, who is to convey the news to Berlin and St. Petersburg, is ready to go. Allow me to ask if ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... I was quite enthralled. He is perhaps a little too peremptory, a little too jovial for my taste. I should like to see him a little less confident at times, a little more tolerant, but one feels that he knows a great deal, and on the whole he seems ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... friend Mr. Whitworth Wallis, the curator of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, I entered the Mansion House, when we were immediately accosted by a powdered flunkey in gorgeous uniform, in possession of the autograph album, who presented a truly magnificent pen at us, and in peremptory tones demanded our life or our signatures. Whitworth Wallis wrote his first, with a dash and confidence. I stood by and admired. "Oh," I said, taking the pen, "that's not half a dash; let ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... in at the millyard, between towering piles of aromatic raw planks. Behind them Caleb and Allison had lost still more ground while the latter paused to speak a peremptory word in the ear of a mildly intoxicated, red-headed riverman who was pouring forth his whole soul in the refrain of "Harrigan, That's Me!" And almost immediately, in answer to Barbara's question, Steve pointed across to a short, plump figure in conversation with McLean, ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... free good-will, sooner than I would must it to Edinburgh. Yet this is all folly, and silly folly too; and so must shall be for once obeyed after I have thus written myself out of my aversion to its peremptory sound. Corrected the said proofs till twelve o'clock—when I think I will treat resolution, not to a dram, as the drunken fellow said after he had passed the dram-shop, but to a walk, the rather that my eyesight ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... to make good his words, but Hilda entered a peremptory negative, and it ended by his staying to dinner and spending a long and utterly delightful evening, which became in a sense the beginning of what he felt was a new epoch in his life. This was the understanding, the fellowship, the bon ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... cushions with a peremptory wave of her hand. The loose, flowing sleeve fell away, revealing her white, exquisitely modelled arm almost to the shoulder. For some strange, unaccountable reason Booth's ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... doings; so he says to us: 'Soldiers! you have been masters of every capital in Europe, except Moscow, which is now the ally of England. To conquer England, and India which belongs to the English, it becomes our peremptory duty to go to Moscow,' Then he assembled the greatest army that ever trailed its gaiters over the globe; and so marvellously in hand it was that he reviewed a million of men in one day. 'Hourra!'[9] cried the Russians. Down came all Russia and those animals of Cossacks in a flock. 'Twas nation ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... peremptory tone in which it was pronounced, made the ambassadors pale, and brought the color into the cheeks of the two queens, who, being Spanish, felt wounded by this reply in their pride of ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... mind held some dim recollection of the futility of gainsaying that peremptory voice, she opened her lips obediently and let the strong spirit ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... interview, in which, being armed with a line from the autocrat of Foreign affairs to the pacha of the Interior, Jacquet hoped to carry the matter by assault. He was ready with reasons, and answers to peremptory questions,—in short, he was armed at all points; but ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... Becker's imperturbability incased him like a kindly coating of tallow. His daily and peremptory call to breakfast brought him down only after the last satisfactory application of whisk, tooth, hand, shoe, bath, and hair brush, his invariable white-linen string tie adjusted to a nicety, his neat gray business suit ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... the boys gave fresh signs of life. I knew they were not going to work that afternoon — St. Hans' Eve — but habit is a strange thing. Bjaaland rose in a peremptory fashion, and asked who was going to have the first turn. After a lot of questions and answers, it was decided that Hassel should be the first. What it was I could not make out. I heard them talk about ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... him in the humblest manner to spare his only child; she could never survive the union—it would break her heart—she was young, and wished still to remain for some years under the paternal roof. But tears and entreaties were unavailing. Don Pedro commanded her, in the most peremptory manner, to obey. Rising, with a dignity and composure of manner he had never seen in her before, for she had ever appeared in his presence only a timid and frightened child, she professed her readiness to make his will her law in every other point; she would serve him ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... of marble and granite. At all times the light is of an unearthly softness and purity, toned by the exquisite windows and rosaces. But as evening draws on, you should linger till the sacristan grows peremptory, to watch the gorgeous glow of the western sunlight on the blazing roses of the portals, and the marvellous play of rich shadows and faint gray lights in the eastern chapels, where the grand aisles sweep in their perfect ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... Testament, as much as their defection from the New: and truly it is beyond wonder, how that contemptible and degenerate issue of Jacob, once so devoted to ethnick superstition, and so easily seduced to the idolatry of their neighbours, should now, in such an obstinate and peremptory belief, adhere unto their own doctrine, expect impossibilities, and in the face and eye of the church, persist without the least hope of conversion. This is a vice in them, that were a virtue in us; for obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good: and herein I must accuse those ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... strange to knock at her brother's door, and yet Maggie felt as if David would expect it of her. He answered the timid summons by a loud peremptory "Come in;" but when Maggie entered he leaped to his feet in amazement, and let the big book in his hand fall to the floor. There were the remains of tea on the table, and a young man who was sitting with David had pushed the ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... 9 Perpetual or peremptory exceptions are obstructions of unlimited duration, which practically destroy the plaintiff's ground of action, such as the exceptions of fraud, intimidation, and agreement ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... was conducted, in obedience to his brief but peremptory direction, very privately and with little expense. But of course there was an attendance, and the tenants of the Knowl estate also followed the hearse to the mausoleum, as it is called, in the park, where he was laid beside my dear mother. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... have said in justification of your fourteen arguments. 'Such as they were,' say you, 'I am willing to stand by them: What I have offered, I have offered modestly: according to the utmost light I had into those scriptures upon which they are bottomed; having not arrived unto such a peremptory way of dictatorship, as what I render must be taken for laws binding to others in faith and practice; and therefore express myself by suppositions, strong presumptions, and fair seeming conclusions ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that she will take time to think of such a proposition, the gentleman is generally justified in supposing that he has carried his cause. When a lady rejects a suitor, she should reject him peremptorily. Anything short of such peremptory reaction is taken for acquiescence. Mr Maguire consequently was elated, called her Margaret, and swore that he loved her as he had ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... station where we stopped, one respectable-looking man asked of another, "Have you got anything to do yet, Robert?" "Still waiting for something to turn up," was the answer. This man was not at all of the Micawber type, but a well-brushed, decent-looking person with a keen peremptory face, evidently of Scottish descent. A group of such men came on the train, whose only talk was of emigrating if they ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... they saw the Roman general ruling in the palace of the Lagids and their kings accepting the award of his tribunal. Pothinus and the boy-king, both as may be conceived very dissatisfied at once with the peremptory requisition of old debts and with the intervention in the throne- dispute which could only issue, as it did, in favour of Cleopatra, sent—in order to pacify the Roman demands—the treasures of the temples ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... story of persistent misfortune, but on this occasion Wyant, instead of making a direct appeal for money, suggested that, through her hospital connections, she should help him to establish a New York practice. His tone was half-whining, half-peremptory, his once precise writing smeared and illegible; and these indications, combined with her former suspicions, convinced her that, for the moment, he was unfit for medical work. At any rate, she could not assume the responsibility of recommending ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... England; required him for that purpose to conclude[a] an armistice with the insurgents, and sent to him instructions for the regulation of his conduct. This despatch was secret; it was followed by a public warrant; and that was succeeded by a peremptory command. But much occurred to retard the object, and irritate the impatience of the monarch. Ormond, for his own security, and the service of his sovereign, deemed it politic to assume a tone of superiority, and ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... I cannot learn that Government has any specific dislike to us, but find that ever since the year 1807 the orders of the Court of Directors to send home all Europeans not in the service of Her Majesty or the Company, and who come out without leave of the Directors, have been so peremptory and express that Government cannot now overlook any circumstance which brings such persons to notice. Notwithstanding the general way in which the Court of Directors have worded their orders, I cannot ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... by making themselves stowaways; "half-caste" people, relying on their comparative fairness of skin, had openly taken passage as seamen or even passengers, and thus got away from a hateful life of bondage. Hence the peremptory regulation that no captain should sail with a stranger aboard without an official license. Under these circumstances a plan was devised by the captain. When the Government officers came aboard, no Tichborne or other stranger was visible. As the vessel, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... another wandering correspondent has invaded the Holy City. Mr. E———, "special" of a great London daily paper, whom I had the pleasure of meeting once or twice in Teheran, has come eastward in an effort to enter Afghanistan. He has been halted by peremptory orders at Meshed. Disgusted with his ill-luck at not being permitted to carry out his plans, he is on the eve of returning to Constantinople. As I am heading for the same point myself, we arrange to travel ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... long and gloomy, but Rosa was kept busily employed, carrying out the peremptory commands of the cripple. She bathed and tenderly rubbed the offending ankle till her ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... Van Arsdale's tone was peremptory. "Here is my place." She indicated a clearing with a little nest of a camp ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... friend," he said, "why do you allow yourself to suffer in this fashion, when a word from you can set a term to it? Confess the deed without fear, since at the same time you can advance a peremptory reason ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... hot a flame. It is so hard in evil times to escape this charge for the faithful preacher. Most of all, it was his merit, like Luther, Knox, and Latimer and John the Baptist, to speak tart truth when that was peremptory and when there were few to say it. His commanding merit as a reformer is this, that he insisted beyond all men in pulpit—I cannot think of one rival—that the essence of Christianity is its practical morals; it is there for ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... dissatisfied, both because he was ignorant of the orders and instructions under which the president acted, and because Mexia had not communicated his intentions. Hinojosa wrote therefore to Mexia in a harsh and peremptory manner, reflecting bitterly on his conduct, and, at the same time, some friends of Mexia, who were then resident in Panama, wrote to dissuade him from coming to that place, as Hinojosa was much irritated against him for the friendly reception he had given to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... not?" said the Doctor warmly. "Oh, of course," I answered, "there is no reason why you should not wear them." "I imagine not, sir—I imagine not," said the Doctor in a very peremptory tone. I had contemplated a laugh, but found it was a serious matter. I looked grave, and said they were a pretty pattern. "I hope they are," said Dr. Johnson, fixing his eyes upon me. "You see nothing extraordinary in these stockings as stockings, I trust, ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... may acquire the trick of telling a story. At present I am baffled by the many things that clamour for prior record. Before bringing Sir Anthony on the scene, I feel I ought to say something more about myself, to explain why Lady Fenimore should have sent for me in so peremptory a fashion. Following the model of my favourite author Balzac—you need the awful leisure that has been mine to appreciate him—I ought to describe the house in which I live, my establishment—well, I have begun with Sergeant Marigold—and the little country town which is practically ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... as such. My musings had not carried me so far. But the things and people about me, the play of the elements, and the unceasing and ever-varying activities of the ship's working, appealed to me as his love to a lover, filling my every hour with waiting claims, each to my ardour more instant and peremptory than its fellow. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... haughty and peremptory in the impassioned parts; abrupt appositions keep the attention fixed upon the main quality of the characters, the one by which they are meant to live in memory; triumphant accents accompany the tales of war; the dismal landscapes are described with care, or rather ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... as Mr. Sherwood had the upper hand, Plaisted was obliged to submit to his decision, and he soon left the room to collect his belongings, having received a peremptory dismissal. ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... widespread demand that Christianity should get together into one world-wide visible ecclesiastical order, Luther's words are peremptory. He declares that the one true Church is already a spiritual community composed of all the believers in Christ upon the earth, that it is not a bodily assembly, but "an assembly of the hearts in one faith," that the true Church is "a spiritual thing, and not anything external or ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... purpose and that strong prehensile mind which always obtains a complete grasp of a thing; in him, too, we have the hand's quick clutch and the grip as of iron. Like Demosthenes, he conceals his art or compels one to forget it by the peremptory way he calls attention to the subject he treats; and yet, like his great predecessor, he is the last and greatest of a whole line of artist-minds, and therefore has more to conceal than his forerunners: ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... with the marrow oozing out of the ends, from the bursting baked potatoes, from the beautiful crusts of brown bread, when he heard the door-bell ring. At the sound his face set as though it were mortar. He wanted no patients this night; but from the peremptory sound of the bell he was sure some one had come who needed medicine or the knife, and he could refuse neither; for was he not at everybody's beck and call, the Medicine Man whose ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... streamed with blood and reechoed with the cries of mothers and children, with the shrieks of violated virgins. The rich plunder that was abandoned to his soldiers might stimulate their avarice; but their cruelty was enforced by the peremptory command of producing an adequate number of heads, which, according to his custom, were curiously piled in columns and pyramids. The Mongols celebrated the feast of victory, while the surviving Moslems passed the night in tears and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... arrived, dressed in laced clothes, and talking loud to everybody, and soon fell awrangling with a gentleman about tragedy and comedy and the unities, &c., and laid down the law of the drama in a peremptory manner, supporting his arguments with cursing and swearing. I saw Cheap was astonished, when, going to the bar, he asked who this was, and finding it was Guthrie he paid his coffee and slunk off in silence.' Guthrie's meanness is shown by the following letter in D'Israeli's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... did all that, the Honorable Blake received the Old Man's letter, read it through slowly and afterwards stroked down his Vandyke beard and laughed quietly to himself. The letter itself was both peremptory and profane, and commanded the Honorable Blake to do exactly what he had already done, and what he intended to do when the time came for ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... Fletcher had in some way become prosperous, and he now advanced to use the peculiar note as a draft on the miserable debtor's funds. There was the same wily approach, the same covert allusion to Fletcher's supposed resources, the same peremptory demand, and the same ugly threat which had so desperately maddened him when the subject was broached before. Fletcher felt the tightening of the lasso, but could not free himself from the fatal noose. He must pay whatever the cold-eyed creditor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... so penetrating as that of Themistocles to divine at once the motive of the demand, and the danger of a peremptory refusal. He persuaded the Athenians to reply that they would send ambassadors to debate the affair; and dismissed the Spartans without further explanation. Themistocles next recommended to the senate [119] that ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... voice that uttered them, hoarse and peremptory, was altered almost beyond recognition. If I had not known whose room it was, I might have doubted whether the Minister had really spoken ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... had thirty peremptory challenges Mr. Tutt well knew that Babson would sustain the prosecutor's objections for bias until the jury box would contain the twelve automata personally selected by O'Brien in advance from what Tutt called "the army of the gibbet." Yet the old war horse outwardly maintained ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... and fortified town; but Vauban had no hand in the fortifications, and it is my private opinion the walls would go down before a peremptory horn-blast quicker than those of Jericho. It swarms with a motley population much addicted to differences in shades of complexion. The Tangerines exhaust the primitive colours and most of the others in their features. There are lime-white Tangerines, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... it the proper independence, and in general to implant in the people that respect for the law which ought to be the constant guide of all and every one from the highest to the lowest." These were not mere vain words. Peremptory orders had been given that the great work should be undertaken without delay, and when the Emancipation question was being discussed in the Provincial Committees, the Council of State examined the question of judicial reform "from the historical, the theoretical, and ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... peremptory, old-world and feudal strikes the traveler as adhering in this custom, by which Wilmington constantly pays for the general safety of her promenaders with the offering of a citizen's life and limbs. This impression is right. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... to the tailors were peremptory to lose no time in fitting Jack with an undress suit, and in twenty-four hours he was able to join the mess of the young officers and volunteers who accompanied the general. These were all young men ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... and said: "My friend, your suggestion that we deprive ourselves to feed those cavalrymen was a trifle peremptory in tone. I am wondering how much your tone will change when ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... face to face with the woman, whose absorbed notice of him, in the crowd, had intimated so close a relation between himself and her. His first care was given to the child, whose cries, indeed, as she lay writhing on the trundle-bed, made it of peremptory necessity to postpone all other business to the task of soothing her. He examined the infant carefully, and then proceeded to unclasp a leathern case, which he took from beneath his dress. It appeared ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... order was so peremptory. Nettie fussed around rather displeased. Finally she asked if the young ladies wanted anything, and learning that they did ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... the reins and begins to despise himself. This is the guiltless innocent; for who has saddled him with the unbearable burden of standing alone? Who has urged him on to independence at an age when one of the most natural and peremptory needs of youth is, so to speak, a self-surrendering to great leaders and an enthusiastic following in the ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... upon more interesting topicks ended in the like uncertainty. He that travels in the Highlands may easily saturate his soul with intelligence, if he will acquiesce in the first account. The Highlander gives to every question an answer so prompt and peremptory, that skepticism itself is dared into silence, and the mind sinks before the bold reporter in unresisting credulity; but, if a second question be ventured, it breaks the enchantment; for it is immediately discovered, that what was told so confidently was told at hazard, and that such fearlessness ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... other might come to light to account for the anomalous and unaccountable position which she had taken up. The imperial government considered it had now a clear view of her case, and its orders were distinct and peremptory. Christianity was to cease to be. It was a subtle foe, sapping the vitals of the state. Rome must perish, or this illegal association. Such evasions as Callista had used were but instances of its craft. Its treason lay, not in its being ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... increasing practice, made her overlook the insidious danger lurking in a cold, and not until her alarmed physician ordered her to the soft climate of Southern California did she comprehend her danger. This peremptory order was a terrible shock, and the forced exile from the field of her hopes and ambitions, more bitter than death. She never rallied, but continued rapidly to fail until the end came. At a meeting of the bar of Chicago, held to take action in commemoration of the death of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... have you send a peremptory message to the marchioness to quit the dance immediately; and, if she does not obey, I would ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... coal merchant's at that sharp corner outside the station, and ask, rather peremptorily, when the coke for her central heating might be expected. It was due now, and though it would be unfortunate if it arrived before Saturday, it was quite easy to smile away her peremptory manner, and say that Withers had not told her. Miss Mapp hated prevarication, but a major force sometimes came along.... But if no motors from Ardingly Park were in waiting for the 4.15 (as spied from her house-roof), ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... formation, and at a respectful distance behind the master of the range. Half-way up the rugged side of the spur, his unbeaten insolence betrayed Lupus into what the wild folk considered an unsportsmanlike and stupid mistake. He paused for a moment, and bellowed forth a threatening and peremptory announcement of his coming in the form of a hoarse, grating howl of challenge which could have been heard a mile away. Then he proceeded on his upward way slowly, because he was fully fed, carelessly, because he had never ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... hurried once more into position; the stage was cleared by a whispered peremptory order; the bell rung once, the tent trembling with some one whisking further out of sight behind it,—twice, and ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... In the old Bretton days, though she had never professed herself fond of me, my society had soon become to her a sort of unconscious necessary. I used to notice that if I withdrew to my room, she would speedily come trotting after me, and opening the door and peeping in, say, with her little peremptory accent,—"Come down. Why do you sit here by yourself? You must come ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... arrival I received letters from Dr. Campbell, who had strongly and repeatedly represented to the Rajah his opinion of the treatment I was receiving; and this finally brought an explicit answer, to the effect that his orders had been full and peremptory that I should be supplied with provisions, and safely conducted to the frontier. With these came letters on the Rajah's part from Tchebu Lama to the Lachen Phipun, ordering him to take me to the pass, but not specifying its position; ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... any fresh company, observe their humours. Suit your own carriage thereto, by which insinuation you will make their converse more free and open. Let your discourse be more in querys and doubtings than peremptory assertions or disputings, it being the designe of travelers to learne, not to teach. Besides, it will persuade your acquaintance that you have the greater esteem of them, and soe make them more ready to communicate ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... a moderate bank account; that is, it is never penniless, indeed it can never afford to be, because it is peremptory that it should possess funds in order to disburse them to needier brothers. There is never an hour when Mr. William Beresford is not signing notes and bonds and drafts for less fortunate men; giving small loans just to 'help a fellow over a hard place'; educating ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... necklace early in the morning, tell the Langens that her mother desired her immediate return without giving a reason, and take the train for Brussels that evening. She had no maid with her, and the Langens might make difficulties about her returning home, but her will was peremptory. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... raise his voice to a shout in order to make himself heard above the tearing scream of the saws made him sound very abrupt and peremptory, more so than he had meant. As he finished speaking his eyes met those of the older man, and were held by the clarity and candor of the other's gaze. They were like a child's eyes in that old face. It was as though he had been abrupt and ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the lamp to turn down the light, when three short peremptory raps at the back door caused her to start nervously. She took up the lamp and tiptoed into ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... about the streets, occasionally being "moved on" by a policeman, until the sceptical officer already referred to had evinced an intention of arresting them both as rogues and vagabonds. I could not help smiling at the peremptory manner in which poor Giannoli's adventures had almost been brought to ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... with perhaps an unnecessary amount of noise and haste. Then he went and looked out of the window into the serene summer darkness and the dewy garden, getting a little fresh air upon his heated face. Last of all he came back, peremptory and decided. "I shall not betray him," said the Perpetual Curate; "but I will have no further schemes concocted nor villany carried on in my house. If I consent to shield him, and, if possible, save him from the law, it is neither for his ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... and waist. Her lips parted for a bright question, but it was interrupted. The interrupters were the restless twins, whose tread sounded peremptory even on the painted canvas of the deck, and the fineness of whose presence was dimmed only by the hardy lawlessness which, in their own eyes, was ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... idea was joyfully accepted, and gradually filtered through its authorised channels, suffering some office change or other at each stage till it finally reached one of our ancient seats of learning. It arrived rather like the peremptory order of a newly-gazetted and bewildered subaltern, who, having got his platoon hopelessly tied up, falls back on the time-honoured and usually infallible "Carry ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... legislature had begun to memorialize Congress and to ask for the complete removal of the Indians. Meanwhile the Negro question was becoming more prominent, and orders from the Department of War, increasingly peremptory, were made on Humphreys for the return of definite Negroes. For Duval and Humphreys, however, who had actually to execute the commissions, the task was not always so easy. Under date March 20, 1827, the former wrote to the ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... French element, and in continual contact and contrast with it, which prevails chiefly in the Female Quarters of the Palace,—there is the native German element for young Fritz, of which the centre is Papa, now come to be King, and powerfully manifesting himself as such. An abrupt peremptory young King; and German to the bone. Along with whom, companions to him in his social hours, and fellow-workers in his business, are a set of very rugged German sons of Nature; differing much from the French sons of Art. Baron Grumkow, Leopold Prince of Anhalt-Dessau (not yet called the "OLD Dessauer," ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... gloves, and new wig, redolent of eau de Portugal, he looked something like a poisonous essence kept in a cut-glass bottle, seeming but the more deadly because everything about it is daintily neat, from the stopper covered with white kid to the label and the thread. His peremptory manner, the eruption on his blotched countenance, the green eyes, and a malignant something about him,—all these things struck the beholder with the same sense of surprise as storm-clouds in a blue sky. If in his private office, as he showed himself ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... but discipline there was but little of, and the soldiery in those days regarded peaceful citizens as fair game; hence, when they came from the palace the streets of the city were already hushed and quiet, for the orders of the king had been peremptory that no men-at-arms, or others except those on duty, were to be away from their camp after nightfall. This order had been absolutely necessary, so many were the complaints brought in by country peasants and farmers of the ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... predictions of the Sibyl were accompanied by strange fantastic circumstances, and wore the appearance of a blind caprice or arbitrary fate; whereas the announcements of the Hebrew prophets, founded upon the denunciation of moral evil and the reign of sacred and peremptory principles of righteousness in the world, were calm, dignified, and self-consistent. But we cannot, notwithstanding, deny to pagan prophecy some share in the higher influence which inspired and moulded Hebrew prophecy. The ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... perceived at once; but he offered none of the appropriate deferences that she had received on occasion from obscure young men of less than modest fortune. He was intent, he was earnest, he was even a bit peremptory; but she felt perfectly certain that he was not treating her as a subject and a subject merely. His black eyes looked at her with a sort of sharp severity across the leg of the easel, and his rasping ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... officers assured me that it was only out of deference to his well-known standing in the community that the prisoner had been allowed the privilege of receiving medical treatment in his own home; their orders were peremptory to keep him under ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... reached the steps of the dais, he looked up, and ordered them to halt in so peremptory a tone that even ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... without prayer can hardly be affirmed, this {434} surely is decided in my favour: it may wear the appearance of contradiction to the former passage, that omitting public prayer he omitted all; in truth, the expression just quoted is too peremptory and too general. But the sense of Johnson cannot be mistaken, if you attend to the different views he had in each sentence; and I repeat my former assertion, that Johnson did not think Milton destitute of a devout spirit, or totally negligent ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... wonder men give in—generally. I won't say I was actually charmed by Mrs Fyne. I was not delighted with her. What affected me was not what she displayed but something which she could not conceal. And that was emotion— nothing less. The form of her declaration was dry, almost peremptory— but not its ton. Her voice faltered just the least bit, she smiled faintly; and as we were looking straight at each other I observed that her eye's were glistening in a peculiar manner. She was distressed. And indeed that Mrs Fyne should have appealed to me at all was ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... to resent them, was only to make these men and women coarser, and increase the laughter and ribaldry, so Barbara decided to stay away again. This time, however, Sir John did not leave her alone. He sent a peremptory message ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... to seem and to feel perfectly well, I did not think myself warranted to refuse that sanction: and in writing to enforce great caution in the trials, I expressed some apprehension that he might fancy we had been too peremptory in our injunctions of mental and bodily repose in April; and I quoted the following remark, which occurs somewhere in one of Captain Cook's Voyages. 'Preventive measures are always invidious, for when most successful, the necessity for them is ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... night. Ayscough, indeed, had more than hinted that that would probably be done. For anything he knew, some plain-clothes man might be shadowing him even then—anyway, there had been no mistaking the almost peremptory request of the inspector that he should report himself at the police station in the morning. It was no use denying the fact—he was suspected, in ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... offered to her most distant subjects in the East, strike single-handed a blow there, which shakes a vast and ancient empire to its very foundations, and forces its haughty emperor from his throne, to assume the attitude of a suppliant for peace, yielding her peremptory but just demands, even at the cannon's mouth, and actually relinquishing to her a large portion of his dominions. Events, these, so astonishing, that their true character and consequences have not yet been ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... peremptory order, he realized that he was taking a liberty he had no right to take, and his face flushed as he wondered if Edith would resent the familiarity of his tones; but she merely looked up at him with a bright smile, ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... being considered unhealthy. Every now and then Government takes alarm at the prodigious size to which the metropolis is growing, and an Act is passed to restrain further building within a given distance from the City walls. Country gentlemen receive peremptory orders to reside on their estates, and not to visit London except by licence; for the authorities are afraid lest the influx of visitors should cause famine and pestilence. There is no drainage; for every householder pours his slops into the street, ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... affair" promis'd to bring upon us a war with Great Britain—follow'd unquestionably, as that war would have, by recognition of the Southern Confederacy from all the leading European nations. It is now certain that all this then inevitable train of calamity hung on arrogant and peremptory phrases in the prepared and written missive of the British Minister, to America, which the Queen (and Prince Albert latent) positively and promptly cancell'd; and which her firm attitude did alone actually erase and leave out, against all the other ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... than even the resistance that was active. Summon together by lawful authority a number of soldiers and police, and it is easy to shoot down a few unarmed peasants, and to dispose for the hour of popular resistance in this prompt and peremptory way. But what is to be done when the resistance takes the form of a resolute organized refusal to pay up the amounts claimed or to offer any price for the cattle seized in default of payment? There were in every district numbers of quiet Catholic parishioners who would much rather ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... proceeded to Capua, and took the command of the motley besieging force. One thousand of the best men in the fleet were sent to assist in the siege. Just at this time Nelson received a peremptory order from Lord Keith to sail with the whole of his force for the protection of Minorca; or, at least, to retain no more than was absolutely necessary at Sicily. "You will easily conceive my feelings," said he in communicating this to Earl St. Vincent; "but my mind, ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... the assistance of a few of the party to convey Miss Vere to her father's castle of Ellieslaw, to which she was peremptory in desiring to be conducted. This was readily granted; and five or six young men agreed to attend him as an escort. Hobbie was not of the number. Almost heart-broken by the events of the day, and his final disappointment, he returned moodily home to take such measures as he could for the sustenance ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... light would have been permitted to leave the harbour. The writer set off without delay for Arbroath, and on landing used every possible means with the official people, but their orders were deemed so peremptory that even boats were not permitted to sail from any port upon the coast. In the meantime, the collector of the Customs at Montrose applied to the Board at Edinburgh, but could, of himself, grant no relief to the ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cow-horn blew, and this time the call was more prolonged and commanding in tone. It brought the little girl to her feet, and she hunted up her hat and put it on. Then, as two short, peremptory blasts rang ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... The peremptory manner in which this was said left no room for reply. Antonio therefore returned to his friends, and ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... principle, enough to enact and carry into effect a comprehensive measure. The longer the neglect the more aggravated the pressure with which the subject returns upon us. It is forcing itself on attention with a demand as peremptory as ever was the necessity of an embankment against the peril of inundation. There are no indications to make us sanguine as to the disposition of the most influential classes; but it were little less than infatuation ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... well merited, served only to arouse the ire of the king. He declared that by the time the hat should arrive Fisher should have no head on which to wear it, and to show that this was no idle threat a peremptory order was dispatched that unless Fisher and More took the oath before the feast of St. John they should suffer the penalty prescribed for traitors. Fisher, together with some monks of the Carthusians, was brought to trial (June 1535), and was found ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... given up, whom, after a short inquiry, they strangled. The recent affair of the unfortunate gunner is well known. An affray happened in Macao a few years ago, in which a Chinese was killed by the Portuguese. A peremptory demand was made for one of the latter, to expiate the death of the former. The government of this place, either unable or unwilling to fix on the delinquent, proposed terms of compromise, which were rejected and force was threatened to be used. There happened to be a merchant from Manilla then ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... dreamer in a tree-top were interrupted by the peremptory notes of a tin horn from the farmhouse below. The boy recognized this not only as a signal of declining day and the withdrawal of the sun behind the mountains, but as a personal and urgent notification to him that a certain amount of disenchanting drudgery called ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... by a rattling at her door and jumped out of bed. She heard Mr. Royall's voice, low and peremptory, and opened the door, fearing an accident. No other thought had occurred to her; but when she saw him in the doorway, a ray from the autumn moon falling on his ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... attacked by the measles; at a still more critical moment of his melancholy life, he was the victim of ague: both of them ignoble diseases, which seem to have little concern with the affairs of royalty. The delay of the Prince's illness, although shortened by the peremptory commands of the French King to proceed, was fatal, for the English fleet had time to make preparations. A storm drove the French fleet northwards; in the tempest the unfortunate adventurer passed the Firth of Forth and Aberdeen; and although the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... places, had seized a moment when Elizabeth's fickle mind had inclined to warlike measures, and knowing that the mood might last but a day, had slipped out of Plymouth and sailed for Spain a few hours before a messenger arrived with a peremptory order from Elizabeth against entering any Spanish port or offering violence to any Spanish town or ships. Although caught in a gale in the Channel, Drake held on, and, reaching Gibraltar on the 16th April, ascertained that Cadiz was crowded with transports ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... to French officers to take service in this legion. Recruits were also expected from Europe, and twelve hundred Austrians, on the eve of embarking at St. Nazaire, were stopped only by the peremptory interference of the United States.* Various army-corps had been formed, officered by foreigners, among whom were some good French and Austrian officers. Much interest had at first been shown in the scheme; and the new army, its recruits, its uniforms and ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... to win this vantage. We cannot bring the heavenly powers to us, but, if we will only choose our jobs in directions in which they travel, they will undertake them with the greatest pleasure. It is a peremptory rule with them, that they never go out of their road. We are dapper little busybodies, and run this way and that way superserviceably; but they swerve never from their foreordained paths,—neither the sun, nor the moon, nor a bubble of air, nor ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... was still wroth, he bit his lip in moody silence, and suffered not his passion to have its way; while Clifford, rising, after a short pause continued: "Look you, Mr. Pepper, you know my commands; consider them peremptory. I wish you success ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... county ash forks arizona be at rail road station three forty-five today to meet train arriving from phoenix prepared to immediately serve peremptory mandamus issued tonight by judge wilson sig theodore ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... have but with a cursorary eye O'er-glanc'd the articles: pleaseth your grace To appoint some of your council presently To sit with us once more, with better heed To re-survey them, we will suddenly Pass our accept and peremptory answer.[10] ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... The peremptory tone of the last word decided the poor youth's wavering mind. Without a word more he ran to the place where his dogs were fastened, harnessed them to his sledge, and was soon driving furiously back to the Eskimo village over the frozen sea, while the wizard returned to the ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... my father confessor, lad, nor yet my general," replied Standish with peremptory good humor. "Get thee back to thy pencraft, and when it is done come to me at the Fort, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... to retract and retrace her steps with honour and credit to herself; that she was a nation whose character depended in great measure upon her military renown, and that it would reflect disgrace upon her to have made such mighty preparations and assumed so peremptory a tone without performing any action commensurate with the expectations she had raised. He said that appearances certainly became more warlike, but that he still hoped peace would be maintained; that if war ensued it would be entered into contrary to the interests and inclinations ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the hearth with his left arm outstretched and holding an open letter. His eyes were fixed on it. His face had the rigid, stubborn look of a man who on the very point of unconsciousness arrests his soul by a peremptory act of will. He stood erect, stiff, speechless, with the miserable slip of white paper at the ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... spite of many modest efforts, before she had bashfully expressed her sense of his service to him, and made Boyne share her thanksgiving. She had her arm about the boy's shoulder in giving Breckon her hand, and when Breckon had got away she pulled Boyne to her in a more peremptory embrace. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... meeting with a refusal he left me; when presently the old woman came out with a beaver skin, she also being refused, he again returned to the charge with a quantity of dried meat (this or any other I should have been glad to have had) when I gave him a peremptory refusal; then all further application ceased. It really appeared that with one quart of whiskey I might have bought all they were possessed of. Night remarkably cold, was obliged to sit up nearly the whole of it. Suffered much ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... all his will in order to remember which of them could stand ipecacuanha, and which of them were constitutionally unable to retain that powerful drug. One who lay dead he ordered to be carried out. He spoke in the sharp, peremptory manner of a man who would take no nonsense, and the well men who obeyed his orders scowled malignantly. One muttered deep in his chest as he took the corpse by the feet. The white man exploded in speech and action. It cost him a painful effort, but his arm shot out, landing a back-hand ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... controverted his opinion he brushed aside without the slightest consideration. His mind was as arrogant as his manners were courteous. Every one who ever conversed with him must remember his positive, peremptory, unanswerable "Not at all, not at all" whenever one of his favorite positions was assailed. He was wholly a special pleader; he never summed up the testimony. We find in his works no evidence that he had read the masters in political economy; not even Adam Smith, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... I warn you seriously, take care of yourself. I am not joking," Porfiry whispered, but this time there was not the look of old womanish good nature and alarm in his face. Now he was peremptory, stern, frowning and for once laying aside ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... call"—the instant, peremptory summons to professional duty—is an experience that appertains to the medical rather than the legal practitioner, and I had supposed, when I abandoned the clinical side of my profession in favour of the forensic, that henceforth I should know it no more; that the interrupted ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... the tumultuous sensations of pleasure, and sudden restoration to hope, when she received a shock in the opposite direction, from a summons to attend the Landgrave. The language of the message was imperative, and more peremptory than had ever before been addressed to herself, a lady of the imperial family. She knew the Landgrave's character and his present position; both these alarmed her, when connected with the style and ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... deal of him from our friends in Edinburgh. He is a man in middle life, tall and slender, with fair complexion, blue eyes, an air of delicacy and refinement, and manners of great gentleness. My ideas of the "Learned Blacksmith" had been of something altogether more ponderous and peremptory. Elihu has been, for some years, operating in England and on the continent in a movement which many, in our half-Christianized times, regard with as much incredulity as the grim, old, warlike barons did the suspicious imbecilities of reading and writing. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... not a little upset by this almost peremptory summons from the old man. He hurried over to Droom's quarters the next morning, after ascertaining that the steamer would not reach the dock until two or three o'clock. Droom was at work on one of his ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... and found Cuthbert waiting for him, rather surprised and agitated. "Why did you wire me in so peremptory a manner?" asked Mallow; "have ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... his sister's somewhat peremptory eye with his bright, contented glance. "Yes, it certainly will be ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... [Footnote 184: The peremptory letter of the Supreme Inquisition to the Valladolid tribunal is printed in Documentos ineditos, vol. XI, p. 354: 'Aqui se ha visto el proceso contra fray Luis de Leon, de la orden de Sant Agustin, preso en esas carceles, y va determinado como vereis ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... had never heard of modesty, but she cowered down among the boulders, and the heavy footstep passed by. She hid among the fern while her clothes were drying, put them on tidily, and went back with her filled water-bucket to the hotel. How could she know what injury the kind peremptory voice, bidding her be foul no longer, had done her! But thenceforwards a new cruelty, a fresh peril, attended ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... victories over the Bithynian and Cappadocian militia, did not understand the unfavourable turn which things had taken in Europe; the circles of the courtiers were already whispering as to the treason of Archelaus; peremptory orders were issued to fight a second battle at once with the new army, and not to fail on this occasion to annihilate the Romans. The master's will was carried out, if not in conquering, at least in fighting. The Romans and Asiatics met once more in the plain ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... with whom he had lived so intimately should believe him capable of such a crime, and treat him without question as a common cattle thief. Phil's coldness toward him, which had grown so gradually during the past three months, in this peremptory humiliation reached a point beyond which Patches' patient and considerate endurance could not go. The man's sense of justice was outraged; his fine feeling of honor was insulted. Trapped and helpless as he was under that menacing ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... of the castle, detailing with due exactness the achievements of their dogs and horses; three were from the Horse Guards at successive intervals of a week—the first announcing that my commission in the Guards had received the signatures of the proper authorities; the second, giving me a peremptory order to join immediately; and the third, formally announcing, that, as I had neither joined, nor assigned any reason for my absence, my commission ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... so uproarious that the baron, albeit with tears of laughter in his own eyes, made a peremptory gesture of silence. The gesture was peculiar to the baron, efficacious and simple. It consisted merely in knocking down the nearest laugher. Having thus restored tranquillity, he strode forward, and took Mr. Clinch by the hand. ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte |
