"Persistency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grapes, hath not persistency So constant as this simple shepherd-boy For my poor lips, his joyous purity And laughing sunny eyes might well decoy A Dryad from her oath to Artemis; For very beautiful is he, his mouth was made ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... the repeal of which he may be said to have devoted his fortune and his life. It may be mentioned as a curious fact that the first speech he delivered in public was a total failure. But he had great perseverance, application, and energy; and with persistency and practice, he became at length one of the most persuasive and effective of public speakers, extorting the disinterested eulogy of even Sir Robert Peel himself. M. Drouyn de Lhuys, the French Ambassador, has eloquently said of Mr. Cobden, that ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... gratification of their sensual feelings in ways not countenanced by the laws of normal life need not excite surprise. There always have been and always will be such. But to do this in the name of religion, and with a persistency as great as that of the religious idea itself, is a phenomenon that surely deserves more attention than it ordinarily receives. Nor can it be said with justice that these sects began in mere conscious lust. They ended there, true; more ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... said, her color heightening slightly under the persistency of his gaze. What a foolish question! Changing the topic she added, with a laugh: "Now, take your coat off, like a good boy, and go to sleep. I'll go down and keep the house quiet. When it's time to get up, I'll ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... all the post-offices in Paris are alert. Sometimes the receiver of a missing letter is amazed at the network of scrawled directions which covers both back and front of the missive,—glorious vouchers for the administrative persistency with which the post has been at work. If a man undertook what the post accomplishes, he would lose ten thousand francs in travel, time, and money, to recover ten sous. The letter of the old Lorrains, addressed to Monsieur Rogron of ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... this account in their blood. It was my blood, though—before they got it! Men who hunt the tiger in cool bravery boiled with indignation before these awful pests, which stabbed and stung with marvellous persistency, and disturbed the solitude of nature with their incessant humming. I write the word incessant advisedly, for I learned that there are several kinds of mosquitos. Some work by day and others by night. Naturalists tell us that only the female mosquito bites. Did they take a particular ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... Angoscia' signifies in English 'Sir Anguish,' but the doctor in spite of really conscientious efforts could not get nearer to the pronunciation of Angus. Nevertheless, with northern persistency, Dalrymple corrected him for the hundredth time. The doctor's first attempt had resulted in his calling the Scotchman 'Sor Langusta,' which means 'Sir Crayfish'—and it must be admitted that 'Anguish' was ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... boat. So beyond question it would had the breeze held. But it didn't, it fell to a flat calm, with not a breath to ripple the harbour's glassy surface. In some manner to wipe out their late defeat, and by a persistency really most laudable, the "Comus'" men rolled their pinnace all around the course, and ended by winning the cup. Some idea of the labour entailed on her crew may be formed from the time at which ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... the post-restante, we experienced a singular example of the persistency and malevolence of the typical Italian beggar. This time it was a woman and her child, both extremely dirty, the latter evidently alive with vermin. The woman, on my wife's refusing to give her anything, deliberately told her poor neglected child to ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... he found that no harm had as yet been done, resolved that he would return to the charge. It has been before observed that he lacked something in delicacy, but what he did so lack he made up in persistency. He had been unable to impute any blame to Ralph as to that evening. He felt that he rather owed an apology to his favourite candidate. He would make the apology, and inform the favourite candidate, at the same time, that the course was still open to him. With these views he left Conduit ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... sense experience supplies, and since the raw material is in every way so different from the mental reflection, the idealist may defend his position plausibly in assuming matter to be, in its phenomenal aspects, really the creation of thought. But he must account for the persistency of it and the consistency of experience so conditioned. He does this by assuming the whole interrelated order to be held, as it were, in solution, in some larger system of thought which really supplies for us our ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... apart, not trusting himself to speak to her in the presence of strangers; but if he seemed neglectful, Arthur abundantly made up for his absence by hanging lovingly round his little sister, and waiting upon her with a persistency which seemed to betray some inner remorse. At last, as they were left together for a few minutes at the end of the corridor carriage, his discomfort forced itself into words, and ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... SUCCESS.—When the child is not conquered the punishment has been worse than wasted. Reach the point where neither wrath nor sullenness remain. By firm persistency and persuasion require an open look of recognition and peace. It is only evil to stir up the devil unless he is cast out. Ordinarily one complete victory will last a child for a lifetime. But if the child relapses, repeat ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... nobleness of that life of which they were the outcome, and to resolve that the soil of Ireland should not, so far as they had the power to prevent it, be denuded of its raiment of history and historic romance, or reduced again to primeval nakedness. The fruit of this persistency and unquenched love of country and its ancient traditions, is left to be enjoyed by us. There is not through the length and breadth of the country a conspicuous rath or barrow of which we cannot find the traditional history preserved in this ancient literature. The mounds of Tara, ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... forgotten in the quarter to which they were directed; and it was not long before the curse which they had invoked descended on their city and their race. Meanwhile they gained their end: the will of Pilate was breaking down before their well-directed persistency. ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... found himself pinned in his corner, the Burman squatting in front of him, a long knife which he had never seen before pointing at his throat with horrible, determined persistency. ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... card. Tekli! And then all at once he remembered a friend of twenty years before, when he lived in Rome; a good-natured Hungarian, who admired him sincerely and who made up for his lack of genius with a silent persistency in his work, like a beast ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... my friends. So it all hurts. Ian, I'm most upset. There's something behind Adrian Fellowes' death that I don't understand. I'm sure he didn't kill himself; but I'm also sure that some one did kill him." Her eyes sought his with an effort and with apprehension, but with persistency too. "I don't care what the jury said—I ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... population, let him likewise feel the admonition to integrate his being across all these distracting forces, and keep a slender human word among the storms, distances and accidents that drive us hither and thither, and, by persistency, make the paltry force of one man reappear to redeem its pledge after months and years in ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and my almond-tumbler was purely bred; yet the tail of this mongrel was bluish, with a broad black bar at the end, and the croup was perfectly white. It may be observed in several of these cases, that the tail first shows a tendency to become by reversion blue; and this fact of the persistency of colour in the tail and tail-coverts[344] will surprise no one who has attended to ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... still his trade as a compositor to fall back upon As a journeyman printer he would earn his bread, and preserve the integrity of an upright spirit. And so without a murmur, and with cheerfulness and persistency, he hunted for weeks on the streets of Boston for a chance to set types. This hunting for a job in a strange city was discouraging enough. Twice before had he visited the place, which was to be his future home. ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... on in the city. Even in this secluded portion of the Palatine, where stood the house of Dea Flavia under the shelter of the surrounding palaces, weird sounds of human cries and of the clashing of steel was penetrating with ominous persistency. ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... more celebrated Memoirs of Harriet Wilson", which Stockdale had himself published a few years before. This was so boldly licentious, and so reckless in its attacks upon the private characters of the Upper Ten, that the publisher was prosecuted with merciless persistency until his business gave up the ghost. To convince the public that he was a martyr he started the Budget in 1827, and still appears to have kept his poets and dramatic satellites around him, and to have been a man of some repute for good-nature to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... terrors. If you do not tease the insect, the thought of hurting you will never occur to it. At the worst, a single specimen, prompted by curiosity rather than anger, will come and hover in front of your face, examining you with some persistency, but employing a buzz as her only threat. Let her be: ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... composition, making propaganda for him among the wealthy dilettante, and spent a good portion of each day in his company. Beethoven, who at a later period said of himself that he was too strong for friendship, did not take kindly to this intimacy at first, but Krumpholz's persistency was not to be gainsaid. He gave him lessons on the violin, and identified himself in many ways with Beethoven's advancement. Beethoven finally became so accustomed to him, that the presence of the other did not disturb ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... on this piece of construction that he did not notice the approach of two men from the down-stream side. They were short, alert men, plodding along with the knee-bent persistency of the woods-walker, dressed in broad hats, flannel shirts, coarse trousers tucked in high laced "cruisers "; and carrying each a bulging meal sack looped by a cord across the shoulders and chest. Both were armed with long slender scaler's rules. The first intimation Thorpe received of the ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... not maintain their ancestral characters in a very remarkable way, what would be the use of grafting a good kind of fruit onto a stock of poorer quality? The very permanency of the grafts thus produced is proof of the persistency with which cells reproduce only ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... workshop and busied himself with a great chair. But Tetchen was not so reticent. Tetchen said much to Madame Staubach;—so much that the unfortunate widow was nearly always on her knees, asking for help, asking in very truth for new gifts of obstinate persistency; and Tetchen also ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... eyes and crimson, swollen cheeks, while Atlantic had flaxen hair, a low forehead, and a square jaw. He had not Pacific's ingenuity in conceiving evil; but when it was once conceived, he had a dogged persistency in carrying it out that made him worthy ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Wayne, who had by sheer persistency seized the outer fringes of success, had come up with a new manuscript to read and was now sitting, with a pipe between his teeth, in Stuart's ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... treatment of homosexuality. At one time hypnotic suggestion was carried out very energetically on homosexual subjects. Krafft-Ebing seems to have been the first distinguished advocate of hypnotism for application to the homosexual. Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing displayed special zeal and persistency in this treatment. He undertook to treat even the most pronounced cases of inversion by courses lasting more than a year, and involving, in at least one case, nearly one hundred and fifty hypnotic sittings; he prescribed frequent visits to the brothel, previous to which the patient took large ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... of your achievements; we feel that you are justifying our faith in free government, and self-government; that you are maintaining our great thesis which demands the possession, the enjoyment, and the control of the earth by the people who inhabit it. We have followed the splendid persistency with which you have fought against the obstacles that stood in your path, with the sympathy that has come from similar struggles at home. Like you, we have had to develop the resources of a vast unpeopled ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... panted. "Ah, sich a mess as ye're gettin' poor old Riley in. I cudn't hilp it, Misther Allen, I cudn't nohow," heading off any criticism from that quarter—"she wud have it, and that's th' ind iv it. I'm thinkin' that's why they named her Miss Pat—'tis th' Irish persistency iv her name that crops out, an' th' cajolery. I ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... Wandsworth, nor that the new chemist should desire to increase his staff, nor that these two desires should coincide in time. Nothing, indeed, could be more natural. But still Ranny's instinct told him that there had been a curious persistency about old Eno. ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... bread, and she never for a moment forgot the obligation. The slow tears stood in her eyes as she thought of the long long hours which she had passed in his company, while, almost desponding herself, she had received courage from his persistency. And her feeling for the son would have been the same, had not the future position of her daughter and the standing of the house of Lovel been at stake. It was not in her nature to be ungrateful; but neither was it in her nature ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... within the art a reason for the peculiar forms. In carving wood and in tracing figures upon it with pointed tools the tendency would certainly be towards straight lines and formal combinations; but in this work there would be a lack of uniformity in execution and of persistency in narrow lines of combination, such as result from the constant necessity of counting and spacing in the textile art. In the presentation of natural forms curved lines are called for, and there is nothing inherent in the carver's art to forbid the turning of ...
— A Study Of The Textile Art In Its Relation To The Development Of Form And Ornament • William H. Holmes
... of strong emotions. He thought of the story of Hall Caine's, where the woman, after years of persecution at the hands of an unwelcome suitor, is on the point of yielding, out of sheer irresistible admiration for the man's strength and persistency, when the lover, unaware of his victory and despairing of success, seizes her in his arms and, springing into the sea, finds a watery grave for both. The analogy of this case with his own was, of course, not strong. He did not anticipate any tragedy in their ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... mob of terror stricken people who had escaped this massacre. Some of the girls seemed quite paralysed with fear; others were apparently temporarily bereft and kept on shrieking with a persistency that was maddening. A young French sailor who did not look more than seventeen, and was splashed all over with blood from having fallen in one of the worst places, kept striking them two and three at a time, and ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... the theatre with the persistency of an ex-actor, conducted himself so discreetly as not to draw the fire of Mademoiselle Olympe's blue eyes shows that Van Twiller, however deeply under a spell, was not in love. I say this, though I think if Van Twiller had not been Van Twiller, if he had been a man of no ...
— Mademoiselle Olympe Zabriski • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of my new discovery, I perceived, clearly enough, that the tapping was hardly that which was likely to be the product of human fingers,— it was sharp and definite, rather resembling the striking of the point of a nail against the glass. It was not loud, but in time— it continued with much persistency—it became plainly vicious. It was accompanied by what I can only describe as the most extraordinary noises. There were squeaks, growing angrier and shriller as the minutes passed; what seemed like gaspings for breath; and a peculiar buzzing sound like, yet unlike, the purring ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... to attend him of necessity when he went abroad, and those who had failed to accompany him, by reason of any urgent circumstances, always found him the same. I observed too his habit of careful inquiry in all matters of deliberation, and his persistency, and that he never stopt his investigation through being satisfied with appearances which first present themselves; and that his disposition was to keep his friends, and not to be soon tired of them, nor yet to be extravagant in his affection; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... search for any occult meaning in the lines, nor did they convey anything special to her; but they remained with her for the rest of the day, haunting her, in among her other thoughts, and forcing themselves upon her attention with the irritating persistency of a catchy tune. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... the landowner ground down the serfs; the tax-assessor ground the landowners; and everybody, in return for the favours a paternal government showered upon them through its immaculate representatives, cheated and defrauded that government with a persistency and perseverance approaching the sublime. Mothers of daughters were in despair, for in Nikolsk there were no 'nice young men,' no eligible matches; fathers of sons despaired in their turn, for as everybody robbed everybody, and the government robbed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... its characteristic quality of mind; we recognize Scotch thrift, English persistency and Irish quickwittedness wherever we see it; we know something, too, of the emotional, vivacious nature of the French, and the resourcefulness of the American; but what about the Canadian—what will be our distinguishing feature in the years to come? The ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... more than all else put together was her haunting sorrow for her husband. Words of Dr. Fair, spoken long ago in cruel bluntness, still rang in her ears: "Madam, you are killing your husband by your obstinacy." Her mind dwelt with morbid persistency upon them. Had the reconciliation with her ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... china house which stood on the nursery mantel-shelf; it had a very red roof with a hole in it, and into this he continued for some time to drop all his pennies, and halfpennies, and farthings with great persistency, and a mind steadily fixed on the pig. After all, however, he got it without spending any of his savings, and this is how ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... up they did, with such deadly persistency that four only out of the twelve succeeded in making good their retreat and regaining the path leading to ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... these very men, just as I expected; but what he wanted to know was whether he could make infantry of 'em or disband 'em. He doesn't ask impossibilities of me, and he's the first General I've had that didn't." On another occasion Lincoln said of Grant: "The great thing about him is his cool persistency of purpose. He is not easily excited, and he has the grip of a bulldog. When he once gets his teeth in, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... selfish politics of the House. The first subject upon which he found voice was the reform of the laws for the care of lunatic paupers, a class whose pitiable state might have moved the most stolid heart. To this merciful project he addressed himself with a zeal and persistency which were to characterize his later ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... More than once the canoe {320} was broken. Portages were often necessary. Again and again the crew, exhausted and their clothing in tatters, sullenly insisted that there was no choice but to turn back. But Mackenzie was a man of indomitable courage and all the persistency of the Scotch race. He had already shown this quality by taking the long journey and voyage from the wilds of Athabasca to London, in order to study the use of astronomical instruments, so that he might be qualified to ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... all the way to Dieppe, during the long, dull hours of the journey, through all the jolting and rattling of the conveyance, in the falling shades of evening and later in the profound darkness, he continued with unabated persistency his vengeful and monotonous whistling; forcing his wearied and exasperated fellow travelers to follow the song from end to end and to remember every word that corresponded to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... served. I shall not attempt to give you the reason of their size and form. This is hidden from us in the same mystery which envelopes all the microscopic population of the blood; but is it not a curious thing, this strange persistency of form in the globules ofall animals of one class? In all birds they are oval; in all mammals they are round. In all? Nay, I am wrong. As if the better to hide from us the key to this riddle, nature ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... Miss Bloxam. "My curiosity has led me into a great indiscretion. But the game is getting interesting. Surely Jim's side are having the best of it now?" And Miss Bloxam, turning half-round in her seat, devoted her attention to the polo-players with laudable persistency. If Blanche Bloxam was showing herself somewhat childish and unreasonable—for there could be no doubt that the young lady had turned away from Lionel more or less in a huff—it must be remembered that she was very ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... Certain objects, such as comets for example, do not require great power, and the revelation of new meteor showers is entirely a question for the naked eye. In fact, it may be confidently asserted that observations undertaken with energy and persistency will, if rightly directed, more than compensate ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... who have hid their lights under a bushel, and also to confess that we, our institutions and ways of thinking, have made the bushel for them and held it down over their heads. It is not every man who has the persistency and stamina of Professor Whitney, for instance, who can toil for years with beginning classes in French and German, never losing sight of his real aim, never neglecting an opportunity of bringing it forward, until ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... being born, Lucy was undergoing a sort of probation for the Fawn establishment. The proposed engagement with Lady Fawn was thought to be a great thing for her. Lady Fawn was known as a miracle of Virtue, Benevolence, and Persistency. Every good quality that she possessed was so marked as to be worthy of being expressed with a capital. But her virtues were of that extraordinarily high character that there was no weakness in them,—no getting over them, no perverting them with follies or even exaggerations. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... persistency that Allison applied to the completion of this masterpiece has always won my deepest admiration. And the admiration of many others too, for this poem, first publicly printed in the Louisville Courier-Journal, has been reprinted in one form or another, in almost every ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... However, Venner's persistency got its own way. A moment later Vera was hurrying down the corridor. It was not until she was out of sight that Venner found that she had gone away, leaving the little Yale key behind her on the table. He thrilled at the sight of it. Here ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... flamingo and wanted to know what made it so tall and what made it so red. Did it always eat frogs, and had it hurt its other foot? She ticks off questions with the steady persistency of an eight-day clock. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... to arouse in her the distressing conviction that he had become important enough to prove embarrassing. While confessing to herself that it was a bit treacherous and weak, she proceeded to ignore Baldos with astonishing persistency. Apart from the teasing, it seemed to her of late that he was ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... his life, after this task was accomplished, yet always of some one moving in a larger world than his youth had known. Rousing the half sleeping porter, he found, however, only the spectral gold-seeker in the vestibule,—the rays of his solitary candle falling upon her divining-rod with a quaint persistency that seemed to point to the stairs he was ascending. When he reached the first landing the rising wind through an open window put out his light, but, although the staircase was in darkness, he could see the long corridor above illuminated by ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... unwise persistency, to the question of the deferred marriage. At the first words that he spoke she drew ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... to be a quiet butt, and the waggoner leisurely exhausted the fun that was to be had out of him; returning to it with a persistency that evinced more concentration than variety in his mind. At last Evan said: 'Your pace is rather slow. They'll be shut up in Fallowfield. I 'll go on ahead. You'll find me at one of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... found that nothing served the wishes of lovers more than tough persistency, though he was stung with the shame of his double rebuff, nevertheless, effacing the form he had worn before, went to the king for the third time, professing the completest skill in soldiership. He was led ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... felt the disappointment of her hopes as a relief, that the idea that the danger might recur should fill him with terror—this all pointed to one fact, the realization of which forced itself upon him with inexorable persistency; he did not love Pilar, or at any rate he did not love her sufficiently—not enough to take her finally into his life, and, possessing her, to forget himself ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... slowly drawing in and exhaling the vapor from her pipe, with the deliberate enjoyment of an old smoker. With her elbows on her knees, she stared fixedly at Otto, who must have been annoyed by her persistency. ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... the witnesses one against the other, examining the reports and enquiries, disentangling the real names from the false, truth from error—in a word, investigating the whole affair, a formidable task of which he only gives us the substance here. Aided by his wonderful instinct and the persistency of the investigator, he has managed to obtain access to family papers, some of which were buried in old trunks relegated to the attics, and in these papers has found precious documents which clear up the depths of this ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... problems that we have taken up by no means exhaust the series of those that present themselves to one who thinks with patience and persistency. When we have decided that men are not mistaken in believing that an external world is presented in their experience; when we have corrected our first crude notions of what this world is, and have cleared away some confusions from our conceptions of space ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... least would make it appear that the murder of Parkman had been considered by him as a possible eventuality. His accusation of Littlefield deprives him of a good deal of sympathy. On the other hand, the age and position of Webster, the aggravating persistency of Parkman, his threats and denunciations, coupled with his own shortness of temper, make it conceivable that he may have killed his victim on a sudden and overmastering provocation, in which case he had better at once have acknowledged his crime ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... moments of perfectly awful failure in Jane Eyre. There are phrases that make you writhe, such as "the etymology of the mansion's designation", and the shocking persistency with which Charlotte Bronte "indites", "peruses", and "retains". There are whole scenes that outrage probability. Such are the scenes, or parts of scenes, between Jane and Rochester during the comedy of his ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... entirely satisfactory, and no doubt I should have been detailed a year or two later but for the Mexican War coming on. Accordingly I laid out for myself a course of studies to be pursued in garrison, with regularity, if not persistency. I reviewed my West Point course of mathematics during the seven months at Jefferson Barracks, and read many valuable historical works, besides an occasional novel. To help my memory I kept a book in which I would write up, from time to time, my recollections of all I had read ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... wet,' she murmured, as if she were answering the fly-man, who had said again, 'Drive you to the station in ten minutes!' She hated the man for his persistency. ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... solitary, nocturnal habit of haunting the mouths of shallow streams has invested it even to the native mind with fictional powers of voracity and destruction. Yet, despite the exaggerated accounts of the creature, it is really a dreadful monster, rendered the more dangerous to human life by the persistency with which it frequents muddied and shallow water, particularly after a freshet caused by heavy rain, when its presence cannot ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... of her dear friend she begins to laud her to the sky. She herself is looking so pretty, and she shows off in the most favorable light, while all the time singing her dear friend's praise with such fatal persistency that she fairly makes him sick of the sound of her name and of her namby-pamby virtues. Now the man would hardly be human if he did not tell this artless little creature that he had had enough of her dear friend, and that he ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... simultaneously, the one on the surface, and the other under the surface. The strategy, tactics and weapons which were appropriate to the former, were to a large extent useless in the contest against mines and submarines which the enemy employed with the utmost persistency and no little ingenuity. Even in the Russo-Japanese war, where the mine was little used, it exerted a marked influence on the course of the war; the Germans based their hopes of victory in the early days of the struggle entirely on a war of attrition, ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... out, he would carry them all inevitably to his conclusion. They know it and run away. But the press has made our whole world of civilization one great lecture-room, from which no reading man can escape, and the only defence against progress is stolid preoccupation with trade or trifles. Yet this persistency is holding the breath, and can no more be continued in the mind than that in the body. Blundering and falsehood become intolerable to the blunderers; they must return to thought, and that is proper in a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... stand, a stick and the line are attached to it, a careful aim is taken, and fire applied. Amid a blaze and burst of smoke the rocket leaps from its position, and rushes out to sea with a furious persistency that even the storm-fiend himself is powerless to arrest. But he can baffle it to some extent—sufficient allowance has not been made for the force and direction of the wind. The rocket flies, indeed, beyond the wreck, but drops into the sea, ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... ever came to making a speech was once when he sat upon the platform while his friend, Henry O. Grady, was addressing a large assemblage with all that eloquence for which he was noted. When he had finished, the call for "Harris" came with great volume and persistency. He arose and said, "I am coming," walked down from the platform and was lost in ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... have it!" said Rodolphe, who began to understand the persistency of the philosopher, tormented by a fixed idea, "it is on account of his article in 'The Beaver.' Listen, he is dreaming of ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... large and only too numerous; yet surely it is strange they are not larger, when we think of how many helpless wretches must beat their brains against this hopeless persistency of the orderly outward world, as compared with the storm and tempest, the riot and confusion within—when we remember how many minds must tremble upon the narrow boundary between reason and unreason, mad to-day and sane to-morrow, mad yesterday ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... round-eyed, and, carefully refraining from looking at Hartley's windows, walked on at a smart pace. As he walked he began to wish that he had not talked so much; a vision of Bassett retailing the conversation of the morning to longer heads than his own in the office recurring to him with tiresome persistency. And, on the other hand, he regretted that he had not crossed the road and made sure ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... of urgent pressing, he refused politely but firmly to be kept to dinner, and put an end to the persistency of the ladies by saying that he was the Hippocrates of his young sister, whose delicate ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... manner cloaked a quibbling mind, for he was in truth a hard judicial wrangler. But if he boldly contested the rights of others, he certainly yielded none of his own; he attacked his adversary at the right moment, and wearied him out with his inflexible persistency. His merits were those of the Scapins of ancient comedy; he had their fertility of resource, their cleverness in skirting evil, their itching to lay hold of all that was good to keep. In short, he applied to his own poverty a saying which the Abbe Terray uttered in the name of the ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... seemed definite enough to follow up, but in every case I drew blank. I gave my chief attention to learning the recent movements of known gangs who might be concerned in an enterprise of this sort, and at the end of two days this persistency brought a result. I received a letter posted in the West-central district, written, or rather scrawled, in printed letters. It ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... addition to the old mythology is due to this era,—the Christian fable. With what pains, and tears, and blood these centuries have woven this and added it to the mythology of mankind. The new Prometheus. With what miraculous consent, and patience, and persistency has this mythus been stamped on the memory of the race! It would seem as if it were in the progress of our mythology to dethrone Jehovah, and crown Christ in ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... by his persistency, flew into a rage, hurled the most terrible threats at him, and ended ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... his duty as a servant of God to stamp out and root out at all hazards? Yes, there could be no doubt of it; he had but exercised his legal right. He had done what was demanded of him by laws human and divine. He had nothing to reproach himself for. And yet, with a haunting persistency, the image of the despairing pilot praying God for vengeance stared at him from every dark corner, and in the very church bells, as they rang out their solemn invitation to the house of God, he seemed to hear the ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... persuade himself that it was an excellent fit, but ever with an unacknowledged misgiving. This misgiving might have done him good, had he not met it with renewed efforts at looking that which he feared he was not. Yet this man was capable of the utmost persistency in carrying out any scheme he had once devised. Enough of him for the present: I seldom came into ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... influence of a political framework like our own. We find it hard to understand how even a foreigner should be blind to the grandeur of the combat of ideas that has been going on here,—to the heroic energy, persistency, and self-reliance of a nation proving that it knows how much dearer greatness is than mere power; and we own that it is impossible for us to conceive the mental and moral condition of the American who does not feel his spirit braced and heightened by being even a spectator ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... that the will had been signed by the deceased "while life was in him"—that being an expression derived from the Irish language, which peasants who have long ceased to speak Irish still retain. The evidence was strong in favour of the will, when O'Connell was struck by the persistency of the man, who always repeated the same words, "The life was in him." O'Connell asked: "On the virtue of your oath, was he alive?"—"By the virtue of my oath, the life was in him."—"Now I call upon you in the presence of your Maker, who will one day pass sentence ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... benefit of going to school, especially of attending regularly for eight or ten months each year for nine years or more, is that it establishes a habit of regularity and persistency in effort. The boy who leaves school to go to work does not necessarily learn to work steadily, but often quite the reverse. Few who graduate from a grammar school, or who take the equivalent course in a rural school, fail to be regular in their habits of effort. ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... d'Oremieulx, now absent from the country, who labored incessantly in the earlier months of the organization, and gave a most vital start to the life of this committee." This lady resumed her duties after a year's absence, and continued her characteristic force and persistency up ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... confidence not only or the great majority of the French Canadians but also of a powerful minority in the western province where his able antagonist, Mr. Brown, until 1864 held the vantage ground by his persistency in urging its claims to greater weight in the administration of public affairs. Mr. Macdonald had a great knowledge of men and did not hesitate to avail himself of their weaknesses in order to strengthen ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... called the history of a mental civil war, which I fought single-handed on a battlefield that lay within the compass of my skull. An Army of Unreason, composed of the cunning and treacherous thoughts of an unfair foe, attacked my bewildered consciousness with cruel persistency, and would have destroyed me, had not a triumphant Reason finally interposed a superior strategy that saved ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... unexampled facility in the discovery of analogies in a multitude of separate resemblances and relations, but he had an equal facility of tracing with untiring persistency a single idea through all its possible variations. Take, for example, the idea of gold, in the poem of "Miss Kilmansegg," and there is hardly a conceivable reference to gold which imagination or human life can suggest, that is not ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... months in France at that time, and to me, remembering what I then saw and heard among all sorts and conditions of men, not in the departments only but in Paris itself, the persistency with which the leaders of the present Republican party have set themselves, ever since they came definitely into power with M. Grevy in 1879, to reviving all the most odious traditions of the earlier Republican experiments, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... for a moment suppose that I can doubt my daughter's innocence throughout this unfortunate business," he said at last. "I know the diabolical persistency of that race too well. It was like a Fairfax to entangle my poor girl in his net—to compromise her reputation, in the hope of profiting by his treachery. I do not attempt to deny, however, that Clarissa was imprudent. We have to consider her youth, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... shanganappi he fastened L'Hereux's tail to the shafts of the cart-shafts which had already between them the redoubted Noir. This new method of harnessing had a marked effect upon L'Hereux; he strained and hauled with a persistency and vigour which I feared must prove fatal to the permanency of his tail in that portion of his body in which nature had located it, but happily such was not the case, and by the united efforts of all parties the summit ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... preoccupation, he could not fail to notice that his visitor's eyes sought the veiled picture with strange persistency. While M. de Mussidan was looking at the various sketches on the walls, Andre had time to ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... held my head so high that it hurt, and loftily refused to listen to their repeated suggestions that I should revisit my old home, something in the sad listlessness of the November days sent my spirit back to old times with a persistency that would not be set aside, and I woke from my musings surprised to find myself sick with longing. It is foolish but natural to quarrel with one's cousins, and especially foolish and natural when they have done nothing, and are mere victims of chance. Is it their fault that my not being ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... enthusiasts tried out their ponies, and several men and women took their hunters over the course, that fairly bristled with spectres of last year's anise-seed. Now they were comfortably ensconced in the clubhouse, berating the unfortunate elements, and waiting for the last express with a persistency which allowed three or four earlier trains to come and go unnoticed. The cheerful highball was coming into its own. A stern winter of bridge had not killed the ardour of certain worshippers; continuous criticism of play arose from the table ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... night the persistency of her resolution to remain by her past affection was maintained; yet as it was still merely a persistency implying the continuance of a foe ready to assert the old rights, she was so far unhappy that she wanted that composure of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... felt sure that an immediate attack, being unexpected, would prove successful, and therefore loudly insisted upon it. His persistency in urging it finally made Eurybiades so angry that he exclaimed, "Those who begin the race before the signal is ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... far from suspecting the truth. Though I called upon Maria Dovizio I got no enlightenment in that quarter, nay, nor encouragement for my own passion, for when I put forth some timid essays, they were promptly crushed by a look of such reproach that I called myself brute as well as fool for my persistency. ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... to two seats, and turned back to his divan, where he sat with one leg drawn under him. A book lay open beside him, and in his right hand he held an ivory paper-cutter, the end of which he observed from time to time with one eye, closing the other with the persistency of a near-sighted person. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... between the horns of any such dilemma," returned Wingfold, who was now more than a little annoyed at his persistency in forcing his way within ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... foolish and frivolous little woman. Rage and despair made her a demon. She resolved on revenge, and proceeded to it with a cool and astonishing persistency. Now I do not myself believe that Lady CALLENDER cared two straws about CASANUOVA. What she aimed at and enjoyed was the discomfiture of a friend. In order to obtain it, however, she committed a fatal imprudence. She wrote some letters which would have convinced even a French ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... but with studious persistency, he had that evening repeatedly whispered the request to her that she should walk out to the woods with him, and she, casting a longing glance first at Lord Henry, then at Denis Malster, had reluctantly acquiesced. Her curiosity was possibly awakened too; at all events ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... upon earth, there existed a chaotic period which separated the previous from the present creation. Up till the commencement of the Eocene ages, if even then, there was no such chaotic period, in at least what is now Britain and the European continent: the persistency from a high antiquity of some of the existing races, of not only plants and shells, but of even some of the mammiferous animals, such as the badger, the goat, and the wild cat, prove there was not; and any scheme of reconciliation which takes such a period for granted must be ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... out of breath. With a woman's quickness of intuition she saw the change in Washington's face,—saw a certain cold severity overshadowing it. With a woman's fateful persistency—a persistency which I humbly suggest might, on occasion, be honorably copied by our more politic sex—she went on to say what was in her, even if she were obliged, with a woman's honorable inconsistency, to unsay it an hour or two later; an inconsistency ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... Chief General: "It is totally unworthy of us! We have gained the game; all the honors ours; let us have done with it. Give him battle, since he fortunately wishes it; we finish him, and gloriously finish the War too!" So argued Lucchesi, with vivacity, persistency,—to his own ill luck, but evidently with approval from Prince Karl. Everybody sees, this is the way to Prince Karl's favor at present. "Have not I reconquered Silesia?" thinks Prince Karl to himself; and beams applause ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... literary artist shuns the obvious is that there is too much of it. It is too big for the limited resources of his art. In the actual world, realities come in big chunks. Nature continually repeats herself. She hammers her facts into our heads with a persistency which is often more than a match for our stupidity. If we do not recognize a fact to-day, it will hit us ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... only one life to lose, and it would be interesting to see how brave he was; besides, the King would have good reason to ennoble him if he overcame them. The King at last allowed himself, though rather unwillingly, to be won over by Red's persistency, and one day asked Ring to go and kill the oxen that were in the wood for him, and bring their horns and hides to him in the evening. Not knowing how dangerous the oxen were, Ring was quite ready, and went off at once, to the great delight of Red, who was ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... again, is faith manifesting itself by persistency. A week was not long, but it was a long while during which to do that one apparently useless thing and nothing else. It would take about an hour or so to march round the city, and there were twenty-three hours of idleness. Little progress in reducing ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... invariably as Mrs. Lockwood. The use of her surname held her at arm's length. She longed most frightfully to hear him call her by the name that was less safe. She denied to herself that she wanted him to make love to her; at the same time she was disappointed at the persistency with which he held her off. She liked to believe that, if he had made love to her, she would have rebuffed him. She rehearsed many times the indignant words with which she would have set him in his place; she would have reminded him that it was for Reggie ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... Bishop's bed? What does he desire? Why? What tastes does he show? Point out evidences of his crimes, his suspicion, his sensual ideals, his artistic tastes, his canting hypocrisy, his confusion of the material and the immaterial, and the persistency of his passions and feelings. Note the subtlety with which these things are suggested, especially lines 18-19, 29-30, 33-44, ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... badly beaten, and driven back in utter rout and confusion to Memphis, a distance of about one hundred miles, hotly pursued by the enemy. By this, however, the enemy was defeated in his designs upon Sherman's line of communications. The persistency with which he followed up this success exhausted him, and made a season for rest and repairs necessary. In the meantime, Major-General A. J. Smith, with the troops of the Army of the Tennessee that had been sent by General Sherman to General Banks, arrived ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... women so generous as that," laughed Heriot. "I thought there was a more subtle meaning in the declaration. In a hundred lovers there might be safety, but in one—ah! it is the persistency of one ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... Countless numbers of sheep, driven into burns and lochs by the pitiless strength of the wind, were never again seen, swept away into the sea by the tremendous floods that followed the melting of the snow. There is on Solway Sands a place called the Beds of Esk, where with terrible persistency the tides cast up whatever may have been carried to sea by the rivers which in this neighbourhood empty themselves into the Firth. Ghastly was the burden here strewn when the floods now went down. In those Beds lay the lifeless bodies of two men and of one woman; ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... the death of Joshua The Judges Birth and youth of Samuel The Jewish Theocracy Eli and his sons Samuel called to be judge His efforts to rekindle religious life The school of the prophets The people want a king Views of Samuel as to a change of government He tells the people the consequences Persistency of the Israelites Condition of the nation Saul privately anointed king Clothed with regal power Mistakes and wars of Saul Spares Agag Rebuked by Samuel Samuel withdraws into retirement Seeks a successor to Saul Jehovah indicates ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... train lumbered over the plains north of the Save, on the way to Belgrade, my fellow travellers, too, thought I was bound on a mad and impossible errand. As is usual in the Near East they all cross-examined me about my private affairs with boring persistency, and their verdict was that not even a British passport would see me through. "You will never see Serbia," they declared. I did though. For, being wholly innocent of any plots, all the efforts of all the multitudinous police ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... of our intercourse with China, from the days of the East India Company till now, is nothing but a record of a continuous struggle to open up and develop trade. Opening up trade, too, with a people who have something pathetic in the honest persistency with which their officials have vainly struggled to keep themselves uncontaminated from the outside world. Trade in China cannot be left to take care of itself, as is done in Western countries. However invidious it may seem, we must admit the fact ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... had in 1812. The allies' commissary and sanitary departments could hardly be managed at all; their troops died by thousands, and, though they finally stormed and captured Sebastopol, it was a barren victory. Russia, not so much overcome as convinced of the practical lack of profit in persistency, made terms of peace by which she once more drew back from her feeble prey. English statesmen were satisfied with the check administered to their great rival; and the French were delighted at the successful interference ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... His sovereign refused to hear him. It was thus meanly attempted to turn the torrent of popular indignation, arising from the ill success of the expedition, wholly upon the unlucky general's head. Burgoyne's heroic persistency at length brought the British nation face to face with the unwelcome fact, which the ministers were so desirous of concealing,—that somebody besides the general had blundered; and if the inquiry that Burgoyne obtained from Parliament failed ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... the difficulty of pursuit. Finally, the blood-marks ceased altogether, and thenceforward they could do nothing but press forward along what, in the uncertain light of their torches, seemed to be the most well-defined track, finding encouragement for their persistency in those occasional rustlings ahead of them. At length, however, these also ceased, and when they had been plodding doggedly forward for at least a quarter of an hour without hearing a sound save that made by themselves, Lethbridge ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... him. In front of him I kissed Jane under the mistletoe and told her that, bonny lass as she was, she was lucky to have the best lad in Staffordshire. I left them in the kitchen, and heard no more crashes. Later on, Joe whistled his three tunes with admirable skill and intolerable persistency while, under Jane's orders, he took in charge the boiling of the Christmas puddings in a vast iron pot hung ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... The persistency with which the English lessons had gone on was amazing, for Amy usually tired of everything in a day or two. Now, however, she was a devoted teacher, and her pupil did her great credit by the rapidity with which he caught the language. It looked like pleasant play, sitting among the roses ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... to them with so much meaning, and he had such a diabolical persistency in him, that at length, Mrs Gowan rose to depart. On his offering his hand to Mrs Gowan to lead her down the staircase, she retained Little Dorrit's hand in hers, with a cautious pressure, and said, 'No, thank you. But, if you will please to see if my boatman ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... envoys who had just arrived, bringing with them commission of special ambassador to de Longueville to negotiate the treaty of marriage, and it was impossible for me to go. Mary was going partly to avoid this ball, and her wilful persistency made Henry very angry. I regretted that I could not go, but I promised Jane I would send Brandon in my place, and he would answer the purpose of protection far better than I. I suggested that Brandon take with him a man, but Jane, who was in ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... circumference, throughout which the downward movement has predominated for ages, and yet the land has never, in a single instance, gone down suddenly for several hundred feet at once. Yet geology demonstrates that the persistency of subterranean movements in one direction has not been perpetual throughout all past time. There have been great oscillations of level, by which a surface of dry land has been submerged to a depth of several thousand feet, and then at a period long subsequent ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... understanding of business situations; Accuracy in estimating the opportunities they offer; Intelligence in planning a business move; Firmness in sticking to it after it has been decided upon; Extraordinary daring; Indestructible persistency; Devouring ambition; Limitless selfishness; A knowledge of the weaknesses and poverties and docilities of human nature and how to turn them to account which has never ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... exaltation of spirits which defied all remorse and confronted all consequences. Her eyes sparkled; her cheeks were bright with color; she talked incessantly, with a forlorn mockery of the girlish gayety of past days; she laughed with a deplorable persistency in laughing; she imitated Mrs. Lecount's smooth voice, and Mrs. Lecount's insinuating graces of manner with an overcharged resemblance to the original, which was but the coarse reflection of the delicately-accurate mimicry of former times. Noel Vanstone, who had never yet seen her ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... like every one else in her town and in all the towns of the mid-western country, became touched with the idea of the romance of industry. The dreams of the Missouri boy that he had fought, had by the strength of his persistency twisted into new channels so that they had expressed themselves in definite things, in corn-cutting machines and in machines for unloading coal cars and for gathering hay out of a field and loading it on wagons without aid of human hands, were still dreams and capable of ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... his petty losses, he followed the game with dogged persistency. And those petty losses soon began to grow larger and larger. His money melted away rapidly, and still fortune ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... character must come as a revelation to those who have in the past regarded the French as a volatile, frivolous, impulsive people, virile, yet lacking the accredited determination and persistency of the Teuton. This impression has been a great mistake. The faces of the men and women of France alike show no sign of vacillation. The French are counting the terrific cost, as becomes the thriftiest of nations, ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... two maternal ancestors had not made the very common surname peculiarly sacred to the young man, so the point was yielded; and by considerable persistency on the part of the young wife, "P. D. SMITH" was transformed without much trouble into "P. DESMIT," before the administrator had concluded the settlement of his ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... yielded to the urgings of Print, Push, and Co.—a new firm whose youthful persistency made refusal impossible—and agreed to steal from his sermon-writing the number of half-hours needed for putting together the book they would and must and did have, he certainly looked for a reward ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... such duties, but one of the strong points in her character is that she never has any inclination to shirk a responsibility that belongs to her, and she is generous in her interpretation of her responsibilities. It has always interested me to see the persistency with which she pays the extra fraction of a cent when any expense is to be divided among several people. She knows the full value of a cent, for she has to count the cost of everything; but she evidently ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... all the persistency of his kind, Satan refuses to acknowledge himself beaten, and, leading Christ to the western side of the mountain, reveals to him all the splendor of Rome, exhibiting its Capitol, Tarpeian Rock, triumphal arches, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... same treatment as biennials. But even greater persistency should be exercised in destroying the underground portion. For these underground plants produce new plants as surely as seeds do. The bindweed has a creeping root, wild garlic has a bulb, and such forms are always producing ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... noble an intellect the victim of hallucination which entirely blinded him to the perception of truth. Shelley, however, did not despair of succeeding in making Byron some day give up what he termed his philosophical errors, and his persistency earned for him the appellation of "serpent" which Byron gave him in jest. This persistency, which at the same time indicates the merit of Byron's resistance, has often been mentioned by Shelley himself. Writing from Pisa to a friend in England, a very few days ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... left our provisions behind, as I mentioned before. Accordingly we rested on the border of a pond, which was very pleasant, and made a fire to drive away the mosquitoes, which annoyed us greatly, whose persistency is so marvellous that one cannot describe it. Here we cast our lines to catch ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... not dared to keep him in her house after he had fallen into that coma. But the strange thing was, that as death drew near, his memory of the past suddenly cleared, and the nurses would hear him groan for nights at a time, murmuring in Spanish with tenacious persistency: ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... therefore, need be directed to a few only of those under their charge, and it soon becomes habitual to the attendants to keep themselves aware of where those patients are, about whom they entertain doubt. And it should be borne in mind, in regard to this kind of watchfulness, that its very persistency renders it more easily kept up than if it could be occasionally relaxed. It appeared further that the disuse of locked doors had an influence on some of the patients in diminishing the desire to escape. Under the system of locked doors, a patient with that ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... forests, are still found in history and historical traditions. There is one fact which Americans, so accustomed to rapid transformations of society by migration, immigration, and intermixture of races, can scarcely comprehend, even when they know it as a fact: it is the persistency with which national traits adhere to a people in an old country, through generations and decades of generations and of centuries, withstanding the shock of revolution both in government and religion. Tacitus says of these people:—"At meals, they sit every man upon a seat ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Timon, an object of as much interest as his master; for, curious as it may seem, he was the only canine ever owned in New Constantinople. He was of mixed breed, huge, powerful and swift, seeming to combine the sagacity and intelligence of the Newfoundland, the courage of the bull dog, the persistency of the bloodhound and the best qualities of all of them. Seeming to understand that he was among friends, he rested his nose between his paws and lay as if asleep, but those who gazed admiringly at him, noted that at intervals he opened one of his ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... qualities of her defects; she was thought to be—and she was—indiscreet. Her friendship seemed to be staunch; she worked for her proteges with a persistency which showed that she cared less for patronage than for increased influence. This conduct was based on her dominant passion, Vanity. Conquests and pleasure, which so many women love, to her seemed only means to an end; she aimed at living ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... was indignant at his persistency, saying that in all my life I had never told a lie, and it was unpardonable thus to speak of me; whilst my father simply said, "Since you are not able to conduct yourself with propriety, Aleck, you must go to bed." And my cousin left the room ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... of further genuflections, supplications, and wearisome persistency, Charles de Buonaparte at last obtained favor not only for Lucien, but for Joseph also. Deprived unjustly of his inheritance, deprived also of his comforts and his home in pursuit of the ambitious schemes rendered necessary ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... apparently by accident, drop some on its head, and at the same time pronounce the sacramental words. Some Indians believed for a long time that the books and strings of beads were the embodiment of witchcraft. But the persistency of the priests was at last rewarded by the conversion, or at all events the semblance of conversion, of large numbers of Hurons. It would seem, according as their fears of the Iroquois increased, the Hurons gave greater confidence to the French, and became more ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... and they will not have yet caught you lying often enough to suspect that you are not the unworldly and scrupulously truthful person which you represent yourself to be; nor yet will they know how great a coward you are, nor how soon you will run away, if they fight you with persistency and judgement. You keep the dice and throw them both for your children and yourself. Load them then, for you can easily manage to stop your children from examining them. Tell them how singularly indulgent you are; insist ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... a recent Turkish historian of the siege of 1453, maintains that the emperor was buried in the church of the Pege (Baloukli), outside the walls of the city. There is no persistency in the tradition that associates Constantine's tomb with the church ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... to spread among the dancers that there were young men present. No one knew exactly how it started, but it grew and spread with such persistency that it finally reached the ears of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... in a compact circle, their poor flower-girt heads nodding as the swift current curtsied their crafts. They hemmed me in with desperate persistency as we spun through the ghostly starlight in a swirling mass down to destruction! And in a minute we were so close to the edge of the fall I could see the water break into ridges as it felt the solid bottom give way under it. We were so close that already the foremost rafts, ten yards ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... presence in a manner so unexpected as to imply that something serious was in question. On entering her room he had been struck by the absence of that saucy independence usually apparent in her bearing towards him, notwithstanding the persistency with which he had hovered near her for the previous month, and gradually, by the position of his sister, and the favour of Paula's uncle in intercepting one of Somerset's letters and several of his telegrams, established himself as an intimate member ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... effort to be fervent, one single idea kept obstinately returning to his mind—that the vestry was far too small, since such an enormous number of masses had to be said. How could the sacristans manage to distribute the holy vestments and the cloths? It puzzled him, and engaged his thoughts with absurd persistency. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Glow-worm passes and repasses the said brush over his head, back, sides and hinder-parts, a performance made possible by the flexibility of his spine. This is done point by point, from one end of the body to the other, with a scrupulous persistency that proves the great interest which he takes in the operation. What is his object in thus sponging himself, in dusting and polishing himself so carefully? It is a question, apparently, of removing a few atoms of dust or else some traces of viscidity that remain from the evil contact with the snail. ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... was born of only ordinary capacity, but of extraordinary persistency," and herein is the secret of a great life. She did not dabble in French or music or painting and give it up; she went steadily on to success. Did she neglect home duties? Never. She knit stockings a yard long for her aged father till his death, ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... to herself that she had fallen away from her love. For my own part, I need no better proof of the fact than the dull persistency with which she denied it. What accusing voice broke out of the stillness? Jack's nobleness and magnanimity were the hourly theme of her clogged fancy. Again and again she declared to herself that she was unworthy of them, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... quarry and returned and adjusted the tangent-sight at 100 on the standard. He got the fore-sight and back-sight in a line on the stick, seized the traversing-handles, released the safety-catch, and pressed the button with his right thumb with the persistency of a man who cannot make the waiter answer the electric bell. "Tap—tap—tap." There was a series of explosions as though the sparking plug of a motor-bicycle was playing tricks. The target danced like a thing possessed. It hopped ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... brought one of our Missionary Secretaries, the eloquent Reverend Lachlin Taylor, DD. The trip down had not been one of the most pleasant. The rains had drenched him, and the mosquitoes had plagued him with such persistency, that he loudly bemoaned his lot in being found in a country that was ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... or about 'being a sister to me,' and all that, for, by Jove! she's always more like a fellow's sister, don't you know, than his girl. Of course, it was hard lines for me, but I suppose she was about right." He stopped, and then added with a kind of gentle persistency: "YOU think she ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... convents built along the sea shore be demolished. The reason given was that if the Dutch succeeded in capturing them in their invasions, they would find in them forts enabling them to continue their raids with greater persistency. Already the said captain had been withdrawn from Tandag and Don Juan Garcia appointed in his place when that order from the royal Audiencia was received. He called a meeting of Captains Juan de Sabata and Don Marcos de Resines, also summoning Sargento-mayor Don ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various |
