"Refractory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sticks which they laid on the shoulder; then helter-skelter came the Wanguana, carrying carbines in their hands, and boxes, bundles, tents, cooking-pots—all the miscellaneous property—on their heads; next the Hottentots, dragging the refractory mules laden with ammunition-boxes, but very lightly, to save the animals for the future; and, finally, Sheikh Said and the Beluch escort; while the goats, sick women, and stragglers, brought up the rear. From first to last, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... and ripped and rebasted the refractory seam, Elizabeth brought out her little stores of finery ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... little. Was this cherished scheme a whim or a joke to be lightly cast aside? Mr. Cooke thought not. The determination which distinguished him still sat in his eye as he bustled about giving orders for the breaking of camp. This refractory criminal must be saved from himself, cost what it might, and responsibility again rested heavy on my client's mind as I rowed him ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... rather to increase recklessness and crime than to be promotive of virtue. Bat the years glided on, and gradually the impression faded away. Ivan, with extraordinary energy and sagacity, devoted himself to the consolidation of the Russian empire, and the development of all its sources of wealth. The refractory princes he assailed one by one, and, favored by a peculiar combination of circumstances, succeeded ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... without having asked his advice; and he has prescribed some new medicine which you will find in this bottle. The directions are marked on the label. Now I will put things in order, and try my hands on that refractory bed." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... fortified and prepared for a defence. The cardinal without hesitation mustered several thousand of the national militia, and, investing the place, set it on fire, and deliberately razed it to the ground. The refractory nobles, struck with consternation, submitted. Their friends interceded for them in the most humble manner; and the cardinal, whose lofty spirit disdained to trample on a fallen foe, showed his usual clemency by soliciting their pardon from the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... absent much longer than he had expected, he returned to his new settlement, but the colonists had become refractory and unmanageable. ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... next morning and after getting her father off to work as usual, she took the children into hand. First she scrubbed them assiduously, burnishing their brown faces until they shone again. Then she tussled with their refractory locks, and after that she dressed them out in all the bravery of ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... bath-taps were exquisitely chiselled bronze Tritons, riding on dolphins. When I returned to Capetown I found the S.B. quite one of the Botha family, being addressed by everybody by his Christian name. He played lawn-tennis and billiards daily with the General, and should he prove refractory (a not infrequent occurrence) the General had only to threaten, "I shall have to make you smoke another of my black cigars, Billy," for the S.B. to capitulate instantly with a shudder, for he had gruesome recollections ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... an interesting anecdote of his former pupil. "The Queen always had from my first knowing her a most striking regard to truth. I remember when I had been teaching her one day, she was very impatient for the lesson to be over—once or twice rather refractory. The Duchess of Kent came in, and asked how she had behaved. Lehzen said, 'Oh, once she was rather troublesome.' The Princess touched her and said, 'No, Lehzen, twice, don't you remember?' The Duchess of Kent, too, was a ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... is no matter. No one cares for Miss Manners's whims now,' was the careless reply, as Madame ushered me into the deserted schoolroom, and then quickly vanished. She evidently dreaded a meeting with her refractory teacher. Well she might, for there sat Christal—but I will tell you all minutely. You see how I try to note down every ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... boat was close at hand. But when did hot youth behave with thought in a like case? I did as ninety-nine in a hundred would do. I took off my coat, kicked off my shoes, and as the voice cried, "Oh, please, do not trouble," plunged into the water. The refractory boat, once on its way, was in no great hurry, and allowed itself to be overtaken with great good-humour. I clambered in over the stern, caught up the sculls which lay across the thwarts, and, dripping but triumphant, brought my captive back ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was as yet unknown, for the parliament no sooner touched on matters of state and government, than Louis XIV entered, booted and spurred, with whip in hand, and not figuratively, but literally, lashed the refractory assembly into silence and obedience. But the eloquence of the bar enjoyed a considerable degree of freedom in this age. Law and reason, however, were too often overlaid by worthless conceits and a fantastic abuse of classic and scriptural ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... elders from pewter. Governor Bradford owned "fourteen dishes of that material, thirteen platters, three large and two small plates, a candlestick and a bottle," and many hours were spent in polishing the rather refractory metal. He also owned "four large silver spoons" and nine smaller ones. But spoons, too, were chiefly pewter, though often merely wood, and table service was thus reduced as nearly to first principles as possible. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... the women is all drawn away from their faces, and is worn in chignons, and the men, when they don't shave the front of their heads and gather their back hair into a quaint queue drawn forward over the shaven patch, wear their coarse hair about three inches long in a refractory undivided mop. ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... could do, some of them again became most refractory, breathing nothing but downright mutiny. When we went below to dinner these fellows stirred up such a prodigious tumult that the old hull fairly echoed. Many, and fierce too, were the speeches delivered, and uproarious the comments of the sailors. Among ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... the Pretoria Gaol which are surely difficult to justify. Du Plessis stated to the Reform prisoners that he had with the sanction of the Landdrost inflicted upon one prisoner named Thompson, who was undoubtedly refractory and disobedient, upwards of eighty lashes within three weeks. He added that this was as good as a death-sentence, because neither white nor black could stand two inflictions of twenty-five lashes, as ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... the kindly man with the amiable chin, and the Chevalier de Port-de-Guy, a pillar of the library of the Louvre, called the King's cabinet, M. de Port-de-Guy, bald, and rather aged than old, was wont to relate that in 1793, at the age of sixteen, he had been put in the galleys as refractory and chained with an octogenarian, the Bishop of Mirepoix, also refractory, but as a priest, while he was so in the capacity of a soldier. This was at Toulon. Their business was to go at night and gather up on the scaffold the heads and bodies of the persons who had been guillotined during ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Africa in the late autumn, with the hope that his personality would influence the settlement there; and the session of 1903 opened in February with no hint of troubles to come. A difficulty with Venezuela, resulting in British and German co-operation to coerce that refractory republic, caused an explosion of anti-German feeling in England and some restlessness in the United States, but the government brought the crisis to an end by tactful handling and by an ultimate recourse to arbitration. The two chief items of the ministerial parliamentary programme were the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... darkest places in the chapels, I who hate mobs, mix almost willingly with those I find there; because there everyone is isolated, no one is concerned with his neighbour, you do not see the human bodies which throng you, but you feel the breath of souls around. However refractory, however damp you may be, you end by taking fire at this contact, and are astonished to find yourself all at once less vile; it seems to me that the prayers which elsewhere when they leave my lips fall back to the ground ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... calculated to render the slaves sullen, discontented, unhappy and refractory—and the masters suspicious, fearful of consequences, and disposed to enhance the rigor of the condition of their slaves, in order to avert the dangers that appear to impend over them from the promulgation ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... the prize. Keble sent for him, to make the usual emendations before the great work could be given to the world with the seal of Oxford upon it. John Ruskin seems to have been somewhat refractory under Keble's hands, though he would let his fellow-students, or his father, or Harrison, work their will on his MSS. or proofs; being always easier to lead than to drive. Somehow he came to terms with the Professor, and then the Dean, taking an unexpected ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... held under his stern dominion a little flock of two hundred souls, and who, eking out a narrow parochial stipend by the week-day office of teaching, had gained large repute for his subjugation of refractory boys. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... locks with my own fair hands, I arranged to have the lights go out again just as the tiara was laid on the dressing-table. The copy was in the table drawer, and while my right hand was apparently engaged in manipulating the refractory light, and my voice was laughingly calling down maledictions upon the electric lighting company for its wretched service, my left hand was occupied with the busiest effort of its career in substituting the spurious ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... the irregularities of war, bring back their former submission? Undoubtedly not: they would return full of new sentiments and new ideas, with which they would infect the villages; they would there propagate a refractory spirit, which would give infinite trouble to the master by ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... feeling grateful to Heaven for having given me such a son as I am blessed with. He is, indeed, quite invaluable to me in managing these refractory people, and were it not for his aid and vigor, I could not have been able to send your lordship the last remittance. He is truly zealous in your cause, but I regret to say, that I am not likely to be able to avail myself long of his services. He is about taking ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... that thoroughly good conversation is impossible where there is too much talk. Some sort of order must be imperceptibly if not unconsciously maintained, or the sentences clash in general conversation. Leading conversation is the adroit speech which checks the refractory conversationalist and changes imperceptibly the subject when it is sufficiently threshed or grows over-heated; it is guiding the talk without palpable break into fresh fields of thought; it is ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... child, entirely unemployed; I had perhaps wearied her with my love before the hour of loving had struck for her! Too young to understand that in the constancy of the wife lies the germ of the mother's devotion, she mistook this first test of marriage for life itself, and the refractory child cursed life, unknown to me, nor daring to complain to me, out of sheer modesty perhaps! In so cruel a position she would be defenceless against any man who stirred her deeply.—And I, so wise a judge ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... leagues in circuit, consisting of high and tolerably good land, and is inhabited by about 150 families of negroes, who are governed by two or three Portuguese, to whom they are very submissive. If any of them happen to be refractory, they are immediately sent away to the island of St Thomas, a punishment which they greatly dread. The island abounds in ananas, bananas, cocoa-nuts, tamarinds, and sugar-canes; but the principal inducement for ships touching here is the great plenty of oranges, of which the Dutch ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... stood side by side Lossing dismounted, stood a moment beside his refractory steed, and then, with a gentle pat and a low word as if of reproof, he turned and, after patting the other animal a moment, sprang to its back and sent it galloping around the place; then bringing him back to place, and with a pat ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... answer, as the tall, agile figure of Holcomb appeared above the tangle of sumac, followed by a short, gray-haired man in blue flannel, who was stepping over a refractory sapling that Holcomb had ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... yet been able to make both ends meet—those troublesome, refractory ends that made her life a continual round of hard work—and there were no fifty-cent pieces for the children to buy tickets with to see the elephant jump the fence. Jerry hugged himself just to feel the half-dollar in his blouse pocket and a glow ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... authority of the election tribunal, apportion and assess the taxes. "No duty is more onerous;"[5216] everybody, through patronage or favor, tries to get rid of it. The communities are constantly pleading against the refractory, and, that nobody may escape under the pretext of ignorance, the table of future collectors is made up for ten and fifteen years in advance. In parishes of the second class these consist of "small proprietors, each of whom becomes a collector about every six years." In ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... unacquainted with the difficulties of the case, entered into these views with great heartiness. He exercised from the first an extraordinary influence over all the Indians with whom he came in contact; and he persuaded the most savage and refractory of them, the Iroquois, to place eight of their children in his hands. Four of these were girls and four were boys. He took two of the boys into his own household, of which they must have proved most objectionable inmates; and he supported the other ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... scene, only one very young Russian appeared wholly refractory. He held his sword in a menacing posture when Thaddeus drew near, and before he had time to speak, the young man made a cut at his head, which a hussar parried by striking the assailant to the earth, and would have killed him on the spot, had not Thaddeus caught the blow on his ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... helmet on his head, his girth draped in a rich blue shawl embroidered and fringed with white, a bitter frown on his jovial round face; and in his hand a long rod with a large blue bow on the metal point designed to shut refractory windows. Helen Vane Baker, a contribution from Society to the art of fiction, with flowing hair and arrayed in a long nightgown over her dress, fortunately white, was assisted to the top of the bookcase on the west wall. Henry Church, a famous satirist, muffled in a ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... irreparable injuries upon poor people, and is full of the most gigantic abuses. It is often complained of by the Levant correspondents of newspapers, under the character of the various spiritual tribunals of Eastern Christians inflicting fines, torture, and imprisonment on refractory or heretic members of those churches. The Jewish synods of Africa and the East exercise the same arbitrary powers, under the sanction of the supreme Mahometan authorities. Lately, however, the European ambassadors have done something ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... a rending, slipping noise on the roof, a scream from Martin, and shouts from the doctor and Peter. With a great sliding and rushing of the refractory sprays, and with a horrifying stumbling and falling, down came Martin, caught in a great rope of the creeper, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... of it as yet," he said; "but when I am not doing errands for the office I am to some extent taken up with it," and then he told her of his talk with his father and what had followed. She overcame a refractory kink in ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... Home leaving I leaped o'er those bars of vexation. What I met on the journey, what I thought in each case, What arose in my soul in the new-chosen place, Where the future was lying,—this to tell is refractory, But I'll give you a ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... to me; I've so concerted Matters, That I defy ev'n Fate to disappoint me. Exert thyself, and to Monelia go, Before th' assembled Chiefs in Council meet; Urge it to her, and to her Brother Torax, That should their Father prove refractory, Withdraw himself, and order his Domestics To hasten home at News of our Design; Urge it, I say, to them; Torax loves War; To linger here in Hopes of his Return, Which tell them I'll effect ere twice the Sun Has run the Circuit of his daily Race. Here they may loiter careless, ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... happenings at funerals—though, to do him justice, he had never before had to deal with anything quite like this—rushed to the center of the disturbance. Mrs. Hobbs hastened to help. Together and with whisperings, they fidgeted with the refractory catch. And still the music ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rational, raucous, recalcitrant, recant, recapitulate, recession, reciprocal, reciprocate, recluse, recondite, recreant, recrudescence, rectilinear, rectitude, recumbent, redactor, redress, redound, refractory, refulgent, rejuvenate, relevant, rendezvous, rendition, reparation, repercussion, repertory, replenish, replete, replevin, reprehend, reprobate, repulsive, requisite, rescind, residue, residuum, resilient, resplendent, resurgence, resuscitate, reticulate, retribution, retrograde, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... mutinous disposition of his crew, maintained a serene and steady countenance, using gentle words with some, stimulating the pride and avarice of others, and threatening the refractory. ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... deceived, they often broke in a formal and absolute manner the bonds which attached them to their fellow humanity. Jamaica especially suffered in this respect, for it had been colonized in the first instance by a discontented, refractory soldiery, and it was being recruited largely by transported criminals and vagabonds. In contrast with the policy of Spain, who placed the most careful restrictions upon the class of emigrants sent to her American possessions, England ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... Moore, "a tyrant some few years older, whose name was N——, claimed a right to fag little Peel, which claim Peel resisted. His resistance was vain, and N—— not only subdued him, but determined also to punish the refractory slave by inflicting a bastinado on the inner fleshy side of the boy's right arm. While the stripes were succeeding each other, and poor Peel was writhing under them, Byron saw and felt for the misery of his friend; and, although he knew he was not strong enough to fight ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... top of each class who are considered the most intelligent, and by whom most of the questions asked by the master are answered. The remaining majority are divided into two sections, one of which consists of what are termed boys of average ability, whilst the other contains the lazy element, the refractory boys, and ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... Pliny's day, the European holly had all manner of supernatural qualities attributed to it: its insignificant little flowers caused water to freeze, he tells us; because it was believed to repel lightning, the Romans planted it near their houses; and a branch of it thrown after any refractory animal, even if it did not hit him, would subdue him instantly, and cause him to lie down meekly beside the stick! Can it be that the Italian peasants, who still believe cattle kneel in their stalls ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... higher and higher, borne by strong hands. A man bit him in the hand. The fact was he had scratched his hand on a refractory horsehair, which had become tired of acting as stuffing for ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... From thence it descends into the retort, G, where it is roasted by the heat of the fireplace, L. The sulphur converted into a state of vapor passes through the conduit, R, into the coke or charcoal retort, G', which is divided into two parts by the partition, g g', of refractory clay, and ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... hatched a second brood, and, just now, these last required their constant attention, although they hoped that by the end of the month their young ones would be able to fly a little. This brood had proved more refractory than the first one, and they were continually getting into trouble and mischief. One of them tumbled into a pool of water, and was as nearly as possible drowned; another was pursued by a cat and had his leg very much hurt; while a third, alas! a poor little fellow, tumbled ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... assist in reducing the Covenanters to obedience to "Us and Our laws," and were told to take up free quarters among the disaffected, to disarm such persons as they should suspect, to carry with them instruments of torture wherewith to subdue the refractory, and in short to act very much in accordance with the promptings of their own desires. Evidently the mission suited these men admirably, for they treated all parties as disaffected, with great impartiality, and ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... all his good things were brought into my little apartment, we began to consult what was to be done with the prisoners we had; for it was worth considering whether we might venture to take them away with us or no, especially two of them, whom we knew to be incorrigible and refractory to the last degree; and the captain said he knew they were such rogues that there was no obliging them; and if he did carry them away, it must be in irons, as malefactors, to be delivered over to justice at the first English ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... a journeyman tinker?" repeated the Count, almost speechless with anger for a moment. "I am neither," he added, endeavouring to control himself, and settling his refractory collar with one hand. "I ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... numbers of people, talks incessantly, and does nothing. Canning was with him yesterday evening, and the result of his audience will be very interesting, because it will appear whether he has insisted upon, and the King consented to, the dismissal of the refractory Lords, as well as what he will do about the Irish Chancellor. Government are indignant with the Duke of Wellington and the other ex-Ministers for opposing the Corn Bill, which they had been themselves (when in office) instrumental in framing, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... right down to straight business," said the refractory Denslow, "there ain't any man got authority over us except Mr. Look there, as foreman of the Smyrna Ancients ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... a mistress of the practice of domestic virtue as of the theory of acoustics and fainting fits. At dressing with taste, and ordering dinners with invention; at heading her table gracefully, and making her guests comfortable; at managing refractory servants and detecting dishonest tradespeople, she was the equal of the least intellectual woman that ever lived. Her preparations for the reception of her niece were finished in advance, without an oversight in the smallest detail. Carmina's inviting bedroom, in blue, opened into Carmina's ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... folded with an air of nonchalant defiance, which seemed to say, "Oh! run over me by all means if you choose," stationed directly in front of the leader's head. On entering the parlour I found Lawless busily engaged in pulling on a pair of refractory boots, and looking very hot and red in the face from ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... and the trunks tied on, an express arrived from her ladyship with a letter, stipulating that neither Miss Maude nor Master Charles should be of the party. Lady Mary declared she had suffered so much from their noise, quarrelling, and refractory tempers when they were with her the preceding summer, that she could not undergo such a trial again; that their mother's nerves might support such things, but that hers really could not: besides, she could not, in justice and politeness to the other friends who were to be in her house, suffer ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... morning, greatly increased his labors and severely tested his patience. Almost all the transportation animals were mules, and as very few of them were trained for the work, they were hard to load and even harder to handle after their burdens were adjusted. One refractory animal would often stampede all the rest, scattering provisions and ammunition in their tracks, driving the teamsters to the point of frenzy and generally hurling confusion through the camp. Even Grant, who never uttered an oath in his life, was often sorely tried by these ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... for instant use there lies a sharp axe at the bottom of the well, by which any rope may be cut, and a blow may be given to the forelock of an anchor or other refractory point needing instant correction, and near this again is the sounding lead, with its line wound on a stick like that of a boy's kite. I soon found that much the best way to tell the fathoms, especially at night, was to measure the line ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... claim, and allowed Henry to raise another benevolence in 1545, concerning which Mr. Hallam tells us a great deal, but not one word of the political circumstances which led to it or to the release, keeping his sympathies and his paper for the sorrows of refractory Alderman Reed, who, refusing (alone of all the citizens) to contribute to the support of troops on the Scotch Border or elsewhere, was sent down, by a sort of rough justice, to serve on the Scotch Border himself, and judge of the 'perils of the nation' ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... is capable of producing the anomaly in any desired number of instances; only dependent on a favorable treatment and a judicious selection. In other cases no treatment and no selection are adequate to give a similar result, and the anomaly remains refractory despite all our endeavors to breed it. The cockscomb and the peloric fox-glove are widely known instances of permanent anomalies, and others will be dealt with in future lectures. On the other hand I have often ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... strife between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines increased the trouble. Nor had the pope any desire to see a strong, unified government so near him. In those days popes were usually not honored in their own country, and, moreover, had enough to do to control their refractory subjects to the north of the Alps. Unity was impossible among cities so blindly and selfishly opposed to one another, and it was, besides, especially prevented by jealous sovereigns from without, who wished rather to see these cities acting independently and separately {338} than ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... polite answer, alleging that he was ill and unable to travel. Sekeletu tried again to remove Mashotlane from the Falls, but without success. In theory the chief is absolute and quite despotic; in practice his authority is limited, and he cannot, without occasionally putting refractory headmen to death, force his subordinates ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... Priscilla looked at Mary. Not for veritable worlds would they have confided to Virginia the joy which would fill their hearts if that refractory kitchen cot could be moved into the living-room; not for untold riches would they have confessed the sinking feeling which attacked them upon the thought of sleeping in the kitchen nearest that unlocked door. A bear might push open that door, ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... built near the outer entrance to it, for the offices of the engineer and Superintendent of Convicts. While this wall was under construction by one gang, other gangs were employed in erecting within the main enclosure a refractory ward and punishment cells, and other minor buildings required in the way of store rooms, filter rooms,[9] chain room, and a receiving room for fresh arrivals; and the effectual drainage of ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... (more often given as Na Molo-kama). The name applied to a succession of falls made by the stream far up in the mountains. The author has here used a versifier's privilege, compressing this long word into somewhat less refractory shape.] ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... a quilt from the man of the house, and he had her taken up: but Bet Flint had a spirit not to be subdued; so when she found herself obliged to go to jail, she ordered a sedan chair, and bid her footboy walk before her. However, the boy proved refractory, for he was ashamed, though his ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... to be a truthful prophet. By the time those five minutes were up, he had succeeded in coaxing the refractory motor to behave itself; and suddenly the Wireless shot off amid a rattling volley of explosions that told full well how her muffler was ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... toward the camp, for he felt that Carter's death had resulted from an accident. One explanation was that a stray bullet had killed Carter—in the excitement of a stampede the men were apt to shoot wildly at refractory steers. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... clue afforded by these letters, Mr. Lee has traced the history of Mist' Journal under Defoe's surveillance. Mist did not prove so absolutely resigned to proper measures as his supervisor had begun to hope. On the contrary, he had frequent fits of refractory obstinacy, and gave a good deal of trouble both to Defoe and to the Government. Between them, however, they had the poor man completely in their power. When he yielded to the importunity of his Jacobite correspondents, or kicked against the taunts of the Whig ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... jinrikisha under cover, and Percival had to submit to the gentle, but firm, determination of the nesan. She was small and demure, but her attitude towards him was that of a nurse towards a refractory child. She conducted him, with much sliding of screens, through several compartments, to a room at the back of the house that opened out on a tiny balcony overhanging a ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... with the physical and social aspects of travel on the Lena. Suffice it to say that a considerable portion of the journey was accomplished through dense forests, during which the sleighs were upset on an average twice a day by refractory teams, and that the filthiest post-houses and worst weather we had yet experienced added to the discomfort of the trip. Blizzards, too, were now of frequent occurrence, and once we were lost for nearly eighteen hours in the drifts and suffered severely from cold and hunger. ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... newspaper assured its working- class readers that San Quentin was whiter than snow, and further, that while it was true that the strait-jacket was still a recognized legal method of punishment for the refractory, that, nevertheless, at the present time, under the present humane and spiritually right-minded Warden, the strait-jacket was ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... Deys of Algiers for the persons of consuls, which you deem so sacred?" said Omar savagely. "Hast thou not heard that in time past we have blown the consuls of refractory nations from the months of ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... there were the Tchinovniks—or government officials—who could mete out any punishment they pleased, could order a whole community to be flogged, or at any moment invoke the aid of a military force or even lend it to private individuals for the subjugation of refractory peasants. ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... disagreement with their original lord were not to be taken into employment by other daimyo; that if any such was reported as having been guilty of rebellion or homicide, he was to be sent back (to his former lord); that any who manifests a refractory disposition must either be sent back or expelled; that where the hostages given by sub-vassals to their mesne lords had committed an offence requiring punishment by banishment or death, a report in writing of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... means must be found to bring you to obedience. I punish you now, rebellious boy, to guard you from greater punishment hereafter. The discipline of this family must be maintained. There can be but one command in a house, and I must be the mistress of mine. You will punish this refractory boy, Mr. Ward, as we have agreed, and if there is the least resistance on his part my overseer and servants will ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... were half drunk, and were taking their time; whenever they met any one they stood still and related with much detail precisely why they had taken the field. The "Great Power" was at his tricks again. He had been refractory all day, and the provost had given the order to keep an eye on him. And quite rightly, for in his cups he had met Ship- owner Monsen, on Church Hill, and had fallen upon him with blows and words of abuse: "So you take the widow's bread out of her mouth, do you? You told her the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... hesitation before I pulled up the refractory Venetian blind—the right rope so eager to rise, the left so indifferent to its improvement—an instant's dread. I was afraid "they" would be hopping about even this early in the morning, hopping, hopping—the jerking ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... both are brought to hopeless desolation, Till wolves troop round the cottage door in one and t'other nation, Till, worn and broken down, the South shall prove no more refractory, And rust eats up the silent looms of ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... household very well for a Dahcotah. He had a number of young warriors and hunters growing up around him, and he sometimes got tired of their disturbances, and would use, not the rod but a stick of wood to some purpose. Although it had the good effect of quelling the refractory spirits of the young, it invariably fired the soul of his aged mother. The old woman would cry and howl, and refuse to eat, for days; till, finding this had no effect upon her hard-hearted son, she told him she would do something that would make him sorry, the ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... and he hearing its mournful croaking shot it with an arrow, which flew up through the ether and landed in the plains of heaven. The arrow was shot down again and killed the envoy. Finally two other envoys were sent down, who landed in Izumo, and after some parley with the refractory deities of the land received their adhesion and settled and pacified the land. Then they returned to the heavenly plains and reported ...
— Japan • David Murray
... of doing nothing which could afford their employer a fair opportunity for complaint. He would not, Harry felt sure, venture to touch them after the warning he had given, but he might send one or all of them back to the town, where they would be put to work as refractory slaves on the fortifications, and where their lot would be far harder than it would be on the plantation. He urged upon them above all things to have patience; sooner or later the people of England would, he felt sure, recall the young ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... liberation had half-an-inch of tobacco given him by another prisoner. The officer happened to notice the gift, went to the prisoner, found the contraband article upon him, and took him before the governor. That gentleman sentenced him to ten days in the refractory cells, and recommended him to the prison director for the loss of his gratuity and three months' remission. The unfortunate prisoner was by-and-bye called up and informed that in addition to the governor's sentence he was condemned to lose all his gratuity ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... to Matthew about the affair that evening; but when Anne proved still refractory the next morning an explanation had to be made to account for her absence from the breakfast table. Marilla told Matthew the whole story, taking pains to impress him with a due sense of ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... nether quarters. When he was himself again he was in the arms of his chief assistant, and Mr. Cutter bled profusely on the floor. He was informed later that he had "gone straight over the counter with a face like a hurricane" and assaulted his refractory hireling with such incredible rapidity of scientific fist that the man, who was twice his size, had succumbed from astonishment and an almost supernatural terror. Alexander, who was ashamed of himself, apologized at once, but gave the man his choice of treating him ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... far more willing to allow that this chimney of an extinct volcano was covered by lava of a kind refractory to heat—in fact a bad conductor—which did not allow the great increase of temperature to percolate through its sides. The hot water jet supported my view of ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... required their presence, is difficult to understand. No man was more popular in the city from the services he rendered when called on. One class, however, found in him an unrelenting disciplinarian—the refractory soldier attempting mutiny or desertion from ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... was perpetrated by Southern masters; but my experience of slavery was, that separation by sale was a part of the system. Not only was it resorted to by severe masters, but, as in my own case, by those generally regarded as mild. No punishment was so much dreaded by the refractory slave as selling. The atrocities known to be committed on plantations in the Far South, tidings of which reached the slave's ears in various ways, his utter helplessness upon the best farms and under the most humane masters and overseers, in Maryland and other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... said she at last, "I have had a great experience in refractory servants, and take a pride in breaking them. You really tempt me; and if I had not other affairs, and these of more importance, on my hand, I should certainly buy you at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stupendous Section, headed Natural Supernaturalism, that the Professor first becomes a Seer; and, after long effort, such as we have witnessed, finally subdues under his feet this refractory Clothes-Philosophy, and takes victorious possession thereof. Phantasms enough he has had to struggle with; "Cloth-webs and Cob-webs," of Imperial Mantles, Superannuated Symbols, and what not: yet still did he courageously ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... confined; conventional rules of every conceivable denomination hurried out to restrain his genius, with the alacrity of Lilliputians pegging down a Gulliver; wherever he turned he was met by a hiatus or a pitfall, a blind-alley or a mot bas. But his triumph was not simply the conquest of these refractory creatures; it was something much more astonishing. It was the creation, in spite of them, nay, by their very aid, of a glowing, living, soaring, and enchanting work of art. To have brought about this amazing combination, to have erected, ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... small square room in the extension, containing a bed, a table, and a chair, where the boys who were refractory were sent. It was considered a great disgrace to be its inmate. They were not locked in; but no boy once put there was ever known to come out unless bidden by the authorities. And no one, of course, could speak to them when they emerged from it to go to recitations, for their lessons must be learned ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... the fur department Oskar Hedin paused in the act of returning some fox pieces to their place, and greeted the girl who had halted before the tall pier glass to readjust her hat and push a refractory strand of hair into place. "Back again?" he smiled. "And ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... Hull was a man who could be useful; his cleverness in upsetting the plot against Dorn and turning all to his advantage demonstrated that. Therefore, Hull should be elected and passed up higher. It did not enter his calculations that Hull might prove refractory, might really be all that he professed; he had talked with Davy, and while he had underestimated his intelligence, he knew he had not misjudged his character. He knew that it was as easy to "deal" with the Hull stripe of honest, high minded men as ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... attempt to murder him or interfere with his movements as the savages did. But there were one or two bolder or more inquisitive than their comrades, who dogged the Wild Man, and tried to force themselves upon him. These he caught and thrashed soundly, after the fashion of a schoolmaster with a refractory boy, and turned them adrift with a warning thenceforth to mind their own business. At last the Indians set him down as a "great medicine-man," or a demon, whom it was impossible to slay; and the trappers shook their heads and touched ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Granger to support him, guided him to the back of Bachelors' Hall. A stoutly built cabin was there, which stood by itself and was windowless, the door of which was iron-bound and padlocked; it was used as a cell in which Indians and half-breeds were kept, should they grow refractory. Producing the key, he opened the door; as they entered they were greeted ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... useful in determining an exact orbit for the new planet, and its motion was considered thoroughly known. For a time Uranus seemed to travel regularly, and as expected, in the orbit which had been calculated for it; but early in the present century it began to be slightly refractory, and by 1820 its actual place showed quite a distinct discrepancy from its position as calculated with the aid of the old observations. It was thought at first that this discrepancy must be due to inaccuracies in the older observations, and they were accordingly rejected, and tables prepared ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... as to-day, adorned resplendently; of a stature little above the common size, and disproportionately broad as to his chest and shoulders. It was rumoured that he could bore an apple through with his forefinger and had once killed a refractory horse with a blow of his naked fist; nor looking on the man, did you presume to question the report. His eyes were large and insolent, coloured like onyxes; for the rest, he had a handsome surly face which was disfigured ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... be left alone, that was evident; and it was equally evident that she herself was the person who must stay with her. Elsie could not be spared from her baby, and Geoffrey, beside being more especially interested in the Youngs, would be far more amenable and less refractory than Clarence at a curtailment of his domestic privileges. So, pluckily and reasonably, she "buckled to" the work so plainly set for her, established herself and her belongings in the spare chamber, ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... mammas. They had but to receive their garments in the daily orderly way, and to put them on as they well knew how. There might sometimes be an obstinate string or button, but Nils was sure to be able to help in any such difficulty, or even to tie a refractory kerchief over the light locks. The children now put on their wrappings mechanically, lost in watching the proceedings of the teacher and ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... happens that inadvertently an ingot is delayed so long on its way to the pit as to arrive there somewhat short of heat, its temperature will be raised by heat from the walls of the pit itself; the refractory mass wherein the pit is formed, in fact, acting as an accumulator of heat, giving and taking heat as required to carry on the operation in a ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... afraid," said Clephane with the kindly air of a doctor soothing a refractory patient. "Of course, you can take a spell at grubs ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... who was not destitute of a sense of humour, never thought of Mr. Gall without a smile, so much out of keeping did the man's occupation seem with his jovial humour. Mr. Gall, he said, was the kind of policeman who would bribe a refractory tramp to move on by the present of a pint of beer. But Gall had a good point. He was very proud of his profession, and in the exercise of it he showed a discretion which, if it was the better part of his valour, argued unlimited natural courage. It was a secret profession, ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... Silver would do this as well as gold; and so would a composite coinage made of ten metals. The law of diminishing returns applies to mining as well as to agriculture. The more silver you want, the deeper you must dig for it, and the more refractory ores you must smelt. The transmuting of a raw metal into finished articles becomes a cheaper and cheaper process; but the extracting of the metal itself becomes dearer. A larger and larger fraction of the labor that is spent in making wares of silver, of gold, of copper, or of tin must be ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... stated here that Cousin Benedict had endeavored to initiate the young novice into the mysteries of entomology. But Dick Sand had shown himself rather refractory to these advances. For want of better company the savant had fallen back on the negroes, who comprehended nothing about it. Tom, Acteon, Bat, and Austin had even finished by deserting the class, and the professor ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... disagreeable duty. When the cook had prepared the meat for roasting, he found that the dog which should have wrought the spit had disappeared. He attempted to employ another, but it bit his leg and fled. Soon after, however, the refractory dog entered the kitchen, driving before him the truant turnspit, which immediately, of its own accord, went into the wheel. A company of turnspits were assembled in the Abbey Church of Bath, where they remained very quietly. At one part of the service, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... were mustered into the service as a part of this gigantic force of seventy-five thousand, at the bare suggestion of whose numbers the refractory South was confidently expected to abandon its rash enterprise, and kindly resume its sway over us. Before the awful ceremony known as 'mustering in,' we were sixty odd excited young gentlemen, hailing from and residing in all parts of the country. After it we were Company N, commanded ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... he slept was also a part of "Catherine's setting out," and was made from feathers she picked herself, showing him as proof a mark upon her arm, left there by the gray goose, which had proved a little refractory when she tried to draw a ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... were killed or wounded before they could defend themselves; while the rest, as they were dragged out, were made prisoners. The wounded were allowed to lie on the shore, while the rest were secured by ropes, which had been brought on shore to bind any refractory slaves. ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... quickness are the qualities by which he lives. Athelred,[20] on the other hand, presents you with the spectacle of a sincere and somewhat slow nature thinking aloud. He is the most unready man I ever knew to shine in conversation. You may see him sometimes wrestle with a refractory jest for a minute or two together, and perhaps fail to throw it in the end. And there is something singularly engaging, often instructive, in the simplicity with which he thus exposes the process as well as the result, the works as well as the dial of the clock. Withal he ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and went away, with the fear of death in their hearts, to abdicate thrones and crowns and hereditary licenses. When Goliah spoke to politicians (so-called "statesmen"), they obeyed . . . or died. He dictated universal reforms, dissolved refractory parliaments, and to the great conspiracy that was formed of mutinous money lords and captains of industry he sent his destroying angels. "The time is past for fooling," he told them. "You are anachronisms. You stand in the way of humanity. To the scrap-heap ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London |
