"Persistence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brought out her edition of Le Genie du Christianisme, adapted for the use of military men. Montriveau chafed; his yoke was heavy. Oh! at that, possessed by the spirit of contradiction, she dinned religion into his ears, to see whether God might not rid her of this suitor, for the man's persistence was beginning to frighten her. And in any case she was glad to prolong any quarrel, if it bade fair to keep the dispute on moral grounds for an indefinite period; the material struggle which followed it was ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... man follows the machine and has his work determined for him by mechanical necessity, the educative pressure of the latter force must be predominant. Machinery, like everything else, can only teach what it practises. Order, exactitude, persistence, conformity to unbending law,—these are the lessons which must emanate from the machine. They have an important place as elements in the formation of intellectual and moral character. But of themselves they contribute a one-sided and very imperfect ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... It was not till November that she passed away—to be followed in a few hours by her one trused friend, Cardinal Pole: the most disastrous example on record of one who with conscientious and destructive persistence aimed at an ideal which her own methods made for ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... in America died, Richard Henry Dana. He was born in 1788, when literature in this country was just beginning. His death stirred the tenderest emotions. Authorship was a new thing in America when Mr. Dana began to write, and it required endurance and persistence. The atmosphere was chilling to literature then, there was little applause for poetic or literary skill. There were no encouragements when Washington Irving wrote as "Knickerbocker," when Richard Henry Dana wrote "The Buccaneer," "The Idle Man," and "The Dying ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... "The Power of Persistence," he said: "Always keep your eye on the student who seems to be dull, who is slow in his studies, who has to repeat his class, but who keeps plodding along doggedly, determinedly, until he has finished the course ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... pertains to body-keeping, regimen, sleep, connecting with school and domestic and public hygiene—all on the basis of modern as distinct from the archaic physiology of Ling, who, it is sufficient to remember, died in 1839, before this science was recreated, and the persistence of whose concepts are an anomalous survival to-day. Mechanico-therapeutics, the purpose and service of each chief kind of apparatus and exercise, the value of work on stall bars with chest weights, of chinning, use of the quarter-staff, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... the reputation Of continuous application To their poisonous profession; Never missing nightly session, Wearing out your life's existence By their practical persistence. ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... with the belief that death transforms the character by one great stroke of spiritual lightning. Vanity, envy, meanness, greed, the foibles and frailties of human nature, repel us when we imagine their persistence in others after death. We infinitely prefer the thought that they should be purged and radiant with spiritual effulgence. We are not so sure about ourselves, for the objective classification of the qualities which go to form our own character ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... saturnine of countenance; a grave, thoughtful, silent person, safe to trust with a secret, for his words were few, his sense of honor high. In all the army there was not his superior in courage and persistence in anything ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... kindly notice which the poet took of him as a child. {265b} It is safer to adopt the less compromising version which makes Shakespeare the godfather of the boy William instead of his father. But the antiquity and persistence of the scandal belie the assumption that Shakespeare was known to his contemporaries as a man of scrupulous virtue. Ben Jonson and Drayton—the latter a Warwickshire man—seem to have been Shakespeare's closest literary friends ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... Cuba. Some of these have been fairly honest, but many of them have been little better than rank swindles. Many have been entirely abandoned, the buyers losing the hard-earned dollars they had invested. Others, better located, have been developed, by patience, persistence, and thrift, into fairly prosperous colonies. I do not know how many victims have been caught by unscrupulous and ignorant promoters in the last fifteen years, principally in the United States and in Canada, but they are certainly many, so many that the speculative industry has ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... statesmen were watching these experiments with a curious interest, and although he was often so radical as to startle the most conservative notions of men engaged in trade, or learned in the old-fashioned science of government, there was that in the persistence of his life and the accuracy of his ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... led away from their homes handcuffed and in chains. They included women, girls and old grey-haired men. They were conveyed from their homes to internment camps in filthy cattle trucks and were cruelly ill-treated with a strange persistence. On one occasion forty-three Czechs, who were being conveyed to a camp of internment, were killed on the way by a detachment of Honveds (Hungarian militia) which was escorting them to their place ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... to tell them, and my father gave me my first thrashing for telling lies. When afterwards I tried to tell my aunt, she punished me again for my wicked persistence. Then, as I said, everyone was forbidden to listen to me, to hear a word about it. Even my fairy tale books were taken away from me for a time—because I was 'too imaginative.' Eh? Yes, they did that! My father belonged to the old school . . . . . And my story was driven back upon myself. ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... balm to his eyes. But it brought back another fever; how he would like to thrust his hot head into its depths and drink, drink, drink! The idea pressed in upon him so strongly, with such insane persistence, that he felt as though if he got very near the edge and took a firm grip with his toes, he could reach the water in a jump. It was worth trying. If he took a long breath, and got just the right balance—he found himself actually crouching. He fell back from this danger, but he couldn't ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... said in defense of the starling's scandalous treatment of some native birds. "Unrelenting perseverance dominates the starling's activities when engaged in a controversy over a nesting site. More of its battles are won by dogged persistence in annoying its victim than by bold aggression, and its irritating tactics are sometimes carried to such a point that it seems almost as if the bird were actuated more by a morbid pleasure of annoying its neighbors than by any necessity arising from a scarcity ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... both hands to her hat in the instinctive effort to hide her face. His persistence was ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... persistence of the old type in its old home, and in certain lands which it had conquered, with its utter disappearance in certain other lands where it was intrusive, but where it at one time seemed as firmly established as in Italy—certainly as in Spain or Gaul. No more curious example of the growth and disappearance ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... into the (he called them ridiculous) days when she had been his little sweetheart, the days when both had sworn with young fervor to be true till death. She did not take kindly at first to these references to that early, mistaken affection, but his persistence won. Before the prince arrived, the American had learned how she met him, how he had wooed and won, and how she had inspired jealousy in his hot Italian heart by speaking of the "big, handsome boy" over in ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... of history must be presumed to stick to the mind with much greater tenacity than a purely rational idea which has no visible symbol in the sensible world, and yet, even in regard to the events of history, the persistence and pertinacity of tradition is exceedingly feeble. The South Sea Islanders know not from whence, or at what time, their ancestors came. There are monuments in Tonga and Fiji of which the present inhabitants can give no ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... application, diligence, labor, persistence, assiduity, effort, pains, sedulousness. attention, exertion, patience, constancy, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... and himself was identical with Miss Asenath's Secret Hope and Miss Eliza's Openly Expressed Desire. And Arethusa had not exaggerated in the least, to Miss Eliza, the number of his proposals. He had been proposing to her every summer with worthy persistence since he was nine or ten, childish though those first proposals may have been; and ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... dramatic methods, and giving special attention to her personal traits and history. Hers was an extremely interesting life, remarkable no less for its private virtues than for its public triumphs. Her struggle to gain the place her genius deserved was heroic in its persistence and dignity. Her relations with the authors, wits, and notables of her day give occasion for much entertaining and interesting anecdotical literature. Herself free from humor, she was herself often the occasion of fun in others. The stories of her tragic manner ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... gave way, vanquished by the persistence and the gratitude of this creature whom he had succored. He fashioned his cart so that Patrasche could run in it, and this he did every ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)
... hobby-horse and little shoes are found therein, if, after all, that father and mother were not wiser than we who, like Constance, "stuff out his vacant garments with his form." Is there not something quite unenlightened in the persistence with which we ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... back, motionless, and with staring eyes, she saw things but vaguely, although she tried to with idiotic persistence. She looked at the scales on the walls, two brands smoking end to end, and a long spider crawling over her head in a rent in the beam. At last she began to collect her thoughts. She remembered—one ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... his protests with a sullen persistence. "The thing's too mad," I said, "and I won't come. The ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... and a happy ghost, that by any means she might get near him, know where he was, and what he was doing, these dreams came only when her work was done, her boys asleep. Day never betrayed the secrets of the night. She set to work every morning at her daily labors with a dogged persistence, never allowing herself a minute's idleness wherein to sit down and mourn. And when, despite her will, she could not conquer the fits of nervous irritability that came over her at times—when the children's innocent voices used to pierce her like needles, and their incessant questions ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the family, had immediately stepped in and offered to take Elizabeth to Italy herself, thus removing all questions of expense or arrangement. She would appear to have stood to her guns in the matter with splendid persistence and magnanimity. She called day after day seeking for a change of mind, and delayed her own journey to the continent more than once. At length, when it became evident that the extraction of Mr. Barrett's consent was hopeless, she reluctantly began her ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... been enslaved; and it is, therefore, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred unconsciously but instinctively assumed that his is still the servile character. There is no natural antipathy between the white and the black races; if there were there could be no mulattoes. The sole reason of the persistence of this caste feeling is that the black man bears the mark saying to every one that sees him, "I belong to a race that has been enslaved:" and unconsciously men assume, "Therefore your character is still a servile ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... of history it has been known that vegetables alone are sufficient for the support of life; and the bulk of mankind live upon them at this hour. The adherence to the use of animal food is no more than a gross persistence in the customs of savage life, and an insensibility to the progress of reason and the operation of intellectual improvement. This habit must be considered as one of the numerous relics of that ancient barbarism which ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... me, I think that he has suspected this from the very beginning. Only that could account for the hostility of his attitude towards you, for the persistence with which he has sought either to convict or wring ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... this attitude of mind requires of course resolution and persistence. We must rouse ourselves and take sides. We must definitely pledge ourselves once and for all to happiness; and if we] cannot at a leap attain to it, we must still remember that we have committed ourselves ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the approach of Pemberton Bryce, the one man she least desired to see, was to retreat to the back of the house and send the parlourmaid to the door to say her mistress was not at home. But she had lately become aware of Bryce's curiously dogged persistence in following up whatever he had in view, and she reflected that if he were sent away then he would be sure to come back and come back until he had got whatever it was that he wanted. And after a moment's further consideration, she walked out of the front door and ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... start in to form a habit, allow nothing to turn you from your course. Whether the habit is some fundamental moral habit or the multiplication table, be consistent, do not vacillate. Nothing is so strong as consistent action, nothing so weak as doubtful, wavering, uncertain action. Have the persistence of a bull dog and ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... thrown over the retirement of Tiberius a character of strangeness which, as we have said, hardly belongs to it. What in fact distinguished it from the retirement of Augustus to the same spot was simply the persistence of his successor ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... dismal swamps with a weird and horrible brightness; the thunder rolled peal upon peal, making to me a pandemonium, real and feeling; the pitiless rain pelted me unmercifully and constantly, with that persistence that made it almost unendurable to me. I sat down at the root of a large tree, not to shelter myself from the rain but to protect myself from the attack of any wild animal that should approach me. There I sat the rest of the long night, unfriended, ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson
... peculiar pathos about the clothes of the dead. They are so nearly a part of our bodies that it seems unnatural almost that they should survive with the persistence of inanimate things, when we who gave them the semblance of life are far more dead than they. It would be more seemly, perhaps, if all these things which have belonged to us so intimately were to perish with us in a general suttee. But the mania for relics would never tolerate so ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... owing to the persistence of the cause, inflammatory phenomena continue, resulting in the growth of large fibrous ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... those peoples who were shy of imitating her, forgetting that her conduct through six generations had made a strong impression on the world's mind, and that her sudden conversion could not immediately avail against her long persistence in sinning against political economy, if indeed she had so sinned; and the question was one that admitted of some dispute, free trade being but an experiment. Gradually, however, men came round to the British view, in theory at least; ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... most intimate acquaintance. In the adjoining room a deserted woman had died by her own hand; her moans, filtered through the dividing wall, had summoned P. Sybarite—too late. The double front room on the same floor harboured an amiable couple whose sempiternal dissensions only his tact and persistence ever served to still. The other hall-bedroom had housed for many years a dipsomaniac whose periodic orgies had cost P. Sybarite many a night of bedside vigil. On the floor below lived a maiden lady whose quenchless hopes still centred about his amiable person. Downstairs in the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... replied the minister fervently. "There is something very mysterious in what we call evil. Apparently it has infinitely greater force and persistence than good. I don't know why it should be so. ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... not just that Mexico, by her obstinate persistence in this contest, should compel us to overthrow our own financial policy and arrest this great nation in her high and prosperous career. To reimpose high duties would be alike injurious to ourselves and to all neutral powers, and, unless demanded by a stern necessity, ungenerous ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... aimless migrations. They were travelling on the ridge, because, as Pete instantly inferred, the snow there had been partly blown away, partly packed, by the unbroken winds. They were far out of gunshot. But he was going to trail them down even through that deep snow. By tireless persistence and craft he would do it, if he had to do it ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... changed," continued Coronado, when he had submitted to the old man's persistence. "She has grown thinner and sadder. You must not notice it, however; you must compliment her ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... her friends had wished to give it up and devote the afternoon to an indoor meeting of the Happy-Go-Luckys; but Ivy would not have it so; she insisted on their going, she vetoed every argument to the contrary, but now that they were beyond recall and she faced the empty room she almost regretted her persistence. ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... tribe has. Some of them had blossomed; and a few had gone so far as to bear ripe berries,—long, pear-shaped fruit, hanging like the ear-pendants of an East Indian bride. I could not but admire the persistence of these zealous plants, which seemed determined to propagate themselves both by seeds and roots, and make sure of immortality in some way. Even the Colfax variety was as ambitious as the others. After having seen ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... informed," General Howe remarked, "though, to tell the truth, two thousand fresh men came from the New Hampshire province to take their places. I must say the provincials, thus far, have shown commendable zeal and persistence in maintaining the rebellion. They have constructed formidable earthworks on Cobble Hill, so near my lines that they have compelled the warships to drop down the river to ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... as I have made mention, we were astonished, for it appeared like a miracle to us to see so cumbrous a thing fly with so much grace and persistence, and further, we were mightily surprised at the manner in which it pulled upon the rope, tugging with such heartiness that we were like to have loosed it in our first astonishment, had it not been for the warning which Jessop ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... standing in her eyes. She had spoken with a force of feeling, with a depth of sincerity, that startled Artois, intimately as he knew her. Till this moment he had not quite realized the wonderful persistence of love in the hearts of certain women, and not only the persistence of love's existence, but of its existence ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... head humbly under this tirade. She had nothing more to say, no defense to utter. By her unwomanly persistence she had very clearly lost whatever admiration and respect Willie Jones might once have felt for her. But—but—but she was in for half the profits! . . . Women are so prone nowadays to prefer some petty material gain ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... blubber at this; which to us was the most ludicrous thought, so that it was all we could do to restrain our laughter. But the Mayor saw things in another light. Shaken by our steady persistence in our story, and astounded by our want of respect, the defection of his follower utterly cowed him. After staring wildly about him for a moment, he fairly turned tail, and sat down on an old box by the door, where with his hands on his ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... constantly misled into the belief that somebody was with him, and that he was a man of words rather than work. As soon, however, as I reached a point from which I could see him, there he would be, alone, bending to his task with the steady persistence that makes his labor so effective; but, at the same time, until he saw me he would continue discussing with equal vigor whatever subject might be uppermost in his mind. I suppose he scarcely ever takes out a stone or root without apostrophizing, adjuring, ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... the further advantage of throwing light on the special sanctity ascribed to mistletoe which grows on an oak. The mere rarity of such a growth on an oak hardly suffices to explain the extent and the persistence of the superstition. A hint of its real origin is possibly furnished by the statement of Pliny that the Druids worshipped the plant because they believed it to have fallen from heaven and to be a token that the tree on which it ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... by which a man may still be young at sixty. One is an exceedingly hard route for most men to travel—namely, the individual practice of this scientifically tested formula and patient persistence in it. The other is by group action. The latter is far easier and its results are doubly effective. However, as in some cases group action may be impossible, this book furnishes the data for individual practice ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... of adolescence reproduces the first, merely sexual, stage of the erotic life of the race in the life of the individual. As a rule this phase is followed by a period of woman-worship; love has conquered the sexual instinct and the latter is felt as base and degrading. Atavism is not so much the persistence of the earlier, as the absence of the ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... '70's and '80's and '90's knew themselves on trial in the eyes of the world as never women had been before. And they brought to that trial the heady enthusiasm and radiant exhilaration and fiery persistence which possess all those who rediscover learning and drink deep. They knew the kind of selfless inspiration Wyclif knew when he was translating the Bible into the language of England's common people. They shared the elation and devotion of ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... man neither much better nor much worse than the world into which he was born. He was quite as unscrupulous as those about him, but he was far greater than they in perspicacity, adroitness, adaptability, and persistence. During the period before his expulsion from Corsica these qualities of leadership were scarcely recognizable, but they existed. As yet, to all outward appearance, the little captain of artillery was the same ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... likes it. As a variation he plays the motifs which describe himself, the large heroic Siegfried-motif, and then the gay, rash, lesser Nothung-Siegfried motif. He has returned to the Lock-weise, and is repeating it with obstinate persistence, a-mind not to stop until the companion his lonesomeness yearns for shall have answered him when a bellowing sound behind him makes him face about. We had been warned already by the Wurm-motif, heard before in Nibelheim, when Alberich by the ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... orientation, and general construction, furniture, and ornaments of these remarkable chambers, and upon the rites connected with them. He also gives an original and acute suggestion to account for the persistence of the structural plan of the kivas by its religious ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... dead Past bury its dead" would be a better saying if the Past ever died. The persistence of the Past is one of those tragi-comic blessings which each new age denies, coming cocksure on to the stage to mouth its claim to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... inarticulate sound that in some fashion expressed what the drawing of his lips had made her feel. "Sweetheart—to-morrow!" he said, and kissed her again with a lingering persistence that to her overwrought nerves had in it something that was almost unendurable. It made her think of an epicurean tasting some favourite dish and smacking ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... trouble which detaches us from earth gives us new hope. Sometimes the effect of our sorrows and annoyances and difficulties is to rivet us more firmly to earth. The eye has a curious power, which they call persistence of vision, of retaining the impression made upon it, and therefore of seeming to see the object for a definite time after it has really been withdrawn. If you whirl a bit of blazing stick round, you will see a circle ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... around them, Bruno could tell by sense of touch that his guide was powerfully agitated, and, though Ixtli clearly hesitated before imparting the asked-for information, persistence ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... artificial lake constructed, the squares and park-lands transformed from untidy wildernesses into handsome oases, and the general aspect of the city entirely transformed. I do not know that I ever saw so much done entirely at the initiative and by the energy and persistence of ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... conceivable type, that has some such primitive alimentary canal and the two primary layers constituting its wall, we inevitably come to the very remarkable embryonic form of the gastrula, which we have found with extraordinary persistence throughout the whole range of animals, with the exception of the unicellulars—in the Sponges, Cnidaria, Platodes, Vermalia, Molluscs, Articulates, Echinoderms, Tunicates, and Vertebrates. In all ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... was dejected by her conviction that nobody who was a friend of Uncle Arthur's could possibly be agreeable. "By their friends ye shall know them," thought Anna-Felicitas, staring out of the window at the Boston buildings. Also the persistence of the Sacks in not being on piers and railway stations was discouraging. There was no eagerness about this persistence; there wasn't even friendliness. Perhaps they didn't like ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... am biased in my doubt concerning the usefulness of his persistence in re-writing, by my regret that he destroyed so many of his romances, as not worthy of him. "King's chaff is better than other folk's corn" says our proverb. In his day, I bored him by pressing him to write more, and more rapidly; he never could have been ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... McClellan received a preliminary order to send away his sick, and the withdrawal of his entire force was ordered by telegraph on August 3. With the obstinacy and persistence that characterized his course from first to last, McClellan still protested against the change, and when Halleck in a calm letter answered his objections with both the advantages and the necessity of the order, McClellan's movement of withdrawal was so delayed ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... leaders. Also, they undervalue the Mexican soldiers. I assure you they do. They fought Spain for ten years; they do not want, then, the persistence of true valor. The Americans may die in the Alamo, but they cannot hold it against the thousands Santa Anna will ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... important events: the discovery of a new world, the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, and the death of Lorenzo de' Medici. Spain's crusade of seven hundred years was over. We must search in vain for any struggle to match this in singleness and persistence of purpose. Commencing one hundred years before Charlemagne created a Holy Roman Empire, it ended triumphantly under a king and queen who were to play a leading part ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... well-to-do farmers within ten miles sent their daughters to complete their education at Miss Huntingdon's academy of the needle and the heavy blocking-iron. My father, when he passed, did not know them, so great in his eyes was their fall. Yet by quiet persistence, of which she had the secret, my mother wore him down to winking at her sending Agnes Anne there ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... creations of their own malignant thought. The ritual with which these beings were worshipped was blood-stained from the very start, and of course every sacrifice offered at their shrine gave vitality and persistence to these vampire-like creations—so much so, that even to the present day in various parts of the world, the elementals formed by the powerful will of these old Atlantean sorcerers still continue to exact their ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... was strangely at variance with the surroundings, strangely antagonistic to the brightness of the sea, the sweetness of the air, the holiday gaiety that pervaded the little town in the summer. For work did not abolish, did not even lull the sound of the voice that pursued Maurice with an inexorable persistence. It was obvious that on his return home after the honeymoon, he made a tremendous effort to get the better of his enemy. He called up all his manhood, all his strength of character. He refused to ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... praise alone should the congregation audibly join in public worship. Among the English refugees were some who desired the privilege of responding in public worship according to the English fashion, and it was the persistence in this matter of Cox, afterwards Bishop of Ely, and of some of his co-patriots, that led to Knox's removal to Geneva, and to the publication there of the Book of Geneva as an order for public worship in the English congregation to which he ministered. ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston
... But, such is the persistence of mankind in general and the doggedness of fishermen in particular, Captain Dan and I kept on roaming the seas in search of tuna. Nothing more was seen or heard of the great drifting schools. They had gone ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... the officers at the door, and a moment later Norvin was hurrying with them toward Girod Street. Mechanically his mind began to review the events leading up to the murder, dwelling on each detail with painful and fruitless persistence. He repictured the scene that his eye had so swiftly and so carelessly recorded; he saw again the dark shed, the dumb group of figures idling beneath it, the open door and the flood of yellow light behind. But when he ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... torture for nerve-twitch of torture. The picture that had been alive and out of its frame was back on cold canvas. Even the girl he had known across the barrier, even the girl in armor, seemed more kindly. But one can talk, even to a picture in a frame; at least, Jack could, with wistful persistence. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... with the prevalent anti-Semitism and his own ingrained persistence, tend to preserve the Jew even in the "Melting Pot," so that his dissolution must be necessarily slower than that of the similar aggregations of Germans, Italians, or Poles. But the process for all is the same, ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... on American shores, but a less aggressive people, who were called Brownists in derision, but who called themselves Separatists. Robert Browne first formulated the doctrines of the sect; but its origin, and the reasons for its persistence in the face of bitter persecution, are not altogether clear. Poor in purse and feeble in numbers, Separatism found adherents chiefly in London and Norfolk, and among the lower classes of artisans and countrymen. It was in London and Norfolk that many thousand Dutch refugees found homes during ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... well as Birnier he would never have accomplished it. Yet he tried the impossible. The answer was invariably a mask of ox-like stupidity or the retort that he, being a mighty magician, must needs know that he did but "tickle their feet"! At length, irritated by this persistence, he had Sakamata put to the torture and had for his pains a story in which the idol as the first man was the father of the tribe whom the people believed to have been eaten up literally, so that the conqueror had become the father of the ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... Queen's marriage there occurred in London a union yet more auspicious, not alone for England, but for all Christendom. It was the wedding, by act of Parliament, of Knowledge and Humanity in the cheap postage reform—carried through with wonderful ability, energy, persistence, and pluck by Rowland Hill; blessed be his memory. The Queen afterwards knighted him, but he did not need the honor, though I doubt not it was pleasant, coming from her hands. The simple name of the dear old man was full of dignity, and long before had been stamped—penny- stamped, ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... travels The geographical problems of the fourteenth century Sought to be solved by Christopher Columbus The difficulties he had to encounter Regarded as a visionary man His persistence Influence of women in great enterprises Columbus introduced to Queen Isabella Excuses for his opponents The Queen favors his projects The first voyage of Columbus Its dangers Discovery of the Bahama Islands Discovery of Cuba and Hispaniola Columbus returns to Spain The excitement and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... Dr. Johnson is in many ways the most lovable. The son of a poor bookseller in Lichfield {40} with an uncouth figure and an undistinguished countenance, he rose by the massive force of his character and the tireless persistence of his industry to an unchallenged supremacy in the literary world of his age, displaying in his whole life the truth of his own dictum that "few things are impossible to diligence and skill." Disdaining the common habit of the times he would owe nothing to the patronage ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... restoring fiscal and monetary discipline and have established good working relations with international financial institutions. Growth, starting from a low base, has been strong in 1991-96. Despite such positive developments, the reconstruction effort faces many tough challenges because of the persistence of internal political divisions and the related lack of confidence of foreign investors. Rural Cambodia, where 90% of about 9.5 million Khmer live, remains mired in poverty. The almost total lack of basic infrastructure in the countryside will hinder development and will contribute ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... ministry, which now gave captains of ships-of-war much more extensive powers, thereby justifying his contention that it was within their office to enforce the Navigation Act. Nor was this increased activity of the executive branch of the government the only result of Nelson's persistence. His sagacious study of the whole question, under the local conditions of the West Indies, led to his making several suggestions for more surely carrying out the spirit of the Law; and these were embodied the next year in a formal Act ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... for himself, but these must come under the treatment of specialists in this line of medical work. In mild cases of spinal curvature, drooping of the head, and round shoulders, the individual can benefit his condition. By working to "substitute a correct attitude for the faulty one,"(81) he can by persistence bring about marked improvements. It is better, however, to have the advice and aid of a physical director, where this is possible. It should also be borne in mind that the correction of skeletal deformities requires ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... the advance forces, had sent out seven officers about sundown with instructions to the troops at Contreras, but they had all returned, completely baffled by the insuperable difficulties of the way. Not a man except Robert E. Lee had the daring, skill, and persistence to cross this region of volcanic knife-blades on that night of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... natural law must have resulted by way of necessary consequence.... It does not admit of one moment's questioning that it is as certainly true that all the exquisite beauty and melodious harmony of nature follows necessarily as inevitably from the persistence of force and the primary qualities of matter as it is certainly true that force is persistent or that matter is extended or impenetrable[13].... It will be remembered that I dwelt at considerable length and with much earnestness upon this truth, not only because ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... groan. Her persistence was appalling, her courage an indescribable reproach. For a moment he remained silent, with a drawn face and twitching fingers, strangely white and wasted, like a man who had been through an illness,—a caricature of the once easy-going Gilbert Palgrave, the ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... someone knocked on the bunk house door, and thinking that perhaps some wandering tramp had the nerve to bother us at this late hour in the night, we roughly ordered the intruder to be gone. Instead of going, the knocks continued, and angry at the persistence of the person, we pulled the door open, and to our complete surprise found that it was Mrs. McDonald who had knocked for admission. Realizing the great honor she was conferring upon us, we politely bade her to enter and asked her to be seated. She was attired in the dress in which ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... of the persistence with which they return again and again, according to good authority, ghosts in general must be endowed with much patience. Be this as it may of the average ghost, certain it is that this particular apparition, after glaring immovably at the spinster ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... delicate, narcotizing perfume over his senses as he took her hand and listened to her soft murmurs of congratulation. After all, it is true that almost any woman can marry any man if she has a few looks, a few brains, and the quality of persistence. Besides, Marice had him safely bonded. The shrouded figure at the back of his mind that was waiting for some quiet hour in which to discuss the mess he was making of his life would have to be narcotized, too, or denied and ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... immigrants, the second and the third and fourth generations, are now thoroughly absorbed into every phase of American life. Their national idiosyncrasies have been modified and subdued by the gentle but relentless persistence of the English language and the robust vigor of American law and ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... himself. Certain ideas once prevalent certainly must be thrown off. An endless infliction for past sins was once the doctrine that we now generally reject. The doctrine as now taught is that of an eternal persistence in evil necessitating eternal punishment, since evil induces misery by an eternal nature of things, and this, I fear, is inferable from the analogies of nature, and confirmed by the ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... own achievements, or of his courtesy and eloquent address, stubbornly and ardently desired to woo the maiden. And though he strove with all the force of his wit to soften her gaze, no device whatever could move her downcast eyes; and, marvelling at her persistence in her ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... desire of pleasing his guests, urged the matter, but Beethoven continued obdurate; upon which he told him, probably by way of a joke, that he must either comply or that he would be confined in the castle as a prisoner of war for disobeying orders. This persistence so enraged him that, although it was night, he left the castle without the Prince's knowledge, and walked three miles to Trappau, the nearest post-town. He remained here overnight, and, while waiting for the post-chaise, wrote the following letter ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... him, Brownrig's persistence in seeking him irritated him almost beyond his power to endure. And the worst of it to John was, that he could not put it all out of his thoughts when Brownrig had turned his back upon the town, and had gone to ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... attended together. There was also a graceful, mincing white wolfhound which, contrary to the accepted notion of invalids' faithful hounds, didn't seem to care for his master's darkened sick-room at all, but followed the one sunny spot in Mrs. Harrington's room with a wistful persistence. It was such a small spot for such a long wolfhound—that was the principal thing which impressed itself on Phyllis's frightened ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... in many ways the Washington of New York. He had the foresight, patience, and persistence of the Virginia planter. His "Journal" of a tour up the Mohawk in 1788 and a pamphlet which he published in 1791 may be said to be the ultimate sources in any history of the internal commerce of ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... put an end to this folly," he said impatiently. "I have shown you what persistence in it would bring on yourself. You would be estranged from everything and every one you have hitherto been interested in; you would have to begin a new life, for which you are not fitted; you would be the ...
— Sunrise • William Black |
