"Importunate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prosperously, and with incredible rapidity. It seems that he had put his hand carefully to the work, which he had already commenced, and desired to see it assume a wider extent, and to have those fields full of workers. He was exceedingly well received in Nueva Espana, and so much caressed, that all were importunate to embrace him again and again, not being satisfied with simply embracing him whom they saw visibly as the apostle of China—the name by which they designated these islands. They promised him munificent help in advancing the undertaking. On that account ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... exceedingly importunate with God in prayer, and would plead with God at an unusual rate; and he would beg and expostulate, and weep so, that sometimes it could not be kept from the ears of the neighbours: so that one in the next ...
— Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour - A Token for Children • John Wesley
... to her second husband's, and thence how far would it travel? Added to this, Sarah's conscience grew uneasy; the brand ought to be effaced from the memory of the dead mother, the legitimacy of the child proclaimed; she became importunate, she wearied and she alarmed the pious man. He therefore resolved to rid himself of the only witness to his marriage whose testimony he had cause to fear,—of the presence of the only one acquainted with his sin ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... when he slept he dreamed he was talking to the other; all day her voice sang in his ears, her gay smile danced before his eyes. He remembered every word she had ever said; he remembered the passionate kisses he had given her. How could he forget that ecstasy? He writhed, trying to expel the importunate image; but ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... being at that time who held and publicly expressed views similar to my own, so far as I knew, was Ruskin. Of the riddle which I found so importunate, he did not profess to have discovered any adequate solution of his own. On the contrary, he confessed himself a victim of a tragic and desolating doubt, but he did boldly proclaim that until some solution was found the men of the modern world were of all men the most miserable. Take, he said, ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... had been only half convinced by her reasoning. She was English and she had done it before. "That is nothing," Ser Giulia said. "You may catch a ball once, and the second time it may slip through your fingers. And sometimes Life is like the importunate widow and goes on asking until one gives what one should not." She helped her to find a room, and eked out the furniture from her own little store. "Another saucepan, and a kettle, and a blanket. And if lessons fail you ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... continuest paying off the heavy debts my long letters, for so many weeks together, have made thee groan under, I will endeavour to restrain myself in the desires I have, (importunate as they are,) of going to town, to throw myself at the feet of my soul's beloved. Policy and honesty, both join to strengthen the restraint my own promise and thy engagement have laid me under on this head. I would not afresh ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... curiosity often brings us care. Let well alone, and it will continue to be well with you; but why should you thus persist to peer into the bottom of your past; as it were, asking the fashion of your swaddling clothes? Fie! you are too impatient; too importunate. Pray, no longer question me against my will, making enquiries that may not be answered. Live without asking why you live. No more of this. Does not your guardian love you as though you were his child; and is he not wiser than yourself; to judge of what knowledge is for your welfare? ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... The importunate spectator doubtless hoped to force us into a confession of our impotence, for he covered his number, and the adjacent seats being occupied, it was apparently impossible to read the numbers. But I was on my guard against all surprises, and my reply was ready. Still, in order to profit ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... twice; then, hearing at a little distance the shrill voice of the importunate newsvender, I plunged after him and stopped him, just ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... seemed to cut away the ground upon which he had been manoeuvring for a quarrel with France. But his spirits revived on receiving by telegraph from the king a brief summary of the Ems incidents, stating that Benedetti's importunate requisition for guarantees had been rejected by his majesty, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... of my acre and a half of stony ground, providing me with vegetables raised in a better soil. I explain to him my urgent need of Moles, an indefinite number of moles. Battling daily with trap and spade against the importunate excavator who uproots his crops, he is in a better position than any one else to procure for me that which I regard for the moment as more precious than his bunches of asparagus ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... conceive that Mr. Brooke thought himself entitled to be importunate for a license, because, in his own opinion, he deserved one, and to complain thus loudly at the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Art. Well, strangely importunate they were, they nothing but begg'd, pray'd, and conjur'd me to bless 'em with a sight of ye; nay, they sent for me so often, that I was sometimes ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... later—before the battle—I felt how gladly he would have sent me, who might ruin all, back to Egypt. Besides, I felt—I have already said so—that something had come between us. Yet, often as he was on the point of sacrificing me to the importunate Romans, I need only bid him gaze into the beaker, and exclaim 'You will not send me hence. We belong together. Whither one goes, the other will follow!' and he besought me not to leave him. The very morning before the battle I gave him the drinking cup, urging him, whatever might happen, never, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that the Prior of that place kept pressing Leonardo, in a most importunate manner, to finish the work; for it seemed strange to him to see Leonardo sometimes stand half a day at a time, lost in contemplation, and he would have liked him to go on like the labourers hoeing in his garden, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... unbidden guest, and the squire stooping, red-faced and plethoric, over his mulligatawny; while Vixen, who was at an age when dinner is a secondary consideration, was amusing herself with the dogs, gentlemanly animals, too wellbred to be importunate in their demands for an occasional tid-bit, and content to lie in superb attitudes, looking up at the eaters patiently, with supplication in ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... draggled kite, Ishmael sinks among the ferns and passes away, while the assassins fly back and tell how they settled the fool who could not keep the shot out of his carcass. If the observer sees this often, his disposition to moralise may become very importunate, for he sees an allegory of human life written in black specks on that sky that broods so softly, like a benediction, over the fair world. One may easily bring forward half a score of similar instances from the animal kingdom. A ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... to the palace at Greenwich along with the magister, in the barge that was taking the heralds to the King's marriage with Anne of Cleves, the young Poins was importunate with Udal to advance him in his knowledge of the Italian tongue. He thought that in the books of the Sieur Macchiavelli upon armies and the bearing of arms there were unfolded many secret passes with the rapier and the stiletto. But Udal laughed good-humouredly. He had, he said, little ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... know, but she named a club, and a tavern, from which he had dated importunate letters to her before ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... show it to others as we feel it to exist, and as, in spite of ourselves, we are compelled to think of it. The imagination, by thus embodying and turning them to shape, gives an obvious relief to the indistinct and importunate cravings of the will. We do not wish the thing to be so; but we wish it to appear such as it is. For knowledge is conscious power; and the mind is no longer in this case the dupe, though it may be the victim, of vice ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... from the soft-hearted forestieri. Happily this plague has now greatly abated, and one may ascend or descend the magnificent stair without being revolted by the sight of human degradation, or persecuted by the importunate outcries of those who are lost to shame. The Government has done a good thing in diminishing this frightful mendicancy. But it is to be feared that whilst there are many who beg without any necessity, sturdy knaves who are up to ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... calculating the degree of interest she can derive from it, and seems to me, whenever she approaches me, as tho' she were devising some fresh petition to obtain from me. And now, too, that the first ladies of the court fill your drawing-rooms, why should you endure her importunate presence?" Strengthened by these sentiments on the king's part, I lost no time in writing to madame de Bearn a letter, of which many false copies were circulated; however, I subjoin the following as the veritable epistle addressed by me to the countess:— "MADAME,—It ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... to me, Peter. I know you. I can do no harm. Come, I implore! Come quickly! Reassured by the faint, but importunate words, old Peter approached the dark object that lay upon the ground, scarcely discernible in the dim ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... them to tell of life After the dreamy days devoid of strife, When every day with sunshine is begun, And cloudless skies receive the setting sun. On such a day the older folk were fain Of something new somewhat to dull the pain Of sad, importunate old memories That to their weary hearts must needs arise. Alas! what new things on that day could come From hearts that now so long had been the home Of such dull thoughts, nay, rather let them tell Some tale that fits their ancient ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... escape the importunate question, whence am I? The first replies framed to meet it possess an interest to the thoughtful mind, beyond that of mere fables. They illustrate the position in creation claimed by our race, ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... Russia, he was importunate in urging his extravagant designs upon persons of influence. When the French Government in 1767 commissioned him to work in Madagascar, he believed that his dream was to come true, but a rude awakening and the accustomed ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... languidness, and came silently into the house. Gertrude's moist face, her loud, anxious voice, her warm, clinging hand, were exceedingly disagreeable to him—so much so that finally the desire to escape them became more importunate than any other. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... bid me begone. I have often felt what a good thing it would be if this kind of dismissal could be employed in general society to send away importunate petitioners, to whom one does not ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... little more disappointment, and a little longer infliction of ingratitude, and this loyal and generous heart would cease to beat: he should then be delivered from the just claims of a well-tried servant, who, in ceasing to be useful, was considered by him to have become importunate. ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... homage at the same time. And it is in this latter intention that they are done by lovers; for the essence of love is kindness: and indeed it may be best defined as passionate kindness: kindness, so to speak, run mad and become importunate and violent. Vanity in a merely personal sense exists no longer. The lover takes a perilous pleasure in privately displaying his weak points and having them, one after another, accepted and condoned. He wishes to be assured that he is not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she seldom ate; her naked arms Flung it far out to feed the sea; her hair Streamed after it, like rooted ocean-weed In headlong current. But, alas, the sea Took it, and came again—it would have her! And as the wave importunate, so despair, Back surging, on her heart rushed ever afresh: Sickening she moaned—half muttered and half moaned— "She winna be content; ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... promise of the merchant to test their earnest story, and yield to the importunate desires which they had so long cherished, ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... honour, gratitude, old childish affection, and caressing elder-sisterly protection, all flowed in one deep, strong current; but the very depth made her diffident. She could imagine the whole reciprocated, and she feared to be importunate. If the day was no better than a weary turmoil, save when his voice was in her ear, his eyes wistfully bent on her, the more carefully did she restrain all expression of hope of seeing him to-morrow, lest she should be ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them and asking for money; nor will they take the answer given them, but put their hats up to the ladies' faces, saying, "Please, ma'am, remember the grotto;" and when told by the parties that they have no money to give, they will still continue to follow, and be as importunate as any common beggar. However innocent and trifling this may appear to some, I am inclined to believe that such practices tend to evil, for they teach children to be mean, and may cause some of them to choose begging rather than work. I think ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... contrariety breedeth more bitternes then sweetnes, more hate then loue: whereupon more grieuous complaints aswel vnto your highnes as vnto our selues, might be occasioned. The lord knoweth, that euen now we are too much wearied and disquieted with the importunate and instant complaints of our subiects, insomuch that wee cannot at this present by any conuenient meanes release or dissolue the sayd prohibition, before wee be sufficiently informed by your maiesties ambassadors, of the satisfaction of our ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... Colonel answered them all truthfully—generally with that dangerous suavity for which he was noted. Twice a seedy man with a gnawed yellow mustache had come in to ask Eliphalet's whereabouts. On the second occasion this individual became importunate. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... have lately read "Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life," which has been very beneficial to me. My greatest grief of late is, that my love to God and His people is not more humble, more fervent, and more importunate. O could I feel as Jesus felt when he said, "My meat and drink is to do the will of him that sent me." How much more happy and useful I would be! I pray that ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... For on the morrow there was to be driven by, up there, a great herd of moor stags and maybe a wolf or two. The King would be home with his wife, it was reported, but the younger lords had been so importunate with him to stay and abide this gallant chase and great slaughter that, they having ridden loyally with him, he had yielded to their prayers and stayed there—twenty-four hours, it ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... under the sub-denomination of the Irish Sea. But Forster had been all his early life a sailor, and still felt the same pleasure in listening to the moaning and whistling of the wind, as it rattled the shutters of his cottage (like some importunate who would gain admittance), as he used to experience when, lying in his hammock, he was awakened by the howling of the blast, and shrouding himself in his blankets to resume his nap, rejoiced that he was ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a different language: they, too ... must eventually go over to the dominant language.... Wisely to further this necessary organic process is a blessing to all parties; violent haste will only curb it and cause reactions. Importunate insistence on Nationality has never anywhere brought true vitality into being, and often destroyed vitality; but the superior Culture which, sure of its inner strength, throws her doors wide open, can win men's hearts."[1] In the light of a passage like this, from the ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... pointed frequently to his throat, at the instance of Arabanoo, he tried to wash it with a gargle which was given to him; but the obstructed, tender state of the part rendered it impracticable. 'Bado, bado' (water), was his cry: when brought to him, he drank largely at intervals of it. He was equally importunate for fire, being seized with shivering fits; and one was kindled. Fish were produced, to tempt him to eat; but he turned away his head, with signs of loathing. Nanbaree (the boy), on the contrary, no sooner saw them than he leaped from his ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... to his ambitions more formidable than poor Tusk had been, a blinding rage swept through his brain which turned all things fiery as the west. Stealthily his hand felt over the ground for a stone large enough to crush this importunate engineer—this thief, who would steal his teacher and leave him stranded in a barren school! One was there, and his fingers, feverishly yet with caution, began to scratch away the loam which held it down. But then he hesitated. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... perseverance deprived the excited magistrate of what little patience he had left. He took the importunate petitioner by the shoulders, pushed him into the street, ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... of Mount Edgcumbe, watched for a moment or so the brown sails of the fishing-smacks dancing a chassez-croisez in the Sound, and turned back to face the hill-side. A fellow-passenger, hustled past him by half a dozen importunate children, extricated a hand to wave, and shouted a cheery 'See you in town, Drake.' Drake roused himself with a start and took a step in the same direction; he was confronted by a man in a Norfolk jacket and tweed knickerbockers, ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... he could to the prospect of an interview with some importunate stranger, he grudgingly consented to have the visitor brought in. Professor Herara was not alone. He was accompanied by a very short, very fat man, whose smooth skin had the rich, dark coloring of a ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... generally the case while we stayed here, every other native was excluded from the table, and but few of them would remain in the cabin. Whereas, if by chance it happened that neither he nor Feenou were on board, the inferior chiefs would be very importunate to be of our dining party, or to be admitted into the cabin at that time, and then we were so crowded that we could not sit down to a meal with any satisfaction. The king was very soon reconciled to our manner of cookery. But still I believe he dined thus frequently with me more for the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... readily adopt the white man's vices. They drink whisky without fear, and will get very drunk if permitted. When Captain Macrae's telegraph party landed at the mouth of the Anadyr the natives supposed the provision barrels were full of whisky, and became very importunate for something to drink. The captain made a mixture of red pepper and vinegar, which he palmed off as the desired article. All were pleased with it, and the hotter it was ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... enough question of that! Off the break-neck hillside still dropped hoarse importunate cries. "Wounded man here! Doctor wanted! Three of 'em here! A stretcher, for God's sake!" "A stretcher there! Is there no stretcher?" There was not ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... he paid a visit to Germany, and was specially well received, and was so universally admired, that he with difficulty escaped the importunate invitations to settle at various courts as chief musician. After a three years' absence from his native land he returned and published his first sonatas. The result of his assiduous labor was that his fame as a violinist had spread all over Europe, ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... ill-boding Cassandras in Sieges of Troy. Imminent perdition is not usually driven away by words of warning. Didactic Destiny has other methods in store; or these would fail always. Such words should, nevertheless, be uttered, when they dwell truly in the soul of any man. Words are hard, are importunate; but how much harder the importunate events they foreshadow! Here and there a human soul may listen to the words,—who knows how many human souls?—whereby the importunate events, if not diverted and prevented, will be rendered ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... little tumult; it used to be deafening. Ten years ago a foreigner could not walk here without being assailed by the clamour of cocchieri; nay, he was pursued from street to street, until the driver had spent every phrase of importunate invitation; now, one may saunter as one will, with little disturbance. Down on the Piliero, whither I have been to take my passage for Paola, I catch but an echo of the jubilant uproar which used ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... man, if he perceives his creditor to be importunate in demanding a debt, flies to a charioteer who is bold enough to venture on any audacious enterprise, and takes care that he shall be harassed with dread of persecution as a poisoner; from which he cannot be released without giving bail and incurring ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... took her place at a railed-in desk at the back of the shop, and was not only cashier and bookkeeper, but overseer of all things in general, and was not above seeing any exacting and importunate customer whom the ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... amuse myself with her; but she would have stood in need of it to have always found amusement with me. The worst of all was our being obliged to hold our conversations when we could; her mother, who become importunate, obliged me to watch for opportunities to do it. I was under constraint in my own house: this is saying everything; the air of love was prejudicial to good friendship. We had an intimate intercourse without living ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the lists before he casts down his warder and decrees the banishment of both. A little later we see with disgust his greedy thoughtlessness, when he insults the last hour of John of Gaunt by his importunate visit, and without a word of regret lays hold of his dead uncle's property to help on his own Irish wars. Nor does our respect for him rise at all when in the critical moment, upon the return of Bolingbroke to England, Richard's weak will vacillates between action and unmanly lament, ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... turning on bronze hinges. On the right hand of the peristyle, near the entrance, is a private door, or posticum, leading into the Street of the Theatres, by which the master of the house might escape his importunate clients. ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... and judicious attention they were making themselves agreeable to Lady Middleton. With her children they were in continual raptures, extolling their beauty, courting their notice, and humouring their whims; and such of their time as could be spared from the importunate demands which this politeness made on it, was spent in admiration of whatever her ladyship was doing, if she happened to be doing any thing, or in taking patterns of some elegant new dress, in which her appearance the day before had thrown them into unceasing delight. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... length of the account, and the multiplicity of items in it: take any one of them apart, and it is wonderful what matter for reflection will be found in it! As I write this, the Letter-Bell passes: it has a lively, pleasant sound with it, and not only fills the street with its importunate clamour, but rings clear through the length of many half-forgotten years. It strikes upon the ear, it vibrates to the brain, it wakes me from the dream of time, it flings me back upon my first entrance into life, the period of my first coming up to town, when all around ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... and associations which I cannot define. But then what would those Americans think of them—of them and of the country which produced them? That was the reflection which troubled me. A legion of women in rags clamorous for bread, protesting to heaven that they are starving, importunate with voices and with hands, surrounding the stranger when he puts his foot on the soil, so that he cannot escape, does not afford to the cynical American who then first visits us—and they all are cynical when they visit ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... towns,—people as thoroughly wearied as they are thoroughly wearisome,—who, because they do not know what to do with their own time, think they have a right to waste that of others."[226] The more abruptly he treated visitors, persecuting dinner-givers, and all the tribe of the importunate, the more obstinate they were in possessing themselves of his time. In seizing the hours they were keeping his purse empty, as well as keeping up constant irritation in his soul. He appears to have earned forty sous for a morning's work, and to have counted this a fair ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... I, ev'n to pain depress'd, Importunate and heavy load! 10 The Comforter hath found me ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... the great precedent for verse depicting the poet as yearning for holiness, even while his importunate passions force him into evil courses. One must admit that in the verse of Burns himself, a yearning for virtue is not always obvious, for he seems at times to take an unholy delight in contemplating his own failings, as witness the ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... powerful thrones of Europe, begging them to accept a dominion which she herself could no longer protect. At last, but with difficulty—so despised at first was this state that even the rapacity of foreign monarchs spurned her opening bloom—a stranger deigned to accept their importunate offer of a dangerous crown. New hopes began to revive her sinking courage; but in this new father of his country, destiny gave her a traitor; and in the critical emergency, when the implacable foe was in full force before her very gates, Charles of Anjou invaded the liberties which he had been ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... back in her canoe. Then she remembered that the little craft would hold only two with safety, that the girls would perhaps be startled if she spoke to them, and also that she had come down to Paradise largely to escape Lil's importunate demands that she spend a month of her vacation at the Day camp in the Adirondacks. So, certain that they would never notice her in the darkness and the thick shadows, she lay still in the bottom of her boat and waited for ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... at the White Mountains. Dr. Maverick found a good deal of sickness among the poorer classes, low fevers and various troubles, that he knew well enough came from insufficient diet. But what was to be done? There was so little work, so much lost time, the inexorable rent, and the importunate grocer's bill. Up on Hope Terrace the luscious grapes fell to the ground, and were swept up as so much litter; the fresh, lovely vegetables passed their prime unheeded, and were tossed in ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... interfere to save the lives of all, my own included. At first I declined to do anything,—told them that I had no intention of taking the command of the ship, and recommended them in that respect to follow my example. At last, however, as they became importunate, I sent Crealock[2] to the captain, with my compliments, to ask him whether we were going to sea. The answer was not encouraging, and went a small way towards raising the spirits of my nervous friends around me. 'Going to sea,' said the captain, 'why, we are going ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... temples, its towers and minaret made in the most Arabesque architecture and ornamented with the most fantastic draperies. The inhabitants had been directly transported from old Cairo across the sea to Midway Plaisance. There were the importunate street venders, the donkey boys begging and pulling at the clothing of the visitors, the pompous drivers of camels beseeching the visitors to try their "ship of the desert;" tom-tom pounders, reed blowers, fakirs, ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... present demonstration might have been prompted by. "The Top of the Tree, by Amy Evans"—scarce credible words floating before Berridge after he had with an anguish of effort dropped his eyes on the importunate title-page—represented an object as alien to the careless grace of goddess-haunted Arcady as a washed-up "kodak" from a wrecked ship might have been to the appreciation of some islander of wholly unvisited seas. Nothing could have been more in the tone of an ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... was of a pleasanter sort. To the American navy and privateers Franklin was the American government; and, though he was often annoyed by the unreasonable conduct of importunate captains, yet he also shared in the glory of their deeds. John Paul Jones was one of the many forced to endure Arthur Lee's impertinences, and had it not been for Franklin's aid and friendship our navy would have lost the honor of that name. At one time Paul Jones was in Paris with no ship to ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... ramble, the ex-premier was diverted from the mental Shakesperian sustenance derived from "chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy," by an importunate appeal from a reckless disorderly, who was doing penance for his anti-teetotal propensities, by performing a two hours' quarantine in the village stocks. So far from sympathising with the fast-bound sufferer, his lordship, in a tone of the deepest regret, deplored, that he had himself not been ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... energetically enough. If he does obtain it on my recommendation, it may of course turn out all right; but if he does not show himself fit for the post, I shall be rightly blamed for recommending him on insufficient grounds; and in any case my eminent friend will think me an importunate person. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the long-protracted struggles, difficulties, and embarrassments of our infant Republic this portion of our Union has never been urgent or importunate in pressing its claims, but has submitted patiently to the force of circumstances which rendered it necessary to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... declaring that the crisis was one of too much difficulty to admit of so extreme a measure at that moment, and entreating her to sanction his delaying for a few weeks the fulfilment of his promise; but Marie was aware that she stood upon the brink of a precipice, and she became only the more importunate in her demands, and the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the lively, forward, importunate wits, that distinguish themselves by the flourishes of imagination, sharpness of repartee, glances of satire, and bear away the upper part in every consort. I cannot but observe, that when a man is not disposed to hear music, there is not a more disagreeable ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... that name, with its surrounding park and several beneficial leases of crown lands. He was afterwards joined in various commissions and offices of trust: but his remuneration was, on the whole, by no means exorbitant; for he was not rapacious, and consequently not importunate; and the queen, in the employments which she assigned him, seemed rather to consult her own advantage and that of her country, by availing herself of the abilities of a diligent and faithful servant, than to please herself by granting rewards to an affectionate and generous kinsman. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... to keep him ever since at a distance, that I may have an opportunity to see the success of the application to my uncle, and to be at liberty to embrace any favourable overtures that may arise from it. Yet he has been very importunate, and twice brought Mr. Mennell from Mrs. Fretchvill to talk about the house.—If I should be obliged to make up with him again, I shall think I am always ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Jemima would have sent no reply at all; but "Cobbler" Horn insisted that a brief but courteous note should be sent to him, expressing regret that the desired loan could not be furnished. It did not need the persuasion of his sister to induce "Cobbler" Horn to decline all dealings with the importunate inventor; but it was with great difficulty that she could dissuade him from making substantial promises to the religious institutions from ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... whatever he should bid me do while I lived, provided nothing were required of me contrary to the law of God and the commands of superiors whom I am more bound to obey. I adverted to this, that the obligation did not extend to things of little importance,—as if I were to be importunate with him about anything, and he bade me cease, and I neglected his advice and repeated my request,—nor to things relating to my convenience. In a word, his commands were not to be about trifles, done without reflection; and ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... still more sinful woman, displease Hamlet. Yet he has not succeeded in so wholly subjugating Nature within himself as to be fully secured against her importunate claims. Now we would point out here that Montaigne [19] mentions a tyrant of antiquity who 'could not bear seeing tragedies acted in the theatre, from fear that his subjects should see him sob at the misfortunes of Hecuba and Andromache—him who, without pity, caused ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... kind. And as a kind of horrible accompaniment there ran the laboured breathing of the man, which broke now and then with a sobbing sound. They were stripping Mme. Dauvray of her pearl necklace, her bracelets, and her rings. Celia had a sudden importunate vision of the old woman's fat, podgy hands loaded with brilliants. A ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... might do worse than read his defence of the British Constitution, though I personally disagree with some points in his argument. One sentence from this passage might be addressed to our Allies very appropriately to-day—"Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle reposing beneath the shadow of the British oak chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... save an obnoxious institution. As soon as the panic should subside, the people would demand the restoration of those precious rights, and would scrutinize with fearless fidelity the cause for which they had been suppressed. He offered petition after petition, each bolder and more importunate than the last. He debated questions, kindred to those which were forbidden, with the firmness and fervor of his noble nature. ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... hasty to think me less than kind?' returned the other, with his smile of sad irony. 'I saw her, though with difficulty. She kept me waiting like an importunate poor kinsman, and when I was received, she sat like the Empress giving audience. I did not touch the earth with my forehead; nay, I stood looking at her with a look she did not easily bear. That she is guilty, I am sure; I read triumph in her ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... constituted beauty resides in the fact that it is all general beauty, that you are appealed to by no specific details, or that these at least, practically never importunate, are as taken for granted as the lieutenants and captains are taken for granted in a great standing army—among whom indeed individual aspects may figure here the rather shifting range of decorative dignity in which details, when observed, often ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... out on foot; we proceeded together as far as the window which I knew so well. There were three carriages at the door. V—— went up, and I retired to wait for him at the appointed place. How long that hour seemed while I waited for him! How I execrated those visitors who, involuntarily importunate, came in their indifference to dispose of some idle hours, and delayed the reunion of two fond hearts who counted each second of their martyrdom by their palpitations! At last V—— appeared; I followed rapidly on his steps, he left me at ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... listening on all sides. This compliance takes away the power of being greatly useful. A man should not be able to look other than directly and forthright. A preoccupied attention is the only answer to the importunate frivolity of other people; an attention, and to an aim which makes their wants frivolous. This is a divine answer, and leaves no appeal and no hard thoughts. In Flaxman's drawing of the Eumenides of Aeschylus, Orestes supplicates Apollo, whilst the Furies sleep on the threshold. ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... be entreated with continual and ardent prayers, both that he would put into the hearts of all magistrates, zeal and care to cherish, defend, and guard the ecclesiastical discipline, together with the rest of Christ's ordinances, and to stop their ears against the importunate suits of whatsoever claw-backs who would stir them up against the church; and that, also, all governors and rulers of churches, being everywhere furnished and helped with the strength of the Holy Spirit, may diligently and faithfully execute this part also ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... that they knew, be decided in a single round. A more cheery and hearty set of people could not be imagined, and the chaff flew about as thick as the dust clouds, while at every wayside inn the landlord and the drawers would be out with trays of foam-headed tankards to moisten those importunate throats. The ale-drinking, the rude good-fellowship, the heartiness, the laughter at discomforts, the craving to see the fight—all these may be set down as vulgar and trivial by those to whom they are distasteful; but to me, listening to the far-off and uncertain echoes of ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rehabilitate the songstress so calumniated by the fable. She is, I grant you, an importunate neighbour. Every summer she takes up her station in hundreds before my door, attracted thither by the verdure of two great plane-trees; and there, from sunrise to sunset, she hammers on my brain with her strident ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... slave-girl fouler and filthier than they mother;[FN286] so I so bade him tumble her. He did my bidding and she conceived by him of thee, and thus was I the cause of the slaying of my son and the spoiling of him of his realm." When Al-Maamun heard this, he turned away, saying, "Allah curse the importunate!" that is, himself, who had importuned her till she acquainted him with ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Attago was very importunate with me to return again to this isle, and to bring with me cloth, axes, nails, &c. &c. telling me that I should have hogs, fowls, fruit, and roots, in abundance. He particularly desired me, more than ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... was agitated by the present evil of the disbanded armies. Too idle to work, too proud to beg, the mercenaries were accustomed to a life of rapine: they could rob with more dignity and effect under a banner and a chief; and the sovereign, to whom their service was useless, and their presence importunate, endeavored to discharge the torrent on some neighboring countries. After the peace of Sicily, many thousands of Genoese, Catalans, [47] &c., who had fought, by sea and land, under the standard of Anjou or Arragon, were blended into one nation by the resemblance of their ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... knew of the hymn—over and over she sang it, fearfully watching the toad move grotesquely in the candlelight. Time after time the blinking eyes closed and flew open—again and again Tessibel sent her importunate prayer into the heart of the ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... eat stones and turfs, say. What, will he clem me and my followers? ask him an he will clem me; do, go. He would have me fry my jerkin, would he? Away, setter, away. Yet, stay, my little tumbler, this old boy shall supply now. I will not trouble him, I cannot be importunate, ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... only did not walk his body off, but harping on the same string, pertinaciously continued to ply me with alternate arguments and intreaties, until at last fairly wearied out, and more, I believe, with the hope of getting rid of the "importunate chink" of the fellow's discourse, than anything else, in an evil moment I consented! hear it not, shade of Mrs. Siddons! to denude myself of the bushy honours of my cheeks, and tread the boards of the Bangalore stage as the wife of that atrocious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... home is pleasant, and rest can there be had, the patient, in the majority of instances, will do well to abide there. But when this is not the case, for any reason, be it domestic infelicities, in which the husband has a share,—be it disagreeable relatives, or importunate and tedious visitors,—then the sooner such a mental weight is removed or ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... were foiled by the stout crew of the Admiral's barge. Keith also found means to let Maitland know how matters stood early on the 4th, whereupon the "Bellerophon" stood out to sea, her guard-boat keeping at a distance the importunate man with ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... and white turbans of many folds on their heads. The richer classes were arrayed in spotless garments of fine material, stockings, and ornamented sandals; the laborers wore coarse gowns, and sandals made of rope; while the unclean bodies of importunate beggars and unfortunate cripples were but partially covered with filthy sacking and ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... malpia. Implacable vengxema. Implant enradiki. Implement ilo. Implicate impliki. Implied neesprimita. Implore petegi. Impolite malgxentila. Impolitic nesagxema. Import enporti. Importance graveco. Important grava. Importunate trudema. Importune trudi, trudigxi. Impose (put on) trudi. Impose on trompi. Impossible neebla. Impost imposto. Impostor trompanto. Impotence neebleco. Impoverish malricxigi. Impracticable nefarebla. Impregnable ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... of Consolation is here! Then may the affectionate Parent say, "It is well, not only with me, but with the Child too: Incomparably better than if my ardent Wishes, and importunate Prayers for its Recovery, had been answered. It is indeed well, if that beloved Creature be fallen asleep in Christ[h]; if that dear Lamb be folded in the Arms of the compassionate Shepherd, and gathered into his gracious Bosom. Self-love might have led me to wish ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge
... weep; I could embrace the lady in the pure joy of an artist appreciated and requited. For of all the books ever printed upon paper, that book is mine. My verses! My songs of little lives, they grasp at her and will not let go, like importunate children; she is not easily nor willingly free of them when ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... roadside; the chestnuts left off along a line as level as though cut with a knife; stone-roofed cascine began to abound, with goats and cattle feeding near them; the booths of the religious trinket-mongers increased; the blind, halt, and maimed became more importunate, and the foot-passengers were more entirely composed of those whose object was, or had been, a visit to the sanctuary itself. The numbers of these pilgrims—generally in their Sunday's best, and often comprising the ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... St. Benet Fink, says the monks of the Order of St. Anthony hard by were so importunate in their requests for alms that they would threaten those who refused them with "St. Anthony's fire;" and that timid people were in the habit of presenting them with fat pigs, in order to retain their goodwill. Their pigs thus became numerous, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... composition. He is strong, and swift, and splendid—but seems he holy? Is he angel as well as god? Does the dream of him rise silvery in the imagination of woman? Is he a star to lift her up to heaven with pure importunate beam? I seem to hear the nightingale-laughter of women for answer. Man neither is, nor would they have ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... by the hand of the Mediator, and here "his right hand teacheth terrible things." "By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation." (Ps. lxv. 5.) The awful scene disclosed would seem to be a beginning of answer to the importunate cry of the "souls under the altar," as in ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... the gift of multiplying himself; for he was inevitably seen wherever she was,—leaning against the door-frame, or resting his elbow on the mantlepiece, his eyes fixed upon her. And, when she did not see him, she felt his looks still weighing her down. M. de Brevan, having been made aware of his importunate attentions, seemed to check his indignation only with great difficulty. Once or twice he spoke of calling out this wretched fellow (so he called Sir Thorn); and, in order to quiet him, Henrietta had to repeat to him over and over again, that, after such an encounter, he would no ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... and pain could I remember the fate of Prince Zaleski—victim of a too importunate, too unfortunate Love, which the fulgor of the throne itself could not abash; exile perforce from his native land, and voluntary exile from the rest of men! Having renounced the world, over which, lurid and inscrutable as a falling star, he had passed, the world quickly ceased to ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... the row, for all his deaconlike demeanor and garb, somewhat questionable. He could never sally forth without insult. The golden robins, especially, would chase him as far as I could follow with my eye, making him duck clumsily to avoid their importunate bills. I do not believe, however, that he robbed any nests hereabouts, for the refuse of the gas-works, which, in our free-and-easy community, is allowed to poison the river, supplied him with dead alewives in abundance. I used to watch him making his periodical visits to the ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... position from which she used to survey the crown of Dick's passing hat in the early days of their acquaintance and meetings. Not a living soul was now visible anywhere; the rain kept all people indoors who were not forced abroad by necessity, and necessity was less importunate on Sundays than during ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... scarce listened to, Enforced by its importunate command This tardy recognition, sooner due; And having sought a letter, now I stand And hold in trembling hand the paper she Has held, and written on ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... smoking hot precisely at three. At times he would go to the river bank and make the accustomed signals, and meet with no response. The old fisherman would be quietly reposing in his canoe, rocked by the gentle undulations of the stream, and dreaming, no doubt, of events "long time ago." The importunate master of the kitchen, grown ferocious by delay, would now rush up and down the water's edge, and, by dint of loud shouting, cause the canoe to turn its prow to the shore. Father Jack, indignant at its being supposed ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... for the port and town of Djibouti, which is under French sway. It was rejected, curtly and emphatically. Other requests elicited plausible explanations why they could not be complied with. In a word, Italy was treated as a poor and importunate relation, and was asked to console herself with the reflection that she was working in the vineyard of idealism. In vain eminent publicists in Rome, Turin, and Milan pleaded their country's cause. Adopting the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... demand that I be called Monsieur de Cottereau. I also demand that the rank of colonel shall be granted me, or I send in my adhesion to the First Consul! Let me tell you, monsieur le marquis, my men and I have a devilishly importunate creditor who must be satisfied—he's here!" he ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... somewhat. I think it must have been looking for my fortune in the crystal and the ink-pool that made her so eager to know all that concerned me—which none had ever been so importunate to ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... and the sky above it a square foot of green baize. Nor was his commonplace book neglected; and in August we come upon an entry which shows that poetical aspirations were again possessing him; this time not to be cast forth, either at the timorous voice of Prudence or the importunate bidding of Poverty. Burns has calmly and critically taken stock—so to speak—of his literary aptitudes and abilities, and recognised his fitness for a place in the ranks of Scotland's poets. 'However I am pleased with the works of our Scotch poets, particularly the excellent Ramsay, and the still ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... Davies attributes to what I consider as a mere party-engagement, I must observe that popery received a blow from the labours of our first reformers, which would ere now have proved mortal, had not the divisions and subdivisions, the schisms and sects, that have originated in the importunate spirit of puritanical objectors, afforded leisure and security for the Hydra to heal her deadly wounds. In the early part of the reign of our late Queen of glorious memory, the Papists generally attended their several parish-churches, listened ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... hated the chime. He said it was flat; he said it was importunate, like an ill-bred person; he said it mingled inopportunely with everything; he declared it had a spite against him, and would do him an injury if it could; when he was good he said it made him bad, and when he was bad it ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... communication, the alluring nurse of the vices, should lend an unhappy impulse to your still tender mind, especially as I am not ignorant with what facility the external senses yield to seduction. I have therefore sent you this treatise, not only as a monitor, but even as an importunate and sometimes impudent dun, who in this turn of life may convoy you beyond the rocks of adulation; and may not merely offer you advice, but confine you to the path which you have entered, and if you should chance ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... succeeding seemed to Average Jones, haunted as he was by an importunate craving to look again into Miss Graham's limpid and changeful eyes, a dull and sodden period of probation. The messenger boy who finally brought her expected note, looked to him like a Greek godling. The note ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... used to read them in her room. And she read at night, lying in bed. When the clock in the corridor struck two or three, and her temples were beginning to ache from reading, she sat up in bed and thought, "What am I to do? Where am I to go?" Accursed, importunate question, to which there were a number of ready-made answers, and in reality no ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... by contrary winds and bad weather, one half of the passengers must have slept upon the boards, howsoever their health might have suffered from this want of accommodation. Notwithstanding this check, he was so very abject and importunate, that we gave him a crown a-piece, and ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... aroused both democrats and royalists to a fury which foredoomed to failure all attempts at compromise between the old order and the new. The fierceness of the strife in France incited monarchists in all lands to importunate demands for the extirpation of "the French plague"; and hence were set in motion forces which Pitt vainly strove to curb. War soon broke out in Central Europe. His endeavours to localize it were fruitless; ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... throes of a continental war, the Grand Duchy of Rittersheim was absorbed into the neighbouring great state, and the Grand Duke Adalbert, deposed and impoverished, became simply a pensioner, and a most importunate blackmailer ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... expectations. Thus he was prepared to return to Spain and demand the hand of Isabella. But his generous nature was troubled. He became very anxious for the fate of the Inca. His own honor was involved in his release, and day after day he became more importunate in ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... interrupted by Appropriation Bills, and other important and importunate measures, lasted until the 31st of January, when Mr. Ashley called the previous question ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... sought preferment, easilie obteined of him the possession of castels and great lordships, diuerse of whom he honored with titles of dignitie, creating some of them earles and some lords. Now, such was their importunate sute in demanding, that when he had little more to bestow amongst them, hauing[1] alreadie giuen sundrie portions that belonged to the crowne, they ceassed not to be in hand with him for more, and being denied with reasonable ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (4 of 12) - Stephan Earle Of Bullongne • Raphael Holinshed
... old, and to assume a gaiety suitable to his situation in the eyes of the world. She knew he could never be entirely free to love so long as the cry of the child rang in his ears. And he told her that, strangely enough, since their engagement it had become more importunate. Once he even tried ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Stanton—smiling, serene, and motherly—just the woman whose hand laid upon a young man's arm, whose voice speaking to him, could do so much to hold him back from evil. There was Susan Anthony—anxious, earnest and importunate, sarcastic, funny and unconventional as ever. Among all the company, "Susan" is the most violently and the most unjustly abused. To be sure, she can be very provocative of such speech. She sometimes has a lawless way of talking and acting, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... what one is unable to give, that the refusal affords as much pleasure as the gift would have done. It is true that people do not hesitate to ask from those who readily oblige, nevertheless I ought not to avoid importunate Sisters on the pretext that I shall be forced to refuse. The Divine Master has said: "From him that would borrow of thee turn not away."[30] Nor should I be kind in order to appear so, or in the hope that the Sister will return the service, for once more it is written: "If ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... bene so more then maiden-nice To my deere Lord and uncle not to yeeld By his importunate suite to his friends love In looke, or almost thought; will of my selfe, Farre past his expectation or his hope, In action and in person greete his friend, And comfort the poore ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... facility, any connexion of this kind not authorized by the husband, is considered highly offensive and quite as disgraceful to his character as the same licentiousness in civilized societies. The Shoshonees are not so importunate in volunteering the services of their wives as we found the Sioux were; and indeed we observed among them some women who appeared to be held in more respect than those of any nation we had seen. But the mass of the females are condemned, as among ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... short journey, he felt a kind of irrational surprise at the fact that there had been no changes during his absence. The city was just as dirty and uninteresting as when he had left, the beggars were just as ragged and importunate, the street coaches were just as rickety. It required an effort to realize that ten months is, after all, a very short time, for it seemed ten years since he had sailed away. It had been a difficult period for him, one crowded with many changes, readjustments, ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... to this and the preceding letter as early as possible, and that you will not construe my persistent course throughout this correspondence on neutral rights as importunate, or my remarks ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... All the doors upon the corridor were locked except the first; and my uncle's bedroom, breakfast-room and private sanctum were the least accessible and served by an entrance from the adjacent passage, which he also used at times as a means of escape from importunate callers. The most eternal room was a general waiting-room and very business-like in quality; it had one or two uneasy sofas, a number of chairs, a green baize table, and a collection of the very best ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... approaching death is not so importunate as is believed, since it is, says an[7] anonymous French author, a principal beauty of an ancient hymn of the poet Cecilius. "Let me be assured, says he, that I shall live six months, and I shall employ ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... she did not hold her tongue. It was not that the fagot-maker was not, perhaps, more vexed than his wife, but that she teased him, and that he was of the humor of a great many others, who love wives to speak well, but think those very importunate who are continually doing so. She was half-drowned ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... human race. This present England is no more the future Than 'tis the past; as inclination changes, Thus ever ebbs and flows the unstable tide Of public judgment. Say not, then, that thou Must act as stern necessity compels, That thou must yield to the importunate Petitions of thy people; every hour Thou canst experience that thy will is free. Make trial, and declare thou hatest blood, And that thou wilt protect thy sister's life; Show those who wish to give thee other ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... brother-in-law, Lambert, retorted that other sums were owing, and he would accept all or none. The negotiation, which was the beginning of much litigation, thus proved abortive. Through 1585 and 1586 a creditor, John Brown, was embarrassingly importunate, and, after obtaining a writ of distraint, Brown informed the local court that the debtor had no goods on which distraint could be levied. {12b} On September 6, 1586, John was deprived of his alderman's gown, on the ground ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... shall say concerning the parable of the tower, and after this be no longer importunate with me ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake |
