"Obdurate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that you are kind to the manner of my poem, though to the matter obdurate. Miss Mitford, too, says that it won't receive the sympathy proper to a home subject, because the English people don't care anything for the Italians now; despising them for their want of originality in Art! That's very good of the English people, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... showing them what virtue is, and where it best can be found—in justice, religion, and truth. The only reason that can possibly be adduced against it is one founded on fiction—namely, the case where an obdurate old geni, in the "Arabian Nights," was bound upon taking the life of a merchant, because he had struck out the eye of his invisible son. I recollect, likewise, a tale in the same book of charming fancies, which ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... forty years' experience had never been so seriously disturbed. To his intense humiliation he found himself abjectly appealing to the senior member of the firm of Thomlinson & Shields. Not that Mr. Thomlinson was obdurate; in the presence of mere obduracy Mr. Rae might have found relief in the conscious possession of more generous and humane instincts than those supposed to be characteristic of the members of his profession. Mr. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... made an imperious gesture of dismissal. Tetlow, chopfallen but obdurate, got himself speedily out ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... his feet running. Jim headed grimly for Pat, but Johnson reached him a breath in advance. Snatching up the reins and mounting, he dug Pat viciously with his huge rowels. At that Pat balked. The man swore and cursed and spurred again; but the horse remained obdurate. Seeing this, Johnson stopped spurring. Thereupon Pat flung forward, dragging his tether clear of its stake, and crowded close beside the gray. Jim was mounted on the gray, bending low in the saddle, racing in frantic ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... you watched your listener striving to take the hints you strove to give, and wandering aimlessly away from the fire-irons he should have shouldered—the book he should have read upside down—the little sister he should have kissed or tickled—what not? You remember the obdurate pertinacity with which he missed fire, and balked the triumphant outburst that should have greeted his success? Surely, if some well-wisher among the choir of Angels, harping with their harps, had been at Chorlton then and there, under contract to guide Destiny, by playing loud and soft—not ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... was in a state of prostration following on the violent and feverish curiosity as to who had taken the house. Georgie had gone so far as to confess that he knew, but the most pathetic appeals as to the owner's identity had fallen on obdurate, if not deaf, ears. Not the smallest hint would he give on the subject, and though those incessant visits to the house, those searchings for furniture, the bestowal of it in suitable places, the superintendence of the making of the garden, the interviewings ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... Catholic priests had drawn a too hasty and too favorable deduction from the favor of Kanghi. They confounded their practical utility with the intrinsic merit and persuasive force of Christianity. An enlightened ruler had recognized the former, but a skeptical people showed themselves singularly obdurate to the latter. The persecution of the Christians, of which the letters from the missionaries at Pekin at this time are so full, did not go beyond the placing of some restraint on the preaching of their religion. No wholesale executions or sweeping decrees passed against ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... are incapable adequately of comprehending. We must surmount the insensibility acquired by custom. It is but too true that our hearts—instead of being imprest by these truths, in proportion to their discussion—become more obdurate. We hear them without alarm, having so frequently heard them before. But if, like Felix, we had been brought up in the darkness of paganism, and if another Paul had come and opened our eyes, and unveiled those sacred terrors, ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... an outburst of indignation. But Deck was obdurate, and the Confederates were forced to submit. Men and horses were placed in the charge of the third battalion, and by noontime Major Truman was on his way northward with them, the three Union men accompanying the command, and assisting ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... but you belong to a disgraced family now and you must suffer with the rest of us." Isabel agreed, and returned her engagement ring. Followed a rather fiery scene, in which Lawrence lost his temper, and Isabel wept: and finally Mr. Stafford, finding Lawrence obdurate, broke down and owned that his one last wish was to see his daughter happily married. He refused to take her to Bloomsbury. She stayed with Rowsley or at the Castle till Lawrence brought ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... thousands of Ali Gorah's wild Danakils. The night passed without alarms, and then conference was resumed. Fairfax cajoled and threatened, threatened summoning an army that would wipe Danakil's land off the map; but all to no purpose. The chief remained obdurate. ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... retire. A few brief remonstrances were uttered by both Alice and the Pilot, who wished to comprehend more clearly each other's intentions relative to the intended escape: but the fear of personal punishment rendered the soldier obdurate, and a dread of exposure at length induced the lady to comply. She arose, and was leaving the apartment with lingering steps, when the Pilot, touching her hand, whispered to ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... light of day, and lay on her bed all day, sobbing, and with her head buried in the pillows. Lollius contrived to gain admittance, and came many times, but neither his pleadings nor his execrations had any effect on the obdurate girl. In his presence, she was as timid as a virgin, and would say ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... than his duty, and that he could not accept any retiring allowance—first, because he was not sure that it was strictly legal, and, secondly, because he had made provision for his last years, but on this occasion he signed himself "Your most obliged servant." It was then determined to entertain this obdurate man at a banquet, and to make a presentation of plate to him. And Mr. MacKinnon was again most grateful for the kindness of his fellow citizens and the honour they proposed to do him, but he clearly indicated he would neither ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... For me my little portion of distress; But with each draught—in every bitter cup Thy hand hath mixed, to make its soreness less, Some cordial drop, for which thy name I bless, And offer up my mite of thankfulness. Thou hast chastised my frame with dire disease, Long, obdurate, and painful; and thy hand Hath wrung cold sweat-drops from my brow; for these I thank thee too. Though pangs at thy command Have compassed me about, still, with the blow, Patience sustained ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... from me, Adelheid. The headsman of the canton is my father; were the fact publicly known, the heartless and obdurate laws would compel me to be his successor. He has no other child, except a gentle girl—one ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... away; we continued all obdurate; the ladies held up their heads; I amused myself with watching their behaviour; and of the other two, one seemed to employ himself in counting the trees as we drove by them, the other drew his hat over his eyes and counterfeited ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... beyond, to the eastward of Porto Bello, he came to a point already known to the Spaniards, having been reached from Trinidad. The explorer thus acquired the certainty that, from the latter island to Yucatan, there was no break in the obdurate shore which barred his access ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... more ferocious cruelties. For among the Quakers themselves there were varieties of milder and wilder, less provoking and more provoking. The Quakerism of men like Fox and Dewsbury was, at worst, but an obdurate and irritating eccentricity, in comparison, for example, with the Quakerism run mad of James Nayler. This enthusiast, once quarter-master in a horse troop under Lambert, and regarded as "a man of ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... also Fra Francesco was obdurate. And then, for disobedience to authority, acknowledged lawful by his own submission, came prison—wherein he languished, always obdurate,—and death,—perhaps from discontent or homesickness, one knows not; or from failure of his plans; or—there was a question ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... an impression on all who heard it save the obdurate master. The magistrate asked the slave what he would have ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... drew away and said she would return to the castle if I continued to behave in that manner. I begged hard, and tried to argue the point, but logic seems to lose its force in such a situation, and all I said availed nothing. Jane was obdurate, and was for going back at once. Her persistence was beginning to look like obstinacy, and I soon grew so angry that I asked no permission, but delivered Mary's message, or a good part of it, at least, whether she would or no, and ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... enough in Lower Egypt in July to be uncomfortable, and to turn the most obdurate into a melting mood. Assouan has the deserved reputation of being hotter in that month than Aden, the Persian Gulf, or—well, any other hot place. So, as I have said before, the British troops were not required to do more than the minimum of duty at that period. Decidedly ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... more discredit on his command than any other part of the affair; but Pathfinder, who had witnessed one or two Indian massacres, and knew how valueless pledges became when put in opposition to interest where a savage was concerned, was obdurate. The second stipulation was of nearly the same importance. It compelled Captain Sanglier to give up all his prisoners, who had been kept well guarded in the very hole or cave in which Cap and Muir had taken refuge. When these ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... lacking food. In short, in all his life, there was nothing in word or act but truth, goodness, beneficence and a disposition to aid. In return for the good he wrought, he was compelled to receive the ungrateful reward of man's hatred and condemnation. His enemies were moved solely by obdurate, diabolical hatred, and could not cease their persecutions until they brought him to the cross, where he was disgracefully hung up nude between two murderers, being lifted up as unworthy to touch the earth and ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... sped like a ghost across the meadow to the river-bank. Poor weak hands! vainly they fumbled with the knotted rope that bound the skiff to a crooked elm over-hanging the water,—all in vain for many lingering minutes; but presently the obdurate knot gave way, and, turning to gather up her shawl, there, close behind her, so close that his hot breath seemed to sear her cheek, stood her husband, clear in the moonlight, with a sneer on his face, and the lurid glow of drunkenness, that made a savage ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... frightened lest the people, in their recovered sanity, should turn upon them for an accounting, strove their best to keep up the horror; but it was not to be. No more convictions could be obtained. In February of 1693, Parris was banished from Salem; others, except Stoughton, who remained obdurate, made public confession of error. But Cotton Mather, the soul of the whole iniquity, shrouded himself in a cuttle-fish cloud of turgid rhetoric, and escaped scot-free. So great was the power of theological prestige in New ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... covered my head with my casque, the badge of war; my powerful battle-chariot, which mows down the rebels, I ascended it in haste in the rage of my heart; the strong bow which Assur entrusted to me, I seized it, and the javelin, destroyer of life, I grasped it: the whole host of obdurate rebels I charged, shining like silver or like the day, and I roared as Kamman roareth." Khumba-undash, the Elamite general, was killed in one of the first encounters, and many of his officers perished around him, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... king replies,) Too long, misjudging, have I thought thee wise But sure relentless folly steals thy breast, Obdurate to reject the stranger-guest; To those dear hospitable rites a foe, Which in my wanderings oft relieved my woe; Fed by the bounty of another's board, Till pitying Jove my native realm restored— Straight be ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... that he had taken her doubt almost as a complete surrender, and had again to become obdurate. At last she promised to give him a final answer in two months, but declared as she said so that she was afraid she could not bring herself to do as he desired. She declined altogether to comply with that other ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... steamboat which I have just described, and you have her in her highest and finest, and most pleasing, and comfortable, and satisfactory estate. Now cake her over with a layer of ancient and obdurate dirt, and you have the Cincinnati steamer awhile ago referred to. Not all over—only inside; for she was ably officered in all ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... friendliness that shattered all hope. "Mr. Van Truder has just arranged for breakfast at that farmhouse over there. The relief train won't be here for half an hour or more and you must be famished." Eleanor's flimsy excuses were unavailing; her protestations that she could not eat a mouthful fell on obdurate ears. Windomshire, catching sight of the forlorn Anne, was about to assert himself vigorously in declining the invitation when a meaning look from the governess caused him to refrain. The look very plainly told ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... Harry, we must all be prepared for trials in this rugged world, but then, according to my experience, we are the better for them in the end. If the lady is obdurate or coy, or if her friends throw obstacles in the way, or if want of means exist, we must try to win her by greater attention, or sometimes by pretended indifference, or we must set to work to overcome the obstacles, or to gain the means which are ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul,—and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because "there is no flesh in his obdurate heart." ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... the lessening tenderness and kindliness, which are apt to come with advancing years. Great trials, we know, passing over us, may influence us either for the worse or the better; and unless our nature is a very obdurate and poor one, though they may leave us, they will not leave us the men we were. Once, at a public meeting, I heard a man in eminent station make a speech. I had never seen him before; but I remembered an ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... air—and was sure that the only way to snare her was by using Richard as a lure, in other words, by threatening to murder him. It is true that he could have brought the matter to a head at once, but then, if she remained obdurate, he must carry out his threat, and this, she believed, he was afraid to do unless it was absolutely forced upon him. Doubtless he had reflected that in three days she ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... of the line there was a grim and obdurate group that made no movement. They were settled firmly down behind posts and rails. A flag, ruffled and fierce, waved over them and their rifles ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... and I am sure he thought that he had carried our hearts by storm. He prayed God to soften our obdurate hearts; and especially asked heaven to cause these misguided men to relent in their intensheens, and permit him to go and carry the refresheen rain of the Gospel to thirsty ground. After the prayer was ended I showed him his couch, ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... I only spoke of these items. You see, being "debts of honour" I ought not to give the names.' Looking with a keen glance at her set face he saw she was obdurate; and, recognising his defeat, said as calmly as he could, ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... vendor of volumes actually flying a kite formed of a portion of the first volume. "Heavy," retorted Silk, "nonsense, sir. Look there! so volatile and exciting is that masterly production, that it has even made that youthful scion of an obdurate line, spite my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... the look of elaborate negligence conventionally assumed by every self-respecting person who waits to be introduced. She took Edwin's hand limply, and failed to meet his glance. Her features did not soften. Edwin was confirmed in the impression of her obdurate ugliness. He just noticed her olive skin and black eyes and hair. She was absolutely different in type from any of the Clayhangers. The next instant she and Charlie were ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... private Members should still be allowed the privilege of introducing Bills and having them printed at the public expense, he had the support of Mr. HOGGE, Mr. KING, Mr. PRINGLE, Mr. BOOTH, Sir WILLIAM BYLES, and other statesmen of similar eminence; but the PRIME MINISTER was obdurate. He accused the malcontents of lacking a sense of perspective—and expressed the poorest opinion of their efforts ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... his father. The worst of all was that the father persisted in giving a big party in their honour. Every time they bade the old man good-bye they begged him not to invite all the neighbours in when they came again the next year; but he was obdurate; he would not forego his yearly feast, though he could ill afford the expense. Seeing how aged and broken he looked, one would hardly have thought there was so much of the old happy-go-lucky Ol' Bengtsa of Lusterby still left in him, but the desire to do ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... steward of a greater Master, and am addressing one who, like myself, is a sinner—one whom I care not to please. I must indeed be able to work miracles, to extort the acknowledgment from your obdurate wickedness—but if your conviction is so firm, why have you sent for me in the middle ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... thou strip them off from us again.' Then, not to make them sadder, I kept down My spirit in stillness. That day and the next We all were silent. Ah, obdurate earth! Why open'dst not upon us? When we came To the fourth day, then Geddo at my feet Outstretch'd did fling him, crying, 'Hast no help For me, my father!' There he died, and e'en Plainly as thou seest me, saw I the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... basis for a treaty, if not on the part of the Continental Allies, at least for England herself [is] that she should conquer all she can, and keep all she conquers. This is not by way of retaliation, however just, upon so obdurate and rapacious an enemy—but as an indispensable condition of her own safety and existence." The letters were reviewed under the heading of "Illustrations of Vetus," in the Morning Chronicle, December 2, 10, 16, 18; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... prayers to save her Harry. The idea she had conceived of the loss of liberty, and the miseries of a prison, must have been dreadful. But tears and prayers and cries were vain; she was pleading to the deaf, or at least to the obdurate. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... reign of Victoria. But are the offences which can be fairly laid to Claverhouse's account of such a kind? His most able and his bitterest accuser pronounces him to have been "rapacious and profane, of violent temper and obdurate heart." Yet every attempt of his enemies to convict him of extortion or malversation broke signally down. The decorum of his life and conversation was allowed even by the Covenanters; and it is recorded as a notable ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... not look so unreasonable. Last night he proposed formally to Marguerite, who is still ignorant of these affairs, and she refused him. I have urged her differently,—I can do no more than urge,—and she remains obdurate. To accumulate misfortunes, we escaped 1857 by a miracle. We have barely recovered; and now various disasters striking us,—the loss of the Osprey the first and chief of them,—we are to-day on the verge of bankruptcy. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... the snow from his door he would be "varra obleeged." Henders, however, had to come to terms first. "The chairge is saxpence, Davit," he shouted. Then a haggling ensued. Henders must be neighbourly. A plate of broth, now—or, say, twopence. But Henders was obdurate. "I'se nae time to argy-bargy wi' ye, Davit. Gin ye're no willin' to say saxpence, I'm aff to Will'um Pyatt's. He's buried too." So the victim had to make up his mind to one of two things; he must either say saxpence or remain where ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... away from home. It will help him along toward manhood. I was much impressed by his letter to Miss Margaret Hare, which her mother had the goodness to show me. He has a fine spirit and a rare gift for expressing it. She and the girl were convinced by its argument, but the Colonel himself is an obdurate Tory—he being a favorite of the King. The girl, now very charming and much admired, is, I happen to know, deeply in love with your son. I have promised her that, if she will wait for him, I will bring him over in good time and act as your vicar at the wedding. This, she and ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... severe one between loyalty to his old friend and devoted obedience to the girl he loved. As all the memories of past friendship came before him, he was inclined to be obdurate. Then, he looked at the golden hair which had brushed his awhile ago, and, as the head straightened up, at the pretty petulant lips and the blue eyes, lustrous with just a moist suspicion of vexation and feeling, and he wavered. He was lost, and was glad to be lost, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... that ominous purchase of the pearls by Deep-water Peter, and shivered. His voice passed into a wail. Little by little he stumbled through the hemlock grove, beseeching each tree to yield up out of obdurate shadow that beloved form, to vouchsafe him the lisp of flying feet over dead beech leaves. But the trees stood mournfully ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Bingle had spent most of the evening in trying to coax heat from the lower regions into the pipes of the seventh heaven wherein he dwelt, and without the slightest sign of success. The frigid coils in the corner of the room remained obdurate. If they indicated the slightest symptom of warmth during the evening, it was due entirely to the expansive generosity of the humble grate and not because they were moved by inward remorse. They were able, however, to supply the odour of far- off steam, ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... the best," said Barraclough; and now that he met the storm he faced it with dignity. Perhaps I alone knew the measure of his temptation. He had fallen a victim to the arts of a beautiful woman. There was nought else could have melted that obdurate British heart or turned that obstinate British mind. This obtuseness had been his ruin, and he must have recognised it then; for he had admitted the enemy and our stronghold was in their hands. But the last blow had ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... Seth remained as obdurate as a trapped wolf. He roved his eyes around, craned his long, wrinkled neck, looking for the succor that was so long in coming. He repeated, with blasting enlargement, that the only way they could send him out of Ascalon would be in ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... and Holland. "To assassinate Bonaparte" was a sort of game, in which the English were specially active. From their shores, well-equipped and plentifully supplied with money, sailed many who were desirous of gaining the great stake,—obdurate Chouans and fanatical royalists who regarded as an act of piety the crime that would rid France of the usurper. What gave most cause for alarm in these reports, usually unworthy of much attention, was the fact that all of them ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... hurly-burly past, the ancient proof-reader. He wears a green shade over his eyes and the gas burner is drawn very low to darken the bald and wrinkled contour of his forehead. He is severe in judgment and spells rigidly by the Johnsonian standard. He punctuates by an obdurate and conscientious method, and will have no italics upon any pretext. He will lend you money, will eat with you, drink with you, and encourage you; but he will not punctuate with you, spell with you, nor accept any of your suggestions as to typography or paragraphing whatsoever. He ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... next came awooing Pauline, he was equally obdurate. "No," he said to the young soldier; "you have nothing, she has nothing. And what is twice nothing?" And thus lover number ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... piecemeal limb from limb, or roast thee to death over a slow fire, or rack thee till thy bones start from their sockets? Let thy honour go to the winds, foolish boy, and think only how thou mayest save thy skin. There be those around and about thee who will have no mercy so long as thou provest obdurate. Bethink thee well how thou strivest against them, for thou knowest little what may well befall ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... come. Ill-gotten money is a curse." Then she taxed him with scuttling the Proserpine, and asked him whether that money had not been the bribe. But Joe was obdurate. "I never split on a friend," said he. "And you have nobody to blame but yourself, you wouldn't splice without 2,000 pounds. I loved you, and I got it how I could. D'ye think a poor fellow like me can make 2,000 pounds in a voyage by hauling in ropes, and tying true-lovers' knots ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... astonishment I found him obdurate in his wrong-headedness. When I asked him what he had sold me for the L50 I paid him, he coolly said he didn't think I was serious, that no man would write a play on another man's scenario; it was absurd, impossible—"C'est ridicule!" he repeated again and again. When I reminded him that ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... length, it was proposed by Dan Tyron to send for the stone cutter, and get him to cut them out of the wall with a chisel. I was literally unable to speak two sentences for laughing. The old woman meanwhile tried to soften the obdurate wall with melted butter and new milk—but in vain. I related the school story how Hannibal had worked through the Alps with hot vinegar and hot irons: this experiment likewise was made, but Hannibal's solvent had no better success than ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Remain obdurate, my boy. I wish I had killed you, as I should have done but for an accident. Then I should have come here; and you would have had a statue and a reputation for piety to ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... struggling to her feet, addressed a few impassioned words to the Count and her father; but the latter put her aside with an obdurate gesture. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... protestations that two people did not tire him at all and his assertions that he often entertained as many as that at once. Tractable as they were in all other ways, anxious as they seemed to please him, on this one point they were obdurate: never ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... natural scion of poets, Proud with humility's pride, spoiling a passage from Keats)— Vainly your voice on the ears of impregnable Laureate-makers, Rang as the sinuous sea rings on a petrified coast; Vainly your voice with a subtle and slightly indelicate largess, Broke on an obdurate world hymning the advent of Me; When from the 'commune of air,' from 'the exquisite fabric of Silence,' I, a superior ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... conditions of the treaty into which he had entered with Villars, but they had been led to believe that the Edict was to be re-established and liberty of worship restored. Their suspicions had already been roused by the hints thrown out by Ravanel, who was as obdurate as Roland in his refusal to lay down his arms until ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... are fire-brands plucked from the burning. You have said all that any one could have said; yes, and done all that could be done; never repeated any malicious speech, selected all the wheat that could be culled from the chaff. You have softened my obdurate heart. I have done wrong; you have shown me to the way of return. If Jessie will come forward and forgive ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... who had heard the lesson many times, informed him what the desired syllable ought to be, and inferred the rest herself. Whereupon Helen proceeded to the next word. But there Tommy proved obdurate, not only didn't know, and didn't want to know, but refused to hear, and presented such a fearful example to his younger sister, that his elder one had no resource but to transfer the cloak from Sarah to ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... an obdurate silence? That, however, would create suspicion that she, the robber's daughter, had opened the door for her robber father, and had plotted ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... in scoffing at the power of Jesus. "If thou be a god," he says, "save thyself and us." There is at first a struggle over the inscription at the head of the cross. "Let it read, 'He called himself the King of the Jews,'" say the priests. But the Roman soldier is obdurate. "What I have written I have written," and the centurion grimly nails it on the cross above his head, regardless alike of ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... rigour of adverse fate. Every rap at the door alarmed him with the expectation of some noisy tradesman demanding payment. When he endeavoured to amuse himself with drawing, some unlucky feature of the occasional portrait recalled the image of an obdurate creditor, and made him tremble at the work of his own hands. When he fled for shelter to the flattering creation of fancy, some abhorred idea always started up amidst the gay vision, and dissolved the pleasing enchantment.—Even the seraphic voice of Monimia had no longer ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Books, and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain; Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my spirit broad awake; Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, Choose thou, before that spirit die, A piercing pain, a killing sin, And to my ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... "Consonants of most obdurate sound are joined together without one softening vowel to intervene; and all this only to make one syllable of two, directly contrary to the example of the Greeks and Romans, and a natural tendency towards relapsing into barbarity. And this is still more visible in the next refinement, which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... va bien—Ca ira," were the only answers they deigned to make: frequently they continued smoking their pipes in obdurate silence. She occupied the back rooms of her house, because her guards apprehended that she might from the front windows receive intelligence from her friends. One morning she was awakened by an unusual noise in the streets; and upon her inquiring ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... him, had driven him from the Admiralty, had driven him from the Council Board. He had a right to expect that in the repeal of those laws all who loved and reverenced him would concur. When he found his hearers obdurate to exhortation, he resorted to intimidation and corruption. Those who refused to pleasure him in this matter were plainly told that they must not expect any mark of his favour. Penurious as he was, he opened and distributed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... thereby she would ensure that save on the single point of the re-marriage any demand she might put forward would be granted, and much scandal would be averted. The Queen took some days to consider her reply: but was absolutely obdurate. She was Henry's wife; she could not and would not profess that she was not. On every ground, she would fight to ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... international tribunal with the power to enforce its decisions. "Imagine," says Edward Jenks, in his History of Politics, "a modern judge 'persuading' Mr. William Sikes to 'make it up' with the relatives of his victim, and, on his remaining obdurate, leaving the two families to fight the matter out." Yet that is what was in some degree done in England until medieval times as regards individual crimes, and it is what is still done as regards ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... of being, Which more than worlds I prize!—Oh, take it, then; Take it, thou guardian angel of my life, And offer up the incense of my prayer! Oh, beg, entreat, implore her majesty, From public shame, and ignominious death, And from the obdurate axe, to ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... the visitor coming in to luncheon. George Fairfax was not very obdurate. It was so sweet to be near the woman he loved, and he had not the habit of refusing himself the things that were sweet to him. They went into the small dining-room. The luncheon bell had rung a quarter of an hour ago, and Miss Granger was waiting ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... declined to obey the mandate of the union, and an order went forth from the representatives of the latter body to the effect that no one belonging to any of its branches should handle the goods of the obdurate company. This was all very well in its way, until the order touched the railway hands, who are in the employ of the government. The union appealed to the railway commissioners to remain "neutral" and not to carry the goods of the offending firm. The commissioners responded ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... day—and, in truth, this man evinced a wonderfully retentive memory, and a fair share of powers of argument; bringing everything, however, to the standard of his own times. It was in vain we strove to edge in the great Whig and Tory Reviews of the northern and southern hemispheres! The obdurate champion of other times would not listen a moment, or stir one inch, in favour of these latter publications. When he quitted us, we found that he was a —— of considerable consequence in the neighbourhood, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... rest, declared that he only lived for his stomach. In the next place, the old-fashioned punishment of caning, administered by the Head himself in his private room, gave some cause of offence. It was certainly only very lazy and obdurate boys who were thus punished; for others such methods were never even dreamt of. But when they were ordered to appear in his room after school-time, and the Head took them between his knees, thrashed them well and then afterwards caressed them, as though to console them, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... But the child was obdurate. She would do nothing until her purchase was made, and to her entreaties her father finally yielded, and a few minutes later Van Landing and his new acquaintances were on a down-town car, bound for a shopping district as unknown to him as the shops in which he was accustomed ...
— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher
... him to give the least hint. Of course there was great search for it, but it was well hidden and it was never found. Finally, mother took her obdurate son and me and came to New York with us, and we lived on the little income which she had of her own. Her hope was that as soon as Philip was old enough she could make him understand, and go back with him and get that large sum lying underground—lying ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Parish, a letter of abject remonstrance and entreaty. He grovelled at her feet. He talked frantically of poison and the river. If she would but meet him and hear him in his own defence! And Polly quite meaning to do so, gave herself the pleasure of appearing obdurate for ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... point of view the course pursued was the reverse of economical, and ultimately led to wasteful and increased expenditure." Thus the liberal professions of the Admiralty were not fulfilled; its good will gave the young surgeon three and a half years of leave from active service; with an obdurate treasury, it could do no more.) But of the immense value to himself of these years of hard training, the discipline, the knowledge of men and of the capabilities of life, even without more than the barest necessities of existence—of this ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... by comparing a very small thing with a very great. The late Captain Marshall wrote a "farcical romance" named The Duke of Killiecrankie, in which that nobleman, having been again and again rejected by the Lady Henrietta Addison, kidnapped the obdurate fair one, and imprisoned her in a crag-castle in the Highlands. Having kept her for a week in deferential durance, and shown her that he was not the inefficient nincompoop she had taken him for, he threw ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... — Gross lies, so evident and palpable That every townsman must have wot of it, And not a worshipper within the church But must have smiled to see the marbled fraud? Surely this touches you? But if by chance My reasoning still leaves you obdurate, I'll lay one final plea. I pray you look On my presentment, as it reaches you. My features shall be sponsors for my fame; My brow shall speak when Shakespeare's voice is dumb, And be his warrant in an age ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle
... seemed confused and obdurate, but Tennyson works them into the course of the fatal love of Lancelot and Guinevere, and into the spiritual texture of the Idylls. Balin has been expelled from Court for the wildness that gives him his name, Balin le Sauvage. ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... knew the visitor well and trusted him implicitly, then pleaded with her mother—to no avail, Mrs. van Warmelo remaining firmly obdurate, and saying distinctly, for the edification of her visitor, "I have never harboured a spy, and I ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... church gates they held a daily conference with Molly Healy. She had interested Mrs. Quirk in her gamins, and was accustomed to draw upon the old lady's purse when the Presbytery funds were low, or Father Healy obdurate to ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... Brunnhilda shall be left on the mountain to wed the first man who finds her. The other maidens fly in horror; she alone remains to make an appeal to Wotan, as Siegmund had appealed to her. At first he is obdurate, but she begs him to spare her that frightful disgrace, and to surround her with a wall of fire through which only a great hero will dare to pass. He yields, taking her godhood, her limited immortality, away from her, putting her to sleep, calling up the ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... We were taken into the guardroom and told that we should have to stay there for the night. My friend got very restless and said it was too bad to be held up like this. I looked anxiously down the road to see if there were any signs of the returning despatch rider. The sentries were (p. 087) obdurate and said they wouldn't let us go till we could be identified in the morning. Then the officer requested that he might be sent to the Brigade under escort. The sergeant asked me if that would meet with my approval. ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... said without protesting! It was enough to make Ona's father rise up out of his grave to rebuke her! If it had come to this, they might as well give up at once, and be buried all of them together! . . . In the end Marija said that she would help with ten dollars; and Jurgis being still obdurate, Elzbieta went in tears and begged the money from the neighbors, and so little Kristoforas had a mass and a hearse with white plumes on it, and a tiny plot in a graveyard with a wooden cross to mark the place. The poor mother ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... a repetition of vicious acts, evil habits have been formed within us, and have rivetted the fetters of sin. Left to the consequences of our own folly, the understanding has grown darker, and the heart more obdurate; reason has at length altogether betrayed her trust, and even conscience herself has aided the delusion, till, instead of deploring our miserable slavery, we have too often hugged, and ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... my father-in-law wet-blanketed the whole thing, and I was brokenhearted. The Duke de Persigny, who happened to be in Petit Val at that moment, sympathized with me and tried to change the paternal mind; but the paternal mind was obdurate, and all pleadings were, ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... had recourse to the ornaments of human eloquence, in his discourses, but that inspiration was very perceptible; that his preaching was a great fire, which penetrated quite to the bottom of hearts, with so much efficacy, that the most obdurate were softened, and had recourse to penance. Men and women, young and old, nobles and plebeians, flocked in crowds to see and hear this extraordinary man, whom God had sent them. He seemed to them, in fact, to be a man from the other world, when ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... not an easy thing to shake off in a moment the expectations nurtured through years until they have become essentially a part of us; and though Ben-Hur asked himself what the vanities of the world were to such a one, his ambition was obdurate and would not down. He persisted as men do yet every day in measuring the Christ by himself. How much better if we measured ourselves ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf, Confounded, though immortal. But his doom Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him: round he throws his baleful eyes, That witnessed huge affliction and dismay, Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate. At once, as far as Angels ken, he views The dismal situation waste and wild. A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames No light; but rather darkness ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... intruder, but boldly facing the tall monster that guarded the deserted room and challenged him. "You haven't stopped," he answered in his beard. "Why not?" And as he said it, a new expression stole upon its hardened countenance, the challenge melted, the obdurate stare relaxed. The quaint, grandfatherly aspect of benevolence shone over it like a smile; it looked not only kind, but contrite. He saw it as it used to be, ages and ages ago, when he was a boy, sliding down the banisters ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... fidelity. Masculine voices pleaded for the immediate justification of undying constancy, while those of a feminine quality preferred a prolongation of the exquisite agony of suspense. In short, the brides-elect were obdurate. They insisted on waiting, even to the end of time, for the realization of their fondest, dearest hopes. Several heartbroken gentlemen, preferring anything to ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... becoming infected. Your special pet, Coley, after reducing poor Mr. Locke to the verge of nervous prostration, has "quit," and though I have sought him in his haunts, and used my very choicest blandishments, he remains obdurate. To my remonstrances, he finally deigned to reply: "Naw, they ain't none of 'em any good no more; them ducks is too pious for me." I don't know whether you will consider that a compliment or not. So the Institute and all its people will welcome you with acclaims of delight and ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... glided after him like an assassin, beckoning on Triplet, who followed, doubtful of her designs. Suddenly (truth compels me to relate this) she seized the obdurate official from behind, pinned both his arms to his side, and with her nose furiously telegraphed ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... but very much against her inclination. Count Halfont informed me that she pleaded and argued with the Duke for hours, seeking to avert the act which is bound to give pain to all of us. He was obdurate, and threatened to carry complaint to Bolaroz, who would instantly demand satisfaction. As the Duke is willing to die if you are proved innocent, there was no other course left for her than to dictate ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Markham was too far away to hear what was said, but the gestures of the disputants could be easily understood. There was no train in sight and plenty of time to cross, said the motorist. The peasant waved her flag and pointed down the track. More words, more gesticulations, but the gate-keeper was obdurate. The motorist looked up the track and at the gate and road, and then followed explosives, smoke and dust from the impatient machine, which slowly moved backward a short distance up the road again. Markham, slowly approaching, ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... adventures of a seaman in search of a lodging ashore. She would have smiled, of course, with her own little lift and fall of shy eyes, and been as intangible and desirable as ever; but one could never tell her of carrying a small bundle of underclothes from one obdurate door to another, unable to show money in any convincing amount because one's capital was in a belt under one's shirt. Othello told Desdemona of "antres vast and deserts idle," not of skeptical landladies. Goodwin felt all this intensely when, in the evening ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... down the Red Sea, Tokar, Tamai, Tamanieb—the crowded moments came vividly to his mind. He thrilled even now at the recollection of the Hadendowas leaping and stabbing through the breach of McNeil's zareba six miles from Suakin; he recalled the obdurate defence of the Berkshires, the steadiness of the Marines, the rallying of the broken troops. The years had been good years, years of plenty, years which had advanced him to the brevet-rank ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... deluded Maid A victim fell. And now right greedily All hands are stretching forth the songs to buy, That are so tragical; which She, and She, Deals out, and sings the while; nor can there be A breast so obdurate here, that will hold back His contribution from the gentle rack Of Music's pleasing torture. Irus' self, The staff-propt Beggar, his thin-gotten pelf Brings out from pouch, where squalid farthings rest. And boldly ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... purpose, in the hope that he might have an influence on this revolted soul. It had, however, been of no use, and Grassette had refused the advances and ministrations of the little good priest, Father Laflamme, who had come from the coast of purpose to give him the offices of the Church. Silent, obdurate, sullen, he had looked the priest straight in the face, and had said, in broken English, "Non, I pay my bill. Nom de diable! I will say my own Mass, light my own candle, go my own ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... straw hat which he had pulled over his eyes. He had not come into the country to be dragged out to bucolic dinner parties. But upon some points he knew his old master was obdurate and from his firm acceptance of the invitation this appeared ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn |
