"Importunate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seen me wear, my hat with plumes and bands, my flame-coloured military garments, and, in the eyes of my own folly, I seemed so engaging that I imagined all the women must fall in love with me! Well, I implored her to unveil. "Be not importunate," she replied; "I have a house; let a servant follow me; for though I am of more honourable condition than this reply of mine would indicate, yet for the sake of seeing whether your discretion corresponds to your gallant appearance, I will allow you to see me with less reserve." I kissed her ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... this might be some gratification of his vanity, it afforded very little relief to his necessities; and he was very frequently reduced to uncommon hardships, of which, however, he never made any mean or importunate complaints, being formed rather to bear misery with fortitude, than enjoy prosperity ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... infringement of a time-honoured habit; and Rainham had for his habit all the respect of a man who is always indolent and often ill; though it must be admitted that to his clerks, who viewed the trait complacently, and to the importunate Bullen, who resented it, he seemed to be only regular in his irregularity. He decided that at least this occasion should not be allowed to slip; a free afternoon would benefit him. He was always rather lavish ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... We then pushed on to Ungurue's, another chief of the same district. Here the men and women of the place came crowding to see me, the fair sex all playfully offering themselves for wives, and wishing to know which I admired most. They were so importunate, after a time, that I was not sorry to hear an attack was made on their cattle because a man of the village would not pay his dowry-money to his father-in-law, and this set everybody flying out to the scene ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... he consented; "since your fond heart is set upon it—there. It will be an awful fag; but when Dimplechin becomes importunate, I can deny ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... Sir, the King is a noble Gentleman, and my familiar, I doe assure ye very good friend: for what is inward betweene vs, let it passe. I doe beseech thee remember thy curtesie. I beseech thee apparell thy head: and among other importunate & most serious designes, and of great import indeed too: but let that passe, for I must tell thee it will please his Grace (by the world) sometime to leane vpon my poore shoulder, and with his royall finger thus dallie with my excrement, with my mustachio: but sweet heart let ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... forget everything, thou didst run like a little boy after a butterfly."... Liza's image uninterruptedly presented itself before his thoughts; with an effort he drove it away, as he did also another importunate image, other imperturbably-crafty, beautiful, and detested features. Old Anton noticed that his master was not himself; after heaving several sighs outside the door, and several more on the threshold, he made up his mind to approach him, and advised ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... arbitrary speculations and fantastic notions. In theory it degenerated into a crude egoism, a vaunting and hyper-stoic hostility to nature, which, though intellectually godless, was not without that universal instinct for divinity which, by countless ways, seeks with an ever-present and importunate longing for the one sublimated and eternal ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... proper sleep. "My men work hard in the day," he said, "and I will have them to sleep sound at night," and he warned the Indians that he would fire upon them if their noise disturbed him further. The savages, he wrote to Haldimand, are "almost unbearable, greedy and importunate." They behaved more like rebels than friends and their talk ended always in the demand for rum, "the cause of all ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... very importunate with the lieutenant for his liberty; urging the ill consequences of his stay, asking him, what he could have done less? "Zounds!" says he, "I was but in jest with the fellow. I never heard any harm ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... delight to converse; and I there reserve both for myself and others an unusual liberty: there is in my house no such thing as ceremony, ushering, or waiting upon people down to the coach, and such other troublesome ceremonies as our courtesy enjoins (O servile and importunate custom!) Every one there governs himself according to his own method; let who will speak his thoughts, I sit mute, meditating and shut up in my closet, without any offense ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... bearers I should have. What I did appreciate was the extreme comfort of my travelling arrangements. Seated in my chair, which was open above and enclosed below, and furnished with a water-proof top and with curtains that could be lowered to protect me against sun or rain, wind or importunate curiosity, I felt as though on a throne. Under the seat was a compartment just large enough for dressing-bag, camera, and thermos bottle, while at my feet there was ample room for Jack. For my interpreter ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... 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 which he had ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... that there are many beggars in Scotland. In Edinburgh the proportion is, I think, not less than in London, and in the smaller places it is far greater than in English towns of the same extent. It must, however, be allowed that they are not importunate, nor clamorous. They solicit silently, or very modestly, and therefore though their behaviour may strike with more force the heart of a stranger, they are certainly in danger of missing the attention of their countrymen. ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... The incident 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; and thenceforth his chief task was to bring to an honourable close a conflict ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... taken in connection with the prevailing literary taste (of which it is in some sort an index), is regarded as pointing, more or less directly, to a want of the human spirit—to its cry—strong and importunate, though often stifled and but dimly felt, for light—the light of science and of truth. Many feel this want only as a traditional need—one which their fathers before them have felt and have taught them to feel—and they are apt ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... regarded the situation. In their zeal for news it had apparently never struck them that they, their camp, and their servants were all in the lion's mouth. But even as they talked there came the harsh, importunate rat-tat-tat of an irregular volley from among the rocks, and the high, keening whistle of bullets over their heads. A palm spray fluttered down amongst them. At the same instant the six frightened servants came running ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... forgive Jennie of all her rudeness and country ways if she will only rid us of this importunate suitor," said Mrs. Verne, giving the lengthy train a few more touches to ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... opposition which began to prevail in parliament was the more likely to be vexatious to Mary, as she was otherwise in very bad humor on account of her husband's absence, who, tired of her importunate love and jealousy, and finding his authority extremely limited in England, had laid hold of the first opportunity to leave her, and had gone over last summer to the emperor in Flanders. The indifference and neglect of Philip, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... Dodd's wife told Hawkins that 'Dodd's manner of living was ever such as his visible income would no way account for. He said that he was the most importunate suitor for preferment ever known; and that himself had been the bearer of letters to great men, soliciting promotion to livings, and had hardly escaped kicking down stairs.' Hawkins's ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... an inferior one. The great composer is said to have had an unlimited admiration for a well-made and well-carried (bien porte) dress. Now what a totally different picture presents itself when we turn to George Sand, who says of herself, in speaking of her girlhood, that although never boorish or importunate, she was always brusque in her movements and natural in her manners, and had a horror of gloves and profound bows. Her fondness for male garments is as characteristic as Chopin's connoisseurship of the female toilette; it did not end with her student life, for she donned ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... furthermost practical present interest, from its bearing upon the question between numbers and individual size in the organization of the naval line of battle; for the ever importunate demand for increase in dimensions in the single ship is already upon the United States Navy, and to it no logical, no simply rational, limit has yet been set This question may be stated as follows: A country ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... supplements the penury 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 or his ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... that let the devotion be ever so great, set forms of prayer will be expressive enough of any desire, though importunate as extremity itself. ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... exactions they involved. Thus she induced him to undertake a lot of official busts, horrible respectabilities in velvet skull caps, frights of women utterly devoid of grace; she disturbed him ten times a day with importunate visitors, and then every evening laid out for him a dress suit and light gloves, and dragged him from drawing-room to drawing-room. You will tell me he could have rebelled, could have replied point-blank: "No!" But don't you know that the very ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... supposed to be blocked up against the light. The soul, blind and deaf as it may often be, cannot always resist the intimations all life long, day and night, forced upon it from the outer world; its very necessities, nobler far than those of the body, even when most degraded, importunate when denied their manna, are to it oftentimes a silent or a loud revelation. Then, not to feel and think as other beings do with "discourse of reason," is most hard and difficult indeed, even for a short time, and on ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... ungraceful retorts which I mentioned may be instanced as follows. Demaratus, being asked in a troublesome manner by an importunate fellow, Who was the best man in Lacedaemon? answered at last, "He, Sir, that is the least like you." Some, in company where Agis was, much extolled the Eleans for their just and honorable management of the Olympic tames; "Indeed," said Agis, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... subtle atmosphere of things-being-not-altogether-well that hangs over a stricken household. The cows had been milked, but they stood huddled about in the yard, waiting impatiently to be driven out afield, and the poultry kept up an importunate querulous reminder of deferred feeding-time; the yard pump, which usually made discordant music at frequent intervals during the early morning, was to-day ominously silent. In the house itself there was a coming and going of scuttering footsteps, ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... street, above the suburbs, above the gas-works and the stucco, above the faces of painted white houses—the painted surfaces that have been devised as the only things able to vulgarise light, as they catch it and reflect it grotesquely from their importunate gloss. This is to be well seen on a sunny evening ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... with the stress of a duty ever harder to perform. After an hour passed with Stella she could breathe freely the atmosphere of beauty and love. Elsewhere she too often suffered from a sense of self-reproach; between her and the book in which she tried to lose herself there would come importunate visions of woe, of starved faces, of fierce eyes. The comfort she enjoyed, the affection and respect with which she was surrounded, were often burdensome to her conscience. In Stella's presence all that vanished; listening to Stella's ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... certain trail, however. At one side of the great wide walk, facing the ocean, was a canopied bandstand. In its dim shadow, he discerned a wisp of white. He made for it, swiftly, silently. Mazzetti's voice low, eager, insistent. Mazzetti's voice hoarse, ugly, importunate. The figure in white rose. Gore stood before the two. The girl took a step toward him, but Mazzetti took two steps and snarled like a villain in a movie, if a villain in a movie could ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... the park. At its base is a congress of single-seated donkey-carriages like those at Biarritz. They are officered by importunate though good-natured boys and women, but I persevere in unruffled declinations. The street slants up a short hill here and comes out upon another open place much smaller than the park and likewise bordered with ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... reluctance descended to the hall. The day was occupied with company and diversions, and it was not till late in the evening that they were suffered to retire. They hastened to madame immediately upon their being released; and too much interested for sleep, and too importunate to be repulsed, solicited the sequel of her story. She objected the lateness of the hour, but at length yielded to their entreaties. They drew their chairs close to hers; and every sense being absorbed in the single one of hearing, followed her through the course ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... thousand-to-one chance. He has the capacity to endure to the end, while the man without this "drive" will weigh things up, eventually playing for safety and, incidentally, comfort. Our friend of the artistic temperament will be acutely sympathetic, and thus an easy prey for the importunate: he may even give everything away and so have nothing for himself. The world will furnish him with countless opportunities both of great joy and bitter grief, so the readings of the temperament-chart of the artist will be apt to resemble the variations of a barometer ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... have interposed to prevent either from learning much of the other's character.—I say not this, Sigismund, as by thy eye I see thou wouldst think, in reproach for any deception, for I well know the accidental nature of our acquaintance, and that the intimacy was forced upon thee by our own importunate gratitude, but simply, and in explanation of my own feelings. As it is, we are not to judge of our situation by ordinary rules, and I am not now to decide on your pretensions to my hand merely as the daughter of the Baron de Willading receiving a proposal from ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... palace, a sort of Holy of Holies behind the first and the second veil. A band of pages, in splendid dress, waited upon his bidding; thirty stately silentiarii, with helmets and brightly burnished cuirasses, marched backwards and forwards before the second veil, to see that no importunate petitioner disturbed the silence of "the sacred cubicle". On the comparatively rare occasions when he showed himself to his subjects, he wore upon his head the diadem, a band of white linen, in which blazed the most precious jewels of the Empire. Hung round his shoulders ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... loaded our tables with petitions for relief against the pressure of some political mischief, some notorious misrule, which this experiment is to redress? Has it been resorted to in an hour of misfortune, calamity, or peril, to save the state? Is it a measure of remedy, yielded to the importunate cries of an agitated and distressed nation? Far, Sir, very far from all this. There was no calamity, there was no suffering, there was no peril, when these measures began. At the moment when this experiment was entered upon, these twelve millions of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... surgeon did his work. The pale face showed its pain, but was still and silent. Rab's soul was working within him; he saw that something strange was going on—blood flowing from his mistress, and she suffering; his ragged ear was up, and importunate; he growled and gave now and then a sharp impatient yelp; he would have liked to have done something to that man. But James had him firm, and gave him a glower (Scotch word—a hard stare) from time to time, and an intimation of ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... that he had gone to heaven, no more to return; they sought leave to seek him, and to recover him: "Peradventure," they said, "the Spirit of the Lord hath taken him up and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley." Elisha peremptorily refused to grant them leave. They were importunate; and when, at last, it would, perhaps, seem like obstinacy in him, or like jealousy of their superior love for Elijah, to forbid the search, which at the worst would only be fruitless, he yielded. Three days they explored the valleys, ransacked the thickets, groped in the caves, traversed ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... 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, ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... of composed movements, of deliberate superior manner, took a little run to catch up with him, and directly she had caught up with him tried to introduce her hand under his arm. Mrs Fyne saw the brusque half turn of the fellow's body as one avoids an importunate contact, defeating her attempt rudely. She did not try again but kept pace with his stride, and Mrs Fyne watched them, walking independently, turn the corner of the street side ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... 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 a very heavy expense. One may add to this, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... a rupee and a half batta upon each mohur, and on this account laid claims upon me to the amount of six lacs some thousand rupees, and sent Major Gilpin to exact the payment. Major Gilpin, according to orders, at first was importunate; but being a man of experience, and of a benevolent disposition, when he was convinced of my want of means, he changed his conduct, and was willing to apply to the shroffs and bankers to lend me the money. But with the loss of my jaghire my credit was sunk; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... medallion on the tomb of Henry VII., with a small pig trotting beside him. This is St. Anthony of Vienna, not of Padua. His legend is as follows. In an old document, Newcourt's Repertorium, it is related that "the monks of St. Anthony with their importunate begging, contrary to the example of St. Anthony, are so troublesome, as, if men give them nothing, they will presently threaten them with St. Anthony's fire; so that many simple people, out of fear or blind zeal, every year use to bestow on them a fat pig, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... thrilling were some of the scenes in connection with some of these importunate Indian deputations, who came from remote regions to plead with the resident missionary that they might have one of their own, to live among them and help them along in the ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... still other arguments I might have added began to occur to me, and I regretted that I had not softened some of the things I wrote and made others more emphatic. In places argument had degenerated into abject entreaty. Never had my desire been so importunate as now, when I was in continual terror of losing her. Nor could I see how I was to live without her, life lacking a motive being incomprehensible: yet the fire of optimism in me, though died down to ashes, would not be extinguished. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... one day by a Doctor and a Lawyer almost forcing themselves at the same time into my room. I did not know," he adds, "till afterwards the real object of their visit. I thought their questions singular, frivolous, and somewhat importunate, if not impertinent: but what should I have thought, if I had known that they were sent to provide proofs of my insanity?" Lady Byron, in her Remarks on Mr. Moore's Life, etc. (Life, pp. 661-663), says that Dr. Baillie (vide post, p. 412, note 2), whom she consulted with regard to her ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... at the clock. It was already half-past four. He had not the faintest hope that Luttrell would come. Stella had no doubt pressed him to come. She had probably been a little importunate. Luttrell's promise was an excuse, just an excuse to be ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... these articles are kept, and also the two small ebony sticks which they strike against each other as an accompaniment to their begging-songs. The larger stick is dedicated to Nanak and the smaller to the Goddess Kali. They are most importunate beggars, and say that the privilege of levying a pice (farthing) was given to them by Aurangzeb. They were accustomed in former times to burn their clothes and stand naked at the door of any person who refused to give them alms. They also have a bahi or account-book in which the gifts they receive, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... An importunate dunn; a serjeant or bailiff; a paunbroker; a prison; a tavern; a scold; a bad husband; a town-fop; a bawd; a fair and happy milk-maid; the quack's directory; ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... Nightingale called him the Bison, and his life's energy seems to have been expended in trying, often with success, to frustrate every single practical reform which she suggested. To the objection that Mr. Strachey has depicted the heroine as "an ill-tempered, importunate spinster, who drove a statesman to his death," he might conceivably reply that if history, grown calm with the passage of years, does so reveal her, it is rather absurd to go on idealising her. Why not study the real Eagle in place of the fabulous Swan? It is difficult to condemn ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... understand, it's as though all the conventional coverings were ripped off it. There is no falsehood, no hypocrisy, no sanctimoniousness, there are no compromises of any sort, neither with public opinion, nor with the importunate authority of our forefathers, nor with one's own conscience. No illusions of any kind, nor any kind of embellishments! Here she is—'I! A public woman, a common vessel, a cloaca for the drainage of the city's surplus lust. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... of course circulated in various ways; some founded on an inaccurate rehearsal of what may have been partly real, some on circumstances having no concern whatever with the subject, and others on the invention of some importunate persons, who might perhaps imagine that the readiest mode of forcing the Author to disclose himself was to assign some dishonourable and discreditable cause for ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... was to raise the necessary funds for my undertaking. But in this respect the outlook was bad. The sale of our modest household furniture, the proceeds of a benefit concert, and my meagre savings only sufficed to satisfy the importunate demands of my creditors in Magdeburg and Konigsberg. I knew that if I were to devote all my cash to this purpose, there would not be a farthing left. Some way out of the fix must be found, and this our old Konigsberg friend, Abraham Moller, suggested in his usual flippant ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... lent the principal charm to my life at Chartres; it occupied and comforted me when I was suffering from finding my soul so importunate and ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... 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 inhabitants ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... of success has attended our efforts to His blessing, and believing that He has given us length of days, and strengthened our weakness, and poured consolation into our hearts when ready to sink in despair, in answer to persevering and importunate prayer, we come to direct our readers to this source of wisdom and aid,—to urge upon them to engage often in this first duty and highest privilege. Let us go forth, dear friends, to the work we have to do in the education of our ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... taking offence at Lisbeth's tone, as despotic as Josepha's, got out of the room, only too glad to escape so importunate a question. ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... form for conducting the business, as in their discretion may seem fitting. The ship is reported to be of three or four hundred tons, and has three decks; but I doubt we shall find her sadly rifled before we get there. The importunate writing, both of the Irishman and the bailiff of Quimper, has induced us to take this journey; which we do the rather in consideration of the company, presuming that they will consider our charges, as we have both solicited friends, and procured money in this place, that we may satisfy those ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... sin, but for less cost. For himself, he is still known by his forefather's coat, which he means with his blessing to bequeath to the many descents of his heirs. He neither would be poor, nor be accounted rich. No man complains so much of want, to avoid a subsidy; no man is so importunate in begging, so cruel in exaction; and when he most complains of want, he fears that which he complains to have. No way is indirect to wealth, whether of fraud or violence. Gain is his godliness, which if ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... for their bodily harm and slaughter," and then, "finding that he could not prevail that way, neither by sundry other indirect means sought by him," had at last, "upon sinister and wrong information and importunate suit, purchased a commission of the same to his Majesty, and to Colin Mackenzie of Kintail, Rory Mackenzie, his brother, John Mackenzie of Gairloch, Alexander Bain of Tulloch, Angus Mackintosh of Termitt, James Glas of Gask, William Cuthbert, in Inverness, and some others specially ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... thresholds, and closed by doors 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
... Nieper, to join the King of Sweden's army in Ukrania: that the States of Austria have furnished Marshal Heister with a considerable sum of money, to enable him to push on the war vigorously in Hungary, where all things as yet are in perfect tranquillity: and that General Thungen has been very importunate for a speedy reinforcement of the forces on the Upper Rhine, representing at the same time, what miseries the inhabitants must necessarily undergo, if the designs of France on those parts be ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... accidents, by diseases, and old age, without any fault of their own: But these are very few in comparison of the other; nor would their support be any sensible burthen to the public, if the charity of well-disposed persons were not intercepted by those common strollers, who are most importunate, and who least deserve it. These, indeed, are properly and justly called the poor, whom it should be our study to find out and distinguish, by making them partake, of our superfluity ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... institute, for board and tuition of their two little boys. His death was the flood-gate opened, which let in a successive torrent of perplexities, losses, dilemmas, delays, law-suits, etc. She had not been able to pay that bill; the principal was importunate, persevering, bitter, and, at last, abusive. She cried to the Lord for a week, day and night, almost without ceasing. Then, a gentleman whom she had taken to her own house and carefully nursed through a dangerous illness, ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... pledge; for he hath pledged his life to thee": and (Ex. 22:26): "If thou take of thy neighbor a garment in pledge, thou shalt give it him again before sunset." Thirdly, by forbidding them to be importunate in exacting payment. Hence it is written (Ex. 22:25): "If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor that dwelleth with thee, thou shalt not be hard upon them as an extortioner." For this reason, too, it is enacted (Deut. 24:10, 11): "When thou shalt demand of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... makes the moral character of 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. ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... The devil would have held it out before me till the day of judgment, that he might then take me with him to hell. Then, when I applied myself to prayer and to spiritual reading,—whereby I might perceive these truths, and the evil nature of the way I was walking in, and was often importunate with our Lord in tears,—I was so wicked, that it availed me nothing; when I gave that up, and wasted my time in amusing myself, in great danger of falling into sin, and with scanty helps,—and I may venture to say no help ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... difficulty in maintaining that, indispensable civil war in France, and thought that a peace might, some fine day, be declared between Henry III. and the Huguenots, when least expected. In consequence, the Duke of Guise was becoming very importunate for Philip's subsidies. "Mucio comes begging to me," said Parma, "with the very greatest earnestness, and utters nothing but lamentations and cries of misery. He asked for 25,000 of the 150,000 ducats promised him. I gave them. Soon afterwards he writes, with just as much anxiety, for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... been premature in my attempt to drop our mutual incognito, and that Fisher, a rival lover, was jealous of me. This was rather flattering than otherwise; but when I limped down to the ladies' parlor, the next day, no Miss Danvers was to be seen. I did not venture to ask for her; it might seem importunate, and a woman of so much hidden capacity was evidently not to be ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... to persuade her to marry again. For peace and quiet's sake, she promised to do so when she should have finished a piece of cloth she was weaving, at which she worked all day long. They thought to get hold of her very soon, but her importunate lovers were disappointed; for the faithful wife, determined to await the return of her husband, unwove every night the portion she had woven during the day; and I leave you to judge what progress the web made in the ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... mother, and nursed at the same bosom. We played together in childhood,—once I saved your life. And now, because our ways are different; yours even and flowery, and mine rough and thorny, you turn from me, as from an importunate beggar. Mary, we shall meet our father and mother at the ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... attempts at postal smuggling had ended in humiliating failure: the wares which France herself was offering were not at all to our taste. We were getting desperate. Jonah, who had smoked the same mixture for thirteen years, was miserable. Berry's affection for a certain brand of cigars became daily more importunate. My liver ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... 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 ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... comforts me in age and solaces me in solitariness, eases me of weariness and rids me of tedious company. To divert importunate thoughts there is no better way than recourse to books. And though they perceive I on occasion forsake them, they never mutiny or murmur, but welcome me always with ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... how much there was at stake, became more importunate, and then the officer turned to Ibrahim, after listening to the Sheikh's interpretation of Frank's signs, most of which took the form of ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... Anderdon MSS. contain an importunate letter, dated July 3, 1751, from one Mitchell, a tradesman in Chandos-street, pressing Johnson to pay L2, due by his wife ever since August, 1749, and threatening legal proceedings to enforce payment. This letter Mr. Boswell ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... forgotten you, Sir Guy; but I have had many to reward, and you know importunate suitors, and those who have powerful connections to keep their claims ever in front, obtain an advantage over those who are content to hold ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... solicitations. One has broke off all commerce with her lover because he voted against me! And Mr. Lockhart, in a speech to the Faculty, said there was no walking the streets, nor even enjoying one's own fireside, on account of their importunate zeal. The town says that even his bed was not safe for him, though his wife was ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... what I 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
... participate. The occasion was favourable for the enterprise, in consequence of the unsettled and uncertain state in which things stood, and the hopes held out by a ministry who seemed disposed to make concessions to all classes of men if they were but importunate. In accordance with their views, various petitions were presented by them to parliament in the beginning of the session, praying to be relieved from church-rates; and in many instances urging the separation of church and state, or recommending the general establishment of the voluntary ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... I am now the one accountable for this money, which surely has been idle long enough, and if I leave it still unused, I shall be doing wrong, and there are things I have to do with it which ought to be set about immediately. I am sorry to seem importunate, but if by twelve o'clock you have not gone with me to Mr. Torrie, I will go to Messrs. Hope & Waver, who will tell me what I ought to do next, in order to be put in possession. It makes me unhappy to write like this, but ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... had never yet attempted to invade his territories. Nor had he done it now, had not the younger sportsman, who was excessively eager to pursue the flying game, over-persuaded him; but Jones being very importunate, the other, who was himself keen enough after the sport, yielded to his persuasions, entered the manor, and shot one of ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... of the moon, and pursue his route. A very humorous story is related of him. Arriving at Benson, near Henley, on a Sunday morning, just as his customer, a Mr. Newberry, had proceeded to Church, old Francis was very importunate to prevail upon the servant-maid to call him out, in order that he might proceed to Oxford that night: after much persuasion she was induced to accompany him to the church, to point out the pew where her master sat. At their entrance the eccentric figure of the tea-broker caused a general movement ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... through one or two of these the disreputable letter awaiting her attention worried her. It was something importunate, disagreeable, like a debased face thrust in at her door. With a sigh she turned to it, to get it out of the way before she opened Terry's letter, clean and dandyish, written on the ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... tell the General that I could see they were taking a cowardly advantage of me because I was a woman, and that they would never have detained a man under similar circumstances. In fact, I was on every occasion so importunate that I am quite sure the General's Staff only prayed for the moment that I should depart. That afternoon I had a long talk to two old German soldiers, then burghers, who were both characters in their way. Hoffman, before alluded to, had been a gunner in the Franco-German ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... take in everything that concerns you, makes me very importunate to know how you approve the gentleman, whom some of your best friends and well-wishers have recommended to your favour. I hope he will deserve your good opinion, and then he must excel most of ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... captures took place by both parties, so that my doors were daily besieged by a crowd of wretches sent by Fana-Toro to be purchased for shipment. I declined the contract with firmness and constancy, but so importunate was the chief that I could not resist his desire that a Spanish factor might come within my limits with merchandise from Gallinas to purchase his prisoners. "He could do nothing with his foes," he ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... on to explain, with the patient manner appropriate in dealing with an importunate child, why George III's desires cannot possibly be gratified. An ambassador, he assures him, would be ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... however, was slow to take alarm. For the moment his attention was taken up with the growth of the Huguenot party in France and his efforts centered on helping the French Catholics against them. But the Netherlands were {253} importunate. In voicing the wishes of the people the province of Brabant, with the capital, Brussels, the metropolitan see, Malines, and the university, Louvain, took as decided a lead as the Parlement of Paris did in France. The estates of Brabant demanded that Orange ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... antauxenpusxo. Impiety malpieco. Impious 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
... Palace to the Land's-end, to John O'Groat's house, and to the cliffs of Connemara. Roman Catholic emancipation was another demand, which was ceaselessly heard, and the Protestant dissenters of England were active and importunate in demanding redress for the grievances of which they complained. The duke was adverse to all these concessions, and determined to resist them as long as they could be resisted, with safety to the crown and peerage. The people hated the prince-regent, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... utterly overcome, and had some fight left in him. Dashing the filthy importunate brutes aside, and, as it were, kicking his ugly remembrances away from him, Mr. Warrington seized a great glass of that fire-water which he had recommended to poor humiliated Parson Sampson, and, flinging ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... attack of nervous melancholy, caused by his malady, had seized him as he left the protracted council which had taken place in his private cabinet. Marie saw that he was in one of those crises when the least word, even of love, would be importunate and painful; so she remained kneeling quietly beside him, her head on his knee, the king's hand buried in her hair, and he himself motionless, without a word, without a sigh, as still as Marie herself,—Charles IX. in the lethargy of impotence, Marie in the stupor ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... voice; but it was not a moment when she could bear to be turned aside, like an importunate child, and she was going to speak; but he saw the wrong fishing-rod carried out, called hastily to James, ran down-stairs, and was gone, without even looking back ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spurs Lonesome Cove nestles, sequestered from the world. Naught emigrates thence except an importunate stream that forces its way through a rocky gap, and so to freedom beyond. No stranger intrudes; only the moon looks in once in a while. The roaming wind may explore its solitudes; and it is but the vertical sunbeams that strike to the heart of the little basin, because of ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... grasped by a gentle hand. His breath grew tremulous. He put his hand to his breast; so distinctly did he seem to feel that cord drawn once, and again, and again, as if—though still it was bashfully intimated there were an importunate demand for his presence. O for the white wings of Hilda's doves, that he might, have flown thither, and alighted at ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... refreshed, but suffering under the cravings of hunger, which now assailed me. I had been three days without food; but hitherto I had not felt the want of it, as my more importunate thirst had overcome the sensation. Now that the greater evil had been removed, the lesser increased and became hourly more imperious. I walked out and scanned the horizon with the hopes of some caravan appearing in sight, but I watched in vain; and returned ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... But we, on the other hand, had excellent reasons for not arriving till night was closing in, since we relied upon the gloom to cover our advance upon the koppie which commanded the town. Finally, they became so importunate that we were obliged to refuse flatly to move faster, alleging as a reason that the girl was tired. They did not accept this excuse in good part, and at one time I thought that we should have come to blows, for there is no love lost between Butianas and Matukus. At ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... human 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. ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... 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 ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... confidence, which demanded, it seemed to him, a cordial response, a pressure of the hand, was seized with a strange uneasiness. This coolness, this absent look, so unnerved him that he was at the door with the awkward bow of one who feels himself importunate, when ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... love! Thine am I, thine! And what a music is thy voice, O my mistress! 'Twere a bliss to Eblis in his torment could he hear it. Life of my head! and is thy beauty increased by me? Nay, thou flatterer!' Then he said to her, 'Away with these importunate dogs! 'tis the very hour of tenderness! Wullahy! they offend my nostril: stung am I at the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was, indeed, dismissal; such a dismissal with polite urgency as a venerable cabinet minister might give an importunate caller who is slow to go. He and Mary started into the hotel. But he halted in the doorway to say over his shoulder, with something of his old-time cheer, which had the same element of pity as his leave-taking on the trail outside of ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... sewers surrounding Mdlle. Henri; there were only about a dozen of them, but they made as much noise as might have sufficed for fifty; they seemed very little under her control; three or four at once assailed her with importunate requirements; she looked harassed, she demanded silence, but in vain. She saw me, and I read in her eye pain that a stranger should witness the insubordination of her pupils; she seemed to entreat order—her prayers were useless; then I remarked that she compressed her lips and contracted her ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... I to do," she asks in perplexity, "I have only one dance to divide between two of you," and she turns to another importunate claimant, a diminutive man, very well inclined to embonpoint who wears red whiskers and spectacles, "I think you were first Mr Vernon" she says, smiling graciously, as she ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... excited magistrate of what little patience he had left. He took the importunate petitioner by the shoulders, pushed him into the street, and ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... Macaulay, who have not the fine instinct of style, but obey the vulgar instinct of display, and imagine they can produce a brilliant effect by the use of strong lights, whereas they distract the attention with images alien to the general impression, just as crude colourists vex the eye with importunate splendours. Nay, even good writers sometimes sacrifice the large effect of a diffusive light to the small effect of a brilliant point. This is a defect of taste frequently noticeable in two very good writers, De Quincey and Ruskin, whose command of expression ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... fact of sin, and the simple fact that none but God can forgive it. The whole inward experience would thus be narrowed down to a focus. Simplicity and intensity would be introduced into the mental state, instead of the previous confusion and vagueness. Soliloquy would end, and prayer, importunate, agonizing prayer, would begin. That morbid and useless self-brooding would cease, and those strong cryings and wrestlings till day-break would commence, and the kingdom of heaven would suffer this violence, and the ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... 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 them to ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... as importunate as professional beggars and solicit food of every crow that passes by, to the great disgust ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... (peace be his alway!) Came forth from the Divan at close of day Bowed with the burden of his many cares, Worn with the hearing of unnumbered prayers,— Wild cries for justice, the importunate Appeals of greed and jealousy and hate, And all the strife of sect and creed and rite, Santon and Gouroo waging holy fight For the wise monarch, claiming not to be Allah's avenger, left his people free, With a faint hope, his Book scarce justified, That all the paths of faith, though severed wide, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... essential to beauty! Barbara protested that nothing ever hurt her; that she was the only person she knew fit to be a nurse, because she was never ill. When her ladyship, for once oblivious of her manners, grew importunate, Barbara ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... have it said that I had gone after Father La Combe, and that I had come to Turin only for the purpose of going to Verceil. He had also his reputation to preserve, which was the cause that he could not agree to my going thither, however importunate the Bishop was for it. Had we believed it to be the will of God, we would both of us have passed over these considerations. God kept us both in so great a dependence on His orders, that He did not let us foreknow them; but the divine ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... 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 them so well, as to die the seventh without any ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... had come to the end. There was nothing to think or trouble about; an importunate and useless consciousness to get rid of—and nothing more. It seemed a stupid, aimless kind ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... should they not? They do not wish to array themselves against all the Lamartines and Grimeses in the world. It does not stand to reason that men are reluctant to leave places where the very life is almost badgered out of them by importunate swarms of beggars and peddlers who hang in strings to one's sleeves and coat-tails and shriek and shout in his ears and horrify his vision with the ghastly sores and malformations they exhibit. One is glad to get away. I have heard shameless people say they were glad to get away from Ladies' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... said Pensive; "they sing so sweetly!" But Fido would not stop; his blood seemed on fire, and he barked so furiously that Graceful forgot the grasshoppers to follow his importunate companion. ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... Religion, back of experience, back of rational doubt or infidelity, the heart keeps up its importunate cry of hope. We dare not crush out within us the sweet thought of reunion. Upon that earth I lost a wife, who summed up to me everything of value, virtue, and beauty human life can claim. The passionate desire to regain her, the defiant mutiny of my heart ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... bridge, the adventurer rested elbows upon the teakwood rail and with importunate eyes searched the masked face of his destiny. There was great fear in his heart, not of death, but lest death overtake him before that scarlet hour when he should encounter the man whom he must always think of ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... wild Indians!" cried the studious secretary to some importunate First Formers who were tugging at his arms. "There is no news, and I can't get Chancellor's Hill on ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... As the day wore on, however, without her appearing, they began to be a little uneasy about her as well. Still the two might be together, and the explanation of their absence a very simple and satisfactory one; for a time therefore they refused to admit importunate disquiet. But before night, anxiety, like the slow but persistent waters of a flood, had insinuated itself through their whole being—nor theirs alone, but had so mastered and possessed the whole village ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... that I had yielded to the semi-involuntary deception of the imagination ... but "he" would suddenly turn a little on his chair, raise his hand slightly, and again I almost cried aloud, again I beheld before me my "nocturnal" father! At last he noticed my importunate attention, and, first with surprise, then with vexation, he glanced in my direction, started to rise, and knocked down a small cane which he had leaned against the table. I instantly sprang to my feet, picked it up and handed it to him. My ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the timid fighter—the less stomach I felt for the contest. I wrestled with it in my study, only to be driven to my books. I walked out to meet it in the streets, only to seek shelter from it in music-hall or theatre. Thereupon it waxed importunate and over-bearing, till the shadow of it darkened all my doings. The thought of it sat beside me at the table, and spoilt my appetite. The memory of it followed me abroad, and stood between me and my friends, so that all talk died ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... my guest. For when he was present, which was 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. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... fanciful inventions are calculated to produce the most ludicrous effect. Afterwards, however, the play is not sustained at an equal elevation; nothing remains but to sacrifice, and to carouse in honour of the recovered Goddess of Peace, when the importunate visits of such persons as found their advantage in war form, indeed, an entertainment pleasant enough, but by no means correspondent to the expectations which the commencement gives rise to. We have, in this piece, an additional example to prove that the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... filthy people who were making it. I am very fond of macaroni. At Resina we take horses for the ascent. We had sent ahead for a guide and horses for our party of ten; but we found besides, I should think, pretty nearly the entire population of the locality awaiting us, not to count the importunate beggars, the hags, male and female, and the ordinary loafers of the place. We were besieged to take this and that horse or mule, to buy walking-sticks for the climb, to purchase lava cut into charms, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... despise the Grey Friars, for the latter are as handsome and as strong as we are, and they are readier and fresher also, for we are worn-out with our service. Moreover, they talk like angels and are as importunate as the devil, so that such women as have never seen other robes than their coarse drugget ones,(9) are truly virtuous when they escape ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... and night of the 2nd of August, Michael Strogoff remained confined to his inn, at the entrance of the town; which was little frequented and out of the way of the importunate and curious. ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... inexorable for both, though the expression of it could not be quite so emphatic. By ill-luck for them they came once,—from the far West, Graenske; from the far East, the Russian;—and arrived both together at Sigrid's court, to prosecute their importunate, and to her odious and tiresome suit; much, how very much, to her impatience and disdain. She lodged them both in some old mansion, which she had contiguous, and got compendiously furnished for them; and there, I know ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... experience, they were still strong and whole. The weaklings were those that hung about the water, foot-sore from their long journeyings to the distant hills and too weary to return. At the spring-hole at Carrizo they found them gathered, the runts and roughs of the range; old cows with importunate calves bunting at their flaccid udders; young heifers, unused to rustling for two; orehannas with no mothers to guide them to the feed; rough steers that had been "busted" and half-crippled by some reckless cowboy—all the unfortunate ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... saw his strength giving out in that unequal struggle, saw his arm frenziedly but ineffectually beating the water, saw his head disappear . . . for longer and still longer periods . . . She caught a last vision of his white upturned face, of his eyes, filled with importunate devotion, gazing directly at her from out the blinding waters ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... as we went up the steps. When we reached the portico she shook my arm a little, as if my looks were importunate; for though her eyes were lowered she knew that I saw only her. Then she said, with a charming air of pretended impatience, full of grace and coquetry, "Come, why don't you look ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... will not, I trust, think my eagerness importunate. I could not trust to my stupid Rene to bring news of your condition, and therefore I ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... Named Fort Bourke. Visited by the natives. Mortality among them from smallpox. Results of the journey. Friendly disposition of a native. Boats launched. Presents to natives. They become importunate. We leave the depot and embark in the boats. Slow progress down the river. Return to the depot. Natives in canoes. Excursion with a party on horseback. A perfumed vegetable. Interview with natives. Present them with tomahawks. Unsuccessful search for Mr. Hume's marked tree. Ascend ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... strength, and the uncertainty of the lovely Schemselnihar's destiny, augment my distemper every moment, and throw me into such a condition as afflicts my kindred and friends, and breaks the measures of my physicians, who do not understand it. You cannot think, added he, how much I suffer to see so many importunate people about me, and whom I cannot in civility put away. It is your company alone that is comfortable to me: but, in a word, I conjure you not to dissemble with me; what news do you bring of Schemselnihar? Have you seen her confident? ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... their catalogue of great men chiefly those who have written romances and poetry for magazines, and pass unnoticed the stern thinkers of the age, so the literary gossips of Rome made the city ring, like grasshoppers, with their importunate chink. Unfortunately they were the only inhabitants of the field, for "no great cattle" kept silence under the shadow of the protecting oak. Nero suppressed the writings of Lucan, because he painted, in his "Pharsalia," the follies of the time. Lucian gave vent to his bitter sarcasms, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... Hamersley is all the more eager to learn it. Still, his curiosity does not impel him to importunate inquiry. In the companionship of such kind friends he can afford ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... since Adam first made it to Eve." She eyed him in silence for a second time, deriding his sighs with a smile: then "There is a rhyme in my mind," she cried, "about moons and lovers," and she began to declaim, half muse, half minx, some lines that had pleased her, to tease the importunate stranger. ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Appropriation Bills, and other important and importunate measures, lasted until the 31st of January, when Mr. Ashley called the previous question on ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... a sunny, frosty, glorious forenoon when King Hudibras awoke to the consciousness of the important day that was before him, and the importunate vacuum ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... weeks after each of these audiences the suitors are individually notified of the result. The emperor's sense of etiquette does not allow him to give any sign of impatience during the interview, though some of the visitors are as long-winded and importunate as Mark Twain pretends to have been at one of President Grant's receptions. The emperor answers the German, Hungarian, Tzech, Croat or Italian each in the suitor's own tongue. It is quite possible that in the preliminary registry of the names ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... Grace will build to your poor bedemen a sure hospital that shall never fail, take from them these things.... Tie the holy idle thieves to the cart to be whipped, naked, till they fall to labour, that they, by their importunate begging take not away the alms that the good charitable people would give unto us sore, impotent, miserable people, your bedemen."—FISH'S Supplication: ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... by labor. The essential nature of the struggle is curiously indicated in relation to this monument by the two facts that the revolt of the Milanese burghers, headed by their archbishop, began by a gentleman's killing an importunate creditor, and that, at Venice, the principal circumstance recorded of Jacopo Cavalli (see my notice of his tomb in the "Stones of Venice," Vol. III. ch. ii. Sec. 69) is his refusal to assault Feltre, because the senate would ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... whispering me in the ear, with some one or other of the infirmities that attend religion; but at last I told him it was but in vain to attempt further in this business; for those things that he disdained, in those did I see most glory; and so at last I got past this importunate one. And when I had shaken him off, then I ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 nothing served. ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... been waiting outside the door of the office? Why had he followed her? How had he known that she was employed in the exacting services of Bonsfield & Co.? All these questions gyrated wildly in her mind, swept about, confused at finding no plausible answers to their importunate demands. ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... times when tradesmen did not stand so high as they now do in morality, uprightness, &c. The ace of diamonds puts you on the qui vive for the postman; it means a LETTER. It is only to be hoped that it is not one of those nasty things, yellow outside and blue within—a dun from some importunate butcher, baker, grocer, or—tailor. The king of diamonds shows a revengeful, fiery, obstinate fellow of very fair complexion in your circle; the queen of diamonds is nothing but a gay coquette, of the same complexion as the king, and ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... 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 ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... 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
... the most convinced believer in the aphorism "Bene qui latuit, bene vixit,"[3] is not always able to act up to it. An importunate person informs him that his portrait is about to be published and will be accompanied by a biography which the importunate person proposes to write. The sufferer knows what that means; either he undertakes to revise the "biography" or he does not. In ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Then he let him go, and walked with a slow step, breathing the fresh morning air, examining the leaves and the flowers with extraordinary interest. From time to time a deep, sad sigh broke from his oppressed chest; he passed his hand over his brow as if to efface the importunate images. He sat down amid the quaintly clipped boxwood which ornamented the garden in the antique fashion, called his son again to him, held him between his knees, interrogating him again, in a low voice, as he had done before; then drew him toward him and clasped ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... battles. "Oh, it was a horror!" she cried, beginning to pace the floor. "It seemed to me that I was living the agony of all the loveless marriages of the world. I felt myself pursued, not merely by the importunate desires of one man—I suffered with all the millions of women who give themselves night after night without love! He came to seem like some monster to me; I could not meet him unexpectedly without starting. I forbade him to mention the subject to ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... that situation, and above all could not endure to see them dance. Yet, in spite of this antipathy, he himself asked Hortense to dance at the ball at Malmaison. She at first declined, but Bonaparte was exceedingly importunate, and said to her in a tone of good-humoured persuasion, "Do, I beg of you; I particularly wish to see you dance. Come, stand up, to oblige me." Hortense at last consented. The motive for this extraordinary request ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... also my advice in any matters that may concern you. My almoner here, brother John, knows pretty well the circumstances of most of your people, and may be able to tell you where your alms may be well bestowed, and where they would do more harm than good. The worthless are ever the most importunate, and for every honest man in need ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... sedan on the promenade between the Bucoleon and the sea. He tried to shut it out; but often as he opened the book of prayers which he carried in common with his brethren, trying to read them away; often as he shook the torch thinking to hide them in the resinous smoke, the pretty, melting, importunate eyes reappeared, their fascination renewed and unavoidable. They seemed actually to take his efforts to get away for encouragement to return. Never on any holy occasion had he been so negligent—never had negligence on his part been so obstinate ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... tried each fickle art,[ii] Importunate and vain; And while his passion touched my heart, I triumphed in ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... before, absorbed and content with the routine of her life. She was not so sure about her brother-in-law. During her absence lines of care had appeared in his face, and there was an abstracted and sometimes a troubled look in his eyes, as if he was pursued by questions that were importunate and even threatening. The indications of perturbation were slight indeed, but from his nature they would be so in any case. Thus the young girl also received an impression which awakened a faint solicitude. Mr. Muir, as her guardian and the manager of her property, had been a true friend and loyal ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... this beautiful passage comes out very strongly in another written in bodily illness. His importunate correspondent had proposed to call for him in Newcastle that very day. Knox suggests ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... more manifest, as free will is a grace which he has given them of his own choice and without their asking for it; so that he would be more answerable for the unhappiness it would bring upon them than if he had only granted it in response to their importunate prayers.' ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... and all the morning we met at the office about the Victualler's contract. At noon home to dinner, my Cozen Roger, come newly to town, dined with us, and mighty importunate for our coming down to Impington, which I think to do, this Sturbridge fair. Thence I set him down at the Temple, and Commissioner Middleton dining the first time with me, he and I to White Hall, and so to St. James's, where we met; ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the articles in the contract of marriage was, that the queen should have a chapel at St. James's, to be built and consecrated by her French bishop; the priests became very importunate, declaring that without a chapel mass could not be performed with the state it ought before a queen. The king's answer is not that of a man inclined to popery. "If the queen's closet, where they now say mass, is not large enough, let them have it in the great chamber; and, if the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... disheartened beyond measure by this unkind stroke of fortune. He shook the dust of Ramnagar from his feet and returned home to lay his sorrows before Nalini, seasoning the story with remarks highly derogatory to Kaliprasanna Babu's character. In order to get rid of an importunate suitor Nalini gave him another letter of introduction, this time to an old acquaintance named Debnath Lahiri who was head clerk in the office of Messrs. Kerr & Dunlop, one of the largest mercantile firms of Calcutta. ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... friend. They had great comfort in the dog which Jean Jacques had given to them, and they roused themselves to a malicious pleasure when Bobon, as he had been called by Zoe, rushed out at the heels of an importunate local creditor who had greatly worried Jean Jacques at the last. They waited in vain for a letter from Jean Jacques, but none came; nor did they hear anything from him, or of him, for a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... concerned in this project: but the ambassador very ingeniously argued, that, James being a more remote prince, would more effectually alarm the Turks, from a notion of a general armament of the Christian princes against them. James got rid of the importunate ambassador by observing, that "three thousand Englishmen would do no more hurt to the Turks than fleas to their skins: great attempts may do good by a destruction, but little ones only stir up anger ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... supplication that she might be in time. Even in her sleep she had prayed that one prayer with a fierce urging that had rendered actual repose an impossibility. She had never in her life prayed with so intense a force. It was as if she were staking the whole of her faith upon that one importunate plea, and though no answer came to her striving spirit, she told herself that it could not be in vain. In all her maddening anxiety and impatience she never for a moment dwelt upon the chance of failure. God could not suffer her to fail when she had fought so hard. Her very brain seemed on ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... binding tie of fellowship in a commemoration, in which the venerated college does dutiful honor to a son, and the assembled alumni crown with their affection the memory of a brother, I dismissed also, upon the same persuasion, all anxious solicitudes, which otherwise would have oppressed me, lest importunate and inextricable preoccupations of time and mind should disable me from presenting as considerable, and as considerate, a survey of the eminent character and celebrated career of Mr. Chase as should comport with them, or satisfy the ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts
... we please to put India from our thoughts, we can do nothing to separate it from our public interest and our national reputation. Our attempts to banish this importunate duty will only make it return upon us again and again, and every time in a shape more unpleasant than the former. A government has been fabricated for that great province; the right honorable gentleman says that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke |
