"Obdurate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attention is thus held captive by the image, it approximates in character to an external impression in another way. In our waking state, when our powers of volition are intact, the external impression is characterized by its fixity or its obdurate resistance to our wishes. On the other hand, the mental image is fluent, accommodating, and disappears and reappears according to the direction of our volitions. In sleep, through the suspension of the higher voluntary power of attention, the mental image seems to lord it over our minds just ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... 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 same whereon you slept ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... 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 then sat back and ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... but he had done his duty and felt the reward of virtue. If there should be trouble, he would not be responsible. Moreover, there was a large fee at stake, and Dr. Burns was not likely to prove too obdurate. ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... comical situation, and the children laughed till their sides ached, but after a while it ceased to be so funny. The clouds were rolling up blacker, and there was an occasional flash of lightning far off in the distance, but Barney stood still obdurate and unmoved, simply revelling in the sensation of the cool water, running down-stream against his four little donkey-legs. At last Rudolph was at his wits' end, for what did Tattine and Mabel do but commence to cry. Great drops of rain were falling ...
— Tattine • Ruth Ogden
... "the corrupt discipline that then prevailed admitted of those fallacious stratagems, which are very improperly called pious frauds; nor did the heralds of the gospel think it at all unlawful to terrify or to allure to the profession of Christianity, by fictitious prodigies, those obdurate hearts which they could not subdue by reason and argument" (p. 171). The wealth of the Church increased year by year. "An opinion prevailed universally at this time, though its authors are not known, that the punishment ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... didn't do it yet. I asked what you had done in the matter. Alas, your kind heart has led you to promise more than you could perform. She had waited to hear from you if Mrs. Norman consented to see her, and had waited in vain. Hard on her, wasn't it? I was sorry, but I was still obdurate. I only felt the symptoms which warned me that I was going to make a fool of myself, when she let me into her secret for the first time, and said plainly what she wanted with Mrs. Norman. Her tears and her ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... as she lay passive in his arms, Hetty denied him. Her arms were around his neck as she miserably whispered that she could not, would not be his wife, notwithstanding her love for him and his readiness to accept her as she was. She was obdurate, lovingly, tenderly obdurate. He would have despaired but for Sara, ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... race And shown no glorious morning face; If 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 dead ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... had selected as being among the most puzzling as well as the most beautiful. Those are strangely mistaken, who from a superficial study of a few of his amatory sonnets, regard Petrarch as a mere love-sick poet, who spent his time in be-rhyming an obdurate mistress; and those are equally mistaken who consider him as the poetical votarist of an imaginary fair one. I know but little, even of the little that is known of his life; for I remember being as much terrified by the ponderous quartos of the Abbe de Sade, as I was discomfited and disappointed ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... of every civil privilege: you have at every period made her commerce and manufactures slavishly subordinate to your own: and yet the hatred which the Irish bear to you is the result of an original turbulence of character, and of a primitive, obdurate wildness, utterly incapable of civilisation. The embroidered inanities and the sixth- form effusions of Mr. Canning are really not powerful enough to make me believe this; nor is there any authority on earth (always excepting the Dean of Christ Church) which could make it credible ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... tribute to the graces of the woman whose praises were so delicately sung. The faithful lover, who was a Protestant, gave a crowning proof of his devotion, in changing his religion. So much adoration could hardly fail to touch the most capricious and obdurate ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... constituents of your memorialists that the territory in question should remain with Arizona; for the convenient transaction of official and other business, and on every account they greatly desire it." But Congress proved obdurate and Nevada refused to give up the strip and the County of Pah-ute, deprived of most of her area, finally was wiped out by the Arizona Legislature in 1871. At one time there was claim that St. George and a very wide strip of southern Utah really ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... the will and pleasure of another man occurring, he was separated from this last wife and child, and brought into this country, where he remained a slave." Can any, whose mind is not rendered quite obdurate by the love of wealth, hear these relations, without being deeply touched with sympathy and sorrow? And doubtless the case of many, very many of these afflicted people, upon enquiry, would be found to ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... Disclosures," are reducible to three classes: intolerable sensuality; diversified murder; and most scandalous mendacity: comprehending flagrant, and obdurate, and unceasing violations of the sixth, seventh, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... less likely. Nor was this all. Charles Edward seems to have expected that the sudden interest taken by the Court of Versailles in his affairs, and his new position as a married man and the possible father of a line of Stuarts, would bring the obdurate sovereigns of Italy, and especially the Pope, to grant him those royal honours enjoyed by his father, but hitherto obstinately denied to the moody drunkard whose presence in the paternal palace had been occasionally revealed only by the rumour of some more than ordinarily gross ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... the wicked witch whom she had mentioned with such terrible curses during the ravings of the fever, but she made no reply. In fact, she said very little, and her nurses thought her a reserved creature with an obdurate nature; for she obstinately ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... injured should tell the injurer his fault. Tell him faithfully in secret his sin: if he repent, thou hast gained thy brother: if he do not listen, tell it in the presence of two or three witnesses: if he is still obdurate, tell it to the Church: and if he refuse to hear the Church withdraw from his company; let him and all the world know that you do not ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... fan and stole glances from under her long black lashes at her visitor, who sat twisting one of his gloves and wishing most ardently that Providence had entrusted the painful task before him to some one of a more obdurate and less chivalrous nature. ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... Philip, that you were a Moncton, so hard and obdurate are their hearts,' said Margaret, weeping afresh. 'How gladly would I be the peacemaker, and reconcile you to each other, but you love strife for its own sake—are too proud to acknowledge an error. Philip,' she cried, passionately, 'do you ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... is pants,' says the obdurate agent sport; 'an' I'll keep you-all whackin' away at them boulders while the cliff lasts onless you yields. Thar's none of you young bucks goin' to ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... her nephew, Mr. Warrington hoped that she would be disposed to be equally affectionate to her niece; and spoke of his visit to Mr. Hagan and his wife, for whom he entreated her aunt's favour. But the old lady was obdurate regarding Lady Maria; begged that her name might never be mentioned, and immediately went on for two hours talking about no one else. She related a series of anecdotes regarding her niece, which, as this book lies open virginibus puerisque, to all the young people of the family, I shall not ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a loose end," he said. He took a gold cigarette-case from his pocket and extracted a cigarette. Traill continued his gymnastics with the shirt, forcing studs through obdurate holes, fastening links ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... he can do nothing from virtuous motives; not to the master, because he contracts among his slaves all sorts of bad habits, and accustoms himself to the neglect of all the moral virtues. He becomes haughty, passionate, obdurate, vindictive, voluptuous, and cruel." And with respect to this particular species of slavery, he proceeds to say, "It is impossible to allow the negroes are men, because, if we allow them to be men, it will begin to be believed that we ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... I'll seek her; To her he owes his freedom, and her prayers Shall win me back this dear obdurate heart Oh! did he know how sweet 'tis to forgive, And raise the wounded soul, which, crushed and humbled Sinks in the dust, and owns that it has erred: To quench all wrath, and cancel all offences, Sure he would need no motive but ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... 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
... subject to the entreaties, nay, to the insults, of Cornet Fipkin of the Blues, who was in prison at the suit of Linsey, Woolsey and Co., and who happened to be taking his breakfast in the apartment when his obdurate creditor entered it. The Cornet (a hero of eighteen, who stood at least five feet three in his boots, and owed fifteen thousand pounds) was so enraged at the obduracy of his creditor that he said he would have thrown him out of the ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... look at it. I could tell you some very pretty stories about that kind of thing. As for the journalistic enterprise, it is only a possible card to be played if the old gentleman is obdurate." ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... suppose, that the words of the text were at no time in any man's earthly life so true as they will be at the day of judgment. The hardest heart, the most obdurate in sin, the most closed against all repentance, is yet more within the reach of grace, we should imagine, whilst he is alive and in health, than he will be at the day of the resurrection. We can admit, then, that the words of the text may be true, in a greater or less degree; that ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... 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 national crimes, in so far as the appeal ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... glory have been seen. Now and again circumstances have driven it into eclipse. When the facile sentiment of the Early Victorian Era poised the tear of sympathy upon every trembling eyelid, the most obdurate was forced to provide himself with a silk handkerchief of ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... displeasure, and refuses to eat them. The bride's parents then present him with a pickaxe and a crooked knife, saying that these are the implements of their trade, and will suffice him for a livelihood. The bridegroom, however, continues obdurate until they promise him a cow or a bullock, when he consents to eat. The bride's family usually spend some twenty or more rupees on her wedding, and the bridegroom's family about fifty rupees. A widow is expected to marry her Dewar or deceased ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... dare say you think it very odd,' she said, 'but I really can dress myself.' And when the maid did come to unpack the things, Clara would have sent her away at once had she been able. But the maid, who was not a young woman, was obdurate. 'Oh no, miss; my lady wouldn't be pleased. If you please, miss, I'll do it.' And so ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... could at least take up arms against father's old-time enemies, and at the same time serve his country. This aspect of the case was presented to mother in glowing colors, backed by most eloquent pleading; but she remained obdurate. ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... the operation. Finding that we were accomplishing nothing, we decided upon desperate measures. Going to the office of the governor's private secretary, we insisted on his telling the chief executive that we were losing time, that no one was assisting us, that subjects were obdurate and stubborn, and that something must be promptly done. We waited but a few minutes. The fiat went forth; the jefe politico appeared, puffing and blowing, and wildly excited. He was closeted a moment with the governor. On his reappearance, we greeted him cordially, and told him that the people ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... had the boy panted for breath when he rehearsed those grandly decisive, stately replies to those questions of all ages, but his mother had been obdurate. He could not understand why, but in reality Deborah held her youngest son, who was threatened with death in his youth, to the "Assembly's Catechism" as a means of filling his mind with spiritual wisdom, and fitting ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... little known chemical elements which were mysteriously sensitive to certain atmospheric conditions, and wondered if Perico's stone could be any of these. All my requests to be allowed to see the wonderful stone, however, proved fruitless, Perico was obdurate. There was a tradition that it must not be looked at by daylight, he said, and that the eyes of no one but its owner should gaze ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... however, was not an applicant for alms. He did not deliver any stereotyped plea for assistance, nor did he recite a tale of sorrow and suffering calculated to melt the obdurate heart of the average listener to sympathy, and so with a wave of his hand he declined the proffered coin, and stated the nature of ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... intention—though she said nothing to Carmen. Ames had yielded to her previously expressed wish that he refrain from calling at the Hawley-Crowles mansion, or attempting to force his attentions upon the young girl. But in this matter he remained characteristically obdurate. And thereby a little rift was started. For the angry Beaubien, striving to shield the innocent girl, had vented her abundant wrath upon the affable Ames, and had concluded her denunciation with a hint of possible exposure of certain dark facts of which she ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... 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. ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... Lancelot had always to go back to his uncle's, and though I walked part of the way, or all the way, with him most days of the week, I was never bidden inside those doors. Lancelot told me that he had more than once besought leave to bring me in, but that the old gentleman was obdurate. So, save in those hours of study in the parrot-papered room, I saw ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... my efforts, or cease to hope," answered Dr. Higdon earnestly, "for in truth I know not what will be the end if he remain obstinate or, rather, I fear too much what that end will be. If it lay with the cardinal, there would be hope; but the bishop is obdurate. He is resolved to proceed to the uttermost lengths. Pray Heaven Clarke may yet see the folly of remaining obstinate, and may consent at the last to submit as ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... still the sullen convict refused to speak. He was then treated to fourteen days' solitary confinement in one of the new cells. On being brought out and confronted with his tormentor, he merely laughed. For this he was sent back for another fourteen days; and still remaining obdurate, was flogged again, and got fourteen days more. Had the chaplain then visited him, he might have found him open to consolation, but the chaplain—so it was stated—was sick. When brought out at the conclusion of his third confinement, he was found to ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... 21, 1789, after the new government had been some time at work. Rhode Island, owing to her peculiar history in the matter of religious liberty, which she feared a closer union would jeopardize, as well as to the strength of the paper-money fanaticism within her borders, was more obdurate. The chief difficulty here was to get the legislature to call a convention. The New York Packet of February 20, 1790, in a letter from Rhode Island, tells how this was accomplished. Among the anti-adoptionists in the senate was a rural clergyman who, prompted by his conscience, or, as ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... JUL. Obdurate! I am not as I appear. Weep, my beloved child, Covilla, weep Into my bosom; every drop be mine Of this most bitter soul-empoisoning cup: Into no other bosom than thy father's Canst thou, or ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... not screw up his courage to resign in 1916. The following year the United States was at war and he naturally could not desert his post; but in 1919 Mr. Lansing was given another opportunity, and still he was obdurate. He has told us in his public confession that he tried to persuade the President not to go to Paris. Mr. Wilson, as usual, remained unpersuaded, and Mr. Lansing ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... fell—by force of his own exertions; every man, without fear or favour, struggled for fortune, for competence—or for existence. It was a case of the survival of the fittest. In face of bleak Nature—the burning alkali desert, the obdurate soil, the rock-ribbed mountains,—all men were free and equal, in a camaraderie of personal effort. In this primitive democracy, every man demanded for himself what he saw others getting. The pretender, the hypocrite, the sham, the humbug soon went to the wall, exposed in the nakedness ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... 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, "of those who wore golden daggers at their ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... were obdurate in their righteousness, and said the law that visited the sins of the parent upon the child was by all right and reason reversible; and therefore it was but just that the innocent mother of a sinning child should suffer her rightful share of the grief and pain and shame which were the allotted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the Hoorn whose antics resembled those of a pair of demented creatures; nor was the presence of a couple of dejected German leutnants and five seamen, stranded on board the Dutchman, observed, as the Huns frantically besought the obdurate skipper of the Hoorn to steam as hard as he could ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... gave the hero those fair gifts. Then answered Poeas' mighty-hearted son; "Friend, I forgive thee freely, and all beside Whoso against me haply hath trangressed. I know how good men's minds sometimes be warped: Nor meet it is that one be obdurate Ever, and nurse mean rancours: sternest wrath Must yield anon unto the melting mood. Now pass we to our rest; for better is sleep Than feasting late, for ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... indignation as she continued: "Nobody thinks of hanging lanterns to little crafts like her at anchor under such conditions. Having allowed me to taste his power, that man first threatened me covertly, and then proceeded to persecute me in a more open manner. When I still remained obdurate, he—he"—she paused. "You may have heard of it. He killed ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... responsive to each Commandment, that it is sad to see them edging towards the comfortable corners with the text, and fast asleep under the application. Then, too, there is so little hope of reform, not merely because on this point men are utterly obdurate, but because it is impossible for their reformers even to understand their obduracy. For with both the whole question is a pure question of sympathy. Men sleep under sermons because the whole temper of their minds, as they ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... judge, addressed her simply as a Christian, and showing her what her deplorable position was, appearing now for the last time before men, and destined so soon to appear before God, spoke to her such moving words that he broke down himself, and the oldest and most obdurate judges present wept when they heard him. When the marquise perceived the doctor, suspecting that her trial was leading her to death, she approached ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... 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 the occasion of it, her guards told her she was ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... from him as the eagle in the 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 might weaken ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... awhile—no, thank you. Her art held all her love, satisfied all her passions; she had none to waste upon mankind. Two days hence, as Poppy knew, Bobby Saville would sail for South Africa, to offer an extensive target to Boer bullets. He had come to bid farewell, to-night, to the obdurate object of his affections. And his followers—some of whom were also bound for the seat of war—had come to support him during ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... face hardened. He looked a man who could be obdurate as well as benevolent. "I regret," he replied in English, "that it is impossible to give any such sum. Nothing like it has ever been granted, not even to those who have lost great fortunes. If the Casino ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to accompany the court. She knew full well the errand upon which Louis was bound. Though her heart was heavy, and tears dimmed her eyes, she was obliged to appear cheerful. She had made an earnest effort to avoid the journey, but Anne of Austria was obdurate and cruel. She assured Mary that she could not spare her presence when she wished to impress the Princess Marguerite with the magnificence and beauty of the ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... thousands that perished in our late contests with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and putrefaction; pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping and groaning, unpitied among men made obdurate by long continuance of hopeless misery; and were at last whelmed in pits, or heaved into the ocean, without notice and without remembrance. By incommodious encampments and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless, and enterprise impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... 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
... handed down to us, through thousands of years, the cold, stony eyes of the sphynx, precisely as the chisel last touched them—and retains, to the wonder of the Londoners, the glittering lustre of the polished cheeks of Rameses. The stern nature of the primitive rock—obdurate alike to the chisel and to time—has entirely governed the character of the architecture; and, while it has precluded lightness and decoration, has given opportunities for a certain gloomy dignity. About the porch, one or two niches and other small details, have been decorated; but as if the artist ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... himself arrived, accompanied by half-a-dozen notables, most of whom I knew, together with the now friendly dignitary whose wrath we had aroused the previous day. They were all full of dignity and anticipation. Captain Jensen, however, was obdurate, and refused permission to any one to come aboard. That was enough for the chiefs. They went away in high dudgeon, followed immediately by all the other canoes and their occupants. When all had disappeared, a curious stillness came over the ship, the sea, and the tropical coast, and a strange ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... CURCUMA cold and shy Meets her fond husband with averted eye: Four beardless youths the obdurate beauty move With soft attentions ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... could not resist their plea, or turn it off with a joke. This deputation fined down to three persons, as it was not a patriotic quest. One of them also wished to balk, being Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune. As a matter of course, Secretary of War Stanton refused the indulgence, obdurate as he was. The President was likewise averse, but he did consent to go over the matter with Stanton. The result was the same. All was left solely to Lincoln, since the personal argument was ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... 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 ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... and, what was still more important, their wonted courage and confidence were wholly gone, and had given place to amazement and despair. The maid returned triumphant over the bridge, and was again received as the guardian angel of the city. After performing such miracles, she convinced the most obdurate incredulity of her divine mission: men felt themselves animated as by a superior energy, and thought nothing impossible to that divine hand which so visibly conducted them. It was in vain even for the English generals to oppose with their soldiers ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... entire evening. Still, if the cutting of cards malignantly ordained that Miss Mapp was ejected, it was only reasonable to expect that after her magnanimity to the United Services, either Major Benjy or Captain Puffin would be so obdurate in his insistence that she must play instead of him, that it would be ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... ticket entitled him to act as master on the waters of San Francisco Bay and the waters tributary thereto, and although Scraggs argued that the Pacific Ocean constituted waters "tributary thereto," if he understood the English language, the Inspectors were obdurate. What if the distance was less than twenty-five miles? they pointed out. The voyage was undeniably coastwise and carried with it all the risk of wind and wave. And in order to impress upon Captain Scraggs the weight ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... Stafford winced and cast a queer startled look at the speaker. Before he could reply, however—if he intended to reply—a knock came at the door and Marcus put in his head. "My lady is waiting breakfast, sir," he suggested timidly. What could a poor butler do between an impatient mistress and an obdurate master? ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... of the police for the night. In vain the student requested to be informed of the charge against him, and protested against the illegality of detaining a person in custody without there being any charge even alleged; but to all this the magistrate remained obdurate, and the student was sent home under the care of the gendarme. Happily for himself, he managed to give his guardian the slip in the streets, and left the Papal States that night without awaiting the result of an inquiry which ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... the full consciousness of the spiritual man, illumined by the Divine Light. Nothing except the obdurate resistance of the psychic nature keeps us back from the goal. The psychical powers are spiritual powers run wild, perverted, drawn from their proper channel. Therefore our first task is, to regain control of this perverted nature, to chasten, ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... of the several sorts of the men that have been the lovers, the countenancers, the upholders and defenders of her antichristian state, worship, and falsehoods (Rev 19:17,18): for abundance of their hearts shall be hardened, and made yet more obdurate, that they may be destroyed for the wickedness that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... you have appealed to our consciences. We shall do that, which, by the blessing of God, shall be just; for which we shall answer before the Tribunal of God. Pray take heed of an obdurate, hard ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... the gold knob on his stick. His gaze wandered, seeking to rest upon some object other than his son. The first blinding heat of passion had subsided, and in the following haze he saw that he had committed a wrong which a thousand truths might not wholly efface. And yet he remained silent, obdurate: so little a thing as a word or the lack of it has changed the destinies of empires ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... spring on a horse and gallop over the hills to feel as happy as a young animal. Moreover, the world—all the world she knew—was at her feet; nor had she ever known the novelty of an ungratified wish. Once in a while her father arose in an obdurate mood, but she had only to coax, or threaten tears,—never had she been seen to shed one,—or stamp her foot, to bring that doting parent to terms. It is true that she had had her morbid moments, an abrupt impatient desire for ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... horses to be moved, and the old barn was deserted. A neighbor who had bought this barn at once pulled it down and carted it away. In this transaction I held out several days for $50, but as my neighbor was obdurate I finally accepted his offer. The first entry on the credit side of my farm ledger is, By one old barn, $45. The receipts for October, November, and ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... There now rests, after such conviction of Their manifold and manifest offences, But to pronounce on these obdurate men The sentence of the Law:—a grievous task To those who hear, and those who speak. Alas! That it should fall to me! and that my days Of office should be stigmatised through all The years of coming time, as bearing record To this most foul and complicated treason Against a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... course of his married life he came to know that the mother of his Khasi wife kept in the house what he called a bhut (devil). He asked his wife many, many times to allow him to see the bhut, but she was obdurate; however, after a long time, and after extracting many promises from him not to tell, she confided to him the secret, and took him to the corner of the house, and showed him a little box in which was coiled a tiny snake, like ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... are we to do?" cried Olive, sorrowfully; and the whole night, during which she was disturbed by the restless sounds in Christars room, she lay awake, planning numberless compassionate devices to soothe and win over this obdurate heart. Something told her they would not be in vain; love rarely is! When it was almost morning, she ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... and force only. Send sufficient soldiers, and there will be no fighting." This was also Mr. Rhodes's view, but, as it turned out, both were wrong. In the meantime the sands were running out, and the troops were almost on the water, and yet the old man remained obdurate. ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... the present stringency in money are prevented by their constant exposure to attack and disappointment by proceedings against them in bankruptcy, and, besides, the law is made use of in many cases by obdurate creditors to frighten or force debtors into a compliance with their wishes and into acts of injustice to other creditors and to themselves. I recommend that so much of said act as provides for involuntary bankruptcy on account of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... another outburst of laughter, yells, and cat-calls, interjected with allusions to the sergeant, which were far from complimentary. Finally, having exhausted his extensive vocabulary of maledictions on that mob of obdurate sinners, this patriotic officer took himself away, and the boys ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... more glorious than human righteousness. Such a mind the world does not possess. The mind of the world is altogether unlike the Christian's. It not only continues unchanged and unrenewed in its old disposition, but is obdurate ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... Nellie's fortunes reached a crisis. An obdurate landlord set her few poor belongings in the gutter. Even in the most prosperous days their roof-tree had flourished but precariously and now it was down and level with the dust; seeing which Mrs. Montgomery placed her youngest in the ancient vehicle which had trundled all that generation ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... 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 ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... not buy the antlers. In vain she pleaded, explained, implored. Harmony enlisted the Portier, and took him across with her. The wild-game seller was obdurate. He would sell the deer entire, or he would mount head and antlers for his wife's cousin in ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... 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 open the prison gate, and said to her: "Go! I set you free!" The moment she saw the gate ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... Mel. Obdurate man; Thus wilt thou spurn me, when a king distress'd, A good, a virtuous, venerable king, The father of his people, from a throne Which long with ev'ry virtue he adorn'd, Torn by a ruffian, by a tyrant's hand, Groans in captivity? In his own palace Lives a sequester'd ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... display of vanity, but as he could do nothing with the obdurate Kitty, he allowed her to have her own way, and made a virtue of necessity by calling her ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... 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 ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... of the Prince continued to run swiftly, his heart, which had at first by far outstripped his running, soon began to linger and hang back. Not that he ceased to pity the misfortune or to yearn for the sight of Seraphina; but the memory of her obdurate coldness awoke within him, and woke in turn his own habitual diffidence of self. Had Sir John been given time to tell him all, had he even known that she was speeding to the Felsenburg, he would have gone to her with ardour. As it was, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not comprehend; and further he told her, that he never drank any thing stronger than wa-in-zafir, a name which they give to tea, literally, however, being hot water. Not being able to soften the obdurate heart of Clapperton, nor to wean him from the unsociable habit of looking at the stars at night, she always left him with a flood ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... searching Scripture motto for dealing with an erring brother. Remember thy Lord's method of silencing fierce accusation—"Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." Moreover, anger and severity are not the successful means of reclaiming the backslider, or of melting the obdurate. Like the smooth stones with which David smote Goliath, gentle rebukes are generally the most powerful. The old fable of the traveller and his cloak has a moral here as in other things. The genial sunshine will effect its removal sooner than the rough tempest. It was said ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... of the most obdurate indifference, contrasted with the last excess of misery, Middlemas became satisfied how little could be made of an appeal to the humanity of his fellow-sufferers. His heart sunk within him, and the thoughts of the happy and peaceful home, which he might have called his own, rose before ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... inexpensive spoons to complete the furnishing of my kitchen. As for the obstinate casing that wraps the coconut shell, it is an article of commerce. It must first be soaked for some months in a pit on the slimy bank of the backwater, until all the stuff that holds it together in a stiff and obdurate mass has rotted away and set free those hard and smooth fibres which nothing can rot. These, when thoroughly purged of the foul black pollution in which they have sweltered so long, will go out to all quarters of the world under the name of "coir" to make indestructible door ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... in the manner of this judge that appalled the prisoner. In the sympathy of Colonel Singleton, he could easily lose sight of his danger; but the obdurate and collected air of the others was ominous of his fate. He continued silent, casting imploring glances towards his friend. Dunwoodie understood the appeal, and offered himself as a witness. He was sworn, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the wedding taking place at Ellersleigh. She had obtained the, otherwise, obdurate father's consent, and demanded ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... in November, and the sand-tinged foam flecks caught from the stormy bay were thick on the roadway before my window—the fog was thicker and more obdurate than common. I read and re-read the work of the day before, and the written words conveyed no meaning. In a dim sort of way this seemed lamentable, and I remember standing at the window, and looking out to where the white crests of ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... hit, As meaning to be veng'd for darting it. When this fresh-bleeding wound Leander view'd, His colour went and came, as if he ru'd The grief which Neptune felt: in gentle breasts Relenting thoughts, remorse, and pity rests; And who have hard hearts and obdurate minds, But vicious, hare-brain'd, and illiterate hinds? The god, seeing him with pity to be mov'd, Thereon concluded that he was belov'd; (Love is too full of faith, too credulous, With folly and false hope deluding us;) Wherefore, Leander's fancy to surprise, To the rich ocean for gifts he flies; ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... 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 ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... keep good company, for it was bad company had been his ruin." William Carter complained that it was Jackson who had drawn him away from his honest employment to go smuggling, but John Hammond was of a more obdurate nature, and had always hated ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... until one of two things happens. Either the customer is obdurate, and staggers to his feet at last and gropes his way out of the shop with the knowledge that he is a wrinkled, prematurely senile man, whose wicked life is stamped upon his face, and whose unstopped hair-ends and ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... she said, standing off to survey him the better. "I'll give you until tomorrow night to submit to my demands, peaceably and sensibly. Then, if you are still obdurate, we'll see what starvation will ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 innocent ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Merton sought to show this youth that cigarettes and gambling would harm him. The youth remained obdurate. He seized a duster and, with ribald action, began to dust off the rows of cooked food on the counters. Again the son stopped to embrace his mother, who again wept as she enfolded him. The ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... to it: "For a whole day I spoke to thee at the bidding of the Holy One, who desired thee to divide, but thou didst refuse to pay heed to my words; even when I showed thee my rod, thou didst remain obdurate. What hath happened now that thou skippest hence?" The sea replied, "I am fleeing, not before thee, but before the Lord of all created things, that His Name be magnified in all the earth." [32] ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... which he was there to plead its cause before the supreme tribunal of the nation, rushed suddenly upon his mind in an overwhelming flood. The justices of the Supreme Court—great lawyers, tried and toughened by experience into a certain obdurate sense of justice, and insensible to any common appeal to their hearts—melted into unwonted tenderness, as, in broken words, the advocate proceeded to state his own indebtedness to the "small college," whose rights and privileges he was there ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... leaves and the greensward. The birds were singing blithely in the trees, and at the foot of the hill crouched a herd of deer. All was genial and delightful, breathing of tenderness and peace, calculated to soften the most obdurate heart. ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... her friends heard of this, and remonstrated. They knew the teacher was loved by the pupils, and felt that sincere respect from the humble would be a worthy tribute to the proudest. But Mrs. Myrover was obdurate. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... At length, losing patience, he grasped the negro girl by the arm, and was about to drag her off by the wrist, when her sister, not yet sold, threw her arms about her neck, both uttering a wail of despair which might have gone to the hearts of the most obdurate. It had an electrical effect on the sensitive seamen. "Well, that's more than I can stand," cried Jerry. "Down with the brutal Arabs, and let's set the whole lot of ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston |
