"Refractory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... death of James I., Charles called a new parliament in 1625, and in it Waller took his place for Chipping-Wycombe, a borough in Buckinghamshire. This parliament met in London, but was adjourned to Oxford on account of the Plague. In Oxford, it proved refractory to the king's wishes, and refusing to grant him a tithe of the supplies which he demanded, was summarily dismissed. Waller was not re-elected in 1626, when the next parliament was summoned, but secured his return for Agmondesham in ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... the naval portion of the guests were silent, but the civilians more insolent than before. I did not wish to come to open war, so I said nothing more, and left the table. After I was gone, the refractory parties made more noise than ever. Just before the dinner hour on the following day, Mammy Crissobella sent a circular round to the young men, stating that she could not receive them at dinner. They all laughed, and went down to table as before. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... willing to allow that this chimney of an extinct volcano was covered by lava of a kind refractory to heat—in fact a bad conductor—which did not allow the great increase of temperature to percolate through its sides. The hot water jet supported my view ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... had happened that Mr. Stephen Orcott, of Plymley Rise farm, near Barlingford, being at a loss what to do with a somewhat refractory younger son, resolved upon planting his footsteps in the path so victoriously trodden by Philip Sheldon. He wrote to Philip, asking him to receive the young man as clerk, assistant, secretary—anything, with a view to an ultimate junior partnership; and Philip consented, upon ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... I'm afraid," said Clephane with the kindly air of a doctor soothing a refractory patient. "Of course, you can take a spell at grubs ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... match-making sisters, soon noticed the growing familiarity of the two lovers, and she like a good wife reported the matter to her husband, the chief. The intelligence was entirely unexpected, and by no means very agreeable to his feeling of pride, so, after the savage method of disciplining refractory daughters, Ni-ar-gua was not only roughly reproved for her temerity, but received a good lodge-poling from her irate father, besides. He also threatened to shoot an arrow through the heart of Do-ran-to for his ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... was lifted up, higher and higher, borne by strong hands. A man bit him in the hand. The fact was he had scratched his hand on a refractory horsehair, which had become tired of acting ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... inhabitants to depart by noon; and, as they did not obey, the officers, in terms of the warrant, proceeded to unroof the cottages, and pull down the wretched doors and windows, —a summary and effectual mode of ejection still practised in some remote parts of Scotland, when a tenant proves refractory. The gipsies, for a time, beheld the work of destruction in sullen silence and inactivity; then set about saddling and loading their asses, and making preparations for their departure. These were soon accomplished, where all had the habits of wandering Tartars; and they ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... this mineral under the blowpipe being entirely altered, as it becomes decomposed, has been noticed; and the knowledge of this fact is important, as at first it appears highly improbable that a hard, transparent, refractory mineral should be changed into a soft, easily fused clay, like this of St. Jago. I shall hereafter describe a green substance, forming threads within the cells of some vesicular basaltic rocks in Van Diemen's Land, which behave under the blowpipe like the green wacke of St. Jago; but its ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... has often befallen me, when I was at the University, or later when studying law, to exert my mind to grasp, and all in vain, some problem in mathematics or a puzzling legal question, or even to remember some refractory word in a foreign language which would not remain in the memory. After a certain amount of effort in many of these cases, further exertion is injurious, the mind or receptive power seems to be seized—as ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... W——h——, AEt. 68. One of those rare cases in which no urine is secreted. It proved as refractory as usual to remedies, and not having ever succeeded in the cure of this disease, I determined to try the Digitalis. It was given in infusion, and, after a few doses, the secretion of a small quantity of urine seemed to justify the attempt. The next ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... parendo vincitur. In both worlds, moral and physical, he felt himself encompassed by vast forces, irresistible by direct opposition. Men whom he wanted to bring round to his purposes were as strange, as refractory, as obstinate, as impenetrable as the phenomena of the natural world. It was no use attacking in front, and by a direct trial of strength, people like Elizabeth or Cecil or James; he might as well think of forcing some natural ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... a story that on one occasion, in playing with her dolls, she was thus heard to speak to a supposed refractory one: "Now, be good and quiet, because if you don't I will turn you into a Queen, and then you will not have anyone to play with at all." That is sufficiently pathetic to speak volumes of what it is to be born in the purple, as was Wilhelmina of ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... strong enough to break his fall. Scotty was the sleeper, though! It wasn't hardly natural the way that man could pound his ear through thick and thin. He had quite a surprising time of it once. He'd been prospecting 'round the Ruby refractory ore district and he came out at Hank Cutter's saw-mill, just at sun-down. Hank's place was full of gold rushers, so Old Scotty thought he'd sleep out-doors in peace and quiet. He discovered some big boxes, that Hank was ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... land owners. But we of the South, sir, understand their needs and just the proper amount of control necessary to be enforced for mutual protection. They have grown up under that training until it is a part of themselves. There are refractory blacks, of course, just as there are worthless demoralized whites, but I assure you, sir, I voice the sentiments of our people when I state that the families of Southern planters feel much more secure when guarded by their colored ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... good trick on him. He would kill himself to get back to dinner with her, would he? Let him. He could eat it with David and Carol, and the little Julia he so adored. Connie would take a long drive in the car all by herself, and would not be home until bedtime. She would teach that refractory Material ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... other members of the league would speedily have followed the example, and the whole fabric of her empire might have been shattered to pieces. Pericles was again equal to the emergency, and by employing the whole naval power of Athens he was able, after a siege of nine months, to reduce the refractory islanders to submission. The Samians were compelled to surrender their fleet, to pull down their walls, to pay a heavy war indemnity, and to give hostages as a security for their good conduct in the future. And henceforward they became ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... or by the social group, it is, in the long run, the most effective way of overcoming evil and bringing about the triumph of good. The literature is full of stories of individuals who have overcome highwaymen, or refractory neighbors, by the power of love.[4] More recent treatments such as Richard Gregg's Power of Non-Violence[5] present story after story of the successful use of non-violent resistance by groups against political oppression. The history of the ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin
... days' time Macpherson had taken the French lad to his heart, and was never so happy as when working away with him over a refractory engine and chatting along in a seemingly never-ending stream of engine small-talk. All of which was meat and drink to Louis, and was rapidly acquainting him with much that it would otherwise have taken him years of experience ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... After the refractory plate-chest had been made to disgorge, Mr. Morgan had visited the drawing-room. By the time he had garnered what precious metal was there, his two capacious bags had become extremely heavy. So much so, that he almost regretted that he had not brought a friend. The reflection, however, that ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... how magnificently they get along," cried Jack, again wishing that he had a bridle to guide his refractory steed. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... element predominating over its other points, and rendering him honorable and devout, and not more turbulent than could be helped by a feudal chief of the tenth century. He died near Saumur, while besieging the castle of a refractory vassal, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... "Church tradition ascribed it to the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee, one of the fishermen whom Jesus called to be a disciple. Years ago this view was easily entertained, but there now exists too much refractory evidence against assigning this Greek Gospel to an Aramaic-speaking Galilean. That an untutored fisherman could have written so elaborate and so highly philosophical an account of Jesus has always presented a thorny problem. And so to most scholars John's authorship of the ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... was committed to the house of correction or common jail for the safe keeping of "refractory persons" ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... Messina'. On the stage, too, its effectiveness is somewhat impaired by its great length. But in the imaginative power whereby history is made into drama; in the triumph of artistic genius over a vast and refractory mass of material, and in the skill with which the character of the hero is conceived and denoted, 'Wallenstein' is unrivaled. Well might Goethe pronounce it 'so great that nothing could be compared with it'. Its chief figure is by far ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... with a countenance expressive of coolness and undaunted fortitude. He exerted his utmost endeavour to quell the rising storm, soothing some with pleasing hopes and promises, and thundering horrible threats on the most refractory. The following morning three grisly heads, dripping blood, appeared affixed to poles upon the battlements; but this salutary punishment did not produce the expected effect, for though it appalled the discontented, it inspired not a single ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... time the refractory cow had been brought to a state of partial subjection, and stood blinking at her captors as if uncertain what course to pursue. Leaving the sleigh, Mr. Westmore strode over to where the three were standing and laid his hand upon ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... it has already been intimated, was lodged in a vault beneath the gateway. The place was commonly used as a sort of black-hole for the imprisonment of any refractory member of the royal household, or soldier on guard guilty of neglect of duty. Circular in shape, it contained a large pillar, to which iron rings and chains were attached. The walls were of stone, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... asked him to come, when I was in Tuxedo, and he evidently wanted to do so, for he proposed to Amy that she bring him. Of course, I'd no idea he and Miss Lang had ever met before, and when I innocently ordered her in, I did it simply because Radcliffe was refractory and refused to come without her, and I couldn't have a scene ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... the Tete-Noire. Our party consisted of five, and we had two guides. Our baggage, which was for the most part light, was strapped on the backs of the mules behind the riders. One article, however, a square box of considerable proportions, proved refractory, and, veering from side to side, refused to maintain the even balance which, owing to the rough nature of the bridle-path, was essential to the safety of both mule and rider. We were obliged to halt again and again, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... windows are filled up with oiled paper, and that where corn-paper is scarce the windows are blocked up, and light enters only by the chimney—light more than sufficient for the inmates to drink and smoke by and to apply the whip to refractory children—the only occupations during the day of the mortal houris of faithful Mussulmans. Let not the reader suppose, however, that an Egyptian darkness prevails in these windowless apartments. The houses being all of one story, the chimneys being very wide and not rising ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... bulging cylinder having hollow trunnions through which the flame passes. The cylinder is lined with fire brick, and this in turn is covered with a suitable refractory iron ore, from eight to ten inches thick, grouted with pulverized iron ore, forming a bottom, as in the common puddling furnace. The phosphorus of the iron, which cannot be eliminated in the intense heat of the converter, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... title of mistress of the sea, and pretended to regard the neutrality of one insignificant island as an open defiance of her power. Ten years before an Athenian fleet had been sent under Nicias to reduce the refractory Melians to subjection; but the attempt was unsuccessful, and Nicias withdrew, after having ravaged the outlying districts. Being now more at leisure, the Athenians resolved, in the mere wantonness of power, that Melos should only be suffered to exist as a dependency of Athens, and thirty ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... board here was accustomed sometimes, in a pleasant way, to call himself the Autocrat of the table,—meaning, I suppose, that he had it all his own way among the boarders. I think our small boarder here is like to prove a refractory subject, if I undertake to use the sceptre my friend meant to bequeathe me, too magisterially. I won't deny that sometimes, on rare occasions, when I have been in company with gentlemen who preferred listening, I have been guilty of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... the most wholesome treatment she had yet received; she ceased to give way without effort to restless thoughts and cares, and was much less refractory. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... no matter. No one cares for Miss Manners's whims now,' was the careless reply, as Madame ushered me into the deserted schoolroom, and then quickly vanished. She evidently dreaded a meeting with her refractory teacher. Well she might, for there sat Christal—but I will tell you all minutely. You see how I try to note down ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Central Asia; and Kandahar, Bajaur, Swat, and Peshawar, were ruled by chiefs who had no connection with Kabul. The tribes of the plains and outlying valleys alone acknowledged the authority of the King of that country. The clans of the mountains were as independent and refractory as their descendants were up to a recent period. Kabul at this time was in a state bordering upon anarchy. The late King, Abdul-rizak, a grandson of the Abusaid referred to in the preceding chapter, ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... printed cotton garment, lined with wadding which took the liberty of protruding itself through various slits in it here and there; the weight of this lining had pulled the skirts aside, disclosing a dingy-hued flannel waistcoat beneath. With something of a coxcomb's manner, Fraisier fastened this refractory article of dress, tightening the girdle to define his reedy figure; then with a blow of the tongs, he effected a reconciliation between two burning brands that had long avoided one another, like brothers after a family quarrel. A sudden bright ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... slipping noise on the roof, a scream from Martin, and shouts from the doctor and Peter. With a great sliding and rushing of the refractory sprays, and with a horrifying stumbling and falling, down came Martin, caught in a great rope of the creeper, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... we were mustered into the service as a part of this gigantic force of seventy-five thousand, at the bare suggestion of whose numbers the refractory South was confidently expected to abandon its rash enterprise, and kindly resume its sway over us. Before the awful ceremony known as 'mustering in,' we were sixty odd excited young gentlemen, hailing from and residing in all parts of the country. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... placing his hand against it, said sternly, 'Let him have his own.' Usually, when he had emptied the second bottle, a desire of converting the Mohammedans came over him: and they showed themselves much less obstinate and refractory than they are generally thought. He selected those for edification who swore the oftenest and the loudest by the Prophet; and he boasted in his heart of having overcome, by precept and example, the stiffest tenet of their abominable creed. Certainly they drank wine, and somewhat freely. The canonico ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... and began to ride toward the camp, for he felt that Carter's death had resulted from an accident. One explanation was that a stray bullet had killed Carter—in the excitement of a stampede the men were apt to shoot wildly at refractory steers. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of the money he made in army contracts, had been put out of business many years ago by the development of iron-making in North Jersey and Pennsylvania. An attempt was made to turn it into a wood-pulp factory; but that had failed because the refractory yellow pine was full of hard knots that refused to let themselves be ground into pulp. Now a feeble little saw-mill was running from time to time in one corner of the huge edifice; and the greater part of the river out of work was foaming and roaring in ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... we spent a restless time. Berry, usually somnolent at this hour, sat upon the club kerb and toyed with The Times. Jonah fidgeted with a refractory pipe. Daphne glanced from the clock to her novel and the novel to the clock at intervals of fifteen seconds, and I wrote four letters to the War Office about my gratuity, and very properly destroyed them ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... found a language already to a certain extent established, but not yet fetlocked by dictionary and grammar mongers,—a versification harmonized, but which had not yet exhausted all its modulations, nor been set in the stocks by critics who deal judgment on refractory feet, that will dance to Orphean measures of which their judges are insensible. That the language was established is proved by its comparative uniformity as used by the dramatists, who wrote for mixed audiences, as ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... little pasture-lot, thinly scattered over with apple-trees, in which half-a-dozen fine cows grazed over night, he found aunt Hannah beneath one of the largest trees, seated upon her stool, and milking what she called the "hardest" cow of the lot. When disposed to be refractory she cut its "tantrums" short with a sharp "soh!" that went off from her thin lips like the crack of a pistol; and this one word had more effect upon the animal, than a world of uncle Nathan's gentle ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... doctor, trying to slip a collar button into a refractory binding. "Dear me, now that's gone—no, 'tisn't—that's luck," as the button rolled off into a corner of the bureau-top where it ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... of drawers, striving vainly to push the refractory drawer shut, although he knew by experience it was quite impossible. She could see him without turning her head; he was shabbier than ever; even his tie—his one extravagance used to be gay ties—was shabby, and his shoes would hardly keep on ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... projects but very little beyond it, or, in technical language, the cutter should be set "fine." A sliding cut, see p. 53, should be taken with the plane, and sometimes it may be necessary to move the plane nearly at right angles to the general direction of the grain. By these means even refractory pieces of wood can be well smoothed. See also ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... I do not say. I am not calling it off, I am consenting to religion, for sure. But what rubs me the wrong way is, putting it in practice; but in this case I will not be refractory." ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... hydrogen is capable of being substituted to advantage for coal gas for heating or lighting. Such an application is doubtless somewhat premature, but we shall see that it has already got out of the domain of Utopia. Finally the oxyhydrogen blowpipe, which is indispensable for the treatment of very refractory metals, consumes large ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... the first experience of slavery was hard to be endured, and the struggle that you might never have been subject to it would have been just; but that slave who hath been once brought into subjection, and then runs away, is rather a refractory slave than a lover of liberty; for it was then the proper time for doing all that was possible, that you might never have admitted the Romans [into your city], when Pompey came first into the country. But so it was, that our ancestors ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... had got to work first, and along their side of the wall, Anselme, Jacobs, and Enderby, the butcher, slowly lit their three lamps, when, Ringfield, busy over a refractory wick and just in the act of applying a match, in turning his head, saw directly beneath him the basket-chair and its occupant as well as the young woman in charge ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... with the rose, which proved quite refractory, but it was clear that she thought nothing of the sort. It would be altogether delightful, she said; and as for care—why, she had been longing for something to take her mind off missing the ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... next morning and after getting her father off to work as usual, she took the children into hand. First she scrubbed them assiduously, burnishing their brown faces until they shone again. Then she tussled with their refractory locks, and after that she dressed them out in all the bravery ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... exhibited, it would then probably appear that the majority of instances indicated a general rule of propriety and convenience, and this would immediately decide all doubtful cases, and these, when once recognized and established in educated practice, would win over many other words that are refractory in the absence of rule. What exceptions remained would be tabulated as definitely ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... mounted his camel, and ordering us to follow, moved on to the southward—to look out for a spot suitable for encamping, as we supposed. We marched on as directed; but Antonio, who showed an evident inclination to be refractory, was handed over to the keeping of some of Sheikh Hamed's followers. In a short time we reached a spot not far from the shore, which appeared to satisfy the requirements of the chief; and sticking his spear into the ground, he called ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... the burning forest. We might, we believed, escape with our lives, were we to leave the waggon and the cattle, but that was very far from Uncle Mark's thoughts. By voice and whip we urged on the oxen, and shouting, shrieking, and using our thick sticks, we endeavoured to drive forward our refractory charges. ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... he slept, where he ate, where he hid when the shutters of his shop in the Rue Borgognona were closed. He expected, on account of his past, and his secret manner, to be arrested at the time of the outrage of Passanante as one of the members of those Circoli Barsanti, to whom a refractory ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... that the wind had headed us, that all the sails were furled, and the ship poking her nose into a nasty sea. But this was a blind: the clerk of the weather was evidently meditating a stronger blow from the original direction, and had only gone on ahead to seek some of his refractory forces to give us the full benefit of the combination. All sail again, fast and furious we drove through it, and succeeded in knocking "seven and a bit" out of the old "Duke;" 'twould take something like ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... meetings and criticism—are found quite adequate to the maintenance of good order and government in the communities. Those who join the communities understanding their principles, and afterward prove refractory and inharmonic, and also those who come into the communities in childhood, and afterward develop characters antagonistic to the general spirit, and refuse to yield to the governmental agencies mentioned, either voluntarily withdraw or are expelled. Only one case of expulsion is, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... offices and endeavored usually to keep their favor.[211] Berkeley, more than any other governor, made use of this power over the Council to make its members submissive to his will. When vacancies occurred he took pains to appoint none whom he thought would be at all refractory.[212] Moreover, "he very often discountenanced and placed his frowns on such as he observed in the least to thrust or cross his humor, soe that if by chance he had at any time choice of a person of honor, or conscience, that durst like a noble patriot speake his mind freely ... such ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... not of the family? be we not a-supping with the head of the family? be we not in my lord's own refractory? Out from among us; thou art ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... and Uden, were improvised villages, with blocks of long community houses, separate dormitories for the unmarried men and for the single women, a dining-hall, a chapel, one or two schoolhouses, a recreation-hall, a house of detention for refractory persons, one hospital for general cases, and another for infectious diseases. It was all built of wood, simple and primitive, but as comfortable as could be expected under the conditions. The chief danger of the camps was idleness. In providing work to combat this peril the Rockefeller Foundation ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... amount of fifteen lac [150,000l. sterling], and for this reason many of the old chieftains with their troops, and the useful attendants of the court, were forced to leave it, and there is now only a few foot and horse for the collection of my revenues; and should the zemindars be refractory, there is not left a sufficient number to reduce them to obedience." And the said Nabob did therefore pray that the assignments for the new brigade, the corps of horse, and the other detached bodies of the Company's troops might not be required from him: alleging, "that the former was not only quite ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... with the sheikh and his vizier on an expedition against Mandara, the principal object of which was to replenish their coffers and slave-rooms, a secondary one to punish the prince of that small country, who, protected by its mountains, had behaved in a very refractory manner. The vizier treated the travellers with great courtesy, and desired them to ride by his side. The army, which was of considerable size, advanced in regular order. At first they amused themselves with hunting. One day a giraffe was caught. The vizier was attended by eight ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... and female prisons have Black Holes attached to them for the solitary confinement of the refractory. Dreadful places they look: small cells about ten feet by four, into which not a particle of light is admitted. Three thick doors, one within another, render it impossible for the prisoner inside to make ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... occupations; the workshop of a mind ever on the alert; evidences mixed up with memorandums for his will; an interesting discussion brought to an untimely end by the hiring of servants, the letting of fields, sending his boys to school, reproving the refractory members of an hospital; here a dedication, there one of his children's exercises—in another place a receipt for cheap soup. He would amuse his fire side by family anecdotes:—how one of his ancestors (and he was praised as a pattern of perseverance) separated two pounds ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... leathern-faced man, of incorruptible zeal and stately gravity, who held under his stern dominion a little flock of two hundred souls, and who, eking out a narrow parochial stipend by the week-day office of teaching, had gained large repute for his subjugation of refractory boys. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... parcel of the estate upon which they worked, an exception only being made in the case of gross misconduct. Many of the slave-owners, indeed, forbade all flogging upon their estates, and punished refractory slaves, in the first place, by the cutting off of the privileges they enjoyed in the way of holidays, and if this did not answer, threatened to sell them—a threat which was, in the vast majority of cases, quite ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... out of his hand, and they allowed him to approach without making any difficulty, but once harnessed they reared and could with difficulty be held in. However, it was not long before they submitted to this new service, for the onager, being less refractory than the zebra, is frequently put in harness in the mountainous regions of Southern Africa, and it has even been acclimatized in Europe, under zones ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... consequential personage, and ovoid in appearance. Thin legs broadened out to very wide hips, and from the hips he curved in again to a bald and shiny head, which in its turn curved inwards to a high, narrow crown. Lady Splay casting a look of appeal towards her refractory young guests hurried ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... deal with," he said, "But if it is not accompanied by self-will or obstinacy—(and boys of your age are apt to be self-willed and obstinate)—then much can be done. The Church has infinite patience even with refractory sinners." ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... met in the way. There were obstinate men who would not be convinced. But a common interest compelled them to agree in the end, without invoking the help of armies against the refractory members. ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... as Pliny's day, the European holly had all manner of supernatural qualities attributed to it: its insignificant little flowers caused water to freeze, he tells us; because it was believed to repel lightning, the Romans planted it near their houses; and a branch of it thrown after any refractory animal, even if it did not hit him, would subdue him instantly, and cause him to lie down meekly beside the stick! Can it be that the Italian peasants, who still believe cattle kneel in their stalls at midnight on the anniversary of Jesus' birth, decorate ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... no fear whatever for Benjie; for the blackguard vermin, though he could not manage the refractory horse, stuck on his seat like a monkey. Solomon and Benjie scrambled through the ford with little inconvenience, and resumed their gallop on the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... utterly powerless there, that the House only required to be a little cajoled, and was easily led; the word Reform was still potent there, and had only to be uttered on occasions to bring the majority round when they began to show a refractory disposition. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... Bethlehem Hospitals, but it is supported out of the funds of the hospital. The entrance is in Bridge Street, Blackfriars. The prisoners confined here are persons summarily convicted by the Lord Mayor and aldermen, and are, for the most part, petty pilferers, misdemeanants, vagrants, and refractory apprentices, sentenced to solitary confinement; which term need not terrify the said refractory offenders, for the persons condemned to solitude," says the writer, "can with ease keep up a conversation with each other from morning ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... faithful Prince of Moscow returned with a new state added to his territory and a new title to his name! Was he not always ready, not only to obey himself, but to enforce the obedience of others? Did he not stand ready to march against Novgorod, or any proud, refractory state which failed in tribute or homage to his master the Khan? No gloomier, no darker chapter is written in history than that which records the transition of Russia into Muscovy. It was rooted in a tragedy, it was nourished by human blood at every step of its growth. It was by base servility ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... put us again in movement. Forward! Come, get up! Come on, march! Subdue your refractory flesh; lift yourselves from your slumber as from a coffin, begin yourselves again without ceasing, give all that you can give—Forward! Forward! It has to be. It is a higher concern than yours, a law from above. We do not know what it is. We only know the step we make; and even by day one ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... object in doing this was, besides saving distance, to afford assistance, if required, to Captain Outram, who had preceded us by about a week, and was gone with some of the Shah's force into the Ghiljee country, and was employed in destroying the forts, &c., of some of the refractory Ghiljee chiefs. He captured one fort in which were found forty or fifty fellows who were identified as being the same men who had murdered so many camp followers and some of our officers during our march through the country. ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... purpose he summoned, with the authority of a minister of war, all persons capable of bearing arms up to forty years of age to take active service, and despatched them into the field; he imposed war-taxes, and terrified the tardy and refractory with threats of punishment. Every force was put in motion; all France was transformed ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... our Lady, and Monseigneur Saint Martin, and Monseigneur Saint Julian, be praised every one of them!" said the King, "and all laud and honour to the learned Galeotti; who read in the stars that this youth's destiny was connected with mine! If the maiden be so attached to him as to make her refractory to the will of Burgundy, this Quentin hath indeed ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... wire tied in even weights to each end of sticks which they laid on the shoulder; then helter-skelter came the Wanguana, carrying carbines in their hands, and boxes, bundles, tents, cooking-pots—all the miscellaneous property—on their heads; next the Hottentots, dragging the refractory mules laden with ammunition-boxes, but very lightly, to save the animals for the future; and, finally, Sheikh Said and the Beluch escort; while the goats, sick women, and stragglers, brought up the rear. From ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... we called upon them too often, in which event we could depend upon it that they would get more efficient trusties to take our places. But we did not call upon them often, except in a quiet sort of way, when we wanted a cell unlocked in order to get at a refractory prisoner inside. In such cases all the guard did was to unlock the door and walk away so as not to be a witness of what happened when half a dozen hall-men went inside and did a bit ...
— The Road • Jack London
... first Addison and I had had little idea that the old Squire would whip the boys. It was never easy to induce him to whip even a refractory horse or ox. Now he took the paper, read their names, then folded it and ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... pulled his hair, she tore his fur, she bit his fingers; but the valiant Metak held manfully to his purpose, and would not let her go. He reached the sledge, and put her on it; he tied her there, and, springing on himself, he whipped up his dogs, and started for his home. But the refractory damsel would not stay tied. She cut the lashings with her teeth, she seized the whip out of Metak's hands, she pushed Metak off the sledge, and sent him sprawling on the snow; and then she wheeled the dogs ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... declared that "the Council and Judges had all conspired to trample underfoot the liberties of the subject." Gentlemen, the fact was as notorious as the advance of the Slave Power now is in America. But a few days after the king (Charles I.) had dismissed his refractory Parliament, Eliot, with Hollis, Long, Selden, Strode, and Valentine, most eminent members of the commons, and zealous for liberty and law, was seized by the king's command and thrown into prison. The Habeas Corpus was demanded—it ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... made many important discoveries. Dr. Hare invented instruments of such great power as well to deserve the names of calorimeter and deflagrator. The most refractory substances yielded to the action of the deflagrator, melting like wax before a common fire. Even charcoal was supposed to be fused in the experiments of Hare and Silliman, and the visionary speculated on the possibility of black as well as white diamonds. Draper, by his most ingenious galvanic ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... cultivated, a very small quantity is ornamented with flowers, and a still smaller is sown. They seldom yoke less than four oxen to their ploughs; the driver walks before, but backwards, and when he falls down, is frequently exposed to danger from the refractory oxen. Instead of small sickles in mowing, they make use of a moderate-sized piece of iron formed like a knife, with two pieces of wood fixed loosely and flexibly to the head, which they think a more expeditious instrument; ...
— The Description of Wales • Geraldus Cambrensis
... Christmas," announced Teddy Grant exultantly, as he sat on the floor struggling manfully with a refractory bootlace that was knotted and tagless and stubbornly refused to go into the eyelets of Teddy's patched boots. "Ain't ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... I realized how delicate his task really had been, and how well he had performed it. It had been to settle this matter and to rearrange our copper plans that he had summoned me to New York, and if I had proved refractory I can see he would have been badly snagged in his negotiations with the Lewisohns. If there had been a trace of dissension in our camp, that firm would never have surrendered their great business on such terms ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... style bordering on rebellion, the proceedings were of a character which bore unjustifiably severe on his recusant subjects. Instances have been known where keel-hauling has been resorted to as an exemplary punishment for a refractory individual. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... The detail of the horrors committed in La Vendee and at Nantes were not at this time fully known. Carrier had, however, acknowledged, in a report read to the Convention, that a boat-load of refractory priests had been drowned, and children of twelve years old condemned by a military commission! One Fabre Marat, a republican General, wrote, about the same period, I think from Angers, that the Guillotine was too ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... useful; his cleverness in upsetting the plot against Dorn and turning all to his advantage demonstrated that. Therefore, Hull should be elected and passed up higher. It did not enter his calculations that Hull might prove refractory, might really be all that he professed; he had talked with Davy, and while he had underestimated his intelligence, he knew he had not misjudged his character. He knew that it was as easy to "deal" with the Hull stripe of honest, high ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... is troubling you in connection with me? Have you had me on your conscience more than usual recently? Can't you ever get over your unattractive habit of treating me as if I were a refractory pupil and you an offended schoolmarm? In spite of being born in New England, there is no reason to affect this pose, as it is unnecessary ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... true that thoroughly good conversation is impossible where there is too much talk. Some sort of order must be imperceptibly if not unconsciously maintained, or the sentences clash in general conversation. Leading conversation is the adroit speech which checks the refractory conversationalist and changes imperceptibly the subject when it is sufficiently threshed or grows over-heated; it is guiding the talk without palpable break into fresh fields of thought; it is the tact with which, unperceived, the too slow narration of a guest is hurried by such courteous ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... is quite at her ease in full dress; nothing inconveniences her. You will never see her, like the woman of the citizen class, pulling up a refractory shoulder-strap, or pushing down a rebellious whalebone, or looking whether her tucker is doing its office of faithful guardian to two treasures of dazzling whiteness, or glancing in the mirrors to see if her head-dress is keeping its ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... the refractory beast, a youthful Irishman, yelled back; "I can't! This here's been a cab-horse, and he won't start till he hears the door shut, an' I ain't got ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... election tribunal, apportion and assess the taxes. "No duty is more onerous;"[5216] everybody, through patronage or favor, tries to get rid of it. The communities are constantly pleading against the refractory, and, that nobody may escape under the pretext of ignorance, the table of future collectors is made up for ten and fifteen years in advance. In parishes of the second class these consist of "small proprietors, each of whom becomes a collector about every six ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... hostelry, and one of those houses of the road in which the traveler is lucky if he finds the bedrooms all occupied; for then he may, without giving offense, sleep more comfortably in the hayloft. Here, night and day, the clink of bells and the gruff admonition of refractory mules told of travel, and the constant come and go of strange, wild-looking men from the remoter corners of Aragon, far up by the foothills of the Pyrenees. The huge two-wheeled carts drawn by six, eight or ten mules, came lumbering ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... Rear-Admiral of Lord Sandwich's squadron of the English fleet. In a letter from Sir William Coventry to Secretary Bennet, dated November 13th, 1664, we read, "Rear Admiral Teddeman with four or five ships has gone to course in the Channel, and if he meet any refractory Dutchmen will teach them their duty" ("Calendar of State Papers," Domestic, 1664.-65, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... at his watch; he could just see the figures—it was ten minutes to six. Mounting again to the summit, he looked round. Yes, there she was, making her way up the hill, painfully struggling with refractory cloak and skirt. A moment later she joined him and gave him ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... the usual arrangement in such case. Ottmachau Town belongs to the Right Reverend von Sinzendorf, Bishop of Breslau, and Primate; whose especial Palace is in Neisse; though he "commonly sends his refractory Priests to do their penance in the Schloss at Ottmachau here,"—and, I should say, had better himself make terms, and come out hitherward, under ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... turnspit to this disagreeable duty. When the cook had prepared the meat for roasting, he found that the dog which should have wrought the spit had disappeared. He attempted to employ another, but it bit his leg and fled. Soon after, however, the refractory dog entered the kitchen, driving before him the truant turnspit, which immediately, of its own accord, went into the wheel. A company of turnspits were assembled in the Abbey Church of Bath, where they remained very quietly. At ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... commands for a certain space, the sorceress exclaimed, "Deevil, that neither I nor they ever stir from this spot more!" The words were hardly uttered, when, by a metamorphosis as sudden as any in Ovid, the hag and her refractory flock were converted into stone, the angel whom she served, being a strict formalist, grasping eagerly at an opportunity of completing the ruin of her body and soul by a literal obedience to her orders. ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... advice. The parent birds, however, had not a little to do, for by this time they had hatched a second brood, and, just now, these last required their constant attention, although they hoped that by the end of the month their young ones would be able to fly a little. This brood had proved more refractory than the first one, and they were continually getting into trouble and mischief. One of them tumbled into a pool of water, and was as nearly as possible drowned; another was pursued by a cat and had his leg very much hurt; while a third, alas! a poor little fellow, tumbled right out ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... if she rather expected the pictures to fall from the walls at the bare idea. In this survey she perceived that one picture hung slightly askew. She sighed, and made a motion to rise; but Hildegarde flew to straighten the refractory frame, and then ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... circumstances, the task of the men to whose lot it fell to lead the American forces was such as to tax to the utmost not only their military skill, but their ability to control, inspire, and persuade the most refractory and unreliable of material. When to this were added the facts that the colonies were almost wholly lacking in manufactures except of the most rudimentary sort, that they had little capital except in the form of land, buildings, vessels, and crops, and that whatever revenue they had been in the ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... He had one outdoor knack—that of lighting matches in a wind and inducing refractory wood to burn. His skill had often been called into requisition in the igniting of beach fires, and the so-called "camp fires" of girls. He collected dry twigs from the sunny places, cut slivers with his knife, built over the whole a wigwam-shaped pyramid of heavier twigs, against which ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... lamp-post, and tendering to a remarkably select company little, blue, delft cups of bohea, filled from time to time from a prodigious kettle, that simmers unceasingly on its charcoal tripod, though the refractory cad often protests that the fuel fails before the boiling stage is consummated by an ebullition. Hither approaches perhaps an interesting youth from Magherastaphena, who, ere night-fall, is destined to figure in some police-office as a "juvenile ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... Athelred, on the other hand, presents you with the spectacle of a sincere and somewhat slow nature thinking aloud. He is the most unready man I ever knew to shine in conversation. You may see him sometimes wrestle with a refractory jest for a minute or two together, and perhaps fail to throw it in the end. And there is something singularly engaging, often instructive, in the simplicity with which he thus exposes the process as well as the result, the works as well as the dial of the clock. Withal he has his hours ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... strayed beasts. Six wagons made the rear-guard. All the men were armed with stockwhips, the handles of which are eighteen inches long, and the lash nine feet, and they move about among the ranks, bringing refractory animals back into order, while the dogs, the light cavalry of the regiment, preserved discipline in ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... do not appear at the outcry, what is the condition of those assemblies who offer, by themselves or their agents, to tax themselves up to your ideas of their proportion? The refractory colonies, who refuse all composition, will remain taxed only to your old impositions, which, however grievous in principle, are trifling as to production. The obedient colonies in this scheme are heavily taxed; the refractory remain unburdened. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... planet, and its motion was considered thoroughly known. For a time Uranus seemed to travel regularly, and as expected, in the orbit which had been calculated for it; but early in the present century it began to be slightly refractory, and by 1820 its actual place showed quite a distinct discrepancy from its position as calculated with the aid of the old observations. It was thought at first that this discrepancy must be due to inaccuracies in the older observations, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... as the bullet from the rebel's musket did not come his way, Tom was satisfied with his acting, and hopeful for the future. The man on the shore, full of sympathy for the distressed and exhausted voyager, walked and ran so as to keep up with the refractory barge, which seemed to be spitefully hurling its agonized passenger into the Federal lines, where death and dungeons lurked at ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... effective young officer. So far he had not been placed in a position of great responsibility; for although for the last two years he had been in charge of a district, it was not far from Sydney, and his duties consisted principally in hunting for convicts who had made their escape, in looking after refractory ticket-of-leave men, and in ordinary constabulary work. He had learned in that time to become a first-rate rider, and a good shot with a pistol, accomplishments which would be of vital service when he was ordered to an up-country station. ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... Congressional election of 1906. Early in the year the Executive Council urged affiliated unions to use their influence to prevent the nomination in party primaries or conventions of candidates for Congress who refused to endorse labor's demands, and where both parties nominated refractory candidates to run independent labor candidates. The labor campaign was placed in the hands of a Labor Representation Committee, which made use of press publicity and other standard means. Trade union speakers were sent into the districts of the most conspicuous enemies of labor's ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... close at hand. But when did hot youth behave with thought in a like case? I did as ninety-nine in a hundred would do. I took off my coat, kicked off my shoes, and as the voice cried, "Oh, please, do not trouble," plunged into the water. The refractory boat, once on its way, was in no great hurry, and allowed itself to be overtaken with great good-humour. I clambered in over the stern, caught up the sculls which lay across the thwarts, and, dripping but triumphant, brought ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... seemed a delightful and natural thing for him to be running along to meet him. From a trot he soon subsided into a walk. It was a hot day, the road was dusty, and few vehicles passed him. At length he paused to rest, and it was at this juncture that some drovers, taking some refractory cattle to market, came along ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... had been just before a pattern of obedience, when the despoiling, oppressing, imprisoning, and persecuting this man was the object, yet, when the order was of a beneficial nature, and pleasant to a well-formed mind, he at once loses all his old principles, he grows stubborn and refractory, and refuses obedience. And in this sullen, uncomplying mood he continues, until, to gratify Mr. Francis, in an agreement on some of their differences, he consented to his proposition of obedience to the appointment of the Court of Directors. He grants to his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke |
