"Obstreperous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reflection occupied his time for another mile, and then suddenly Bill stumbled, his head went down and his heels flew up, he seemed to stand on his neck for an instant, and then became a kicking, obstreperous heap of horse and harness ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... at length came to a crisis that put them beyond sport. George, in flying backward to gain the point at which the ball was going to light, came inadvertently so rudely in contact with this obstreperous interloper that lie not only overthrew him, but also got a grievous fall over his legs; and, as he arose, the other made a spurn at him with his foot, which, if it had hit to its aim, would undoubtedly have finished the course of the young laird of Dalcastle and Balgrennan. ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... about church singing from notes, whereupon the president sent a deacon to fetch his book, and the latter sang for us an anthem, the vociferation and screechings of which was so alarming, not to mention the nasal twang, that my niece had to run away to indulge in an obstreperous laugh, and her senior companion had also much difficulty in refraining from the same kind of expression of opinion. The Oriental system of church musical notation is very complicated, having no stave-lines or bars, but only certain arbitrary marks over the notes to designate ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... of the colleges was abundant; the authority of the Heads was unquestioned in their own colleges; not only undergraduates, but Fellows also had to be submissive. No junior Fellow would then have dared to oppose his Head at college meetings. If there was by chance an obstreperous junior, he was easily silenced or requested to retire. The days had not yet come when a Master of Trinity ventured to remark that even a junior Fellow might possibly be mistaken. Colleges seemed to be the ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... consul at St. Kentigorn felt much relieved. He had feared it was only the old story of delusive quests for imaginary estates and impossible inheritances which he had confronted so often in nervous wan-eyed enthusiasts and obstreperous claimants from his own land. Certainly there was no suggestion of this in the richly dressed and be-diamonded matron before him, nor in her pretty daughter, charming in a Paris frock, alive with the consciousness of beauty and admiration, and yet a little ennuye from ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... These two shots had taken effect, and he was now in my power, but I would not lay him low so far from camp; so having waited until he had regained his breath I drove him half way back toward the wagons. Here he became obstreperous; so loading one barrel, and pointing my rifle toward the clouds, I shot him in the throat, when, rearing high, ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... of our party from Durracombe, who were trying to keep up one another's spirits behind the scenes. The audience, owing to long sitting still, was growing a little obstreperous. The chairman had to keep constantly ringing a bell and reminding people to be quiet. The noise at the back waxed so violent that his voice could hardly be heard, and the occupants of the front seats had to turn round and shout, 'Order!' 'You'll ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... procurator, as I look back on that deadly winter, seems to have accepted all my peculiarities without question. If I would remain content and quell obstreperous beasts when spring opened as I had until autumn ushered in winter, I might do and be anything I pleased. If I pleased to mope in my quarters, pace under the arcades of the courtyard, lie abed from early dusk till ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... of every village in the vicinity. As for tobacco, the air is like a gust from some gigantic pipe. Here is the entrance to Franconi's Circus, though not yet open for public entertainment. Blasts of obstreperous music rush upon you from every door; the shrill squealing of a flageolet being ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... mingles with the preacher's drowsy tones, and sometimes the congregation is startled from repose by the shrill squeal of some unlucky brute, complaining of the torture inflicted by the sharp teeth of its ill-natured mate or vicious neighbor; or, perhaps, the flutter of fans is suspended at the obstreperous neigh by which some anxious dam recalls the silly foal that has strayed from her side; or the dissonant creaking of a cramped wheel makes doleful interludes between the verses of the hymn. Here naughty boys, escaped from the confinement of the sanctuary, are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the while she kept right on renovating the Little Girl's personal appearance, smoothing a wrinkled stocking, tucking up obstreperous white ruffles, tugging down parsimonious purple hems, loosening a pinchy hook, tightening a wobbly button. Very slowly, very complacently the Little Girl drowsed off to sleep with her weazened little iron-cased legs stretched ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... sign on the Arab's face, this dweller of the desert, whose forefathers in wonderment had watched the ways of wisdom with which Solomon in all his glory had ruled more than one fair and obstreperous woman ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... mingle much with his colleagues. But as no one is wholly consistent, Mr. Mungold had lately belied his ambitions by falling in love with Kate Arran; and with that gentle persistency which made him so wonderful in managing obstreperous infantile sitters, he had contrived to establish a precarious footing ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... here and there a lofty pine on the mountain sides. All the summer birds had gone already; but a few red-headed woodpeckers were still tapping decayed tree trunks; and numerous jays made the woodland resound to their varied outcries, first shrill and obstreperous, then plaintive. Far up a hillside of poplar, a horde of crows were clamoring over ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... bell clanged out. That was a signal for booths to shut, for deerhide curtains to be drawn. Some obstreperous soldiers were marched to the guardhouse. Some drunken revelers crept into a nook beside a storage box or hid in a tangle of vines to sleep ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... all of you, all the people of your sort,"—pursued the obstreperous Mikhalevitch:—"are erudite triflers. You know on what foot the German limps, you know what is bad about the English and the French,—and your knowledge comes to your assistance, justifies your shameful laziness, your disgusting inactivity. Some men will even pride themselves, and say, 'What a clever ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... Stewart. The latter did not appear for a length of time to have visited the light-room. On asking the cause—did Mr. Watt and him (sic) disagree; he said no; but he had got very bad usage from the assistant, "who was a very obstreperous man." I could not bring Mr. Watt to put in language his objections to Miller; all I could get was that, he being your friend, and saying he was unwell, he did not like to complain or to push the man; that the man seemed to have no liking to anything like work; that he was unruly; ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Twentieth Century Science, Dawning at the end of the Nineteenth; Comparative Speed of Light and Electricity; Wonderful Photography; Wooden Cloth; The Phylloxera; Falling Rents; Boston Civilization; Psychic Blundering; Beecher's Mediumship; A Scientific Cataract; Obstreperous and Pragmatic Vulgarity; Hygiene; Quinine; Life and Death; Dorothea L. Dix; The Drift of Catholicism, Juggernaut The Principal Methods of Studying the Brain Responses of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... sent him to his Council a different person altogether, one whom his ministers were finding it difficult to recognize and still more difficult to reconcile to their plans. Only when the effects had died down towards the end of each day did the King become himself again. Obstreperous till noon, he would then quiet down by degrees till, at six o'clock, his spirits had reached a strange nadir of depression. Had Brasshay only caught him then, in that period of reaction, he would have found ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... became a Mecca for the most irrepressible and loquacious characters in the ward. But I soon schooled myself to shut my ears to the incoherent prattle of my unwelcome visitors. Occasionally, some of them would become obstreperous—perhaps because of my lordly order to leave the room. Often did they threaten to throttle me; but I ignored the threats, and they were never carried out. Nor was I afraid that they would be. Invariably I induced them ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... fact that the infant (whose programmes were always somehow arranged in advance, and were in his mind absolutely unalterable) could spell the most obstreperous words. Quite conceivably he could spell better than his father, who still showed an occasional tendency to write "separate" with three "e's" and ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... measured not less than a quarter of a mile. The boys raced ahead in the frolic fashion of human colts, yelling, leaping and throwing stones. Slowly the matron and her escort followed, far in the wake of the obstreperous juveniles. ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... impression," he said, in the heavy way almost invariably affected by weak masters in their dealings with the obstreperous, "I was distinctly under the impression that I had ordered you to retire immediately to your dormitory. It is possible that you mistook my meaning. In that case I shall be happy to repeat what I said. It is also in my mind that I threatened ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... he became unduly interested in questions of dogma. He talked too freely; he was always arguing. Being unable to read or write, he developed an astonishing memory for things he had heard and faces he had seen; he brought them up at inconvenient moments. He grew factious, obstreperous, declaring that there was much in the constitution of the Holy Russian Church which ought to be amended and brought up to date. What people wanted, he said, was a New Jerusalem. A violent altercation with his Superior touching the attributes ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... with my whole world-wide wandering, What with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope 20 Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope With that obstreperous joy success would bring, I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring My heart made, finding failure in ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... Bull is obstreperous, go to the coffee-house and call for your glass. It is an excellent cure for her complaint, and you will get the latest news retailed in the most engaging manner, with the pleasure of knowing she is biting her lips ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... rubicund complexion and fully developed nose. Here, too, is Thomas's cousin, Adam Rutledge, fresh from an adventure at Carlisle, where he has tasted the luxury of Doomsdale, a noisome dungeon reserved for witches and murderers, but sometimes tenanted by obstreperous drunkards. Of a more reputable class here is Job Leathes, of Dale Head, a tall, gaunt dalesman, with pale gray eyes. Here is Luke Cockrigg, too, of Aboonbeck Bank; and stout John Jackson, of Armboth, a large and living refutation of the popular ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... alternation. Miss Josephine was very much concerned about Mr. Turner's accident, very happy to know how lucky he had been to come off without a scratch, except for the tear in his coat, and very solicitous indeed about any further handling of the obstreperous gray team; and, forgiving him readily under the circumstances, she renewed her engagement to drive with him the ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... younger brother of his own who lived at Blois, the hornpipes of Buzansay, for the organ pipes, through the mistake of one word for another, even so, whilst you think to marry a wise, humble, calm, discreet, and honest wife, you shall unhappily stumble upon one witless, proud, loud, obstreperous, bawling, clamorous, and more unpleasant than any Buzansay hornpipe. Consider withal how he flirted you on the nose with the bladder, and gave you a sound thumping blow with his fist upon the ridge of the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... whether thou appearest in the shape of a cigar, or diest away in sweet perfume enshrined in the meerschaum bowl; I love thee with more than woman's love! Thou art a companion to me in solitude. I can talk and reason with thee, avoiding loud and obstreperous argument. Thou art a friend to me when in trouble, for thou advisest in silence, and consolest with thy calm influence over the ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... since Jill Carden, the English girl, had first tried her 'prentice hand upon the obstreperous camel. She had ridden out into the desert under the stars with her desert lover; she had, strong in a great love, fearlessly climbed the high wall of racial distinction crowned with the spikes of custom and convention; she had watched the seed of happiness ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... non-Catholic Churches offers us abundant and forcible illustrations. From the very first the One True Church has not only taught, but ruled; not only spoken, but acted. And when any of her subjects have proved obstreperous and disobedient, and stubborn in their resistance to her orders, she has invariably turned them out of her fold, so that they should not infect and contaminate the good and the loyal. It was in this sense that St. Paul, the inspired Apostle, in the very first century of the Christian era, instructed ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... of these times, ladies and gentlemen, brings to the fore the most pushing and obstreperous blackguards. We have amongst us persons who, under the thin disguise of patriotism, do not scruple to bring hideous charges against public men. Such but serve the blood-stained cause of our common enemies. Conscious of the purity of our private lives, we do not care what is said ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... wife, Jim Shirley, and his shepherd dog, Pilot. Jim and I have done several things together besides that. We were boys together back in Cloverdale. We went to the war together to fight you obstreperous Rebels." There was a twinkle in Asher's ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... unimpeachable female whom I shall place in that"—here he brought down his palm with a mighty slap on the desk, and added, after a moment's pause, "Box before you." It was that preceding of the stroke that told. So real was it, one fancied oneself listening to some obstreperous counsel. In all true acting—notably on the French boards—the gesture should a little precede the utterance. So the serjeant ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... and fascinating heroine. She was destined, alas! to but a short enjoyment of her little rule, but she gained all hearts and sympathies by her very taking ways. Among others the redoubtable John Forster professed to be completely "captured," and was her most obstreperous slave. He, too, was to have been of the party, but was prevented by one of his troublesome chest attacks. Scarcely had Boz entered when he drew out a letter, I see him now standing at the fire, a twinkle ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... the most votes. He thus adroitly informed these thirsty men of his readiness and his ability to furnish them with all the liquor they might need. Strange as his speech seems to us, it was adapted to the occasion, and was received with roars of laughter and obstreperous applause. ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... preceptor—lives and dies, having no desire to do anything that somebody has not done before! Is it any wonder that such a man as W. C. Brann should fall a victim to such a populace? He was hounded to his death—mobbed, spat upon, shot and murdered, by several thousand pin-headed obstreperous patrons and followers of a little pee-wee college, that turns young ladies out enceinte almost yearly and hires its professors for less salaries than a railroad ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... over the footlights. It was a part of the impression that she was now only showing to the full, for this time she had verse to deal with and she made it unexpectedly exquisite. She was beauty, melody, truth; she was passion and persuasion and tenderness. She caught up the obstreperous play in soothing, entwining arms and, seeming to tread the air in the flutter of her robe, carried it into the high places of poetry, of art, of style. And she had such tones of nature, such concealments of art, such effusions of life, that the whole scene glowed with the colour she communicated, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... when the first civilities are over, they usually talk to one another, and I am left alone in the midst of the company. Though I cannot drink myself, I am obliged to encourage the circulation of the glass; their mirth grows more turbulent and obstreperous; and before their merriment is at an end, I am sick with disgust, and, perhaps, reproached with my sobriety, or by some sly insinuations insulted as ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... house plan would be quite likely to subdue a certain obstreperous individual. We have already invited her to a moonlight party at Hunter's Rock, as you know. Once she is there we will see to the rest. Sorry you can't be with us, but that would give the whole plan away. A little meditation in spookland will do our friend good, ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... For we must remember that it is the nature of vice to force itself upon notice, both in the act and by its consequences. Drunkenness, cruelty, brutal manners, sensuality and impiety, thoughtless prodigality and idleness, are obstreperous while they are in the height and heyday of their enjoyment; and when that is passed away, long and obtrusive is the train of misery which they draw after them. But on the contrary, the virtues, especially those of humble life, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... surrounded on the inside by a raised platform, covered with mats or cushions, on which the Turks sit cross-legged. On one side are musicians, generally Greeks, with mandolins and tambourines, accompanying singers, whose melody consists in vociferation; and the loud and obstreperous concert forms a strong contrast to the stillness and taciturnity of Turkish meetings. On the opposite side are men, generally of a respectable class, some of whom are found here every day, and all day long, dozing under the double influence ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... charges were safe and sound here, and I obtained a leave of absence for you for the remainder of the night," she finished. The very much perturbed matron had no idea of being left alone with a flock of obstreperous freshmen. ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... pony. They had at first suffered great amazement at the voluntary presence of the old lady, but she was there really because she knew no better. Her colossal ignorance took the form, mainly, of a most obstreperous patriotism, and indeed she always acted in a foreign country as if she were the special commissioner of the President, or perhaps as a special commissioner could not act at all. She was very aggressive, ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... was draggled, my hat had slipped back, and the kinks and curls of my obstreperous hair were something awful. I know I looked very disreputable and also, no doubt, very guilty and conscience-stricken. Aunt gave me an unutterable look and then followed me up to my room ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was short-lived. Vivian Holmes forced her way through the crowd, and, laying her hand on the shoulder of the obstreperous new-comer, told her to report herself at once in Miss Cavendish's study. The lookers-on scuttled away to their classes without being told; they were half-ashamed of having taken so much notice of a new girl. Lettice Talbot, turning round, caught a glimpse of Honor ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... in Red Hot Gulch, Colorado, where, under pressure, he had invested sundry pieces of lead in the persons of several obstreperous citizens and then had paced the zealous and excitable ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... for so long—so long! She felt happily running though everything the general, easy taking-for-granted of all the old, gentle, inflexible standards of breeding that she had nearly forgotten, down in the heart of the city among her obstreperous, affectionate little foreigners. ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... he says:—'I hope he has left me a legacy.' Mr. Croker, who is great at suspicions, ridiculously takes the mention of a legacy seriously, and suspects 'some personal disappointment at the bottom of this strange obstreperous and sour merriment.' He might as well accuse Falstaff of sourness in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of the shanty are many and grievous. The door and windows have quarrelled desperately with their settings. On windy nights we get no sleep, as every one is engaged trying to fasten and wedge them into noiseless security. The door developed a most obstreperous and noxious habit of being blown into the middle of the house during the night, with much hideous clatter and clamour. We stopped that at last by nailing it up altogether, and making a new entrance through the side of ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... of her mind with delight at being among all her old friends again; she flung her arms round the pretty little Snowflake, stroked the obstreperous Greenfinch, while she herself was thrust at from all sides by the affectionate and confiding goats; and so at last she got near to where Peter was still standing, not having ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... sublime theologian, an excellent jurisconsult, an able physician, a great philosopher, and a successful alchymist. The world, at last, took him at his word; and thought that a man who talked so big, must have some merit to recommend him — that it was, indeed, a great trumpet which sounded so obstreperous a blast. He was made secretary to the Emperor Maximilian, who conferred upon him the title of Chevalier, and gave him the honorary command of a regiment. He afterwards became Professor of Hebrew and the belles lettres, at the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... very steadily for two hours. Little was said; and our chief embarrassment lay in the yelpings of the dog, who took exceeding interest in our proceedings. He, at length, became so obstreperous that we grew fearful of his giving the alarm to some stragglers in the vicinity; or, rather, this was the apprehension of Legrand; for myself, I should have rejoiced at any interruption which might have enabled me to get the wanderer home. The noise was, at length, very effectually silenced ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... epithets, men interrupted the orator with cheers for the South. Speaking was like lifting up one's voice in the midst of a hurricane, or trying to speak while a typhoon was raging on the sea. For one hour the tumult raged. From time to time the police would succeed in carrying out some obstreperous individual but there were enough men scattered through the hall, each bellowing like a bull of Bashan, to make hearing impossible. To add to the tumult, from time to time, an Englishman would climb on his chair and shout, "I am ashamed of Liverpool and my country," and the ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... couldn't be kept for any length of time in the house without his knowing it. Young and Tess were hiding someone! At bed time he decided that the next day he would find out who was the other man in Young's house. It might give him a hold on his obstreperous brother-in-law and the ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... however, became too manifest; though he laid about him with incredible violence, he did it in such wrong places, that the audience soon discovered he was not their old friend the real trunkmaker. With the players the trunkmaker was naturally a favourite; they not only connived at his obstreperous approbation, but cheerfully repaid such damage as his blows occasioned. That he had saved many a play from condemnation, and brought fame to many a performer, was agreed upon all hands. The audience are described as looking abashed if they find themselves betrayed ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... violently under his blue guernsey, and he looked down at his broad chest with an odd expression of half-childish curiosity, fully expecting to see an outward and visible motion corresponding with the inward hammering. But he saw nothing. Solid ribs and solid muscles kept the obstreperous machine ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... the Germany of the 'eighties, which was kept by Bismarck from undue adventurousness. But when the Diet proved difficult to manage, they reverted to an earlier phase of Bismarck's career for an example to imitate. The Prussian Landtag (incredible as it may seem) was vigorously obstreperous at the time when Bismarck first rose to power, but he tamed it by glutting the nation with military glory in the wars against Austria and France. Similarly, in 1894, the Japanese Government embarked on war against China, and instantly secured the enthusiastic support of the hitherto ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... my! I'll have to kill that old goat. He's entirely too obstreperous. And did he chase ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... what is Divine) truly so called; as far, at least, as Humane Nature extends towards the Knowledge of Nature, by enlarging her Empire beyond the Land of Spectres, Forms, Intentional Species, Vacuum, Occult Qualities, and other Inadequate Notions; which, by their Obstreperous and Noisy Disputes, affrighting, and (till of late) deterring Men from adventuring on further Discoveries, confin'd them in a lazy Acquiescence, and to be fed with Fantasms and fruitless Speculations, which signifie nothing to the specifick Nature of Things, ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... Sohlberg, detectives were employed, the new affair with the flighty pupil was unearthed and sworn to by witnesses, and this, combined with the "lettahs" held by Rita, constituted ample material wherewith to "hush up" the musician if ever he became unduly obstreperous. So Cowperwood and ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... One or two obstreperous animals who objected to the game ran away with their riders and tried to brush them off on the apple trees. The contestants were all as hard as nails and could stand any amount of rough usage such as they received ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... office, one with a policy of drift, everything may become possible; but, so long as foresight and vigilance are shown, the Republic remains impregnable. If military malcontents become obstreperous it is only necessary to treat them ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... steadily for two hours. Little was said; and our chief embarrassment lay in the yelpings of the dog, who took exceeding interest in our proceedings. He at length became so obstreperous that we grew fearful of his giving alarm to some stragglers in the vicinity; or, rather, this was the apprehension of Legrand; for myself, I should have rejoiced at any interruption which might have enabled me to get the wanderer home. The noise was at length ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... 1st.—There having been a heavy rain yesterday, a nest of chimney-swallows was washed down the chimney into the fireplace of one of the front-rooms. My attention was drawn to them by a most obstreperous twittering; and looking behind the fire-board, there were three young birds, clinging with their feet against one of the jambs, looking at me, open-mouthed, and all clamoring together, so as quite to fill the room with the short, eager, frightened sound. The old birds, by certain signs upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... though she was careful to keep her face a blank, her mind was busy. Surely not since the gay women of Barras's court laughed at the megalomaniac ravings of a noisy, badly dressed, dirty young lieutenant named Buonaparte, had there been a vanity so candid, so voluble, so obstreperous. Nor did he talk of himself in a detached way, as if he were relating the performances and predicting the glory of a human being who happened to have the same name as himself. No, he thrust upon her in every sentence that he, he himself and none other, had said and done all these ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... strangers and ignorant persons of their own color, or low-down white men, who only wish to use them for their own advantage. I am very sorry for Eliab and the others, but I must say I think they have brought it all on themselves. I am told they have been mighty impudent and obstreperous, until really the people in the neighborhood did not feel safe, expecting every day that their houses or barns would be burned down, or their wives or daughters insulted, or perhaps worse, by the lazy, saucy crowd they had gathered about them. "Eliab ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... for my own part, generally speaking, little delight in the obstreperous clamours of these heroic pantomimes;—their battles are so noisy, and the acclamations of the spectators so distressing to weak nerves, I dread an Italian theatre—it distracts me.—And always the same thing so, every and every ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... as follows: There was an Insurgent regiment in and near a mangrove swamp to the right of this town. When it became obstreperous it was shelled for a short time until it quieted down again. None of the shells entered the town. Indeed, most of them struck in the water. Our troops did not enter Malabon that day, but passed to the northward, leaving behind a small guard to keep the Insurgents from ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... the men with them succeeded in beating them off. The fellows seemed utterly unafraid of the great beasts leaping and snarling about them, handling them much the same as one might handle a pack of obstreperous dogs. Along the bed of the old watercourse that once ran through the gorge they made their way, and as the first faint lightening of the eastern horizon presaged the coming dawn, they paused for a moment upon the edge of a declivity, ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... interruption. Besides the questions that broke in upon him from all quarters, the two Buzzbys junior scrambled, as far as was possible, into his pockets, pulled his whiskers as if they had been hoisting a main-sail therewith, and, generally, behaved in such an obstreperous manner as to render coherent discourse all but impracticable. He got through with it, however; and then Mrs. Buzzby intimated her wish, pretty strongly, that the neighbours should vacate the premises, which they did ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Night's Solemnity was opened by the Obstreperous Joy of Drummers, who, with their Parchment Thunder, gave a signal for the Appearance of the Mob under their several Classes and Denominations. They were quickly joined by the melodious Clank of Marrow-bone and Cleaver, whilst a Chorus of Bells ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... lie down, dogs!' and with an obstreperous bound, Fly flew to the new-comer, a young man in the robust strength of eight-and-twenty, of stalwart frame, very broad in the chest and shoulders, careless, homely, though perfectly gentleman-like bearing, and hale, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... beloved of you all. I seek her from afar, I come from temples where her altars are, From groves that bear her name, Noisy with stricken victims now and sacrificial flame, And cymbals struck on high and strident faces Obstreperous in her praise They neither love nor know, A goddess of gone days, Departed long ago, Abandoning the invaded shrines and fanes Of her old sanctuary, A deity obscure and legendary, Of whom there now remains, For sages to decipher and priests to garble, Only and for a little while ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... her more than twice—to come and live with him. And there at Holt she had, in her eccentric way, ever since superintended domestic arrangements and mothered his beautiful little girl and her only brother, by this time an obstreperous boy of fourteen, at Eton and ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... fight Mr. Cody is never noisy, obstreperous or excited. In fact, I never hardly noticed him in a fight, unless I happened to want him, or he had something to report, when he was always in the right place, and his information ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... the transportation of our baggage. We have to pass a very dangerous bar in getting to this place, where several boats have been wrecked; but we have fine large ones. From all accounts, the Ameers are now peaceably disposed, except one fellow, who, we hear, is inclined to be rather obstreperous; but I think the sight of our force will soon bring him to his senses. There are, however, a set of men who live on the mountain borders of Sinde, called Beloochees, the eastern inhabitants of Beloochistan, who are a robber, free-and-easy kind of people, who may give us some trouble ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... connive at his obstreperous Approbation, but very cheerfully repair at their own Cost whatever Damages he makes. They had once a Thought of erecting a kind of Wooden Anvil for his Use that should be made of a very sounding Plank, in order to ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... suit the French taste, which pronounced him "bizarre, incoherent, diffuse, bustling with rough modulations and wild harmonies, destitute of melody, forced in expression, noisy, and fearfully difficult," even as England at the same time frowned down his immortal works as "obstreperous roarings of modern frenzy." Berlioz's clear, stern voice would often be heard, when liberties were taken with the score, loud above the din of the instruments. "What wretch has dared to tamper with ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... we see her wobbling under conflicting cyclic impulses down to her final fall. For lack of another to take her place, she was still in many ways the foremost power; albeit here and there obstreperous satraps were always making trouble. When Lysander laid Athens low in 404, it was Persian financial backing enabled him to do it; but Cyrus might march in to her heart, and Xenophon out again, but two years later, and none to say them effectually ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... ear and eye of the philological Jakobsen, the Shetlanders both in speech and looks are remarkably like the Norwegians of the Saettersdal. In that part of Norway the trow is also a very popular terror. Children of a disobedient and obstreperous turn are afraid to venture near a wood at nightfall for fear of a little bogie with a red cap, who may suddenly slide down a pine-tree and snatch ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... be standing, dropped his lower jaw still lower than usual, and spread open his eyes to their fullest extent: while Hugh Tarpaulin, stooping down so as to bring his nose upon a level with the table, and spreading out a palm upon either knee, burst into a long, loud, and obstreperous roar of very ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... not addicted to express their feelings in that way, unless perhaps occasionally a few do so when they become sentimental with a larger amount of grog on board than usual, but even that is not very common. They are more inclined to become obstreperous and combative on ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... desire you may hear me in civilness; if not, we must handle that rod which was laid down for the use of the obstreperous.... Fathers, both you and the English are white; we live in a country between; therefore, the land belongs to neither one nor the other. The Great Being above allowed it to be a place of residence for us; so, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... buth up in a mistry' (like that of Charles James Fitzjames de la Pluche), out of regard for the character of his royal mamma. I believe this about as much as I believe that a certain Rev. Mr. Douglas, an obstreperous Covenanting minister, was a descendant of the captive Mary Stuart. However, Saint-Germain is said, like Kaspar Hauser, to have murmured of dim memories of his infancy, of diversions on magnificent terraces, and of palaces glowing beneath an ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... said the mother, giving now and then a kick, in a kind of general way, under the table, when the movement became too obstreperous. "Can't ye be decent when white folks comes to see ye? Stop dat ar, now, will ye? Better mind yerselves, or I'll take ye down a button-hole lower, when ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hear me in civilness; if not, we must handle that rod which was laid down for the use of obstreperous. If you had come in a peaceable manner, like our brothers, the English, we would not have been against your trading with us as they do; but to come, fathers, and build houses upon our land, and to take it by force, is what we ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... his face washed. Our host was a merry bachelor, and to the rosiness of a priest might, for aught I knew, have added the paternity; but I had never heard of it, and still less expected to find a child in his house. More obvious and obstreperous proofs, however, of the existence of a boy with a dirty face, could not have been met with. You heard the child crying and objecting; then the woman remonstrating; then the cries of the child snubbed and swallowed up in the hard towel; ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... their chief, upon which a message was sent to him; but he did not think fit to show himself for a considerable time, during which they remained with the party round the tub, who continued swilling their wine like so many hogs. Their heads soon became affected, and their obstreperous mirth increasing every minute, the situation of the strangers became ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... to employ force against the obstreperous deputies and their allies, the populace of Paris. This time it was planned to bring royal troops from the garrisons in Flanders. And on the night of 1 October, 1789, a supper was given by the officers of the bodyguard at Versailles in honor of the arriving soldiers. Toasts were drunk liberally ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... solicitation of the driver, he will unquestionably curse you." "The telegraph operator grabs your message and eyes you as if you were a pickpocket." Now, Mr. PUNCHINELLO does not offer himself as an apologist for the abusive and obstreperous hackman, but he wishes to say that in the course of his active and eventful career he has had various conferences with those servants of the sidewalk, and he has never yet been unquestionably cursed by any one of the whole bad lot. Only yesterday he had occasion ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... of Congress, in care of the Secretary of State, to be delivered. But Washington, whose patience had seemed inexhaustible, believed that the time had come to act boldly. By his instruction Jefferson returned the communication to Genet with a note in which he curtly reminded the obstreperous Frenchman of a diplomat's proper behavior. As the American Government had already requested the French to recall Genet, his amazing inflation collapsed like a pricked bladder. He was too wary, however, to return to France which he had served so devotedly. He preferred to remain ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... murmurous May-day is half gone, The watchful lark before my feet takes flight, And wheeling to some lonelier field far on, Drops with obstreperous cry; and here at night, When the first star precedes the great red moon, The shore-lark tinkles from the darkening field, Somewhere, we know not, in the dusk concealed, His ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... from the enemy with fairly good grace, but this enormity was too much. Brimfield was peeved! More than that, she was really angry! And, being angry, she forgot that for twenty minutes she had been outplayed and started in then and there to administer a licking to the obstreperous small boy. ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... was just on the point of entering the house, with my heart full of filial piety and a contrite speech upon my lips, when I heard a burst of obstreperous laughter from my father, and a loud titter from ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... the Fleur-de-Lis the party of gentlemen returned to the Taverne de Menut a good deal more unsteady and more obstreperous than when they came. They left Master Pothier seated in his chair, drunk as Bacchus, and every one of the rest of his companions blind ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... we'll land in a town of this size," declared Roy indignantly, as he helped the constables shove back an obstreperous individual who insisted on examining ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... thriving-looking place, and dinner was served while we were quiescent at the wharf. The stewardess hunted up all the females in the ship, and, preceding them down stairs, placed them at the head of the table; then, and not an instant before, were the gentlemen allowed to appear, who made a most obstreperous rush at the viands. There were about 200 people seated in a fetid and dimly-lighted apartment, at a table covered over with odoriferous viands— pork stuffed with onions, boiled legs of mutton, boiled chickens and turkeys, roast geese, beef-steaks, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... me give you this advice, For I am one of letters: Leave off your rude, obstreperous way, When you are with your betters. And think yourself well off," he said, "That I had mercy on you; For many would have sent you home Without a dress ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... at the entrance of the studio, assumed an arrogant air of swaggering gallantry, such as he used to have in his youth in Rome, free and obstreperous. ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... vibrated. As a rule Agg, the female Cerberus of the shanty, answered any summons from outside; but George hoped that to-night she would be absent; he knew by experience that on Sunday nights she usually paid a visit to her obstreperous family in Alexandra Grove. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... smart in red lavalavas and white drill coats, and being all of them of the obstreperous, no-good class like Peter, they were soon the terror of the island. Not that Mr. Clemm didn't keep them tight in hand, but when it came to an order of court or any backwardness in taxes he never seemed to care much whom they plundered ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... Goodfellow. In Iceland Puki is regarded as an evil sprite; and in the language of that country, 'at pukra' means both to make a murmuring noise and to steal clandestinely. The names of these spirits seem to have originated in their boisterous temper—'spuken,' Germ. to make a noise: 'spog,' Dan. obstreperous mirth; 'pukke,' Dan. to boast, scold. The Germans use 'pochin' in the same figurative sense, though literally it means to strike, beat; and is ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... tall as the old Gineral himself," said Abram, "but a purty near to it. This gun is 'bout seven feet, an' yer gran'ther was seven feet two—a powerful built man. Wall, the Injuns had been mighty obstreperous 'long 'bout that time, burnin' the Widder Brown's house and her an' her baby a-hidin' in a holler tree near by, an' carryin' off critters an' bosses, an' that day yer gran'ther was after 'em with a posse o' men, an' what did that pesky Injun do but git up on a rock a quarter o' a ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... Maternal Money Pecuniary Mixture Promiscuous, miscellaneous Moon Lunar, sublunary Mouth Oral Marrow Medulary Mind Mental Man Virile, male, human, masculine Milk Lacteal Meal Ferinaceous Nose Nasal Navel Umbilical Night Nocturnal, equinoctial Noise Obstreperous One First Parish Parochial People Popular, populous, public, epidemical, endemical Point Punctual Pride Superb, haughty Plenty Copious Pitch Bituminous Priest Sacerdotal Rival Emulous Root Radical Ring Annular Reason Rational Revenge Vindictive ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... sort of a missionary at all. On the contrary, he was a very human, high-spirited, likeable fellow of the type that at home would be a Scout Master or in France would have made good as a welfare worker with the A. E. F. Once, when a particularly obstreperous youngster drew an over-draft on his stock of patience, he endorsed his disapproval with an extremely vigorous "Damn!" I took to ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... of treadmill work with legs and arms. A troublesome district for a clergyman; at least to one who, like Amos Barton, understood the 'cure of souls' in something more than an official sense; for over and above the rustic stupidity furnished by the farm-labourers, the miners brought obstreperous animalism, and the weavers in an acrid Radicalism and Dissent. Indeed, Mrs. Hackit often observed that the colliers, who many of them earned better wages than Mr. Barton, 'passed their time in doing nothing but swilling ale and smoking, like the beasts that perish' (speaking, we may presume, in ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... fitted myself with a set of companions who knew how to laugh, and to whom no other recommendation was necessary than the power of striking out a jest. Among those I fixed my residence, and for a time enjoyed the felicity of disturbing the neighbours every night with the obstreperous applause which my sallies forced from the audience. The reputation of our club every day increased, and as my flights and remarks were circulated by my admirers, every day brought new solicitations for admission ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... voyage to London. Had there not been some prethought of this kind, it was not indeed probable, that both the helper and session-clerk of Garnock could have been there together, in a party, where it was an understood thing, that not only Whist and Catch Honours were to be played, but even obstreperous Birky itself, for the diversion of such of the company as were not used to gambling games. It was in consequence of what took place at this Irvine route, that we were originally led to think of collecting ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... said Fred. "They've better ways at night. One plan is no supper or breakfast; but the champion scheme is the doctor's. On complaint by the askaris that a man on the chain has shirked his work, or answered back, or been obstreperous, the doctor serves him out a handful of strong pills and sees him swallow them. They don't unchain them at night. D'you get ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... scattered granite boulders, the whistling of a quail from a near fence in the meadow, all recall the old scenes which he knew in boyhood. At a solitary house by the wayside a flaxen-haired youngster is blowing off soap-bubbles into the air,—with obstreperous glee whenever one rises above the house-tops,—while the mother, with arms akimbo, looks admiringly from the open window. It was the home to which the feet of Adele had latterly so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... letters to Marjie, who knows? And that was why that letter did not get far enough back from her thievin' fingers. Oh, I'm mighty glad Kathleen Morrison give me the mitten for Jess Gray, one of them Red Range boys. How can a man as good and holy as I am manage the obstreperous girls? But," he added seriously, "this is too near to sin and disgrace to ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... twenty-four years of existence. It is an exhilarating thought. But teaching the Lindsay district school is distinctly NOT exhilarating—at least in such a well-behaved school as this, where the pupils are so painfully good that I haven't even the traditional excitement of thrashing obstreperous bad boys. Everything seems to go by clock work in Lindsay educational institution. Larry must certainly have possessed a marked gift for organizing and drilling. I feel as if I were merely a big cog in an orderly machine that ran itself. However, I understand that there are some pupils ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Mother Country, and the duty of upholding the old traditions of the Flag. All that was taken for granted, as it had been taken for granted when this tall fellow in brand new khaki with nice- smelling belts of brown leather, was a bald-headed baby on a lace pillow in a cradle, or an obstreperous boy in a big nursery. The word patriotism is never spoken in an English household of this boy's class. There are no solemn discourses about duty to the Mother Country. Those things have always been taken for granted, like the bread and butter at the breakfast ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... sidled up to Aunt Martha and said in a hoarse whisper, "My dear, this shows a lack of firmness on your part. Now, leave everything to me and let me settle this obstreperous servant ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... dull, and often heroic trade. But the inevitable result of it, as exercised by the individual Saleebys, would be that each man would have his favourite kind of idiot. Each doctor would be mad on his own madman. One would have his eye on devotional curates; another would wander about collecting obstreperous majors; a third would be the terror of animal-loving spinsters, who would flee with all their cats and dogs before him. Short of sheer literal anarchy, therefore, it seems plain that the Eugenist must find some authority other than his own implied personality. ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... the lavender, needing a touch of French hands, and the merest trifle in want of compression about the waistband. She related that a certain Prince Henri d'Angleterre had buzzed at his ear annoyingly. 'Et Gascoigne, ou est-il?' called the King, and the Judge stepped forth to correct the obstreperous youth. The Judge was Jennings, clearly prepared by my father to foil the Prince—no other than Edbury. It was incomprehensible to me that my father should tolerate the tatter's pranks; unless, indeed, he borrowed his name to bonds of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the play, Suzanne and her husband were reconciled, and all the improprieties of the earlier acts carefully smoothed away. "The Freedom of Suzanne" itself, however, did not matter very much. Sledge-hammer criticism could pulverize it. Poor little play! It did not merit any obstreperous handling, for it kept its audience in a state of unreasoning merriment, and it encased Miss Tempest like the proverbial glove. There is nothing more fascinating than perfect comedy acting. It is a tonic, the exhilarating ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... the middle of the performance of "Auld Lang Syne," a most obstreperous proceeding, during which there was an immense amount of standing with one foot on the table, knocking mugs together and shaking hands, without which accompaniments it seems impossible for the youths of Britain to take part in that famous old song. The under-porter of the School-house entered during ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... and when they had got to some distance, they tied her feet together, and thrusting a stick under, they carried her off on their shoulders at full trot. This riding on a stick—which was very different from lying in a cradle—soon brought the sow to her senses, who began to behave in a very obstreperous and disagreeable manner, and the faster they went the more obstreperous and disagreeable did she become. The thieves now began to repent of the expedient which they had devised for bringing back Tim ...
— The Story of Tim • Anonymous
... agonizing scene in which Elspeth wept while Tommy told her sternly about Reddy. It had become his custom to tell the tale of Reddy when Elspeth was obstreperous. ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... intended to plug up his mouth and nostrils, so that he might perish for lack of breath. These last, however, could by no means perform their appointed duty; inasmuch as the enemy's breath rushed out of his nose in an obstreperous hurricane and whirlwind, which blew the Pygmies away as fast as they came nigh. It was found necessary, therefore, to hit upon some other method of ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his feet, he was seized by the collar and trousers in the grip known to "bouncers" everywhere, hustled to the door, which someone obligingly opened, and hurled from the moving train into the snow. The conductor did not care a straw whether the obstreperous Jack lit on his head or his feet, hit a snowbank or a pile of ties. Those were rough days, and the preservation of authority demanded ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... under the circumstances. If he becomes willful and unruly, the Captain no doubt will take great pleasure in giving the offender "a good paddling," to use his own forcible expression. This official is a strong advocate of corporal punishment. He claims that a "little loosening up of the hide" of an obstreperous prisoner does the said prisoner a vast amount of good. Among the convicts the deputy warden is austere. He is never seen sauntering about the prison enclosure with his long arms entwined about any of "the boys ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... in many ways, all of them silent, rather than obstreperous and obtrusive. It is shown by a certain gracious, ineffable expectation with which for the first time he approaches any human soul, as if unknown and incalculable possibilities were opening here; by a noble ceremonial which he ever observes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... her. He was in a state of "deplorable grief" for his nurse, "and after all," laughed Mrs. Browning, "the place of nursery maid is more suitable to me than that of poetess (or even poet's wife) in this obstreperous London." ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... merely by their greater adaptiveness that women are better linguists than men; it is by their more delicate organisation, their more subdued identity, and their less obstreperous temperaments, which are consequently less egotistical, less redolent of the one individual self. And what is it that makes the men of mark or note, the cognate signs of human algebra, but these same characteristics; not always good, not always pleasant, not always genial, but always associated ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... neighbors, mindful of what was to come, said "Gee! Suppose we are to climb up this again?" But apprehension was soon lost in the interest of the town we now entered, whose great buildings (in which each squad threatened to leave its most obstreperous member) had been visible for some distance. Dannemora seems to be a town whose prosperity, in this out of the way place, depends solely upon the great prison that stands in its midst. We marched along beneath the huge wall that forms one side of the main street; it rose in ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... the special little petition at the close, "Please, God, take care of Tilderee, and keep her and Fudge out of mischief," she broke down again, and, weeping convulsively, threw her arms around the neck of her obstreperous but loyal playmate and friend, exclaiming, "Oh Fudge! if we ever get safe home we'll never be naughty again, ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... cold air on the bleak and wind-swept desert of the Upper Arkansas, but we employees got used to that; only the passengers did any kicking. We had a way of managing them, however, when they got very obstreperous; all we had to do was to yell Indians! and that quieted them quicker than forty-rod whiskey ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... would do the work, and that beast belonged to the most notorious and malicious and cantankerous female in Lochlann, the Black Hag. Now the Black Hag was not only those things that have been said; she was also whiskered and warty and one-eyed and obstreperous, and she was notorious and ill-favoured ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... don't get obstreperous! Manda's mom would like to sell the farm and move to Lancaster to a little house. Then she wouldn't ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... and laughs. His obstreperous mirth frightens the bird away. She perches on the plantain bower. They follow her there. Vasantaka finds a picture and shows it to the king, who gives him a golden bracelet. Looking at it, the king dwells upon the ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... its choices, and giving everything actual the lie, by continually substituting something else, no less specific and no less nugatory. This world, any world, exists only by an unmerited privilege. Its glory is offensive to the spirit, like the self-sufficiency of some obstreperous nobody, who happens to have drawn the big prize in a lottery. "The world", M. Benda writes, "inspires me with a double sentiment. I feel it to be full of grandeur, because it has succeeded in asserting itself and coming to exist; and I feel it to be pitiful, when I consider ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... and irrisibility however, are confined to their sober hours. When indulging their insatiate thirst for spirit, they are boisterous and rude, and by their obstreperous laughter, their demoniacal shrieks and turbulent vociferations, produce an appalling discord, such as might well be expected to proceed from a company of infernal spirits at their fiendish revels; and exhibit a ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... often compared with Charles Dickens, largely on account of the humor that so frequently breaks forth from his pages. It is a different kind of humor, not so obstreperous, not so exaggerated, but it helps to lighten the whole in much the same way. One moment it is an incongruous simile, at another a bit of sly satire; now infinitely small things are spoken of as though they were great, and again we have ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... more and several teachers in the room and I was trying to answer six questions a minute, I did have to call in our impressive janitor. He sat near the gate and looked over the crowd and when he scowled the obstreperous twelve-year- olds made themselves less conspicuous. A policeman sometimes wandered in, but I disliked to have to resort to the use of muscular energy. I learned the names of the most troublesome boys and gradually collected quite a bit of information about them, their addresses, where ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... the diaphragm has done its duty by the singer—and it is that apparently effortless performance of its duty that gives it its real importance. The diaphragm really is a most courteous and accommodating muscle when its assistance is politely invited, but most obstreperous when one tries to force ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... to do up there? Could it be possible that they also were in his toils? That indeed would be bad, for Leimann had, in spite of all, remained something like an aid and help to him in becoming surety for payments promised or in calming obstreperous creditors. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... the little Delaneys not the easiest traveling companions in the world. It is true that Iris had been as good as possible, but between whiles she had cried a good deal, and her sad face, and somewhat reproachful expression, seemed to hurt Mrs. Dolman even more than the really obstreperous, and at times violent, behavior of her brothers and sister; for the fact is, the other three little Delaneys had not yet got the slightest idea into their heads that they were bound to obey Mrs. Dolman. Far from this; a sudden and extreme naughtiness had taken ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... The company assembled; my acquaintance introduced me; and I could not be attentive long, without discovering that they were aiming at the mystification of a young man, who showed himself a novice by an obstreperous, assuming deportment: I therefore kept very much on my guard, so that they might not find delight in selecting me as his fellow. At table this intention became more apparent to everybody, except to himself. They drank more and more deeply: and, when a vivat in honor of sweethearts was started, every ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
