United States or North Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
If she went away, supposing even that she found an equally well-paid post, she would require every farthing of the money to support herself, there would be nothing left to send home. It was a pitiable position; here was she, who had just refused a man worth thousands a year, quite unable to get out of the way of his importunity for the want of seventy-five pounds, paid quarterly.
A fainting-fit, or a sudden acceleration in the progress of the death-agony would be fatal, and too much importunity might bring out a "No" which would upset the plans so skilfully laid. Upon the morning of May 17th, which was the day of his death, nothing was yet signed. Catholics, as is well known, attach very great importance to the moment of death.
There was something suspicious and unaccountable in this importunity. Bob quickened his pace, but the stranger followed close. The sexton began to feel queer, and turned about. His pursuer was behind, and still inviting him with impatient gestures to taste his liquor. "I told you before," said Bob, who was both angry and frightened, "that I would not taste it, and that's enough.
But as to my title to acquiesce in a rejection from her without an appeal to your interest, I will tell you plainly, without meaning to undervalue Miss Mac-Ivor's admitted beauty and accomplishments, that I would not take the hand of an angel, with an empire for her dowry, if her consent were extorted by the importunity of friends and guardians, and did not flow from her own free inclination.
Barbara beheld it with tangible distinctness, and while the undignified old aristocrat, deprived of all self-control, sobbed and besought her to have compassion, the girl who had grown up amid poverty and care went back in memory to the days when, to earn money for a thin soup, a bit of dry bread, a small piece of cheap cow beef, or to protect herself from the importunity of an unpaid tradesman, she had washed laces with her own delicate hands and seen her nobly born, heroic father scratch crooked letters and scrawling ornaments upon common gray tin.
I have seen the tears run down the cheeks of that strong-minded man through vexation at the pressing importunity of his creditors, and the indolence of official underlings when day after day he was begging at the Treasury for what was indeed a mere matter of right. Wilberforce adds that Bentham was 'quite soured, and attributes his later opinions to this cause.
Evil Results of a very Common Method. If a parent wishes to eradicate from the mind of his boy all feelings of delicacy and manly pride, to train him to the habit of obtaining what he wants by importunity or servility, and to prevent his having any means of acquiring any practical knowledge of the right use of money, any principles of economy, or any of that forethought and thrift so essential to sure prosperity in future life, the best way to accomplish these ends would seem to be to have no system in supplying him with money in his boyish days, but to give it to him only when he asks for it, and in quantities determined only by the frequency and importunity of his calls.
For supporting these with an insolent show of importunity, he was turned away from college, and soon left his father's home, with his father's curse to bear him company. Had the baronet been in the way of a lettre de cachet, like Mirabeau's father, he would certainly have had Percy put into Newgate and kept there.
Ambition would induce them to aspire to office, and commands and honours, to form cabals against their competitors, and to distract the attention of the monarch by their importunity or their complaints. They contained among them many who secretly disapproved of the war,
But who should tell him so? His flatterers? They had an interest in shutting his eyes. In vain did his honest steward Flavius try to represent to him his condition, laying his accounts before him, begging of him, praying of him, with an importunity that on any other occasion would have been unmannerly in a servant, beseeching him with tears to look into the state of his affairs.
Word Of The Day