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More "Balk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by the secretary of state, or of the educated class, were sent. The degrees of punishment were, however, varied; and the more severe was exhausting and dangerous. The carrying gang, with a massive balk on the shoulders, resembled a huge centipede. The laborers, sometimes thirty together, groaning beneath a weight of many tons, obtained no respite from toil. The slippery and inclining ground exposed them to terrific perils: when ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... smiling at the gate: Him portion'd maids, apprenticed orphans bless'd, The young who labour, and the old who rest. Is any sick? the Man of Ross relieves, Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes, and gives. 270 Is there a variance? enter but his door, Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more. Despairing quacks with curses fled the place, And vile ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... mate, and I might as well shut up shop altogether if you were to leave me. I should miss you, too, Cyril," he went on, stretching his arm across the table to shake hands with the lad. "You have proved a real friend and a true; but were there a chance of your going as an officer, I would not balk you, even if I could do so. It is but natural that a lad of spirit should speak and think as you do; besides, the war may not last for long, and when you come back, and the ships are paid off, you would soon wipe off the arrears ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... I started to call her something or other a hundred times, I guess, and then I'd balk. I'd get all ready, and kind of make a sort of a sound, and ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... when Britain did declare war, they thought they could speedily destroy her "contemptible little army." Ah, weel—they did come near to destroying it! But not until it had helped to balk them of their desire—not until it had played its great and decisive part in ruining the plans the Hun had been making and perfecting for forty-four long years. And not until it had served as a dyke behind which floods of men in the khaki of King George ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... soon to tire him, and to be able to haul in upon our lines, so as to get near enough to give him our lances; but that was only hope, as you'll hear. Of a sudden, he stopped, turned round, and made right for us, with his jaws open; then, all we had to do was to balk him, and give him the lance. He did not seem to have made up his mind which boat he would attack—we were pretty near together, and he yawed at one, and then at the other. At last he made right for the other boat, and ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Sometimes the water would leap over the gunwales and come aboard with a savage hiss. At other times the canoes seemed to become discouraged and, with their heads almost buried beneath the angry, spitting waves, would balk in midstream and not move forward so much as a foot to the minute. It was dangerous work, for if at any time a canoe became inclined across the current, even to the slightest degree, it might be rolled over and over, like a barrel ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... tends to throw off the responsibility of decision upon the superior, though from the instancy of the case hesitation or delay may be fatal. A man who as the commissioned chief would act intelligently, as the mere subordinate will balk. Nelson's action at St. Vincent will rarely be emulated, a truth which is strongly shown by the fact that Collingwood was immediately in his rear that day, and did not imitate his action till signalled by the commander-in-chief; yet after ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... child, and canst not know us, what we are! The hand she feels upon her is the gods', That reacheth her e'en here, with bloody gripe! Then strive not thou to balk the gods' just doom. O, hadst thou seen her in the dragon's cave, Seen how she leaped to meet that serpent grim, Shot forth the poisonous arrows of her tongue, And darted hate and death from blazing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... fermenting heap of life On which our state is built: I saw this day What we might be, and still be Christian women: And mothers too—I saw one, laid in childbed These three cold weeks upon the black damp straw; No nurses, cordials, or that nice parade With which we try to balk the curse of Eve— And yet she laughed, and showed her buxom boy, And said, Another week, so please the Saints, She'd be at work ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... speaker, "but whether you're ready or not is another matter. Now I'm going to give you a last chance to pull out. Do you want to go ahead or don't you? It's no good for us to be laying plans if you are going to be weak-kneed at the end and balk at carrying them out. Do you mean to stand by me and see this thing to a ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... balk his generosity," said Grace, smiling—"so, Miss Merton, we will separate the pearls into three parcels, and draw lots for them. Here are handsome ornaments ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... keeper, behind. First it raced through the thicket, which I did not like, so I proposed to Sam to pull the rope on the energetic animal's leg; but Sam would not damp its splendid enthusiasm for fear it might balk afterwards. Sam managed, however, to direct it back into the path, but we had a most exhausting and exciting, if interesting, walk, for the pig was constantly rushing, sniffing, grunting and digging on all sides, so that ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... scratched his jaw, "'Tis true of dogs and horses I know more, And dogs do bite, and steeds betimes will balk, And fairest women, so they say, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... "You shall not balk me," said Chiffinch; and a jingling was heard, as if he were filling his comrade's glass with a very unsteady hand. "Hey—What the devil is the matter?—I used to carry my glass ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... in i'tial ditich sau'sage con ceive' of fi'cial feud word'y de grade' es sen'tial sued tur'gid a fraid' sol sti'tial prude ver'ger pre pare' a bun'dant wooed vir'tue for bear' de pend'ent balk leop'ard bar'ter in veigh'er shawl lep'er tar'tar be tray'er guise fam'ine mar'tyr di'a logue sighs gam'mon suc ceed' dy nam'ics flies salm'on ac cede' me ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... is soon a nation without curiosity. You may now judge how little your situation is likely to be affected. I finish; I think I feel ashamed of tapping the events of a new reign, of which probably I shall not see half. If I was not unwilling to balk your curiosity, I should break my pen, as the great officers do their white wands, over the grave of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... my own room and prepared to pack after noting down the facts of the case. As I smoked I heard the game begin again—with a miss in balk this time, for the ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... ragged thistle-stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balk All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk Pashing their life out, with a ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... go enough," he repeated, almost like a seer. "You have tried to force your destiny from its appointed course. You have, and Covington has, and I have. We have tried to force things that were not meant to be and to balk things that were meant to be. That's because we've been selfish—all three of us. We've each thought of ourself alone—of our own petty little happiness of the moment. That's deadly. It warps the vision. It—it ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... murmured she. Sauvresy did not answer this terribly ironical exclamation. He shut his eyes, pretended to sleep, and thought of the letter. What had he done with it? He remembered that he had carefully folded it and put it in the right-hand pocket of his vest. He must have this letter. It would balk his vengeance, should it fall into his wife's hands; and this might happen at any moment. It was a miracle that his valet had not put it on the mantel, as he was accustomed to do with the things which he found in his master's pockets. He was reflecting on some means of getting ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... run every sort of engine and machine made by experts and other ignoramuses. I balk at nothing. The engine was new to me, but I lit a lantern and examined its inwards with anxiety and superciliousness. Prisintly, by the grace of God, it started off. A very small bhoy held the lantern ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... some months after, it looked indeed as though this union of previously antagonistic elements in European Turkey would effectually balk all the intrigues, not only of the little Balkan States, but of Austria and Russia as well. Nothing could have been more disappointing to the tribe of diplomats than ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... mummery and incantations of which she had been a distant spectator. Le Bourdon's heart was light, after his hazards and escape, and his spirits rose as his narrative proceeded. Nor was pretty Margery in a mood to balk his humor. As the bee-hunter recounted his contrivances to elude the savages, and most especially when he gave the particulars of the manner in which he managed to draw whiskey out of the living rock, the girl joined in his merriment, and filled ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... bade me good night and left me. What were my sensations. "Am I then," I said to myself "to be thus cut off in the midst of my youth? No! I will balk these monsters. I must attempt to save myself even if the attempt cost me my life." These thoughts occupied me during the night, and I did not sleep until towards four o'clock in ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... panisto, bakisto. Balance (scales) pesilo. Balance (poise) balanci. Balance of a/c restajxo. Balance-sheet bilanco. Balcony balkono. Bald senhara. Baldness senhareco. Bale pakego. Baleful pereiga. Balk malhelpi. Ball (globe) globo. Ball (playing) pilko. Ball (party) balo. Ball (bullet) kuglo. Ballad balado. Ballast balasto. Ballet baleto. Balloon aerostato. Balloon (plaything) aerpilkego. Ballot ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... afternoon the Hermit entered the wilderness alone, for he wanted no excitable small dog to balk his quest. Seating himself comfortably with his back against a log and partly screened by a thicket of young alders, he waited motionless. A deep hush seemed to clothe the forest as in a garment. All about him rose great trees, their ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... "I'm not going to balk at it," retorted Dick, flushing just a bit. "But you spoke of it first, Dave, and I think you ought to have ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... when, the job lot of telegrams despatched, Fairfax led his volcano from the hotel and headed for the apartment house. He expected another balk at the entrance, for his round of gaiety had come now to seem to him eternal—he could hardly imagine a life in which he was not conducting a tipsy man through a maze of experiences. So that it was one of the surprises of the evening when Strong entered quietly and with perfect deportment ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Joseph, "suppose she should balk!" But Netteke had done her balking for the day, and, having been refreshed by her luncheon of green grass, she was ready to move on. The river had now quite a current, which helped them, and while ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... beginning to be called the cave of Robin Lyth. The dome is very high, and sheds down light when the gleam of the sea strikes inward. From the gloomy mouth of it, as far as they could venture, the lapping of the wavelets could be heard all round it, without a boat, or even a balk of wood to break it. Then they tried echo, whose clear answer hesitates where any soft material is; but the shout rang only of hard rock and glassy water. To make assurance doubly sure, they lit a blue-light, and sent it floating through the depths, while they held their position ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... time, I suppose, but it begins to fidget me. He won't handle corn—I'm clear as to that. At his age, of course, all lads talk about voyages and so on, but Harry seems cut out for a larger sphere than Greystone. I shan't balk him. I'd rather he hadn't anything to do with fighting—still, ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... a fair disguise The danger darkly lurking, And maiden bodice dreaded more Than warrior's steel-wrought jerkin. How keen to scent the hidden plot! How prompt wert thou to balk it, With patriot zeal and pedler thrift, For ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the presence of a respectable man who was courting her. That would not be fair-play: every woman was young in her turn, and had her chances of matrimony, which it was a point of honour for other women not to spoil—just as one market-woman who has sold her own eggs must not try to balk another ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... clean and without chaff. A seed with a large proportion of dust and chaff is not worth buying. It should be your consideration to see whether you are getting what you pay for. If you show evidences of knowing the proper seeds you will receive a most respectful hearing from the tradesman. Do not balk at the price of re-cleaned seed. It means that you are going to get something for your money. It is worth much more than the seed sold in bulk that is ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue
... party a divorce, But me prohibiting to wed again.— Well, that decree (I answered bitterly) Would have with me the weight of a request That I'd hereafter quaff at common puddles And not at one pure fount; I'd heed the bar As I would heed the grass-webbed gossamer; I'd sooner balk a bench of drivellers Than outrage sacred nature.—If that bench Could have you up for bigamy, what then?— The dear old dames! they should not have the means To prove it on me: for the pact should be 'Twixt me and her who would accept my troth Freely before high heaven and all its ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... and, in short, passed her off as a cow of inestimable value. To all this the simpleton listened with delight and astonishment; he heard his cow praised for qualities that no other cow ever possessed, and determined in his own mind not to lose so rare a bargain, but purchase her himself and balk the chapmen. He therefore called out to the appraiser, and asked him what she was going at. The salesman replied, "At fifteen dirhams and upwards." "By the head of the Prophet," exclaimed the wittol, "had I known that my cow was such ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... the spectators wondered why it was not. They had already made up their minds that the balk was due to the coachman's maladroit driving, and this further proof of his stupidity quite exhausted their patience. Shouts assailed him from all ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... insertion of the tube, when skilfully done, need not cause suffering, the operation as conducted by Mr. Hyde was painful. Try as he would, he was unable to insert the tube properly, though in no way did I attempt to balk him. His embarrassment seemed to rob his hand of whatever cunning it may have possessed. After what seemed ten minutes of bungling, though it was probably not half that, he gave up the attempt, but not until my nose had begun to bleed. He was plainly ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... business could not have been speedier done: Still when a man has angled day and night, The silliest gudgeons will refuse to bite: So Swallow tried no more: but if they came To seek his friendship, that remain'd the same: Thus he retired in peace, and some would say He'd balk'd his partner, and had learn'd to pray. To this some zealots lent an ear, and sought How Swallow felt, then said "a change is wrought." 'Twas true there wanted all the signs of grace, But there were strong professions in their ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... his teeth were shut tight. Every nerve, every fibre of him braced itself with the rigidity of drawn wire, to meet the issue of the impending hours. Now, was to come the last grapple. He had never lived through a crisis such as this before. Would he prevail, would he keep his head? Would he avoid or balk the thousand and one little subterfuges, tricks, and traps that the hostile traders would prepare for him—prepare with a quickness, a suddenness that all but defied ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... day's work, and knock off," chimed in Waldo. "If the blamed thing should take a notion to balk, and rear back on its haunches, where'd we come ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... being strewn with the recent rubbish. But I judged that generally it was not wearing away here at the rate of more than six feet annually. Any conclusions drawn from the observations of a few years or one generation only are likely to prove false, and the Cape may balk expectation by its durability. In some places even a wrecker's foot-path down the bank lasts several years. One old inhabitant told us that when the light-house was built, in 1798, it was calculated that it would stand ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... Doyle was dismayingly mature and smart. He horribly feared him as a rival. For the second time that evening he did not balk fate by fearing it. The dentist was a rival. After fluttering about the mature charms of Miss Dietz, the school drawing-teacher, and taking a tentative buggy-ride or two with the miller's daughter, Dr. Doyle was ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... sight of another vessel. "Hurrah! there she is," cried Uncle Boz. "The fellows won't balk you this time; but we must go alongside as we did ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... a grand fight between us two, old friend, and it goes hard with me to balk you of it. But I cannot pleasure you. I am general here under Phorenice, and she has given me the strongest orders not to peril myself. And besides, though you are a great man, Deucalion, you are not chief. You are not even one ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... had said that she wanted a safe, steady horse; one that would not run, balk, or kick. She would not have bought any horse, indeed, had it not been that the way to the post office, the store, the church, and everywhere else, had grown so unaccountably long—Miss Prue was approaching her sixtieth birthday. The horse had been ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... talk All cant and rant and rhapsodies high flown— That bid you balk A Sunday walk, And shun God's work as you should shun ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... wooden saddles of his cavalry; round it he heaped the spoils and the wealth that he had won; on it he stationed his wives who had accompanied him in the campaign; and on the summit Attila placed himself, ready to perish in the flames and balk the victorious foe of their choicest booty should they ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... twenty-five years an he ain't never tech it yit. That's the reason they done sent fer me. The ladies in the fambly air done plum wo' out what with cookin' fer comp'ny an' washin' up an' all. It looks like comp'ny air the only thing what don't balk at that there lane. They done sint a hurry call fer ol' Peter, kase they got a notion Miss Ann Peyton air on the way. They phoned down ter the sto' fer me ter put my foot in the pike an' come erlong. They done got a phome message from way over yonder at Throckmorton's ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... forwards in his hands, replied with a peculiar smile, "Yes, there are thousands and thousands down there—all my dear dead master's beautiful instruments—telescopes, quadrants, globes, dark mirrors, they all lie smashed to atoms underneath the ruins between the stones and the big balk." "But money—coined money," interrupted the Baron, "you spoke of gold pieces, old man?" "I only meant things which had cost several thousand gold pieces," he replied; and not another word could be got ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... else has pursued you; Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me; The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others, they do not balk me, The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... Gideon had certainly worked hard, and he was not dissipated. If he wanted to roam the town by himself, there was no harm in it. The sullenness still showed in the black face; Heaven knew what he might do if he suddenly began to balk. Stuhk thought it wise to ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... Herod, a worse than Herod elsewhere to obstruct our actions. That side of the house will be filled with yelling secessionists and hissing copper-heads. Give us the third section or give us nothing. Do not balk us with the pretense of an amendment which throws the Union into the hands of the enemy before it becomes consolidated. Do not, I pray you, admit those who have slaughtered half a million of our countrymen until their clothes are dried, and until ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... as a chosen way to balk the purposes of those who threaten us, we hold it to be the first task of statesmanship to develop the strength that will deter the forces of aggression and promote the conditions of peace. For, as it must be the supreme purpose of all free men, so it must be the dedication of their ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... Knoxville to co-operate with him, [Footnote: Id., p. 744.] but Polk was now in trouble by reason of Sherman's march from Vicksburg upon Meridian and Johnston was ordered to assist Polk. [Footnote: Id., p. 763.] Then Grant, to balk both efforts, ordered Thomas to make a demonstration against Johnston, which was effective in preventing co-operation in either direction. [Footnote: ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... gallant ship for mast, And over it another beam they crossed, Pointed with iron sharp, to it made fast With ropes which as men would the dormant tossed, Now out, now in, now back, now forward cast. In his swift pulleys oft the men withdrew The tree, and oft the riding-balk ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... and Hebrew to me; but it was plain that the bailie, in his jaunt, had been guilty of some notour thing, wherein the custom-house was concerned, and that he thought all the world was acquaint with the same. However, no to balk him in any communication he might be disposed ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... not the man to balk his fancy; and as Crawfurd is so bent upon fighting to-morrow, it don't make much difference. Is it ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... know, occasionally, how to balk him," replied his companion; "there is great craft and malice in mares, as there is in all females; see them feeding in the campo with their young cria about them; presently the alarm is given that the wolf is drawing near; they start ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... and he struck at her a savage blow; but little Brownie was quick, she avoided the blow and limped behind a sapling, there to beat herself upon the leaves again in sore distress, and seem so lame that Cuddy made another try to strike her down with a stick. But she moved in time to balk him, and bravely, steadfast still to lead him from her helpless little ones, she flung herself before him and beat her gentle breast upon the ground, and moaned as though begging for mercy. And ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... powerful noble. That noble was no more; his vast inheritance had devolved on the disregarded, even despised actress, whose suffering emotions Coningsby had then soothed, and whose fortune had risen on the destruction of all his prospects, and the balk of ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, because it contains, among other things, the causes, the beginning, and ending, of the Trojan war. Here I ought in reason to have stopp'd; but the speeches of Ajax and Ulysses lying next in my way, I could not balk 'em. When I had compass'd them, I was so taken with the former part of the fifteenth book, (which is the masterpiece of the whole Metamorphoses,) that I enjoin'd myself the pleasing task of rend'ring it into English. And now I found, by the number of my ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... Whence and when did it reach Cochin China, Formosa, Java, Mongolia, Yorkand, Balk, Bokhara, Afghanistan and other Central ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott
... certainly have to be emptied another day. This was what she said to herself, with a trembling and agitation which was fully justified by the scene she anticipated. She said to herself that it must be got over, that she would not try to balk him, but rather give him the opportunity, poor boy! Yes! it was only just that he should have his opportunity, and that this great crisis should be got over as best it might. Her hands trembled as she folded Mr. Longstaffe's letter and ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Gudbiorg, the mother of Gudbrand Ball, the father of Asta, the mother of King Olaf the Saint. Onund was an Uplander by the kin of his mother; but the kin of his father dwelt chiefly about Rogaland and Hordaland. He was a great viking, and went harrying west over the Sea.[4] Balk of Sotanes, the son of Blaeng, was with him herein, and Orm the Wealthy withal, and Hallvard was the name of the third of them. They had five ships, all well manned, and therewith they harried in the South-isles;[5] ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... about sixth drink time—a casyooal gun goes off over among the Red Dog outfit, an' the lead tharfrom bores a hole in the wall clost to Dan's y'ear. Nacherally Dan don't like it. The show sort o' comes to a balk, an' takin' advantages of the lull Dan arises in a listless way an' addresses the ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... the Castle Green, to be spectators of the execution. Miss went up several times into the room facing the Green, where she could view the great crowd of people about it; which she did with all the calmness and unconcern imaginable; and only said that she would not balk their expectations, tho' her execution might be deferred a ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... to make up a train in a hurry—as much as a man's life was worth to work even slow in the yard a night like that. But what limit is set to a switchman's courage I have never known, because I've never known one to balk at ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... of the Stage, Has balk'd the hireling Drudges of the Age; Since Betterton of late so thrifty 's grown, Revives Old Plays, or ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... king"), founder of the Paishdadian dynasty. He travelled abroad to make himself familiar with the laws and customs of other lands. On his return he met his brother, and built on the spot of meeting a city, which he called Balk; and made it the capital of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... "Depend upon it they hope to hide them till they can send to the settlements and get a ransom, or till they get an opportunity of torturing them to death before their women and children when they get back to their own village. But we'll balk them, my friend, do ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... do all ye like," sneered Blent, as the sledge started with the prisoner. "But I'll beat ye. And ye'll pay for tryin' to balk me, too." ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... thing to hear her red baby mouth pour forth curses and unseemly words as she would at any one who crossed her. Her temper and hot-headedness carried all before them, and the grooms and stable- boys found great sport in the language my young lady used in her innocent furies. But balk her in a whim, and she would pour forth the eloquence of a fish-wife or a lady of easy virtue in a pot-house quarrel. There was no human creature near her who had mind or heart enough to see the awfulness of her condition, or to strive to teach her to check her passions; and ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... future must be a play of the times, must deal with the real things of life, must balk at no expression of modern tendencies, must reveal the skeleton in the ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... you get her away?" asked Camille. "You will have to be very cautious, because if these pesky Abolitionists get an inkling of what you're doing they will balk your game double quick. And when you come to look at it, isn't it a shame to attempt to reduce that girl to slavery? She is just as white as we are, as good as any girl in the land, and better educated than thousands ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... or gorged hawk, Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight, Make slow pursuit, or altogether balk The prey wherein by nature they delight; So surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night: His taste delicious, in digestion souring, Devours his will, that ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... peine-de-mort pour delit politique: no more wicked guillotining for revolutions. A Frenchman must have his revolution—it is his nature to knock down omnibuses in the street, and across them to fire at troops of the line—it is a sin to balk it. Did not the King send off Revolutionary Prince Napoleon in a coach-and-four? Did not the jury, before the face of God and Justice, proclaim Revolutionary Colonel Vaudrey not guilty?—One may hope, soon, that if a man shows decent courage ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with noisy talk, Whose brazen gall no ire can balk And wearies me of life's short ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... for herself, without any conference with Tunis. But she must do the only thing, after all, that would balk this wretched girl from the city—for ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... in a low tone so the Indian would not hear, and it was almost in Rosa's very ear, who stood just behind. Rosa's heart stopped a beat and she frowned at the toe of her slipper. Was this common little Tanner woman going to be the one to balk ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... concerned with the falsification of public or authentic documents). Between private individuals the essence of a forgery is the intent to defraud; where is it in this case? In what times are we living, gentlemen? Here is the President going away to balk a preliminary examination which ought to be over by this time! Until to-day I did not know M. le President, but he shall have the benefit of arrears; from this time forth he shall draft his decisions himself. You must set about this affair with ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... the hope that we might overtake Bruhl before night should expose his captives to fresh hardships and dangers. But the pitch to which the dismal sights and sounds I have mentioned, and a hundred like them, had raised the fears of my following did much to balk my endeavours. For a while, indeed, under the influence of momentary excitement, they spurred their horses to the gallop, as if their minds were made up to face the worst; but presently they checked them despite all my efforts, and, lagging ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... "there is drift all the way; a man could hardly wade through it. However, lad," he continued, seeing that the boy rose as the church bell began to toll, "this is a case wherein I would by no means balk the obdurate chap of his will. Go to church by all means. There is a pitiless wind, and a sharp, frozen sleet, besides the depth under foot. Go out into it, since thou prefers it to a ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... revision are in the order which it is usually best to follow, but one should not hesitate to depart from the order given when it seems best in a given case to do so. It is necessary to be constantly alert so that when the child shows a tendency to balk at a given type of test, such as those of memory, language, numbers, drawing, "comprehension," etc., the work can be shifted to more agreeable tasks. When the child is at his ease again, it is usually possible to return to the troublesome ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... often that I resolve to have my own way; but I have resolved now, and you should not try to balk me." ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... Gemosac sat down again, with a certain effort at self-control, on the balk of timber which had been used by some generations of tide-watchers. He turned and exchanged a glance with Dormer Colville, who stood at his side leaning on his gold-headed cane. Colville's expression ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... sprang to his side made a leap for life seem like sinful idleness. And where do you think he took me? I ask as a friend, Where do you think he took me? To one of those joints where you get everything from soup to nuts, including a scuttle full of red ink for thirty-five scudi. I was going to balk and rear in the harness when he started to lead me up the steps of the foundry, but as I always maintained discretion is the better part of valor, I'm two-bits ahead anyway you play it. So I climb into the nosebag without a peep. Yet—would you ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... doth swear, He rent his clothes and tore his hair, And as he runneth here and there An acorn cup he greeteth, Which soon he taketh by the stalk, About his head he lets it walk, Nor doth he any creature balk, But lays on ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... idea is that, outside o' union troubles, the man that can manage workin'-men is the man that's been one himself. Well, I set Bibbs to learn the men and to learn the business, and HE set himself to balk on the first job! That's what he did, and the balk's lasted close on to three years. If he balks again I'm just done with him! Sometimes I feel like I was pretty near ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... perplexed. He was in the situation of a man who has been riding a blood horse at an even, elastic gallop, and of a sudden feels him stumble and balk. As yet, he reflected, he had seen nothing but the sunshine of genius; he had forgotten that it has its storms. Of course it had! And he felt a flood of comradeship rise in his heart which would float them both safely through the worst weather. "Why, you 're tired!" ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... one say, 'Get your foot off the table, you've no right to put your foot on the table.' Then the other said, 'Well, you keep your stomach off the cushion then.'" The girl shivered. "Then presently one said, quite fiercely, 'Get back into balk there, get back fifteen inches,' and the other voice said, 'By God! I'll shoot from here.' Then there was a dead stillness, and then a voice almost screamed, 'You've potted me. You've potted me. That ends it.' And then I heard the other say in a low tone, ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... ship must thou needs dight, Myself shall be the master-wright. I shall thee tell how broad and long, Of what measure and how strong. When the timber is fastened well, Wind the sides ever each and deal. Bind it first with balk and band, And wind it then too with good wand. With pitch, look, it be not thin! Plaster ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... to draw out. Darrin did not balk, nor try to conceal anything, but he had a natural aversion to singing his own praises, and answered questions only sparingly at first. Yet, at last, the commandant succeeded in drawing out a story, bit by bit, that made the old seadog's ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... thousand years, have made no progress in the real knowledge of the stars. Their ancient boasted observations, and the instruments which they make use of, were brought by the learned men, whom Koubila, the grandson of Gingis Khan, had invited from Balk and Samarcand. The government, at present, considers the publication of an annual calendar of the first importance and utility. It must do every thing in its power, not only to point out to its numerous subjects the distribution ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... great sea-marsh, to this or that of the many lakes, lagoons and pond holes where the wild fowl found their feeding beds. Here was this refuge, where they fled to escape persecution, the spot most remote, secluded, secret, inaccessible. Here nature conspired to balk pursuit. The wide shallows made a bar now to the average sailing craft, and as for a motor-yacht like ours, the presence of a local pilot, acquainted with all the oyster reefs and shallows, all the channels and cut-offs, ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... credulity threatens to balk and go no further, magic comes to the rescue and the domain of Hermann and Kellar is ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... Stevens as he read the billet. "'Who would have thought that the YOUNG man had so much blood in him!' Well, we will not balk your desire, Master Hinkley. We will meet you, in verity, though it may compel me to throw up my present hand and call for other cards. N'importe: ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... country on the rivers Jihon or Amu, and the Sir or Sihon, the Oxus and Jaxartes of the ancients. This extensive and fertile country, now called Western Turkestan, Great Bucharia, Kharism, Chorassan, and Balk, with some other smaller territories, is bounded on the west by the Caspian, on the east by the Belur-tag or Imaus, on the north by the deserts of western Tartary, and on the south by the mountains of the Hindoo-koh, and the desert of Margiana. The ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... but she couldn't help smiling while she thought it, and heard Mrs. Potts's deep breath laboring up behind her. It was, perhaps, rather a shame to balk her in this way; but, after all, she was to have a full fortnight of Sir Basil and she, Imogen, felt that on this day, the day of a new friendship, Sir Basil's claim on her was paramount. She had something for him, a light, a ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... strange way in which they used to manage their farming. Each man used to keep one or more oxen for the village plough until they made up the team into eight; then they ploughed the land in strips of an acre or half-acre each, divided by a bit of unploughed turf called a balk. Each strip was a furlong, i.e. a "furrow long," i.e. the length of the drive of a plough before it is turned. This was forty rods, or poles, and four of these furrows made up the acre. These pieces ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... with a stark and grim extremity. Murder and concealment of a lifeless body, here, would be easy enough. These men were desperadoes, and if dire enough need pressed them they would not, she thought, balk overlong at the idea of killing ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... trying to balk me at the last minute, I believe. I'm going to see what he means!" and with this, the excited Mr. Period rushed down the gangplank, toward the man at whom he had pointed—one of the men who had tried to buy Tom's ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... and so strong a propensity to extravagance? Suppose we stop and consider that very point: how do masters deal with that sort of domestic? If I am not mistaken, they chastise his wantonness by starvation; they balk his thieving tendencies by bars and bolts where there is anything to steal; they hinder him from running away by bonds and imprisonment; they drive the sluggishness out of him with the lash. Is it not so? Or how do you ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... Governor rested his lame back once more. "Your ambition is the more laudable, Excellency, since you have achieved so much already. I am not one to balk the honest ambition of any man, particularly when he does me the honor to take me into his confidence. I like this suggested measure. I like it much. I believe it would redound to our mutual benefit and reputation. Is ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... dear," he added. "He will try to balk us. We must expect that. But I think I can ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... Bay, some tea and talk, them home by King. The horses have an antiquated plod; The team is old, but not too old to balk If ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... not, as these people say. If he were persuaded against his will, he would load that well with a malicious enchantment which would balk me until I found out its secret. It might take a month. I could set up a little enchantment of mine which I call the telephone, and he could not find out its secret in a hundred years. Yes, you perceive, he might ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... became clear that Nicholas Biddle and the leaders of the United States Senate were far from that opinion. Having combined to defeat the "old Indian scalper," as Biddle was wont to term Jackson, in his plan to bring South Carolina to terms, these able men continued their operations to balk him ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... looked alarmed. Those forebears of mine will intrude when I am taken by surprise. He saw it, and said, quickly: "It is nothing that a man, willing to be of service to me, need balk at; nothing, in fact, that a chivalrous man would not be glad to do. You may not think very well of me afterward, but be sure you will never regret the act. I was in sore need of a friend. There was none at hand—if ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... transports and the method employed of meeting them. Even when later in the war the Germans apparently driven to frenzy made special efforts to sink hospital and Red Cross ships the facts were concealed by the censors, and accounts of the efforts made to balk such inhuman and unchristian practices diligently suppressed. In the end it seemed that the British, who of course led all naval activities, had reached the conclusion that only by the maintenance of an enormous fleet of patrol boats could the submarines ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... realize what you're proposing, man? You'll ruin everything! We've got Grimes dead... we can land him in jail! But if Hegan heard any whisper of it, they'd balk everything! ...
— The Machine • Upton Sinclair
... better facts than some idle books under the bench at the Latin School. What we do not call education is more precious than that which we call so. We form no guess, at the time of receiving a thought, of its comparative value. And education often wastes its effort in attempts to thwart and balk this natural magnetism, which is sure to select what ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Englanders at that, no doubt with the heavy Puritan mortmain upon them, narrow as a shoe string, circumscribed as a duck pond, walled in by ghastly respectability. Ten to one, if the girl had talent and ambition, they would smother these things in her, balk her at every turn. They had regarded Ned Holiday's marriage to Laura a misalliance, he recalled. There had been quite a to-do about it at the time. Good God! It had been a misalliance all right, ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... that none who enter there return As they have entered—many never; but They shall not balk my entrance. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... hardly courteous," replied Aymer, "and therefore scarce angels in disguise, even though you prate of the clouds. So if you wish to measure blades I shall not balk you. Nathless," as he slowly freed his own weapon, "it is a quarrel not of ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... concerned about Lucy, or me or your dad," replied his mother with surprising coolness. "I mean don't let concern for us balk you. Thank God you have come home to us. I feel a different woman. I am frightened, yes. For—for I've heard of you. What a ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... it were robbery to take your wager," the King of France said. "The difference between their bulk is disproportionate. However, I will not balk your wish. My chain ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... Or shadow of a fear, lest the strange Saints By whom thou swarest, should have power to balk Thy puissance in this fight with him, who made And heard thee swear—brother—I have not sworn— If the king fall, may not the kingdom fall? But if I fall, I fall, and thou art king; And, if I win, I win, and thou art king; Draw ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... despatched under Baxter and Pieter Cock, who found them empty, though thirty Indians could have stood against two hundred soldiers since the castles were constructed of plank five inches thick, nine feet high, and braced around with thick balk full of port-holes. Our people burnt two, reserving the third for a retreat. Marching eight or nine leagues further, they discovered nothing but some huts, which they could not surprize as they were discovered. ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... lamb," she said, squeezing Blue Bonnet's hand. "You're game, my dear. Our hats are off to you. You didn't balk once." ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... so?" said she, grimly. "Then I'll balk them. I'll steal away in the dead of night. No, miserable populace, that howls and hisses with the strong against the weak, you shall have no part in my triumph; 't is sacred to my friends. You honored me with your hootings, you shall not disgrace ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... robbery to take your wager," the King of France said. "The difference between their bulk is disproportionate. However, I will not balk your wish. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... a foreigner and a savage, had been long enough in Rome to know perfectly what a Vestal was and he recoiled from her in a panic no less than he would have felt had the goddess Vesta herself come down from the sky to balk him of ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... went the more certain it was that this new element was going to balk them. It was fog. The horizon was masked by it, and soon the damp feel of it was ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... grow unstable, perverse, and refuse to answer helm and handling. And I will say that some ships that for years have sailed blue water as soberly and as docilely as a street-car horse has plodded the treadmill of the 'tween-tracks, have been known to balk, as stubbornly and as conclusively as any old Bay Billy that ever wore a bell. I know this has happened, because I have seen it. I saw, for instance, the ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... (London, 1674, 8vo.); wherein the great increase of actions for slander is shewn, by reference to old law books. The author urges the propriety of checking such actions as much as possible, and quaintly observes, "as I cannot balk that observation of that learned Chief Justice (Wray), who sayes that in our old bookes actions for scandal are very rare; so I will here close with this one word: though the tongues of men be set ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... progress in the real knowledge of the stars. Their ancient boasted observations, and the instruments which they make use of, were brought by the learned men, whom Koubila, the grandson of Gingis Khan, had invited from Balk and Samarcand. The government, at present, considers the publication of an annual calendar of the first importance and utility. It must do every thing in its power, not only to point out to its numerous subjects the distribution of the seasons, the knowledge of which is essentially ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... on the adroitness you exhibited this evening in extracting from me my name. The address I was able to balk you of for the time being, although by the time you read this you will probably have found it through the Law List, as I am an admitted solicitor. That, however, will be of little use to you, for I am removing myself, I think, beyond the reach even of ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... the bench at the Latin School. What we do not call education is more precious than that which we call so. We form no guess, at the time of receiving a thought, of its comparative value. And education often wastes its effort in attempts to thwart and balk this natural magnetism, which is sure to select what belongs ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... come to me; he was a very tall man, with a savage face, light keen eyes, returning from a forage on the Safis: he was an Arunsha man, and a Tor kafir, who are represented as very different from the Espheen or white ones, who are found in the mountains adjacent to Balk, etc. Arunsha is three days journey from this, and has a lame, or one-legged chief, Dheemoo; my friend's name was Bazaar, he was armed with a matchlock taller than himself, and the usual dagger. How they compete with the Mussulmans ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... of his maneuver, and avoided any occasion to balk his intentions. When the situation as set forth by Mr. Pontellier was accepted and taken for granted, she was apparently satisfied that ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... the health uv the families uv all I hev met. Its rather hard for an orthodox Democrat. Sich sudden shifts is rather wrenchin on the conshence. But what uv that? The Dimocrat who hez follered the party closely for thirty years ought not to balk at sich a triflin change ez this, pertiklerly when ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... detective, cutting the end off a cigar, "we had their names, and we ascertained why they killed Hunter, or would have killed any other person who tried to balk their scheme, but our information ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... a prime chap arter the rise you took out of the ole coon,' was his first remark. 'Uncle Zack was as sartin as I stand of five gallons gone, anyhow; and 'twar a rael balk to put him an' them off with an apology. I guess you won't mind their sayin' it's the truth of a ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... and therefore useless as saddlers, do, when hitched up to a wagon or buggy, though never driven before, make splendid work horses. They go like automatons; will trot if allowed till they fall down, and never balk. The worst outlaw horse we ever had, one that had thrown all the great riders of the country and had never been mastered, this absolute devilish beast got a pretty bad dose of the weed; and, to experiment, we hitched him up in a wagon, when lo! he went off like any old steady team horse. This is ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... love of attention, her vanity, irritated and at times disgusted Mrs. Cowperwood. She was eighteen now, with a figure which was subtly provocative. Her manner was boyish, hoydenish at times, and although convent-trained, she was inclined to balk at restraint in any form. But there was a softness lurking in her blue eyes that was most sympathetic ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... Granting the guilty party a divorce, But me prohibiting to wed again.— Well, that decree (I answered bitterly) Would have with me the weight of a request That I'd hereafter quaff at common puddles And not at one pure fount; I'd heed the bar As I would heed the grass-webbed gossamer; I'd sooner balk a bench of drivellers Than outrage sacred nature.—If that bench Could have you up for bigamy, what then?— The dear old dames! they should not have the means To prove it on me: for the pact should be 'Twixt me and her who would ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... fish and the ways of catching them. In the bush it was the same thing. At seven, Tom knew more woodcraft than I ever dreamed existed. At six, Mary went over the Sliding Rock without a quiver, and I have seen strong men balk at that feat. And when Frank had just turned six he could bring up shillings from the bottom in ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... men. The white light was not for the heirs of that age, nor yet the golden mean. Wonders happened, that they knew, and so like children they looked for strange chances. There was no miracle at which their faith would balk, no illusion whose cobweb tissue they cared to tear away. Give but a grain whereon to build, a phenomenon before which started back, amazed and daunted, the knowledge of the age, and forthwith a mighty imagination leaped upon it, claimed it for its own. There had been but a grain of sand, an inexplicable ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... told you, sonny, has its own ideas as to where it will grow. Let it be planted farther north than forty-five degrees and it will only thrive under glass; or try to cultivate it farther south than the thirty-five degree line and it will also balk. This, you see, leaves a rather narrow zone that answers its demands in the way of temperature and soil. For the kind of soil cotton likes has to be considered also. If the land is too sandy the ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... the responsibility of decision upon the superior, though from the instancy of the case hesitation or delay may be fatal. A man who as the commissioned chief would act intelligently, as the mere subordinate will balk. Nelson's action at St. Vincent will rarely be emulated, a truth which is strongly shown by the fact that Collingwood was immediately in his rear that day, and did not imitate his action till signalled by the commander-in-chief; yet after ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... bright spot in Harrow's second innings. Being a bowler, he went in last but one. It happened that Fluff's brother was in possession of the ball. It will never be known why the Duffer chose to treat Cosmo Kinloch's balk with utter scorn and contempt. The Duffer was tall, strong, and a terrific slogger. Nobody expected him to make a run, but he made twenty in one over—all boundary hits. When he left the wicket he had added ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... people time for the illuminations afterwards; but as it was it gave scope to the actress who, 'als Gast' from a Viennese theatre, was the chief figure in it. She merited the distinction by the art which still lingered, deeply embedded in her massive balk, but never ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... shall scarce protect you—be it spoken under favour of Saint Peter and the blessed Lady of Clery, who is all over mercy.—Why do you tarry? Go get your rooms ready. I expect the villain instantly. I pray to Heaven he take not fear and come not!—that were indeed a balk.—Begone, Tristan—thou wert not wont to be so slow when business was ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... that gits the one that's meant for 'em," said Reuben, "that's sure enough. If we did we'd stop movin' forward, I suppose, an' begin to balk. I haven't much life now, except in Molly, an' it's the things that pleases or hurt her that I feel the most. She's got a warm heart an' a hot temper like you used to have, Sarah, an' the world ain't easy generally to ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... Nor spoil your shape, distort your face, Or put one feature out of place; Nor will you find your fortune sink By what they speak or what they think; Nor can ten hundred thousand lies Make you less virtuous, learn'd, or wise. The most effectual way to balk Their malice, is—to ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... You must not balk in this kind, whoever you are; God respecteth no man's person. If you would arrive at the same haven, you must sail through the same sea. You must walk the same way of grace, if you would come to ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... the Hermit entered the wilderness alone, for he wanted no excitable small dog to balk his quest. Seating himself comfortably with his back against a log and partly screened by a thicket of young alders, he waited motionless. A deep hush seemed to clothe the forest as in a garment. All about him rose great trees, their branches shutting out the sunlight and making a ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... action, for we are not here concerned with the falsification of public or authentic documents). Between private individuals the essence of a forgery is the intent to defraud; where is it in this case? In what times are we living, gentlemen? Here is the President going away to balk a preliminary examination which ought to be over by this time! Until to-day I did not know M. le President, but he shall have the benefit of arrears; from this time forth he shall draft his decisions himself. You must set about this affair with ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... dances of the other people he had named. After that, addressing himself to me, I am going, says he, to invite all these honest persons to my house: if you take my advice, you will join with us, and balk your friends yonder, who perhaps are noisy prattlers, that will only teaze you to death with their nauseous discourses, and make you fall into a distemper worse than that you so lately recovered of; whereas, at my house, you shall ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... thee that thou hast smitten me?" To his amazement the prophet was able to understand the ass quite well. This dumb brute made its meaning plain to a learned man. It was an intolerable outrage that an ass should lecture a doctor, and balk him in his designs. Luther is that ass. Rome rode him, and he patiently bore his wicked master until the angel of the Lord stopped him and he would go no further. The only difference is that Balaam had his eyes opened, left off beating his ass, and felt ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... flanked by the candles in their fluted paper shades; the heavy gilded frames inclosing copies made by Dill in the galleries of Madrid and St. Petersburg; other canvases set against the base-boards face back so as at once to pique and to balk curiosity with regard to the host's own work; the graceful dignity of Dill himself, upon whom Virgilia's eyes ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... Essays on Husbandry (1764) says that Cato writes like an English squire and Varro like a French academician. This is just comment on Cato but it is at once too much and too little to say of Varro: a French academician might be proud of his antiquarian learning, but would balk at his awkward and homely Latin, as indeed one French academician, M. Boissier, has since done. The real merit of Varro's book is that it is the well digested system of an experienced and successful farmer who has seen and practised all ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... I feel like that green hunter you had to sell last spring—the one that would go at a fence with the most perfect display of serious intentions, and then balk and bolt when it came to jumping. Can it be that I, who have been trained from the cradle to the idea of marrying for money, will bolt the gate after all the expense and pains lavished upon my education to this end; after the years spent in learning how to enchant, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... tire him, and to be able to haul in upon our lines, so as to get near enough to give him our lances; but that was only hope, as you'll hear. Of a sudden, he stopped, turned round, and made right for us, with his jaws open; then, all we had to do was to balk him, and give him the lance. He did not seem to have made up his mind which boat he would attack—we were pretty near together, and he yawed at one, and then at the other. At last he made right for the other boat, and the boatsetter ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... something, Joe," I answered, "and fortune has so well befriended us hitherto that I can't think she will balk us now." ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... own room and prepared to pack after noting down the facts of the case. As I smoked I heard the game begin again,—with a miss in balk this time, for the whir was ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... wonder, though, what it means—that man, Brady, being here, and what trick he is up to with the high hat and the dress coat? His friend spoke of the president of the college and some 'kid.' Are they up to some thieving trick? If so, I want to be alert to balk them." ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... he's been brought up. Never did a hard day's work in his life. Everything made easy for him. If he'd ever ridden out a blizzard like Clay or stuck it out in a mine for a week without food after a cave-in, he wouldn't balk on the job before him. But he's soft. And he's afraid of his ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... as the Government does not accord equal rights to the Jew, general culture will only he his misfortune. The plain uneducated Jew does not balk at the low occupation of factor [1] or peddler, for, drawing comfort and joy from his religion, he is reconciled to his miserable lot. But the Jew who is educated and enlightened, and yet has no means of occupying ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... to more than ordinary punishment by the secretary of state, or of the educated class, were sent. The degrees of punishment were, however, varied; and the more severe was exhausting and dangerous. The carrying gang, with a massive balk on the shoulders, resembled a huge centipede. The laborers, sometimes thirty together, groaning beneath a weight of many tons, obtained no respite from toil. The slippery and inclining ground exposed them to terrific perils: ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... was a wooden yoke to lay on their necks; there was the two-wheeled farm cart with its long tongue to be fastened to the yoke. There was the goad, a long pole with a sharp point, to stick into the animals' flanks if they should balk. And probably there were many useful tricks to be learned; for example, words like our "Gee" and "Haw" and "Whoa," to shout at the animals when it was necessary to turn to the left or the right or ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... at all. I started to call her something or other a hundred times, I guess, and then I'd balk. I'd get all ready, and kind of make a sort of a sound, and then ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... Terrapin sits low in my regard, even though it has wallowed in the most aristocratic marsh. Through such dinners I hack and saw my way without even gaining a memory of my progress. If asked the courses, I balk after the recital of the soup. Indeed, I am so forgetful of food, even when I dine at home, that I can well believe that Adam when he was questioned about the apple was in real confusion. He had or he had not. It was mixed with ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... oldest Vaux girl. What's that? You don't know? Well, I do. I've had that all planned out, in case you won, ever since we decided that you was to contest as the representative of Las Palomas. And now you want to balk, do you?" ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... not! Even old Hank would balk at that, and he's never been afraid of thing that flies, runs or crawls. It was old Hank who taught me all I know about range life. He showed me how to shoot, throw a rope, and do heaps of other things a prairie boy ought to ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... two petards, which weighed some twenty pounds each, to his tent, one by one. Hugh should fetch them in a basket, one by one, to the river bank, at the spot where a balk of wood had been washed ashore by some recent floods. At seven in the evening Gerald should call upon his cousin, and on leaving, accompany Rupert to the river bank, where Hugh would be already in waiting. ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... grand fight between us two, old friend, and it goes hard with me to balk you of it. But I cannot pleasure you. I am general here under Phorenice, and she has given me the strongest orders not to peril myself. And besides, though you are a great man, Deucalion, you are not chief. You are not even ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... all came to was that the Great Powers, who had left Rumania to her fate when she was attacked by the Magyars, intervened the moment the assailed nation, helping itself, got the better of its enemy, and then they resolved to balk it of the fruits of victory and of the safeguards it would fain have created for the future. It was to rely upon the Supreme Council once more, to take the broken reed for a solid staff. That the Powers ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... world, but which is anything but the world—if you gave way less to the excitement of clubs, less to the buoyancy which arises from talking to each other as to the effect of some smart speech in which the minister has been assailed, you would see that it is mere child's play to attempt to balk the intelligence of the country on this great question, and you would not have talked as you have talked for the last eleven days." Mr. Cobden proceeded to discuss the effect of the march of free trade on ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a fearful night to make up a train in a hurry—as much as a man's life was worth to work even slow in the yard a night like that. But what limit is set to a switchman's courage I have never known, because I've never known one to balk at a ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... threat into effect. The wagon was on the side of a ridge about half way between the summit and the base of a high hill. On our left hand below us a number of feet lay a stream, on our right was a high cliff, and ahead of us was a team which began to balk and push back toward our wagon. For a few minutes it seemed that we must be either crushed by the big team in front or thrown into the stream, God came to our rescue, and the other team was brought under control before ours became very much ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... it only gratified her to balk his curiosity, so he turned away with a shrug. "If you won't ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... Republican convention to be more explicit than it had hitherto ventured to be. As leader after leader arrived who was insistent upon a gold standard, it became increasingly evident to Hanna that he must proceed with caution. If McKinley committed himself to gold, the silver advocates would balk at his candidacy, and perhaps unite on somebody else; if he committed himself to silver, he would lose the eastern leaders. The astute Hanna therefore allowed sentiment in favor of the gold plank ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... Lombard-street, and in twenty-four hours a friend in Cumberland gets it as fresh as if it came in ice. It is only like whispering through a long trumpet. But suppose a tube let down from the moon, with yourself at one end, and the man at the other; it would be some balk to the spirit of conversation, if you knew that the dialogue exchanged with that interesting theosophist would take two or three revolutions of a higher luminary in its passage. Yet for aught I know, you may be some parasangs nigher that primitive idea—Plato's ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... have known many a good and kind man made furiously angry by such a contretemps. I have known him lose his temper, call his wife and servants names, and a whole household made miserable. If, then, as is notoriously the case, it is too dangerous to balk a man about his dinner, how much more about his article? I came to my meal with an ogre-like appetite and gusto. Fee, faw, fum! Wife, where is that tender little Princekin? Have you trussed him, and did you ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... worry if I scurry from the grill room in a hurry, Dropping hastily my curry and retiring into balk; Do not let it cause you wonder if, by some mischance or blunder, We encounter on the Underground and I ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Sometimes Alvina and Pancrazio were late returning with the ass. And then gingerly the ass would step down the steep banks, already beginning to freeze when the sun went down. And again and again he would balk the stream, while a violet-blue dusk descended on the white, wide stream-bed, and the scrub and lower hills became dark, and in heaven, oh, almost unbearably lovely, the snow of the near mountains was burning ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... lays hold of them and crushes them, and they can not even squeak. Or even as a still more eminent 'bus driver, when the street is blocked, and there seems to be no room for his own thumb, yet (with a gentle whistle and a wink) solves the jostling stir and balk, makes obstructive traffic slide, like an eddy obsequious, beside him and behind, and comes forth as the first of an orderly procession toward the public-house ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... the first speaker, "but whether you're ready or not is another matter. Now I'm going to give you a last chance to pull out. Do you want to go ahead or don't you? It's no good for us to be laying plans if you are going to be weak-kneed at the end and balk at carrying them out. Do you mean to stand by me and see this thing to a finish or ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... her very best, and just got her horse's nose on the broken track leading down into the brook before Lucinda. "Pretty good, isn't it?" said Lucinda. Lizzie smiled sweetly. She could smile, though she could not speak. "Only they do balk one so at one's fences!" said Lucinda. The horsey man had all but regained his place, and was immediately behind Lucinda, within hearing—as ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... and encourage it, in a subtle and elusive way, but he's too shrewd to perpetrate a crime himself. I wouldn't be surprised if Duncan could name the man—or the band of traitors—we're looking for, if he chose to, but you may rest assured he has not involved his own personality in any scheme to balk the government." ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... our hearts, now, "Rouse up! art thou a man and darest not do this thing?" now, "Rise, kill and eat—it is thine, wilt thou not take it? Shall the flimsy scruples of this teacher, or the sanctified cant of that, bar thy way, and balk thee of thine own? Thou hast strength to brave them—to brave all things in earth, or heaven, or hell; put out thy ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... that he never dreamt I could have had any objection to his design; consequently gave himself no trouble in consulting my approbation. But this resolution was soon dropped, by the device of our usher, who assured Mr. Bowling, it would be a thousand pities to balk my genius, which would certainly one day make my fortune on shore, provided it received due cultivation. Upon which, this generous tar determined (though he could ill afford it) to give me university education; ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... strictly accurate, Washington might have replied to his refractory neighbor, on being warned away, in the language of the Nevada desperado who was put on a mule by a committee of vigilants and given ten minutes to get out of town; "Gentlemen," said the desperado, "if this mule don't balk, I don't ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... desert the Liberals to join the Conservatives. Land reform, taxation reform, the eight-hour day, are being carried out, however. But when it comes to such matters as an extended suffrage, the capitalists will balk. His conclusion is that if economic reforms are to continue, if, for example, the unemployed are to be set to work by the government, or if political reforms are to be resumed, the Labourites have to free themselves from the tutelage of the Liberal Party. And if they do this, they can play ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... even, but for coming out victorious. If the Vatican schemers could force Colonel Roosevelt, who, at the moment, was the greatest figure in the world, to obey their orders, they might exult in the sight of all the nations. Should he balk, he would draw down upon himself a hostile Catholic vote at home. Probably the good-natured Pope himself understood little about the intrigue and took little part in it, for Pius X was rather a kindly and a genuinely pious pontiff. But Cardinal Merry del Val, apt pupil of the Jesuits, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... swear, through thick and thin, that you saw these men sign this paper, six years ago or more, that you signed it at the same time, and stand by your own signature, you will sail through all right, and do me a devilish good turn. If you balk, or get twisted up in your own reins, or thrown off your seat, down goes your house. If you stand by me, I shall stand by you. The thing is all right, and just as it ought to be, but it's a little irregular. It gives me what belongs to me, but the law happens ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... likely your Dad would balk at your using the car if he knew the circumstances," piped another boy. "We have got that match to play off, and now that the electric cars are held up by the strike how are we to get to Torrington? Don't ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... cried Jack; "do not kneel to him. I wouldn't accept my life from him. I've foiled him hitherto, and will foil him yet. And, come what will, I'll balk him of the satisfaction of ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... poor town-weary sallow elf At Primrose-hill would renovate himself, Or drink (and no great harm) Milk genuine at Chalk Farm,— The innocent intention who would balk, And drive him back into St. Bennet Fink? For my part, for my life, I cannot think A walk on ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... through Tartary, being arrived at the Town of Balk, went into the King's Palace by Mistake, as thinking it to be a publick Inn or Caravansary. Having looked about him for some time, he enter'd into a long Gallery, where he laid down his Wallet, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... there. It would have been no use if he had. I must say, Major, you are a most difficult man to work with. Here I've been sacrificing the whole of my short holiday to carrying through a difficult negotiation for your benefit, and all you do is to balk me at every turn, to fling obstacles in my way, to foul every rope I'm trying to get a pull on. How can I marry Simpkins to Miss King if you won't let ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... laugh hurt her. "The Man in the Street, and the Woman of the Street, for that matter—pardon me if I offend your ears, but the truth must be told—were my godfather and my godmother, and they gave me that name between them. You are trembling, Miss Mildare. Sit down upon that balk, and I will finish." ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... doubtful and sullen, but Daurn greeted him bravely: "God's truth, lad, you've the spirit of the Wolf at least, but you've got no brains to plan. Come close an' listen, an' if ye truly want a fight thy father'll never balk thee." ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... cries Lord Kew, shaking away his hand, "be a man, Jack, and have no more of this puling. It's not a baby, that must have its toy, and cries because it can't get it. Spare the poor girl this pain, for her own sake, and balk yourself of the pleasure of bullying ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thief, is very keen in a money-chase,—keen as a terrier on a rat-track, may Satan twist his neck! Pshutt, dearie! here is a smiling knave who means to have the estate of Allonby as it stands; what live-stock may go therewith, whether crack-brained or not, is all one to him. He will not balk at a drachm or two of wit in his son-in-law. You have but to whistle,—but to ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... as I might advance in proof of this, I'll dwell not thereon now. I am satisfied To give the general reasons which, in brief, Balk my concurrence in ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... apprenticed orphans bless'd, The young who labour, and the old who rest. Is any sick? the Man of Ross relieves, Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes, and gives. 270 Is there a variance? enter but his door, Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more. Despairing quacks with curses fled the place, And vile attorneys, now a ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... stood face to face with a stark and grim extremity. Murder and concealment of a lifeless body, here, would be easy enough. These men were desperadoes, and if dire enough need pressed them they would not, she thought, balk overlong at the idea of killing ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... rich country on the rivers Jihon or Amu, and the Sir or Sihon, the Oxus and Jaxartes of the ancients. This extensive and fertile country, now called Western Turkestan, Great Bucharia, Kharism, Chorassan, and Balk, with some other smaller territories, is bounded on the west by the Caspian, on the east by the Belur-tag or Imaus, on the north by the deserts of western Tartary, and on the south by the mountains of the Hindoo-koh, and the desert of Margiana. The descendants ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... little breeze rises, it may carry this beastly old fog away, and then we can see where we are. Meanwhile, Jerry and I will try to find out what it is that makes our motor balk just when we ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... gone to prepare bullocks and fresh vegetables for delivery. At noon of the 23d the ships again lifted their anchors, and started. "The fleet is complete," he wrote the First Lord that day, "and the first easterly wind, I shall pass the Straits." Fortune apparently had made up her mind now to balk him no more. Thirty-six hours later, at 3.30 A.M. of July 25th, being then off Tarifa, a little west of Gibraltar, the sloop-of-war "Termagant," one of his own Mediterranean cruisers, came alongside, and brought him a newspaper, received from Lisbon, containing an account ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... didn't balk at eating pie. They had dandy pie in that house. We all sat around the dining room eating refreshments and we had a good time. Pee-wee showed them that a scout could eat, anyway. Even still, every time there was a noise he gave ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... beggin' me for some kind of a job he could support a wife on. There's nothin' in it—and I've got the same old fight with him on my hands I've had all his life—and the Lord knows what he won't do to balk me! What's happened now'll probably only make him twice as ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... not answer that question. He pulled a knob, and I held my breath. There was the slightest perceptible tremor. Was it going to balk? No, thank Heaven! It was under way. In a few seconds we were off the tower in the free air. Edmund pressed a button, and the speed instantly increased. The gorgeous tower seemed to be flying away from us like a soap bubble. Jack, in ecstasy, ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... should submit to it," Harley answered. "It was the fault of her mood. She was nervous, almost hysterical—thanks to her rebellious spirit. The moment I discovered how things were going I should have gone back and started afresh, and kept on doing so until I had her submissive. A hunter may balk at a high fence, but the rider must not give in to him unless he wishes to let the animal get the better of him. If he is wise he will go back and put the horse to it again and again, until he finally clears the topmost bar. That I should have ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... thousands down there—all my dear dead master's beautiful instruments—telescopes, quadrants, globes, dark mirrors, they all lie smashed to atoms underneath the ruins between the stones and the big balk." "But money—coined money," interrupted the Baron, "you spoke of gold pieces, old man?" "I only meant things which had cost several thousand gold pieces," he replied; and not another word could be ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Mr. Baruch, simple, trustful—outside of Wall Street,—incapable of concealment,—outside of Wall Street—of that which art has taught the rest of us to conceal. His humility makes him wonder; his naivete makes him talk quite frankly, unrestrained by the conventions that balk others. After all, is not wondering at yourself a sign of humility? A vain man, become great by luck, by force of circumstances, by the possession of gifts which he does not himself fully understand, would still take himself for granted. He would not be a romance to himself, ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... the unworthy, of reward the labourer balk; Like the parrot, teach the heron twenty words, he ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... masterpiece is valuable for one thing more than any other, it is the vivid distinctness with which English men and women of the fourteenth century are there painted, for the study of all the centuries to follow. But we wantonly balk the artist's own purpose, and discredit his labour, when we keep before his picture the screen of dust and cobwebs which, for the English people in these days, the crude forms of the infant language have practically become. Shakespeare ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Teheran-Meshed road, which is undoubtedly a section of that former commercial highway between two of the most ancient capitals in history—Nineveh and Balk, is very graphically shown by the caravan ruts at Lasgird. These have been worn in many places to a depth of four feet in the solid rock. It was not far beyond this point that we began to feel the force of that famous "Damghan wind," so called from the city ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... hands, The posture pontifical, face imperturbable, smile so serene. How did the sculptor detain you, you ever so restless, You ever so driven by princes and priests? So I stand here Enwrapped of this face of you, frail little frame of you, And think of your work—how nothing could balk you Or quench you or damp you. How you twisted and turned, Emerged from the fingers of malice, emerged with a laugh, Kept Europe in laughter, in turmoil, in fear For your ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... what we have all learned in our youth of Babylon and Nineveh, in Mesopotamia; of Persepolis, in fertile and blooming Iran; of the now ruined mountain-cities of Idumaea and Northern Arabia; of Thebes and Memphis; of Thadmor, in Syria; of Balk and Samarcand, in Central Asia; of the wonderful cities on the banks of the Ganges and in the southern districts of the peninsula ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... another vessel. "Hurrah! there she is," cried Uncle Boz. "The fellows won't balk you this time; but we must go alongside as we did ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... low-toned chat. Leaning on their muskets, they let their thoughts go wandering far away, for all men know that bloody work is coming. The engineers are hammering at their bulky pontoons now, and down at the water's edge the clumsy boats are moored, waiting for chess and balk carriers to be told off, and the crews to man the heavy sweeps. Up on the heights to the rear, planted thickly on every knoll and ridge, are the black-mouthed guns, and around them are grouped the squads of ghostly, grisly, ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... a good woman," said my Lord. "I wish you joy, my kinsman," he continued, giving Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the shoulder, "I won't balk your ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... brain, it rest with you, how long The legislative wreckers shall prevail. Ye have the power to balk them. Why then, fail? Regain your legislatures. Man them strong And drive thence all sleek hounds, trust-trained to trail Safe outlaws' paths ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... personalities, Lincoln's spokesman kept his poise. It was sorely tried by two things: by Sumner's frank use of every device of parliamentary obstruction with a view to wearing out the patience of the Senate, and by the cynical alliance, in order to balk Lincoln, of the Vindictives with the Democrats. What they would not risk in 1862 when their principles had to wait upon party needs, they now considered safe strategy. And if ever the Little Men deserved their label ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... do among th' cows. So many's a winter's night did I lie awake and think, that please God, come summer, I'd bid George and his wife goodbye, and go home at last. Little did I think how God Almighty would balk me, for not leaving my days in His hands, who had led me through the wilderness hitherto. Here's George out of work, and more cast down than ever I seed him; wanting every chip o' comfort he can get, ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... "Nothing I couldn't scratch. I can shoot a little pool too; but when it comes to balk line billiards I expect I'd be ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... lay, Waken, lords and ladies say, Tell them youth, and mirth and glee, Run a course as well as we, Time, stern huntsman! who can balk, Stanch as hound, and fleet as hawk? Think of this, without delay, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... must thou needs dight, Myself shall be the master-wright. I shall thee tell how broad and long, Of what measure and how strong. When the timber is fastened well, Wind the sides ever each and deal. Bind it first with balk and band, And wind it then too with good wand. With pitch, look, it be not thin! Plaster it well without ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... never knew, did he pass from sight behind a covert of tents and mounds, where he would bob up next. He avoided shafts and pools as if by a miracle; ran along greasy planks without a slip; and, where these had been removed to balk the police, he jumped the holes, taking risks that were not for a sane man. Once he fell, but, enslimed from head to foot, wringing wet and hatless, was up again in a twinkling. His enemies were less sure-footed than he, and times without number measured their ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... must be in the timber," thought the boomer. "Bonnie Bird wouldn't balk for nothing. I'll ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... if a fear, Or shadow of a fear, lest the strange Saints By whom thou swarest, should have power to balk Thy puissance in this fight with him, who made And heard thee swear—brother—I have not sworn— If the king fall, may not the kingdom fall? But if I fall, I fall, and thou art king; And, if I win, I win, and ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... not done; and the spectators wondered why it was not. They had already made up their minds that the balk was due to the coachman's maladroit driving, and this further proof of his stupidity quite exhausted their patience. Shouts assailed him from all sides, jeers, ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... Bake baki. Baker panisto, bakisto. Balance (scales) pesilo. Balance (poise) balanci. Balance of a/c restajxo. Balance-sheet bilanco. Balcony balkono. Bald senhara. Baldness senhareco. Bale pakego. Baleful pereiga. Balk malhelpi. Ball (globe) globo. Ball (playing) pilko. Ball (party) balo. Ball (bullet) kuglo. Ballad balado. Ballast balasto. Ballet baleto. Balloon aerostato. Balloon (plaything) aerpilkego. Ballot ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Michael Angelo, her Leonardo da Vinci, her Savonarola, her Giotto, or the group who followed Giotto's picture. Florence had a marvelous energy—re-lease experience. All our industrial formalism, our conventionalized young manhood, our schematized universities, are instruments of balk and thwart, are machines to produce protesting abnormality, to block efficiency. So the problem of industrial labor is one with the problem of the discontented business man, the indifferent student, the unhappy wife, the immoral minister—it is one of maladjustment between a fixed human nature and ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... very tolerable dinner had an inspiriting effect, and I was pleased to learn that there was a bin of old Madeira in the cellar. Naturally I soon grew cheerful, and consequently talkative; and summoned Mrs. Balk for a little gossip. The substance of what I gathered from her rather ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the crowded ranks of society as the last solemn word of her troth is spoken, and Blake thanks heaven that the organ tones grow perceptibly louder and more triumphant, and so does Ray, who would gladly balk that awful hurdle on which so many a poor fellow has floundered,—"With all my worldly goods I thee endow;" but he holds gallantly to the ring. He hardly knows that they are following the white-robed clergy forward to the ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... steady, determined purpose while you are whipping him. There is hardly one balking horse in five hundred that will pull true from whipping; it is only adding fuel to fire, and will make them more liable to balk another time. You always see horses that have been balked a few times, turn their heads and look back, as soon as they are a little frustrated. This is because they have been whipped and are afraid of what ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... wooden yoke to lay on their necks; there was the two-wheeled farm cart with its long tongue to be fastened to the yoke. There was the goad, a long pole with a sharp point, to stick into the animals' flanks if they should balk. And probably there were many useful tricks to be learned; for example, words like our "Gee" and "Haw" and "Whoa," to shout at the animals when it was necessary to turn to the left or the right or ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... young people set up housekeeping over at the old Murchison place Julius had an opportunity to enter their service. For some reason or other, however, he preferred to remain with us. The mare, I might add, was never known to balk again. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... was dismayingly mature and smart. He horribly feared him as a rival. For the second time that evening he did not balk fate by fearing it. The dentist was a rival. After fluttering about the mature charms of Miss Dietz, the school drawing-teacher, and taking a tentative buggy-ride or two with the miller's daughter, Dr. Doyle was bringing all the charm of his professional position ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... year, meantime, some grace Of earthly happiness gives place To humbling ills, the very charms Of youth being counted, henceforth, harms: To blush already seems absurd; Nor know I whether I should herd With girls or wives, or sadlier balk Maids' merriment or matrons' talk. But strait's the gate of life! O'er late, Besides, 'twere now to change my fate: For flowers and fruit of love to form, It must he Spring as well as warm. The world's delight ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... her defects, her virtues. Instinctively he sensed that she was not a "whip horse." A touch of the whalebone and she would balk—stop dead in her stride. He had known such horses before, ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... best, and just got her horse's nose on the broken track leading down into the brook before Lucinda. "Pretty good, isn't it?" said Lucinda. Lizzie smiled sweetly. She could smile, though she could not speak. "Only they do balk one so at one's fences!" said Lucinda. The horsey man had all but regained his place, and was immediately behind Lucinda, within ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... petards, which weighed some twenty pounds each, to his tent, one by one. Hugh should fetch them in a basket, one by one, to the river bank, at the spot where a balk of wood had been washed ashore by some recent floods. At seven in the evening Gerald should call upon his cousin, and on leaving, accompany Rupert to the river bank, where Hugh would be already in waiting. When they had left, Pat Dillon should start on horseback with the three uniforms in his ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... and at every concession made to labor desert the Liberals to join the Conservatives. Land reform, taxation reform, the eight-hour day, are being carried out, however. But when it comes to such matters as an extended suffrage, the capitalists will balk. His conclusion is that if economic reforms are to continue, if, for example, the unemployed are to be set to work by the government, or if political reforms are to be resumed, the Labourites have to free themselves from the tutelage of the Liberal Party. ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... upon our lines, so as to get near enough to give him our lances; but that was only hope, as you'll hear. Of a sudden, he stopped, turned round, and made right for us, with his jaws open; then, all we had to do was to balk him, and give him the lance. He did not seem to have made up his mind which boat he would attack—we were pretty near together, and he yawed at one, and then at the other. At last he made right for the other boat, and the boatsetter ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... and chaff is not worth buying. It should be your consideration to see whether you are getting what you pay for. If you show evidences of knowing the proper seeds you will receive a most respectful hearing from the tradesman. Do not balk at the price of re-cleaned seed. It means that you are going to get something for your money. It is worth much more than the seed sold in bulk that ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue
... few hundred inhabitant probably. It is not a place where a traveler would be likely to interrupt his journey unless he had a special object in doing so, like our dishonest friend. However, I think we shall be able to balk his ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... there in the trees, but the old fellow won't come in until he has a talk with them. Tell 'em they better not show the money until they chat with him a few minutes. Likely they'll fall for that, as they don't seem to have the slightest suspicion. But if they balk at leaving the money let them bring it along. Once out in the dark the rest will be easy. But I figure they'll leave the money in the shack—it's just for a few minutes, you know—and they'll reason that it's safe enough with ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... 'roun' dish yer h'a'th. In dem days," he continued, "dey wuz a Witch-Rabbit, en dat wuz her entitlements—ole Aunt Mammy-Bammy Big-Money. She live way off in a deep, dark swamp, en ef you go dar you hatter ride some, slide some; jump some, hump some; hop some, flop some; walk some, balk some; creep some, sleep some; fly some, cry some; foller some, holler some; wade some, spade some; en ef you aint monst'us keerful you aint git dar den. Yit Brer Rabbit he git dar atter so long a time, en ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... every sort of engine and machine made by experts and other ignoramuses. I balk at nothing. The engine was new to me, but I lit a lantern and examined its inwards with anxiety and superciliousness. Prisintly, by the grace of God, it started off. A very small bhoy held the lantern for me while I adjusted ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... to notify him of a throw. It is very seldom possible to catch a runner off third by a throw from the pitcher, though it may sometimes be done. Clarkson and Galvin both accomplish it at times, though they always do it by the aid of a "balk." Clarkson's method is this: With a runner on first and one on third, the man on first will usually try to steal second, and if the ball is thrown there to catch him, the runner on third tries to score. In this situation Clarkson makes a slight forward movement ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... if I scurry from the grill room in a hurry, Dropping hastily my curry and retiring into balk; Do not let it cause you wonder if, by some mischance or blunder, We encounter on the Underground and I ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... needs dight, Myself shall be the master-wright. I shall thee tell how broad and long, Of what measure and how strong. When the timber is fastened well, Wind the sides ever each and deal. Bind it first with balk and band, And wind it then too with good wand. With pitch, look, it be not thin! Plaster it well without ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... never raised hand to woman yet, and it would be a passing strange thing if I began on my own flesh and blood. It was a woman's hand which cast this lime into mine eyes, and though I saw her stoop, and might well have stopped her ere she threw, I deemed it unworthy of my knighthood to hinder or balk one of her sex." ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... whispered. "You have thought me cruel, because I have done my duty, heartless—cold—a mere piece of official machinery which could balk at nothing—even the destruction of a woman's happiness—because my allegiance to my country was greater than any personal consideration. But I am not insensible to the appeals of gentleness, not blind to beauty nor deaf to music, Countess Strahni, as you have thought. Beneath ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... does he balk so at the simplest inquiries? I have my notion as to its nature; but I'm not here to express notions unless you call my almost unfounded belief in him a notion. What I want to present to you is fact, and ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... a beginning and in our daily talks we sketched the most audacious projects. The leading concerts of the time did not balk at performing large vocal works, as they too often do to-day to the great detriment of the variety of their programmes. We then thought that we were at the beginning of the prosperity of French oratorio which only needed encouragement to ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... annually about 9,000 are only fourteen years of age and 1,500 have not yet reached the fifth grade. Many of these walk the streets and degenerate while in search of work or because of such fitful employment as only serves to balk the department of compulsory education, which has the power to insist upon school attendance for children of ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... true pulling horse balk. Take tincture of cantharides 1 oz., and corrosive sublimate 1 drachm; mix and bathe ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... At eight Rosy goes to bed with a headache. At nine old Parvenzano lets me through to his back yard, where there's a board off Riddle's fence, next door. I go under her window and help her down the fire-escape. We've got to make it early on the preacher's account. It's all dead easy if Rosy don't balk when the flag drops. Can you fix me one ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... appeared to be far better. For a week he had wandered much in his mind, and more than once Lucy had suspected that the end was near; but now he was singularly lucid. He wanted to get up, and Lucy felt it would be brutal to balk any wish he had. He asked if he might go out. The day was fine and warm. It was February, and there was a feeling in the air as if the spring were at hand. In sheltered places the snowdrops and the crocuses gave the garden the blitheness of an Italian ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... you which reason and your own circumstances require, and never suffer yourself to be deterred by the ill-grounded notions of censure and reproach; but when honesty and conscience prompt you to say or do anything, do it boldly; never balk your resolution or ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe
... the western journey had practically stripped the ship of sledge equipment, and those who went out on shorter journeys were obliged to make the best of the little that remained. This did not, however, balk their energies, and by resorting to all kinds of shifts and devices ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... shutters, and these sounds were echoed by other groans from the men in ambush, until the very forest itself seemed deriding the Yorkers. The knowledge that he and his men had fallen into a trap did not balk the sheriff; his rage rose to white heat and calling for an axe he advanced to the attack. The moment was freighted with peril. If the Yorkers attacked the house a withering fire would spring from the guns in the bushes and on the ridge and blood would flow in plenty in that heretofore ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... The Governor rested his lame back once more. "Your ambition is the more laudable, Excellency, since you have achieved so much already. I am not one to balk the honest ambition of any man, particularly when he does me the honor to take me into his confidence. I like this suggested measure. I like it much. I believe it would redound to our mutual benefit and reputation. Is it not ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... and act for herself, without any conference with Tunis. But she must do the only thing, after all, that would balk this wretched girl from the city—for ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... your disposition," continued Parker. "You have set yourself to balk this enterprise. But I haven't any time to spend ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... occasionally, how to balk him," replied his companion; "there is great craft and malice in mares, as there is in all females; see them feeding in the campo with their young cria about them; presently the alarm is given that the wolf is drawing near; ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... that question. He pulled a knob, and I held my breath. There was the slightest perceptible tremor. Was it going to balk? No, thank Heaven! It was under way. In a few seconds we were off the tower in the free air. Edmund pressed a button, and the speed instantly increased. The gorgeous tower seemed to be flying away from us like a soap bubble. ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... or be it life or death. Have I staked every hope on this one moment, Which gives thee to me thus at length alone, That idle fears should balk me of my purpose? No, queen! The world may round its axis roll A hundred thousand times, ere chance again Yield to my prayers ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... boys were quite at their ease and not likely to balk and act like wild rabbits, as is sometimes the case with children when they find themselves among strangers, and seeing nothing that they would be likely to fall out of or into, except a great bowl of ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... That's the reason they done sent fer me. The ladies in the fambly air done plum wo' out what with cookin' fer comp'ny an' washin' up an' all. It looks like comp'ny air the only thing what don't balk at that there lane. They done sint a hurry call fer ol' Peter, kase they got a notion Miss Ann Peyton air on the way. They phoned down ter the sto' fer me ter put my foot in the pike an' come erlong. They done got a phome message ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... Biddle and the leaders of the United States Senate were far from that opinion. Having combined to defeat the "old Indian scalper," as Biddle was wont to term Jackson, in his plan to bring South Carolina to terms, these able men continued their operations to balk him on ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... care to have in his house a fellow with so slight a disposition to work and so strong a propensity to extravagance? Suppose we stop and consider that very point: how do masters deal with that sort of domestic? If I am not mistaken, they chastise his wantonness by starvation; they balk his thieving tendencies by bars and bolts where there is anything to steal; they hinder him from running away by bonds and imprisonment; they drive the sluggishness out of him with the lash. Is it not so? Or ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... not what it is, a foolish glory he has got, I know not where, to balk those benefits, and yet he will converse and flatter 'em, make 'em, or fair, or foul, rugged, or smooth, as his impression serves, for he affirms, they are only lumps, and undigested pieces, lickt over to a form by our affections, and then ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... shattered scheme. Seymour fully expected they would not return from the gloom without, whither they had disappeared, but embrace the immediate chance of escape before the inopportune arrival of the real Barton Smith should balk the possibility. But, no,—and he doubted anew all his suspicions,—in a trice here they both were again, a new courage, a new hope in that pallid, furtive face, and another horse stood saddled among the equine ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Leonard Meldrum, the seneschal of the castle, and fain would he have gone thither to inquire for him; but, until he had served the turn of the mournful Elspa Ruet, he would not allow any wish of his own to lead him to aught wherein there was the hazard of any trouble that might balk her pious purpose. ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... knew by experience when to talk And when to hold his tongue, now held it till This passion might blow o'er, nor dared to balk Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will. At length she rose up, and began to walk Slowly along the room, but silent still, And her brow clear'd, but not her troubled eye; The wind was down, but still ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... but no sooner were they within reach, than Rustem fitted an arrow to the string, casting such a baleful look at his step-brother that this coward hastened to take refuge behind a tree. No obstacle could, however, balk the righteously angry Rustem, who sent his arrow straight through the trunk into his brother's heart, thus punishing the murderer for his dastardly trick. Then, returning thanks for having been allowed to avenge ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... their crowns of snow everlastingly in the face of the sun. There, in the centre of the earth, where the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmapootra rise to run their different courses; where mankind took up their first abode, and separated to replete the world, leaving Balk, the mother of cities, to attest the great fact; where Nature, gone back to its primeval condition, and secure in its immensities, invites the sage and the exile, with promise of safety to the one and solitude to the other—there I went to abide alone with God, praying, fasting, waiting ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... woman. I know I'm not. And I'm not a hard-head. I've always had a horror of being hard, for fear my hardness might in some way be passed on to my Dinkie. I want to keep my boy kindly and considerate of others, and loyal to the people who love him. But I balk at that word "loyal." For if I expect loyalty in my offspring I surely must have it myself. And I stood up before a minister of God, not so many years ago, and took an oath to prove loyal to my husband, to cleave to him in sickness and in health. I also took an oath to ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... Hannah, I mean—says she don't mind what happens to sea, but she won't have her nights in harbour disturbed. Old Billy Daddo hadn't laid hands on the first balk before he began to pipe, 'O for a thousand tongues to sing,' starting on the very first hymn in the collection like as if he meant to sing right through it. He hadn't got to 'music in the sinner's ears' before the old woman pushed her face overside by the starboard cathead, nightcap ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the glanders.—Melt four ounces fresh Butter and pour into his ear. To distinguish between glanders and distemper.—The discharge from the nose in glanders will sink in water; in distemper it floats. How to make a true pulling horse balk.—Take Tincture of Cantharides one ounce, and Corrosive Sublimate one drachm; mix and bathe his shoulder at night. How to serve a horse that is lame.—Make a small incision about half way from the knee to the joint on the outside of the leg, and ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... hysterical—thanks to her rebellious spirit. The moment I discovered how things were going I should have gone back and started afresh, and kept on doing so until I had her submissive. A hunter may balk at a high fence, but the rider must not give in to him unless he wishes to let the animal get the better of him. If he is wise he will go back and put the horse to it again and again, until he finally clears the topmost bar. That I should have done ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... care of you," hissed out the old man, malevolently, "but that I'd fain balk him in every desire he cherishes, ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... highest order of mind tends to throw off the responsibility of decision upon the superior, though from the instancy of the case hesitation or delay may be fatal. A man who as the commissioned chief would act intelligently, as the mere subordinate will balk. Nelson's action at St. Vincent will rarely be emulated, a truth which is strongly shown by the fact that Collingwood was immediately in his rear that day, and did not imitate his action till signalled by the commander-in-chief; yet after ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... pushed any ragged thistle-stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balk 70 All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk Pashing their life out, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... have been riding me hard. And I'm a well-trained nag. I never buck or balk.... I ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... vigilance and agility. Many among their number were skilful guides, scouts, and couriers, and had passed eventful lives on the Great Plains and in the Rocky Mountains. They possessed strong wills and a determination that nothing in the ordinary event could balk. Their horses were generally half-breed California mustangs, as quick and full of endurance as their riders, and were as sure-footed and fleet as a mountain goat; the facility and pace at which they travelled was a marvel. The ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... you may think, if you have never tried, to keep up a conversation and dance La Galliard, at the same time—one is apt to balk the other—but Brandon's dancing was as easy to him as walking, and, although so small a matter, I could see it raised him vastly in the estimation ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... mother," cried Jack; "do not kneel to him. I wouldn't accept my life from him. I've foiled him hitherto, and will foil him yet. And, come what will, I'll balk him of the satisfaction of ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... or early cocks 'gin Crow, As I've for thee, ungrateful maiden, done, To help thee milking, e'er day wark begun? And when thy well-stripp'd kye(1) would yield no more, Still on my head the reeking kit(2) I bore. And, Oh! bethink thee, then, what lovesome talk We've held together, ganging down the balk, Maund'ring(3) at time which would na for us stay, But now, I ween, maes(4) no such hast away. Yet, O! return eftsoon and ease my woe, And to some distant parish let us go, And there again them leetsome days restore, ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... valuable for one thing more than any other, it is the vivid distinctness with which English men and women of the fourteenth century are there painted, for the study of all the centuries to follow. But we wantonly balk the artist's own purpose, and discredit his labour, when we keep before his picture the screen of dust and cobwebs which, for the English people in these days, the crude forms of the infant language have practically ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... sallow elf At Primrose-hill would renovate himself, Or drink (and no great harm) Milk genuine at Chalk Farm,— The innocent intention who would balk, And drive him back into St. Bennet Fink? For my part, for my life, I cannot think A walk on Sunday ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... or a reeking pigeon-pie or a fulsome roast-pig. I have known many a good and kind man made furiously angry by such a contretemps. I have known him lose his temper, call his wife and servants names, and a whole household made miserable. If, then, as is notoriously the case, it is too dangerous to balk a man about his dinner, how much more about his article? I came to my meal with an ogre-like appetite and gusto. Fee, faw, fum! Wife, where is that tender little Princekin? Have you trussed him, and ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... proportional price than I should be willing to sell for. As the management of our enterprises seems to have abandoned the tried principles of business, for some considerations the precise nature of which I am not acute enough to discern, and as a sale to me would balk the very benevolent purposes recently avowed by you, I assume that I shall not be called upon to make ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... peronnelle to these men of war (with the noble exception, of course, of Alencon, Dunois, Xaintrailles, La Hire, and others). They were sore and wounded by her appearance and her claims. If they could cheat her, balk her designs, steal a march in any way, they did so, from first to last, always excepting the few who were faithful to her. Dunois could afford to be magnanimous, but the lesser men were jealous, envious, embittered. A peronnelle, a woman nobody knew! And they themselves ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... "There's a good majority of folks that don't relish seeing Harper's bunch ride up—that feed them through policy. But whenever you make it plain to a man that he's compelled to do a thing whether he likes it or not it's ten to one he'll balk out of sheer human pride. If Harper kills the Three Bar foreman on the grounds that he refused to feed all his men—why then, right off, every other foreman and owner within a hundred miles starts to resenting the possibility ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... (On, my Pegasus! Nor balk At that fear-inspiring figure!) Thomasina took a walk. And Fate drew her—drew her—drew her by a thousand spidery lines To a Slocum Pocum window filled chockful of valentines, All gaudy—save two, just alike in color, shape and size, ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... disposition, her love of attention, her vanity, irritated and at times disgusted Mrs. Cowperwood. She was eighteen now, with a figure which was subtly provocative. Her manner was boyish, hoydenish at times, and although convent-trained, she was inclined to balk at restraint in any form. But there was a softness lurking in her blue eyes that ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... snarled the first speaker, "but whether you're ready or not is another matter. Now I'm going to give you a last chance to pull out. Do you want to go ahead or don't you? It's no good for us to be laying plans if you are going to be weak-kneed at the end and balk at carrying them out. Do you mean to stand by me and see this thing to a finish or ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... they could not do was not enough, tarnished as it was by a misgiving that, by some secret mystery of breeding, some freemasonry of fashion, he was not one of them, and that this awkward fact was suspended over him for life, to arrest his course in the hour of success, and balk him at ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... you my man. The best colt in the world is no good until he learns to take the whip without bucking. I'm going to get you used to the whip. This is frank talk, eh? Well, I'm a frank man. You're in the harness now, Harrigan; make up your mind: Will you pull or will you balk? Answer me!" ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... rises, it may carry this beastly old fog away, and then we can see where we are. Meanwhile, Jerry and I will try to find out what it is that makes our motor balk just when we want ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... a billiardist. Frank Parker, the ex-champion in the days of the old four-ball game, now dead, was then a resident of Chicago, and his friends thought so well of his abilities at the fourteen-inch balk line game, which up to that time had never been played in public, that they offered to match him against me for stakes of $250 a side, the game to be 500 points up. After some talk back and forth this match was finally made, and March 25th, 1885, we came together in Central Music Hall, Chicago, ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... performance was the one really bright spot in Harrow's second innings. Being a bowler, he went in last but one. It happened that Fluff's brother was in possession of the ball. It will never be known why the Duffer chose to treat Cosmo Kinloch's balk with utter scorn and contempt. The Duffer was tall, strong, and a terrific slogger. Nobody expected him to make a run, but he made twenty in one over—all boundary hits. When he left the wicket he had added thirty-eight to the ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... minutes flatwise slapping me. Wait, Heart! Time moves. — Thou lithe young Western Night, Just-crowned king, slow riding to thy right, Would God that I might straddle mutiny Calm as thou sitt'st yon never-managed sea, Balk'st with his balking, fliest with his flight, Giv'st supple to his rearings and his falls, Nor dropp'st one coronal star about thy brow Whilst ever dayward thou art steadfast drawn! Yea, would I rode these mad contentious brawls No damage taking from their If and ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... was. The devilgrass came irreverently above the wheels and flowed with graceful inquisitiveness over the blades, but the brisk little man pushed heartily and the mechanism revolved with a barely audible clicking. It did not balk, complain or hesitate. Cleanly severed ends of grass whirled into the air and floated down on the neat smooth swath left behind. Everyone smiled relievedly at the jimdandy's triumph and my sigh was loudest and most heartfelt. I edged away ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... not balk me," said Chiffinch; and a jingling was heard, as if he were filling his comrade's glass with a very unsteady hand. "Hey—What the devil is the matter?—I used to carry ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... to his lordship, producing the finest mast pines in the empire; the noble earl has lately cut many scores of them ami some old friends, rather than balk ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... night to make up a train in a hurry—as much as a man's life was worth to work even slow in the yard a night like that. But what limit is set to a switchman's courage I have never known, because I've never known one to balk at ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... the full-fed hound or gorged hawk, Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight, Make slow pursuit, or altogether balk The prey wherein by nature they delight; So surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night: His taste delicious, in digestion souring, Devours his will, that liv'd ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... in hell I'm to get this cab out of such a hole as this if I don't beat him," exclaimed the driver, roughly. Then once more, "Dash blank dash your infernal hide! I'll learn you to balk with me again!" Then down came more furious lashes on the quivering hide, and the poor tortured brute began to back, thereby placing the frail four-wheeler in imminent danger of ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... round it he heaped the spoils and the wealth that he had won; on it he stationed his wives who had accompanied him in the campaign; and on the summit Attila placed himself, ready to perish in the flames and balk the victorious foe of their choicest booty should they succeed in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... skill of his maneuver, and avoided any occasion to balk his intentions. When the situation as set forth by Mr. Pontellier was accepted and taken for granted, she was apparently satisfied that ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... of this argument Mr. Eden was determined not to go; but on reflection he made up his mind to, for this reason: "This," said he to himself, "is an act of uncommon virtue and self-denial in this poor fellow. I must not balk it, for it will be good for his soul; it is a step on the right road. This good and, I might say, noble act is a foundation-stone on which I ought to try and build an honest ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... life On which our state is built: I saw this day What we might be, and still be Christian women: And mothers too—I saw one, laid in childbed These three cold weeks upon the black damp straw; No nurses, cordials, or that nice parade With which we try to balk the curse of Eve— And yet she laughed, and showed her buxom boy, And said, Another week, so please the Saints, She'd be at work a-field. ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... fare thou well, mine honest horseman; and thou, old beaver. [To Lupus]-Pray thee, Roman, when thou comest to town, see me at my lodging, visit me sometimes? thou shalt be welcome. old boy. Do not balk me, good swaggerer. Jove keep thy chain from pawning; go thy ways, if thou lack money I'll lend thee some; I'll leave thee ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... sit upright on her stern, like a dog begging, and the higher the seas rose the more we gloried in them. Sufficient for the moment was the wave thereof. We swore at each other in a sort of chant. I had to repress an impulse to jump overboard and swim to the balk, instead of trying to work up to it with a boat that had, every other moment, to be turned bows on to the sea. The slightest error of judgment on Tony's part, and we should indeed have swum for it. I had such a curious feeling of being in the sea—as much ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... chief mate, and I might as well shut up shop altogether if you were to leave me. I should miss you, too, Cyril," he went on, stretching his arm across the table to shake hands with the lad. "You have proved a real friend and a true; but were there a chance of your going as an officer, I would not balk you, even if I could do so. It is but natural that a lad of spirit should speak and think as you do; besides, the war may not last for long, and when you come back, and the ships are paid off, you would soon wipe off the arrears of work, and get the books into ship-shape ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... followers of a leader are always totally different from the leader." The difference between a leader and a follower is this: a leader leads and a follower follows. The shepherd is a man, but sheep are sheep. As a rule followers follow as far as the path is good, but at the first bog they balk. Betrayers, doubters and those who deny with an oath are always recruited from the ranks of the followers. In a sermon John Wesley once said: "To adopt and live a life of simplicity and service for mankind is difficult; but to follow the love ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... authentic documents). Between private individuals the essence of a forgery is the intent to defraud; where is it in this case? In what times are we living, gentlemen? Here is the President going away to balk a preliminary examination which ought to be over by this time! Until to-day I did not know M. le President, but he shall have the benefit of arrears; from this time forth he shall draft his decisions himself. You must set about this affair with ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... bruise much oftener than they heal. Whenever I am in that girl's presence, I have a queer feeling that I am walking on eggs, and tip-toe as I may, shall smash things. If something is not done, she will be ill on our hands, and a funeral will balk the bloodhounds." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... battleships and armed transports and the method employed of meeting them. Even when later in the war the Germans apparently driven to frenzy made special efforts to sink hospital and Red Cross ships the facts were concealed by the censors, and accounts of the efforts made to balk such inhuman and unchristian practices diligently suppressed. In the end it seemed that the British, who of course led all naval activities, had reached the conclusion that only by the maintenance of an enormous ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... from our purse all coin we spurn But gold, we may from mart return. Nor purchase what we're seeking; And if in parties we must talk Nothing but sterling wit, we balk All interchange of speaking. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... barque CACHALOT, as far as whaling is concerned, comes to an end. For all practical purposes she becomes a humdrum merchantman in haste to reach her final port of discharge, and get rid of her cargo. No more will she loiter and pry around anything and everything, from an island to a balk of drift-wood, that comes in her way, knowing not the meaning of "waste of time." The "crow's-nests" are dismantled, taut topgallant-masts sent up, and royal yards crossed. As soon as we get to sea we shall turn-to and heave ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... man to balk his fancy; and as Crawfurd is so bent upon fighting to-morrow, it don't make much difference. Is it ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... outside the exclusive hennery. Terrapin sits low in my regard, even though it has wallowed in the most aristocratic marsh. Through such dinners I hack and saw my way without even gaining a memory of my progress. If asked the courses, I balk after the recital of the soup. Indeed, I am so forgetful of food, even when I dine at home, that I can well believe that Adam when he was questioned about the apple was in real confusion. He had or he had not. It was mixed ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically, and I will not balk my fancy.—Accordingly I ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... away! [Exeunt all except Pembroke, Arundel, Gaveston, James and other attendants of Pembroke. Pem. My lord, you shall go with me: My house is not far hence; out of the way A little; but our men shall go along. We that have pretty wenches to our wives, Sir, must not come so near to balk their lips. Arun. 'Tis very kindly spoke, my Lord of Pembroke: Your honour hath an adamant of power To draw a prince. Pem. So, my lord.—Come hither, James: I do commit this Gaveston to thee; Be thou this night his keeper; in the morning We will discharge thee of thy charge: ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... been brought up. Never did a hard day's work in his life. Everything made easy for him. If he'd ever ridden out a blizzard like Clay or stuck it out in a mine for a week without food after a cave-in, he wouldn't balk on the job before him. But he's soft. And he's afraid of his ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... Your head, or tooth, or finger ache; Nor spoil your shape, distort your face, Or put one feature out of place; Nor will you find your fortune sink By what they speak or what they think; Nor can ten hundred thousand lies Make you less virtuous, learn'd, or wise. The most effectual way to balk Their malice, is—to ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... that de Spain should never leave the Gap with Nan, and of the rousing of every man within it to cut off their escape, Duke stubbornly refused to pursue the man he so hated or even to leave the house in any effort to balk his escape. But Gale, and Sassoon who had even keener reason for hating de Spain, left Duke to sulk as he would, and set about getting the enemy without any help from the head of the house. In ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... but void of state, Where Age and Want sit smiling at the gate: Him portion'd maids, apprenticed orphans bless'd, The young who labour, and the old who rest. Is any sick? the Man of Ross relieves, Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes, and gives. 270 Is there a variance? enter but his door, Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more. Despairing quacks with curses fled the place, And vile attorneys, now ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... rat-track, may Satan twist his neck! Pshutt, dearie! here is a smiling knave who means to have the estate of Allonby as it stands; what live-stock may go therewith, whether crack-brained or not, is all one to him. He will not balk at a drachm or two of wit in his son-in-law. You have but to whistle,—but to whistle, Willie, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... their lofty and dignified content, partly of course by their sheer artistry. But when the same thing is attempted by unskilful hands it fails ingloriously. We say it has "a palpable design upon us," and balk. Gibbon and Burke, as inheritors of the seventeenth-century tradition, sometimes fell into the error; Ruskin, with his 'poetical' style, was sometimes guilty; but the worst and most conspicuous offenders ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... urged Johnston to move toward Knoxville to co-operate with him, [Footnote: Id., p. 744.] but Polk was now in trouble by reason of Sherman's march from Vicksburg upon Meridian and Johnston was ordered to assist Polk. [Footnote: Id., p. 763.] Then Grant, to balk both efforts, ordered Thomas to make a demonstration against Johnston, which was effective in preventing co-operation in either direction. [Footnote: Id., ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... paid not in cash, but in kind, either a quantity of grain being allotted to them or a piece of land. The latter form of remuneration, which was the more common, is exemplified at Doncaster, where there is a field called the Pinder's Balk, which the pinder cultivated for his own profit. At Malmesbury, it appears, he occupied the position of honour held in other towns by the Mayor, and his salary is represented by a piece of land ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... the insertion of the tube, when skilfully done, need not cause suffering, the operation as conducted by Mr. Hyde was painful. Try as he would, he was unable to insert the tube properly, though in no way did I attempt to balk him. His embarrassment seemed to rob his hand of whatever cunning it may have possessed. After what seemed ten minutes of bungling, though it was probably not half that, he gave up the attempt, but not until my nose had begun to bleed. He was plainly chagrined when he and his bravos retired. ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... if you balk at the first disagreeable thing that comes along," reminded Marjorie, slipping her arm through that of her friend. Constance walked a few steps in stolid silence. She could not make up her mind to watch the playing of the girls whom she felt she hated, even to please Marjorie. ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... up drearily into the drifting heaps of gray. What a wretched, paltry balk the world was! What a noble part he played in it!—taking out his pistol. Well, he could pull a trigger, and let out some other sinner's life; that was all the work God thought he was fit for. Thinking of Dode ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... let the Doctor know what you're about," said Polynesia as they started to move off. "He might balk if he thought we had any hand in it. Get the snail to offer on his own ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... to Atlanta, and which had wrought 'such' demoralization amid rank and file as to render the men unreliable in battle. I cannot give a more forcible, though homely, exemplification of the morale of the troops at that period than by comparing the Army to a team which has been allowed to balk at every hill, one portion will make strenuous efforts to advance, whilst the other will refuse to move, and thus paralyze the exertions of the first. Moreover, it will work faultlessly one day and stall the next. No reliance can be placed upon it ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... shall the words be said to make death exhilarating, Give me your tone therefore O death, that I may accord with it, Give me yourself, for I see that you belong to me now above all, and are folded inseparably together, you love and death are, Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling life, For now it is convey'd to me that you are the purports essential, That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons, and that they are mainly for you, That you beyond them come forth ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... into the blue of the sky, so that for all the world it looked as though the sea lapped back to arch completely over us and disappear beyond the distant mountains at our backs—the weird and uncanny aspect of the seascapes of Pellucidar balk description. ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hitherto ventured to be. As leader after leader arrived who was insistent upon a gold standard, it became increasingly evident to Hanna that he must proceed with caution. If McKinley committed himself to gold, the silver advocates would balk at his candidacy, and perhaps unite on somebody else; if he committed himself to silver, he would lose the eastern leaders. The astute Hanna therefore allowed sentiment in favor of the gold plank to gather force, although ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... have I done unto thee that thou hast smitten me?" To his amazement the prophet was able to understand the ass quite well. This dumb brute made its meaning plain to a learned man. It was an intolerable outrage that an ass should lecture a doctor, and balk him in his designs. Luther is that ass. Rome rode him, and he patiently bore his wicked master until the angel of the Lord stopped him and he would go no further. The only difference is that Balaam had his eyes opened, left off beating his ass, and felt sorry ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... the detective, cutting the end off a cigar, "we had their names, and we ascertained why they killed Hunter, or would have killed any other person who tried to balk their scheme, but our information ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... to the normal type of the men of the early Renaissance. It may be added parenthetically, that even in respect to his moral character he will not be fairly judged, if we listen solely to the complaints of the German Church, which his fickleness helped to balk of the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... Mr. Tingley," warned Blent, hotly. "You're a stranger in these parts. You try to balk me and you'll ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... understand that you're to choose the oldest Vaux girl. What's that? You don't know? Well, I do. I've had that all planned out, in case you won, ever since we decided that you was to contest as the representative of Las Palomas. And now you want to balk, do you?" ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... bare gums? Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for fire-locks, and level them? If you blind your eyes with tears, you will not see the President's marshal; If you groan such groans, you might balk the government cannon. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... vast enginery, allowed no halt Up withered avenues of waste-blood war, To the pitiless red mounts of fire afume, As 'twere the world's arteries opened! Woe the race! Ask wherefore Fortune's vile caprice should balk His panther spring across the foaming salt, From martial sands to the cliffs of pallid chalk! There is no answer: seed of black defeat She then did sow, and France nigh unto death foredoom. See since that Seaman's epicycle sprite Engirdle, lure and goad him to the chase Along drear leagues ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... urged his sire, "there is drift all the way; a man could hardly wade through it. However, lad," he continued, seeing that the boy rose as the church bell began to toll, "this is a case wherein I would by no means balk the obdurate chap of his will. Go to church by all means. There is a pitiless wind, and a sharp, frozen sleet, besides the depth under foot. Go out into it, since thou prefers it to ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... he bade me good night and left me. What were my sensations. "Am I then," I said to myself "to be thus cut off in the midst of my youth? No! I will balk these monsters. I must attempt to save myself even if the attempt cost me my life." These thoughts occupied me during the night, and I did not sleep until towards four ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... sale" in your case are your best capabilities. You need first of all to know your true self, before you can sell true ideas about your qualifications for success. Your true self is your best self. You are untrue to yourself, you balk your own ambition to succeed, unless you develop to the utmost of your capacity your ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... Zagathai, one of his sons, received the subordinate rule of Transoxiana, or the rich country on the rivers Jihon or Amu, and the Sir or Sihon, the Oxus and Jaxartes of the ancients. This extensive and fertile country, now called Western Turkestan, Great Bucharia, Kharism, Chorassan, and Balk, with some other smaller territories, is bounded on the west by the Caspian, on the east by the Belur-tag or Imaus, on the north by the deserts of western Tartary, and on the south by the mountains of the Hindoo-koh, and the desert of Margiana. The descendants of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... width of a furrow or two unploughed, or by marking the division with stones, or perhaps by simply throwing the first furrow of the next strip in the opposite direction when it was ploughed. When an unploughed border was left covered with grass or stones, it was called a "balk." A number of such acres or fractions of acres with their slight dividing ridges thus lay alongside of one another in a group, the number being defined by the configuration of the ground, by a traditional division among a given number ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... she should balk!" But Netteke had done her balking for the day, and, having been refreshed by her luncheon of green grass, she was ready to move on. The river had now quite a current, which helped them, and while the soldiers were still having their joke with Father ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... delit politique: no more wicked guillotining for revolutions. A Frenchman must have his revolution—it is his nature to knock down omnibuses in the street, and across them to fire at troops of the line—it is a sin to balk it. Did not the King send off Revolutionary Prince Napoleon in a coach-and-four? Did not the jury, before the face of God and Justice, proclaim Revolutionary Colonel Vaudrey not guilty?—One may hope, soon, that if a man shows decent courage and energy ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... within reason to balk that Mortlake crowd in their trickery and deceit," declared Peggy, ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... aping Fanatics that talk All cant and rant and rhapsodies high flown— That bid you balk A Sunday walk, And shun God's work as you should shun ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... basin of water was administered to each. At a given signal the "gorging" commenced. He who first got outside his "duff and water" started, and so on with the next. One would scarce believe with what incredible rapidity that pudding was metamorphosed. The next obstacle to be surmounted was a huge balk of timber raised at the ends, about a foot off the ground, under which the coursers were compelled to crawl. A row of eighteen barrels, with the ends knocked out, came next; then a climb up slack ropes, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... cannot be—this Age affords none so nice: Nor Fiend nor Goddess can she be, for these I saw were Mortal. No—'tis a Woman—I am positive. Not young nor handsom, for then Vanity had made her glory to have been seen. No—since 'tis resolved, a Woman—she must be old and ugly, and will not balk my Fancy with her sight, but baits me more with this ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... a pair of heels as good as his pair of eyes, and just as Reddy had declared by his motions such a readiness to pitch the ball that he could not have changed his mind without being declared guilty of a balk—just at that instant the Charlestonian dashed madly for second base. Heady snatched off his mask and threw the ball to second with all the speed and correctness he was master of; but the throw went just so far to the right that Tug, leaning far out, ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... You will never agree," Said the Cat to the Rat and the Lamb, "But if you balk You will have to walk,— That's the kind of kitten I am!" So they sailed right back On the larboard tack To the nearest port of call, And the Reckless Rat Let it go at that, While the Lamb said nothing ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... just a fragment. This interest was not associated with the elevated road for whom the work was being done, nor the contractor who had undertaken the job, nor the foreman who was supervising it. It was a question which concerned only me and Mother Earth who seemed to be doing her best to balk us at every turn. I forgot the sticky, wet clay in which I had floundered for nine hours, forgot the noisome stench which at times we were forced to breathe, forgot my lame hands and back. I recalled only the problem itself and the skill with ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... grows in vain. I tell you I have laid by a fortune only to pour into his hand. It is ready for him to-night; there would be no haggling, no asking for time—it would be paid him in hard cash. How long, thought I, will this madman balk me with his whim? He will die some day in his cups, or break his neck in hunting, and I shall surely come in with my offer to his heir, and have my way at last, and win my prize. But now, after all my patience and my pains, I am overmatched by a Parson and a Boy." He spoke with uncommon ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... let yourself go enough," he repeated, almost like a seer. "You have tried to force your destiny from its appointed course. You have, and Covington has, and I have. We have tried to force things that were not meant to be and to balk things that were meant to be. That's because we've been selfish—all three of us. We've each thought of ourself alone—of our own petty little happiness of the moment. That's deadly. It warps the vision. It—it ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Lane, which measures in front forty feet, and from the ground to the eaves twelve feet. The true centrum phonicum, or just distance, is one particular spot in the king's field, in the path to Nore Hill, on the very brink of the steep balk above the hollow cart-way. In this case there is no choice of distance; but the path, by mere contingency, happens to be the lucky, the identical spot, because the ground rises or falls so immediately, if the speaker either retires or advances, that his mouth would at once be above ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... farming. Each man used to keep one or more oxen for the village plough until they made up the team into eight; then they ploughed the land in strips of an acre or half-acre each, divided by a bit of unploughed turf called a balk. Each strip was a furlong, i.e. a "furrow long," i.e. the length of the drive of a plough before it is turned. This was forty rods, or poles, and four of these furrows made up the acre. These pieces of land were called "shots," and there were "headlands," or common field-ways, to ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... that balked his men. Did a heavy transport wagon jamb at the gangway, holding up the traffic, with a spring, Duff was at the wheel. A heave of his mighty shoulders, and the wagon went roaring down the gangway. Did a horse, stupid with terror, from its unusual surroundings, balk, Duff had a "twitch" on its upper lip, and before it knew what awful thing had gripped it, the horse was lifted clear out of its tracks, and was on ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... simple, trustful—outside of Wall Street,—incapable of concealment,—outside of Wall Street—of that which art has taught the rest of us to conceal. His humility makes him wonder; his naivete makes him talk quite frankly, unrestrained by the conventions that balk others. After all, is not wondering at yourself a sign of humility? A vain man, become great by luck, by force of circumstances, by the possession of gifts which he does not himself fully understand, would still take himself for granted. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... of drawn wire, to meet the issue of the impending hours. Now, was to come the last grapple. He had never lived through a crisis such as this before. Would he prevail, would he keep his head? Would he avoid or balk the thousand and one little subterfuges, tricks, and traps that the hostile traders would prepare for him—prepare with a quickness, a suddenness that all but defied the ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... the natural history of John is that, however kindly and intelligent and reasonable he may be—he needs, in double harness, to be cleverly managed, to be coaxed and petted up to what else would make him shy. If driven straight at it, the chances are forty-eight out of fifty that he will balk or bolt. ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... But he didn't balk at eating pie. They had dandy pie in that house. We all sat around the dining room eating refreshments and we had a good time. Pee-wee showed them that a scout could eat, anyway. Even still, every time there was a noise he ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... inclination to hear the history of the lives of all her little scholars: but she thought, that being present at those relations might be a balk to the narration, as perhaps they might be ashamed freely to confess their past faults before her; and therefore, that she might not be any bar in this case to the freedom of their speech, and yet might be acquainted with their stories ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... blowed," he said. "B-b-burglars, what? Shall I moisten the lips? Or would you rather I wore a sickly smile? I should like it to be a good photograph. You know, you can't touch me, Reggibald. I'm in balk." His eyes wandered round the room. "Why, there's Nobby. And what's the game? Musical Chairs? I know a better one than that." His eyes returned to the master. "Now, don't you look and I'll hide in the hassock! Then, when ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... pushed any ragged thistle-stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents deg. deg.68 Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as deg. to balk 70 All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk Pashing their life out, ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... and probable career in life, as factors in classification. Sex goes deeper than any or all of these. To neglect this is to neglect the chief factor of the problem. Rightly interpreted and followed, it will yield the grandest results. Disregarded, it will balk the best methods of teaching and the genius of the best teachers. Sex is not concerned with studies as such. These, for any thing that appears to the contrary physiologically, may be the same for the intellectual development of females ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight, Shedding the mockery of its vital hues Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on Till vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep 240 Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud; Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on, Day after day a weary waste of hours, 245 Bearing within his life the brooding care That ever fed on its decaying flame. And now ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... bits of her shattered scheme. Seymour fully expected they would not return from the gloom without, whither they had disappeared, but embrace the immediate chance of escape before the inopportune arrival of the real Barton Smith should balk the possibility. But, no,—and he doubted anew all his suspicions,—in a trice here they both were again, a new courage, a new hope in that pallid, furtive face, and another horse stood saddled among the equine group at the door. Meddlesome was pinning up the brown skirt of her gown, showing ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... that if he is on the track when his leave is out, that he must follow it; but as soon as he has either lost his game, or killed it, he will then come home. That's the feeling of a true hunter, sir, and you must not balk it." ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... On which our state is built: I saw this day What we might be, and still be Christian women: And mothers too—I saw one, laid in childbed These three cold weeks upon the black damp straw; No nurses, cordials, or that nice parade With which we try to balk the curse of Eve— And yet she laughed, and showed her buxom boy, And said, Another week, so please the Saints, She'd be at work ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... broke out Mervyn, 'they shall stay here, if only to balk your spite. My sisters shall not be driven from pillar to post the very day their ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pounds mine ear with noisy talk, Whose brazen gall no ire can balk And wearies me of life's short span? The accident ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... tight. Every nerve, every fibre of him braced itself with the rigidity of drawn wire, to meet the issue of the impending hours. Now, was to come the last grapple. He had never lived through a crisis such as this before. Would he prevail, would he keep his head? Would he avoid or balk the thousand and one little subterfuges, tricks, and traps that the hostile traders would prepare for him—prepare with a quickness, a suddenness that all but ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... the happy shore betray'd, And thus on shelves the credulous youth convey'd? In deep revolving thoughts he weighs his state, Secure of craft, nor doubts to baffle fate; At least, if his storm'd bark must go adrift, To balk his charge, and for himself to shift, 850 In which his dexterous wit had oft been shown, And in the wreck of kingdoms saved his own. But now, with more than common danger press'd, Of various resolutions stands possess'd, Perceives the crowd's unstable zeal decay Lest their recanting ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... steps, rather late in the afternoon, "I had meant to get you somehow to-day. If you had refused to listen, I intended to take you to the Lido and keep you there all night—the gondolier and the people there are bribed—then you would have had no choice but to marry me. Oh, you cannot balk me!" ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... my faith is strong again—avoid Matanzas, for your own sake and mine. Don Mario wanted to marry me to save me this exile. But I refused; I told him I was pledged to you, and he was furious. He is powerful; he would balk you, and there is always room for one more in San Severino. Pancho Cueto, too, living in luxury upon the fruits of his crime, would certainly consider you a menace to his security. You see how cunning my love for you has ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... unto thee that thou hast smitten me?" To his amazement the prophet was able to understand the ass quite well. This dumb brute made its meaning plain to a learned man. It was an intolerable outrage that an ass should lecture a doctor, and balk him in his designs. Luther is that ass. Rome rode him, and he patiently bore his wicked master until the angel of the Lord stopped him and he would go no further. The only difference is that Balaam had his eyes opened, left off beating his ass, and felt sorry for ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... elf At Primrose-hill would renovate himself, Or drink (and no great harm) Milk genuine at Chalk Farm,— The innocent intention who would balk, And drive him back into St. Bennet Fink? For my part, for my life, I cannot think A walk on Sunday is "the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... are only a few hundred inhabitant probably. It is not a place where a traveler would be likely to interrupt his journey unless he had a special object in doing so, like our dishonest friend. However, I think we shall be able to balk his ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... to be. As leader after leader arrived who was insistent upon a gold standard, it became increasingly evident to Hanna that he must proceed with caution. If McKinley committed himself to gold, the silver advocates would balk at his candidacy, and perhaps unite on somebody else; if he committed himself to silver, he would lose the eastern leaders. The astute Hanna therefore allowed sentiment in favor of the gold plank to gather ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... egg one another on: don't ask me to betray my fellow-servants; but let us balk them. I don't deceive you, Dame: if the good priest shows his face here, he will be thrown into the horse-pond, and sent home with a ticket pinned to his back. Them that is to do it are on the watch now, and have got their orders; and 't is a burning shame. To be sure I am not a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... "Balk'd of his prey, the yelling monster flies, And fills the city with his hideous cries; A ghastly band of giants hear the roar, And, pouring down the mountains, crowd the shore. Fragments they rend from off the craggy brow And dash the ruins on the ships below; ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... eat it; how to cure a horse from the crib or sucking wind; how to put a young countenance on the horse; how to cover up the heaves; how to make him appear as if he had the glanders; how to make a true-pulling horse balk; how to nerve a horse that is lame, etc., etc. These horse secrets are being continually sold ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... interview and the stern spirit he displayed in it that had made the change in the opposition's attitude toward him and had seemed to affect the feeling of the whole Territory. For his official path became unexpectedly easy. There were few attempts to balk him in his administration of affairs and there was a general manifestation of tolerance, and even of willingness to see how his ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... of engine and machine made by experts and other ignoramuses. I balk at nothing. The engine was new to me, but I lit a lantern and examined its inwards with anxiety and superciliousness. Prisintly, by the grace of God, it started off. A very small bhoy held the lantern for me while ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... interest was not associated with the elevated road for whom the work was being done, nor the contractor who had undertaken the job, nor the foreman who was supervising it. It was a question which concerned only me and Mother Earth who seemed to be doing her best to balk us at every turn. I forgot the sticky, wet clay in which I had floundered for nine hours, forgot the noisome stench which at times we were forced to breathe, forgot my lame hands and back. I recalled only the problem itself and the skill ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... fortresses of the great sea-marsh, to this or that of the many lakes, lagoons and pond holes where the wild fowl found their feeding beds. Here was this refuge, where they fled to escape persecution, the spot most remote, secluded, secret, inaccessible. Here nature conspired to balk pursuit. The wide shallows made a bar now to the average sailing craft, and as for a motor-yacht like ours, the presence of a local pilot, acquainted with all the oyster reefs and shallows, all the channels and cut-offs, made us feel more easy, for we knew we could no longer sail merely by ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... your Dad would balk at your using the car if he knew the circumstances," piped another boy. "We have got that match to play off, and now that the electric cars are held up by the strike how are we to get to Torrington? ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... your Christian charity? Do you think that I enjoy this fierce wrestling with doubts? or, having them, would you bid me play false and conceal them? What if I am a final castaway, as your good books tell us some must be, would you make me a castaway before my time, and balk all my hopes in life? Is this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... to face with a stark and grim extremity. Murder and concealment of a lifeless body, here, would be easy enough. These men were desperadoes, and if dire enough need pressed them they would not, she thought, balk overlong at the idea of killing ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... is lost also; so we may as well say no more about it. I have determined to marry for money, as you well know; but it appears to me as if there was something which invariably prevents the step being taken; and, upon my honour, fortune seems so inclined to balk me in my wishes, that I begin to snap my fingers at her, and am becoming quite indifferent. I suffer now under the evil of poverty; but it is impossible to say what other evils may be in store if I were to change my condition, ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... for no sooner had she taken in their import than she cast a hurried look about her and left her place without fuss or flurry, but with an air of quiet determination which Mr. Gryce felt confident covered a resolution which nothing could balk. ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... "there would be little glory in cutting you down, and even less in being wounded by you; but if you will have it so, it's not an old soldier of the artillery will balk your humor." ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... over, so the men went back to bring up the herd. They were delayed some little time, changing to their swimming horses. It was nearly an hour before the herd came up, the others opening out, so as to give us a clear field, in case of a mill or balk. I never had to give an order; my boys knew just what to do. Why, there's men in this outfit right now that couldn't have ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... Kew, shaking away his hand, "be a man, Jack, and have no more of this puling. It's not a baby, that must have its toy, and cries because it can't get it. Spare the poor girl this pain, for her own sake, and balk yourself of the pleasure of bullying and making ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... alley, and blind thoroughfare in the neighbourhood echoed to the incessant din of letter-bells. Men, women, and children were hurrying to the chief office, while the fiery-red battalion of postmen, as they neared the same point, were apparently well pleased to balk the diligence of the public, anxious to spare their coppers. The mother post-office for the United Kingdom and the Colonies was then in Lombard Street, and folks thought it was a model establishment. Such armies of clerks, such sacks of letters, and countless consignments ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the united Cunning of the Stage, Has balk'd the hireling Drudges of the Age; Since Betterton of late so thrifty 's grown, Revives Old Plays, or wisely ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for fire-locks, and level them? If you blind your eyes with tears, you will not see the President's marshal; If you groan such groans, you might balk the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... Ned. "O'Malley did it, or caused it to be done; and it was an attempt to balk Mr. Bartholomew and the H, & P. A. rather than a direct attack upon ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... that mind," said Roland, gallantly, "I am not the one to balk them. I will, at least, see whither their inclinations tend; and that the matter may the sooner be decided, I will set out ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... Robin sit upright on her stern, like a dog begging, and the higher the seas rose the more we gloried in them. Sufficient for the moment was the wave thereof. We swore at each other in a sort of chant. I had to repress an impulse to jump overboard and swim to the balk, instead of trying to work up to it with a boat that had, every other moment, to be turned bows on to the sea. The slightest error of judgment on Tony's part, and we should indeed have swum for it. I had such a curious feeling of being in the sea—as much ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... living—and how? There's time, I suppose, but it begins to fidget me. He won't handle corn—I'm clear as to that. At his age, of course, all lads talk about voyages and so on, but Harry seems cut out for a larger sphere than Greystone. I shan't balk him. I'd rather he hadn't anything to do ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... flesh and blood, I will not. No, if I do, the devil take me quick. I have no money, beggar: balk the way! ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... "and don't, I beg of you, disturb the papers more than necessary. The key to the locked drawer is in the lower compartment on the right. Proceed, my elderly friend, to search the apartment; I'll not balk you. The thing's rather amusing—and entirely absurd. If it were not—if it didn't strike my funny-bone—I should probably put up some sort of a fight; as it is, you see I'm entirely acquiescent. Your tiny automatics ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... dyed in the wool New Englanders at that, no doubt with the heavy Puritan mortmain upon them, narrow as a shoe string, circumscribed as a duck pond, walled in by ghastly respectability. Ten to one, if the girl had talent and ambition, they would smother these things in her, balk her at every turn. They had regarded Ned Holiday's marriage to Laura a misalliance, he recalled. There had been quite a to-do about it at the time. Good God! It had been a misalliance all right, but not as they reckoned it. It had ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... or three miles, while crossing the level valley, all went well, but when we reached the bluffs and ravines that bounded the river valley on the west, the green oxen began to balk and back and refused to pull their loads up the hills, and the new drivers were nonplused and helpless. The better teams went ahead and were soon out of sight, while the poorer ones had to double up, taking one wagon up a hill and then going back for another, ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton
... him into de fence row, and dere's no more runnin', but an awful mix-up with de hoss and de cart and de rations. Dat hoss so sceered him have de quavers. Massa say, 'What you doin'?' I says, 'Break de balk.' He say, 'Well, yous got everything else broke. We'll see 'bout ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... and handling. And I will say that some ships that for years have sailed blue water as soberly and as docilely as a street-car horse has plodded the treadmill of the 'tween-tracks, have been known to balk, as stubbornly and as conclusively as any old Bay Billy that ever wore a bell. I know this has happened, because I have seen it. I saw, for instance, ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... returned the next day accompanied by a new mate. At length the hole was shut up, as they committed great depredations in the garden, and were useful only in giving a sudden sharp cry of alarm when the Mhorunghee Hawk-Eagle, a terrible enemy to Pigeons, made its appearance, thus enabling the gardeners to balk him of ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... that we have no planks of that thickness whatever," Mr Rawlings said. "We only brought enough timber for the scaffolding over the mine, and a little for framework if it wanted lining. You see, we did line it down to the rock. I think we have one balk of nine-inch ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... rascal! He's trying to balk me at the last minute, I believe. I'm going to see what he means!" and with this, the excited Mr. Period rushed down the gangplank, toward the man at whom he had pointed—one of the men who had tried to ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... such critical moments of doubt any but the highest order of mind tends to throw off the responsibility of decision upon the superior, though from the instancy of the case hesitation or delay may be fatal. A man who as the commissioned chief would act intelligently, as the mere subordinate will balk. Nelson's action at St. Vincent will rarely be emulated, a truth which is strongly shown by the fact that Collingwood was immediately in his rear that day, and did not imitate his action till signalled by the commander-in-chief; yet after receiving ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... base-hit proved himself the possessor of a pair of heels as good as his pair of eyes, and just as Reddy had declared by his motions such a readiness to pitch the ball that he could not have changed his mind without being declared guilty of a balk—just at that instant the Charlestonian dashed madly for second base. Heady snatched off his mask and threw the ball to second with all the speed and correctness he was master of; but the throw went just so far to the right that Tug, leaning far out, ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... whaling is concerned, comes to an end. For all practical purposes she becomes a humdrum merchantman in haste to reach her final port of discharge, and get rid of her cargo. No more will she loiter and pry around anything and everything, from an island to a balk of drift-wood, that comes in her way, knowing not the meaning of "waste of time." The "crow's-nests" are dismantled, taut topgallant-masts sent up, and royal yards crossed. As soon as we get to sea we shall ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... he heard such talk, Would, heedless of a broken pate, Stand like a man asleep, or balk 400 Some wishing guest of knife or fork, Or drop and break ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... his desert path, And gild his branded brow, that no man spill His forfeit life to balk thy holy will That spares him for ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... he doth swear, He rent his clothes and tore his hair, And as he runneth here and there An acorn cup he greeteth, Which soon he taketh by the stalk, About his head he lets it walk, Nor doth he any creature balk, But lays on ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... to have its sunny side. I've read a lot of pirate tales and I can remember when I thought I would like to be one. But I know myself and I know you better than you think. When it came to a showdown, you'd balk." ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... Ruth, "I am very sorry to balk you; but if you're going to treat me as an invalid, I am afraid ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... sixth drink time—a casyooal gun goes off over among the Red Dog outfit, an' the lead tharfrom bores a hole in the wall clost to Dan's y'ear. Nacherally Dan don't like it. The show sort o' comes to a balk, an' takin' advantages of the lull Dan arises in a listless way an' addresses the ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... fulsome roast-pig. I have known many a good and kind man made furiously angry by such a contretemps. I have known him lose his temper, call his wife and servants names, and a whole household made miserable. If, then, as is notoriously the case, it is too dangerous to balk a man about his dinner, how much more about his article? I came to my meal with an ogre-like appetite and gusto. Fee, faw, fum! Wife, where is that tender little Princekin? Have you trussed him, and did you stuff him nicely, and have you taken care ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it rest with you, how long The legislative wreckers shall prevail. Ye have the power to balk them. Why then, fail? Regain your legislatures. Man them strong And drive thence all sleek hounds, trust-trained to trail Safe outlaws' paths to fastnesses ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... Tellest thy raptures from the rustling spray, And wakest the morning with thy varied lay, Singing thy matins,— When we have come to hear thy sweet oblation Of love and joyance from thy sylvan station, Why, in the place of musical cantation, Balk us with pratings? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... unwilling that the matter should be delayed, lest something should interfere to balk ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... of the battery looking at him, his teeth still showing in a smile, as if his information, whether true or false, had been given to convince the foreigner that the Greeks were a very superior and brave people, notably one little officer of artillery. He had apparently assumed that Coleman would balk from venturing with such a force upon an excursion to trifle with the rear of a hard fighting Ottoman army. He exceedingly disliked that man, sitting up there on his tall horse and grinning like a cruel little ape with a secret. In truth, ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... busy an' backgammon that lane fer twenty-five years an he ain't never tech it yit. That's the reason they done sent fer me. The ladies in the fambly air done plum wo' out what with cookin' fer comp'ny an' washin' up an' all. It looks like comp'ny air the only thing what don't balk at that there lane. They done sint a hurry call fer ol' Peter, kase they got a notion Miss Ann Peyton air on the way. They phoned down ter the sto' fer me ter put my foot in the pike an' come erlong. They done got a phome message from way over ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... I shall certainly not balk your inclinations.—But I should be glad you would please to explain ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... answered bitterly) Would have with me the weight of a request That I'd hereafter quaff at common puddles And not at one pure fount; I'd heed the bar As I would heed the grass-webbed gossamer; I'd sooner balk a bench of drivellers Than outrage sacred nature.—If that bench Could have you up for bigamy, what then?— The dear old dames! they should not have the means To prove it on me: for the pact should be 'Twixt me and her who would accept my troth Freely before high heaven and ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... not here concerned with the falsification of public or authentic documents). Between private individuals the essence of a forgery is the intent to defraud; where is it in this case? In what times are we living, gentlemen? Here is the President going away to balk a preliminary examination which ought to be over by this time! Until to-day I did not know M. le President, but he shall have the benefit of arrears; from this time forth he shall draft his decisions himself. You must set about this affair with ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... Dr. Doyle was dismayingly mature and smart. He horribly feared him as a rival. For the second time that evening he did not balk fate by fearing it. The dentist was a rival. After fluttering about the mature charms of Miss Dietz, the school drawing-teacher, and taking a tentative buggy-ride or two with the miller's daughter, Dr. Doyle was bringing all the charm of his professional position and professional teeth ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... intimate friends and used to go fishing together down the bay. At last, after many months, the criminal disclosed to the detective his plan of blackmailing my client, and suggested that as two heads were better than one they had better make it a joint venture. The detective pretended to balk at the idea at first, but was finally persuaded, and at the other's request undertook the delivery of the blackmailing letters to my client! Inside of three weeks he had in his possession enough evidence in the criminal's ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... says, "The followers of a leader are always totally different from the leader." The difference between a leader and a follower is this: a leader leads and a follower follows. The shepherd is a man, but sheep are sheep. As a rule followers follow as far as the path is good, but at the first bog they balk. Betrayers, doubters and those who deny with an oath are always recruited from the ranks of the followers. In a sermon John Wesley once said: "To adopt and live a life of simplicity and service for mankind is difficult; but to follow the love of luxury, making a clutch for place, pelf and power, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... James and other attendants of Pembroke. Pem. My lord, you shall go with me: My house is not far hence; out of the way A little; but our men shall go along. We that have pretty wenches to our wives, Sir, must not come so near to balk their lips. Arun. 'Tis very kindly spoke, my Lord of Pembroke: Your honour hath an adamant of power To draw a prince. Pem. So, my lord.—Come hither, James: I do commit this Gaveston to thee; ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... for all the world it looked as though the sea lapped back to arch completely over us and disappear beyond the distant mountains at our backs—the weird and uncanny aspect of the seascapes of Pellucidar balk description. ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... jamb at the gangway, holding up the traffic, with a spring, Duff was at the wheel. A heave of his mighty shoulders, and the wagon went roaring down the gangway. Did a horse, stupid with terror, from its unusual surroundings, balk, Duff had a "twitch" on its upper lip, and before it knew what awful thing had gripped it, the horse was lifted clear out of its tracks, and was on its way ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... Want sit smiling at the gate: Him portion'd maids, apprenticed orphans bless'd, The young who labour, and the old who rest. Is any sick? the Man of Ross relieves, Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes, and gives. 270 Is there a variance? enter but his door, Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more. Despairing quacks with curses fled the place, And vile attorneys, now a ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... three castles, sixty-five men were despatched under Baxter and Pieter Cock, who found them empty, though thirty Indians could have stood against two hundred soldiers since the castles were constructed of plank five inches thick, nine feet high, and braced around with thick balk full of port-holes. Our people burnt two, reserving the third for a retreat. Marching eight or nine leagues further, they discovered nothing but some huts, which they could not surprize as they were discovered. They came ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... be far better. For a week he had wandered much in his mind, and more than once Lucy had suspected that the end was near; but now he was singularly lucid. He wanted to get up, and Lucy felt it would be brutal to balk any wish he had. He asked if he might go out. The day was fine and warm. It was February, and there was a feeling in the air as if the spring were at hand. In sheltered places the snowdrops and the crocuses gave the garden ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... asters by my garden walk, You are but coarse compared with roses: More choice, more dear that rosebud which uncloses Faint-scented, pinched, upon its stalk, That least and last which cold winds balk; A rose it is though least and last of all, A rose to ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... her love of attention, her vanity, irritated and at times disgusted Mrs. Cowperwood. She was eighteen now, with a figure which was subtly provocative. Her manner was boyish, hoydenish at times, and although convent-trained, she was inclined to balk at restraint in any form. But there was a softness lurking in her blue eyes that was most ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... particularly myself, for it promised that he would see this affair through at any and all costs—and I had been apprehensive regarding the attitude of Gates, lest his love for me, or for the Whim, cause him to balk short of the danger line. So, hastily imploring Monsieur to hug him again, I dashed below for one of the rifles. This arm was a neat high-power sporting model, but I thought it might persuade our kidnaper to ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... (1764) says that Cato writes like an English squire and Varro like a French academician. This is just comment on Cato but it is at once too much and too little to say of Varro: a French academician might be proud of his antiquarian learning, but would balk at his awkward and homely Latin, as indeed one French academician, M. Boissier, has since done. The real merit of Varro's book is that it is the well digested system of an experienced and successful farmer who has seen and practised all ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... and sullen, but Daurn greeted him bravely: "God's truth, lad, you've the spirit of the Wolf at least, but you've got no brains to plan. Come close an' listen, an' if ye truly want a fight thy father'll never balk thee." ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... work and so strong a propensity to extravagance? Suppose we stop and consider that very point: how do masters deal with that sort of domestic? If I am not mistaken, they chastise his wantonness by starvation; they balk his thieving tendencies by bars and bolts where there is anything to steal; they hinder him from running away by bonds and imprisonment; they drive the sluggishness out of him with the lash. Is it not so? Or how do you proceed ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... The clouds already closing in upon me, The voyage balk'd, the course disputed, lost, I yield my ships to Thee My hands, my limbs grow nerveless, My brain feels rack'd, bewilder'd; Let the old timbers part, I will not part, I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me, Thee, ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... young. My idea is that, outside o' union troubles, the man that can manage workin'-men is the man that's been one himself. Well, I set Bibbs to learn the men and to learn the business, and HE set himself to balk on the first job! That's what he did, and the balk's lasted close on to three years. If he balks again I'm just done with him! Sometimes I feel like I was pretty ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... other in that mess down there has become conditioned to her; something else to me. My part will play along with anyone except Belle; hers with anybody except me. Anti-conditioning, you might call it. Anyway, they lay back their ears and balk." ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... ordinary punishment by the secretary of state, or of the educated class, were sent. The degrees of punishment were, however, varied; and the more severe was exhausting and dangerous. The carrying gang, with a massive balk on the shoulders, resembled a huge centipede. The laborers, sometimes thirty together, groaning beneath a weight of many tons, obtained no respite from toil. The slippery and inclining ground exposed them to terrific perils: when ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... but on a level with the earth, is the slab which formerly covered the vault. It is without inscription, but bears the arms of the Earl of Clancarty. The convent as well as the church is in very tolerable preservation; and Mr. Herbert has taken especial care, as far as he can, to balk the consumer, time, of the remnants of his glorious feast. He has repaired the foundations in some parts and the parapets in others, and so judiciously that the eye is never annoyed by the intrusion of the new among the old; the ivy furnishing him with a ready means for hiding the unhallowed ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... well, mine honest horseman; and thou, old beaver. [To Lupus]-Pray thee, Roman, when thou comest to town, see me at my lodging, visit me sometimes? thou shalt be welcome. old boy. Do not balk me, good swaggerer. Jove keep thy chain from pawning; go thy ways, if thou lack money I'll lend thee some; I'll leave thee to ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... water that trickled through his fingers, "'tis dried rabbit thong! They are ahead of us! They have passed while that Scotch mule was balk! We must catch the Englishman," and he began hitting out with his ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... Franklin's influence we have allowed her to receive your letters and to answer them. I have no doubt of your sincerity, or hers, but I did not foresee what has come to pass. She is our only child and you can scarcely blame me if I balk at a marriage which promises to turn her away from us and ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... him, and is craning her neck to discover what is keeping him? Off with you, sir, since you are a husband, a reformed rake, and a church-goer. If you had gone and joined the Methodists, you might have been a preacher yourself by this time. Oh! we don't want to spoil sport and balk your good intentions; but, by George, Gervase, we never thought you would have been the man to be tied so tight to a woman's apron-string. You must spare us one more carouse for old friendship's sake, my boy, just to try what it is like again, and hear all the news. ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... Tina since he had been head of the family, and irritability in him was a token of great perplexity; for indeed his hardest task always was the dealing with Fulbert; and he was besides very sorry to balk the poor boys of one of their few ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... yard, where there's a board off Riddle's fence, next door. I go under her window and help her down the fire-escape. We've got to make it early on the preacher's account. It's all dead easy if Rosy don't balk when the flag drops. Can you fix me one of them ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... measure of it. He fairly exulted as he reflected that he might be called upon to do some great deed of valor—in fact he felt he must do a great deed of valor to retrieve his self respect after having made that balk about the detour. How did that guy get around the detour anyway? ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... me. You have had a long holiday, Alley; you must now learn once more to work for your poor father. Ah, you have been d——d sly; but never mind the past—I forgive it. You must not run away again without my leave; if you are fond of sweethearts, I won't balk you—but your old father must go ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... man will tread one other measure, under this nether Moon; speechless nurselings, infants as we call them, (Greek), crow in arms; and sprawl out numb-plump little limbs,—impatient for muscularity, they know not why. The stiffest balk bends more or ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... whereabouts them folks is camped. Thar's the Bloo Grass deestrict, the Pennyr'yal deestrict, an' the Purchase. The Bloo Grass folks is the 'ristocrats, while them low-flung trash from the Purchase is a heap plebeian. The Pennyr'yal outfit is kind o' hesitatin' 'round between a balk an' a break-down in between the other two, an' is part 'ristocratic that a-way an' part mud. As for Colonel Sterett, he's pure strain Bloo Grass, an' he shows it. I'll say this for the Colonel, an' it shorely knits me to him from the first, he could take a bigger drink of ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... virgin have at last heard our prayers. Narcisse, my darling, tell Alphonse Duchatel all that I have told thyself. Bid him quickly inform his father, brothers, sister; and if they have French blood in their veins they will balk this half-breed and her ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... his eyes, pretended to sleep, and thought of the letter. What had he done with it? He remembered that he had carefully folded it and put it in the right-hand pocket of his vest. He must have this letter. It would balk his vengeance, should it fall into his wife's hands; and this might happen at any moment. It was a miracle that his valet had not put it on the mantel, as he was accustomed to do with the things which he found in his master's pockets. He was reflecting on some means of getting ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... oxen. There was a wooden yoke to lay on their necks; there was the two-wheeled farm cart with its long tongue to be fastened to the yoke. There was the goad, a long pole with a sharp point, to stick into the animals' flanks if they should balk. And probably there were many useful tricks to be learned; for example, words like our "Gee" and "Haw" and "Whoa," to shout at the animals when it was necessary to turn to the left or the right ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... rifles, and the captain of the Terrible, therefore, proposed a field-mounting for the Naval long 12-pounder of 12 cwt., which has a much longer range than any artillery gun out here. A pair of waggon wheels were picked up, a balk of timber used as a trail, and in twenty-four hours a 12-pounder was ready for land service. Captain Scott then designed a mounting for a 4.7-inch Naval gun by simply bolting a ship's mounting down on to four pieces of pile. Experts declared that the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... war as a chosen way to balk the purposes of those who threaten us, we hold it to be the first task of statesmanship to develop the strength that will deter the forces of aggression and promote the conditions of peace. For, as it must be the supreme purpose of all free men, so it must be the dedication ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... da she fared stounded: she pluck'd the pur from the back-stock, and copped it agin the balk of the douw-pollar, and barnt it; and then she hulled [it] at the thackster, and hart his weeson, and huckle-bone. There was northing but cadders in the douw-pollar, and no douws: and so, arter she had barnt the balk, and the door-stall, and the plancher, ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... to make a sign of affirmation, when the King hurried him on. 'I grieve to balk you of your family tidings, but delay will be ill for one or other of us; so fare thee well, Sir ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... needn't think you can balk now," observed Fulsbee grimly. "You're all of you handcuffed, and there are enough of us to handle you. I promise you that, if anyone of you tries to run away, I won't run after him until I've first tried dropping him with ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... she wanted a safe, steady horse; one that would not run, balk, or kick. She would not have bought any horse, indeed, had it not been that the way to the post office, the store, the church, and everywhere else, had grown so unaccountably long—Miss Prue was approaching her sixtieth birthday. The horse had ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... a visit to the country for a few days, and the neighbourhood is famous for its beautiful prospects. Though, for our own individual share, we would rather go to the catacombs alone, than to a splendid view in a troop, we hate to balk young people! and as even now a walking-stick chair is generally carried along for our behoof, we seldom or ever remain at home when all the rest of the party trudge off to some "bushy bourne or mossy dell." On these occasions how infinitely ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... one get before her. She did her very best, and just got her horse's nose on the broken track leading down into the brook before Lucinda. "Pretty good, isn't it?" said Lucinda. Lizzie smiled sweetly. She could smile, though she could not speak. "Only they do balk one so at one's fences!" said Lucinda. The horsey man had all but regained his place, and was immediately behind Lucinda, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... fall. Not the less solemn was my vow Because unheard, and oh! the sin Will not be less, if I should now Deny the feeling felt within. Unwedded to my dying day I must, my father dear, remain; 'Tis well, if so thou will'st, but say Can man balk Fate, or break ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... she's beginning to realize it," the women whispered to each other with a kind of pitying triumph. For there is a certain aggravation in our friends' not owning to even those facts which we deplore for them. It is provoking to have an object of pity balk. Mrs. Field's assumption that her daughter was not ill had half incensed her sympathizing neighbors; even Amanda had marvelled indignantly at it. But now the sudden change in her friend caused her to marvel still more. She felt a vague fear every time she thought of her. ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... things affected me so much as a pile of lumber on the floor, not firewood but unmistakable wreck-wood, black as bog-oak, still caked in places with the mud of ages. Nor was it the mere sight of this lumber that dumbfounded me. It was the fact that a fragment of it, a balk of curved timber garnished with some massive bolts, lay on the table, and was evidently an object of earnest interest. The diver had turned and was arguing with gestures over it; von Brning and Grimm were pressing another view. The diver shook his head frequently, finally ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... a good woman!" says my lord, seizing my lady's hand, at which she blushed very much, and shrank back, putting her children before her. "I wish you joy, my kinsman," he continued, giving Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the shoulder. "I won't balk your luck. Go to Cambridge, boy; and when Tusher dies you shall have the living here, if you are not better provided by that time. We'll furnish the dining-room and buy the horses another year. I'll give thee a nag out of the stable: ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... slapping me. Wait, Heart! Time moves. — Thou lithe young Western Night, Just-crowned king, slow riding to thy right, Would God that I might straddle mutiny Calm as thou sitt'st yon never-managed sea, Balk'st with his balking, fliest with his flight, Giv'st supple to his rearings and his falls, Nor dropp'st one coronal star about thy brow Whilst ever dayward thou art steadfast drawn! Yea, would I rode these mad contentious brawls No damage ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... space, were a talk here too tedious: in which time it is said, he killed near 100 persons in cold blood. In Galloway, he and his party ravished a woman before her husband's eyes, took a young boy, tied his two thumbs with a cord, and hung him to the balk or roof of the house. Another they took and twisted a small cord about his head with their pistols to the scull. In 1682, he pursued and shot one W. Graham when escaping from his mother's house. In 1683, he shot four men on the water of Dee, and carried two to Dumfries, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... "And against mine, too, if you balk my wishes at every turn. But I will take you. It is the only chance you have, and if you are mad enough to refuse it, I must force it on you. Remember, I shall use force. Now stay by the window, and await my signal. I shall come ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... who was very generally regarded by the police as a cunning pickpocket. Kazmah's business of 'dreamreading' does not actually come within the Act. He is clever enough for that. Remember, he does not profess to tell fortunes. It also enables him to balk ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... Mrs. Jewkes came up, and said Thomas was returned. O, said my master, let him bring up the papers: for he hoped, and so did I, that you had sent them by him. But it was a great balk, when he came up and said, Sir, Mr. Andrews did not care to deliver them; and would have it, that his daughter was forced to write that letter to him: and, indeed, sir, said he, the old gentleman took on sadly, and would have it that his ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... work, we have only to gaze or listen in order to pluck some, at least, of the fruits of art. But fine novels take fine reading; fine essays take fine thinking; fine poetry takes fine feeling. We balk at the effort, and ask, like the audience at the movies, that eye should take the easier way. And hence the American reader still faintly suggests the Fiji Islander, who wears a silk hat and patent leathers on a ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... nervous, almost hysterical—thanks to her rebellious spirit. The moment I discovered how things were going I should have gone back and started afresh, and kept on doing so until I had her submissive. A hunter may balk at a high fence, but the rider must not give in to him unless he wishes to let the animal get the better of him. If he is wise he will go back and put the horse to it again and again, until he finally clears the topmost bar. That I should have done in this instance, and that ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... fear, Or shadow of a fear, lest the strange Saints By whom thou swarest, should have power to balk Thy puissance in this fight with him, who made And heard thee swear—brother—I have not sworn— If the king fall, may not the kingdom fall? But if I fall, I fall, and thou art king; And, if I win, I win, and thou art king; Draw thou to London, there make strength ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... existed between him and Murchison after the reconciliation, and that when the young people set up housekeeping over at the old Murchison place Julius had an opportunity to enter their service. For some reason or other, however, he preferred to remain with us. The mare, I might add, was never known to balk again. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... fearful night to make up a train in a hurry—as much as a man's life was worth to work even slow in the yard a night like that. But what limit is set to a switchman's courage I have never known, because I've never known one to balk at ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... and night, The silliest gudgeons will refuse to bite: So Swallow tried no more: but if they came To seek his friendship, that remain'd the same: Thus he retired in peace, and some would say He'd balk'd his partner, and had learn'd to pray. To this some zealots lent an ear, and sought How Swallow felt, then said "a change is wrought." 'Twas true there wanted all the signs of grace, But there were strong professions in their place; ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... perhaps because they feared to trust themselves to the flimsy nailless vessels in which the Arabs braved the dangers of the Indian Ocean. So they turned north again and prepared to make the journey by land. They traversed the salt desert of Kerman, through Balk and Khorassan to Badakhshan, where there are horses bred from Alexander the Great's steed Bucephalus, and ruby mines and lapis lazuli. It is a land of beautiful mountains and wide plains, of trout streams and good hunting, and here the brothers sojourned for nearly a ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... management of our enterprises seems to have abandoned the tried principles of business, for some considerations the precise nature of which I am not acute enough to discern, and as a sale to me would balk the very benevolent purposes recently avowed by you, I assume that I shall not be called upon ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... the heart of Opunui. His friend was driven over the cliff at Maunalei, and he himself had lived only by crawling at the feet of the slayer. He hid his hate, and planned to save his girl and balk the killer of his people. He said in his heart, "I will hide her in the sea, and none but the fish gods and I shall know where the ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... husband in the grave, in order that her soul may accompany his on the journey to the other world. The other relations have no interest in encouraging the woman to sacrifice herself, rather the contrary; but if she insists they fear to balk her, lest they should offend the ghost of her husband, who would punish them in many ways for keeping his wife from him. But even such voluntary sacrifices, if we may believe Mr. Ch. Keysser, are dictated rather by a selfish calculation than by an impulse of disinterested ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... heroics, and come down to brass tacks," Dicky snarled vulgarly. "Why don't you be honest and say you're jealous of the poor girl? I'll bet, if the truth were known, it isn't only the house she selected you'd balk at. I'll bet you wouldn't want to go to Marvin at all for the summer, regardless that I've spent many a comfortable week in that section, and like it better than any other summer place ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... his wondering companion the history of the mummery and incantations of which she had been a distant spectator. Le Bourdon's heart was light, after his hazards and escape, and his spirits rose as his narrative proceeded. Nor was pretty Margery in a mood to balk his humor. As the bee-hunter recounted his contrivances to elude the savages, and most especially when he gave the particulars of the manner in which he managed to draw whiskey out of the living rock, the girl joined in his merriment, and filled the boat ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... are in the Tropics. Ten feet farther, thrust all awry by the huge palm leaves, grows a young tree, unknown to me, looking like a walnut. Next to it an orange, covered with long prickles and small green fruit, its roots propped up by a semi-cylindrical balk of timber, furry inside, which would puzzle a Hampshire woodsman; for it is, plainly, a groo-groo or a coco-palm, split down the middle. Surely, again, we are in the Tropics. Beyond it, again, blaze great orange and yellow flowers, with long stamens, and pistil curving upwards out ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... that talk All cant and rant and rhapsodies high flown— That bid you balk A Sunday walk, And shun God's work as you should shun ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... she, grimly. "Then I'll balk them. I'll steal away in the dead of night. No, miserable populace, that howls and hisses with the strong against the weak, you shall have no part in my triumph; 't is sacred to my friends. You honored me with your hootings, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... days' ride. Steady, boy! Not too hard at the first." For Ginger was showing signs of eagerness beyond his wont. "At all costs this raid must be stopped," continued Cameron, speaking, after his manner, to his horse, "not for the sake of a few cattle—we could all stand that loss—but to balk at its beginning this scheme of old Copperhead's, for I believe in my soul he is at the bottom of it. Steady, old boy! We need every minute, but we cannot afford to make any miscalculations. The last quarter of an hour is likely to be ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... could tote several hundred pounds four miles?" demanded Max. "If it was a little doe, now, I might be willing to tie the legs along a pole and try it; but I balk ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... BALK. Straight young trees after they are felled and squared; a beam or timber used for temporary purposes, and under 8 inches square. Balks, of timber of any squared size, as mahogany, intended for planks, or, when very ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... is obedient as your Gentile once you have him down. And Serge Ivanovich did not balk. He apologized in the very words that I dictated to him. Then I let him go. The sergeant looked at me approvingly, as if wishing to say, "Well done!" This prevented the young men ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... hope; the King was kept in close custody, and Baldock was so ill-treated that he died shortly after. Hugh le Despenser would eat no food after he was taken; and, lest death should balk revenge, he was at once brought to a sham trial, and accused of every misfortune that had befallen England—of the loss of Bannockburn; of conspiracy against the Queen; of counselling the death of Lancaster; and of suppressing ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Doctor know what you're about," said Polynesia as they started to move off. "He might balk if he thought we had any hand in it. Get the snail to offer on his own account ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... point of a civil action, for we are not here concerned with the falsification of public or authentic documents). Between private individuals the essence of a forgery is the intent to defraud; where is it in this case? In what times are we living, gentlemen? Here is the President going away to balk a preliminary examination which ought to be over by this time! Until to-day I did not know M. le President, but he shall have the benefit of arrears; from this time forth he shall draft his decisions himself. You must set about this affair with ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... should balk!" But Netteke had done her balking for the day, and, having been refreshed by her luncheon of green grass, she was ready to move on. The river had now quite a current, which helped them, and while the soldiers were still having their joke with Father De Smet the boat moved ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... was to be poured. The third attendant stood near as a reserve force. Though the insertion of the tube, when skilfully done, need not cause suffering, the operation as conducted by Mr. Hyde was painful. Try as he would, he was unable to insert the tube properly, though in no way did I attempt to balk him. His embarrassment seemed to rob his hand of whatever cunning it may have possessed. After what seemed ten minutes of bungling, though it was probably not half that, he gave up the attempt, but not until my nose had begun to bleed. ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... they egg one another on: don't ask me to betray my fellow-servants; but let us balk them. I don't deceive you, Dame: if the good priest shows his face here, he will be thrown into the horse-pond, and sent home with a ticket pinned to his back. Them that is to do it are on the watch now, and have got their orders; and 't is a burning shame. To be sure I am not a Catholic; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... me?" To his amazement the prophet was able to understand the ass quite well. This dumb brute made its meaning plain to a learned man. It was an intolerable outrage that an ass should lecture a doctor, and balk him in his designs. Luther is that ass. Rome rode him, and he patiently bore his wicked master until the angel of the Lord stopped him and he would go no further. The only difference is that Balaam had his eyes opened, left off beating his ass, and felt sorry for ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... gaze rested on the ranchhouse. He was glad he had met Lane Morgan; he was glad he had headed straight for Lamo after leaving Morgan. For by going straight to Lamo he had been able to balk Deveny's evil intentions toward the girl who, in the house now, was so ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... puts it up to Mr. Colbrith, at all events. And now, while we have a clear day before us, I want to go over these C. P. & D. terminal contracts with you. Right here in Chicago is where the Transcontinental will try hardest to balk us. The C. P. & D. has trackage rights to the elevators; but I want to be sure that the contracts will hold water under a ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... than it had hitherto ventured to be. As leader after leader arrived who was insistent upon a gold standard, it became increasingly evident to Hanna that he must proceed with caution. If McKinley committed himself to gold, the silver advocates would balk at his candidacy, and perhaps unite on somebody else; if he committed himself to silver, he would lose the eastern leaders. The astute Hanna therefore allowed sentiment in favor of the gold plank to gather force, although holding the discussion as far as possible ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... of you," hissed out the old man, malevolently, "but that I'd fain balk him in every desire he cherishes, ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... sharp!" exclaimed Stevens as he read the billet. "'Who would have thought that the YOUNG man had so much blood in him!' Well, we will not balk your desire, Master Hinkley. We will meet you, in verity, though it may compel me to throw up my present hand and call for other cards. N'importe: ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... going to balk at it," retorted Dick, flushing just a bit. "But you spoke of it first, Dave, and I think you ought to have ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... this was a great balk upon a double account: It not only depriv'd me of the Satisfaction of seeing the Siege carried on, but it was a sensible check to my aspiring Humour, to think what Drudgery I was to undergo before I could be regarded by the World; but when I reflected on what I had often heard the old Captain ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... Clerambault, "and I really have followers,—something I did not know before,—this is not the moment to keep out of the way; if they want to make an example of me, I cannot balk them." This was said in so pleasant a way, that they asked themselves if he ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... her career a peronnelle to these men of war (with the noble exception, of course, of Alencon, Dunois, Xaintrailles, La Hire, and others). They were sore and wounded by her appearance and her claims. If they could cheat her, balk her designs, steal a march in any way, they did so, from first to last, always excepting the few who were faithful to her. Dunois could afford to be magnanimous, but the lesser men were jealous, envious, embittered. A peronnelle, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... were quite at their ease and not likely to balk and act like wild rabbits, as is sometimes the case with children when they find themselves among strangers, and seeing nothing that they would be likely to fall out of or into, except a great bowl of lemonade arranged in a bower that represented a well, we came away, Lavinia ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... think of that!" exclaimed Mr. Fleet. "Well, I've been up against just as queer things in a different way when training other dogs. You'll get them to the point of doing a trick, and maybe because a new kind of fly buzzes around their ears they balk. But we ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... owner of the mine out there in the trees, but the old fellow won't come in until he has a talk with them. Tell 'em they better not show the money until they chat with him a few minutes. Likely they'll fall for that, as they don't seem to have the slightest suspicion. But if they balk at leaving the money let them bring it along. Once out in the dark the rest will be easy. But I figure they'll leave the money in the shack—it's just for a few minutes, you know—and they'll reason that it's safe enough with ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... could not answer that question. He pulled a knob, and I held my breath. There was the slightest perceptible tremor. Was it going to balk? No, thank Heaven! It was under way. In a few seconds we were off the tower in the free air. Edmund pressed a button, and the speed instantly increased. The gorgeous tower seemed to be flying away from us like a soap ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... to labor desert the Liberals to join the Conservatives. Land reform, taxation reform, the eight-hour day, are being carried out, however. But when it comes to such matters as an extended suffrage, the capitalists will balk. His conclusion is that if economic reforms are to continue, if, for example, the unemployed are to be set to work by the government, or if political reforms are to be resumed, the Labourites have to free themselves from the tutelage of the Liberal Party. And if they do this, they can ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... really edifying. The fundamental process of American education consists and must continue to consist precisely in the risks and experiments which the American nation will make in the service of its national ideal. If the American people balk at the sacrifices demanded by their experiments, or if they attach finality to any particular experiment in the distribution of political, economic, and social power, they will remain morally and intellectually at the bottom of a well, out ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... her family to cope with, dyed in the wool New Englanders at that, no doubt with the heavy Puritan mortmain upon them, narrow as a shoe string, circumscribed as a duck pond, walled in by ghastly respectability. Ten to one, if the girl had talent and ambition, they would smother these things in her, balk her at every turn. They had regarded Ned Holiday's marriage to Laura a misalliance, he recalled. There had been quite a to-do about it at the time. Good God! It had been a misalliance all right, but not as they reckoned it. It had not been considered ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... He taught them more than I ever knew of the habits of fish and the ways of catching them. In the bush it was the same thing. At seven, Tom knew more woodcraft than I ever dreamed existed. At six, Mary went over the Sliding Rock without a quiver, and I have seen strong men balk at that feat. And when Frank had just turned six he could bring up shillings from ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... by one of the young men; and I took the remaining young lady, who, I presumed, was also one of the family. It was very apparent we were respited; and all of us thought it wisest to appear as much at our ease as possible, in order not to balk the humour of the principal magistrate of the ancient ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... the secretary of state, or of the educated class, were sent. The degrees of punishment were, however, varied; and the more severe was exhausting and dangerous. The carrying gang, with a massive balk on the shoulders, resembled a huge centipede. The laborers, sometimes thirty together, groaning beneath a weight of many tons, obtained no respite from toil. The slippery and inclining ground exposed them to terrific perils: when they complained ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... which, in view of his other qualities, must have been a real comfort. The second allowed himself to be tamed and was soon quiet. The third, on the other hand, turned out to be one of the worst buckers Roosevelt possessed; and the fourth had a habit which was even worse, for he would balk and throw himself over backward. It struck Roosevelt that there was something about this refractory animal's disposition, to say nothing of his Roman nose, which greatly reminded him of the eminent Democrat, General Ben Butler, and "Ben Butler" became that bronco's ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... yet, and it would be a passing strange thing if I began on my own flesh and blood. It was a woman's hand which cast this lime into mine eyes, and though I saw her stoop, and might well have stopped her ere she threw, I deemed it unworthy of my knighthood to hinder or balk one of her sex." ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... like an English squire and Varro like a French academician. This is just comment on Cato but it is at once too much and too little to say of Varro: a French academician might be proud of his antiquarian learning, but would balk at his awkward and homely Latin, as indeed one French academician, M. Boissier, has since done. The real merit of Varro's book is that it is the well digested system of an experienced and successful farmer who has seen and ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... fighting so much that something or other in that mess down there has become conditioned to her; something else to me. My part will play along with anyone except Belle; hers with anybody except me. Anti-conditioning, you might call it. Anyway, they lay back their ears and balk." ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... over the forecastle. There was one fellow clinging to the anchor-davits over the frothing water. It was poor Juell again. We were hard put to it to secure our goods and chattels. We had to throw all our good paraffin casks overboard, and one prime timber balk after another went the same way, while I stood and watched them sadly as they floated off. The rest of the deck cargo was shifted aft on to the half-deck. I am afraid the shares in the expedition stood rather low at this moment. Then all at once, when things were about at their ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... the execution. Miss went up several times into the room facing the Green, where she could view the great crowd of people about it; which she did with all the calmness and unconcern imaginable; and only said that she would not balk their expectations, tho' her execution might be deferred a day ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... blame for his flunkeyism belongs, perhaps, less to him than to the insolent caste feeling of society, which forced it on him as a measure of self-defense and of advancement. He wanted money, loved place and selfish comfort, and his nature did not balk at the means of getting them,—including living on a friend when he did not need such help. To become physician to the Queen, he turned his coat from Whig to Tory; but no one familiar with the politics of the time ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of bicycles go pop, Balloons will go and balk, So taking all in all, I think If I were ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... united Cunning of the Stage, Has balk'd the hireling Drudges of the Age; Since Betterton of late so thrifty 's grown, Revives Old Plays, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... that a man of culture shall understand and worship Art: among the windy gospels addressed to our poor Century there are few louder than this of Art;—and if the Century expects that every man shall do his duty, surely Sterling was not the man to balk it! Various extracts from these picture-surveys are given in Hare; the others, I suppose, Sterling himself subsequently destroyed, not ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... towards the light that falls from some crevice. Just so with man. An instinct implanted in man, consequently a natural instinct, must be rationally gratified. The conditions of future society will not balk the instinct after change; on the contrary, they promote its gratification with all: it is facilitated by the highly developed system of intercommunication; it is demanded by international relations. In future days, infinitely more people will travel through the world, and for the most varied ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... weapons. One thing is certain: I don't wish to kill Alvaros, for, of course, Carlos will want to have a turn with him as soon as he can get the chance, and he would, quite rightly, be furious with me if I were to balk him. But neither do I wish him to kill me, for that would entirely upset all my plans. What I should like to do would be to give him a tremendous punishing without endangering his life. I suppose it would not be good form to choose fists ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... him." In such encounters one cannot see into one's adversary's mind nor know what he is trying to do, and any indication is like the sight of a buoy in a fog to a mariner. I gathered that the snap indicated relief at my compliance, and that he had been afraid I might balk. That showed me that consent on my part was important—which meant that he saw no possible way of carrying the enterprise to the end we had mapped out unless I stepped into the gap. Then I knew that he would have to agree to my terms, provided they were not too ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... supposed that in the spiritual realm there is not much more to learn? Our special affinity is for things material; yet in this domain we are only in our infancy. How much more is it so in things spiritual. Surely it does not become us to balk at ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... hour of her liberation; I desired to witness the rejoicings; I was not less anxious to be a spectator of any disturbance if such unhappily should occur. Why should M. le Maire have conceived this desire to balk my ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... go wandering far away, for all men know that bloody work is coming. The engineers are hammering at their bulky pontoons now, and down at the water's edge the clumsy boats are moored, waiting for chess and balk carriers to be told off, and the crews to man the heavy sweeps. Up on the heights to the rear, planted thickly on every knoll and ridge, are the black-mouthed guns, and around them are grouped the ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... answered. "It was the fault of her mood. She was nervous, almost hysterical—thanks to her rebellious spirit. The moment I discovered how things were going I should have gone back and started afresh, and kept on doing so until I had her submissive. A hunter may balk at a high fence, but the rider must not give in to him unless he wishes to let the animal get the better of him. If he is wise he will go back and put the horse to it again and again, until he finally clears the topmost bar. ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... this Teheran-Meshed road, which is undoubtedly a section of that former commercial highway between two of the most ancient capitals in history—Nineveh and Balk, is very graphically shown by the caravan ruts at Lasgird. These have been worn in many places to a depth of four feet in the solid rock. It was not far beyond this point that we began to feel the force of that famous "Damghan wind," so called from the city of that name. Of course this wind ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... crag with wings guiding my long leaps. No crevice or jumble of loose stones or steep descent daunted me. I reached the horse, and, grasping the bridle, I started to lead him. We had zigzagged up, we went straight down. Target was too spirited to balk, but he did everything else. More than once he reared with his hoofs high in the air, and, snorting, crashed down. He pulled me off my feet, he pawed at me with his great iron shoes. When we got clear of the roughest ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... Even when later in the war the Germans apparently driven to frenzy made special efforts to sink hospital and Red Cross ships the facts were concealed by the censors, and accounts of the efforts made to balk such inhuman and unchristian practices diligently suppressed. In the end it seemed that the British, who of course led all naval activities, had reached the conclusion that only by the maintenance of an ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... risk something, Joe," I answered, "and fortune has so well befriended us hitherto that I can't think she will balk us now." ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... may not, while in position, make a motion to deliver the ball to the batsman without actually [v.03 p.0460] delivering it, or to first-base, while that base is occupied by a runner, without completing the throw), he is said to have made a balk, which permits a base runner to advance a base. In fielding batted balls the pitcher takes all that come directly to him, especially slow ones which the other fielders cannot reach in time. One of his duties is to "back up" the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... he is on the track when his leave is out, that he must follow it; but as soon as he has either lost his game, or killed it, he will then come home. That's the feeling of a true hunter, sir, and you must not balk it." ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... ocean dry, its fish on mountains dwell, The sun set in the East, by that old well Alike whence Tigris and Euphrates flow, Ere in this strife I peace or truce shall find, Ere Love or Laura practise kinder ways, Sworn friends, against me wrongfully combined. After such bitters, if some sweet allays, Balk'd by long fasts my palate spurns the fare, Sole grace from them that falleth to ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... witness; for no sooner had she taken in their import than she cast a hurried look about her and left her place without fuss or flurry, but with an air of quiet determination which Mr. Gryce felt confident covered a resolution which nothing could balk. ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... would balk at your using the car if he knew the circumstances," piped another boy. "We have got that match to play off, and now that the electric cars are held up by the strike how are we to get to Torrington? Don't be a ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... agility. Many among their number were skilful guides, scouts, and couriers, and had passed eventful lives on the Great Plains and in the Rocky Mountains. They possessed strong wills and a determination that nothing in the ordinary event could balk. Their horses were generally half-breed California mustangs, as quick and full of endurance as their riders, and were as sure-footed and fleet as a mountain goat; the facility and pace at which they travelled was a marvel. The Pony Express stations ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... Great War they have had more than 60,000 in army service in Egypt. Camels are especially used for transportation purposes. The British capture of Jerusalem was greatly aided by these desert allies. Large numbers of oxen have been used in the French army. They do not balk at autos and ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... be done," he said as he stooped to take the shirt out of the fender, "it's got to be done, so why balk it?" And as he combed his hair before the mirror on the wall, he retorted to himself, superficially: "The woman's not speechless dumb. She's not clutterin' at the nipple. She's got the right to please herself, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... discolor. It is more distinct than some others of the family, for the willow is a great mixer. The tree expert who will unerringly distinguish between the red oak and the scarlet oak by the precise angle of the spinose margins of the leaves (how I admire an accuracy I do not possess!) will balk at which is crack willow, or white willow, or yellow or blue willow. The abundant vigor and vitality and freedom of the family, and the fact that it is of what is known as the dioecious habit—that is, the flowers are not complete, fertile and infertile flowers being borne ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... Street,—incapable of concealment,—outside of Wall Street—of that which art has taught the rest of us to conceal. His humility makes him wonder; his naivete makes him talk quite frankly, unrestrained by the conventions that balk others. After all, is not wondering at yourself a sign of humility? A vain man, become great by luck, by force of circumstances, by the possession of gifts which he does not himself fully understand, would still take ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... order that her soul may accompany his on the journey to the other world. The other relations have no interest in encouraging the woman to sacrifice herself, rather the contrary; but if she insists they fear to balk her, lest they should offend the ghost of her husband, who would punish them in many ways for keeping his wife from him. But even such voluntary sacrifices, if we may believe Mr. Ch. Keysser, are dictated rather by a selfish calculation than by an impulse of disinterested ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... explore you, Blossom you stalk by stalk, Till my fire of creation bore you Shrivelling down in the final dour Anguish—then I suffered a balk. ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... reflected, and that few came nearer to the normal type of the men of the early Renaissance. It may be added parenthetically, that even in respect to his moral character he will not be fairly judged, if we listen solely to the complaints of the German Church, which his fickleness helped to balk of the Council it ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... hennery. Terrapin sits low in my regard, even though it has wallowed in the most aristocratic marsh. Through such dinners I hack and saw my way without even gaining a memory of my progress. If asked the courses, I balk after the recital of the soup. Indeed, I am so forgetful of food, even when I dine at home, that I can well believe that Adam when he was questioned about the apple was in real confusion. He had or he had not. It was mixed with the pomegranate or the quince that Eve had sliced and cooked ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... confusion or bring about bad government I must let him alone. There is no love between us. We have no quarrel, but I despise him for that very spirit in him which makes him do such things as thou hast even told me. If his offense had been against Egypt or the king or myself, I could balk him. But this is a matter of personal interest to him, which would be open ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... the twelfth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, because it contains, among other things, the causes, the beginning, and ending, of the Trojan war. Here I ought in reason to have stopp'd; but the speeches of Ajax and Ulysses lying next in my way, I could not balk 'em. When I had compass'd them, I was so taken with the former part of the fifteenth book, (which is the masterpiece of the whole Metamorphoses,) that I enjoin'd myself the pleasing task of rend'ring it into English. And now I found, by the number of my verses, that they began to swell ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... this your Christian charity? Do you think that I enjoy this fierce wrestling with doubts? or, having them, would you bid me play false and conceal them? What if I am a final castaway, as your good books tell us some must be, would you make me a castaway before my time, and balk all my hopes in life? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... the cannonier, coolly, "there would be little glory in cutting you down, and even less in being wounded by you; but if you will have it so, it's not an old soldier of the artillery will balk your humor." ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... future seemed secure. She could prepare herself for college and could gain the education she craved. It seemed that nothing could balk her ambition in that direction. And so—this seems to be a very good place indeed in which to bid good-bye for a time to Ruth Fielding of the ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... been riding me hard. And I'm a well-trained nag. I never buck or balk.... I never ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... different from the leader." The difference between a leader and a follower is this: a leader leads and a follower follows. The shepherd is a man, but sheep are sheep. As a rule followers follow as far as the path is good, but at the first bog they balk. Betrayers, doubters and those who deny with an oath are always recruited from the ranks of the followers. In a sermon John Wesley once said: "To adopt and live a life of simplicity and service for mankind is difficult; but to follow the love of luxury, making a clutch for place, pelf ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... no planks of that thickness whatever," Mr Rawlings said. "We only brought enough timber for the scaffolding over the mine, and a little for framework if it wanted lining. You see, we did line it down to the rock. I think we have one balk of ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... Osborn went on. He had not liked Peter Askew and liked Kit worse. Father and son had opposed him, and now the young upstart was proud of the money he had, no doubt, got by doubtful means. He would not let the fellow balk him, and his face got red as he answered the auctioneer's inquiring glance. Presently he turned with a frown as Hayes ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... he whispered. "You have thought me cruel, because I have done my duty, heartless—cold—a mere piece of official machinery which could balk at nothing—even the destruction of a woman's happiness—because my allegiance to my country was greater than any personal consideration. But I am not insensible to the appeals of gentleness, not blind to beauty nor deaf ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... was in the situation of a man who has been riding a blood horse at an even, elastic gallop, and of a sudden feels him stumble and balk. As yet, he reflected, he had seen nothing but the sunshine of genius; he had forgotten that it has its storms. Of course it had! And he felt a flood of comradeship rise in his heart which would float them both safely through the worst weather. "Why, you 're tired!" he said. "Of course you ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... hand to serve him. She joined her persuasions to his. He swore if I married him he would go out West, turn over that everlasting new leaf, and make his fortune. He wanted me to marry him before he went, so that he could feel sure of me. I did balk at that; I thought my word ought to be sufficient; but he and his mother pleaded and pleaded with me. Together, they were too much for me; and so, at last, I gave in. I thought I would be saving him; I thought I loved him—it is so easy ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... "balk" falls short of expressing the full force of the Chinese word, which implies not an attitude of defense, whereby one might be content to foil the enemy's stratagems one after another, but an active policy ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... lane fer twenty-five years an he ain't never tech it yit. That's the reason they done sent fer me. The ladies in the fambly air done plum wo' out what with cookin' fer comp'ny an' washin' up an' all. It looks like comp'ny air the only thing what don't balk at that there lane. They done sint a hurry call fer ol' Peter, kase they got a notion Miss Ann Peyton air on the way. They phoned down ter the sto' fer me ter put my foot in the pike an' come erlong. They done got a phome message from way over yonder at Throckmorton's ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... by my garden walk, You are but coarse compared with roses: More choice, more dear that rosebud which uncloses Faint-scented, pinched, upon its stalk, That least and last which cold winds balk; A rose it is though least and last of all, A rose to me though ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... try dot!" spoke Mr. Switzer, and somehow, in this emergency, he seemed very calm and collected. "Der horses vould shy und balk at der flames," went on the German, who seemed far from being funny now. He was deadly in earnest. "Ve can not drive dem past der ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... said Ruth, "I am very sorry to balk you; but if you're going to treat me as an invalid, I am afraid ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... crazy, classic fancy a very humdrum sort of personage. Frank, although as noble a fellow as ever sat a horse, is yet—you cannot help thinking—very ignorant of Euripides; even the English master at Dr. Bidlow's school, you feel sure, would balk at a dozen problems ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... to avail himself of the Squire's emergency. He listened to his protestations with a sympathetic rather than a hopeful air, admitting that he himself would be inclined to oppose the new policy, but remarking that the farmers and some of the committee were so set on it that he doubted his ability to balk them. He finally remarked, however, he might possibly do something, if Edwards, himself, would meantime take a course calculated to placate the insurgents and disarm their resentment. Being rather anxiously ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... 'they shall stay here, if only to balk your spite. My sisters shall not be driven from pillar to post the very day their ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... precipitous dells, 235 Startling with careless step the moonlight snake, He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight, Shedding the mockery of its vital hues Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on Till vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep 240 Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud; Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on, Day after day a weary waste of hours, 245 Bearing within his life the brooding care That ever fed on its decaying flame. And now his limbs ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... officious-ness, and glibly picking up the bits of her shattered scheme. Seymour fully expected they would not return from the gloom without, whither they had disappeared, but embrace the immediate chance of escape before the inopportune arrival of the real Barton Smith should balk the possibility. But, no,—and he doubted anew all his suspicions,—in a trice here they both were again, a new courage, a new hope in that pallid, furtive face, and another horse stood saddled among the equine group at the door. Meddlesome was ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... in his house a fellow with so slight a disposition to work and so strong a propensity to extravagance? Suppose we stop and consider that very point: how do masters deal with that sort of domestic? If I am not mistaken, they chastise his wantonness by starvation; they balk his thieving tendencies by bars and bolts where there is anything to steal; they hinder him from running away by bonds and imprisonment; they drive the sluggishness out of him with the lash. Is it not so? Or how ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... see you lurk; I pursue you where none else has pursued you; Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me; The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others, they do not balk me, The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... though they have studied astrology for some thousand years, have made no progress in the real knowledge of the stars. Their ancient boasted observations, and the instruments which they make use of, were brought by the learned men, whom Koubilai, the grandson of Gingis Khan, had invited from Balk and Samarcand. The government, at present, considers the publication of an annual calendar of the first importance and utility. It must do every thing in its power, not only to point out to its numerous subjects the distribution of the seasons, the knowledge ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... caught sight of another vessel. "Hurrah! there she is," cried Uncle Boz. "The fellows won't balk you this time; but we must go alongside as we did ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... before her. She did her very best, and just got her horse's nose on the broken track leading down into the brook before Lucinda. "Pretty good, isn't it?" said Lucinda. Lizzie smiled sweetly. She could smile, though she could not speak. "Only they do balk one so at one's fences!" said Lucinda. The horsey man had all but regained his place, and was immediately behind Lucinda, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... be said to make death exhilarating, Give me your tone therefore O death, that I may accord with it, Give me yourself, for I see that you belong to me now above all, and are folded inseparably together, you love and death are, Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling life, For now it is convey'd to me that you are the purports essential, That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons, and that they are mainly for you, That you beyond ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... the man to balk his fancy; and as Crawfurd is so bent upon fighting to-morrow, it don't make much difference. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... history of the mummery and incantations of which she had been a distant spectator. Le Bourdon's heart was light, after his hazards and escape, and his spirits rose as his narrative proceeded. Nor was pretty Margery in a mood to balk his humor. As the bee-hunter recounted his contrivances to elude the savages, and most especially when he gave the particulars of the manner in which he managed to draw whiskey out of the living rock, the girl joined in his merriment, and filled ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... shut up shop altogether if you were to leave me. I should miss you, too, Cyril," he went on, stretching his arm across the table to shake hands with the lad. "You have proved a real friend and a true; but were there a chance of your going as an officer, I would not balk you, even if I could do so. It is but natural that a lad of spirit should speak and think as you do; besides, the war may not last for long, and when you come back, and the ships are paid off, you would soon ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... ranks, not in the staff. I am thrown into the wagon as part of the baggage. I am like an old gun that is spiked or the trunnions knocked off, and yet am carted off, not for the worth of the old iron, but to balk the enemy of a trophy. My political life is ended, and I am the survivor of myself, or rather the troubled ghost of a politician, that am condemned to haunt the field of battle where I fell. Whether the government will long outlive me is doubtful. I know it is sick, and, many of ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... dismayingly mature and smart. He horribly feared him as a rival. For the second time that evening he did not balk fate by fearing it. The dentist was a rival. After fluttering about the mature charms of Miss Dietz, the school drawing-teacher, and taking a tentative buggy-ride or two with the miller's daughter, Dr. Doyle was bringing all the charm of his professional ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... a human being struggling frantically in the water and lost to all sense of reason by panic fright is one to strike terror to a stout heart. Even the skilful swimmer whose courage is not of the stoutest may balk at the peril. That seemed to be the feeling which possessed Tom Slade as he stood upon the end of the spring-board and instead of diving cast a hurried look to where Garry ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... and unparalleled battle, and having worked them up into a warlike and blood-thirsty state of mind, to put them off without any havoc and slaughter would have been as bitter a disappointment as to summon a multitude of good people to attend an execution, and then cruelly balk them by a reprieve. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... three more parts. You see he grows in balk; this making ten already, and I am not yet sure if I can finish it in an eleventh; which shall go to you QUAM PRIMUM - ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I know that none who enter there return As they have entered—many never; but They shall not balk my entrance. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... who knew by experience when to talk And when to hold his tongue, now held it till This passion might blow o'er, nor dared to balk Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will. At length she rose up, and began to walk Slowly along the room, but silent still, And her brow clear'd, but not her troubled eye; The wind was down, but still the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... this or that of the many lakes, lagoons and pond holes where the wild fowl found their feeding beds. Here was this refuge, where they fled to escape persecution, the spot most remote, secluded, secret, inaccessible. Here nature conspired to balk pursuit. The wide shallows made a bar now to the average sailing craft, and as for a motor-yacht like ours, the presence of a local pilot, acquainted with all the oyster reefs and shallows, all the channels and cut-offs, made us feel more easy, for we knew we could no longer sail ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... her. "The Man in the Street, and the Woman of the Street, for that matter—pardon me if I offend your ears, but the truth must be told—were my godfather and my godmother, and they gave me that name between them. You are trembling, Miss Mildare. Sit down upon that balk, and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... streets, one catches a few phrases of discord such as this! The poor can seldom command privacy; their scenes alike of tenderness and of anger must for the most part be enacted on the peopled ways. It is one of their misfortunes, one of the many necessities which blunt feeling, which balk reconciliation, which enhance the risks of dialogue at ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... prieve' in i'tial ditich sau'sage con ceive' of fi'cial feud word'y de grade' es sen'tial sued tur'gid a fraid' sol sti'tial prude ver'ger pre pare' a bun'dant wooed vir'tue for bear' de pend'ent balk leop'ard bar'ter in veigh'er shawl lep'er tar'tar be tray'er guise fam'ine mar'tyr di'a logue sighs gam'mon suc ceed' dy nam'ics flies salm'on ac cede' me ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... again.— Well, that decree (I answered bitterly) Would have with me the weight of a request That I'd hereafter quaff at common puddles And not at one pure fount; I'd heed the bar As I would heed the grass-webbed gossamer; I'd sooner balk a bench of drivellers Than outrage sacred nature.—If that bench Could have you up for bigamy, what then?— The dear old dames! they should not have the means To prove it on me: for the pact should be 'Twixt me ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... attained so large a size that the internal bone, or pen (the part generally preserved), is sometimes two feet in length. The ink-bags of the Belemnite also are sometimes preserved, and we see how it could balk a pursuer by darkening the waters. It was a compensating advantage for ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... privilege. Now, you have had some experience in your business, and I have had some experience in mine, and I beg to inform you that men who are much more prominent in the history of their country than any one I can at present think of in Cincinnati, have tried to balk me in the pursuit of my business, ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... nation without parties is soon a nation without curiosity. You may now judge how little your situation is likely to be affected. I finish; I think I feel ashamed of tapping the events of a new reign, of which probably I shall not see half. If I was not unwilling to balk your curiosity, I should break my pen, as the great officers do their white wands, over the grave ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... glibly picking up the bits of her shattered scheme. Seymour fully expected they would not return from the gloom without, whither they had disappeared, but embrace the immediate chance of escape before the inopportune arrival of the real Barton Smith should balk the possibility. But, no,—and he doubted anew all his suspicions,—in a trice here they both were again, a new courage, a new hope in that pallid, furtive face, and another horse stood saddled among the equine group at the door. Meddlesome was pinning up the brown skirt of her gown, showing ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... housekeeping over at the old Murchison place Julius had an opportunity to enter their service. For some reason or other, however, he preferred to remain with us. The mare, I might add, was never known to balk again. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... seas of that day pounded the vessel to a shapeless wreck on the jagged rocks of the Reef of the Thirty Black Devils: where she lay desolate for many a day thereafter. But the sea was not quick enough to balk our folk of their salvage: all day long—even while the ship was going to pieces—they swarmed upon her; and they loaded their punts again and again, fearlessly boarding, and with infinite patience and courage managed to get their heavensent plunder ashore. 'Twas diverting to watch ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... issued from behind the barred door and shutters, and these sounds were echoed by other groans from the men in ambush, until the very forest itself seemed deriding the Yorkers. The knowledge that he and his men had fallen into a trap did not balk the sheriff; his rage rose to white heat and calling for an axe he advanced to the attack. The moment was freighted with peril. If the Yorkers attacked the house a withering fire would spring from the guns in the bushes and on the ridge and blood would ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... it his mission to spread the influence of the business to the ends of the earth. "We must have our place in the sun," he said; and announced himself as the divine instrument through whom this would be accomplished. He made it perfectly plain that no man's opposition would balk him in the management of the firm's affairs. One of his most famous remarks was: "Considering myself as the instrument of the Lord, without heeding the views and opinions of the day, I go my way." The board of directors censured him for this, but he ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... or tooth, or finger ache; Nor spoil your shape, distort your face, Or put one feature out of place; Nor will you find your fortune sink By what they speak or what they think; Nor can ten hundred thousand lies Make you less virtuous, learn'd, or wise. The most effectual way to balk Their malice, is—to let ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... Capitao, is this: We two will return. With us we will take Tucu. The three of us can handle those guards quietly. We must have Tucu, because the women do not know us and might balk at the last moment. Women are queer creatures, and these might think themselves safer inside prison walls than following two strange men through the night; but Tucu can handle them. When once we are clear of the houses ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... was by a misgiving that, by some secret mystery of breeding, some freemasonry of fashion, he was not one of them, and that this awkward fact was suspended over him for life, to arrest his course in the hour of success, and balk him at ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... her horse's nose on the broken track leading down into the brook before Lucinda. "Pretty good, isn't it?" said Lucinda. Lizzie smiled sweetly. She could smile, though she could not speak. "Only they do balk one so at one's fences!" said Lucinda. The horsey man had all but regained his place, and was immediately behind ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... for we are not here concerned with the falsification of public or authentic documents). Between private individuals the essence of a forgery is the intent to defraud; where is it in this case? In what times are we living, gentlemen? Here is the President going away to balk a preliminary examination which ought to be over by this time! Until to-day I did not know M. le President, but he shall have the benefit of arrears; from this time forth he shall draft his decisions himself. You must set about this affair with all ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... In this place is prepared the listed mead, Which palisades of little height inclose; A square, of just proportions for that need, With two capacious gates, as usage goes. The day on which to combat have agreed Those valiant knights, who will not balk their foes, Beside the palisades, to left and right, Facing each entrance, are ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... reeking pigeon-pie or a fulsome roast-pig. I have known many a good and kind man made furiously angry by such a contretemps. I have known him lose his temper, call his wife and servants names, and a whole household made miserable. If, then, as is notoriously the case, it is too dangerous to balk a man about his dinner, how much more about his article? I came to my meal with an ogre-like appetite and gusto. Fee, faw, fum! Wife, where is that tender little Princekin? Have you trussed him, and did you stuff him nicely, and have you taken care to baste him and do him, not too brown, as I ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... out until the very last second, meaning that nothing should balk his design of enticing the enemy under their refuge, where Frank could ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... them about the streets to simulate business. I don't doubt it. If they haven't done it, they forgot it. There is no shady trick of commercial competition that they will not stoop to, nothing short of a penitentiary offense that they will balk at. Sometimes they do ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... words he bade me good night and left me. What were my sensations. "Am I then," I said to myself "to be thus cut off in the midst of my youth? No! I will balk these monsters. I must attempt to save myself even if the attempt cost me my life." These thoughts occupied me during the night, and I did not sleep until towards four o'clock in ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... fluted paper shades; the heavy gilded frames inclosing copies made by Dill in the galleries of Madrid and St. Petersburg; other canvases set against the base-boards face back so as at once to pique and to balk curiosity with regard to the host's own work; the graceful dignity of Dill himself, upon whom Virgilia's eyes ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... for care of you," hissed out the old man, malevolently, "but that I'd fain balk him in every desire he cherishes, even of ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... it be a dream, If the great Future be the little Past 'Neath a new mask, which drops and shows at last The same weird, mocking face to balk and blast, 120 Yet, Muse, a gladder measure suits the theme, And the Tyrtaean harp Loves notes more resolute and sharp, Throbbing, as throbs the bosom, hot and fast: Such visions are of morning, Theirs is no vague forewarning, The dreams which nations dream come true. And shape the world anew; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... that merrily, night and day, Tellest thy raptures from the rustling spray, And wakest the morning with thy varied lay, Singing thy matins,— When we have come to hear thy sweet oblation Of love and joyance from thy sylvan station, Why, in the place of musical cantation, Balk us with pratings? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... some concrete Thing, some Event, Man's Life, American Forest, or piece of Creation, which this Emerson loves and wonders at, well Emersonized, depictured by Emerson, filled with the life of Emerson, and cast forth from him then to live by itself. If these Orations balk me of this, how profitable soever they be for others. I will not love them.—And yet, what am I saying? How do I know what is good for you, what authentically makes your own heart glad to work in it? I speak from without, the friendliest voice must speak ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... it is, a foolish glory he has got, I know not where, to balk those benefits, and yet he will converse and flatter 'em, make 'em, or fair, or foul, rugged, or smooth, as his impression serves, for he affirms, they are only lumps, and undigested pieces, lickt over to a form by our affections, and ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... terribly ironical exclamation. He shut his eyes, pretended to sleep, and thought of the letter. What had he done with it? He remembered that he had carefully folded it and put it in the right-hand pocket of his vest. He must have this letter. It would balk his vengeance, should it fall into his wife's hands; and this might happen at any moment. It was a miracle that his valet had not put it on the mantel, as he was accustomed to do with the things which he found in his master's pockets. He was reflecting on some means of getting it, ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... the younger, "and don't, I beg of you, disturb the papers more than necessary. The key to the locked drawer is in the lower compartment on the right. Proceed, my elderly friend, to search the apartment; I'll not balk you. The thing's rather amusing—and entirely absurd. If it were not—if it didn't strike my funny-bone—I should probably put up some sort of a fight; as it is, you see I'm entirely acquiescent. ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... than ordinary punishment by the secretary of state, or of the educated class, were sent. The degrees of punishment were, however, varied; and the more severe was exhausting and dangerous. The carrying gang, with a massive balk on the shoulders, resembled a huge centipede. The laborers, sometimes thirty together, groaning beneath a weight of many tons, obtained no respite from toil. The slippery and inclining ground exposed them ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... high way as well as all the other ways." He would contrive some way of giving his cousin back the money. He did not want it. He only wanted Tony and her love. Why in the name of all the devils should he who had sinned all his life, head up and eyes open, balk at this one sin, the negative sin of mere silence, when it would give him what he wanted more than all the world? What was he afraid of? The answer he would not let himself discover. He was afraid of Tony Holiday's clear eyes but he was more afraid of something else—his own soul which somehow ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... with ill-suppressed delight, "thy proffer shows so gallant and free a spirit, that it were foul sin in me to balk it. I accept thy gage, and whichever of thy steeds thou rejectest, in God's name bring it hither, and let us waste ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... h'a'th. In dem days," he continued, "dey wuz a Witch-Rabbit, en dat wuz her entitlements—ole Aunt Mammy-Bammy Big-Money. She live way off in a deep, dark swamp, en ef you go dar you hatter ride some, slide some; jump some, hump some; hop some, flop some; walk some, balk some; creep some, sleep some; fly some, cry some; foller some, holler some; wade some, spade some; en ef you aint monst'us keerful you aint git dar den. Yit Brer Rabbit he git dar atter so long a time, en he mighty nigh ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... of snow everlastingly in the face of the sun. There, in the centre of the earth, where the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmapootra rise to run their different courses; where mankind took up their first abode, and separated to replete the world, leaving Balk, the mother of cities, to attest the great fact; where Nature, gone back to its primeval condition, and secure in its immensities, invites the sage and the exile, with promise of safety to the one and solitude to the other—there I went to abide ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the skill of his maneuver, and avoided any occasion to balk his intentions. When the situation as set forth by Mr. Pontellier was accepted and taken for granted, she was apparently satisfied that it should ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... expected an easy solution of this astonishing eruption he was disappointed. Arrived at the scene of the explosion, he found that its nature was such as to tease and balk his faculties of analysis. The blast had blown a hole into the ground, certainly; but this hole was curiously filled. Two large bowlders that leaned towards each other had stood on top of the ground. These ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... throughout the crowded ranks of society as the last solemn word of her troth is spoken, and Blake thanks heaven that the organ tones grow perceptibly louder and more triumphant, and so does Ray, who would gladly balk that awful hurdle on which so many a poor fellow has floundered,—"With all my worldly goods I thee endow;" but he holds gallantly to the ring. He hardly knows that they are following the white-robed clergy forward ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... got too much of your old dad in you to balk at a few difficulties. There's somebody else out there who'd be mighty glad to see your ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... the fault of her mood. She was nervous, almost hysterical—thanks to her rebellious spirit. The moment I discovered how things were going I should have gone back and started afresh, and kept on doing so until I had her submissive. A hunter may balk at a high fence, but the rider must not give in to him unless he wishes to let the animal get the better of him. If he is wise he will go back and put the horse to it again and again, until he finally clears the topmost bar. That I should have done in this instance, and that I now intend ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... ladies with me. You have had a long holiday, Alley; you must now learn once more to work for your poor father. Ah, you have been d——d sly; but never mind the past—I forgive it. You must not run away again without my leave; if you are fond of sweethearts, I won't balk you—but your old father must ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and clattered down that crag with wings guiding my long leaps. No crevice or jumble of loose stones or steep descent daunted me. I reached the horse, and, grasping the bridle, I started to lead him. We had zigzagged up, we went straight down. Target was too spirited to balk, but he did everything else. More than once he reared with his hoofs high in the air, and, snorting, crashed down. He pulled me off my feet, he pawed at me with his great iron shoes. When we got clear of the roughest and most thickly overgrown part of the descent I mounted him. Then I ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... best capabilities. You need first of all to know your true self, before you can sell true ideas about your qualifications for success. Your true self is your best self. You are untrue to yourself, you balk your own ambition to succeed, unless you develop to the utmost of your capacity ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... still there was the same, and the same, and the same—the same circle of flaming sky—the same circle of sand still glaring with light and fire. Over all the heaven above, over all the earth beneath, there was no visible power that could balk the fierce will of the sun: “he rejoiced as a strong man to run a race; his going forth was from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there was nothing hid from the heat thereof.” From pole to pole, and from the east ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... Meldrum, the seneschal of the castle, and fain would he have gone thither to inquire for him; but, until he had served the turn of the mournful Elspa Ruet, he would not allow any wish of his own to lead him to aught wherein there was the hazard of any trouble that might balk her pious purpose. ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... wailed in a voice unlike his own. Erza did not hearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have seized her prey, the hare moved and darted along the balk between the winter rye and the stubble. Again Erza and Milka were abreast, running like a pair of carriage horses, and began to overtake the hare, but it was easier for the hare to run on the balk and the borzois did not overtake ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Well, that decree (I answered bitterly) Would have with me the weight of a request That I'd hereafter quaff at common puddles And not at one pure fount; I'd heed the bar As I would heed the grass-webbed gossamer; I'd sooner balk a bench of drivellers Than outrage sacred nature.—If that bench Could have you up for bigamy, what then?— The dear old dames! they should not have the means To prove it on me: for the pact should be 'Twixt me and her who would accept my ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... won't permit us to have. They think they couldn't afford it—that it wouldn't be Good Business. 'Get up!' 'Whoa!' 'Back!' 'Move, damn you! and here's your corn and hay.' That's all we have to do with it. If you balk and kick, out you go to rustle your own feed. It's a beautiful system— for the Company. I almost wish that Worth had a chance to try out his scheme. It would at least be an interesting experiment ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... twenty-four hours a friend in Cumberland gets it as fresh as if it came in ice. It is only like whispering through a long trumpet. But suppose a tube let down from the moon, with yourself at one end, and the man at the other; it would be some balk to the spirit of conversation, if you knew that the dialogue exchanged with that interesting theosophist would take two or three revolutions of a higher luminary in its passage. Yet for aught I know, you may be some parasangs nigher that primitive idea—Plato's man—than ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... ostensibly to view the squadron, but really to discover what were Admiral Watson's intentions in regard to the disposal of the fort, supposing it fell into his hands. The admiral saw through the device, which was no doubt to hand the fort over to the Peshwa's general, and so balk the British of ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... mouth of the Magdalena River by means of some smaller craft. But with virtually unlimited means to back them, the boys did not fear but that they could overcome any difficulties that might arise in their path. Indeed, Frank had a disposition that would never allow anything to balk his plans, if it were at all within the power of human ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... there? And why did you place them on guard? You must have been afraid of me! Pardieu! I could snatch you out of their midst, if I chose! You do not know me; if you did, you would understand that not all the world, armed to the teeth should balk me of my desires! But I have been too hasty—that I own,—I can wait." He raised his eyes and saw that she was listening with an air of amused indifference. "I shall have to mix strange tints in your portrait, ma belle! It is difficult to find the exact ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... Uh-oh! a balk line, MacMaine thought. He stopped sharply at the same point. Both of them just stood there for a full minute while they were carefully inspected by ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... have been a match for this barbaric athlete, but the long months of life close to nature had hardened him and toughened every fiber. And now a stab of joy thrilled through him as he realized that in his muscles lay at least a force to balk the savage ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... take two petards, which weighed some twenty pounds each, to his tent, one by one. Hugh should fetch them in a basket, one by one, to the river bank, at the spot where a balk of wood had been washed ashore by some recent floods. At seven in the evening Gerald should call upon his cousin, and on leaving, accompany Rupert to the river bank, where Hugh would be already in waiting. When they had left, ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... Liberals to join the Conservatives. Land reform, taxation reform, the eight-hour day, are being carried out, however. But when it comes to such matters as an extended suffrage, the capitalists will balk. His conclusion is that if economic reforms are to continue, if, for example, the unemployed are to be set to work by the government, or if political reforms are to be resumed, the Labourites have ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... and when I heard my name Sigh'd forth with life, I would not brook my fear [22] Of the other: with a worm I balk'd his fame. What ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... one-thousand-dollar bills were produced, and Evan perceived strong curiosity in the bank manager's eye. It had been agreed between Evan and Deaves that this man was to be taken partly into their confidence, but Deaves now seemed disposed to balk at it, and Evan ventured to take ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... responsibility of decision upon the superior, though from the instancy of the case hesitation or delay may be fatal. A man who as the commissioned chief would act intelligently, as the mere subordinate will balk. Nelson's action at St. Vincent will rarely be emulated, a truth which is strongly shown by the fact that Collingwood was immediately in his rear that day, and did not imitate his action till signalled by the commander-in-chief; ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... which was to be held the next morning, and—simply sell his horse, bringing back the money by coach?—Well, the horse would hardly fetch more than thirty pounds, and there was no knowing what might happen; it would be folly to balk himself of luck beforehand. It was a hundred to one that some good chance would fall in his way; the longer he thought of it, the less possible it seemed that he should not have a good chance, and the less reasonable that he should not equip ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... amid rank and file as to render the men unreliable in battle. I cannot give a more forcible, though homely, exemplification of the morale of the troops at that period than by comparing the Army to a team which has been allowed to balk at every hill, one portion will make strenuous efforts to advance, whilst the other will refuse to move, and thus paralyze the exertions of the first. Moreover, it will work faultlessly one day and stall the next. No reliance can be placed upon it at any stated time. Thus ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... a service should be both generous and punctual, and the cheer of the most encouraging character," the good-man observed, in a way that manifested he should not be displeased were he to receive a reply. Fid was in no disposition to balk his curiosity, but rather deemed himself bound, since he had once entered on the subject, to leave no part of ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... till he had imitated, in like manner, the songs and dances of the other people he had named. After that, addressing himself to me, I am going, says he, to invite all these honest persons to my house: if you take my advice, you will join with us, and balk your friends yonder, who perhaps are noisy prattlers, that will only teaze you to death with their nauseous discourses, and make you fall into a distemper worse than that you so lately recovered of; whereas, at my house, you shall ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... once began to keep count of the bunches, Old Brownsmith seeming to take no farther notice of me, while Ike the packer kept on laying in dozen after dozen, once or twice pretending to lay them in and bringing the bunches out again, as if to balk me, but all in a grim serious way, as if it ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... purse all coin we spurn But gold, we may from mart return. Nor purchase what we're seeking; And if in parties we must talk Nothing but sterling wit, we balk All interchange of speaking. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... first I've got to make you my man. The best colt in the world is no good until he learns to take the whip without bucking. I'm going to get you used to the whip. This is frank talk, eh? Well, I'm a frank man. You're in the harness now, Harrigan; make up your mind: Will you pull or will you balk? Answer me!" ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... thistle-stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents deg. deg.68 Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as deg. to balk 70 All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk Pashing their life out, with ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... joy. The old skipper's suggestion electrified us all, particularly myself, for it promised that he would see this affair through at any and all costs—and I had been apprehensive regarding the attitude of Gates, lest his love for me, or for the Whim, cause him to balk short of the danger line. So, hastily imploring Monsieur to hug him again, I dashed below for one of the rifles. This arm was a neat high-power sporting model, but I thought it might persuade our ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... outside his "duff and water" started, and so on with the next. One would scarce believe with what incredible rapidity that pudding was metamorphosed. The next obstacle to be surmounted was a huge balk of timber raised at the ends, about a foot off the ground, under which the coursers were compelled to crawl. A row of eighteen barrels, with the ends knocked out, came next; then a climb up slack ropes, and over a transverse bar; and finally another balk of timber—if anything less than a foot ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... beauty, in a concert of chamber music, in a fine building, or an admirable sketch, others do the work, we have only to gaze or listen in order to pluck some, at least, of the fruits of art. But fine novels take fine reading; fine essays take fine thinking; fine poetry takes fine feeling. We balk at the effort, and ask, like the audience at the movies, that eye should take the easier way. And hence the American reader still faintly suggests the Fiji Islander, who wears a silk hat and patent leathers on a ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... "Don't balk yourself, Nelly, I like it. I should like to be teased by you all my life," he said in ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... breathing-time! the turbaned host, With added ranks and raging boast, Press onwards with such strength and heat, Their numbers balk their own retreat; For narrow the way that led to the spot Where still the Christians yielded not; And the foremost, if fearful, may vainly try Through the massy column to turn and fly; They perforce must do or die. 930 They die; but ere their ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... it, but badly. We've been fighting so much that something or other in that mess down there has become conditioned to her; something else to me. My part will play along with anyone except Belle; hers with anybody except me. Anti-conditioning, you might call it. Anyway, they lay back their ears and balk." ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... He was in the situation of a man who has been riding a blood horse at an even, elastic gallop, and of a sudden feels him stumble and balk. As yet, he reflected, he had seen nothing but the sunshine of genius; he had forgotten that it has its storms. Of course it had! And he felt a flood of comradeship rise in his heart which would float them both safely through the worst weather. "Why, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... writers referred to above relates with much detail this astonishing thing of the Canada lynx: He saw a pack of them trailing their game—a hare—through the winter woods, not only hunting in concert, but tracking their quarry. Now any candid and informed reader will balk at this story, for two reasons: (1) the cat tribe do not hunt by scent, but by sight,—they stalk or waylay their game; (2) they hunt singly, they are all solitary in their habits, they are probably the most unsocial of the carnivora,—they prowl, they listen, ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... three—'twere pity to balk the Graces of their numbers; add the young lady who so lately left thee. The forester's fair daughter deserves a niche as well ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... getting even, but for coming out victorious. If the Vatican schemers could force Colonel Roosevelt, who, at the moment, was the greatest figure in the world, to obey their orders, they might exult in the sight of all the nations. Should he balk, he would draw down upon himself a hostile Catholic vote at home. Probably the good-natured Pope himself understood little about the intrigue and took little part in it, for Pius X was rather a kindly and a genuinely pious pontiff. But Cardinal Merry del Val, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... except Pembroke, Arundel, Gaveston, James and other attendants of Pembroke. Pem. My lord, you shall go with me: My house is not far hence; out of the way A little; but our men shall go along. We that have pretty wenches to our wives, Sir, must not come so near to balk their lips. Arun. 'Tis very kindly spoke, my Lord of Pembroke: Your honour hath an adamant of power To draw a prince. Pem. So, my lord.—Come hither, James: I do commit this Gaveston to thee; Be thou this night his keeper; ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... days after the coming of the baronet and the factor-lawyer Pengarvin before I saw my lady's face near-hand again, and sometimes I was glad for Richard Jennifer's sake, but oftener would curse and swear because I was bound hand and foot and could not balk my enemy. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... you think of that!" exclaimed Mr. Fleet. "Well, I've been up against just as queer things in a different way when training other dogs. You'll get them to the point of doing a trick, and maybe because a new kind of fly buzzes around their ears they balk. But we won't ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... "I won't balk at a stable, if we can get out of this wind," Nan declared. "Go ahead, Gracie, dear. Don't cry. Walter will be ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... be too concerned about Lucy, or me or your dad," replied his mother with surprising coolness. "I mean don't let concern for us balk you. Thank God you have come home to us. I feel a different woman. I am frightened, yes. For—for I've heard of you. What a name for ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... Grass deestrict, the Pennyr'yal deestrict, an' the Purchase. The Bloo Grass folks is the 'ristocrats, while them low-flung trash from the Purchase is a heap plebeian. The Pennyr'yal outfit is kind o' hesitatin' 'round between a balk an' a break-down in between the other two, an' is part 'ristocratic that a-way an' part mud. As for Colonel Sterett, he's pure strain Bloo Grass, an' he shows it. I'll say this for the Colonel, an' it shorely knits me to him from ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... force the canoe gradually ahead and over into the eddy of another boulder. Sometimes the water would leap over the gunwales and come aboard with a savage hiss. At other times the canoes seemed to become discouraged and, with their heads almost buried beneath the angry, spitting waves, would balk in midstream and not move forward so much as a foot to the minute. It was dangerous work, for if at any time a canoe became inclined across the current, even to the slightest degree, it might be rolled over and over, like a barrel descending an incline. Dangerous work it was, but it ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... be supposed that in the spiritual realm there is not much more to learn? Our special affinity is for things material; yet in this domain we are only in our infancy. How much more is it so in things spiritual. Surely it does not become us to balk at a new revelation. ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... full facts, stood with downcast eyes before these gentlemen, complaining in some alarm to herself: "They expect me to tell them now and without further search or parley just where this missing page is. I shall have to balk that expectation without losing their ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... door stealthily behind him. The burgomaster's eye fell instantly on the iron, and then glanced at the window; but he said nothing. The window was a hundred feet from the ground; and if Gerard had a fancy for jumping out, why should he balk it? He brought a brown loaf and a pitcher of water, and set them on the chest in solemn silence. Gerard's first impulse was to brain him with the iron bar and fly down the stairs; but the burgomaster seeing ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... the one really bright spot in Harrow's second innings. Being a bowler, he went in last but one. It happened that Fluff's brother was in possession of the ball. It will never be known why the Duffer chose to treat Cosmo Kinloch's balk with utter scorn and contempt. The Duffer was tall, strong, and a terrific slogger. Nobody expected him to make a run, but he made twenty in one over—all boundary hits. When he left the wicket he had added thirty-eight ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... chosen way to balk the purposes of those who threaten us, we hold it to be the first task of statesmanship to develop the strength that will deter the forces of aggression and promote the conditions of peace. For, as it must be the supreme purpose of ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... man you will go at once. This persecution of a woman is beneath even your brutality. If you have an account with me, I will not balk you. But relieve her from the outrage of ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... he saw her sitting alone on a balk of timber by the sea. Her hands lay loose in her lap; her neck was bent; her whole attitude indicated dejection, loneliness, sadness. She was thinking about him. She was thinking, "How cruel of him not to answer my sad little letter. He can't be so busy but what he could ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... the possessor of a pair of heels as good as his pair of eyes, and just as Reddy had declared by his motions such a readiness to pitch the ball that he could not have changed his mind without being declared guilty of a balk—just at that instant the Charlestonian dashed madly for second base. Heady snatched off his mask and threw the ball to second with all the speed and correctness he was master of; but the throw went just so far to the right that ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... a sympathetic rather than a hopeful air, admitting that he himself would be inclined to oppose the new policy, but remarking that the farmers and some of the committee were so set on it that he doubted his ability to balk them. He finally remarked, however, he might possibly do something, if Edwards, himself, would meantime take a course calculated to placate the insurgents and disarm their resentment. Being rather anxiously inquired of by the storekeeper ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... fiend been one, The business could not have been speedier done: Still when a man has angled day and night, The silliest gudgeons will refuse to bite: So Swallow tried no more: but if they came To seek his friendship, that remain'd the same: Thus he retired in peace, and some would say He'd balk'd his partner, and had learn'd to pray. To this some zealots lent an ear, and sought How Swallow felt, then said "a change is wrought." 'Twas true there wanted all the signs of grace, But there were strong professions in their place; Then, too, the less that ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... that Eusapia needed to learn how to make these movements with which her invisible hands were unfamiliar, just as she would have had to learn to make them with her visible hands. You will all observe that he did not permit awe or superstitious reverence for the medium or her phantoms to balk his experiments.' A convinced spiritist who attended one of the seances was scandalized by the tone and character of the tests. These professors were continually bobbing up to see what was going on, disturbing conditions, stirring things up as with a spoon to see how it was all going ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... Adele? Is this your Christian charity? Do you think that I enjoy this fierce wrestling with doubts? or, having them, would you bid me play false and conceal them? What if I am a final castaway, as your good books tell us some must be, would you make me a castaway before my time, and balk all my hopes in life? Is this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... with good-sized tusks. After some hesitation the pig suddenly rushed off, Sam, his keeper, behind. First it raced through the thicket, which I did not like, so I proposed to Sam to pull the rope on the energetic animal's leg; but Sam would not damp its splendid enthusiasm for fear it might balk afterwards. Sam managed, however, to direct it back into the path, but we had a most exhausting and exciting, if interesting, walk, for the pig was constantly rushing, sniffing, grunting and digging on all sides, so that Sam ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... I am not a sentry, not in the ranks, not in the staff. I am thrown into the wagon as part of the baggage. I am like an old gun that is spiked or the trunnions knocked off, and yet am carted off, not for the worth of the old iron, but to balk the enemy of a trophy. My political life is ended, and I am the survivor of myself, or rather the troubled ghost of a politician, that am condemned to haunt the field of battle where I fell. Whether the government will long outlive me is doubtful. I know it is sick, and, many of ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... prophet: "Am I not thine ass? What have I done unto thee that thou hast smitten me?" To his amazement the prophet was able to understand the ass quite well. This dumb brute made its meaning plain to a learned man. It was an intolerable outrage that an ass should lecture a doctor, and balk him in his designs. Luther is that ass. Rome rode him, and he patiently bore his wicked master until the angel of the Lord stopped him and he would go no further. The only difference is that Balaam had his eyes opened, left off beating his ass, and felt sorry for what he had done. Rome's eyes ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... man of scarcely middle height, was sure of not being recognized, and he and his comrades looked forward to whatever might happen as merely an amusing jest. At the same time they had to balk the hated chief of the city guards and his menials of their immediate prey; but they had played them a trick or two ere now. It might turn out really badly for Alexander; still, it was only needful to keep him concealed till ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... by experience when to talk And when to hold his tongue, now held it till This passion might blow o'er, nor dared to balk Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will. At length she rose up, and began to walk Slowly along the room, but silent still, And her brow clear'd, but not her troubled eye; The wind was down, but still the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... exclusive hennery. Terrapin sits low in my regard, even though it has wallowed in the most aristocratic marsh. Through such dinners I hack and saw my way without even gaining a memory of my progress. If asked the courses, I balk after the recital of the soup. Indeed, I am so forgetful of food, even when I dine at home, that I can well believe that Adam when he was questioned about the apple was in real confusion. He had or he had not. It was mixed with the pomegranate or the quince that Eve ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... well merit a man of higher birth and fortune. But the little hussy has been so nice, and squeamish, that I began to fear she would take up her silly spend-thrift brother's whim, and determine to live single: therefore I shall not balk her, now she seems ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... I should miss you, too, Cyril," he went on, stretching his arm across the table to shake hands with the lad. "You have proved a real friend and a true; but were there a chance of your going as an officer, I would not balk you, even if I could do so. It is but natural that a lad of spirit should speak and think as you do; besides, the war may not last for long, and when you come back, and the ships are paid off, you would soon wipe off the arrears of work, and get the books into ship-shape ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... the owner of the mine out there in the trees, but the old fellow won't come in until he has a talk with them. Tell 'em they better not show the money until they chat with him a few minutes. Likely they'll fall for that, as they don't seem to have the slightest suspicion. But if they balk at leaving the money let them bring it along. Once out in the dark the rest will be easy. But I figure they'll leave the money in the shack—it's just for a few minutes, you know—and they'll reason that it's safe enough with no one but ourselves within ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... that in the manner of the man-at-arms that nettled Walter Skinner, so that he became more pompous than before and, resolved to show the soldier how high he stood in the king's counsel, he said haughtily: "Why, it were best he balk me, if he knew what will come to his young master when I find him. King John, as thou knowest, hath a special hatred toward ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... who regrets, but cannot, being human, avert the miseries which to some unhappy individuals follow from the very wisdom of his rule,—what can you do? What is to be done? Individual benevolence at haphazard may balk him here and there, but what have you to put in the place of his well-considered scheme? Charity which makes paupers? or what else? I had not considered the question deeply, but it seemed to me that I now came to a blank wall, which my vague human sentiment of pity and scorn could find no ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... obstruct, retard, balk, counteract, frustrate, oppose, stay, bar, delay, hamper, prevent, stop, block, embarrass, impede, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... persekutisto. Bait allogajxo. Bake baki. Baker panisto, bakisto. Balance (scales) pesilo. Balance (poise) balanci. Balance of a/c restajxo. Balance-sheet bilanco. Balcony balkono. Bald senhara. Baldness senhareco. Bale pakego. Baleful pereiga. Balk malhelpi. Ball (globe) globo. Ball (playing) pilko. Ball (party) balo. Ball (bullet) kuglo. Ballad balado. Ballast balasto. Ballet baleto. Balloon aerostato. Balloon (plaything) aerpilkego. Ballot vocxdoni. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... along!" was Mr. Sherwood's repeated and cheerful statement. "Never say die! Hope is our anchor! Fate shall not balk us! And all the ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... to the mischievous wild beast which lurks in the bottom of all our hearts, now, "Rouse up! art thou a man and darest not do this thing?" now, "Rise, kill and eat—it is thine, wilt thou not take it? Shall the flimsy scruples of this teacher, or the sanctified cant of that, bar thy way, and balk thee of thine own? Thou hast strength to brave them—to brave all things in earth, or heaven, or hell; put out thy ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... their necks; there was the two-wheeled farm cart with its long tongue to be fastened to the yoke. There was the goad, a long pole with a sharp point, to stick into the animals' flanks if they should balk. And probably there were many useful tricks to be learned; for example, words like our "Gee" and "Haw" and "Whoa," to shout at the animals when it was necessary to turn to the left or the ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... a pirate seems to have its sunny side. I've read a lot of pirate tales and I can remember when I thought I would like to be one. But I know myself and I know you better than you think. When it came to a showdown, you'd balk." ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... after leader arrived who was insistent upon a gold standard, it became increasingly evident to Hanna that he must proceed with caution. If McKinley committed himself to gold, the silver advocates would balk at his candidacy, and perhaps unite on somebody else; if he committed himself to silver, he would lose the eastern leaders. The astute Hanna therefore allowed sentiment in favor of the gold plank to gather force, ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... done," he said as he stooped to take the shirt out of the fender, "it's got to be done, so why balk it?" And as he combed his hair before the mirror on the wall, he retorted to himself, superficially: "The woman's not speechless dumb. She's not clutterin' at the nipple. She's got the right to please herself, and displease ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... help you. I'll do everything I can. I was trying to think of something you could make money at. I was thinking of the stage, but I suppose you'd balk at that. I'll admit it isn't the life for a lady. But the same thing's true of whatever money can be made at. If I were you, I'd ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... discovery of which was paid for in Hopkinson's life! Forget all about labor and mill owner and color of pigments! You know now why the Oriental question is more than skin-deep. Go a little deeper in this child-wife thing! Don't balk at the horror of it! The Pacific Coast wants you to know a few medical facts. Hundreds of thousands of children in India, age from nine to twelve, are wives actually living with husbands; and the ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... Age and Want sit smiling at the gate: Him portion'd maids, apprenticed orphans bless'd, The young who labour, and the old who rest. Is any sick? the Man of Ross relieves, Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes, and gives. 270 Is there a variance? enter but his door, Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more. Despairing quacks with curses fled the place, And vile attorneys, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... leader and a follower is this: a leader leads and a follower follows. The shepherd is a man, but sheep are sheep. As a rule followers follow as far as the path is good, but at the first bog they balk. Betrayers, doubters and those who deny with an oath are always recruited from the ranks of the followers. In a sermon John Wesley once said: "To adopt and live a life of simplicity and service for mankind is difficult; but to follow the love of luxury, making a clutch for place, pelf and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... in view of his other qualities, must have been a real comfort. The second allowed himself to be tamed and was soon quiet. The third, on the other hand, turned out to be one of the worst buckers Roosevelt possessed; and the fourth had a habit which was even worse, for he would balk and throw himself over backward. It struck Roosevelt that there was something about this refractory animal's disposition, to say nothing of his Roman nose, which greatly reminded him of the eminent Democrat, General Ben Butler, and "Ben Butler" became ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... sort of engine and machine made by experts and other ignoramuses. I balk at nothing. The engine was new to me, but I lit a lantern and examined its inwards with anxiety and superciliousness. Prisintly, by the grace of God, it started off. A very small bhoy held the lantern for me while I adjusted the valves and the carbureter, and this bould lad ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... to was that the Great Powers, who had left Rumania to her fate when she was attacked by the Magyars, intervened the moment the assailed nation, helping itself, got the better of its enemy, and then they resolved to balk it of the fruits of victory and of the safeguards it would fain have created for the future. It was to rely upon the Supreme Council once more, to take the broken reed for a solid staff. That the Powers had something to urge in support of their interposition ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
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