"Beat back" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and attacked a body of Octavius's horsemen. He succeeded in driving these horsemen away from their position, but he was soon driven back in his turn, and compelled to retreat to the city, fighting as he fled, to beat back his pursuers. He was extremely elated at the success of this skirmish. He came to Cleopatra with a countenance full of animation and pleasure, took her in his arms and kissed her, all accoutered for battle as he was, and boasted greatly of the exploit which ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... the son of Rameses II, did not benefit much by the alliance with the Hittites, to whom he had to send a supply of grain during a time of famine. He found it necessary, indeed, to invade Syria, where their influence had declined, and had to beat back from the Delta region the piratical invaders of the same tribes as were securing a footing in Asia Minor. In Syria, Meneptah fought with the Israelites, who apparently had begun their conquest ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... quite out of the question to round the Devil's Arm and beat back against the wind to the lee of the island. There was a narrow passage between the Devil's Tea Kettle and the island. If they could make this passage it would be a simple matter to fall in behind the island to ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... a mile away when the ship fired her first gun, just as we had given you up and determined to go back; so on we came straight here. Another ten minutes and we should have been too late. We are making for Ramsgate now. We could never beat back to Deal in this wind. I don't know as I ever ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... Annapolis some pretty manoeuvering work was done. While this drill was proceeding, however, the wind died out considerably. Then, light as the breeze was, the youthful crew captains were forced to beat back against almost a ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... forward, and with hats and anything that would hold water they began to wet the old rookeries. But the fiery storm swooped steadily down on them, and their efforts were as futile as if they had tried to beat back the wind. Suddenly a mass of flame leaped upon the buildings, and in a moment they were ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... not touch its surface. They flew. Flew—and yet it was not flight. It was half-flight. It was scarcely flight at all. Compared with the magnificent, calm, effortless sweep of their girlhood days, it was almost a grotesque performance. Their wing-stumps beat back and forth violently, beat in a very agony of effort. Indeed these stunted fans could never have held them up. They supplemented their efforts by a curious rotary movement of the legs and feet. They could not rise very far above the surface of the water, especially ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... was a great cry against us entering. We nevertheless ascended the steps, and entered the passage leading to the interior of the Mosque. It was filled with people, all screaming and threatening us with sticks. But the situation soon became much more serious. The Mussulmans began to beat back those of the Jews who had followed us, and the screams were truly frightful. The soldiers of the Governor of Beyrout and the janissary from Mr Moore, the English Consul, behaved admirably; they struck right and left with all their ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... contemn the truths of Divine Revelation, by which the soul is made wise unto eternal life. It is a fearful sin to despise the claims of God the Father, and God the Son. But it is a transcendent sin to resist and beat back, after it has been given, that mysterious, that holy, that immediately Divine influence, by which alone the heart of stone can be made the heart of flesh. For, it indicates something more than the ordinary carelessness of a sinner. It evinces a determined obstinacy in sin,—nay, a Satanic opposition ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... there were many windows to be defended, and at each the mob attacked desperately, the assaults were all repulsed. Many indeed of the defenders were struck down by the pikes and pole-axes, but for a time they beat back the assailants whenever they attempted to enter. The noise was prodigious. The alarm-bells of the town were all ringing and the shouts of the combatants were drowned in the hoarse roar of the ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... rushing the first into war to occupy all the coveted districts, including Prizren, before Serbia was ready. Bulgaria would beat back the Turks, and Ferdinand and Nikita share the bulk of the peninsula. The Montenegrins recked nothing of the Serbs, but they miserably miscalculated. The Serbs reached Prizren ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... the captain remarked. "We'll have to beat back, and then there'll be some fun. I wonder if the doctor is a good sailor. My, that was a whopper!" he exclaimed, as a larger wave than usual struck the yacht. "Guess it'll be rougher ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... adage, "Never make war against a desert," did not now recur to his mind. But he gradually steeled himself to the conviction that war with Alexander was inevitable, and that the help of Austria and Prussia would enable him to beat back the Muscovite hordes into their eastern steppes. For a time he had unquestionably thought of destroying Prussia before he attacked the Czar; but he finally decided to postpone her fate until he had used her ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Sea until the end of July, but made only two prizes, although she lay in wait for convoys of whose sailing accounts were received. Having renewed her supply of water at Bergen, in Norway, she returned to the Atlantic, made three captures off the north coast of Ireland, and thence beat back to the Banks, where two stray homeward-bound West Indiamen were at last caught. From there the ship made her way, still with a constant head wind, to Nantucket, off which was captured a British man-of-war schooner, tender to the admiral. On September ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... of all the ships we boarded, the first on which we found women, did we meet with any genuine resistance. On that occasion we had two men killed and several injured, and if it had not been for the gallantry of Ballantrae we had surely been beat back at last. Everywhere else the defence (where there was any at all) was what the worst troops in Europe would have laughed at; so that the most dangerous part of our employment was to clamber up the side of the ship: and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or three days we cruised about as unsuccessful as before, the weather continuing fine; but the sky giving indubitable signs of the approach of the stormy and rainy season, we beat back along shore to pick up our boats. The wind had been veering about for some time, and at length seemed to have made up its mind to enjoy a stiffish blow out of the south-west. This, of course, would have kicked up a considerable surf ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... Muir of Auchterarder. "Ye horss was gud," but the forced pace sorely taxed its strength; so "at ye Blackfurd" he alighted and walked. After he had gone a mile his pursuers overtook and harassed him. They had great advantage, being on horse, while he was on foot; yet Wallace beat back the foremost of them, recovered his seat, and ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... and upon that space Soult forthwith poured a force, which entirely destroyed the communication between the Russian centre and left. The Czar perceived the fatal consequences of this movement, and his guards rushed to beat back Soult. It was on an eminence, called the hill of Pratzen, that the encounter took place. The Russians drove the French infantry before them: Napoleon ordered Bessieres to hurry with the imperial ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... friend!" exclaimed A'Dale; "though I doubt not we should be able to beat back any marauders, yet a few more stout arms would ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... whole modern world. Their task was to organize society and to keep it from crumbling to pieces. They were castle-builders, city-founders, road-makers; they battled to bring order out of the seething turbulence around them; and at the same time they first beat back heathendom and then slowly wrested from ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... know what I do. I landed with a boat's crew—all men who had sailed with me for years, and who were as true as steel. We went up to the church. They were standing, she and he, before the priest, but the thing had not been done. I dashed between them and caught her round the waist. My men beat back the frightened bridegroom and the lookers on. We bore her down to the boat and aboard our vessel, and then getting up anchor we sailed away across the White Sea until the spires of Archangel sank down behind the horizon. She ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from her apparel; the sailor bathes his limbs in tepid waters. Feeling himself invigorated and refreshed with the genial warmth about him, he realises out there at sea the fable of Antaeus and his mother Earth. He rises up and attempts to make his port again, and is again, perhaps, as rudely met and beat back from the north-west; but each time that he is driven off from the contest, he comes forth from this stream, like the ancient son of Neptune, stronger and stronger, until, after many days, his freshened strength prevails, and he at last triumphs, ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... leave the wedding; howbeit, if we beat back the Danes, which is a matter in the hands of the Lord of Hosts, both you and I will be there ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... To beat back fear, we must hold fast to our heritage as free men. We must renew our confidence in one another, our tolerance, our sense of being neighbors, fellow citizens. We must take our stand on the Bill of Rights. The inquisition, the star chamber, have no place ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... because he dared not wear it in the sight of the men of the kraal, lest they should know him for one of the Wolf-Brethren, and it had not been his plan to seek the mountain again that night, but rather on the morrow. Now Umslopogaas knew that his danger was great indeed. He beat back Deathgrip with his kerrie, but others were behind him, for the wolves gathered fast. Then he bounded away towards the cave, for he was so swift of foot that the wolves could not catch him, though they pressed him hard, and once the teeth of one of them tore his moocha. ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... time until supper was ready. In a vague way he realized that he had, by deserting the team, betrayed himself to all his comrades as a fellow swayed by petty jealousy; but this thought, which seemed trying to force itself humiliatingly upon him, he beat back and thrust aside, persisting in dwelling on the notion that he had been most ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... his fate. All seems against him; but I believe and hope he will win—at least, beat back the invaders. What right have we to prescribe sovereigns to France? Oh for a Republic! 'Brutus, thou sleepest.' Hobhouse abounds in continental anecdotes of this extraordinary man; all in favour of his intellect and courage, but against his bonhommie. No wonder;—how ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... your mother's life!" and to Pan's amaze he felt himself crushed in his father's arms. That sort of thing had never been Bill Smith's way. He thrilled to it, and tried again to beat back the remorse mounting higher. His father released him, and drew back, as if suddenly ashamed of his emotion. His face, which he had been trying to ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... lamps and outside windows with stones; and afterwards putting out their flambeaux, pelted the company, in a most audacious manner, with brickbats, etc., whereby several were greatly hurt." This attack was not received in the submissive spirit of Dr. Hill; the assaulted gentry drew their swords to beat back the rioters and severely wounded not a few. They probably enjoyed the diversion from ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... created. The day of Marathon is the critical epoch in the history of the two nations. It broke for ever the spell of Persian invincibility, which had paralysed men's minds. It generated among the Greeks the spirit which beat back Xerxes, and afterwards led on Xenophon, Agesilaus, and Alexander, in terrible retaliation, through their Asiatic campaigns. It secured for mankind the intellectual treasures of Athens, the growth of free institutions the liberal enlightenment of the Western ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... different directions the rival kings were equally successful. Salobrena, but lately conquered by the Christians, was thrown into a commotion by the first glimpse of Boabdil's banners; the populace rose, beat back their Christian guards, and opened the gates to the last of their race of kings. The garrison alone, to which the Spaniards retreated, resisted Boabdil's arms; and, defended by, impregnable walls, promised an ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book IV. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Alfred; it had utterly failed to respond to Edmund's call to arms against Canute, and the respite under Edward the Confessor had been frittered away. Angles and Saxons invited foreign conquest by a civil war; and when Harold beat back Tostig and his Norwegian ally, the sullen north left him alone to do the same by William. William's was the third and decisive Danish conquest of a house divided against itself; for his Normans were ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... than the walls, upon wheels, from which fifty men to each should direct battering-rams. Belisarius opposed him with like weapons. On the nineteenth day, the Goths poured out from their seven camps for a general storm. In a tremendous conflict, Belisarius beat back the invaders by counter sallies at the gates assailed. But at one point they all but succeeded. The Mausoleum of Hadrian formed part of the defence. Procopius, the eye-witness of this famous siege, and its narrator, ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... frozen in the wood, prevented the flame from obtaining the upper hand as quickly as it would otherwise have done. The area taken possession of by the fire up to the present time was small. The frost in the boarding had stubbornly beat back the leaping, ever-returning flames and it would take time before they could permanently strike root and from their vantage point do further destruction. If they had united in one big flame and overstepped the space below the hole protected by the frost, the fire would soon have grown to gigantic ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... episodes of the war. Five thousand French soldiers of all arms, with quick-firers, engaged twenty thousand German infantry. In spite of being outnumbered in this way, the French dash and "bite," as they call it, was so splendid that they beat back the enemy from point to point in a fight lasting for twelve hours, inflicting a tremendous punishment, and suffering very few losses on their own side. A German officer captured in this engagement expressed his unbounded admiration for the valour of ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... Wilkinson, "an unprincipled imbecile," as Scott very properly styled him. It was mismanaged in every possible way, and was a total failure; it was attended with but one battle, that of Chrystler's Farm, in which 1,000 British, with the loss of less than 200 men, beat back double their number of Americans, who lost nearly 500 men and also one piece of artillery. The American army near Lake Champlain had done nothing, its commander, General Wade Hampton, being, if possible, even more incompetent than Wilkinson. He ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... great battle is to be accounted lost or won, as it affects principles rather than reputations, then Brian lost at Clontarf. The leading ideas of his long and political life were, evidently, centralization and an hereditary monarchy. To beat back foreign invasion, to conciliate and to enlist the Irish-born Danes under his standard, were preliminary steps. For Morrogh, his first-born, and for Morrogh's descendants, he hoped to found an hereditary ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... city, burned the capitol, the President's house, and the national offices and archives; and no marvel, for thousands of the inhabitants of the District had been "TRANSFORMED INTO ENEMIES." Would they beat back invasion? If the national government had exercised its constitutional "power to provide for the common defence and to promote the general welfare," by turning those "enemies" into friends, then, instead of a hostile ambush ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... clustered at the mouth of the cave, and the two lanterns, held high, beat back the gloom for a few yards. Ichi shouted orders to his men, and his words were hardly audible above the deep, rhythmic moan that rose steadily from somewhere beneath their feet. Martin peered into the cavern; it was huge, he knew, but ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... the village choir, Your carols on the midnight throw! Oh, bright across the mist and mire, Ye ruddy hearths of Christmas glow! Beat back the shades, beat down the woe, Renew the strength of mortal will; Be welcome, all, to come or go, The ghosts we all can ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... even now, with the boat under canvas, to beat back to the ship was an impossibility; for the boat had not been built for sailing to windward in a strong breeze; she was the ordinary type of ship's longboat, constructed to carry a heavy load in proportion to her dimensions, with a long, flat floor, bluff bows, and with only some ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... French army was unmistakably the weaker of the two. In the early days of the war, while the British army was being formed, it was the French who had to stand the brunt of the fighting. At Verdun it was the French who from February to July beat back the German assaults along the Meuse time after time in the most tremendous duel of the war. In the Battle of the Somme it was the French who fought their way forward south of the river to the outskirts of Peronne and ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... significance largely to the Negro. King Cotton sits on a throne of gold held aloft by the strong black arms of the Negro and shakes his snowy locks over the commercial world. And our beloved South may yet call upon ebony sinews to beat back the enemies of her peace, prosperity, and happiness, and again stand between starvation, danger, and death, and her defenseless wives and little ones; and the Negro will again manfully, cheerfully, ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... beside Shakespeare's Bottoms and Slys, Cervantes has given us the admirable Sancho Panza, and has spread his loving humor in equal measure over servant and master. Are we to believe that the yeomen of England, who beat back the Armada, were inferior to the Spanish peasantry whom they overcame, or is it not rather true that the Spanish author had a deeper insight into his country's heart than was allotted to the English dramatist? Cervantes, the soldier and adventurer, rose above the prejudices ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... narrows. Even though the English fleet might run this gauntlet of heavy ordnance, the high cliffs for miles above the city remained practically inaccessible, and at almost any point a hundred resolute men would suffice to beat back an army. In the face of these preparations, it seemed an act of madness to attempt the reduction of Quebec. But within defences so secure the ardent spirits of the Canadian troops were chafing at enforced inaction; for ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the verse of the Sibyl should be read, in spite of Pompey's opposition. [-61-] Meantime the Tiber, perhaps because excessive rains took place somewhere up the stream above the city, or because a violent wind from the sea beat back its outgoing tide, or still more probably, by the act of some Divinity, suddenly rose so high as to inundate all the lower levels in the city and to overwhelm much even of the higher ground. The houses, therefore, being constructed of brick, were soaked ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... staff in his hand in order to go to confess a sick man. Sumulay attacked him with a short sword, without any waste of arguments. The poor religious, seeing himself involved in the worst kind of a conflict, but infused with valor by the divine hand, beat back the first blows with his cane, and defending himself with it, just as he might have done with the best kind of a sword, seeing that no one came to his aid, passed to the offensive. The cane had a long sharp steel point and the father gave ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... of ground. This movement was carefully worked out, and in less than fifteen minutes a sudden roar terrified the elephants, and the tiger charged desperately through the line! There was no longer any doubt about its existence, and we quickly reformed, and beat back in exactly the same close order. Twice the charge was repeated, and each time the line was broken; one elephant received a trifling scratch, and the tiger had learned that a direct charge would enable ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... alone in the moon-lighted dusk of the upper chamber when he closed the door and began to pace a rageful sentry-beat back and forth between the windows. But all unknown to him one of the three fell sisters, she of the implacable front and deep-set, burning eyes, had entered with him to pace evenly as he paced, and to lay a maddening finger on ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... wheel," Mr Brymer whispered. "We must tackle him there; and once get him down, we can beat back the others. I'll ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... fresh blood. One day, this expression was made: "The town of Lyons shall be destroyed; the name Lyons shall be effaced," etc. All this meant that Lyons, weary of blood, had decided on raising an army to beat back the ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... up, completely routed, and hoisted sail and started on the long wind-ward beat back to Benicia. A number of Sundays went by, on each of which the law was persistently violated. Yet, short of an armed force of soldiers, we could do nothing. The fishermen had hit upon a new idea and were using it for all it was worth, while there seemed no way by which we could ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... disturbing him. He lay still, with a stone on his heart, for he was now awake to the fact that he could not say, "Thy will be done." He tried sore to lift up his heart, but could not. Something rose ever between him and his God, and beat back his prayer. A thick fog was about him—no air wherewith to make a cry! In his heart not one prayer would come to life; it was like an old nest without bird or egg ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... counsellor. Yesterday, in cold blood, he had judged it necessary to have the woods to the westward guarded lest the evacuation of Laulii should prove only the peril of Apia. To-day, in the irritation and alarm of failure, he forgot or despised his previous reasoning, and, though his detachment was beat back to the ships, proceeded with the remainder of his maimed design. The only change he made was to haul down the flag of truce. He had now no wish to meet with Mataafa. Words were out of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Hunnish Margrave called straightway for their swords and their shields, that they might kill Folker. The host hasted from the window. There was a mighty uproar among the Huns. The kings and their followers alighted before the all, and beat back their horses. ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... masses of dim cities, blown Full of the snow that ever shifts and swells, While far above them all their towers of stone Stand and beat back your fierce and tyrannous spells, And hour by hour send out, like voices torn and broken Of battling giants that have grandly spoken, ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... night, when Mary Hope was asleep and Belle was dozing beside the stricken woman, Lance saddled Jamie and led Coaley home. And while he rode, black Trouble rode with him and Love could not smile and beat back the spectre with his fists, but hid his face and whimpered, and ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... have some transporting power; and, as they always move toward the land, their action is landward. They thus beat back, little by little, any detritus in the waters, preventing that loss to continents or islands which would take place if it were carried ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... They beat back for a short distance, then, separating, dropped down the steep hillside to the creek. In open order, they went forward quietly, slowly; they might come upon 'Kep' Queen's outpost at any turn. Now and then they came in sight of one another. Each time Brunner saw that the old ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... meantime there were frequent skirmishes across the marsh, a few on both sides sallying out between the two camps. Sometimes, however, our Gallic or German auxiliaries crossed the marsh, and furiously pursued the enemy; or on the other hand the enemy passed it and beat back our men. Moreover there happened in the course of our daily foraging, what must of necessity happen, when corn is to be collected by a few scattered men out of private houses, that our foragers dispersing in an intricate country were ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... scarcely see her, and, like her historians, wonder if she was so evil, or only a scholar to whom learned men wrote letters, as if to a pattern of virtue. But in the father and son live a flame and a cloud, the flame rising steadily to beat back and consume the cloud. It is Caesar Borgia who is the flame, and Alexander the Pope who fills the Vatican and the world with his contagious clouds. The father, up to this moment, has held all his vices well in hand; he has no rival; his sons and his daughter he ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Truth! And Eternity who art Love! Thou art my God, to Thee do I sigh night and day. When I first knew Thee, Thou liftedst me up, that I might see there was somewhat for me to see, and that I was not yet such as to see. And Thou streaming forth Thy beams of light upon me most strongly, didst beat back the weakness of my sight, and I trembled with love and awe: and I perceived myself to be far off from Thee in the region ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... rapidly worse; he could not help regretting that he had come so far from the island, with the prospect of a pull back through a heavy sea. He could not hoist the boats on board, or, under the circumstances, he might have compelled the schooner to beat back to Santa Cruz. Had he attempted to do so, and to tow the boats, they would, in all ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... Balade its extent to the S.W., it was necessary to know how far it extended to the east or southeast, while it was in our power to recover the coast; for, by following the direction of the shoals, we might have been carried so far to leeward as not to be able to beat back without considerable loss of time. We were already far out of sight of land; and there was no knowing how much farther we might be carried, before we found an end to them. These considerations, together with the risk ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... back, Jim Boyd, the Little Giant and me, and we can do it again. We beat back a whole band of the Sioux nation, and we defy 'em to come on again. And you predicted it, all six of you! And you predict that we'll do it a second time, ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... me like a child, If thou hast made me for thyself, my God, And lead me up thy hills. I shall not fear, So thou wilt make me pure, and beat back sin With the terrors of thine eye: it fears me not As once it might have feared thine own good image, But lays bold siege ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... trembled on Wilford's lips, but he beat back the words and walked up and down the room, knowing now that his journey must be deferred till morning, and wondering if Katy would hold out ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... the fighting to begin. The thrushes pecked the blackbirds, and the blackbirds flew at the thrushes, and both beat back the little redbreasts ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... afterwards beat back (With some assistance from the frost and snow) Napoleon on his bold and bloody track, It happened was himself beat back just now: He was a jolly fellow, and could crack His jest alike in face of friend or foe, Though Life, and Death, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... of the wind to the north-west had given the English the weather gage. They could run down before it on the enemy, and beat back against it in a way that was impossible for the clumsy galleons. Thus Howard and his captains could choose their own position and range during the fighting. It began by a pinnace, appropriately named the "Defiance," firing ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... us a long time to beat back, and we were all glad to feel solid ground under our feet once more. After a few days we started again, but luck was against me on this occasion, and inside of twelve hours I missed the steamer no less than three times, which, in the New Hebrides, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... waters of the Pacific. The story of how this was done forms a compact and continuous whole. The fathers followed Boon or fought at King's Mountain; the sons marched south with Jackson to overcome the Creeks and beat back the British; the grandsons died at the Alamo or charged to victory at San Jacinto. They were doing their share of a work that began with the conquest of Britain, that entered on its second and wider period ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... preservation of her national self as well as for sacred goods of humanity; indeed, for the very progress of true culture. It is from this conviction that she draws her unrelenting force and the absolute certainty that she will beat back the assault of all her enemies. This conviction does not stand in need of any encouragement from abroad; our country absolutely relies upon itself and confides in the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... a female figure dashed into the midst of the bloodthirsty horde, and, with a bludgeon similar to their own, except that it was wrought from gold, beat back ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to Saltville, as Burbridge was drawing near the place. In a very short time the energy and administrative skill of General Echols had placed the department in an excellent condition for defense. But it was the opportune arrival of General Williams which enabled us to beat back all assailants. When we reached Abingdon, we learned that General Breckinridge had arrived and had assumed command. After a short halt, we pressed on and reached Saltville at nightfall to learn that the enemy had been repulsed that day in a desperate attack. His loss ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... legitimate ends of satire, and one of the proud triumphs of genius, is to unmask the false zealot; to beat back the haughty spirit that is treading down all; and if it cannot teach modesty, and raise a blush, at least to inflict terror and silence. It is then that the satirist does honour to the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... frightened and cried out as it flew, and the great bird came behind it terribly fast, flapping its wings and craning its beak, for it was hungry and wanted some dinner. But as they drew near the old man, he jumped up, and beat back the raven, which mounted, with hoarse screams of disappointment, into the sky, and the little bird, freed from its enemy, nestled into the old man's hand, and he carried it into the house. He stroked its feathers, and told it not to be afraid, for it was quite safe; ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... proud Make uncouth music through their mouth-pieces. Nor lowly the device upon his shield: A man-at-arms is on a ladder seen Scaling the wall of a beleaguered town, And underneath the vaunting legend dares Ares himself to beat back the assault. Against this champion you must bid go forth One that can save ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... I'm not?" she said, checking her horse and looking in his face. A quick conviction that she was on the point of some confession sprang into his mind, but unfortunately showed in his face. She beat back his eager look with a short laugh. "There, don't speak, and don't look like that. That remark was worthy the usual artless maiden's invitation to a compliment, wasn't it? Let us keep to the subject of yourself. Why, with your political influence, ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... leaped a giant. Up, up, he towered, tossed whirling arms a hundred feet abranch, shivered, and dissolved into a widespread cataract. The water below was lashed into fury, in the midst of which a mighty death agony beat back the troubled waves of the trade wind. Only then did the muffled double boom of the explosion reach the ears of the spectators, presently to be followed by a whispering, swift-skimming wavelet that swept irresistibly across the bigger surges ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... doing something for him. He could hardly bear it. She lay to be sacrificed for him because she loved him so much. And he had to sacrifice her. For a second, he wished he were sexless or dead. Then he shut his eyes again to her, and his blood beat back again. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... field of battle and questioned the slaves and camp followers, who told him that King Al-Damigh had come up with twenty-thousand men and had fallen upon the idolaters by Night, saying, "By the virtue of Abraham the Friend, I will not forsake my brother's son, but will play a brave man's part and beat back the host of Miscreants and please the Omnipotent King!" So Sahim returned and told his uncle's derring-do to Gharib, who cried out to his men, saying, "Don your arms and mount your steeds and let us succour my father's brother!" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... arose and ran along the wood-side, and beat back from it and stirred the canvas of the tents and raised the folds of the banner, and blew it out, so that the bearing was clear to see; yet Ralph deemed it naught dreadful, but an armoury fit for a baron, to wit, a black bear on a castle-wall on ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... fairly be said that no attempts have been made to beat back the flood of venereal disease. On the contrary, such attempts have been made from the first. But they have never been effectual;[238] they have never been modified to changed condition; at the present day they are hopelessly unscientific and entirely opposed ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the first two days of conflict at Slivnitza, the defenders beat back the Servians with some loss. On the third day (November 19), after receiving reinforcements, they took the offensive, with surprising vigour. A talented young officer, Bendereff, led their right wing, with bands ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... as the pinnace slowly beat back to her moorings, a group of women followed by some stragglers of the other sex climbed the hill and seated themselves about the Fort to watch the departure of the Mayflower. Priscilla and Mary Chilton as usual were close together, and ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... consuming thirst, were too great against them. Towards the middle of the day the bravest of their band cut their way through the Moslem ranks and gained the summit of a little hill, and there, hour after hour, they closed around the banner of the Cross, and beat back the charging ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is, that Charles Kingsley was born a fighting man, and believed in bold attack. "No human power ever beat back a resolute forlorn hope," he used to say; "to be got rid of, they must be blown back with grape and canister," because the attacking party have all the universe behind them, the defence only that small part which is shut up in their walls. And he felt most strongly at ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... determined air of one who knows that still another piece lies hidden, Paul Brennan started to beat back and forth across the trail of ruin. His light swept the ground like the brush of a painter, missing no spot. Slowly and deliberately he went, paying no attention to the creeping tongues of flame that crept along damp trails ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... desert place in prayer. When He would send forth His apostles, that great step in advance, in which lay the germ of so much, was preceded by solitary prayer. When the fickle crowd desired to make Him the centre of political revolution, He passed from their hands and beat back that earliest attempt to secularise His work, by prayer. When the seventy brought the first tidings of mighty works done in His name, He showed us how to repel the dangers of success, in that He ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... became a monstrous serpent that plunged its fangs into Baruch's brain and hissed one implacable tone, the tone B. The drum roared the same tone; the voices twined about the crucified Jew and beat back sleep, beat ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... brushes from England. To Honora there was an irresistible and mysterious fascination in all these trophies, each suggesting a finished —and some perhaps a cruel—performance of the man himself. The cups were polished until they beat back the light like mirrors, and the glossy bear and tiger skins gave ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... tired," he whispered, with a break in his voice, "and I can't help you!" and she tried to beat back that dear pity and longing with her comforting "No, no, no! I'm not really tired"; her voice thrilled with life, though her ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... Confucius is found wandering from one independent state to another. This confusion led in the third century B.C. to the displacement of the Chow by the Tsin dynasty. Shi-Hoang-Ti, fourth ruler of this line, one of the strongest rulers China ever had, assumed the title of Universal Emperor. He beat back the enemies of China beyond the frontier, began the building of the great wall, and broke down the power of the feudal rulers. It was found, however, that the feudal system still lived in the affections of the people, ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... The Winchester men fired whenever they saw an enemy, and with them it was largely an affair of sharpshooters, but on both left and right the battle rolled more heavily. The Southerners, behind their powerful fortifications at the heads of the ravines and on the plateau, beat back every attack. ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... achievements of his late 'teens. These plays were about the "Children of Lir," that one of "The Three Sorrows of Story-Telling" that is less poignant than the story of Deirdre only because it is less human, and about Brian Boru, the high king that beat back the Danes at Clontarf. Faery and mediaeval history were not destined, however, to be Mr. Colum's field, and Mr. Fay, then stage manager of the Association productions, probably helped him on the way to his true field, the life of the peasant ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt |
