"Contest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so many witty things as on that very evening. At last they fell in with quite a press of boys, who were crowding round a confectionery window, and, as usual in such cases, there began an elbowing and scuffling contest for places, in which Fred was quite conspicuous. At last a big boy presumed on his superior size to edge in front of our hero, and cut off his prospect; and Fred, without more ado, sent him smashing through the shop window. There was a general scrabble, every one ran for himself, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... other waltzers had stopped, as much for the purpose of observing these two as for giving them more space, while the wearied musicians scraped away as if it were a contest who should move the faster, themselves or the ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... she had no incentive to exertion, beyond what was necessary to maintain an honorable independence. She was content, with fine talents that might have won her a name, to be left behind upon the road to fame by those who were better adapted to the contest. What was it to her? A short-lived popularity, the adulation of the vulgar, the cool, critical glances of those who might sympathize and appreciate, but ever seemed more ready to condemn. She had no wish to be petted by the crowd, or court the gaze ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... the Cork then gave us a skirt dance, which happily closed a very exciting day. I went to bed in my cell. It was a fine, moonlight night, and a three-cornered contest soon started between donkeys braying, jackals howling and dogs barking; but we were very tired, and they made no more impression on us than would Raff's Cavatina played on the violin with ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... Reformation: it is from the sixteenth century that liberty has its date.—Well and good, adds an historian; but do you not know that the Germans were they who poured a generous and free blood into the impoverished blood of the men who had been fashioned by the slavery of the empire? I contest nothing, and I am not sufficiently well-informed to pronounce with confidence upon the action of all these historic causes. But this I venture to affirm,—that if any one thinks to fix definitely the hour when liberty was born in history, ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... charming and delightful evening. Having made this communication with an air of the strictest secrecy, he took Jack Redburn into another corner to tell him the same, and then retired into another corner with the deaf gentleman and the slate, to repeat the assurance. It was amusing to observe the contest in his mind whether he should extend his confidence to Mr. Miles, or treat him with dignified reserve. Half a dozen times he stepped up behind him with a friendly air, and as often stepped back again without saying a word; at ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... the first commencement of the long contest known as the strife between the Guelfs and Ghibellines—before even these had become the party words for the Pope's and the Emperor's friends, and when they only applied to the troops of Bavaria and of Swabia—that, in 1141, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thus engaged in friendly whispers, suddenly appeared the rival, and a violent rencontre ensued, so that one of the females appeared to be greatly agitated, and fluttered with spreading wings as if considerably hurt. The male, though prudently neutral in the contest, showed his culpable partiality by flying off with his paramour, and for the rest of the evening left the tree to his pugnacious consort. Cares of another kind, more imperious and tender, at length reconciled, or at least terminated, ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... who had followed me from the house. Fortunately for us, what with surprise and haste, the Frenchmen had not drawn their swords, so that the fight that ensued beneath the ruined wall of the farm was waged on fairly even terms. And when it comes to a contest in which nature's weapons are employed, I never yet met combatants to match sturdy English tars. There were six Frenchmen, and my comrades (Joe and the bosun being busy with the captain) numbered seven, but of these Dilly was old and Runnles was small, and, coming up in the rear of ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... a singular contest—an eating match. Two dozen little Malay, Kling, Tamil, and Chinese boys were seated at regular intervals about an open circle by one of the governor's aids. Not one could touch the others in any way. Each had a dry, hard ship-biscuit before him. A pistol shot and two dozen pairs of ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... immediately recalled Rosser's brigade posted to protect his left flank, thereby leaving the way open for this foray around his right. Rosser, coming quickly upon the scene, not only intercepted Alger's retreat, but proceeded to contest with the Fifth Michigan the possession of the captures which ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... then the opponent would get in a strong verbal tug, and nearly draw his man over the line; but at length my father, with great reluctance, conceded a point, a great point in fact, one which virtually settled the contest. ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... with this invitation, but not very readily, as he conjectured that a fresh contest would result from it; he found his brother the cardinal engaged, with the assistance of a valet-de-chambre, in trying on a prelate's costume, a little worldly-looking, perhaps, in its shape and fashion, but elegant and becoming in ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... with a self-preserving power, a principle of excitability, or, in other words, a vital principle, the operations of the economy would cease, and a dissolution of his organic structure take place. But this principle being implanted in the system, reaction takes place, and thereby a vigorous contest is maintained with the warring elements without, as well as with the principle ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... which his enemies had devoted them. Peyrade, bereft of Corentin, but seconded by Contenson, still kept up his disguise as a nabob. Even though his invisible foes had discovered him, he very wisely reflected that he might glean some light on the matter by remaining on the field of the contest. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... Byron insisted upon settling it upon the spot by single combat. They fought without seconds, by the dim light of a candle, and Mr. Chaworth, although the most expert swordsman, received a mortal wound. With his dying breath he related such particulars the contest as induced the coroner's jury to return a verdict of wilful murder. Lord Byron was sent to the Tower, and subsequently tried before the House of Peers, where an ultimate verdict was given ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... fixed on that patch of yellow sand at my feet, watching how the small particles glinted like diamond dust when the sunlight touched them. A full hour passed in this way, during which I encouraged myself by saying mentally: "This is a contest between us, and the most patient and the strongest of will, which should be the man, must conquer. And if I win on this occasion, it will be easier for me in the future—easier to discover those things which I am resolved to know, and the girl must reveal to me, ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... life of Christ we have many instances in which the prophetic images were literally fulfilled even though their meaning was mainly symbolical: as e.g. the riding on the ass, the birth in Bethlehem, the silence before accusers, 'a bone of Him shall not be broken,' and in this very contest, 'shame and spitting.' So here there may be included a reference to that time when the hatred of opposition reached its highest point—in the sufferings and death of our Lord. And it is at least ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... she was getting the dagger paper-knife out of his little hand, and was diverting the pout on his swelling lip, his father became aware of the contest, and immediately the half conquered boy appealed to him. 'Sister naughty. Won't let Wynnie kill cross ugly old woman, beating poor ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... opposite,—and when the pendulum has reached one end of the arc, it must of necessity swing back to the other. In all social revolutions the moderate and reasonable concessions which might have appeased the discontent in its incipiency are gladly tendered much too late in the contest, when the insurgents stung by injustice and conscious of their grievances, refuse all temperate compromise, and run riot. This woman's-rights and woman's-suffrage abomination is no suddenly concocted social bottle of yeast: ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... wonderful example of the different styles of oratory of which each was master; Clay, of declamation, invective, wit, humor and bitter sarcasm; Calhoun of clear statement and close reasoning. This contest, aside from its oratorical power, deserves a place in history. In answer to Clay's attack on his life he replied: "I rest my public character upon it, and desire it to be read by all who will do ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... the contest in despair, feeling himself that Old Testament allusions were risky, and that Donald's quotation was less ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... to pass," rejoined Penelope, "but I heartily wish that this might be fulfilled. Be patient a little longer, for I have one thing more to say. To-morrow is a decisive day, for it may be the one that drives me from the palace. I shall propose a contest for my hand. Twenty years ago Odysseus set up twelve axes, one behind the other, in the court. Through the rings of the handles he shot an arrow, although he stood at a great distance. I will challenge the suitors to take the same bow and ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... in this curious contest? Looking at the situation dispassionately, it must be admitted that the chances favored the Indian. He was older, stronger, more active, and possessed greater cunning than did the youth. What, after all, is one of the most important ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... adherence to this policy has kept us aloof from the perplexing questions that now agitate the European world and have more than once deluged those countries with blood. Should those scenes unfortunately recur, the parties to the contest may count on a faithful performance of the duties incumbent on us as a neutral nation, and our own citizens may equally rely on the firm assertion ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... sacrifice to help them through the high school after which the young men attend universities and professional schools, largely through their own efforts. From time to time they come back to us with their honors thick upon them; I remember one who returned with the prize in oratory from a contest between several western State universities, proudly testifying that he had obtained his confidence in our Henry Clay Club; another came back with a degree from Harvard University saying that he had made up his mind to go there the summer I read Royce's "Aspects of Modern Philosophy" ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... did," and a tear rolled down the faded cheek of the sick woman. "Ralph Worthington was true as steel, and when he found another preferred to himself, he generously yielded the contest." ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... suggested that there should be a skating contest on the river one evening just previous to the Christmas holidays, Nancy was urged to participate. Of course, the older girls expected to carry off the palm. Corinne Pevay came from Canada, and one or two other ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... match was regarded more as a contest than a pastime; each side feared the censure of his parish, if conquered, so nothing had to be given away likely to prove an advantage to an opposing team. I once saw a member snatch a bat belonging to his own club from one of the other ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... The chief contest came in the Democratic convention of New York. There Judge Parker was supported by David B. Hill, ex-United States senator, and August Belmont, a New York banker. In consequence it was declared by the opposition that Judge Parker was the candidate of the trusts, Wall Street ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... WARS.—The most important event in Spartan history between the age of Lycurgus and the commencement of the Persian War was the long contest with Messenia, known as the First and Second Messenian Wars (about 750-650 B.C.). Messenia was one of the districts of the Peloponnesus which, like Laconia, had been taken possession of by the Dorians at the time of ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... forward bound, the shield Of Hector pierc'd; right through the weapon pass'd; Arrested with rude shock the warrior's course, And graz'd his neck, that spouted forth the blood. Yet did not Hector of the glancing helm Flinch from the contest: stooping to the ground, With his broad hand a pond'rous stone he seiz'd, That lay upon the plain, dark, jagg'd, and huge, And hurl'd against the sev'n-fold shield, and struck Full on the central boss; loud rang the brass: Then Ajax rais'd a weightier mass of rock And sent it whirling, giving ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... Palestrina, whom she left as an immortal Example to Posterity. And, in Truth, Musick, with the Sweetness of his Harmony, arrived at so high a Pitch (begging Pardon of the eminent Masters of our Days), that if she was ranked only in the Number of Liberal Arts, she might with Justice contest the Pre-eminence[1]. ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... alone. What brought Germany, what brought France, what brought practically the whole of Europe into the struggle? What caused it to grow with startling suddenness from a minor into a major conflict, from a contest between a bulldog and a terrier into a battle between lions? What were the unseen and unnoted conditions that, within little more than a week's time, induced all the leading nations of Europe to cast down the gage of battle and spring ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... contortions will be watched by the observer of futurity, as the visitors of Blarney Castle are edified by the gambols of the 'comely eels in the verdant mud.' The brave 0'Mahony has come forth from the contest like gold from the crucible, or whisky from the still, purified, etherealised, and elevated, while his antagonists have shrunk away like dross or swill, never more to mingle with the Olympian deliberation, and Jove-like councils of the Moffatt Mansion. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... pleased to have me still with her. But she isn't so cruel as to hinder me from dying for her to-morrow. I don't think she exactly fixed the hour. It shall be just after the Eights have been rowed. An earlier death would mark in me a lack of courtesy to that contest... It seems strange to you that I should do this thing? Take warning by me. Muster all your will-power, and forget Miss Dobson. Tear up your tickets for the concert. Stay here and play cards. Play high. Or rather, go back to your various Colleges, and speed ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... them and tell them who I was they would gladly, perhaps proudly, give us passage; I contended that if with his far vaster renown he would approach them, our success would be assured. While we stood, lost in this "contest of civilities," the coach passed us, with gay notes blown from the horns of the students, and then Clemens started in pursuit, encouraged with shouts from the merry party who could not imagine who was trying to run them down, to a rivalry in speed. The unequal match could end only in one way, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the morrow, And meeting all destinies, mad, merrily; If Life be a flower, 'tis fairest of all If for it you fear fortune's pitiless thrall, With the Tulip's proud beauty Its wisdom combine, And bear to the contest A ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... As it happened, the prominent conservatives with one or two exceptions all lived to the east and north of the college grounds, while Longfellow, Lowell, Doctor Francis (who baptized Longfellow's children), Prof. Asa Gray, and other liberals lived at the west end; and the local division made the contest more acrimonious. The conservatives afterwards felt the bitterness of defeat, and it was many years before they recovered from this. A resident graduate of Harvard, who was accustomed to converse on such subjects as the metaphysics of Hamilton's quaternions, once said that Longfellow was the ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... events we had forgotten the wan figure on the bed still gasping for the breath of life. I could not help wondering at the woman's apparent lack of gratitude, and a thought flashed over my mind. Had the affair come to a contest between various parties fighting by fair means or foul for the old man's money—Scott and Mrs. Martin perhaps against Prescott ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... without taking notice of the irony, "that you really draw back from a miserable sum of five hundred thousand francs, when it is a question of sparing you—I mean your friend—I beg your pardon, I ought rather to say your protector—the disagreeable consequences which a party contest produces?" ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the persons entertaining them; the effect upon the church would, we think, have been favorable, and unity of sentiment might have been promoted. That a different impression has been made on many minds is, doubtless, owing to the human infirmity and passion that mingled in the contest. Which party exhibited the largest amount of this weakness, we will not undertake to decide, although we doubt not, that here as in most other cases, the judgment of the Leyden cobbler would be found correct, who was in the ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... The contest must be one of muscle against muscle; and to unusual strength Clif added a surprising agility that came in good stead in such ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... not learned in the variations of his voice, as I am in those of father and Algy, in either of which I can at once detect each fine inflection of anger, contest, or pain; but, comparatively unversed as I am in it, there sounds to me a slight, carefully smothered, yet still perceptible, intonation of disappointment—mortification. I wish that the air would ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... wild-Spring running—whatever it is—that besets men and dogs, seldom attained full mastery over him; but one could often see it struggling against his devotion to the scent of us, and, watching that dumb contest, I have time and again wondered how far this civilisation of ours was justifiably imposed on him; how far the love for us that we had so carefully implanted could ever replace in him the satisfaction of his primitive wild yearnings: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... So the way was prepared for what I regard as the supreme tragedy of history—the falling apart of Eastern and Western Christianity. Then, in the West, the unity of the Church is broken by the conversion of the Teutonic peoples to Arianism, so that the contest between the dying Empire in the West and the tribes pressing on its frontiers is embittered by religious antagonism. The sword of Clovis secured the victory of orthodoxy, but at what ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... in this Italian war led to another and far larger contest, and to that practical elimination of Turkey from European affairs which had been anticipated for over a century. The Balkan peoples, half freed from Turkey in 1876, took advantage of her weakness ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... in the blindness of proud reason, forget this truth, which they contest even by opposing to it the quibbles for which free-thinkers are never at a loss, and to escape the confusion which they inevitably derive from the ill-studied work of the Supreme Artist. Let them venture to attribute to it their own ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... was near supper-time. Quick as thought, Lewis fired. What was his amazement to see a huge bear leap from the furze to pounce on the wounded quarry; and what was Bruin's amazement to see the unusual spectacle of a thing as small as a man marching out to contest possession of that quarry? Man and bear reared up to look at each other. Bear had been master in these regions from time immemorial. Man or beast—which was to be master now? Lewis had aimed his weapon ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... news to-day from the West. If the great battle has been fought at Vicksburg, we ought to know it to-day or to-morrow; and if the enemy be beaten, it should be decisive of the war. It would be worse than madness to continue the contest for the Union. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... staring at it. The problem, in some way, had simplified itself into a contest between herself, demanding time to think, and the little insistent clock, shouting to her to act upon blind impulse. If she could remain motionless for another five ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... Border-lands may see the face of their future history in the mirror of England's annals. They are quaking now with the impetuous emotions of local nationality. They are blackened and scarred in the contest for the Welsh and Scotch independence of centuries agone. But over those boundary wastes the grass shall yet grow soft, fair and green, and there, too, the white lambs shall lie in ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... the maximum speed hitherto attained, of perhaps eighty miles an hour, this international contest covering two hundred miles would last about three hours. And, to avoid all danger, the state authorities of Wisconsin had forbidden all other traffic between Prairie-du-chien and Milwaukee during three hours on the morning of the thirtieth of May. Thus, ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... revel followed, and then came "a Grand Tournament," in which a contest between "the Blue Knight" (Mr. Lechmere Whitmore), and "the Yellow Knight" (Mr. Baylis), each mounted upon hobby-horses, was most fiercely executed. Nor was the Giant Cormoran (fourteen feet in height), nor the Queen of Beauty, nor the Dragon Queen wanted ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... at either," laughed Joe. "The seven sleepers of Ephesus had nothing on Jimmy. And if he went into a doughnut-eating contest, I'd back him to my ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... suspense. It was only as the afternoon wore on that he pieced together a truer picture of the fight that was raging, inaudibly and invisibly, within four miles of him, beneath the Roehampton stage. A strange and unprecedented contest it was, a battle that was a hundred thousand little battles, a battle in a sponge of ways and channels, fought out of sight of sky or sun under the electric glare, fought out in a vast confusion by multitudes untrained in arms, led chiefly by acclamation, multitudes dulled by mindless ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... no more than symptomatic of his time that cabinet and prime minister should have escaped his notice. A more serious defect was his inability, with the Wilkes contest prominently in his notice, to see that the people had assumed a new importance. For the masses, indeed, De Lolme had no enthusiasm. "A passive share," he thought, "was the only one that could, with safety to the state, be trusted" to the humble man. "The greater ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... weapon of precision. This particular reptile, perhaps by some instinct, had now wriggled itself on to a large and thick fur rug about twelve feet square, upon which arena took place the extraordinary contest that followed. ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... or two parties of allied nations, contending by force under the direction of a supreme executive; and secondly, it must be proclaimed, notified, or declared. And probably it must be general in its character, and not simply local or defensive. Presuming that the coming contest will be of the widest character, I shall proceed to examine its legal effects on Commerce, ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... question of the transmissibility of the modifications so induced, and it is difficult to gather from his inconsistent writings what extent of transformation he really believed in. Prof. Osborn says of Buffon: "The struggle for existence, the elimination of the least-perfected species, the contest between the fecundity of certain species and their constant destruction, are all clearly expressed in various passages." He quotes two of these ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... bravely did his army fight likewise, that the Republicans at first gave way before them. For upwards of four hours the engagement raged with great fierceness. Cromwell subsequently declared it was "as stiff a contest as he had ever seen," and his experience was great. Success seemed now to crown the Royalists, anon to favour the Roundheads. The great crisis of the day at length arrived: the Cromwellians began to waver ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... edifice of my reserve. Every time she left me I remained astounded at my own victory, but, always eager to win fresh laurels, I longed for the following morning, panting for a renewal of this sweet yet very dangerous contest. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... engagement is not denied, I suppose we may take it as a fact. And now"—again with his swift change of base—"may I ask, as a parting word before you sail, whether it is your intention next season to contest with ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... three propositions are considered by its author to sum up the theological view of the universe. "If," he writes, "these propositions exhaust [that view] and science throws discredit upon all of them, evidently theology and science are irreconcilable, and the contest between them must end in the destruction of one or the other" (p. 13). I remark in passing, first, that no theologian—certainly no Catholic theologian—would accept these three propositions as exhausting the theological view of the universe; and secondly, that if we were obliged to admit ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... as absolutely inexperienced and blind as to the way to influence votes, as well can be. Look at it, as a contest, without regard to the merit of the cause. On one side we have bosses, who know and understand the men in their wards, have usually made themselves popular, are in politics for a living, have made it a life-study, and by dear experience have learned that they must surrender their own opinions ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... while they—the leading Liberals—had been treating the electors with the contemptuous indifference that is customary, Sir Graball D'Encloseland had been most active amongst his constituents for months past, cunningly preparing for the contest. He had really been electioneering for the past six months! Last winter he had kicked off at quite a number of football matches besides doing all sorts of things for the local teams. He had joined the Buffalos and the Druids, been elected President of the Skull and Crossbones Boys' ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... they sat in Washington Square. Their marriage moon was waning, but still shone high and bright. Under her the trees appeared etherealized, and her light mingled in magic contest with the white beams of the arc lamps near the arch. Above each of these, a myriad tiny moths fluttered their desirous wings. Under the trees Italian couples wandered, the men with dark amorous glances, the girls laughing, ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... and Lionel Vickars had taken such part as they could in the contest; but as there had been no hand-to- hand fighting, the position of the volunteers on board the fleet had been little more than that of spectators. The crews worked the guns and manoeuvred the sails, ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... kitchen. Have I told you of that room? No, I believe that I have made no more than casual mention of my environment here, for reasons which are patent. But to-night I wished that you might look in upon the scene. Along the walls hang a rope with which Mr. Cumberland won a roping and tieing contest in his youth—a feat upon which he prides himself highly; at another place hang the six-shooters of a notorious desperado, taken from his dead body; there is the sombrero of a Mexican guerilla chief beside the picture of a prize bull, and an oil painting of Mr. Cumberland ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... in a towering rage, would not give up the contest, and turned upon Glenarvan, whose intervention in this jesting ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... of "championship" matches for the different weights, the prizes being, at least in my own class, pewter mugs of a value, I should suppose, approximating fifty cents. Neither he nor I had any idea that I could do anything, but I was entered in the lightweight contest, in which it happened that I was pitted in succession against a couple of reedy striplings who were even worse than I was. Equally to their surprise and to my own, and to John Long's, I won, and the pewter mug became one of my most prized possessions. I kept ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... spiritually sick still mocks at the medicine offered; he will not know its cure. Mary saw that, for any comfort to Letty, God was nowhere. It went to her very heart. Death and desolation and the enemy were in possession. She turned to go, that she might return able to begin her contest with ruin. Letty saw that she was going, and imagined her offended and abandoning her to her misery. She flew to her, stretching out her arms like a child, but was so feeble that she tripped and fell. Mary lifted her, and laid her wailing ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... to relate. How little appear the inequalities of daily life in such a place! A kingdom of ideas streamed through me, and with such a fulness, that none of them fixed themselves on paper. I had a desire to express the idea, that the godlike was here on earth to maintain its contest, that it is thrust backward, and yet advances again victoriously through all ages; and I found in the legend of the Wandering Jew an occasion for it. For twelve months this fiction had been emerging from the sea of my thoughts; often did it wholly fill me; sometimes ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... gardens in the soft October sunshine; his Prior at St. Mary's was benign and helpful; and he found a young compatriot, John Sixtin, of Bolsward in East Friesland, studying law, and engaged with him in a contest of that arid elegance which the taste of the age still demanded. But in London he found Grocin at his City living, ready to lend him books, and perhaps already contemplating those lectures delivered two years later, on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... being ready, and the arena being cleared of competitors (for I suppose it is fully understood that everybody but myself has retired from the contest), thrice, in fact, has the trumpet sounded, 'Do you give it up?' Some preparations there are to be made in all cases of contest. Meantime, let it be clearly understood what it is that the contest turns upon. Supposing that one had been ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... his antagonist from his feet, and by a dexterous twist whirled him over his shoulder and dashed him with all his might, full length flat on his back, upon the floor. It was an old trick learned in his boyish days and practised on the Dennisons, and Gordon had by it ended many a contest, but never one more completely than this. A buzz of applause came from the bystanders, and more than one, with sudden friendliness, called to him to get Bluffy's pistol, which had fallen on the floor. But Keith had no need to do so, for just then a stoutly ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Adonis of the native race, or when she intends to engage in coasting down the slippery mountain sides,—a sport of which she is fond. As always with distinguished company, you must let your competitor win, if you fancy that it is Pele in disguise who is your rival in a toboggan contest; for a chief of Puna having once suffered himself to distance her, she revengefully emptied a sea of lava from the nearest crater and forced him to fly the region. Many tales of her amours survive. Kamehameha the Great was among her most favored lovers. It ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... foreigners which might have better gone to our own destitute, etc., etc. And I myself was repeatedly so attacked, but always in a like merely political opposition way, when anything is let fly at an opponent that will serve the momentary purpose. In the heat of the O'Shanassy contest for Melbourne, for instance, I was accused of having told the Silesian peasants that they were wanted to set an example of sobriety to the drunken Irish. But I easily escaped from that noose by the rejoinder that, if I did say anything of the kind, it must ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... upon it for a real living fly—But ah! too late, the little monster (for he is one in his way) feels the treacherous hook, "indignant at the guile," he springs aloft, makes for his well known hold, or resting place, exhausts his strength in the unequal contest, and floats almost lifeless into the landing net held out for his reception. He has fallen a legitimate prize to the skill of his captor, who has only to extract the hook from his gills, before he again makes another light and deadly cast. Thus fish after fish is deposited ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... revolving, With all its angry and vehement play of causes, (With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years,) These recitatives for thee,—my book and the war are one, Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee, As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... sir, two bodies of men, equally armed and disciplined, opposed to each other without any advantage of situation, we must conceive that neither party could be conquered, that the balance of the day must remain equal, and that the contest ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... beaten, he turned to resume it, but the man had carried it off. Mr. Curran thus applied the tale:—"So, my Lord, when the person entrusted with the dignity of the judgment-seat lays it aside for a moment to enter into a disgraceful personal contest, it is in vain when he has been worsted in the encounter that he seeks to resume it—it is in vain that he tries to shelter himself behind an authority which he has abandoned." "If you say another word, I'll commit you," replied the angry Judge; to which Mr. C. retorted, "If your ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... the Tripolitan commander, who made off with his boat. Captain Decater immediately pursued the murderer, who was retreating within the lines; having succeeded in coming alongside, he boarded with only eleven men. A doubtful contest of twenty minutes ensued. Decater immediately attacked the Tripolitan commander, who was armed with a spear and cutlass. In parrying the Turk's spear, Decater broke his sword close to the hilt, and received a slight wound in the right arm and breast; but having ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... sagacious. That people with such characteristics should be recognizable by us as typical Americans is a sufficient answer to half the nonsense which is being talked just now a propos of a recent silly contest ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... duke of Bavaria, and St. Bruno, archbishop of Cologne. Otho was crowned king of Germany in 937, {590} and emperor at Rome in 962, after his victories over the Bohemians and Lombards. Maud, in the contest between her two elder sons for the crown, which was elective, favored Henry, who was the younger, a fault she expiated by severe afflictions and penance. These two sons conspired to strip her of her dowry, on the unjust ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... side, and he interspersed this with samples of all his other kinds of bucking thrown in. That the doctor stuck on the saddle was a miracle beyond belief. Of course he pulled leather shamelessly throughout the contest, but riding straight up is a good deal of a myth. Fancy riding is reserved for circus men. The mountain-desert is a place where men stick close to utility and let ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... all awther leetin ther pipes or laikin at soddin one another. Aw axed one on 'em if it wor all over. "Net it," he sed, "we've nobbut come aght wol yond dry old stick has done talking. Th' best pairt o'th' entertainment has to come off yet! Ther's three single step doncers gooin to contest for a copy ov 'Baxter's Saint's Rest,' bun ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... nearly dark now and my fists were up for the renewal of the contest, for Walters seemed to be about to spring at me; but he drew back, and as quickly as I could grasp what it meant, I heard almost simultaneously the clicking of my pistol-lock, the report, and the crash caused by the sudden wrenching ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... enforced than in the army of the United States. The sad penalty of death is rarely, if ever, decreed, except in a regularly constituted war. A fearful instance of it occurred in the valley of Mexico during our late contest with that crumbling republic. Fifty deserters were condemned, but their execution temporarily delayed by the officer in charge, that they might see the stars and stripes run up over the falling castle of Chapultepec, and their last gaze on earth ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... with a great laughter at the picture of Beasley's coming down at four in the morning to open the door for nothing on sea or land or in the waters under the earth. I gave account, also, of the miraculous jumping contest (though I did not mention Miss Apperthwaite's having been with me), and of the elfin voice I had just now overheard demanding ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... serenity, was a gold snuff-box, a large and handsome one, which he did not esteem for its intrinsic weight; he had a "lusty pride" in showing that it was a prize gained in some skilful agricultural contest. I am sorry at not recollecting what was engraven on it; but being a thorough Cockney, and knowing nothing more of the plough and harrow than that I have somewhere observed it as a tavern sign, must plead for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the situation which should control the actions of the commander of a national army. If Lyon could have foreseen how many times the poor people of that section were destined to be overrun by the contending forces before the contest could be finally decided, his extreme solicitude at that moment would have disappeared. Or if he could have risen to an appreciation of the fact that his duty, as the commander in the field of one ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... contest between male and female, and you deprive life of half its poetry," urged ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... shut his teeth upon forthcoming references to his steed's pedigree. A girl, brown, lean, aquiline of feature, sat astride a big slashing bay, and watched the contest with amusement. Dunne's face, red from exertion, deepened in colour; for some of his remarks, though exceedingly apposite, had not been intended for feminine ears. He answered, between pitches, in ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... indescribable. We struggle, we suffer alone. It is the nocturnal wrestling of Bethel, mysterious and solitary. The soul of Francis was great enough to endure this tragic duel. His friend had marvellously understood his part in this contest. He gave a few rare counsels, but much of the time he contented himself with manifesting his solicitude by following Francis everywhere and never asking to know more than he could ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... Napoleon's dealings with Poland is to be found in his strategy; his political policy never passed beyond the first tentative stages, for he never conquered either Russia or Poland. The struggle upon which he was next to enter was a contest, not for Russian abasement but for Russian friendship in the interest of his far-reaching continental system. Poland was simply one of his weapons against the Czar. Austria was steadily arming; Francis received the quieting assurance that his share in the partition was to be undisturbed. In the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... designed to tell me something surprising and extraordinary, and you have been talking all this while of a mad woman. Fie, fie! what would you say, cursed genie, if you had seen the beautiful prince from whom I am just come, and whom I love as he deserves. I am confident you would soon give up the contest, and not pretend to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... In the hunt's contest the keenest to share, Hard was that bed for thy thick golden hair! Never thought he of fear as he sprang to the cry, When the chase was afoot, and he joined ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... that is, copies of the work published on the ordinary size paper and not much cut down by the binder. The want of margin is a serious grievance complained of by book-collectors; and when there is a contest of margin-measuring, with books never professedly published on large paper, the anxiety of each party to have the largest copy is better conceived than described! How carefully, and how adroitly, are the golden and silver rules ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... clustering hair. "When these locks are gray, and you have toiled and labored for fame and honors never gained, or that burned and furrowed the brow that wore them; when you have engaged in the world's weary strife and sunk by the wayside worn and disheartened by the contest; when friends have proved false;"—here the hermit's voice grew deeper and more vehement—"and when those who professed for you the fondest love turn coldly away to mock and scorn at your deep devotion, then, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... wrong, Bahorel. The bourgeoisie loves tragedy, and the bourgeoisie must be left at peace on that score. Bewigged tragedy has a reason for its existence, and I am not one of those who, by order of AEschylus, contest its right to existence. There are rough outlines in nature; there are, in creation, ready-made parodies; a beak which is not a beak, wings which are not wings, gills which are not gills, paws which are not paws, a cry of pain which arouses a desire to laugh, there is the duck. Now, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... have accorded "honor to whom honor was due." Despite all that maybe alleged to the contrary, ours was not a "War of the Roses," of brother against brother, struggling for supremacy; but partook more of the nature of the inhuman contest in the Netherlands, waged by the unscrupulous and crafty Duke of Alva at the instance Philip (the Good!), or rather like that in which the rich and fruitful Province of the Palatine was subjected to fire and rapine under the mailed hand ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... womankind, and Bertha refused to acknowledge her former lover, in the torn doublet, skin cap, clouted shoes, and leathern apron, of a travelling handicraftsman or mechanic. He claimed his privilege, however, of being admitted to a trial; and when the rest of the suitors had either declined the contest, or made such work as the devil could not read if his pardon depended on it, all eyes were bent on the stranger. Aldobrand stepped gracefully forward, arranged the types without omission of a single letter, hyphen, or comma, imposed them without deranging a single space, and pulled ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... impresses the reader of his Discourses. He has succeeded in preserving some of the strong elixir of his life in the words which survive him, and we know him as a valiant soldier in that great army of soldier-saints who have fought with spiritual weapons. "This fight and contest," he himself has told us, "with Sin and Satan is not to be known by the rattling of Chariots or the sound of an alarm: it is indeed alone transacted upon the inner stage of men's souls and spirits—but it never consists in a sluggish kind of doing nothing that ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... contest was not confined to individuals alone. Women were frequently the cause of whole tribes arraying themselves against each other in battle. The effort to excel in physical power was a great incentive to bodily development, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... had assumed the cap and gown, taken the chair, and thanked her classmates, Barbara Gordon, one of Christy's best friends, was made vice-president. Babe, to her infinite annoyance, found herself the victor in the treasurer's contest, and Nita Reese was ensconced beside ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... annual baseball game between Hixley High and Colby Hall. It had been scheduled to take place on the high-school athletic field, but at almost the last minute this field had been declared out of condition, and it had been decided to hold the contest on the athletic grounds attached ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... Desmond said. "If you abstain from challenging de Tulle, it is from no fear of the consequences, but it is, as I have shown you, because, whatever the issue of the contest, it would be bad both for you and her. If you were killed, her life would be spoilt. If you killed him, you might languish for years in one of the royal prisons. The king prides himself on his justice, and, by all accounts, rightly so; and I am sure that he would feel the deepest ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... on his way at this moment to the city to consult with Lyman as to a certain issue of the contest between the Railroad and the ranchers, which, of late, had ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris |
