"Hard put" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was born life was hard and dangerous in Domremy. The villagers were hard put to it to protect themselves against fierce knights and noblemen who rode at the head of marauding bands to steal and plunder at will. The peasants had to look on sadly, with no hope of redress, when brutal men at arms drove off their sheep, or tossed the torch into their cottages—and ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... out of the room, sending with me the impression that inside the frock-coat, behind the bland gold-rimmed spectacles, there was yet something left of manhood and that vague quality called fight, which is surely hard put to live ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... mam, and I'd be glad to know if you're satisfied I've done the things you want. If I have, and you feel good about it, I'd be thankful if you'd report the way we're workin' this camp. And if you've a spare moment to talk other things, you might say that the boys of my camp are mighty hard put to get the stuff, and they're as tough a gang of jacks as ever heard tell of the dog's life of ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... we are conscious only that at last we have the opportunity for the quiet social chat we so much enjoy in each other's company. That, at least, is Aaron's way of looking at it, and he keeps me there with talk of the most varied and absorbing character; one topic down, another up; when very hard put to it, he even questions me about my next book, as if he would like to read the proof-sheets, and when I seem to be listening, a little restively, for sounds from the parlour (the piano has stopped), he has the face of one who ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... and helpless. Of the guilty persons concerned in the concealment of the birth, and in the desertion of the infant, my nobly-born, highly-bred, irreproachable aunt now stood revealed before me as one! An older woman than I might have been hard put to it to preserve her presence of mind, in such a position as mine. Instinct, not reason, served me in my sore need. Instinct, not reason, kept me passively and stupidly silent when I got back to the house. "We will talk about it ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... see around us.—And Helen—what could become of her, were I to leave her the subject of new insult and atrocity?—or how could she bear to be removed from these scenes, where the remembrance of her wrongs is aye sweetened by the recollection of her revenge?—I was once so hard put at by my Great enemy, as I may well ca' him, that I was forced e'en to gie way to the tide, and removed myself and my people and family from our dwellings in our native land, and to withdraw for a time into MacCallum More's country—and Helen made a Lament on our departure, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... station, where they had to change trains, had been the first dreaded anticipation of the journey. It certainly was a busy place—full of jabbering Mexicans, stalking, red-faced, wicked-looking cowboys, lolling Indians. In the confusion Helen would have been hard put to it to preserve calmness, with Bo to watch, and all that baggage to carry, and the other train to find; but the kindly brakeman who had been attentive to them now helped them off the train into the other—a service for which Helen ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... with a firm hand-grip and kind brown eyes, already set in fine, watchful wrinkles. She rarely spoke, except in the obvious commonplaces of courtesy, and our days were wonderfully still. The Professor taught me Persian, in a desultory way, and chess most rigorously, for he was hard put to it for an opponent even partly worthy of his prodigious skill. He was a member of all the most select societies of learning in the world, an Egyptologist of such standing that his pronouncements in that field ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... though hard put to it, yet were performing that which was appointed to them; and from Acanthos Xerxes, after having commanded the generals to wait for the fleet at Therma, let the ships take their course apart from himself, (now this Therma is that which is situated on the Thermaic ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... to rule them with a rod of iron. Thus they should think, thus they should do, thus they should go! Above all, the Rev. Samuel never permitted them to forget that in addition to spiritual they owed him temporal obligations. In the matter of tithes—always a sore subject in a community hard put to extract a living from ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... find much help for the inquiry we have taken up to-day, in the manifestoes of these raucous young gentlemen, who, when they have succeeded in flinging the ruins of the architecture of Venice into its small stinking canals, will find themselves hard put to it to build anything beautiful in the place of them. But in their reaction against "the eternal feminine," they may, I think, very possibly be followed by the serious poets ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... him in good wind still, and he charged me again and again, keeping me hard put to it to find trees enough, even in an orchard full of trees. Once he ripped the bark half off a big trunk as I sprang behind it, and he stood with his head still pressed there, not two feet from where I was, with my hand against the tree, ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... she. Now, I must be off to discuss literature with Mrs. Jim Conley. I've been working on her for two weeks. The hardest part of my job is to keep her from subscribing for a set of Dickens. She has been on the point of signing the contract at least a half dozen times, and I've been fearfully hard put to head her off. Conley's house is not ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... weary journey. The supper, materials for which Evan had brought from shore, created a welcome diversion; but supper over, they were still miles from home, and the helpers were hard put to it to keep the small passengers even moderately contented. Fortunately during the last hour the greater part fell asleep where they were, on the sofas, on the floor, on a couple of camp-stools ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... her almost every day, this control had been just possible; but now that he was about to lose her—for weeks—his heart felt sick within him. He had been hard put to it before the world. A man passionately in love craves solitude, in which to alternate between fierce exercise and that trance-like stillness when a lover simply aches or is busy conjuring her face up out of darkness or the sunlight. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... see long, thin streaks. O Lawr, boys, Rodden must ha' been hard put, when he drapped the block into the hole. It's shet up tight. Hev ye got ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... point of interest. People watched their destruction, batch after batch, in a not particularly inventive fashion; though it was expected that the animals themselves, as living creatures are apt to do when hard put to it, would become inventive, and make up, by the fantastic accidents of their agony, for the deficiencies of an age fallen behind in this matter of manly amusement. It was as a Deity of Slaughter—the Taurian goddess who demands the sacrifice of ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... unblushingly at Max as he boasted of the way in which he had aided the Belgian troops, and the latter was hard put to it to keep back the torrent of wrathful words that rose to his lips. But other and more pressing matters claimed attention just now, and, choking down his ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... startled look, stung at my alluding to the estrangement of his wife. I know not whether he took it as a taunt from so dear a friend, or whether the mere mention of so delicate a sorrow was too much for him; but his face twitched, and he gave a swallow, and was hard put to it to ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... been hard put to-day. The Lord only knows what trials and tribulations will be visited upon me next. At present I am quite unnerved. To-day I was initiated into all the horrifying secrets and possibilities of the bayonet, European style. Never do I remember spending ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... who have experienced it comment on it as some miracle of health that has been attained. Any man—I do not care who he is—who was the sort of a drinker I was, who will stop drinking long enough to get cooled out will feel so much better in every way that he will be hard put to it to give a reason for ever ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe
... and I were concerned, our belief was based after all chiefly on supposition; and so craftily had the whole scheme been phrased and manoeuvred that, if you got down to categorical testimony, even Blodgett and Davie Paine would have been hard put to it to prove anything culpable against the other party. Actually we were guilty of mutiny, if ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... they haven't much to do at home, or are hard put for company, to travel six miles in the snow to show off their prinkin' to a lot of idle louts shiny with bear's grease and scented up with doctor's stuff," added the girl, shrugging her shoulders, with a touch of ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... environment, he has sought to lay aside all that was old, and of this the religion of his fathers was a part. But a faith as strong and as far-reaching as Judaism cannot be dropped out of the life into which it has been ingrained, and hence the Jew has been hard put to cover it up, to hide it, or to attempt its modification to fit the fashion in religions. The inevitable reaction on the non-Jewish part of the community has been a feeling of mystification, and, following on that, suspicion ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... said the justice of the peace, "we should be hard put to it about post-mortems; he found poison in poor Pigeron's stomach so cleverly that the chemists of Paris testified in the court at Auxerre that they couldn't ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... pressed. 'M. de Marsac,' he said, 'you have my sympathy. It is a shame that men who have served the cause should be reduced to such straits. Were it, possible for me, to increase my own train at present, I should consider it an honour to have you with me. But I am hard put to it myself, and so are we all, and the King of Navarre not least among us. He has lived for a month upon a wood which M. de Rosny has cut down. I will mention your name to him, but I should be cruel ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... station, and Mr Boffin bringing up the rear. And on Bella's exquisite toilette table was an ivory casket, and in the casket were jewels the like of which she had never dreamed of, and aloft on an upper floor was a nursery garnished as with rainbows; 'though we were hard put to it,' said John Harmon, 'to get it done in so short ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... past, and from there, too, came the terrified flying-fish, which went winging away out to the beam, glittering in the bright sun. The rumbling of the ship's engines filled the air with a sleepy monotone; and Mac was hard put to keep awake. From his cool perch he looked down on snowy awnings stretching fore and aft, though here and there through openings he caught glimpses of mens' bare bodies as they lay sleeping on deck, and of horses' heads hanging low with half-closed eyes. The other signaller ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... bear the notion of her," rejoined Tom stoutly. "I'd be hard put-to to do wi' onybody at arter our Betty. Hoo's wick an' 'earty, an' I dunnot want nobry; but if I did have to pick a second missus, it shouldn't be ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... Marouin was on the Champs de Mars, then covered with Marshal Brune's field-artillery. No one had arrived yet. He walked up and down between the gun-carriages until a functionary came to ask what he was doing. He was hard put to it to find an answer: a man is hardly likely to be wandering about in an artillery park at ten o'clock at night for the mere pleasure of the thing. He asked to see the commanding officer. The officer came up: M. Marouin informed him that he was an avocat, attached to the law courts of Toulon, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... into the wall, at the end of one set of bunks, was a wooden box doing service for a cupboard. In it were a penny novel, and three or four bottles of a German table water. At least one of these was still full. So the garrison of Fricourt was not as hard put to it for supplies as some of the German prisoners with whom I spoke the day before. They had told me that for three or four days no water could be brought to them up their communication trenches owing to the ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... have these queer stories read aloud. The villainies of the Baba Yaga, an old witch of terrific resourcefulness, and the oddly inconsequent animal stories should make particular appeal. But you will be hard put to it to answer the questions which will be thrust at you; and (by the way) perhaps you will discreetly have to leave out a phrase or two for prudence' sake. On no account let the youngsters read the preface. I am not really quite sure whether you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... and had experienced his kindness too lately to attribute the harshness of the order to chance or forgetfulness; and assured in a moment that I stood face to face with a grave crisis, I found myself hard put to it to hide my ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... the genius. The gate of the city being opened, and a great many people assembled to get out, they were mightily surprised to see Bedreddin lying in his shirt and drawers upon the ground. One said, He has been so hard put to it to get away from his mistress, that he had not time to put on his clothes. Look ye, says another, how people expose themselves; sure enough he has spent the most part of the night in drinking with his friends, till he has got drunk, and then perhaps, having occasion to go out, instead of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... out his project. The cost of his expedition was now his chief anxiety. He pictured to himself the risk of running short of funds in the great metropolis, and being unable to pay his journey back. Then Sally would be hard put to it for ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... stopped her then. No fear or awkwardness of hers should be allowed to hamper that thoroughbred mustang. Carley felt that Calico understood the situation; or at least he knew he could catch and pass this big bay horse, and he intended to do it. Carley was hard put to it to hang on and keep the ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... for the crags an' built a cabin. I come down that day Gene sent his horse Majesty to you. Never saw Gene so broken-hearted. Well, after he sloped for the border Bonita an' I were hard put to it to keep alive. But we got along, an' I think it was then she began to care a little for me. Because I was decent. I killed cougars an' went down to Rodeo to get bounties for the skins, an' bought grub an' supplies I needed. ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... not easy in my mind. I went and sat on the gate—the gate in the meadow they call Pettit's Piece. I thought I would shoot her. I went and fetched my gun and loaded it. I went out into Pettit's Piece again. I was hard put to it to make up my mind. I thought I would try my luck—I mean try whether to kill her or not—-by throwing up the Spud of the plow into the air. I said to myself, if it falls flat, I'll spare her; if it falls point in the earth, I'll kill her. I took a good swing with it, and ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... to notice such versatility of invention, such readiness of resource, such familiarity with divers nooks and crannies in the practical experience of life, in a man now so hard put to it for a livelihood. There are persons, however, who might have a good stock of talent, if they did not turn it all into small change. And you, reader, know as well as I do, that when a sovereign or a shilling is once ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ambiguous," said he, pulling up the blind. "Look at this—a sheet from a note-book, with 'For God's sake come at once—P. T.,' scrawled upon it in pencil. Our friend, the doctor, was hard put to it when he wrote this. Come along, my dear fellow, for it's ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... changed his occupation for a more useful one during a somewhat prolonged sojourn in Sing Sing. Affairs after that had not prospered with Melinoff. His wife, honest if her husband was not, and already an old woman, had been hard put to it with the shabby shop and the meagre business she was able to transact; so hard put to it, indeed, that the wonder had been that she had managed to keep the roof over her head. She had died a ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... when a high German officer wishes to surrender he first sends up two dozen of light beer on the lift to placate his capturers, rapidly following himself with a corkscrew. This may or may not be so; personally, I have had no such gratifying experience. But then, personally, I have generally been hard put to it to recognise the dug-outs of reality from the dug-outs of the daily papers. Most of them are much the same as any ordinary, vulgar English dug-out; many are worse; but one or two undoubtedly are very good. In places where ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... minutes these two young men drew near to the two young women, whose manners were hard put to hide surprise. When their brother introduced Mr. Carne to them, Faith bowed rather stiffly, for she had formed without reason a dark and obstinate dislike to him. But the impetuous Dolly ran up and offered him both her hands, and said, "Why, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... what we would call "programme" music. At all events he demanded that Haydn should give him a musical representation of a storm at sea. Unfortunately, Haydn had never set eyes on the "mighty monster," and was hard put to it to describe what he knew nothing about. He made several attempts to satisfy Kurz, but without success. At last, out of all patience, he extended his hands to the two ends of the harpsichord, and, bringing ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... not without great diffidence that I undertook to speak to you at all. And I was hard put to it in the selection of my subject. I have chosen a very delicate and difficult subject. It is delicate because of the peculiar views I hold upon Swadeshi, and it is difficult because I have not that command of language which is necessary for giving adequate expression to my thoughts. I know ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi
... made a practice of rushing out upon him when he went by. Knowing his deadly method of fighting, the master had never ceased impressing upon White Fang the law that he must not fight. As a result, having learned the lesson well, White Fang was hard put whenever he passed the cross-roads saloon. After the first rush, each time, his snarl kept the three dogs at a distance but they trailed along behind, yelping and bickering and insulting him. This endured for some time. The men at the saloon even urged the dogs on to attack White Fang. One day ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... life, died of cholera abroad. Good in the saddle and with the salmon rod, the Colonel was perhaps best behind a gun, with which he was not less deadly among the salmon of the Spey than among the grouse of Benaigen. His relative, old Lord Saltoun, was hard put to it once in the "Lady's How" with a thirty-pound salmon which he had hooked foul, and which, in its full vigour, was taking all manner of liberties with him, making spring after spring clean out of the water. The beast was ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... be a good idea," agreed the young camera operator. "Those International people must be pretty hard put to it to ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... CHARLES HAWTREY back again and that is what really matters. As a philanderer protesting innocence in the face of damnatory facts we know him well enough; but here we have him innocent and ingenuous as an angel, yet hard put to it to convince anyone but himself of his guilelessness. A millionaire (dollars) with a wife of economic disposition, who declines to spend his money for him, he feels drawn to a course of knight-errantry and rides abroad in search of damsels in pecuniary distress, with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... heated discussion, and Lena was hard put to it, with her scanty store of English words, and my recently acquired German, to frame such a delicate question. I thought I knew what it was going to be—but I did not ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... not stifle my queer sentiments in regard to the mulatto, and every time I found him behind my chair I was hard put to repress a shudder. In this fashion the strange evening passed; and to the accompaniment of distant, muttering thunder, we two guests retired to our chambers in Cragmire Tower. Smith had contrived to give me my instructions ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... according as I make my way to one or other of those ports. I am far from being in a position, in leaving this place with twenty-nine vessels, to be able to fight against a similar number; I do not fear to tell you that I should be hard put to it to ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... then, and her play was so skilful that Art was hard put to counter her moves. But at a point of the game Becuma grew thoughtful, and, as by a lapse of memory, she made a move which gave the victory to her opponent. But she had intended that. She sat then, biting on her lip with her white small teeth ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... men were hard put to check the fury of the mob. Men and women, bent on vengeance, made the night hideous with their curses, howls and shrieks. In their senseless fury they prepared to kill. They had heard the stories about Manuel Crust and his disciples. Only the determined ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... delights, and the execrable sordidness of those of Tiberius. Would one think that Augustus himself, the highest and most fortunate of mankind, a person endowed too with many excellent parts of nature, should be so hard put to it sometimes for want of recreations, as to be found playing at nuts and bounding-stones with little Syrian and Moorish boys, whose company he took delight in, for their ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... sand do, I say, amidst the enormous mass of work turned out every year which professes in some way to be decorative art, but the decoration of which no one heeds except the salesmen who have to do with it, and are hard put to it to supply the cravings of the public for something new, not ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... smile on her lips and that expression in her eyes, to be fitted for her wedding-dress. It makes one want to tear the whole world to pieces, and sink South Africa in the nethermost ocean. No wonder uncle shuts himself in his study so much nowadays. He must be just as hard put to it as I am to know what to do." A step disturbed her cogitations at that moment, and ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... of Humiliation, poor Christian was hard put to it; for he had gone but a little way before he espied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him: his name is Apollyon. Then did Christian begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back, or to stand his ground. But he considered again that he had no armor ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... trail marked the way the two horses had come, and it led off to the left, toward where the monuments were thickest, and where the great sections of wall stood, broken and battlemented. Lucy was hard put to it to hold Sage King, but the horses behind plodded along. The black horse struck Lucy as being an ugly, but a faithful and wonderful animal. He understood everything. Presently she tied the bridle she was leading him by to the end of her own lasso, and thus let him drop back a few yards, ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... Nourrigat, as the boy moved away. "His whole company has absolute confidence in him. You can't imagine the calm and prestige that kid possesses in the face of danger. He's the real type of leader, he is! And let me tell you, he's pretty hard put sometimes." ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... attack us, we could either fall upon them when they were wearied with rowing, or if we did not choose to do so, we could retire to Tarentum; while they, having crossed with few provisions just to give battle, would be hard put to it in desolate places, and would either have to remain and be blockaded, or to try to sail along the coast, abandoning the rest of their armament, and being further discouraged by not knowing for ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... Beauchamp," he continued, turning to one of his companions, "an' were he set down in court, I wager our gracious Queen would he hard put to it to tell him from the young Prince Edward. Dids't ever see so strange ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... who, on the second day of his cruise, discovered Roberts. Ignorant of any vessel being sent after them, they made towards each other. Roberts gave him a gun but instead of striking, the other returned a broadside, with three huzzas. A severe engagement ensued, and Roberts being hard put to it, lightened his vessel ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... said that certain orders of beings are able to improvise or to interchange organs, just as need calls. Thus a polyp, if hard put to it, may shift what little brain and stomach happen to be in his possession. You may say that he carries his heart in his hand. He can take his stomach, and dump it down in brain-case or thorax, just as he fancies,—can organize viscera and victory anywhere, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... "since you seem to have been so hard put to it, as single men, what's to be done with the married man who ruins an innocent body?—What punishment, Lady Towers, shall we find out for such an one; and what reparation to the injured?" This was said with a particular view to the earl, on a late ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... for Russia's industries all suffer alike from their dependence on the West, as well as from the inadequacy of the transport to bring to factories the material they need. People remind each other that during the war the Germans, when similarly hard put to it for clothes, made paper dresses, table-cloths, etc. In Russia the nets used in paper-making are worn out. At last, in April, 1920 (so Lenin told me), there seemed to be a hope of getting new ones from abroad. But ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... shew features which testify to a genuine power of observation. But don't talk to me about the windows. Is it common sense, I ask you, to leave up windows which shut out all the daylight, and even confuse the eyes by throwing patches of colour, to which I should be hard put to it to give a name, on a floor in which there are not two slabs on the same level? And yet they refuse to renew the floor for me because, if you please, those are the tombstones of the Abbots of Combray and the Lords of Guermantes, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... had already come again in the hearts of his people insisted on in evident contrast with the apocalyptic hope literally conceived. For another thing, dramatic hopes of a sudden invasion of the world are always the offspring of desperate conditions. Only when people are hard put to it do they want history catastrophically stopped in the midst of its course. The Book of Daniel must be explained by the tyrannies of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Book of Revelation by the persecutions ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... execute upside down, because he can't do it the natural way. The one seen by self and Henrietta by the Green Park railings can just smear into existence the two ends of a rainbow, with his cuff and a rubber—if very hard put upon making a show—but he could no more come the arch of the rainbow, to save his life, than he could come the moonlight, fish, volcano, shipwreck, mutton, hermit, or any of my most ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... make the old mansion ever so much more valuable, and as to the cost, he would arrange that so that they would never feel the payment of it. But this suggestion met with no encouragement, and poor Burke was so hard put to it for something to occupy his mind that one day he asked Mrs. Cliff if she had entirely given up her idea of employing some of her fortune for the benefit of the native Peruvians, stating that if she wanted an agent to ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... consulted one who is well versed in the Greek Language, and he assures me upon his Word, that your late Quotation means no more, than that Manners and not Dress are the Ornaments of a Woman. If this comes to the Knowledge of my Female Admirers, I shall be very hard put to it to bring my self off handsomely. In the mean while I give you this Account, that you may take care hereafter not to betray any of your Well-wishers into the like Inconveniencies. It is in the Number of these that I beg leave to subscribe ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the skipper; "only don't get within shot. I don't want to have to turn amateur doctor again on your behalf. I am clever enough at cuts and bruises, and I dare say if I were hard put to it I could manage to mend a broken leg or arm, but I wouldn't undertake to be hunting you all over to find where a rifle-bullet had gone. Accidents are my line, not wounds received in war; and, by the way, while we are talking of such subjects, ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... strove to build up in their minds a crude conception of numbers. As the quantities increased, he had the boys holding different magnitudes in each of their hands. For still higher sums, he laid the symbols on the log of driftwood; and for symbols he was hard put, being compelled to use the teeth from the skulls for millions, and the crab-shells for billions. It was here that he stopped, for the boys were showing signs ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... Short as it was, it caused us a good deal of trouble; but we had dogs enough, and by harnessing a sufficient number we got the sledges up. I should like to know what they thought on board. They could see we were already hard put to it to get up here. What would it be like when we had to get on to the plateau? I do not know whether they thought of the old saying: ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... not to have thanked you sooner for the annual cask of cider, which has given us even more than the customary pleasure. This has been an autumn when I have been hard put to it to keep up with my own thoughts, and I've written no letters at all. Like everyone else I am thinking constantly of this new peace that has marvellously come upon us. I trust we may have statesmen who will be able to turn it to the benefit of humanity. I wish there could be an international ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... this formidable looking personage had not arrived half an hour sooner, for they were of course unarmed and would have been hard put to it had they been caught ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... don't mean that," cried Corrie, with a feeling of self-reproach. "I don't mean to say that you're ignorant in a general way, you know, but only about what men are likely to do, d'ye see, when they're hard put to it, you understand. Our feelings are so different from yours, you ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... the shipping conditions have been such that many countries have been hard put to it, especially if they were contiguous to nations with which the Entente is at present at war, to get the commodities which they needed for their subsistence. The Entente, with its command of the sea, has found it necessary to ration them ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... exodus of men to the sardine canning-factories in Lubec and Eastport was suggested, and met with some favor until it was pointed out that the small sardine herring had fallen off vastly in numbers, and that the factories were hard put to it to find enough work for ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... armless sleeve on the body of a dead man, the rattle of a loose strand of barbed wire, the movement of a sorely wounded soldier lying out in the open, might draw the German fire. And if the moving picture boys were caught in that they would be hard put to ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... to his captain, was this. Maxwell, then a half-grown boy, lived with his mother in a lonely cottage in a quiet Dumfriesshire glen. They came of decent folk, but were very poor, sometimes in the winter being even hard put to it to find sufficient food. The father, and all the family but this one boy, were dead; the former had perished on the hill during a great snowstorm, and the sons, long after, had all died, swept off by an outbreak of smallpox. Thus the widow and her one remaining boy were left almost ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... paused a moment. "Yes, like that," he repeated. "That we confront you now indicates that the problems of your day were solved. Hadn't they been, the world most surely would have destroyed itself. Wars? Our pedagogues are hard put to convince their students that such ever existed. More than a century and a half ago our society eliminated the reasons for international conflict. For that matter," he added musingly, "we eliminated most international boundaries. ...
— Gun for Hire • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... granted, and are inclined to believe, that the accounts of the visits of Mary Magdalene, and subsequently of Peter and John to the tomb, which are given in the fourth Gospel, are from a Johannean source, if we were asked our reasons for this belief, we should be very hard put to it to give them. Nevertheless we think ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... hard put to meet the church obligations in 1856, notwithstanding the economy of the hand-cart system; and the Millennial Star of December 27 announced that no assisted emigrants would be sent out during the following ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... her rapt face and intent manner, her utterly lovely ivory body, glittering everywhere with the shining powder which she used, the subtle penetrative scent of her—I was hard put to concentrate upon ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... Western farmers are hard put to it when their grain crops are beaten down by wind and rain; Japanese agriculturists, because they gather their harvest with a short sickle, do not find a laid crop difficult to cut. But these harvesters are ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... to be caught napping, and, being prepared for all contingencies, a fierce combat took place, and the warriors of Chitor were hard put to it to stand their ground until Bheemsi had escaped to the stronghold on a fleet horse. Then the devoted remnant retreated, pursued to the very gates by their foes. The flower of Chitor had perished, but they had achieved ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... was as hard put to it to get the right name for this head of the gentry of Mansoul as Paul was to get the right name for sin in the seventh of the Romans. In that profoundest and intensest of all his profound and intense passages, the apostle has occasion to seek about for some expression, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... with snow and frost, and with exceeding trouble they make land one evening all much worn with wet; so they lay to by a certain dyke, and could thus save their money and goods; the chapmen were hard put to it for the cold, because they could not light any fire, though thereon they deemed well-nigh their ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... father's cowl around my pate, and essayed to imitate his careless stride and easy gait, they both swore that the good saint himself, were he to escape from the skies and visit his earthly shrine, would be hard put to it to know which was his own priest and which ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... matter of fact, hard put to it as he was for funds, Clemens at this time regarded himself as a potential multi-millionaire. The type-setting machine which for years had been sapping his financial strength was believed to be perfected, and ship-loads of money were waiting in the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... who elaborately fed the kas of the departed—might pick up a trace of a custom, the giving of food for the dead, still persevered in by St. Monica till St. Ambrose admonished her. But Mr. Huxley is hard put to it for evidence of ancestor-worship or ghost-worship in Israel when he looks for indications of these rites in 'the singular weight attached to the veneration of parents in the Fourth Commandment.'[3] The Fourth Commandment, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... I had tricked him. Slowly, says the proverb, one journeys far and safely. Slowly, then, did I consider! The escort was, no doubt, on its way back to Rome, and if I could but rid myself of that cumbrous litter, Ser Ramiro would find himself mightily hard put to it to again pick up the trail. I remembered a ravine a little way behind, and I rode my mule back to that as fast as it would travel with the litter and the other mule attached to it. Arrived there, I unharnessed ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... end of the island, and choaked up by a high sea, a little before our arrival: this east end runs to a point. It is tolerably well stored with pine; but so dry and parched, on account of its crystal sand, as that no greens or pulse can grow therein, and beasts are pinched and hard put to it for sustenance. ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... to go upstairs and pack his own trunk before the workmen got to asking questions. He carried his set of Dickens upstairs, not without interrogation, and stored the volumes away at the bottom of his trunk. So few were his individual belongings that he was hard put to fill the trays compactly enough to prevent the shifting of the contents. When the job was done he locked the trunk, tied a rope around it and then sat down upon it to think. Had he left anything out? He remembered something. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... something new by a simple device that saves the fancy a good deal of trouble. For, while it is true that the poetic fancy plays, yet the faculty which goes by that pseudonyme in prosaic minds (and it was by such that the details of this Satanic commerce were pieced together) is hard put to it for invention, and only too thankful for any labor-saving contrivance whatsoever. Accordingly, all it need take the trouble to do was to reverse the ideas of sacred things already engraved on its surface, and behold, a kingdom of hell with ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... through the hole, and be heard: but if you hear the noise of feet or strange voices in that chamber, have a care to lie as squat [quiet] and close as ever you can. So may you safely hover [lie concealed]; for the cleverest soldier of them all shall be hard put to it to find you here, if it ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... Man's Peace the herds are increasing. In the country between the Mau Escarpment and the Narossara Mountains we found the feed eaten down to the earth two months before the next rainy season. In the meantime the few settlers are hard put to it to buy cattle at any price wherewith to stock their new farms. The situation is an anomaly which probably cannot continue. Some check will have eventually to be devised, either limiting the cattle, or compelling an equitable sale of the surplus. Certainly ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... turned his beautiful horse with lightning swiftness, and fled from the fight before I had time to complete my work. I was glad to be quit of him at any price, as I was now able to strike in by the colonel's side. The old warrior was hard put-to; a sabre cut had knocked off his shako, and inflicted a wound on his high, bald forehead, slight indeed, but the blood from which, trickling into his eyes, nearly blinded him, and he was fain to leave go his reins to ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... lines of defence; and none of them is very promising. But never fear, my friend, I am not going to try any of them. May never Argos be so hard put to it that Cyllarabis must be sown! nor ever I be in such straits for a tolerable defence as to be driven upon these evasions! No, I only ask you to consider the vast difference between being a hireling in a rich ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... not always overestimating her intellectual power. And the ordinary girl is not made to realise woman's intrinsically inferior money-earning capacity. She is not made to realise that the woman who cannot work with her hands is generally hard put to earn enough to keep herself alive in the incomplete ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... the word, and of the soul's condition, doth he now lay before it, and haunt it with; whereby he dejecteth, casteth down, daunteth, distresseth, and almost driveth it quite into despair! Now, by the reason of these things, faith (and all the grace that is in the soul) is hard put to it to come at the promise, and by the promise of Christ; as it is said, when the tempest and great danger of shipwreck lay upon the vessel in which Paul was, they had "much work to come by the boat;" Acts xxvii. 16. ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... of uneasiness prevailed throughout the gilded salon. Mrs. Rohscheimer, clever hostess though admittedly she was, found herself hard put to it to keep up the spirits of her guests—or those of her guests whose names had appeared ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... point I was coming to)—Ver. 824. Colman observes here: "Madame Dacier makes an observation on this speech, something like that of Donatus on one of Micio's above; and says that Micio, being hard put to it by the real circumstances of the case, thinks to confound Demea by a nonsensical gallimatia. I can not be of the ingenious lady's opinion on this matter, for I think a more sensible speech could not be made, nor a better plea offered in favor ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... cheeks, amazingly soft and smooth, with scarcely a line in them, were faintly pink. A more utterly incongruous figure to find on an outlying Arizona ranch would be impossible to imagine, and Buck was hard put to refrain ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... days we made ten miles, and on others thirty, but more often ten. And the best of the grub was not good, while we went on stint from the start. Likewise the pick of the dogs was poor, and we were hard put to keep them on their legs. At the White River our three sleds became two sleds, and we had only come two hundred miles. But we lost nothing; the dogs that left the traces went into the bellies of ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... drinking in this district of which so much has been said, and which is still far in excess of what it ought to be, I found many people hard put to it to explain why the restriction of hours which has worked so conspicuously well in other districts has had comparatively little effect here. Is it defects of administration, or a certain "cussedness" in the Scotch character, which resents any tightening of law? One large employer ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... way back I looked in on Madame d'Epinay and M. Grimm for a moment as I passed. They were distressed that I had not spoken sooner, as they would at once have sent their doctor. I did not tell them my reason, which was, that my mother would not see a French doctor. I was hard put to it, as they said they would send their physician that very evening. When I came home, I told my mother that I had met Herr Heina with a German priest, who had heard a great deal about me and was anxious to hear me play, and that ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... and it was growing wetter, thicker, and hotter. The pleasant warmth and tickling changed to a burning sensation. Ken found himself bathed in a heavy sweat. Then he began to smart in different places, and he was hard put to it to keep rubbing them. The steam grew hotter; his body was afire; his breath labored in great heaves. Ken felt that he must cry out. He heard exclamations, then yells, from some of the other boxed-up players, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... you're bragging!" she cried breezily. "Don't count too much on me. I'm a queer creature. I don't know what I'd do if I were hard put!" ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... staff had been present, which explained the mysterious noises during the night. As a result of this fight, some three hundred prisoners were taken, and Lord Strathnairn, then Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, was very hard put to it to find sufficient men (who, of course, would have to be detached from his force) to escort the prisoners into Dublin. Lord Strathnairn suddenly got an inspiration. He had every single button, brace buttons and all, cut off the prisoners' trousers. Then the men ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... the caste recovered from Kurukshetra. It has not utterly disappeared. In some districts we find families belonging to it; but you know well enough that as a caste in most parts of modern India, you are hard put to find it. Why in the great counsels of the world's welfare was this done? Not only to teach a lesson for all time to kings and rulers, that if they would not govern aright they should not govern at all; but also to lay India ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... through filtering paper or napkin and mix it with the clarified gelatine; also let the juice of 2 oranges and 1 lemon run through filtering paper and add it to the jelly; then make a trial to see if firm enough; place jelly form in cracked ice, pour a few spoonfuls of jelly into the form and when hard put in a layer of pineapple; cover them with jelly and when firm put in another layer of pineapple; continue until all is used up; then cover the form, put some ice on top of form and let it remain till jelly is firm; serve with or without ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke
... as Douglas soon found himself hard put to it to answer Lincoln's arguments, without offending one or the other of the powerful factions whose support he must have to reach the presidency. At the beginning, his experience and adroitness gave him an advantage, which, however, Lincoln's earnestness and ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... that Mac Leans and several other straglers, had stayed behind, commanded Major AEneas Mac Kay, with two troops of horse after them; who finding the said Mac Leans at Kinchardie, in the parish of Luthel, chased them up the Morskaith: in which chase Glencoe happened to be, and was hard put to it, as was foretold. What came of Archibald himself, I am not sure; I have not seen him since, nor can I get a true account of him, only I know he is yet alive, and at that time one of my father's men whom the red-coats meeting, ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... was the number of those who fancy that their more well-to-do neighbors, if they do not belong to the category of millionaires, are living beyond their means. Every man whose own means are small, or even moderate, finds himself rather hard put to it to make both ends meet, and is constantly harassed by desires which he is unable to gratify. When he sees others gratifying them, his self-love drives him often unconsciously into ascribing it to recklessness and improvidence. Very close people, too, who have ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... On September 30 the enemy lost Junction Post to a spirited attack by the Gloucesters, the line that he had been holding for three weeks was broken, and his retreat became fast and general. After relieving the Gloucesters our companies were hard put to it to advance rapidly enough to keep touch. At last we stood upon the Aubers Ridge itself. Lille was almost in view; but at this point the Division was relieved by the 59th and sent southwards to join our armies before Cambrai, where the final ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... Blake, his sense of humor spurted a moment to the fore. He found himself struggling to keep back a smile at the picture of some fat old woman in a dressing gown simulating hysteria that she might ruin a love affair. He was hard put to make his voice sound sincere, as ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... passed Vienne; and merchants travelling north from Avignon, similarly, must have been well fleeced by the time that they were come to the Pont-Saint-Esprit. Indeed, the lords in the middle of the run doubtless were hard put to it at times to make any sort of a living at all. Nor could the little local stealing that went on have helped them much—since, their respective castles being not more than five miles asunder, each of them in ordinary times ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... English-speaking people understand by "culture," has built up a system of internal credit that shall ensure the correct balance of the bubble—for just as long as the militarist policy of Germany can endure the strain of war. But money alone is not sufficient for victory; the peasant hard put to it to suppress his laugh, and the crowned Germania that built up the paper pedestal of the bubble, needed many other things to make that pedestal secure; there was needed integrity, and the respect of neighbouring nations, and the understanding ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... entirely satisfied, for she still wore the broken half of the engraved ring on the chain round her neck, and still the promised death-token had not come. The Baron now pressed his suit with greater ardour than before, and the Lady of Loch Awe was hard put to it to find reasons for refusing him. It was necessary to keep him on good terms with the clan, for his lands bordered on those of Glenurchy, and he could have made war on the people in the glen quite easily, while the knowledge ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... cloth and the napkins folded away in the drawer, and the white-topped table ready for evening use. Bel Bree had not been brought up in a New England farm-house, and seen her capable stepmother "whew round," to be hard put to it, now, over half a dozen cups ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... in the life of the Lord Keeper Guilford, that his lordship's court enemies, "hard put to it to find, or invent, something tending to the diminution of his character," took advantage of his going to see a rhinoceros, to circulate a foolish story of him, which much annoyed him. It was in ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... "She'd been hard put to it to keep going in London, while John did the courting," said I to myself, "and that's what caused her to change her name. If she doesn't catch him, we're another twenty-five down, and Moss will have to turn Jew. Well, I can get plenty of ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... Vale of Humiliation poor Christian was hard put to it, for he had not gone far, ere he saw a foe come in the field to meet him, whose name was Apollyon. Then did Christian fear, and he cast in his mind if he would go back or stand his ground. But Christian thought that as he had no coat of mail ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... apparently unconscious of every thing else, had been immediately aware of the slightest slackening of muscle under him, the least faltering of the onward pace, and, in the temper of the savage, which wakes the moment the man of civilization is hard put to it, the moment he flagged, still drove the cruel spurs into his flanks, when the grand, unresenting creature would rush forward at straining speed—not, I venture to think, so much in obedience to the pain, as in obedience ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... too tall,' replied the individual addressed. 'For a short man one would be hard put to it to ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... triumphantly. We never heard how the non-commissioned officer ultimately explained away his broken rifle upon parade when the trick was certain to be discovered, but bearing in mind the iron method which prevails in the German army he must have been hard put to it to have advanced a plausible excuse when arraigned. Doubtless there was considerable trouble over the episode but we never heard anything more about it, although we would have dearly loved to have ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... been but a week here and I ha' seen what I ha' seen, for to be sure it's no more than a week since our old Father Philip that has confessed our mother for twenty years, and she was hard put to it, and to speak truth, nigh at the end of our last crust, and that mouldy, and she cried out on him to put me forth in the world and to make me a woman of the world, and to win my own bread, whereupon he asked our mother if I could keep a quiet tongue ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... his manner was so remarkable. One would have said that he was conscious of having committed the murder himself. In all my experience I never saw a man so hard put to it to tell ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... have been hard put to it to explain. Probably, if pressed, I would have burst into tears simply. I ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... if they were successful, carry the money back to the Pug's room, just as was being done now precisely in accordance with the Pug's original intentions, she had thought of the Adventurer. It had seemed the only way then; it seemed the only way now—despite the fact that she would be hard put to it to answer the Adventurer if he thought to ask her how, or by what means, she was in possession of the information that enabled her to communicate with him. But she must risk that—put him off, if necessary, through the plea ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... a repute for rancour, that he was branded with the name of the Wicked. Nor did he even refrain from wrongdoing to foreigners, but, after foully harrying his own land, went on to assault Saxony. The Saxon general Syfrid, when his men were hard put to it in the battle, entreated peace. Toste declared that he should have what he asked, but only if he would promise to become his ally in a war against Hadding. Syfrid demurred, dreading to fulfill the condition, but by sharp menaces Toste ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove. He looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is sometimes, when we are very hard put to it, let behind the counter with a corkscrew; but never when it can be helped, his demeanor towards the public being disgusting servile. How Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to lower herself as to marry ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... have been hard put to it to say whither she was going. But that moral and intellectual landscape which had lain so clear before her when she left Green Cottage was certainly beginning to blur; the ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... came down, the wind driving it under the shed until Tom was hard put to find a place where the drops would not reach him. He withdrew into a far corner, taking his motor-cycle with him, and then, sitting on a block of wood, under the rough mangers where the horses were fed while the farmers ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... cavalry was hard put to it. The grey infantrymen were good marksmen, and their line was long, drawn across the road and the up and down of the fields. Here and there, now and again, a trooper went down to the dust, and the riderless horse, galloping to the rear, brought small comfort ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... so oddly found in the drawer of his inkstand at Mrs. Craddock's, Royal Crescent, Bath, offered another instance of Boz's ingenious methods of introducing episodical tales into his narrative. He was often hard put to it to find an occasion: they were highly useful to fill a space when he was pressed for matter. He had the strongest penchant for this sort of thing, and it clung to him through his life. Those in "Pickwick" are exceedingly good, full of spirit ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... very large," said he; "I have two horses and two dogs, a Parsee servant, and a Cape baboon. I should like to take the latter with us as well as my servant. My servant, because he is a good cook; and my monkey, because, if we are hard put to it, she will show us what we may eat and what we may not; there is no taster like a monkey. Besides, she is young and full of tricks, and I like something to ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... trusting to their fists alone. I contrived to give one of them a smart tap on the crown before they came to close quarters; but ere I could recover myself they were upon me, the staff was wrenched from my grasp, and I was as hard put to it as a stag bayed by hounds. I made what play I could with my fists, and got home at least one blow for two; but the odds were too heavy against me, and when at length a fellow as big as myself slipped round to my back and ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... was handicapped at every turn. Scarcely had he taken command at Fort Smith when he was apprised of the fact that the chief armorer there had been ordered to remove all the tools to Arkadelphia.[736] Steele was hard put to it to obtain any supplies at all.[737] Many that he did get the promise of were diverted from their course,[738] just as were General Pike's. This was true even in the case of shoes.[739] He tried to fit his ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... broad form of my adversary was suddenly thrown into faint light by a narrow window in the wall. I staked all upon one swift thrust. It caught him full in the belly, and ran how far up his body I know not. With a cry he fell forward, and I was hard put to it to save my sword and avoid going down with him. But I got myself and my sword free, and went on up the stairs as fast as ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... to pay for the war. These and other considerations all suggest that we may find it increasingly difficult to maintain our position as one of the main suppliers of the manufactured goods of the world. In such circumstances we shall be hard put to it to maintain, far less raise, the pre-war ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... was relieved; these children understood. She gave the three rules—memorize something good each day, see something beautiful each day, do something helpful each day. When the children reported at the end of the week, not a single day had any of them lost. But hard put to it to obey her? Indeed they had been. One girl, kept for twenty-four hours within squalid home-walls by a rain, had nevertheless seen two beautiful things—a sparrow taking a bath in the gutter, and a gleam of sunlight on a ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... round paunch, "I see, I hear, I understood!" And he added, with a wink: "You'll not be alone in paying your respects, my young friend. There are three in the house already, dancing attendance like you. I don't turn anybody away, and I should be hard put to it to decide against any one of them, for they're all good matches. However, on account of Pere Maurice and the quality of your lands, I should prefer you. But my daughter's of age and mistress of her own property; so she will do as she pleases. Go ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... Gwen, hard put to it during suspense, now cool and self-possessed at the first gunshot, rose and stood by the panic-stricken woman. Nothing could soften the shock of her amazement now. Pull her through!—that was the only chance. And the sooner she knew the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... more imperfectly executed or realized. It would be absurd to suppose that it was held by all Greeks; it was indeed advocated by and for a minority only. Those who now find in it the impulse and guide of Greek history might be hard put to it if they were obliged to produce evidence of their faith, and they would be forced to confess that there was much to be said against their interpretation. There is to be acknowledged first the apparent want of internal ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... very high standard among the crowd I mix in. Still, I'm afraid that isn't much of an excuse for shifting back into a savage." He paused thoughtfully, then added, "I'm much obliged to you, sonny, for your help, and just to show you I don't forget it, sometime when you are hard put hunt me up and ask me to give you a lift. I'm a human being though you may not ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... to the Duke of Gloucester. A deputation from the City attended at the same time, to tender their loyalty to the King, and to make an offering of 10,000. It was little wonder that the King, who a few weeks before was hard put to it to borrow a few pistoles, and was deep in debt for the maintenance of his household, should receive such messengers with overflowing welcome. The citizens of London were sent home rejoicing in the honour of knighthood—in abeyance for twenty years, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik |
