"Balked" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... purposes; but after this little talk it appeared as if something had risen up between them,—a sort of mist, a medium, in which their intimacy was not increased; for the flow and interchange of sentiment was balked, and they took only one or two turns in silence along Septimius's trodden path. I don't know exactly what it was; but there are cases in which it is inscrutably revealed to persons that they have made a mistake in what is of the highest concern to them; and ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... generosity of the Major's good-humour. On the contrary, it quite took aback and disappointed poor Pen, whose nerves were strung up for a tragedy, and who felt that his grand entrance was altogether balked and ludicrous. He blushed and winced with mortified vanity and bewilderment. He felt immensely inclined to begin to cry. "I—I didn't know you were come till just now," he said; ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... beamed with joy Two miles upon their way, As they supposed, each girl and boy, About to see the play. Their little cheeks with tears were wet, As back again they went, Balked by a sanctimonious set, Led ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... out any more. She applied her ear and could hear a man's voice talking in low insinuating tones, but she could make little of what was said. It drove her fairly frantic to think that she was losing time. Miranda had no mind to be balked in her purpose. She meant to find out who was in that room and what was going on. She felt a righteous interest ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... on, with passionate recklessness. "Balked in every other endeavor to learn the truth, I have come to you, whom I believe to be noble at the core, for that help which seems likely to fail us in every other direction: for the word which, if it does not absolutely save ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... said Raeburn, "and somewhat angry with my charitable opponents. I didn't so much mind being overturned, but I hate being balked. They shall have the lecture, however, before long; I'm not going to be beaten. On the whole, they couldn't have chosen a worse night for their little game. I seriously thought we should never grope our way home through that fog. It has quite taken me back to my young ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... a little trouble with the other trustees. They balked when I explained that Remington Solander wanted the sole radio loud-speaking rights of our cemetery, but some one finally suggested that if Remington Solander put up a new and artistic iron fence around the whole cemetery it ...
— Solander's Radio Tomb • Ellis Parker Butler
... receive their approval, is so monstrous as to be grotesque. That a possible President of the United States should be the victim needs no comment. It was thoroughly characteristic of Roosevelt that he balked at ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... grievances and was not above retaliation. Marishka's cause, as a loyal Austrian's, was just, and she had not faltered in doing what she knew to be her duty, but the thought of seeking the Duchess now that she had betrayed her, required all of her courage. She had balked an ambitious woman, stultified all her efforts to advance the fortunes of her children, and had written her husband before the House of Habsburg a traitor to his Emperor and his country. What if she had heard something and suspected? Would the Duchess even listen to a plea ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... them. Barnabas marks his take-off and rides for it—touches "The Terror" with his spur and—in that moment, Carnaby's gray swerves. Barnabas sees the danger and, clenching his teeth, swings "The Terror" aside, just in time; who, thus balked, yet makes a brave attempt,—leaps, is short, and goes down with a floundering splash, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... he muttered, and then had to pull his horse to one side. The animal was now nervous, and in a twinkling it balked and sent Henry flying headlong to the ground! Then, without waiting to note what was happening, the horse set off on a run ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... slaughtered the people of Ai, driven Og into the earth, overcome Ammon and were making the rest of the Canaanitish nations hard to catch, for the good man was seized with a sudden desire to take the back track. His burro balked and Balaam told his fellow travelers that an angel was interfering with his transportation facilities. Perhaps the princes of Moab made ribald remarks anent the celestial obstruction—even hinted that Balaam had best get a Maud S. move on him or he might contract a vigorous case ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the freedom of the intellectual faculties can be balked, which appears contradictory to the conception of an autonomous power. For a power which only receives the matter of its activity from without can only be hindered in its action by the privation of this matter, and consequently by way of negation; it is therefore a misconception ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... with exhaustion Mawg was within twenty paces before he noticed who was confronting him. Then his dull eyes blazed. With a snarl of fury he hurled his club straight at Grom's face, missing him only by a hand's-breadth. But the effort, and the disappointment at finding himself thus balked, as he imagined, on the very threshold of escape, seemed to finish him. He stumbled on with groping hands outstretched, and fell just at ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... would bring John Riviere with you," said Olive after they had exchanged greetings. A strong desire had sprung up to see this mysterious relation of Clifford's, and to be balked of any passing whim was keen ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... the rope; and I will brazenly admit that I should not have balked at helping decorate the limb of a cottonwood with those two red-handed scoundrels. But I was not prepared for the turn MacRae took. Hicks evidently felt that there was something ominous to the fore, for he fought like a fiend when we endeavored to apply the rope to his arms and legs. There was ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... pardon. I really forgot. I have so long sought an opportunity to speak to you upon this matter, and I have been so often balked at the last moment, that when a seeming chance came I was carried away with it, and in my selfish eagerness for my own happiness, I forgot your ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... irreconcilable feuds, and, as happens inevitably, if a man holds fast to the independence of conscience, I have had to think nothing of giving offence to the powerful in the cause of justice. How often have I encountered and balked Conigastus in his assaults on the fortunes of the weak? How often have I thwarted Trigguilla, steward of the king's household, even when his villainous schemes were as good as accomplished? How often ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... roads. He dismounted, wound the reins around his arm, and started along on foot. It was no easy matter to tramp through the forest in a heavy fur coat; and the horse refused to follow. He planted his hoofs firmly on the ground and balked. ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... war; delivered its blow fiercely and suddenly; stopped at no barrier either of law or of mercy; swept a whole continent within the tide of blood—not the blood of soldiers only, but the blood of innocent women and children also, and of the helpless poor; and now stands balked but not defeated, the enemy of four-fifths of the world. This power is not the German people. It is the ruthless master of the German people. It is no business of ours how that great people came under its control or submitted with temporary zest to the domination ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... sleep," he answered. "This infernal problem is consuming me. It is too much to be balked by so petty an obstacle, when all else had been overcome. I know the men, the launch, everything; and yet I can get no news. I have set other agencies at work, and used every means at my disposal. The whole river has been ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... car has balked for some reason or other," said Betty in brisk, business-like tones, "and we have to fix it. If we don't we are likely to be caught in a thunder storm. So get out, girls, and let's hunt for trouble. Grace, if you have any chocolates left you might offer them as a prize for ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... made me hate him and the more because he had told of meeting Sally on the street in Albany and that he was in love with her. It was while he was telling me how he had once fooled a country girl that I balked. He thought it a fine joke, for his father had cut his allowance two hundred a year so that the sum they had had to pay in damages had kept his nose "on the grindstone" for two years. Then I stopped my horse with an exclamation which ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... against the junior officer, Wren had again, toward 3.30, breaking his arrest, gone up the row with the idea of once more entering Blakely's house and possibly again attacking him. It was believed that the sentry had seen and interposed, and that, enraged at being balked by an enlisted man, Wren had drawn a knife and stabbed him. True, no knife had been found anywhere about the spot, and Wren had never been known to carry one. But now a dozen men, armed with rakes, were systematically going over the ground under the vigilant ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... Adrian, "that I balked your valour; and believe me that I never more longed to break a lance against any man than I do against this boasting Frenchman. But bethink you, that though to us, brought up in the dainty laws of chivalry, Walter de ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... to meet Grogan on Chatham Square at half-past five the next morning. Before I met him, I had done more thinking on the question of the unemployed than I had ever done in my life. I balked on the change of clothing article in the agreement—and furnished my own. Two or three men had enough courage to get up early in the morning and see Tim off—they were sceptical ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... dismount save into the water on the one hand or into the valley thirty feet down on the other. But I think you can trust the Yunnan pony anywhere he is willing to go, and mine did not hesitate. In fact, he never balked at anything asked of him save once at a shaky "parao," or footway, constructed along the face of the cliff on timbers thrust into holes bored in the solid rock, and another time when he refused a jump from a boggy rice-field to the top ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... having died without a will, I was, of course, proclaimed his sole heir without any opposition, and consequently, all those who had aspired to be sharers of his property, balked by my unexpected appearance, immediately withdrew to vent their disappointment in abusing me. They represented me as a wretch, devoid of all respect for my parents, as one without religion, an adventurer in the world, and the companion of ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... one that Congress gave me. And why shouldn't I quit? I come from a long line of combination fighter-quitters. We were never afraid of hardship or physical pain, danger or death, but—we couldn't face conditions; we balked and quit in the face of circumstance; we retired always before the economic onslaught ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... it didn't occur to me that you would back out." His voice showed the irritation of a man balked ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... king felt. So I cleared my throat and said: 'Well Medill, don't you think we'd better excuse ourselves to his majesty and go?' The king put up his hand mildly and said: 'O please!' and the colonel in charge of the party gulped at my sympathy for the king; but I was not to be balked, and we all rose and after shaking hands around, the colonel led us out. And I didn't know that I had committed social manslaughter until the colonel exclaimed when we were in the corridor: 'Oh you republicans—you republicans, how ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... Mr. Sam cried in despair, "some people are born in sanatoriums, some acquire them, and others have them thrust upon them—I've had this place thrust upon me. I don't know why they want a doctor, but they do. They balked at Rodgers from the village. They want somebody here at night. Mr. Jennings has the gout and there's the deuce to pay. Some of them ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... obstacle could be easily overcome with some well-distributed generosity. A bill was quickly drawn up to remedy the situation, and hurried to the Legislature then in session at Albany. The Assembly balked and ostentatiously refused to pass it. But after the lapse of a short time the Assembly saw a great new light, and rushed it through on March 3, on which same day it passed the Senate. It was at this precise time that a certain noted ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... mouth of the cave was small, and no sooner did the invaders rush in than they were cut down by those inside; in vain were more men thrust in to take the place of those slain; the advantages of position were too great, and they were obliged at length to desist. But Genghis was not to be balked of his victims, and his devilish cunning suggested the expedient of lighting straw at the mouth of the cave to suffocate those inside, but the size of the place prevented his plan from taking effect; so he at last commanded a large fragment of rock to be rolled to the mouth of the cavern, ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... practice among rich and self-conscious patients who would always rather be "interesting" than normal, it was not the first time that he had watched the bloom being rubbed off love; nine broken engagements and balked romances were born of doltish delay; but a mass of sensibility like Eric Lane had not the stamina to wait nor the placidity to ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... got the last; Ned Harvey,(399) the former. My present expectation is an oration from Barr'e(400 in honour of Mr. Pitt; for those are scenes that make the world so entertaining. After that, I shall demand a satire on Mr. Pitt, from Mr. Wilkes; and I do not believe I shall be balked, for Wilkes has already expressed his resentment on being given up by Pitt, who, says Wilkes, ought to be expelled for an impostor.(401) I do not know whether the Duke of Newcastle does not expect a palinodia from me(402) T'other morning at the Duke's lev'ee ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... went. Where they halted he would not stop. Stuck as the wheels of State were, during those dreadful years in the mire and clay of political expediency and pro-slavery Hunkerism, he appealed confidently to that large, unknown quantity of courage and righteousness, dormant in the North, to set the balked ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... of the week ever since I wrote you, and he has taken me in his car and simply forced me to drive him for an hour over what appeals to me to be the most difficult roads he could select. So far I have not balked at anything but he has had the consideration not to direct me to the mountains. He is extremely attractive, Linda, and I do enjoy being with him, but I dread it too, because his grief is so deep and so apparent that it constantly keeps before ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... walked sharply off, and few cared to keep his pace,—for they are lusty men mostly; and spiteful bad women had breathed {89a} in the faces of some among them, or the gowns had got between their legs. For my part, I was not to be balked; so, tripping on aside him, I looked in his face askance. Whether he misgave or how, he turned his eyes downward. No matter—have him I would. I licked my lips and smacked them loud and smart, and scarcely ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... the Parish House without anybody knowing where she was, Inglesby and Hunter would be balked of that interview to-morrow night. The worst was going to happen anyhow, but if she couldn't save herself from anything else, at least she could save herself from facing them alone. To be able to do that, she would go now, in the middle of the night, and tell the Padre everything. ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... something that needs attending to on a fisherman, and this time it was our water-tanks. And while they were being looked after, the Johnnie was overhauled, her bottom scrubbed and topsides painted. Old Mr. Duncan, we found, was beginning to take a lot of pride in our vessel and balked at no expense to have her in trim. And now that the Ripley was lost, he would have only two vessels to represent him in the big fishermen's race, which was then only four ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... father's sake, and loving him for his mother's sake; and who dwelt year after year in the Maine village, hoping some day to wreak his vengeance upon the seducer. But when M. Malgre and Vivian at last meet, this revenge is balked by the removal of its supposed motive; Vivian having actually married Malgre's daughter, and being prepared to make Jack heir of Castlemere. Moral: "'Vengeance is mine,' saith the ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... marriage, indeed! Oh, ay! Catch me at it. No, no; that must take place, or I'm balked of half my revenge. It's when he finds that he has, by his own bad and blind passions, married her to the profligate without the title that he'll shiver. And that scamp, too, the bastard—but, no matther—I must try and ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... her philanthropic intentions balked, stood on the car track, but realizing that she was making a spectacle of herself, she returned to the sidewalk, where the gibing comments of those who had witnessed the scene caused her to blush with anger, and she was glad to escape the words of advice that were called out ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... such an unusual proceeding in Mrs. Payson Osborne to seek out any one that it excited my wonder. But she was not to be balked by anything; moreover, I had great faith in her motives, which were sound and good, even if her plans of carrying them out ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... I don't know." He balked at trying to explain again just what a moondog was. "But who are you? What ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... genuinely for pleasure and refreshment. He had no vanity about it, and if he had any doubt as to the meaning of a passage he would "consult the crib," as he used to say. We may conjecture further that he did not allow his curiosity to be balked by the barrier of a hopelessly obscure passage, but leaped over it, and went on. He always came back to Homer, whom he loved more than any other writer of the world, and particularly to the Iliad, which I think he knew ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... man to be balked by an accident: so, cutting down his force one-half, he prepared for the start. Thirteen officers and men made up the little party which seemed bound to certain death. The spirit which animated the blue-jackets during the war may be imagined from the fact ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... had just balked in the road when the country doctor came by. The farmer asked the physician if he could give him something to start the mule. The doctor said he could, and, reaching down into his medicine case, gave the animal some powders. The mule switched his tail, tossed his head and started on a mad ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... gives way to "El Fureidis," a village in the valley of Lebanon. But while so swift a transition from the West to the East may disappoint that "Expectation" which Fletcher tells us "sits i' the air," and which we all know is not to be balked with impunity, there can be no doubt, that, in shifting the scene, the authoress has enabled us to judge her essential talent with more accuracy. Possessing none of the elements which are thought essential to the production of a sensation, "The Lamplighter" forced ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... ties; of a wonderfully vivid and varied experience acquired in many lands and through many phases of activity; and, even in his blackest hour, of a noble love retained and richly repaid. No trace will be found of a nature soured or warped by balked ambition, nor any resentful withdrawal ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... fierce weariness of old unsatisfied hates. That was the thing that, as the minutes laboured by, Faxon was becoming most conscious of. The watcher behind the chair was no longer merely malevolent: he had grown suddenly, unutterably tired. His hatred seemed to well up out of the very depths of balked effort and thwarted hopes, and the fact made him more pitiable, and ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... start wildly and run about for a moment, but it is only for a moment—amain they gather together, forming themselves into a circle, in the centre of which they place the foals. Onward comes the wolf, hoping to make his dinner on horse-flesh; he is mistaken, however, the mares have balked him, and are as cunning as himself: not a tail is to be seen—not a hinder quarter—but there stands the whole troop, their fronts towards him ready to receive him, and as he runs around them barking and howling, they rise successively on their hind legs, ready to stamp him to ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... recall the location of the nearest rural territory. San Fernando valley, probably—a long, tiresome trip. And expensive, unless I wished to demean myself by thumbing rides—a difficult thing to do, burdened as I was by the pump. If she hadnt balked unreasonably about putting the stuff on lawns, I'd have prospects right ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... that the Queen desires; and the Duke d'Ossuna has left Paris in order to his journey to Utrecht. I was prevailed on to come home with Trapp, and read his poem and correct it; but it was good for nothing. While I was thus employed, Sir Thomas Hanmer came up to my chamber, and balked me of a journey he and I intended this week to Lord Orkney's at Cliffden;(27) but he is not well, and his physician will not let him undertake such a journey. I intended to dine with Lord Treasurer; but going to see Colonel Disney, who lives with General Withers,(28) I liked the General's ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... sitting, you were able to recite perfectly the stanza learned that day. On "speaking day" you started out bravely and recited the first stanza without mishap. When you started to think of the second one, however, it would not come. The memory balked. Now what was the matter? How can we explain this distressing blank? In psychological terms, we ascribe the difficulty to the failure to make proper associations between stanzas. Association was made effectively between the lines of the single stanzas, but not between the ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... real religious leader who loves boys will not be balked by the pettiness and inability of denominationalism. His hope lies not solely in the church or the churches, but largely in the intelligence, sympathy, and generosity of the unchurched citizens, whose number and importance in the small town is probably in the ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... hair as he had buried his face in it, and the keenness of those memories caused him to cry out. The sex-call had been stronger than he had realized; therefore, to his present grief was added an inescapable, almost irresistible feeling of physical distress—a frenzy of balked desire—which caused him to waver irresolutely, ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... unresisting in my arms—with all her glorious beauties spread out before me, like the delicious materials of a dainty feast—just as the cup of joy was raised to my eager lips, and I was about to quaff its bewildering contents, to be balked by the unexpected entrance of that accused Chevalier. Confusion!—I shall go mad with vexation. **** Well, 'tis of no use to grumble about what can't be helped; let me rather turn my attention to future joys, concerning which there can be no disappointment. My plans are ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... had neither wife, child, nephew, or niece. He bullied his servant-of-all-work too much to make her a victim; for she escaped all contact with her master by doing her work and keeping out of his way. His appetite for tyranny was thus balked; and to satisfy it in some way he patiently studied the laws relating to rentals and party-walls; he fathomed the jurisprudence which regulates the dwellings of Paris in an infinite number of petty questions as to tenants, abutters, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... and freezing, freezing and thawing, for so long that men lost account of the advance of a summer coming, with such balked, uncertain steps. Indeed, the weather variations had for several weeks been so great that no journey, not the smallest, could be calculated with any assurance. The last men to reach Minook were two who had made a hunting and prospecting trip to an outlying district. They had gone ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... trembling, there was a wild thrill of delight at accomplishing her object. She would hear—yes, she would hear—what Mr. Rhys had to say to the people that night. Nobody should ever know it; neither he nor others; but if they did, she would run all risks rather than be balked. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... feelings. "You've had an escape! You've got well out of what would have been not only a dangerous but an absurd situation," so whispered a secret, inner voice. And yet there was a side of him which felt not only balked and disappointed, ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... cleared the square of matted hair from his forehead, which now was beaded. Red, florid, full-blooded, balked in his eagerness, he looked as savage as some denizen of the ancient forest, in pursuit as reckless, as ill-suited ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... they say he has overstepped his prerogative, and broken his papal oath. No one abuses him, for it is felt that in a more private station he would have acted a kindly part; but he has failed of so high a vocation, and balked so noble a hope, that no one respects him either. Who would have believed, a year ago, that the people would assail his palace? I was on Monte Cavallo yesterday, and saw the broken windows, the burnt doors, the walls marked by shot, just beneath the loggia, on which ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... turned away toward the stage with the best appearance of indifference she could muster. Her mind was making an agonized effort to add up one hundred and ninety, fifty and twenty. But in the excitement of the moment it simply balked—rejected the problem altogether. She didn't think that the total came to much over three hundred dollars, but she couldn't be sure. And then there was, sticking burr-like, somewhere, the consciousness ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... do to be balked!" exclaimed the master. "We'll make our way somehow or other through the forest;" and the boat was run with her bow against the yielding bank. "You'll follow me!" As he said this he sprang on shore, or rather on to the trunk of a tree. ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... not to be balked in my purpose, for this was an opportunity which might not occur again for years to obtain some clew to my own affairs. In fact, I had resolutely resolved to SEEK AND FIND my mother, who was still living; and I ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... Wabash with his Virginia militia, had appeared at Fort Vincennes and compelled Hamilton to surrender. The blow was a severe one and robbed the western tribes of their courage; they were so discomfited, indeed, that they would not venture into the country of the enemy. Balked in his purpose, Brant was forced ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... brutal nature were, while it lasted, not ten times as strong as the lust of gain. There are moments when a man is ready to part with not only his earthly prospects, but his hopes of heaven, rather than be balked of an immediate satisfaction: that of striking his brother to the heart, or growing rich by one stroke of fraud, or ruining forever the woman that loves him best; and there are many men, in no such desperate case, whose ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... taken by surprise, did not strike the fatal blow till his horse had carried him past the fainting Indian; but, balked of his prey, his anger was kindled against my father, and turning round, he made a cut at him with his sword. Fortunately I carried a heavy riding-whip, with which I was able to parry the blow. The man did not attempt to repeat it, for the junior ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... instructive. I will give it you in very few words. My friend was very young and enthusiastic. He was on his way through the galleries of Italy, brush in hand, his heart full of the ceaseless song of youth in holiday. The world never had played him false, nor balked him. He made the future bend to the fancy of his dreams. He seldom descended among common men from those loftier realms where the contemplation of endless masterpieces kept his spirit as on wings. He admired, copied, filled his soul with the glowing beauty of Italian landscape and Italian ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... Balked of his design to stroll beside Betty, Percy was forced to be content with Mollie, and she, with malice aforethought, talked at him in a way he could not understand, but which, the other girls overhearing, sent them into ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... great facilities of the steel corporation proved almost inadequate for Tom's giant cannon. When he showed the drawings, on which he had already secured a patent, the manager balked. ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... there he died! And when I heard my name Sigh'd forth with life, I would not brook my fear Of the other! With a worm I balked his fame. What else was ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... westward was within easy striking distance of both my ranches. My wife was dazed and delighted over the success of the summer's drive, and when I offered her the money with which to build a fine house at Fort Worth, she balked, but consented to employ a tutor at the ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... men, Romans, Isaurians, Lycaonians, and Arabs. His troops were already interposed between the Persians and their longed-for prey, Belisarius having fixed his headquarters at Chalcis, half a degree to the west of Gabbula, and twenty-five miles nearer to Antioch. Thus balked of their purpose, and despairing of any greater success than they had already achieved, the allies became anxious to return to Persia with the plunder of the Syrian towns and villages which they had sacked on their advance. Belisarius was quite content that they should ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... he knew had not the remotest chance of adoption; and, on the other hand, the opposition—which in the last two years of the Administration controlled the Senate as well as the House of Representatives—balked at no act that would humiliate the President and make capital for its western idol. At the outset the Jacksonians tried to hold up the confirmation of Clay. It fell furiously, and quite without discrimination, upon ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... desire to get away from her husband,—to search for her child, to know if it had lived or died. For four nights more that journey was pursued at the height of their horse's speed; every day they stopped to rest, and every day Hitty's half-delirious brain laid plans of escape, only to be balked by Abner Dimock's vigilance; for if he slept, it was with both arms round her, and the slightest stir awoke him,—and while he woke, not one propitious moment freed her from his watch. Her brain began to reel with disappointment and anguish; she began to hate her husband; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... as the muffled sound of voices came to their ears. The officers had evidently passed and were now returning, balked in their search. Pausing before the little door, they discussed the situation with the interest of hunters ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... GENTS," he repeated, when Buck McKee did not obey him with alacrity. The balked leader of the Lazy K outfit reluctantly held his ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... adaptable for all manner of work. The ingenious substitutes Watt had to invent to avoid the obviously perfect crank motion have of course all been discarded, and nothing of these remains except as proofs, where none are needed, that genius has powers in reserve for emergencies; balked in one direction, it hews ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... vow,' thundered Sir Gawaine, 'that though thou hast balked me of my vengeance now, I will mark thee, thou king of two minds, and be thou sure that erelong I will avenge me of this treachery, and that upon thy body ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... crawl through. In these wild countries it gives much delight to gain the summit of any mountain. There is an indefinite expectation of seeing something very strange, which, however often it may be balked, never failed with me to recur on each successive attempt. Every one must know the feeling of triumph and pride which a grand view from a height communicates to the mind. In these little frequented countries there is also joined to it some vanity, that you perhaps are the first man who ever ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... already lumbering eastward along the railroad lines of the North. He had a touch of imagination, and something of the enormous momentum of that Northern wheat took possession of him. It would come to Chicago, and he must be ready for it. It would be absurd to be balked by the refusal of a little single-track road up in Michigan to carry ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... His balked feelings overmastered him, and he disregarded her prohibition. She slipped from his grasp as lithely as the serpentine pearls had run through ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and divine philosophy of all time, and in the commanding beliefs of mankind; but so soon as one begins to come to his own existence as an outsider and stranger, and attempts to bear away its secret, so soon he begins to be balked. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... stretch of railroad near Shopton on which the Hercules 0001 might be tested. The track inside the Swift Company's enclosure did not offer the conditions the inventor needed. He felt balked. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... never harm a human being; in proof of which, only look at your rascal of a postilion, whom any one of my friends would have sent post-haste to the devil for half the trouble he gave me. Easy as I am, I never choose to be balked in my humors. I must have the fifty and the buss, and then I'm off, as soon as you like; and I may as well have the kiss while the old lady signs the check, and then we shall have the seal as well as the signature. Poh—poh—no nonsense! Many a pretty lass has thought it an honor ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... attempts to land, I shall follow him. I don't intend to lose sight of him. I haven't come so far to be balked now." ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... only step down among them. But the height of that small place of refuge, Tennyson declared, would render the proposed exhibition impossible. Might he not be kindly excused? The good women, however, were not to be balked; and one after another presented her half-length above the little hatchway before us, gazed, smiled, and retreated." It was well for Tennyson that he had overcome some of his early shyness, or the ordeal might have tried him considerably. There was no cathedral ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... Already the steamer was backing away from the shore, dragging her gang-plank through the water; the negro roustabouts were too much terrified to pull it in. When the attacking party saw their plans were frustrated, and that they were balked of their prey, they gave vent to their disappointment in yells of rage. A random volley was fired at the retreating steamer, but it soon got out of range, and continued on ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... should I fly? Methinks my presence is still a link to decency. Should I tear off the ephod, I scarcely fancy 'twould blaze upon another's breast. He goes not to the sacrifice; they say he keeps no fast, observes no ritual, and that their festive fantasies will not be balked, even by the Sabbath. I have not seen him thrice since the marriage. Honain has told her I did oppose it, and she bears to me a hatred that only women feel. Our strong passions break into a thousand ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... broom under the threshold." Thereupon the princess seized the broom and threw it on the fire, but although the broom burned, the deathless Koshchei remained alive; indeed not so much as a hair of him was singed. Balked in her first attempt, the artful hussy pouted and said, "You do not love me true, for you have not told me where your death is; yet I am not angry, but love you with all my heart." With these fawning words she besought the warlock to tell ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... massive and enduring gratifications is the feeling of personal worth, ever afresh, brought into consciousness by effectual action; and an idle life is balked of its hopes partly because ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... Petrarch's Vaucluse deg. makes proud the Sorgue, deg. deg.12 Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned. One pays one's debt deg. in such a case; deg.14 I plucked up heart and entered,—stalked, Keeping a tolerable face Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked: Let them! No Briton's to be balked! ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... Peer came down from the hills just in time to see a gentleman in a carriole turn off from the highway and take the by-road down towards Troen. The horse balked suddenly at a small bridge, and when the driver reined him in and gave him a cut with his whip, the beast reared, swung about, and sent the cart fairly dancing round on its high wheels. "Oh, well, then, I'll have to walk," cried the gentleman angrily, and, flinging ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... Emperor's horses had done his work well. The creature, save when it balked on the bank of the Sambre, never failed ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... She was balked and disappointed, he perceived, and he was forced to go further: "I certainly wouldn't advise any girl to study painting or sculpture in the hope of making a living by it. The only side of art that isn't hopelessly out of the running is the decorative—home ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... there was peace, and Sheriff Jones, breathing out curses against the Governor who had balked him of his anticipated revenge, disbanded his army and went back to his post-office at Westport. It was past the middle of December, but some lingered on their way, robbing and stealing. The cold grew intense. A driving snow came down ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... successfully than an unbecoming hat and a cheap black veil, which imparts a dingy, leaden tint to the complexion. I had every reason to be satisfied with my disguise that afternoon, but I wasn't. Not a bit! I felt cross, and irritated, and balked! ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... think they had won. So Angel, Jane, and I were left, prancing around two solemn carved chairs. The music ceased with a crash. Jane leaped to one chair while Angel and I fell simultaneously upon the other. We both clung to it desperately, but he dislodged me, inch by inch, and I, furious at being balked in my pursuit of Jane, struck him twice in the ribs, then ran into the dim hall and ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... valleys folded in between them. All about were cocoanuts and bananas, their foliage wet with the rain that had fallen gently all night. The stream was edged with trees and ferns and was clear and rippling. At that early hour there was no sensation of chill for me, though the men of native blood balked at entering the water until the sun had warmed it. A Chinese vegetablegrower sat on the bank with his Chinese wife and cleaned heads of lettuce and bunches of carrots. She watched me apathetically, as if I were a little strange, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... himself the pleasure of a secret flirtation with her, while at the same time he intended to continue his attentions to Miss McKenzie in public, and he did not like to be balked in his purpose. ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... we should live and labor to promote this great and holy faith which is in reality the practical side of Christianity—that great shield of the poor. To extend these doctrines over the whole continent is a noble mission, and one not to be balked or hindered by foolish scruples or weak pity ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... poor father died he said he'd never have been able to keep on with the circuit-riding and the preaching if he'd had to depend on any other horse than Pilgrim. That horse just knew father was forgetful. He wouldn't budge if father forgot the saddle-bags. When Pilgrim balked, father always knew he'd forgotten something and he'd go back for it. I'll have supper on by the time you've ...
— Benefits Forgot - A Story of Lincoln and Mother Love • Honore Willsie
... fountain-pen, in its first imperfect form, must have come along about the same time, and Clemens was one of the very earliest authors to own one. For a while it seemed that the world had known no greater boon since the invention of printing; but when it clogged and balked, or suddenly deluged his paper and spilled in his pocket, he flung it to the outer darkness. After which, the stylo-graphic pen. He tried one, and wrote severally to Dr. Brown, to Howells, and to Twichell, urging its adoption. Even in a letter to Mrs. Howells ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... feel myself trying to like something below the surface in the man. And then I am balked. There seems to be something abysmally deep behind the facade, if you know what I mean. If I think about it much, it seems to me that there is too much surface about Strangwise and not enough foundation! And he smiles... Well, ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... treasured the autographs of distinguished persons who wrote to him—autographs which he disdainfully tossed in the waste basket. She was careful with presentation copies from authors, and she went the length of urging Tim to write a book himself. But at that he balked. ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... rejected." Dokyo's wrath was extreme. He ordered that Kiyomaro's name should be changed to Kegaremaro, which was equivalent to substituting "foul" for "fair;" he banished him to Osumi in the extreme south of Kyushu, and he sent emissaries whose attempt to assassinate him was balked by a thunder-storm. But before he could bring any fresh design to maturity, the Empress died. Dokyo and Asomaro were banished, and Kiyomaro was recalled ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... migratory cowboy, who had stopped all night at the ranch and whom he had hired and sent on to camp, that he would not return to the round-up, and that Ford was to go ahead as they had planned. That balked Ford's determination to turn the work over to Mason and leave the country, and, after the first day of inner rebellion, he settled down insensibly to the task before him and let his own peculiar moral problem wait upon his leisure. He did not dream that the cowboy had witnessed his chastisement ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... than I can say," answered Sam. "I know that I did not tell him; he heard it by some means, and that was the reason he bought you of the old Sheik, and paid such a high price for you too. So you see he is not likely to be balked, and I'd advise you to come with a good grace. I am very sorry that you should have to do what you do not like, but you see you have no choice in the matter; when he asked me I had to confess that ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... And then, oh horrors! It was her turn again! Her turn had never before come more than twice during a mental arithmetic lesson. She was so startled by the swiftness with which the question went around that she balked on 6 x 6, which she knew perfectly. And before she could recover Ralph had answered and had rattled out a 108 in answer to 9 x 12; and then Ellen slapped down an 84 on top of 7 x 12. Good gracious! Who could have ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... free, she rushed to her room. He tried to stop her, but this time she was too quick. She reached the room before him and bolted the door in his face. Balked of his prey, he stood for a moment looking at the closed door in sullen silence. Then, as if seized by a sudden uncontrollable frenzy, he seized the poker in the fireplace and rushing to the door, smashed in the panel. Putting his arm through the jagged rent, he coolly ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... gave the first manifestation of its unholy heathen power when it balked, defying modern civilization and through sorcery or in other unhallowed ways contrived to interfere with the public electric traction service, paralyzing the traffic so effectively that every street car in the town was stopped; not merely a few ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... expansion, of the unfoldment of new powers; driven by that inner impulse which the philosophers of Pragmatism call the elan vital. Whenever this impulse has its way, there is an emotion of joy; whenever it is balked, there is one of distress. So pleasure and pain are the guides of life, and the final goal is a condition of free and constantly accelerating growth, ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... reckoned upon the colossal task the reefing of three sails meant for one man. While running away from the wind I had not appreciated its force, but when we ceased to run I learned to my sorrow, and well-nigh to my despair, how fiercely it was really blowing. The wind balked my every effort, ripping the canvas out of my hands and in an instant undoing what I had gained by ten minutes of severest struggle. At eight o'clock I had succeeded only in putting the second reef into the foresail. At eleven o'clock I was no farther along. Blood ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... was to be a modish person; therefore she would not be left out of the iniquitous monde, though her face, if nothing else, placed her safely beyond the pale of Whitehall sin. One of the saddest things in life is to be balked in an honest desire to ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... they looked at his viperish, flat head, his slit mouth, his eyes gleaming through glasses, and heard his sharp, persistent voice which rasped their nerves. His muddy skin, with its sickly tones of green and yellow, expressed the jaundice of his balked ambition, his perpetual disappointments and his hidden wretchedness. He could talk and argue; he was well-informed and shrewd, and was not without smartness and metaphor. Accustomed to look at everything from the standpoint of his own success, he was well fitted ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Lisner, you hadn't a chance to get by with it," said Pringle slowly and thoughtfully. "If I hadn't balked you, the Barelas stood ready; if the Barelas failed, yonder big dust was on the way; half your own posse would have turned on you for half a guess at the truth. It's a real nice little world—and it hates a lie. A good many people lay their fine-drawn plans, but they ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... Sweet and the Forgiving will nurse you well until your haunted end. Oh! why does Umbelazi lean over your shoulder, Saduko, and look at me so strangely? Farewell, Panda the Shadow. Now let loose your slayers. Oh! let them loose swiftly, lest they should be balked of my blood!" ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... met. And gravely walked and talked. He read her no more verses, and he stayed Only until their conversation, balked Of every natural channel, fled dismayed. Again the next day she would meet him, trying To give her tone some healthy sprightliness, But his uneager dignity soon chilled Her well-prepared address. Thus Summer waned, and in the mornings, crying Of wild geese startled Eunice, and their flying ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... balked of his revenge, seemed to become more furious than ever. He rushed to and fro, uttering savage grunts, and at intervals dashing his horns against the rocks, as if he hoped to break them to pieces, and open a passage to his ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid |
