"Beguile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thy body, doing as I bid thee, and behold! for a while thy shape shall wear the shape of the Golden Helen, and thy face shall be as her face, and thine eyes as her eyes, and thy voice as her voice. Then I leave the rest to thee, for as Helen's self thou shalt beguile the Wanderer, and once, if once only, be a wife to him whom thou desireth. Naught can I tell thee of the future, I who am but a counsellor, but hereafter it may be that woes will come, woes and wars and death. But what matter these when thou hast had thy desire, when he hath sinned, and ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... except in a spirit of determined scepticism. He knows, certainly, that the ballad is modern, and, knowing that, he easily finds proofs of modernism even where they do not really exist. I am convinced that to imitate a ballad that would, except for the lack of documentary evidence, beguile the expert, is perfectly feasible. I even venture to offer examples of my own manufacture at the close of this volume. I can find nothing suspicious in them, except the deliberate insertion of formulae which occur ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... seemed its accomplishment, the more I shrunk from the thought of deceiving Ernest, in this hour of restored tranquillity and abounding love. I loathed the idea of deceiving any one,—but Ernest, my lover, my husband,—how could I beguile ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... ask, when back on Blighty's shore My frozen frame in liberty shall rest, For pleasure to beguile the hours in store With long-drawn revel or with antique jest. I do not ask to probe the tedious pomp And tinsel splendour of the last Revue; The Fox-trot's mysteries, the giddy Romp, And all such folly I would fain eschew. But, propt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... was needed than patriotic sentiment. All-red speeches might adorn a banquet or win an election, but facts—or fictions—as to freight and dividends were needed to beguile the capital from investors' pockets. The hope of securing for the Canadian provinces the trade and traffic of the golden West was, in early years as in late, much the strongest factor in ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... Where the girl's heart—a tender heart like hers— Strives to defeat earth's greatest powers' great plots With her poor little kerchief, shall I change The print for Turner's riddles wild and strange? Or take her stories—simple tales which her few leisure hours beguile— And give her Browning's Sordello, a Herbert Spencer, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... her hand in his. His chest rose. He knew she was seeking to beguile him, but he could not take his eyes off hers. He was in a worse plight than a woman listening to ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... replied I, "condemned to wear out their lives in confinement, which they try to beguile by the exercise of accomplishments, which would have adorned society, had they been ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... riveted the name of a stripling artist to that of the world-renowned scholar, Erasmus had fallen ill while a guest in the sunny Bucklersbury home where three tiny daughters and a baby son were the darlings of Sir Thomas More and his wife. To beguile the tedium of convalescence the invalid had scribbled off a jeu d'esprit, with its punning play on More's name, Encomium Moriae, in which every theme for laughter, in a far from squeamish day, was collected under that title. Read ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... man with soul so dead as to write about the Temple without mentioning the little fountain in Fountain Court?—that pet and plaything of the Temple, that, like a little fairy, sings to beguile the cares of men oppressed with legal duties. It used to look like a wagoner's silver whip—now a modern writer cruelly calls it "a pert squirt." In Queen Anne's time Hatton describes it as forcing its stream "to a vast and almost incredible altitude"—it is now only ten ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... beguile the way on their journeys with riding songs. These are sung in alternate strains, one being generally a clamorous recitative, and the other a kind of choral fugue, strange and romantic, and heard with pleasing effect in the mountains. Often when toiling at a foot-pace up the precipitous ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... my loved Madame de Maisonneuve, full of feeling, sense, sweetness, information to beguile me back to life, and of sympathy to open my sad heart ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... name of Theodoric of Verona is almost inconceivable to us, till we call to mind that the minstrels were in truth the novelists of the Middle Ages, not pretending or desiring to instruct, but only to amuse and interest their hearers, and to beguile the tedium of existence in ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... slightly agitated, as the wind gradually fell and a thick mist settled on the water. Hour after hour passed away, as we rushed onward through the blank, and we naturally turned to our fellow-passengers in search of some interest or diversion to beguile the time. The heavy-bearded, peasants and their weather-beaten wives were scattered around the deck in various attitudes, some of the former asleep on their backs, with open mouths, beside the smoke-stack. There were many picturesque figures among them, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... shall these benighted eyes Languish in shades, like feeble flies Expecting spring? How long shall darkness soil The face of earth, and thus beguile Our souls of sprightful action? When, when will day Begin to dawn, whose new-born ray May gild the weathercocks of our devotion, And give our unsouled souls new motion? Sweet Phosphor, bring the day: The light will fray These horrid mists: sweet ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... pasture. At the sound—if you are of country training—you see yourself, somewhat misty through the years, barefoot in a grassy lane, with stick in hand, urging the gentle beast. There is a subtle persuasion in the junkman's call. In these tones did the magician, bawling for old lamps, beguile Aladdin. If there were this morning in my lodging an unrubbed lamp, I would toss it from the window for such magic as he might extract from it. And if a fair Princess should be missing at the noon and her palace be skipped from ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... back, therefore, an answer calculated to beguile Lisa, assuring him that he would wait for him at the Poncas village, which was but a little distance in advance; but, no sooner had the messenger departed, than he pushed forward with all diligence, barely stopping at the village to procure a supply of dried buffalo meat, and hastened to leave ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... when competitors like these contend, Can surly Virtue hope to fix a friend? Slaves that with serious impudence beguile, And lie without a blush, without a smile, Exalt each trifle, every vice adore, Your taste in snuff, your judgment in a whore, Can Balbo's eloquence applaud, and swear 150 He gropes his breeches with a ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... Whilst trying to beguile his tedium at the camp of Compiegne, the dauphin, it is said, overtaxed his strength, and died at the age of thirty-six on the 20th of December, 1765, profoundly regretted by the bulk of the nation, who knew his virtues without troubling themselves, like the court ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... delightful interests of his vagabond life rose up to beguile him; all its miseries were forgotten. He must get to the office right away. This was a blizzard, sure enough! and that meant "extras" to cry, sidewalks to shovel, a mad haste to get ahead of his mates and gather in more nickels than they, maybe stolen rides behind livery ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... back under the sissoo tree, caught the goblin just as before, put him on his shoulder, and started toward the monk. And as he walked along, the goblin on his shoulder spoke and said: "O King, listen once more to the following story to beguile ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... said he, turning to the students, "I marvel that you, being cavaliers of family, and doubtless holding yourselves men of honor, should beguile these poor knaves into certain ruin, whilst yourselves could reap nothing but a brief mockery of the authority which you ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... repeat that he cannot be surpassed in his humanity to the lonely widow and her helpless orphans. He will collect a number of his friends, and proceed with them in a body to plant her bit of potato ground, to reap her oats, to draw home her turf, or secure her hay. Nay, he will beguile her of her sorrows with a natural sympathy and delicacy that do him honor; his heart is open to her complaints, and his hand ever extended to ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... her brilliant retinue, made a monthly visit to these palaces and pleasure-grounds, and with music, illumination, and dances, endeavored to beguile life of its cares. A noisy concourse, glittering with diamonds and all the embellishments of wealth, thronged the embowered avenues and the sumptuous halls. And while the young, in the mazes of the dance, and in the uneasy witchery of winning and losing hearts, were all ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... two-pronged fork {Philemon} lifts down[85] a rusty side of bacon, that hangs from a black beam; and cuts off a small portion from the chine that has been kept so long; and when cut, softens it in boiling water. In the meantime, with discourse they beguile the intervening hours; and suffer not the length of time to be perceived. There is a beechen trough there, that hangs on a peg by its crooked handle; this is filled with warm water, and receives their limbs to refresh them. On the middle of the couch, its feet and frame[86] being made ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... clear to you, when I show you how and by whom the killing of Theodore and his wife was engineered, you will begin to understand the fantastic trick that Fate played when she sent her emissary to the hunchback artist in the Louvre. But it is a long story, and it will beguile the journey across Austria, while there are many things you must attend to ere you leave Paris in the Orient ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... when thee list, be in company when thee list, and be by thyself when thee list, so that[275] God and grace be thy leader. Let fast who fast will, and be only who will, and let hold silence who so will, but hold thee by God that doth beguile no man; for silence and speaking, onliness and company, fasting and eating, all may beguile thee. And if thou hear of any man that speaketh, or of any that is still, of any that eateth or of any that fasteth, or of any that is in company or else by himself, think thou, and ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... made answer and said: "Not in this wise, strong as thou art, O godlike Achilles, beguile thou me by craft; thou shalt not outwit me nor persuade me. Dost thou wish, that thou mayest keep thy meed of honour, for me to sit idle in bereavement, and biddest me give her back? Nay, if the great-hearted Achaians will give me a meed ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... not beguile Shakespeare to "the very heart of loss," as he cried; but to the innermost shrine of the temple of Fame. It was his absolute abandonment to passion which made Shakespeare the supreme poet. If it had not been for his excessive sensuality, and his mad passion for his "gipsy," we should never have had ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... in thought, hardly noticed that the driver of his carriage descended from the box and lounged toward the archway, where the hum of traffic and the passage of many people would serve to beguile a long wait. After a minute's delay, a driver returned and climbed to the seat—but it was not the same driver. He wore the same coat and hat, but a different face looked out from the sheep-skin collar turned up to the ears. There was no one in the court-yard to notice this trifling change. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... between the trees, beyond which a hum of voices, an occasional laugh, and the stamping of horses and jingling of bridles, betokened that a good many followers were in waiting. Malcolm's harp was quickly brought, having been slung in its case to the saddle of Halbert's horse; and as he had used it to beguile the last evening's halt, it did not need much tuning. Surprised as his princely notions were at being commanded rather than requested to sing, the sweet encouraging smile and tone of kind authority banished ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... He was elegant in his manners and bland and refined in his deportment. He was a skilful musician and passionately fond of children, and it was his wont in early life to gather them in groups about him and beguile them by the hour with the music of the flute or violin. He was actually devoid of all ambition for power and place, and uniformly declined all offers of advancement to the highest judicial ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... that red-headed, false-hearted White Cat, as you took into your house and home, for to beguile and corrupt your own ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... having made the circuit a dozen times, and while one part of my intelligence knew, in all reason, there was not a vestige of hope, yet some strange fascinating aberration bewitched and compelled me still to beguile myself with expectation. The other part of my brain seemed to tell me that while there was no possibility of my father being alive, yet, if I quit making the circuitous pilgrimage, if I paused for a single moment, it would be acknowledgment of defeat, and, should I do this, ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... dark, numerous beacon lights blazed from the watch-towers, some speedily vanishing, others twinkling and glancing like meteors that beguile the wanderer from his way, but many with clear and steady ray, shone brightly over the face of the deep and guided the sailor on his adventurous course. The first were the so-called fire drakes, covered partly by metallic plates which turn, and thus is caused the appearing and ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... and midnight, fare ye well! The vision melts away, the motley crowd Is veiled by Prospero in a passing cloud; Like his dissolving pageantry they fade, The vap'ry stuff whereof our dreams are made; No more malignant winter to beguile, Nor start the virgin's tear, the judge's smile; Save when some annalist, like me, recalls The ancient fame of those degraded walls; Or till an age less hateful to the Muse To their old shape ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... nigh on ter twenty ya'rs ... but Jim's old an' I'm old ... an' afore long we'll both be gone ... an' nuther one ner t'other of us hain't sich fools es not ter know what we've been holdin' down.... Nuther one ner t'other of us don't beguile hisself with ther notion thet all them old hates air dead ... or thet ef wild-talkin', loose-mouthed men gains a hearin' ... ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... his skipper should come at such a moment to ask him if he would like to land at Palermo; for why should he land in Sicily unless to meet the goatherd who in order to beguile Thyrsis to sing the song of Daphnis told him that "his song was sweeter than the music of yonder water that is poured from the high face of the rock"? It was in Sicily that rugged Polyphemus, peering over ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... three: we eat because we are hungry. We rarely fail to eat excessively to satisfy the sense of relish after the normal hunger sense has been dissipated; we may eat to satisfy relish as we eat ice cream, fruits, and the enticing extras that beguile us to put more food into the stomach after it is already overfilled for its working capacity. But our actual need of food, the best reason for taking it, is to make up for the wastes from the general activities; ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... selection of his mezzotints on the walls—ladies of old years, after Romney, Reynolds, Hoppner, and the rest. A sober opulence and comfort characterised the chambers; a well-selected set of books in a Sheraton bookcase was intended to beguile the tedium of waiting clients. The typewriter (Miss Blossom accepted the situation) occupied an inner chamber, opening out of that which was to ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... Shall sun that morrow see! Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters:—to beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it. He that's coming Must be provided for; and you shall put This night's great business into ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... of business there is present safety and ultimate relief. Harder is the lot of those who have few necessary occupations, enforced by other claims than their own harmlessness and profitableness. Reading often fails. Now and then it may beguile; but much oftener the attention is languid, the thoughts wander, and associations with the subject of grief are awakened. Women who find that reading will not do, will obtain no relief from sewing. Sewing is pleasant ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... thought of fraud. Montreuil perceived that I was not yet wholly his, and his next plan was to remove me from a spot where I might check his measures. He persuaded me to travel for a few weeks. "On your return," said he, "consider Isora yours; meanwhile, let change of scene beguile suspense." I was passive in his hands, and I went ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Nellie, with Dick acting under her directions and Bob, too, assisting in a desultory way when the superior attractions of crab-hunting on his own account did not beguile him from the pursuit, all hunted everywhere, finding every variety of young whelks, cockles, and other shell-fish ova on the pier-piles, which they were able to examine at their pleasure, it being low tide, no sea ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... beckoning memories, Back to those summer evenings on the hill Where we together watched the sun go down Beyond the gold-washed uplands, while his fires Touched into glittering life the vanes and spires Piercing the purpling mists that veiled the town. The wintry night thy voice and eyes beguile, Till wake the ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... the slender-waisted Krishna reproving said unto the king of Sindhu, 'Speak not thus again! Art thou not ashamed? Be on thy guard!' And that lady of irreproachable character anxiously expecting the return of her husband, began, with long speeches, to beguile him completely." ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... liking to 'live and be merry,' With a strong fellow feeling for brandy and sherry. And then there was one with elongated face, Who seemed to have made a mistake in the place. Not a jest, nor a pleasure, was known to beguile His lugubrious countenance into a smile; But he moved through the dance, from beginning to end, Like a man on his way to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the Bible she had as little idea as a Persian houri, and rugged Roman virtue could not develop in the social atmosphere in which the Allens lived. It was with a clear conscience that she resolved to beguile Mr. Fox, and signified as much ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... him down with solemn book His sadness to beguile; A skull from off its bracket-nook Threw him a lipless smile; But its awful, laughter-mocking look, Was ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... some secluded corner one might happen upon a man and a girl. They would be sitting very close together, and behaving... well, as men and maidens sometimes do, to beguile the tedium ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... of the box, and certain projecting nails interfered with the letter-press and defeated all attempts to trace the thread of the nameless narrative, stole back over my brain; and I seemed once more, with my head in the Toy Box, to beguile a wet afternoon by apoplectic endeavours to follow the fortunes of Sir Charles and Lady Belinda, as they took a favourable turn in the left-hand corner at the bottom ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the cynic snarl or smile, And his great intellect beguile; My little dog, so true to me, Will dear to heart ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... before, and first consider the habit of courage; and then we will go on and discuss another and then another form of virtue, if you please. In this way we shall have a model of the whole; and with these and similar discourses we will beguile the way. And when we have gone through all the virtues, we will show, by the grace of God, that the institutions of which I was speaking look ...
— Laws • Plato
... that a woman shall prepare for the reception of visitors by adorning her rooms with flowers and dressing herself in fine linen and silk attire, and be to all men alike as they come and go. She must cover all with winning glances, and beguile all with seductive eyes and foot, and talk about love, though, perhaps she would prefer to think of one who is far away. Men do not live under such restraint. A man may reserve all his thoughts for his mistress, but the moment he leaves, his mistress ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... counting death as nothing so long as the dying eyes still turn to it. And fear, and dulness and indolence and appetite, which indeed are no more than fear's three crippled brothers who make ambushes and creep by night, are against him, to delay him, to hold him off, to hamper and beguile and kill him in that quest. He had but to lift his eyes to see all that, as much a part of his world as the driving clouds and the bending grass, but he kept himself downcast, a grumbling, inglorious, dirty, fattish little tramp, full of dreads and ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... unlike the complex works of man, Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan, No meretricious graces to beguile, No clustering ornaments to clay the pile. From ostentation as from weakness free, It stands like the cerulean arch we see, Majestic in its own simplicity. Inscribed above the portal from afar, Conspicuous as the brightness ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... suffering. Her share of it was another matter. Perhaps Mr. Carleton thought so, for he immediately bent himself to reward her and to avert the evil, and for that purpose brought into play every talent of manner and conversation that could beguile the time, and make her forget what she was among. If success were his reward he had it. He withdrew her attention completely from all that was around her, and without tasking it; she could not have borne that. He did not seem to task himself; but without ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... read Miss Edgeworth's tales;—now, have you? If you had, you'd have recollected that there was such a word, even if you didn't remember what it was. If you've never read those stories, they would be just the thing to beguile your solitude—vastly improving and moral, and yet quite sufficiently interesting. I'll lend them to ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... improve his French to the best of his ability by the aid of some books he had obtained and by chatting with his jailer, worked his hardest to add to his knowledge of the language, and as the French soldiers were quite glad to beguile the time away by talking with their captives, he succeeded at the end of the journey, which lasted nearly a month, in being able to chat with a certain amount of fluency. Verdun was one of the four places ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... in every room. Rugs of priceless fur concealed the rough flooring. Chinese silks, Japanese damasks,—Oriental tapestries smuggled in by the fur traders,—covered the walls; and richest of silk attired the Russian officers and their ladies, compelled to beguile time here, where the only break in monotony was the arrival of fresh ships from America, or exiles from St. Petersburg, or gambling or drinking or dancing or feasting the long winter nights through, with, ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... of hers was indeed a frightful desert when art did not beguile it with its illusions; a desert mournful and flat, where everything was lost, reduced to one level, beneath the same monotonous immensity, the naive love of a child of twenty, a passionate duke's caprice, in which ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... believe in no more gods but in Him that was at the beginning, and made of naught all things visible and invisible, which Lord took flesh and blood, being in the Virgin, the same God. But ye have many false ways, to beguile the innocent people with ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... tail upward so that the electric light on the end of it enabled them to see one another quite clearly. But the Tube itself was only dark metal, smooth as glass but exactly the same from one of its ends to the other. Therefore there was no scenery of interest to beguile the journey. ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... was not something happening to some of us?) and we were shut up in a sick-room, then duly as daylight came the quick step and cheerful face of Aunt Esther,—not solemn and lugubrious like so many sick-room nurses, but with a never-failing flow of wit and story that could beguile even the most doleful into laughing at their own afflictions. I remember how a fit of the quinsy—most tedious of all sicknesses to an active child—was gilded and glorified into quite a fete by my having Aunt Esther all to myself for two whole days, with nothing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... voice supplies; Speaks all his heart must feel, his tongue would say: Yet ah! not all his heart must sadly feel! How oft the flow'ret's silken leaves conceal The drug that steals the vital spark away! And who that gazes on that angel-smile, Would fear its charm, or think it could beguile! ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... phrases and committing them to memory. On landing I found these few phrases extremely useful, and I mention the fact by way of encouragement, and in case any other traveller should be inclined similarly to beguile the tedium of the voyage. He will ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... to the great griefe both of maister and mistresse, when the trueth was knowne, that they so wronged their honest servant: how it may forewarne others, I leave to your owne opinions, that see what extraordinarie devises are now avayed, to beguile the ...
— The Third And Last Part Of Conny-Catching. (1592) - With the new deuised knauish arte of Foole-taking • R. G.
... tranquil days, studying, planning, training his hand to mastery, but enjoying in his leisure all that such a home could give him of varied entertainment. Music and dancing, literature and good company, all had their charms for him, though none of them could beguile him into neglecting his work. Fortune had tried him with her frowns and with her smiles; under temptations of both sorts he remained but ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... Beauty's tear will sure beguile; Hearts that armies ne'er defeated, Love can conquer with a smile. Who would strive to live in story, Did not woman's hand prepare Amaranthine wreaths of glory Which ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... Accordingly, on entering the little churchyard, he saw the old man labouring in a half-made grave. "My destiny," thought Ravenswood, "seems to lead me to scenes of fate and of death; but these are childish thoughts, and they shall not master me. I will not again suffer my imagination to beguile my senses." The old man rested on his spade as the Master approached him, as if to receive his commands; and as he did not immediately speak, the sexton opened the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... this history,—we are seldom far away from an inn in its pages. When I thought of that I sat stiller than ever, hardly daring to turn over the pages of Apuleius, which I had taken from my knapsack to beguile the time, and, I confess, to give my eyes some other occupation than the dangerous one of gazing upon her face, dangerous in more ways than one, but particularly dangerous at the moment, because, as everybody knows, a steady gaze on a sleeping face is apt to awake the ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... numbers of the Congregational Magazine, no visitors, so far as she could make out, no newspaper but the Carlingford Weekly Gazette, nothing but her grandmother's gossip about the chapel and Mrs. Tom to pass the weary hours away. Even last night Mrs. Tozer had asked her whether she had not any work to beguile the long evening, which Phoebe occupied much more virtuously, from her own point of view, in endeavouring to amuse the old people by talking to them. Though it was morning, and she ought to have been refreshed ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... following, which wound about in various directions, in order to avoid marshy ground, or trunks of trees, or other obstacles, and appeared to be perfectly familiar to the horse, who trotted on without any guidance from his rider. As for the latter, as if to beguile the tediousness of the way, he would pat at one moment the neck of his dumb companion, and address a few words to him, and at the next, break out into snatches of song. Thus he proceeded until he emerged from ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... traveller's journey Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the desert. Such in the soul of man is faith. The blossoms of passion, Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller of fragrance, But they beguile us, and lead us astray, and their odor is deadly. Only this humble plant can guide us here, and hereafter Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with the dews ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... dragged him down, riches and all. Bed of disease, secret-place of the unclean, and graveyard of the seas; yet, this yellow-breasted fiend, ancient in devil-lore, can smile innocently as a child at the morning sun, and beguile ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... a child; and I must open my lids to see. And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a night to be always disappointed. It was a strange way of killing, not by inches, but by fractions of hairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteen years." This mania of expectation stretching the nerves to their uttermost strain, relaxed sometimes; and then Heathcliff was dangerous. When filled with the thought of Catharine, ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... office in the Siddons Theatre Building and again seated himself at his desk in front of the pile of manuscript music. This time, however, he brushed aside the title page of his Opus 47 and spread out an evening paper to beguile the tedium of awaiting Benson's "prospects." Automatically he turned to the department headed Music and Musicians, and at the top of the column his eye fell ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... that a man played a woman, not because I would censure what the man did, or say that 'twas not merited by the woman, but rather to commend the man and censure the woman, and to shew that men may beguile those that think to beguile them, as well as be beguiled by those they think to beguile; for peradventure what I am about to relate should in strictness of speech not be termed beguilement, but rather retaliation; for, as it behoves woman to be most strictly virtuous, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... say at once that I did not regret this course of action; for the effect of it was to allow me a chance of talking to Pamela Myles, and Pamela was exactly the sort of a girl to beguile the long pleasant morning hours of a holiday in the country. No one had told Pamela that she was going to be put in a book, and I don't think it would have made any difference had she been told. Pamela's attitude towards books was ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... there still beside him, She alone with strength to smile, Promising that he should suffer No more in a little while, Murmuring tender song and story Weary hours to beguile. ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... to look after Aurore so that she might be reconciled to it, and I have not had a moment to answer you. I am wondering too if you don't like it better to be left to yourself these first few days. But I beguile the need I feel of being near you at this sad time, by telling you over and over again, my poor, dear friend, how much I love you. Perhaps, too, your family has taken you to Rouen or to Dieppe, so as not to let you go back at once into that sad house. I don't know anything ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... restless and fretful patient. It was this Sophy who conferred so long and earnestly with Lily ayah, respecting methods to be adopted, pretences effected, infinitesimal doses exchanged for the usual amount, and the patient craftily beguiled—but it is almost impossible to beguile a person who is suffering from the fierce craving for a drug; and the want of her normal supply soon began to make itself apparent in Mrs. Krauss, and there were not ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... festoons from the roof, were a thousand different creeping flowers. The legend of the house—for, as in India, almost every bungalow on the West Coast has its tale—was that one of the early missionaries had built it, and, to beguile the long months of the rainy season, had carefully collected these creepers to beautify the place against the arrival of his young wife. She never came. A telegram stopped her. A snake interrupted ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... of the discourse) as if I vvere amorous, and did speake according to my ovvne passions, for I beeing restrained of my liberty, and helde in the graue of obliuion, where I still as yet remaine, oppressed with Melancholie, and wearied vvith deeper studies, I vvas glad to beguile the time with these conceits, anothomising in them, the vanitie of this life, and vncertaintie of the delights therof, in the Dreame of Poliphilus; Which if it shall please your Honor at conuenient leysure to looke ouer, pardoning what you finde amisse, and weighing ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... strained that, did we but see one of the natives running across the yard, or hear them conversing in louder tones than usual, we at once thought there must be news, and jumped up from any occupation with which we were trying to beguile the time, only to sink back on our chairs again disappointed. As for knowing what was passing in the world, one might as well have been in another planet. We saw no papers, and there was not much prospect of obtaining any. Before the war we ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... fortunes and tarnished reputation, a graeculus esuriens, who appeared against Milton by the turn of accidents, and not as the representative of the opposite principle. In crushing Morus, Milton could not beguile himself with the idea that he was serving ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... have stripped the garden green. Alas, my friends! beneath the fierce sun's weight A barren reef lies where Love's flowers have been, Nor ever lover on that coast is seen! So be it, for we seek a fabled shore, To lull our vague desires with mystic lore, To wander where Love's labyrinths, beguile; There let us land, there dream for evermore: 'It may be we ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... answered the professor, "it is all very well for you, who have a lovely wife and a sweet little daughter, to laugh at me. But I am a bachelor; I have no wife, no daughter, no domestic ties of any sort to beguile my restless nature and render me content to settle down in the monotonous placidity of a home; I must always be occupied in some exciting pursuit, or I should go mad from very weariness and ennui; and since our memorable cruise in your Flying Fish, I have been unable to ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... song on Sunday, To witch an idle while, I sang that song on Monday, As fittest to beguile; I sang it as the year outwore, And the new slid in; I thought not what might shape ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... of a tale called The Fox and the Ape, related to the poet Spenser to beguile the weary hours of sickness. Several ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... which in his calmer hours he might have shrunk from granting. Cleopatra was a politician as well as a luxurious beauty, and it may have been her supreme aim to secure the independence of Egypt. She wished to beguile Antony as she had sought to beguile Caesar, since they were the masters of the world, and had it in their power to crush her sovereignty and reduce her realm to a mere province of the empire. Nor is there evidence that in the magnificent banquets she gave to the Roman general she ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... succumbed to it, for those whose hearts it ravaged with loneliness and longing. He had used it frequently in his business as a property by which to arouse the emotions of his audiences. That it should some day stand at his side, looking into his eyes, never occurred to him. He tried to think, to beguile himself into the belief that he should presently awake to find it a dream. Futile expedient! She was dead; that dear, kind, loving heart was dead. Ah! and she had died alone! A great sob choked him. He sank into a chair and buried his face in his ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... am that merry wanderer of the night; Jest to Oberon, and make him smile, When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, Neighing in likeness of a filly foal; And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab; And when she drinks against her lips I bob, And on her withered dew-lap ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... saved me once—now they are nothing, in recompense for the hopes which are for ever gone. Your thoughts are gentle, and may sooth all spirits but my own. But sounds that lull others, lull me no longer. It is not the music of a rich dream, or of a pleasant fancy, which may beguile me into pleasure. I am dead—dead as the cold rock—to their influence. The storm which blighted me has seared, and ate into the very core. I am like the tree through which the worm has travelled—it still ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... thee bitter: Thou art not made o' laughter Nor love's smile Can thy vision beguile: Like a black-fiery comet Suddenly, sinisterly, thou comest; Making thy fateful journey, Littering the floor of destiny With wreckages of life, Of love, of heart— Of all visitors thou art the surest; Halting nowhere long, endlessly passest, Dragging behind thee thy train ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... circumstances, sir, I happened to be walking in the yard early one afternoon, and happened to have an iron rod in my hand, with which I have been sometimes accustomed to beguile the monotony of a literary life, when I struck it against an object not necessary to trouble ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... an attitude of dignified reserve with the twins, and their sociable souls were much exercised to devise a means to break down the barrier of coldness which they found between themselves and their tutor. They tried everything they could think of to beguile him back to the old friendly footing, and it was only after all other means had failed that they thought at last of apologising for their unruly conduct. It was the first time that they had ever done such a thing in ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... recourse in this emergency must lie in deceiving the ruffian who thus beset her. Much as she abhorred him, she had no choice. There was none to whom she could appeal for succor. She must depend absolutely upon her ability to beguile him. She must hide the revulsion inspired by his mere presence. She must arm herself with the world-old weapons of her sex, and by wiles blind him to the truth of her feeling, gain time for—something, anything! At least here was room for hope, uncertain, absurd even, yet hope. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... said—I won't vouch for the fact—that Captain Brown was heard to say, sotto voce, "D——n Dr. Johnson!" If he did, he was penitent afterwards, as he showed by going to stand near Miss Jenkyns's arm-chair, and endeavouring to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing subject. But she was inexorable. The next day she made the remark I have mentioned ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... book-shop here or an art-shop there; yesterday a biography of Napoleon was exhibited in the one, or a print of Murillo's 'Flight into Egypt,' in the other; and it is become a matter of speculation whether they were there to-day. Just as a solitary sailor will beguile the tedium of empty days at sea by a kind of cribbage, in which the left hand plays against the right, so I laid odds for and against myself on such trifles as these, and even went so far as to keep ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... when we seek awhile Relief and respite from War's strident chorus, Few books more swiftly charm us to a smile, Few books more truly hearten and restore us Than his, whose art was potent to beguile Thousands of weary souls who came before us— No wonder, when the Huns, who ban our fiction, Were fain to free ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... the mules, took out the clothes, and steeped them in the cisterns, washing them in several waters, and afterwards treading them clean with their feet, venturing wagers who should have done soonest and cleanest, and using many pretty pastimes to beguile their labours as young maids use, while the princess looked on. When they had laid their clothes to dry, they fell to playing again, and Nausicaa joined them in a game with the ball, which is used in that country, which is performed by tossing the ball from hand to hand with great expedition, ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... snakes with point of tooth beguile; Kings by favor kill, and traitors murder with a ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... humor's sake, For he would oft beguile My heart of thoughts that made it ache, And ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... are one or two things to be said on composition which may set the young artist's mind somewhat more at rest, or furnish him with defence from the urgency of ill-advisers, I will glance over the main heads of the matter here; trusting that my doing so may not beguile you, my dear reader, from your serious work, or lead you to think me, in occupying part of this book with talk not altogether relevant to it, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... acts of oppression and outrage were always perpetrated in defence of some supposed right of a defenceless and friendless race, overwhelmed with poverty—the bondmen of ignorance—who had no money with which to corrupt, no art with which to beguile, and no power with which to overawe these representatives of authority. For the first time in the history of mankind, the corrupt and unprincipled agents of undefined power became the servants, friends, protectors, agents, and ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... heart. And in the dusky stillness of the evening, with the faint odour of dewy flowers round me, and distant stars shining dimly in that far-off opal sky; against which the branches of the elms looked so black and dense, I used to beguile myself—or it may be that the influence of the scene and hour beguiled me—into the thought that my separation from Margaret could be only a temporary one. We loved each other so truly! And after all, what under heaven ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... exult to hail the present joy, Thine be the boon that comes unearn'd by toil; No forward vain desire thy bliss annoy, No flattering hope thy longing hours beguile. ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... bubbling over with fun and enjoyment, was all graciousness, and with smiles long remembered by some of the rustic youth, certainly did beguile them into generosity at which they ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... previous blasphemy: "we are better than the Gods." Nay, he offers to intercede with his father Neptune, praying the God to give a sending of the stranger over the sea. Moreover he recognizes his divine father as the only one who can heal him in his present distress. Possibly the words are spoken to beguile, but Polyphemus here offers to do his duty to the stranger on his shores, and he ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... her mutability: But since, amidst ten thousand frowning threats Of fickle fortune's thrice-unconstant wheel, She deigns to show one little pleasing smile, Let's do our best false fortune to beguile, And take advantage of her ever-changing moods. See, see, how Tellus' spangled mantle smiles, And birds do chant their rural sugar'd notes, As ravish'd with our meeting's sweet delights: Since then, there fits for love both time and place, Let love ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... hustled off to fill Abe Potash's order, whereat Abe selected a dill pickle to beguile the tedium of waiting. He grasped it firmly between his thumb and finger, and neatly bisected it with his teeth. Simultaneously the pickle squirted, and about a quarter of a pint of the acid juice struck Morris ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... themselves any more with their idols"; "Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?" "I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land." And the warning in the New is as strong as the promise in the Old: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols"; "Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels"; and the angel's answer, to whom St. John fell down in worship, was "See thou do it not, for I ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... Newton replied that he had had no right to expect otherwise on his first landing on the island; that he had incurred a heavy debt of gratitude to them for having preserved him so long from a prison; and that the remembrance of their kindness would tend to beguile the tedious hours of captivity (from which it may appear that Newton, in point of expressing himself, was half a Frenchman already). He then kissed the hand of Madame de Fontanges, tried to console the little slave girls, who were all au desespoir, patted Cupidon on the head, by way of farewell, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... lovers fly where pleasures call, With festive songs beguile the fleeting hour, Lead beauty through the mazes of the ball, Or press her ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... astonishing, but stuff and matter are wanting. It is an effort of the imagination to stand alone—a substitute for everything else. We find metaphors, rhymes, music, color, but not man, not humanity. Poetry of this factitious kind may beguile one at twenty, but what can one make of it at fifty? It reminds me of Pergamos, of Alexandria, of all the epochs of decadence when beauty of form hid poverty of thought and exhaustion of feeling. I strongly share the repugnance which ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his lovely wife died. He mourned her deeply, saying "she had none of the faults of her sex." To beguile his time he accepted another diplomatic mission to Spain. This time he was to secure a strong ally for Spain against the powerful Richelieu who then held France in his hand as it were. Incidentally ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... for thyself alone, a sunny smile Carries a magic nothing can withstand; A cheerful look may many a care beguile, And to the weary ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... within one month. His own age was not yet quite twelve. For one of these three, for little Edward, his next younger, who died now at the age of nine, Mr. Hare records that John copied out, in large school-hand, a History of Valentine and Orson, to beguile the poor child's sickness, which ended in death soon, leaving a sad ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... freebooting expedition to Spanish waters between 1584 and 1590, and he tells us that he accompanied Captain Clarke in an attack on the Azores and the Canaries. "Having," he tells his friend Lord Hunsdon, "with Captain Clarke made a voyage to the Islands of Terceras and the Canaries, to beguile the time with labour, I writ this book, rough, as hatched in the storms of the ocean, and feathered in the surges of many perilous seas." On August 26th, 1591, Lodge sailed from Plymouth with Sir Thomas Cavendish ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... forms, often more subtle and more intelligent, the same sophism turns up in all systems of materialism.[119] It is affirmed that we have no real idea of the infinite, and it is sought at the same time to beguile the need which reason feels of this idea by ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... yet two days off; but meanwhile, to beguile his impatience, Newman took his way to the Avenue de Messine and got what comfort he could in staring at the blank outer wall of Madame de Cintre's present residence. The street in question, as some travelers will remember, adjoins the Parc Monceau, which is ...
— The American • Henry James
... Hannah!" The sentence took growth and spread all over the Union. It has settled down, as we know, to a fixed form at political meetings, where the audience beguile the waiting time with demanding "What is the matter?" with this or that favorite demagogue. In the sixties, it patly answered any problem. At the presidential election-time of Lincoln's success, a negro minstrel, Unsworth, was a "star" at "444" Broadway, dressing up the daily news ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... alone in the wilderness, and therefore of necessity she was going with them to their town; afterwards to be taken back to the estancia—to her mother. With such false tales, cunningly conceived, does he endeavour to beguile the ears ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... somewhat a little more comfortable. They may none otherwise reckon themselves than sinners, for, as St. Paul saith, "My conscience grudgeth me not of anything, but yet am I not thereby justified," and, as St. John saith, "If we say that we have no sin in us, we beguile ourselves and truth is there not in us." Yet, forasmuch as the cause is to them not so certain as it is to the others afore-mentioned in the first kind, and forasmuch as it is also certain that God sometimes sendeth tribulation to keep and preserve a man from such sin as he would otherwise ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... sign—Albert listened for it—of the slightest sympathy for or against him in the matter. Then the story of little Katy was told as one might tell something that had happened a hundred years ago, without any personal sympathy. It was simply a curious story, an interesting adventure with which to beguile a weary hour of stage riding in the darkness. It would have gratified Albert to have been able to detect the vibration of a painful memory or a pitying emotion, but Helen did not suffer her placidity to be ruffled ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... companies combine; Erect new stocks to trade beyond the line; With air and empty names beguile the town, And raise new credits first, then cry 'em down; Divide the empty nothing into shares, And set the crowd together by ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... perish'd in one flaming pile; The foe old Priam did of life beguile, And with his blood, thy ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... to my heart as life's warm stream, Which animates this mortal clay; For thee I court the waking dream, And deck with smiles the future day; And thus beguile the present pain, With hopes ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... she was beside herself, and breaking open the door she entered in. Then U Raitong, having stopped playing, was annoyed that, to add to his misfortunes, this woman had come to trouble him thus. When she tried to beguile him, U Raitong admonished her and sent her away. She departed just before daybreak. U Raitong then took off his fine clothes, and putting on his rags, sprinkled himself with dust and ashes, and went to plough as was his wont. ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon |
