"Beset" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... circumstances in the cases of those timid people who take refuge in boasting. They are almost invariably the dupes of their own fancies, and for the moment really believe themselves to be capable of endeavors beset by difficulties, of the surmounting of which they ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... a part of English hypocrisy—or, let it be more politely said, English reserve—that, whilst we are fluent enough in grumbling about small inconveniences, we insist on making light of any great difficulties or griefs that may beset us. And just there, I suppose, is the reason why our great novelists have shunned great books as subject-matter. It is fortunate for us (jarring though it is to our patriotic sense) that Mr. Henry James was not born an Englishman, that he was born of a race of specialists—men ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... everywhere. No alley in a great city, no hamlet on a remote mountain, was unvisited by the begging friar. The simple Catholic, who was content to be no wiser than his fathers, found, wherever he turned, a friendly voice to encourage him. The path of the heretic was beset by innumerable spies; and the Church, lately in danger of utter subversion, now appeared to be impregnably fortified by the love, the reverence, and the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... article has reached these conclusions with reluctance, as he has a feeling of deep affection for the German people and equal admiration for their ideals and matchless progress. Even more he admires the magnificent courage with which the German Nation, beset on every hand by powerful antagonists, is now defending its prestige as a nation. The whole-hearted devotion of this great nation to its flag is worthy of the best traditions of the Teutonic race. Nevertheless, this cannot alter the ethical truth, which stands ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... of the Audiencia and rendering opinions. This year I am probate judge, and for the first four months of the year provincial alcalde; and since people find that matters are readily settled I am beset by the natives with their petty lawsuits. I wish that I might have had more time to collect what can be put together, and to write on law. However I shall not neglect perchance to make some slight report. The following is a clause from a letter of your Majesty which I found, addressed to the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... hesitated, weighing the difficulties that would beset him if he should attempt to explain his hesitation, seeing also the more tangible difficulties of evasion if she should turn her clear eyes upon him. It would be better for Dysart if she knew, he said to himself. They had made no secret ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... and he is obscure at times, we fear, because he has not himself a distinct perception of that which he wishes to say, though far oftener his obscurity seems to result from impatience, or the flattery of those hollow and alluring words which beset the dreams of poets, and must be harshly snubbed before they can be finally banished. There are many noble lines in his poems, but not much unity of effect or coherence of sentiment; and it happens now ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... be; not a mild form of it; and in a very few hours Lord Elster was in great danger, the throat being chiefly affected. The house was in commotion; the dowager worse than any one in it. A complication of fears beset her: first, terror for her own safety, and next, the less abject dread that death might remove her grandchild. In this latter fear she partly lost her personal fears, so far at any rate as to remain ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... require his presence. These perplexities had been for some time known to the emperor; and, upon reflection, he doubted not that her own journey, undertaken before his majesty could be aware of the dangers which would beset its latter end, must in some way be connected with the remedy which the emperor designed for this difficult affair. But doubtless she herself was the bearer of sufficient explanations from the imperial ministers on that head. Finally, whilst assuring her that his own ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... upon the domains of other nations. The solitudes of the wilderness thus resounded every where to the tread of the adventurous white man, who, lured on by the hope of gain, thought not of the dangers that beset his path. It doubtless afforded the Indian no little satisfaction to welcome the haughty foreigner to his wigwam, and while dictating his own terms, to receive in payment the honored currency of his fathers. When he took his pay, he measured it off after his own fashion, the unit being the distance ...
— Wampum - A Paper Presented to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society - of Philadelphia • Ashbel Woodward
... was so uncommonly glad to see me, that I should have been all sugar and cream if he had not beset me with business. As it was, I ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... to point out evil and indicate the proper remedy. This induced me, some years ago, to publish the 'Syllabus.' I now confirm that solemn act in your presence. It is to be, henceforth, the rule of your teaching. We have to contend, unceasingly, with the enemies who beset us. Placed on the mountain-top like Moses, I lift up my hands to God in prayer for the triumph of the church. I ask of you, my brother bishops, to support my arms, for they grow weary. Take courage! The church must triumph. ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... spite of the President's professions, the Treasury Department was beset by subtle hostile influences and impediments. The politicians who had the President's ear made him believe that it was the ruin of himself and his household that the investigators sought. Only the enthusiastic popular approval of Secretary ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... company; for the dangers of travelling were not confined merely to the ruggedness of the roads. The highways were infested by troops of robbers and vagabonds who lived by plunder. Turpin and Bradshaw beset the Great North Road; Duval, Macheath, Maclean, and hundreds of notorious highwaymen infested Hounslow Heath, Finchley Common, Shooter's Hill, and all the approaches to the metropolis. A very common sight then, was a gibbet erected by the roadside, ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... put into words the memories that beset her stricken consciousness. But the cheeks that had felt his kiss flamed with ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... in those early days litigation was very simple as compared with that of modern times. Population was sparse and society scarcely organized, land was plentiful and employment abundant. There was an utter absence of the abstruse questions and complications which now beset the law. There was no need of that close and searching study into principles and precedents which keeps the modern law-student buried in his office. On the contrary, the very character of this simple ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... to move him to the city until he was stronger. The quiet country house was an excellent place for convalescence, and under the direction of his trained nurse he could be allowed to read and write, free from the annoyance that must beset him when once he ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... in person to the country which was the scene of these disorders, for the purpose of serving the processes. On the 15th of July, while in the execution of his duty, he was beset on the road by a body of armed men, who fired on him, but fortunately did him no personal injury. At daybreak, the ensuing morning, a party attacked the house of General Nevil, the inspector; but he defended himself resolutely, and obliged the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... to execute for the purchase of souvenirs at Ekaterineburg, and lost no time in visiting a dealer. While we were at breakfast an itinerant merchant called, and subsequently another accosted us on the street. At ordinary times, strangers are beset by men and boys who are walking cabinets of semi-precious stones. A small boy met me in the corridor of the hotel and repeated a lapidarious vocabulary that would have ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... and the toughness of his muscles. He gave back, parrying the lunge, tempted to use his pistol upon his adversary. But now that the cannonading had ceased the shot might be heard by some of the Pirate's men, and before he could escape he might be beset by a crowd of ruffians against whom he would have no chance at all. He could but defend himself with his sword and hope that Diggle might overreach himself in his fury and give him an opportunity to get ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... ether arisen, all the stars. Wilt thou, then, dally, thou complain to go?— For whom already life's as good as dead, Whilst yet thou livest and lookest?—who in sleep Wastest thy life—time's major part, and snorest Even when awake, and ceasest not to see The stuff of dreams, and bearest a mind beset By baseless terror, nor discoverest oft What's wrong with thee, when, like a sotted wretch, Thou'rt jostled along by many crowding cares, And wanderest reeling round, with ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... film of tissue which might have served hitherto to shut off from Frank Theydon's cheery temperament any real knowledge of the pitfalls which may beset the path of the unwary seemed in that instant to shrivel as though it had been ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... about my misfortunes than his own. I therefore told him how it was that I came before him in this plight, barefoot, bareheaded, bleeding and in rags. I told him of my concern for Virginia, of the deadly perils that beset her, and concluded by assuring him that the one service of any moment which he could do me was to devise me some means of communicating with Gioiachino, the vendor of cat's-meat in Lucca. Belviso had put his head between his ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... give up, the soonest possible, to your enemies, in order to save the state, conquests that you cannot retain without injustice. For a long time past God has had His arm raised over you; but He is slow to smite you because He has pity upon a prince who has all his life been beset by flatterers." Noble and strong language, the cruel truth of which the king did not as yet comprehend, misled as he was by his pride, by the splendor of his successes, and by the concert of praises which his people as well as his ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... his depth, and dragging after him, as best he might, the vehicle, heavy with its iron fixtures, and reeking with the water and the tenacious red clay mire. And then, too, the mountain streams were beset with quick-sands—indeed, every detail of the night journey was environed with danger. He could scarcely be expected to win through safely, and Gladys felt a rush of indignation that he should have attempted ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Great difficulties beset the Duke of Parma at the commencement of the siege. Sluys was built upon the only piece of solid ground in the district, and it was surrounded by such a labyrinth of canals, ditches, and swamps, that ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... met them, and showed them the folly and sin of which they had been guilty; and they sought and found pardon through the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, through the help of God's Holy Spirit, they began to struggle against the temptations by which they were beset, and in the struggle grew strong, strong enough to resist even the making of illegal gains; and so the fortune that was to restore them to home and country was a long time in the making, and meanwhile they clung to each ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... had its turn at the sieges that have beset the castle. From the old tower there came a rattling hail when Waller's artillery flashed forth its fire upon the Royalist garrison in the castle. The old bells that peal out the Sunday chimes seem to retain something of the jubilant spirit of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... increase, as he was unable to disobey thy command. And when darkness hath covered the world, the born beings were harassed by death, but having obtained thee for a protector, they attained the utmost security. Whenever we are beset by perils, thy reverence is always our refuge; for this reason it is that we solicit a boon from thee; as thou ever grantest the boon solicited ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... maces, set out and rushed towards the Pandava. And he rushed in amain like a maddened elephant. Bhimasena pierced his sides with three choice arrows. And the mighty Maniman, on his part, in wrath taking and flourishing a tremendous mace hurled it at Bhimasena. Thereupon Bhimasena beset with innumerable shafts sharpened on stones, hurled that mighty mace in the sky, dreadful, and like unto the lightning flash. But on reaching the mace those shafts were baffled; and although discharged ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... land beyond, the long-sought kingdom, full of arts and wiles. Jason was beset with ten thousand temptations, and was more than once upon the point of falling into a snare, when, however, he seemed to behold the apparition of his withered rose, which bloomed and blushed again at such times, and gave out a faint fragrance, so like a breath from that Eden on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... of his calm and dignified attitude. He twisted in his chair, where many a confounded and beset soul had writhed before him, and ran his fingers through his long hair, disturbing it into fantastic disorder. His breath came through his open lips, his shoulders sagged wearily, his long back was bent as he drooped forward, whipping ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... shillings—ten or fifteen shillings a week; Ellen's beauty was worth a great deal more. The hands of the clock went on, he had to close his letter and post it; and no sooner was it posted than he was beset by qualms of conscience. During the meeting he wondered what Ellen would think of his letter, and he feared it would shock her and trouble her; for, while considering the rights of the child, she would remember his admiration ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... from the ground, and as I laid my face against it and looked up, I seemed to be looking up a ship's side. It was perfectly cylindrical, branchless, and smooth, save, of course, the tiny prickles which beset the bark, for a height at which we could not guess, but which we luckily had an opportunity of measuring. A wild pine grew in the lowest fork, and had kindly let down an air-root into the soil. We tightened ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... red with the blood of the Piankeshaws, the limbs of the soldier soon recovered their strength, and he was able to rise, to survey the scene of his late sufferings and liberation, and again recur to the harassing subject of his kinswoman's fate. Again he beset Nathan with questions, which soon recalled the disturbed looks which his deliverer had worn when first assailed with interrogatories. He adjured him to complete the good work he had so bravely begun, by leaving himself to his fate, and making his way to the emigrants, or to the nearest inhabited ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... fancy upon one of these creatures, lie in wait for it, beset it with kindness, persevere in overcoming its wildness. You are amused, delighted, proud of your success. One day—you remember?—it sang as you had always wished to hear it. It annoyed you, and you threw a stone at it. With a little ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... verdant fields al richly dide, With natures gifts, and Floras painted pride: There is a goodly spring whose christal streames Beset with myrtles, keepe backe Phoebus beames: There in rich seates all wrought of Ivory, The Graces sit, listening the melodye: The warbling Birds doo from their prettie billes Unite in concord, as the brooke distilles, Whose gentle murmure with his buzzing noates Is ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Compassionate, I'm dazed about my case for lo! * Troubles and griefs beset me sore; I know not whence they grow. I will be patient, so the folk, that I against a thing * Bitt'rer than very aloes' self,[FN400] endured have, may know. Less bitter than my patience is the taste of aloes-juice; * I've borne with patience what's more hot than coals with fire aglow. In this ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... now that they had recovered from their first discomfiture, rallied manfully. So stubborn and bitter raged the struggle that there was not a sound to be heard outside the noise of scuffling feet and the thud of blows. A man when hard beset for his life has no breath to spare for either oath of despair or shout of triumph. But not for long were the scales to swing so evenly; presently the ranks of the Stockaders yielded again to the pressure and broke into separate groups. Then were to be heard the groans of the wounded ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... I felt that I was. The two letters that I had received from her during my absence—so kind, so affectionate, and so full of fervent prayers to God that her poor boy might be preserved from the temptations that beset the sailor, and be brought safely back to her widowed arms—rushed to my remembrance, and overwhelmed me with grief; and I—I, who ought to have denied myself even innocent gratification until I had ministered to her wants, had forgotten the best of mothers, and had spent all of my hard ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... particular set of persons, and that to shun the world is to shun them; as if we could point out, as it were, with the finger, what is the world, and thus could easily rid ourselves of one of our three great enemies. Men, who are beset with this notion, are often great lovers of the world notwithstanding, while they think themselves at a distance from it altogether. They love its pleasures, and they yield to its principles, yet they speak strongly against men of the world, and avoid them. ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... was to play in it, had been glorious as a poet's dream. But the minor dexterities of management were not among his endowments; in his eagerness to reach the goal, he had forgotten that the course is a labyrinthic maze, beset with difficulties, of which some may be surmounted, some can only be evaded, many can be neither. Hurried on by the headlong impetuosity of his temper, he entangles himself in these perplexities; and thinks to penetrate them, not by skill and patience, but by open force. He ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... beset by boats, their owners pushing, vociferating, and chaffering for fares, as though Mammon, and not Moloch, were the ruling spirit. Together with a chance companion of the voyage, Signor Alvigini, Intendente of Genoa, and his party, we are soon in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... could have written the book, and said this character could "only be delineated as it is by an author combining the intense feelings and sympathies of a woman with the conceptive power of artistic genius." The woman theory was pronounced to be beset with serious difficulties, however, and the notice concluded with these words: "But while pronouncing no decisive opinion on this point, we may remark that the union of the best qualities of the masculine and feminine ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... the difficulties and perils with which Columbus had to contend on his return to Europe. Had one tenth part of them beset his outward voyage, his factious crew would have risen in arms against the enterprise, and he never would ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... a main part of the design of this Magazine to sympathise with what is truly great and good; to scout the miserable discouragements that beset, especially in England, the upward path of men of high desert; and gladly to give honour where it is due, in right of Something achieved, tending to elevate the tastes and thoughts of all who contemplate it, and prove a lasting credit to ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... Meekie's instrumentality, she undoubtedly knew all that passed on the farm, and as surely as she had noted the fate of the van Cannan heirs, she recognized Christine as an ally and friend, and had warned her as best she could of the dangers that beset Roddy. It was she who had sighed and whispered through the closed shutters, frightening Christine at first, but in the end engendering trust, and it was she who, on hearing of the narrow escape of Roddy from the tarantula, had made up her mind to spirit him, with the aid of ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... Bend fleksi. Beneath sub. Benediction beno. Benefactor bonfaristo. Beneficial profita. Benefit profito. Benevolence bonfaro. Bent kurba. Benumb rigidigi. Bequeath testamenti. Bequest heredajxo. Bereave (of) senigi (je). Berry bero. Berth (ship) kusxejo. Beseech petegi. Beset cxirkauxi. Beside apud. Besides krom. Besiege siegxi. Besot bestigxi. Besprinkle sxprucigi sur. Best (adj.) la plej bona. Best (adv.) la plej bone. Bestial besta. Bestir, one's self sin movetadi, vigligxi. Bestow donaci. Bet veti. Bet veto. Betimes ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Catholicism was a kind of lull in it—a lulling power—like that of the monotonous organ-music, which Holland, Catholic or not, still so greatly loves. But what he could not away with in the Catholic religion was its unfailing drift towards the concrete—the positive imageries of a faith, so richly beset with ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... reflection. The troubled currents of the stream ran on this wise. To go forward in my present undertaking may involve a committal to a work that a few short months shall not terminate. In such case, there will follow a life of toil and sacrifice, on stinted allowance, beset with trials and perplexities, and clouded by cold unfeeling criticisms, censures and misjudgings, of both motive and labor, of which I can now entertain no adequate conception. But if this work be not the dictate of duty, then why this unrest of soul which has ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... have his uses all the same, if you take him for what he is, and not for what he is not, and does not pretend to be. If he does not speak with the weight and authority of a party leader, he is at least free from the embarrassments by which a party leader is beset, and unhampered by the caution which a party leader is bound to exercise. He commits nobody but himself, and therefore he can afford to speak with a bluntness which is denied to those whose utterances commit many thousands of other people. ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... and at battle with the world or the elements. This restlessness, which those who have lost it call divine, took possession of Julia that springtime, and a dissatisfaction with the simple life and its narrow limits beset her. Surely, she found herself asking, this was not the end of all things—this cottage to be the limit of her life and ambitions; her work to grow cabbages and eat them, to keep her father in the paths of temperance ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... had burst in Jinnie's face, she could have been no more alarmed. She was frozen to silence, and every former fear her father had given life to almost three years before, beset her once more, only with many times the amount of vigor. Nevertheless, she gave back look for look, challenge for challenge, while her fingers locked and interlocked. Her uncle, who had sent her father to his grave, the man ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... already a source of serious anxiety to his friends. He returned much exhausted, and passed the summer at Nahant, where the climate always benefited him, while his laboratory afforded the best conditions for work. If this summer home had a fault, it was its want of remoteness. He was almost as much beset there, by the interruptions to which a man in his position is ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... loved him. Afflicted early with a deafness that became total,—the irony of fate,—the majority of his master-works were evolved from a mind shut away from the pleasures and disturbances of earthly sounds, and beset by invalidism and suffering. Naturally genial, he grew morbidly sensitive. Infirmities of temper as well as of body marked him for their own. But underneath all superficial shortcomings of his intensely human nature was a Shakespearean dignity of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... called abruptly from our house after dinner, and returning in about three hours, said he had been with an enraged authour, whose landlady pressed him for payment within doors, while the bailiffs beset him without; that he was drinking himself drunk with Madeira, to drown care, and fretting over a novel, which, when finished, was to be his whole fortune, but he could not get it done for distraction, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... wrought more ruin to more people than the Messina catastrophe, also the floods that had destroyed crops in the fertile river bottoms a few weeks before, one could understand popular opposition to more dangers and more taxes. These were some of the perplexities that beset the Government. No wonder that the diplomats were weighing their words cautiously at the Consulta, also weighing with extreme fineness the quid pro quo they would accept as "compensation" from Austria for upsetting the Balkan ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... arrows of misfortune, however they should, as incident to humanity, glance a slight wound, may never reach your heart; that the snares of villainy may never beset you in the road of life; that innocence may hand you by the path of honour to the dwelling of peace—is the sincere wish of him who has the honour to be, etc. ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Gladstone has been invited to become one of the trustees of the Jerusalem Fund. He is beset with scruples; his heart is with us, but his mind is entangled in a narrow system. He awaits salvation from another code, and by wholly different ways from myself. Yesterday morning I had a letter ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... joined to the knowledge that the Pope was exerting himself to unite all the princes of Christendom in a league for the relief of their hardly-beset brethren, still encouraged the heroic defenders of Candia, though the Turks had by this time carried their mines at several points within the bastions and exterior defences, and compelled the garrison to shelter themselves behind an inner rampart, constructed during the winter in anticipation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... it to thee have given, And from him have it received, Doubting this, and that believing, Half revenging, half forgiving, If to thee I'm drawn by giving, I to him am by receiving; Thus bewildered and beset, Vainly seeks my love a way, Since I have a debt to pay, Where I must ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... was it that I saw thee first. What endless perplexities have beset me since that disastrous moment! I cannot pray for their ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... the horse, beset on all sides, exhausted, wounded, dropped to the ground, unable longer to hold out. With a cry of savage triumph the wolves leapt upon him in a hideous, howling, struggling mass. Sigurd, scarcely gaining his feet after the fall, started forward alone. For the horse that was dead was more ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... undisturbed for three or four days, but at last, as they were presenting the tragedy of The Bloody Brother (in which Lowin acted Aubery; Taylor, Rollo; Pollard, the Cook; Burt, Latorch; and, I think, Hart, Otto), a party of foot-soldiers beset the house, surprised 'em about the middle of the play, and carried 'em away in their habits, not admitting them to shift, to Hatton House, then a prison, where, having detained them some time, they plundered them of their clothes, and ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... Mild as they were, could they be the portals whence flowed such melody? But the moment I saw her eyes, I no longer wondered at her voice: they were absolutely young—those of a woman of five-and-twenty, large, and of a clear gray. Wrinkles had beset them all about; the eyelids themselves were old, and heavy, and worn; but the eyes were very incarnations of soft light. She held out her hand to me, and the voice of sweetness again greeted me, with the single word, "Welcome." ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... last, on a sad, sad day, the trusty Gouvernail came to Sir Tristram with word that a summons had been sent him from King Arthur, to go to the aid of Sir Triamour of Wales, for he was sore beset by a monster named ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... roused Peter from the sense of bewilderment and almost of stupor which beset him was ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... which he would receive from your Majesty, and from His Royal Highness the Prince Consort; but your Majesty will probably be able to find some other way of conveying to the Emperor counsel calculated to save him from some of the dangers by which he appears to be beset. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... below Ten Mile Gallagher sat on his box like a man refreshed. Then the devil of sleep postponed beset him again. Once more the fireman was asleep on the coal, and to the little Irishman's bombardment of wrenches and other missiles he returned only sodden groans. Gallagher nerved himself to fight it through alone. Mile after ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... terrible to the sensitive, and make them miss the best of everything, but as long as they have them and are busy from morning till night keeping up appearances, they miss also the burden of those fears, and dreads, and realisations that beset him who has time to think. When in the morning I go into my sausage-room and give out sausages, I never think of anything but sausages. My horizon is bounded by them, every faculty is absorbed by them, and they engross me, while I am with them, to the ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... prosecution of Parliamentary application for power to extend the line from the originally designed terminus at Newtown to the Shropshire Union Canal; for, though it was only a matter of some quarter of a mile, it was strenuously opposed in both Houses. Such were the distractions which beset railway building in those days; but enthusiasm and determination still triumphed, and the work proceeded along the line with sufficient rapidity to admit its being opened for mineral traffic on April 30th, 1859. At the very last ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... with some mental disquietude,' said they, and forthwith he was beset by a tribe of comforters; one of whom had at last the audacity to affirm that the Doctor's breath smelt unpleasantly ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... face with one coat sleeve, his Bible with the other. The six dispensers of purity could not resist it; they must charge again. Hartigan wheeled the horses to make the turn at a run. But with every circumstance against him—speed and reckless driving, a rough and narrow roadway beset with stumps—the wagon lurched, crashed, upset, and the six went sprawling in the ditch. The horses ran away to be afterward rounded up at a farm stable three miles off, with the fragments of a ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... how Mrs. Whately had tried to help his cause by appealing to my father, his anger was a fury. Poor Mrs. Whately, who had meant only for the best, beset with the terror of disgrace to Marjie through the dishonorable acts of her father, tried helplessly to pacify him. Between her daughter and herself a great gulf opened whenever Judson's name was mentioned; but in everything else the bond between ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... she rode ahead of him it was the picture she had made then that he saw; and the emotions that assailed him were the identical emotions that had beset him when for a brief instant, in Lamo, he had held her in his arms, with her head resting on ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the lion's share of it himself. Her heart thrilled with gratitude, with joy in this man's wonderful comradeship. She longed to open her heart to him—to implore him to shield her from all those terrible anxieties which beset her. She longed to feel the clasp of his strong hand in hers and know that it was there to support her always. She felt all these things without one shadow of fear—somehow his very presence ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... senses would enthrone error as omnipotent and omnipresent, with power to determine the fact and fate to being. It is said that the devil is the ape of God. The lie of evil holds its own by declaring itself both true and good. The path of Christian Science is beset with false claimants, aping its virtues, but cleaving to their own vices. Denial of the authorship of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" would make a lie the author of Truth, and so ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... the Kafir as he paused for a moment, his arms filled with a great bundle of branches which he was carrying to the fires, and his great bronze body shining with perspiration; "we are beset by them; and if the fires were allowed to die down they would rush in upon us, and kill or stampede the whole of the oxen and horses. See there—and there—and there," he added, pointing into the darkness beyond the glow ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... were remarkable for the largeness of their heads, and one, whose face was very rough, had much more the appearance of a baboon than of a human being. He was covered with oily soot; his hair matted with filth; his visage, even among his fellows, uncommonly ferocious; and his very large mouth, beset with teeth of every hue between black, white, green and yellow, sometimes presented a smile ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... see ye not yon narrow road So thick beset wi' thorns and briers? That is the Path of Righteousness, Though after it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... at the distant hotels; there was shelter and safety. But now a new fear beset him. His well-known identity, Irma's marked beauty, the strange attendant duenna, there would be certain discovery and scandal. And he would be ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... forms of the eighteenth century, that it has to divest itself for the nonce of more than half its equipment of habitual thought and emotion." This might serve as text for a long sermon, I only cite it in passing as an interesting example of the idola specus which beset a clever man who loses the power of comparative vision, and sees Tom Jones as a toylike structure with the Kreutzer Sonata beside ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... characteristics are that the wings are transparent and have no cases or covers, there was a formidable army. I refer to the common little fly. There was the house fly, the horse fly, the dangerous blue-bottle, the impecunious blow fly, the indefatigable buzzer, and others. One's delicate skin got beset with flies: they got in one's ears, in one's eyes, up one's nose, down one's throat, in one's coffee, in one's bed; they bade fair to devour one within an hour or two, and brought forth inward curses and many swishes of ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... industries, and take to trade and the professions, or else become dissipated idlers. Hence attempts are making to attach industrial education to our common schools. Why, then, talk of the peculiarities of the negro in this matter? There are none. He simply shares in the temptations which beset all races, and we must reason accordingly, and plan alike for the masses of ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 08, August, 1885 • Various
... greater regional integration with a unified external tariff and a more stable monetary policy. High unemployment, however, continues to prompt illegal migrants to flee Senegal in search of better job opportunities in Europe. Senegal was also beset by an energy crisis that caused widespread blackouts in 2006 and 2007. The phosphate industry has struggled for two years to secure capital, and reduced output has directly impacted GDP. In 2007, Senegal signed agreements for major new mining concessions for iron, ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... with the minute care a skilful huntsman gives to the work in his leisure hours. This man had neither game nor game-bag, nor any of the accoutrements which denote either departure for a hunt or the return from it; and two women sitting near were looking at him as though beset by a terror they could ill-conceal. Any one observing the scene taking place in this leafy nook would have shuddered, as the old mother-in-law and the wife of the man we speak of were now shuddering. A huntsman ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... reviews and treatises, that the spirit of profound and thorough investigation is not extinct in Germany, though it may have been overborne and silenced for a time by the fashionable tone of a licence in thinking, which gives itself the airs of genius, and that the difficulties which beset the paths of criticism have not prevented energetic and acute thinkers from making themselves masters of the science of pure reason to which these paths conduct—a science which is not popular, but scholastic in its character, ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... civilization, jerked him sharply on to his back. The effect of this discipline was rapid; Ponto soon found that he must not make war on the inhabitants of the island. He was a docile animal, and in a very short time consented to make one of "the happy family," as Hazel called the miscellaneous crew that beset him. ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... assure a future of ample profits and great public usefulness. Inconsiderable as this work may appear compared with the modern achievements of engineering, it was, for the times, a gigantic undertaking, beset with difficulties scarcely conceivable to-day. Boston was a small town of about twenty thousand inhabitants; Medford, Woburn, and Chelmsford were insignificant villages; and Lowell was as yet unborn, while the valley of the Merrimac, northward ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... about receiving those additional articles which are not found in the Anglican creed. I am far from denying that every article of the Christian creed is beset with difficulties, and it is simple fact that I cannot answer those difficulties. But ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt. Of all points of faith, the being of a God is encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... active in many business enterprises but the last years of his life were again beset with severe financial difficulties. He and his wife celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1890, and in honor of this occasion their children presented them with a silver gilt vase.[17] The vase contains a portion ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... supplies, in charge of a body of criminals of the most dangerous type, Arthur Phillip and his officers had no light task to perform, and every credit must be given to the little band of pilgrims who, beset by danger from within and without, brought the colony through its infancy without any tragedy happening. Apparently, these early adventurers were no whit behind travellers of the present day in bringing back wonderful tales of ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... the third, of things without which we should not care to live. The first class are, to be saved from the hands of the enemy, from the anger of tyrants, from proscription, and the various other perils which beset human life. By averting any one of these, we shall earn gratitude proportionate to the greatness of the danger, for when men think of the greatness of the misery from which they have been saved, the terror which they have gone through enhances the value of our services. ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... depend mostly on accent; and he has but to think of it as Gaston actually lived in it to find a singularly companionable soul there. Gaston, at least, needed but to go far enough across it for those inward oppositions to cease, which already at times beset him; to feel at one with himself again, under the influence of a scene which had for him something of the character of the sea—its changefulness, its infinity, its pathos in the toiling human life that traversed it. Featureless, if you will, it was always under the guidance ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... to make mention of the singular beggary practiced in the streets frequented by sailors; and particularly to record the remarkable army of paupers that beset the docks at ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... assembly again joined together in acts of prayer, and again lifted up their voices in song of praise. This duty being performed, we separated and sought the streets. The storm which had begun in violence, had increased, and it was with difficulty that beset by darkness, wind, and rain, I succeeded without injury in finding my way ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... his tactful sister had struck the right note. She might be trusted to make herself eminently agreeable. Her bright, smiling manner had already created a good impression, and a lively chat with one who had not passed through the vicissitudes which beset the Forbes family would ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... simply proves them to be poor prophets. The Negro, too, believed that if he could only learn to read and write, and especially if he could go to college, that he would be relieved of every incumbrance that beset him. Education was looked upon as an end and not as an agency. As his friends were destined to disappointment, the Negro himself was doomed to humiliation and chagrin. Education creates as many problems as it solves. It is both static and ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... biographies of good men, whose example fortified my mind against the temptations to vice and immorality, which beset the sailor on every side. They furnished me with an interesting occupation in an idle hour, acted as a solace for disappointment, and a faithful friend and consoler in anxiety and trouble; inspired me with a feeling of emulation, and bade me look forward with hope. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... were Dugdale, Turberville, Haynes, Smith; men who had before given evidence against the Catholics, and whom the jury, for that very reason, regarded as the most perjured villains. College, though beset with so many toils, and oppressed with so many iniquities, defended himself with spirit, courage, capacity, presence of mind; and he invalidated the evidence of the crown, by convincing arguments and undoubted testimony: yet did the jury, after half an hour's deliberation, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... approaches. Away with thee, black, reeking gore! Away with that grim, ghastly look of death! Oh, give me but this one hour free! Amelia! Father! thy Charles approaches! (He goes quickly towards the castle.) Torment me when the morning dawns—give me no rest with the coming night—beset me in frightful dreams! But, oh! poison not this my only hour of bliss! (He is standing at the gate.) What is it I feel? What means this, Moor? Be a man! These death-like shudders—foreboding ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Sadness leads to reverie. How many other women are sending you the homage of their secret thoughts? What chance have I for notice among so many? This paper, filled with my soul,—can it be more to you than the perfumed letters which already beset you. I come to you with less grace than others, for I wish to remain unknown and yet to receive your entire confidence —as though you had ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... along the horizon's dusky line And thence in nearer circles till they shine Among the founts and groves o'er which the town In all its armed magnificence looks down. Yet, fearless, from his lofty battlements MOKANNA views that multitude of tents; Nay, smiles to think that, tho' entoiled, beset, Not less than myriads dare to front him yet;— That friendless, throneless, he thus stands at bay, Even thus a match for myriads such as they. "Oh, for a sweep of that dark Angel's wing, "Who brushed the thousands of the Assyrian King[119] "To darkness in a moment that I might "People Hell's ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... sudden determination he hurried down the corridor into the Governor's office and faced Governor Mason with the strained aspect of a strong man sorely beset. The Governor gravely studied the eyes that bored beseechingly into his own, then reached into one of his desk baskets and lifted a ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... after approaching stealthily along the lee of a hedge, like travellers of dubious bona fides on a Sunday afternoon, enter unobtrusively by the back door, which is situated on the blind side of the chateau. Their path thereto is beset by imploring notices like ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... was held. Halbert Folsom, fevered by his severe wound, was lying half-unconscious on his bed, his unhappy wife wandering aimlessly about at times, wringing her hands and weeping, evidently unbalanced by the terrors that had beset her of late and the tidings of that awful Indian revenge along the Big Horn. Silent, helpful, almost commanding, Elinor spent the hours sometimes at her brother's bedside, then at that of her sister-in-law when the poor creature ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... These gardens have this peculiarity, that at the entrance of each of the grand avenues is a figure of a man on horseback caparizoned in armour, like the Knights of old. This is all I have to say about Mantua. The Mincio beset with "osiers dank" ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... On the other hand, it is to be observed that the code of Justinian contains a law of Theodosius II. which places the Illyrian bishopric under the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople. But this law is beset with many difficulties, and it has been {68} argued that it was merely the expression of a temporary rupture between the Empire and the papacy, which in the schism of 484-519 was gravely accentuated; and there are grounds for thinking that the bishops of Thessalonica exercised authority in Illyricum ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... general-in-chief, was to clear the Champlain Valley, and Prideaux with large colonial forces to reduce Fort Niagara. Both had orders, being successful in these initial attacks, to move down the St. Lawrence and unite with Wolfe, who was to sail up that river and beset Quebec. Prideaux was splendidly successful, as indeed was Amherst in time, though longer than he anticipated in securing Ticonderoga ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... owners experienced some difficulty in leasing; and one of these—namely the Red House—particularly suited the purpose which Nahemah had in view. The extensive resources now at my disposal enabled me to dispense with the usual formalities which beset the lessee and to obtain possession of the Red House without even appearing ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... strip of land which connects the Hrad[vs]any Hill with that of Pet[vr]in, mentioned in Libu[vs]a's forecast, dips a bit before rising again, there Vladislav laid the foundations of Strahov. This happened in 1140, what time Vladislav was beset by enemies of his own house, who disputed his right to the throne; he was even assailed in his capital, Prague, by another P[vr]emysl, Conrad of Znoymo. Nevertheless the walls of Strahov Monastery rose over the terraced valley that dips down into Prague between Pet[vr]in and Castle Hill. The ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... his cursed soul together; yea, though he lives many days, and rejoices in them all, yet the days of darkness will overtake him, and his eye shall see no more good; in his life time he enjoyed his good things, and, at the hour of death, legions of devils will beset him, innumerable evils will befal him; and then shall he pay full dear for all the pleasures of sin, that have carried away his heart from closing with, and following the Lord in the day of his prosperity. Ungodly men, because they feel no changes now, they fear none hereafter, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... avocations; we must see them as they are, in all their excusable degradation; and not invested with a fictitious dignity, or a theatrical simplicity; we must observe them, also, unawares, and see how they conduct themselves under the ordinary influences that beset them. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood
... have been wretched too long. Oh, if we could once be up there, hidden among the rocks, or sitting among the ferns in the highest of those valleys, with the very clouds between us and this weary world below—never to see a white face more! Then, at last, we could be at peace. Everywhere else we are beset with this enemy. They are in the streets, in the churches, on the plain. We meet them in the shade of the woods, and have to pass them basking on the sea-shore. There is no peace but high up in the mornes—too high for the wild beast, and the reptile, and ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... their blindness to these awful actualities makes them more comfortable, for the time being, than they could possibly be if awake to the perils which beset the feet of their daughters and the daughters of their friends and neighbors. But there is no permanency to this sort of peace—and thousands of mothers of this class are annually brought to their senses and recalled to earth by discovering ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... however, that beset even the courageous and the competent were enormous. The general paralysis of industry, the breaking up of society, and poverty on all sides bore especially hard on those who had not previously been ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... the day and stay all night, invited by Karen to witness her son's triumph. But I onbeknown to anybody, feelin' I needed a strong arm and cool brain to depend on, had beset Royal Nelson to come and stand by me that day and night, I didn't say Rosy wuz to be there for fear he wouldn't come, for I could see by his white cheeks and sad, yet cool lookin' eyes, that he'd about gin her up. He said to once that he would ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... was beset with doubts about the boy and his own responsibility to the boy's brothers. The lad's eyes were shining, but his face was more eager than excited and his hand was ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... love and purity of heart. These letters are exhortations to a lofty life and childlike acceptance of revealed truths. The apostle warns his little flock against the evils that surrounded them, and which so easily beset them,—especially unchastity and drunkenness, and strifes, bickerings, slanders, and retaliations. He exhorts them to unceasing prayer, the feeling of constant dependence, and hence the supreme need of divine grace to keep them from falling, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... not require that sacrifice of you," said Rand. "Here is the message. Fail not on your honor to deliver it. You are going through a hostile country beset with enemies—" ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... fashionable life which absorbed his capital, he threw himself into his work with the first earnest enthusiasm, which is frittered away so soon over the difficulties or in the by-paths of every life in Paris. The most luxurious and the very poorest lives are equally beset with temptations which nothing but the fierce energy of genius or the morose ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... entered a house alone, while the prince and I remained in the carriage. Some hours passed, and we began to be uneasy; for the life of the Emperor had been so often menaced, that it was very natural to fear some snare or surprise, and imagination takes the reins when beset by such fears. Prince Murat swore and cursed with all his might, sometimes the imprudence of his Majesty, then his gallantry, then the lady and her complaisance. I was not any better satisfied than he, but being calmer I tried to quiet ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... felt like them about the perils which beset the Church and religion. Loyalty to the Church, belief in her divine mission, allegiance to her authority, readiness to do battle for her claims, were anything but extinct in her ministers and laity. The elements were all about of sound and devoted Churchmanship. Higher ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established an autocratic socialist system that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... news to Ghent. I have ordered that fresh horses shall be brought you from the prince's stable. Councillor Moens will ride with you to act as spokesman; but before starting, take, I pray you, a goblet of wine and some bread. It were well that you took your men-at-arms with you, for you might be beset on the road by some of the people who did not succeed in entering the gates, or by some of the cowardly knights who stood by and saw the citizens being defeated without laying lance in rest to aid them. Fresh horses shall be prepared for your men also, and they shall sup ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... illusion was soon dispelled. A great number of emigrants, who had just come in again, were appointed commissioners. Instead of listening to cool and experienced advisers, they gave themselves up to the priests and nobles who beset them, and who ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... it. Hobamack was asked if he would goe & be their guid, & bring them ther before day. He said he would, & bring them to y^e house wher the man lay, and show them which was he. So they set forth y^e 14. of August, and beset y^e house round; the Captin giving charg to let none pass out, entred y^e house to search for him. But he was goone away that day, so they mist him; but understood y^t Squanto was alive, & that he had only threatened to kill him, & made an offer to stabe him but did not. ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... had only just begun. Many more and still severer trials awaited our starving, weary, sorely-beset soldiers that day. ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... and beset us," said Anna, in a displeased voice. "I did not hear all that passed, but of course Adrian told him what he told me, only those ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... persons, and am not likely to see many, as the agreement was that I was to be very quiet. We have been to the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, to the Opera, and the Zoological Gardens. The weather is splendid. I shall not stay longer than a fortnight in London. The feverishness and exhaustion beset me somewhat, but not quite so badly as before, as indeed I have not yet been so much tried. I hope you will write soon and tell me how you are getting on. Give ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... miry corner where, still feeble unto impotence, we were beset by blasts of wind which laid hold on us with such rude strength that the very ground seemed to sway like sea-drift, the cry of the man who looked as if he were trying to fly away evoked other like cries: "There must be no more war ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... extreme end repose in their lilac envelop, like a slumbering Pompeiian nymph under her veil. Veritably, to paint such nature as this, this violet continent extending around this broad luminous water, one must employ the terms of the ancient poets, and represent the great fertile goddess embraced and beset by the eternal ocean, and above them the serene effulgence of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... task of no small danger, for the prejudice against the Union went so high in the Scottish capital that he ran the risk of being torn to pieces by the populace. In one riot of which he gives an account, his lodging was beset, and for a time he was in as much peril "as a grenadier on a counter-scarp." Still he went on writing pamphlets, and lobbying members of Parliament. Owing to his intimate knowledge of all matters relating to trade, he also "had the honour to be frequently ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... nature and kindling and bringing it to bear. And they would be sufficient of themselves, if the human intellect were even, and like a fair sheet of paper with no writing on it. But since the minds of men are strangely possessed and beset, so that there is no true and even surface left to reflect the genuine rays of things, it is necessary to seek ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... itself with his feelings, it was the pride of being the chosen messenger of physical truth, not that of being the favoured possessor of superior genius. With such a frame of mind, Kepler was necessarily a Christian. The afflictions with which he was beset confirmed his faith and brightened his hopes: he bore them in all their variety and severity with Christian patience; and though he knew that this world was to be the theatre of his intellectual glory, yet he felt that his rest and his reward could ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... rugged ridge, And it's "Flankers back!" and "Skirmishers in!" And the summit is theirs to lose or win— To win with honour or lose with shame; And so to the place itself they came, And gazed with an awful thrill At the ridge of omen, Beset by foemen, At the arduous summit, the gorse-clad summit, the ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... I am no better off at Chartres than in Paris," was his conclusion. And when these reflections beset him, especially on Sundays, he regretted having accompanied the Abbe Gevresin into ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... in order, by his father's command, to attempt to form a marriage beset with difficulties with Mademoiselle De Marignan, a rich heiress of one of the greatest families of Provence, he displayed, like a wrestler, all kinds of stratagems and daring schemes of policy in the small theatre of Aix. Cunning, seduction, courage, he used ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... counteract the objectionable features in them by making her own mind dwell upon only good and fine attributes for her child. She ought to try to keep herself in perfect health by using common sense, and, above all, she should determine to fight and conquer the nervous emotions which more or less beset all women at such time. She ought to encourage happy and loving relations with her husband, and try in every way to be in herself good and gentle and brave. It is the most important moment in the whole of a woman's life for self-discipline, ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... Now I am not for universal imitation of foreign customs, and where I find this butter made perfectly, I call it our American style, and am not ashamed of it. I only regret that this article is the exception, and not the rule, on our tables. When I reflect on the possibilities which beset the delicate stomach in this line, I do not wonder that my venerated friend Dr. Mussey used to close his counsels to invalids with the direction, "And don't eat grease ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... every house are shouts and cries, and mirth and revel rout, And dainty tables spread, and all beset with guests about." ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... But my troubles were not by any means past and gone: many who read these lines will, I trow, know what it is to tramp a long distance with a purse, as Carlyle said, "so flabby that it could scarcely be thrown against the wind." My trudge from Hull to Bradford seemed beset with ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... they visited it every day, was a den of monsters of two varieties, bent upon doing one another the utmost possible injury; and whenever, amid the gossip of the quarter, a conjugal drama came to their ears, each of them, beset by his or her own idea, blamed a ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... to discuss what makes difference of faculties. And the criterion which he proposes is difference in the working of the faculties. The same faculty cannot produce contradictory effects. But the path of early reasoners is beset by thorny entanglements, and he will not proceed a step without first clearing the ground. This leads him into a tiresome digression, which is intended to explain the nature of contradiction. First, the contradiction must be at the same time and ...
— The Republic • Plato
... based upon estimated recoverable reserves or some other combination of factors is a question for administrative and not judicial judgment. In a domain of knowledge still shifting and growing, and in a field where judgment is necessarily beset by the necessity of inferences bordering on the conjecture even for those learned in the art, it has been held to be presumptuous for courts, on the basis of conflicting expert testimony, to nullify an oil proration order, promulgated by an administrative commission in execution ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... be the weakest in its powers of diffusion, and the safest to approach of any that has ever yet been known amongst diseases. Amateur physicians from the Continent, and from every part of the United Kingdoms, eager and keen for Cholera, and more numerous than the patients themselves, beset and surrounded the sick in Sunderland with all the fearless self-exposing zeal of the missionary character, yet no one could contrive, even in the foulest dens of that sea-port, to produce the disease in ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... overshadowed, mere puppets in the king business, by the surpassing talents of the Hohenzollerns, and so the task of those who, in Germany and out, hope for that evolution towards liberalism or even democracy which alone can make the nations of the world feel safe in making peace with Germany, is beset with numerous difficulties. ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... to meet within your great, and I hope, long journey through life. In some parts of it, flowers are scattered, with profusion, the road is smooth, and the prospect pleasant: but in others (and I fear the greater number) the road is rugged, beset with thorns and briars, and cut by torrents. Gather the flowers in your way; but, at the same time, guard against the briars that are either mixed with them, or ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... This lucky beginning so animated the Corinthians, that they ordered him a supply of two thousand foot and two hundred horse, who, reaching Thurii, intended to cross over thence into Sicily; but finding the whole sea beset with Carthaginian ships, which made their passage impracticable, they were constrained to stop there, and watch their opportunity: which time, however, was employed in a noble action. For the Thurians, going out to war against ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... tour in Ireland, was beset at a fine waterfall by numerous beggars; one woman was particularly clamorous for relief, but Mr. R. instructed by his guide, said to her, "My good friend, you cannot possibly want relief, as you keep several cows, and have a very profitable farm; indeed I cannot bestow ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... King's archer from Chinon, who had been sent with news of the disaster at Rouvray. He was to conduct us back to Chinon by the best and safest routes. But he told us that the country was beset by roving bands of hostile soldiers, that his comrades had been slain, and that he himself only escaped as by a miracle; and his advice was urgent that after the first day we should travel by night, and lie in hiding during the hours of daylight—a ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences. But in the 19th and early 20th centuries, China was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established a dictatorship that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed strict controls ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Is there no hidden foe to obstruct his progress? Is all before him clear and calm, with joyous sunshine and refreshing zephyrs? Alas! not so. "Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward." At every "gate of life"—as the Orientalists have beautifully called the different ages—he is beset by peril. Temptations allure his youth, misfortunes darken the pathway of his manhood, and his old age is encumbered with infirmity and disease. But clothed in the armor of virtue he may resist the temptation; he may cast misfortunes ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... river beside us. So, bathing and eating, we passed Thursday in sight of the train. At length red tape was untied, and Thursday night the 8th and 71st set off, in cattle cars. This time the advance was a privilege. In Baltimore we were beset by women trying to sell cakes, and boys trying to beg cartridges. Along the road we ate, smoked, and slept. In Philadelphia we had 'supper' in the 'United States Volunteers' Refreshment Saloon.' I remember ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... disappointed to receive 'contrary letters.' His reply, indignantly acquiescing, indicates the plan which by this time he had formed in order to solve the combined difficulties in theory and practice which beset Scotland. He reminded his correspondents—Glencairn, Lorne, Erskine, and James Stewart—in very memorable words, that they were themselves magistrates, or at least representatives of the people, and ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... of some unattended and undignified death which had beset the old gentleman during the last eight or ten years of his life vanished under Peter's presence. When he thought of it at all now, he always previsioned himself being lifted in Peter's athletic arms and laid properly on his ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... more production was the byword during the war and still is during the transition from war to peace. However, when deferred demand slackens, we shall once again face the deflationary dangers which beset this and other countries during the 1930's. Prosperity can be assured only by a high level of demand supported by high current income; it cannot be sustained by deferred needs and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... their ancestors during thousands of years. Purity of morals, confiding domesticity, were the safeguards against storm and stress. The outside world presented a hostile front to the Jew of the middle ages. Every step beyond Ghetto precincts was beset with peril. So his home became his world, his sanctuary, in whose intimate seclusion the blossom of pure family love unfolded. While spiritual darkness brooded over the nations, the great Messianic God-idea ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles |
