"Besetting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "enemies"—a distress, so much a matter of constitution with him, that at times it would seem that the best pleasures of life could but be snatched, as it were hastily, in one moment's forgetfulness of its dark, besetting influence. A sudden suspicion of hatred against him, of the nearness of "enemies," seemed all at once to alter the visible form of things, as with the child's hero, when he found the footprint on the sand of his peaceful, dreamy island. His elaborate philosophy ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... anything like what it used to be; there, at Formia, we would pitch our tent, enacting every day, or perhaps twice a day, our celebrated Faun-and-Silenus entertainment for the diversion of the populace. I have not forgotten Giulio's besetting sin. How nearly he made me exceed the measure of sobriety at ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... than twenty thousand young gentlemen followed him with their hair untrimmed, and supplicating with him to the people. And then the senate met, to pass a decree that the people should change their dress as in time of public sorrow. But the consuls opposing it, and Clodius with armed men besetting the senate-house, many of the senators ran out, crying aloud and tearing their clothes. But this sight moved neither shame nor pity; Cicero must either fly or determine it by the sword with Clodius. He entreated ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... confidence than the debasing qualification universally prevalent in this country since the fatal introduction of the system of Dutch finance? Who will pretend it? If a spirit of rapacious coveteousness, desecrating all the humanities of life, has been the besetting sin of England for the last century and a half, since the passing of the Reform Act the altar of Mammon has blazed with triple worship. To acquire, to accumulate, to plunder each other by virtue ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... mountain winds with rain were fretting, And sudden gleams the mountain-tops besetting. I cannot let thee fade to ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell
... Paris on such a mission. I received messages of ready acceptance, in the event of my succeeding in founding a German opera season in Paris on a solid basis, from Tichatschek, Mitterwurzer, Niemann the tenor, and also Luise Meyer in Vienna. My immediate and besetting care was then to discover in Paris a suitable man for the task, who would undertake the execution of my plan at his own risk. My object was to secure the Salle Ventadour for a spring season of two months after the close of the ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Schorlin, it seemed as if Fate had thrown him into the way of the Swiss that he might feel with twofold anguish the thorns besetting his own life path. The young knight was proffered the rose without the thorn. What cares had he? The present threw into his lap its fairest blessings, and when he looked into the future he beheld only the cheering ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the besetting faults and failings of his temperament—an impulsive self confidence, followed by moments of revolt and lassitude and discouragement. He knew that a quiet stability was the quality he lacked, and that the fire of enthusiasm ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... executive even at his portfolio under Macdonald in the early '80's. He has always been a prophet. Public speech is his besetting passion. He could rise anywhere and translate logic and economics into ethical emotion. No man in Canada felt the war more intensely. But Trade was not a matter of emotion; or of oratorical periods; or the right hand ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... taste in the arrangement of the drapery, the uncommon delicacy of the extremities, the exquisite grace of the heads, were all so many evidences that he was no unworthy pupil of the great Reni. But Antonio had avoided this master's besetting sin of an endeavour, only too conspicuous, to sacrifice expression to beauty. It was plain that Antonio was aiming to reach Annibal's strength, without having as ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... toper. The people in Pinchbrook said he was a good man, but, they used to add, with a shrug of the shoulders, "pity he drinks." It was a sad pity, but he seemed to have no power over his appetite. The allusion of Ben to his besetting sin was cruel and mortifying, for the old man had certainly tried to reform, and since the regiment left Boston, he had not tasted the intoxicating cup. He had declared before the mess that he had stopped drinking; so his ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... had gone through the whole campaign without any serious accident, and—But, after all, it was very natural: the two besetting evils of women are Vanity and Curiosity, and if you were to ascertain the truth, you would find that it is upon these two stumbling-blocks that most women are upset and break ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... Miss Preston was aware of their besetting sins, and how shrewdly did she use them to ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... replied this person, quite distressed within himself at not being able to understand the difficulty besetting her. "All perfectly legal and ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... Prince Hohenlohe gave a series of reminiscences of his great predecessor, some of them throwing a strong light upon his ideas and methods. On one occasion, at my own table, he spoke very thoughtfully on German characteristics, and one of his remarks surprised me: it was that the besetting sin of the Germans is envy (Neid); in which remark one may see a curious tribute to the tenacity of the race, since Tacitus justified a similar opinion. He seemed rather melancholy; but he had a way ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... with a fatal illness should have taken so able a part in an assembly in which he was a newcomer. Nor should we complain that his speeches lack eloquence. It is fairer to give him credit for not falling into the abuse of palabrera, the besetting sin of most diputados. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... not with political evil merely, or spiritual evil; but with all manifestations whatsoever of the devil's power. And to have beaten back, or even to have struggled against and stemmed in ever so small a degree those besetting basenesses of human nature, now held so invincible that the influences of them are assumed as the fundamental axioms of economic science; this appears to me a greater victory than Agincourt, a grander triumph of wisdom and faith and courage than even the English constitution or the English ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... these little houses always oppressed me with a sense of my inferiority in the matter of devoutness. I could not imagine myself living in one of them, until I came across a group of their occupants engaged in discussing some racy gossip with the nuns on one of the doorsteps. Gossip is not my besetting weakness, but I felt relieved. Convents are not aristocratic institutions in Russia as they are in Roman Catholic countries, and very few ladies by birth and education enter them. Those who do are apt to rise to the post of abbess, influential connections not being superfluous in any calling ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... attend certain private meetings and councils of Walpole's enemies to concert measures against him. There is nothing incredible or even unlikely in this; but even if it were utterly untrue, we may assume that sooner or later Walpole would have got rid of Chesterfield. {9} Walpole's besetting weakness was that he could not endure any really capable colleague. The moment a man showed any capacity for governing, Walpole would appear to have made up his mind that that man and he ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... towards the art of writing remained to the end one of hostility. Whenever he caught himself working for art he was wont to reproach himself, and his diaries contain many recriminations against his own weakness in yielding to this besetting temptation. Yet to these very lapses we are indebted for this ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... every way I am wretched, and what to do I know not; with so many troubles is my father now besetting wretched me on every side. I'll go away from here, since I avail but little by my presence. For without my consent, I do not believe that they will bring up the child, especially as on that point my mother-in-law will second ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... nothing in this shop that I can't do, and don't do, every now and then, just to keep my hand in. I can put more pull into an ad. to-day than the next best man in the business. Modesty isn't my besetting sin, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and character—of conquering himself, his greatest enemy. As he looked upon his dissolute course, upon the events of the preceding night, and its fellow a week before, he was disgusted with himself, and wondered how he could so easily embrace his besetting sin. ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... feelings and regrets? It is no reason, they will think, that because I have wasted my time they should waste theirs in reading the record of follies which are nothing more than the great mass of the world are every day committing; idleness, vanity, and selfishness are our besetting sins, and we are perpetually whirled about by one or other of them. It is certainly more amusing, both to other people and to myself (when I look back at what I have written), to read the anecdotes and events ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... whole my time in Berlin was not lost; and I was in a better state of heart than I had been for any length of time before, I was not once overcome by my former outward besetting sins, though I have nothing to boast of even as it regards that period; and were only the sins of those days brought against me, had I not the blood of Jesus to plead, I should be most miserable. But I think it right to mention, for the glory of God, as I have so freely spoken about my ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... in expression of passionate fancy, more earnest in emotion, more spontaneous in simplicity, more perfect in romantic inspiration. But the poet's besetting sin of laxity, his want of seriousness and steadiness, his idle, shambling, shifty way of writing, had power even then, in the very prime of his promise, to impede his progress and impair his chance of winning the race which he had set himself—and yet which he had ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... had already canvassed the possibilities of escape by land, only to dismiss the idea as utterly impracticable; for even could he elude the vigilance of the sentries he could not pass as a native, and the perils besetting an Englishman were not confined ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... failed to diminish his joy in the very fact of living, even less did they affect his powers of work. His father had declared that 'procrastination was his besetting sin,' and Mozart was certainly given to putting off the evil day as far as possible; but no one knew better than Leopold Mozart himself how tireless was Mozart's industry, or how boundless his powers of coping with a gigantic task which he had set his mind to accomplish. ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... generation, and reproducing it with individuality and sureness of touch. It is in rhetoric, splendid or rugged, in argument, in plain statement or description, in the outline sketch of a picture, that Drayton excels; magic of atmosphere and colouring are rarely present. Stolidity is, perhaps, his besetting sin; yet it is the sign of a slow, not a dull, intellect; an intellect, like his heart, which never let slip what it had once taken ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... bitterly and enviously, exhibiting in his whole tone as well as in his words his besetting weakness. For a while AEnone did not answer. It was as far from her duty as from her taste and pleasure to remind him, even if she could have done so to his comprehension, that her husband had already advanced him ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in that tone. I was sorry for my words that evening the moment I spoke. But I am hasty. I try my best to keep quiet when I'm angry; but now and then I express myself before I realize it. You can't expect perfection in anyone. A quick temper is my besetting sin. I try to overcome it; but until I do my friends must bear with ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... surprised, and could not hide it. The gentle, simple, shrinking girl had changed into a self-reliant, keen-sighted woman, and from the serene height of her gracious womanhood calmly convicted him of his folly and his besetting weakness, and, manlike, his first impulse, thus convicted, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... organ blown, nor censer swung, Nor dim light falling through the pictured pane! There, syllabled by silence, let me hear The still small voice which reached the prophet's ear; Read in my heart a still diviner law Than Israel's leader on his tables saw! There let me strive with each besetting sin, Recall my wandering fancies, and restrain The sore disquiet of a restless brain; And, as the path of duty is made plain, May grace be given that I may walk therein, Not like the hireling, for his selfish gain, With backward glances and reluctant tread, Making a merit of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... like Lowell's Biglow Papers, he knows how to make an artistic use of homely provincial words, such as "chore," {524} which give his idyls of the hearth and the barnyard a genuine Doric cast. Whittier's prose is inferior to his verse. The fluency which was a besetting sin of his poetry when released from the fetters of rhyme and meter ran into wordiness. His prose writings were partly contributions to the slavery controversy, partly biographical sketches of English and American reformers, and partly studies of the scenery and folk-lore of the Merrimack Valley. ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... from Dr. Lindsay, a comfortable-looking professor in some new theological school. It was quite common-place, though not so long as the Scotch ministers are in the habit of giving; for excessive brevity is by no means their besetting infirmity. At the close of the exercises, he announced that a third service would be held in the evening. "The subject," continued he, "will be the thoughts and exercises of Jonah ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... and homely mode of settling the matter, something conclusive, for the time, even to Mr. Bancroft. But doubt, distrust and fear, were his besetting sins, and in a little while, would come back to disturb his mind, and throw a shadow even over ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... failed, the executioner was to be drugged with liquor, his besetting weakness, on ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... but know it, there was an even stronger evidence of her indifference to him in the ready manner in which her thoughts flew past him in their circling sweep. For a moment she saw him as the centre of a host of besetting fears; but her own sense of superior power nullified the force of the vision. She was able to cope with him and his doings, were there such need. And so her mind flew back to the personal side of her trouble: her blindness, ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... the side of the foot, and thus ascend with the extra, aid only of their arms. This mode is also a dangerous one, as a false step, when near the top of a high tree, generally precipitates the climber to the ground. This notching cannot prove otherwise than injurious to the tree. But the besetting sin of the planter of coco-nuts, and other productive trees, is that of crowding. Coco-nut trees, whose roots occupy, when full grown, circles of forty to fifty feet in diameter, may often be found planted within eight or ten feet of each other; and in the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... was sorry for him, that it was on her account that he had refused to stay and had gone out at once in the gathering darkness that had come so swiftly. But in spite of these thoughts and of all the emotions she had undergone Madge felt again the besetting pangs of fierce hunger. The slices of moose-meat sizzling in the pan filled the place with appetizing odor. The mother placed her brood at the long table but helped her guest first, and plentifully. How these people ate and expected others to eat! Never could they have heard ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... about. She would have cut off one of her fingers for the coin. That half-crown meant pleasure and a happiness so tender and seductive that she closed her eyes for a moment. The half-crown she held between forefinger and thumb presented a ready solution of the besetting difficulty. She threw out the insidious temptation, but it came quickly upon her again. If she did not take the half-crown she would not be able to go Peckham on Sunday. She could replace the money where she found it when ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... direct and sincere, discarding mere ingenuity, and disdaining the subtleness of insinuation. His education had all been of a kind to discipline and invigorate his natural powers; not to encumber them with a besetting weight of learning, or to supplant ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts
... it is an unheard-of thing for a good boy in a story-book not to be perfect, and that is one reason which convinces me this story of mine must be an impossible one. Riddell was not perfect. He had a fault. Can you believe it—he had many faults? He even had a besetting sin, and that besetting sin was pride. Not the sort of pride that makes you consider yourself better than your neighbours. Riddell really couldn't think that even had he wished it. But his pride was of that kind which ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... continued to regard Hugo. Hugo's mask was entirely for Westerling. He did not seem to see Marta now, and through his mask radiated the considerate understanding of one who can put himself in another's place—which was Hugo's besetting fault or virtue, as you choose. In short, the chief of staff had a feeling that this private knew exactly what he, the chief ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... while, besetting sins would crop out and Lucile would cry, despairingly, "Oh, why did I do it; I knew I shouldn't," and Jessie would stop, when plunging nobly through a box of candies, to cry penitently, "Oh, I've eaten too many," and Evelyn would often be tempted ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... writing. Conventional signs and additional letters have been employed for this purpose, the use of which is open to objections. There is need of some accurate method by which observations can be recorded. The difficulties besetting the path of the linguist can be in a measure obviated by the employment of the phonograph, by the aid of which the languages of our aborigines can be permanently perpetuated. As a means of preserving the songs and tales of races which ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... said Christopher fiercely, "besetting the houses of folk with weapons? Now wilt thou take my life. But I shall yet slay one or two before I die. Get thee back, lord, or thou shalt be ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... look much of a swell today," she said with a glance at his clothes. "And Finnegan's, though exclusive for the Bowery, is hardly what might be called smart. I am curious, Jerry. Curiosity is one of my besetting sins—otherwise I'd never have gotten inside your wall. I've been wondering what on earth you could have been doing in ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... him the earth was wavering and dream-like: he looked about him, and nowise was he as in past days of battle when he saw nought but the foe before him, and hoped for nothing save the victory. But now indeed the Wood-Sun seemed to him to be beside him, and not against his will, as one besetting and hindering him, but as though his own longing had drawn her thither and would not let her depart; and whiles it seemed to him that her beauty was clearer to be seen than the bodies of the warriors round about him. For the rest he seemed to be in a dream indeed, and, ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... agents. Naturally prone to vices in general, circumstances will render us more prone to one description of vice than to another; but that is no reason why we should not be answerable for it, since it is our duty to guard against the besetting sin. But as an agent in this point the form of government under which we live is, perhaps, the most powerful in its effects, and thus we constantly hear of vices peculiar to a country, when it ought rather to be said, of vices peculiar to ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... of the Danaides, they may be excused for devoting their time and wits to such riddles, perhaps. But when the mind has positive, practical work to perform, and time keeps bringing all the time specific duties, or when, as in your case, a predisposition to vague speculation is the intellectual besetting sin, I think addition to such subjects to be avoided. I suppose all human beings have, in some shape or degree, the desire for that knowledge which is still the growth of the forbidden tree of Paradise, and the lust for which inevitably ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... to dispense charity around him, greatly aided in the benevolent task by old Richard himself, who now exhibits as much zeal in relieving poverty and distress, as he formerly did in hoarding up his treasure and ministering to his one great passion or besetting sin—avarice. ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... centre, the confidante of so much love! Perhaps her enjoyment was the most keen and pure of all, because the most free from self—the most devoid of those cares for the morrow, which, after besetting middle life, often so desert old age as to render it as free and fresh as childhood. She had known the worst: she had been borne through by heart-whole faith and love, she had seen how often frettings for the future were vain, and experienced that anticipation is worse than reality. Where there was ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... then become empty. Sometimes a man's life is so poor that he is involuntarily compelled to prize his defect and live by it. It may frankly be said that people are often depraved out of mere weariness. The soldier felt insulted, and besetting our baker, roared: ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... he says, 'that Lady Byron's first idea is what is due to herself: I mean that it is the undeviating rule of her conduct . . . . Now, my besetting sin is a want of that self-respect which she has in excess . . . . But, though I accuse Lady Byron of an excess of self-respect, I must, in candour, admit, that, if any person ever had excuse for an extraordinary portion of it, she has; as, in all her thoughts, words, ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... vanity was her besetting sin—who possessed enough of it for any ten pretty women going—cast a glance out of the corners of her eyes at the admired bonnet, ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... drank before, it is hard to refuse. The moral courage necessary for the peremptory rejection of such advances would make a hero. Thus it has ever been with me—I am the victim of misplaced hospitality. It has been the besetting trouble of my life. I remember once eating a Nantucket pudding to oblige a lady. It was made of corn-meal and molasses, with some diabolical compound in the way of sauce—possibly whale-oil and tar. I had just eaten a hearty dinner; but the lady ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... we have already made some comments. One goes to his books with confidence; in the assurance that whatever ever he saw is put down. Nothing is hidden and there is no attempt to Munchausenize. His besetting literary sin, as we said, was prolixity. Any one of his books reduced to one-quarter, or better, one-sixth the size, and served up artistically would have made a delightful work. As it is, they ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... now besetting the public mind had been adroitly fanned into flame by the evil genius of Lord Shaftesbury. Eachard states that if he was not the original contriver of this disturbance, "he was at least the grand refiner ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... Wallace Collection has it (No. 382). In this the equal delicacy of the sentiment and of the painting combine to effect a little masterpiece of Louis Quinze art. It is simple and natural, and entirely free from the besetting sins of so slight a picture triviality, affectation, empty prettiness, or simply silliness. In its way it is perfect, and for that perfection is for ever reserved the popularity which we find temporarily accorded to pictures ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... is the besetting sin of man! None may speak of her inclinations, Captain Ludlow, but herself. It never shall be said, that any of the sex had aught but fitting reverence for their dependent state, their constant and confiding love, their faithfulness in all the world's trials, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... this the way I've brought you up? To pander to my besetting sin? Hold your tongue!" Dr. Lavendar rose chuckling, and stood in front of the fireplace, gathering the tails of his flowered cashmere dressing-gown under his arms. "But Willy I hope Sam isn't really smitten? You never can tell what that ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... there not a formidable difficulty besetting our path—the insipidity and monotony inseparable from the necessity which will devolve on us of having constantly to discover new beauties in spots identical in their main features; and should we, in order to vary the theme, mix up the humorous with the rural, the historical, or the antiquarian ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... been in the service of any other monarch in Europe, would have been shut up in a fortress, or shot, the moment their perfidies had been discovered. The pity is that so much of this declamatory stuff has been so willingly believed and made use of in order to defame the name of a sovereign whose besetting fault was in relaxing just punishment bestowed on those who, he could never altogether forget, were his companions ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... be more aware of his one besetting weakness, nor of his inability to conquer it, than was Captain Ducie. When he could no longer muster five pounds to gamble with, he would gamble with five shillings. There was a public-house in Southwark to which, poorly dressed, he sometimes went when his funds were low. Here, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... readers are left in comparative ignorance, biographically speaking, of the man De Quincey. Two passages in his Confessions afford sufficient clues to this mystery. In one he describes himself "as framed for love and all gentle affections," and in another confesses to the "besetting infirmity" of being "too much of an eudaemonist." "I hanker," he says, "too much after a state of happiness, both for myself and others; I cannot face misery, whether my own or not, with an eye of sufficient firmness, and am little capable of surmounting ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... was this nerve-racking pall of gloom hanging over all, and to this was added the hard physical work of keeping to a difficult trail, with danger besetting on ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... and said,—"And this for me! And this for the wanderer! O mercy, choicest mercy! Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardonest iniquity?" And so saying, he entered on the heavenly light, and left for ever behind him the darkness and the danger of the pitfalls, and the face of shame, and the besetting weakness; for he too was clothed in raiment of light, and borne with joy before ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... capturing an outlaw whose condemnation was already pronounced. With all the forces at their disposal, sheriff and justice took their way towards the house where William and Alice unconscious of the danger besetting them, still talked ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... The only other anxiety besetting him arose from the loss of the ring. He looked upon it as a talisman of excellent virtue, and moreover perceived that in case Balder should pick it up, it might become the means of identifying its owner and obstructing ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... His uncle had been talking in the past tense! He had tried to do what he thought was his duty—at first, when he swept into politics, inspired by the victory over the Rives crowd. Twelve years apparently was a long time to expect an inspiration to burn in the face of besetting temptations. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... firewater, to break faith with the English, and join their cause. These underhand dealings gave Washington much uneasiness of mind; and he complained to the French general, yet in a firm and dignified manner, of the unfair advantage thus taken of the besetting weakness of ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... house peddling the product for undoubted fact. The scandalmonger is the murderer of reputations, the destroyer of domestic peace, the insuperable obstacle to the mutual friendliness of neighborhoods. This "rejoicing in iniquity" is the besetting sin of idle people. The man or woman who delights in this gratuitous and uncalled-for criticism of neighbors thereby puts himself below the moral level of the ones whose faults he criticises. Martineau, in his scale of the springs of action, rightly ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... the Salvation Army was fair game; and that, if there was personal satire, it was not necessarily obvious—a palliation which (not to mention another for a moment) extends to Sapho. But L'Immortel revived—unfortunately, as a sort of last word—the ugliness of this besetting sin of Daudet's. Even the saner members of Academies would probably scout the idea of their being sacrosanct and immune from criticism. But L'Immortel, despite its author's cleverness, is once more an essentially vulgar book, and a vulturine or ghoulish one—fixing ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... collection of news; scarcely any item of interest is overlooked by the army of alert reporters day and night in the field. The old-world papers do not compete with those of the new in the matter of quantity of news. But just here comes in one of the chief faults of the American journal, one of the besetting sins of the American people,—their well-known love of "bigness," their tendency to ask "How much?" rather than "Of what kind?" There is a lack of discrimination in the daily bill of fare served up by the American press that ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... and he wondered whether her calmness was born of girl's pride or woman's insight. Nevertheless, amid all doubts and questionings his main purpose remained unwavering: he was here to ask Doris to marry him as soon as possible, so that he might rescue her and her father from the difficulties besetting them. ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... antagonist, nor challenge all comers in disputation before you have supported a thesis; and in like manner, it stands to reason, you cannot learn to converse till you have the world to converse with; you cannot unlearn your natural bashfulness, or awkwardness, or stiffness, or other besetting deformity, till you serve your time in some school of manners. Well, and is it not so in matter of fact? The metropolis, the court, the great houses of the land, are the centres to which at stated times the country comes up, as to ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... his own guidance a philosophy of despair. It was whispered by his enemies that here, upon the threshold of his public life, Guicciardini sold his honor by accepting a bribe from Ferdinand.[1] Certain it is that avarice was one of his besetting sins, and that from this time forward he preferred expediency to justice, and believed in the policy of supporting force by clever dissimulation.[2] Returning to Florence, Guicciardini was, in 1515, deputed to meet Leo X. on the part of the Republic at Cortona. Leo, who had the faculty of discerning ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... she continued after a pause, "when I tell you that I used to be fearfully jealous when I was young. It was my besetting sin." ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... practise thrift, they vowed that they would lay up a hundred dollars a year from their wages. The Doanes had worked for us for three or four years. Asa was a sturdy fellow of good habits; but Jim, his younger brother, had a besetting sin. About once a month, sometimes oftener, he wanted a playday; we always knew that he would come home from it drunk, and that we should have to put him away in some sequestered place and give him a day ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... matter entirely) Clement used secretly to try and learn the recent events and the besetting sin of each town he ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Paul noted as the besetting dangers of riches are counteracted by the possession of the spirit of sacrifice which holds all things at the disposal of God, and views life as opportunity for the service of God. And in so estimating life, we must remember that money is not the only thing that human ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... inclining him to meddle in matters better left alone, and to judge for himself with an independence that was perilous in times like these. Not that Martin Holt was himself averse to independence of judgment, rather the reverse; but he knew the dangers besetting the path of those who were resolved to think and judge for themselves, and he would fain have seen his youngest and dearest child safely made over to the care of one who would be content to go through life without asking troublesome ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... not be better in any country; but to see them return in the extreme of wretchedness and suffering was truly pitiable. Oh, Bonaparte! I charge thee fling away ambition; it is, unfortunately for the world, thy besetting sin. It cannot continue for ever, and you will be brought up with a severe round turn before you are many years ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... her sublimities, but he had a great deal of admiration for one who partook so much of his father's nature; and Ethel had a due respect for her eldest brother, gratitude and strong affection for many kindnesses, a reverence for his sterling goodness, and his exemption from her own besetting failings, only a little damped by compassionate wonder at his deficiency in talent, and by her vexation at not being ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... their contract and receive their wages, and the wages of sin is death. Ah! brethren, be serious; are these things nothing to you? Are there none of you who know that you are the slaves of some besetting sin? Look into your lives, see whose marks are upon you, whose servants you are. Are you still tied and bound with the chain of your sins? If so, turn you to Him who can alone set you free; to Him who drove the strong man armed from his palace; to Him who conquered Satan in the wilderness, ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... between the sexes, save those which originate in pure animalism, or in reasoning less or more generous. Never having experienced any feeling which he could dignify with the name of love, Godwin had no criterion in himself whereby to test the emotions now besetting him. In a man of his age this was an unusual state of things, for when the ardour which will bear analysis has at length declared itself, it is wont to be moderated by the regretful memory of that fugacious essence which gave to the first frenzy of youth its irrecoverable delight. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... fall of 1897, when the Klondike strike dragged men from all the world into the frozen North. But Buck did not read the newspapers, and he did not know that Manuel, one of the gardener's helpers, was an undesirable acquaintance. Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to play Chinese lottery. Also, in his gambling, he had one besetting weakness—faith in a system; and this made his damnation certain. For to play a system requires money, while the ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... masses of poetry could not fail to produce their effect. Of a youth whose mind, like mine at that period, possessed some general capability, without perhaps a single prominent and marked talent, a proneness to imitation is sure to be the besetting sin. I consequently, for a large portion of my earlier life, never read a work which struck my fancy, without planning a better one upon its model; for my ambition, like my vanity, knew no bounds. It was a matter of course that I should be attacked ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... tongue, and takes his place as an immortal classic. The miracle may be repeated; an English-educated Hindu may produce masterpieces of Elizabethan English that will rank him with Bacon and Ben Jonson; but it will surprise us, when it does happen. That Lucian was himself aware of the awful dangers besetting the writer who would revive an obsolete fashion of speech ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... falsehood, or of idleness, or of excess in eating and drinking, have turned away from these things, and, for Christ's sake, have renounced them. They are chosen, I think, in yet a higher sense, who, having found their besetting sin to be, not so much any one particular fault, as a general ungodly carelessness, a lightness which for ever hindered them from serving God, have struggled with this most fatal enemy; and, even in youth, and health, and happiness, have learnt what it is to be sober-minded, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... name, and told him the history of the early attacks on the house of Marnhoul. Louis answered, "He has explained all that. It was done to save me from these people who were already besetting me, in order ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... she was actually so weak as to feel any tenderness for a man like Spike, which would be doing a great wrong to both her taste and her judgment, as Rose well knew, even while most annoyed by the conversation she could not but overhear. All that influenced the good relict was that besetting weakness of her sex, which renders admiration so universally acceptable; and predisposes a female, as it might be, to listen to a suitor with indulgence, and some little show of kindness, even when resolute to reject him. As for Rose, to own the truth, her aunt did not give her a thought, as yet, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... of its hiding-place his old vague fear of evil—of one's "enemies." Such distress was so much a matter of constitution with him, that at times it would seem that the best pleasures of life could but be snatched hastily, in one moment's forgetfulness of its dark besetting influence. A sudden suspicion of hatred against him, of the nearness of enemies, seemed all at once to alter the visible form of things. When tempted by the earth-bound philosophy of the early period of his development, "he hardly knew how strong that ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... up strength in all his qualities, nevertheless suffered from one besetting weakness. He could not stand being laughed at. The laughter of men was a hateful thing. They might laugh among themselves about anything they pleased except himself, and he did not mind. But the moment laughter was turned upon him he would fly into a most terrible rage. Grave, dignified, sombre, ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... efforts":[26:1] first, a disposition to compromise the essential principles of Christianity by politic concessions to heathenism, so that the successes of the Jesuit missions are magnified by reports of alleged conversions that are conversions only in name and outward form; second, a constantly besetting propensity to political intrigue.[27:1] It is hardly to be doubted that both had their part in the prodigious failure of the French Catholic missions and settlements within the present boundaries of the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... go forward to a still more spectacular scene in that strange drama, one which proved that the Spaniards had truly at length reached the "land of gold." The Inca was not long a prisoner before he discovered the besetting passion of the Spaniards, their thirst for gold. A party was sent to pillage his pleasure-house, and brought back a rich booty in gold and silver, whose weight and value filled the conquerors ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... flings to the pursuing wolves of doubt and unbelief, scrap by scrap,' all the distinctive doctrines of Christianity. Belief, it is true, must be ultimately logical to stand. It must have an inner cohesion and inter- dependence. It must start from a fixed principle. This has been, and still is, the besetting weakness of the theology of mediation. It is apt to form itself merely by stripping off what seem to be excrescences from the outside, and not by radically reconstructing itself, on a firmly established basis, ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... were worth a thousand times more to Britain than the gilded corruption of Rome. But in the course of time the Saxons or English themselves lost spirit (S36). Their besetting sin was a stolidity which degenerated into animalism ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... had given to his master's illness was certainly not a false one. He did find Sir Louis "in the horrors." If any father have a son whose besetting sin is a passion for alcohol, let him take his child to the room of a drunkard when possessed by "the horrors." Nothing will cure ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... asked," says he, "'What wilt Thou have me to do?' and it was answered, 'I will show him what great things he must suffer for my name's sake.' Thus it may be with me. I have been too anxious to do great things. The lust of praise has ever been my besetting sin; and what more befitting school could be found for me than that of suffering alone, away from the eye and ear of man?" Writing again to Mr. Bonar, he tells him: "I feel distinctly that the whole of my labor during ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... Peter Rabbit's besetting sin. Sleepy as he was, he just couldn't go home without first finding out what had happened in the bulrushes. So away Peter started for the Smiling Pool, lipperty-lipperty-lip. Of course the Merry Little Breeze saw him go. Then the Merry Little Breeze waked all the other Merry Little Breezes, and ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... Newport that I went to Kittery, and passed in a few hours from the modern to the ancient world. Not even New York gives a more vivid impression of the inappropriateness which is America's besetting sin, than Newport, whose gay inhabitants are determined, at all costs, to put themselves at variance with time and place. The mansions, called "cottages" in proud humility, are entirely out of proportion ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... certain masques given at the Court of King James that the traditional bareness of the boards was covered, and it was not until the time of Charles II. that women began to make their appearance upon the boards and unite the stage with the second estate. Many writers have emphasised the difficulties besetting the Elizabethan dramatist; Sir Philip Sidney himself has apologised to the spectator for the heavy overdraft on his imagination, and we have but to consider some of the most striking moments in our poet's work to realise what ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... to ride my horse in a race at Fort Ryan. Well, it was the devil laid a snare for me, and I fell in. But this I will say: I promise you I will never do the like again, and if each of you will stand up now and give me the same promise about your own particular besetting sin, then I'll feel that we have made a great gain, and I will be glad I ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS, 1561-1626. [Footnote: Macaulay's well-known essay on Bacon is marred by Macaulay's besetting faults of superficiality and dogmatism and is best left unread.] Francis Bacon, intellectually one of the most eminent Englishmen of all times, and chief formulator of the methods of modern science, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... vain, Look'd up admiring at the dappling clouds And depths cerulean: Even as I gazed, The film—the earthly film obscured my vision, And in the lower region, sore perplex'd, Again I wander'd; and again shook off With vex'd impatience the besetting cares, And set me straight to gather as I walk'd A field-flower nosegay. Plentiful the choice; And, in few moments, of all hues I held A glowing handful. In a few moments more Where are they? Dropping as I went along Unheeded on my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... perfect freedom, if we do not pray selfishly. One disabled from duty by sickness may pray for health, that he may do his work; or one hemmed in by internal impediments may pray for utterance, that he may serve better the truth and the right. Or, if we have a besetting sin, we may pray to be delivered from it, in order to serve God and man, and not be ourselves Satans to mislead and destroy. But the answer to the prayer may be, as it was to Paul, not the removal of the thorn, but, instead, a growing ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... And now Harry's besetting sin, secrecy, came again in action, and instead of manfully telling Helena the truth, he left her privately, stealing away at night, and quieting his conscience by promising himself to reveal all in a letter, which was actually written, but as at the time of its arrival Helena ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes |
