Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Compassed   Listen
adjective
Compassed  adj.  Rounded; arched. (Obs.) "She came... into the compassed window."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Compassed" Quotes from Famous Books



... being in love and debt that breaks us of our rest, And he that is quite out of both, of all the world is blest; He sees the golden age wherein all things were free and common, He eats, he drinks, he takes his rest, he fears no man nor woman. Though Croesus compassed great wealth, yet he still craved more; He was as needy a beggar still as goes from door to door. Though Ovid was a merry man, love ever kept him sad; He was as far from happiness as one that is stark mad. Our merchant, he in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... afflicted servant turn in supplication. We find among his prayers no "Holy Abraham, pray for us,"—"Holy Abel, pray for us." His own Psalm of thanksgiving describes full well the object and the nature of his {24} prayer: "When the waves of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid, the sorrows of hell compassed me about, the snares of death prevented me; in my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried to my God; and He did hear ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... rescues compassed, directly or indirectly, by the Piccadilly Midnight work is about fifty a year. This is not a very great result; but after all the taking of even a few people from this hellish life and their restoration to decency and self-respect is well worth the cost ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard

... the deep, in the midst of the seas; and Thy floods compassed me about; all Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of Thy sight; yet will I look again toward Thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul, the ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh

... death of Kalayavana, a Danava who will be endued with great might in consequence of his being equipt with the energy of Gargya.[1839] A proud Asura will appear as a king at Girivraja, of the name of Jarasandha, who will quarrel with all the other kings of the world. His death will be compassed by me through some one else guided by my intelligence. I shall next slay Sisupala in the sacrifice of king Yudhishthira, the son of Dharma, which sacrifice all the kings of the world will bring tribute. In some of these feats, only Arjuna, the son of Vasava, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... "'Many bulls have compassed me; great bulls of Bashan have beset me round. Save me from the lion's mouth; for Thou hast heard me from the horns ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... city of gorgeous ceremonials that had changed Christianity into a kind of baptized paganism, we felt it indescribably refreshing to partake, in the beautiful simplicity of our own worship, of the symbols of the broken body and shed blood of our Lord. We seemed to be compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses, apostles, martyrs, and saints, who in the early ages of the Church in this city overcame the world by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and loved not their lives unto the death. ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... thing to do was for Henry to work away at their dream of a home together—home together, however little, just four walls to love each other in, away from the gaze of prying eyes, none daring to make them afraid. How that home was to be compassed was far from clear in either of their minds; but vaguely it was felt that it would be brought about by the powerful enchantments of literature. Henry had recently had one of Angel's poems accepted by a rather good magazine, and the trance of joy ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... the expected judgment and transfer the place of it to the star-chamber. Here, on October 25th, the commissioners again met; and one of them alone, Lord Zouch, dissented from the verdict by which Mary was found guilty of having, since the 1st of June preceding, compassed and imagined divers matters tending to the destruction of Elizabeth. This verdict was conveyed to her, about three weeks later, by Lord Buckhurst and Robert Beale, clerk of the privy council. At the intimation that her life was an impediment to the security of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... came o'er the spirit of my dream. The wanderer was alone as heretofore, The beings which surrounded him were gone, Or were at war with him; he was a mark For blight and desolation, compassed round With hatred and contention; pain was mixed In all which was served up to him, until, Like to the Pontic monarch of old days, He fed on poisons, and they had no power, But were a kind of nutriment; he lived Through that which had been ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... . . debt. Referring to the old legend that Merlin had for father an incubus or demon, and was himself a demon of evil, though his innate wickedness was driven out by baptism. Thus his 'debt' to the demon was his existence, which he paid when Vivien compassed his destruction by means of a spell which he had taught her. Keats refers to the storm which is said to have raged that night, which Tennyson also describes in Merlin and Vivien. The source whence the story came to Keats has not ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... appreciate. (Cheers.) The Honourable the Commandant had spoken so ably of their victory that little remained for him to add. He, however, ventured to differ from the gallant Commandant on one point, namely, that, when compassed on all sides by difficulties, far from aid, succour, or assistance of any kind, Mr. Forrest must have wished himself back in Perth, all well. He (Mr. Randell) did not believe that such a thought ever entered Mr. Forrest's head, fully determined ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... Phenomenon No. 2—also connected with the mechanics of quicker movement than Shanks's mare ever compassed—was one of those old high bicycles, a fifty-two inch, I should guess, dating from the late eighteen-seventies, which, although the year was 1916, was being ridden along the ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas

... beating of spirits, and scraping of croslets! It is a very secret science, for none almost can understand the language of it. Sublimation, almigation, calcination, rubification, albification, and fermentation; with as many termes unpossible to be uttered as the arte to be compassed. ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... in thought" is here meant the infinite compassed or contained in thought, we readily grant that the finite can not contain the infinite; it is a simple truism which no one has ever been so foolish as to deny. Even Cousin is not so unwise as to assert the absolutely ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... apparelled herself, and went to visit the countess. The countess was much rejoiced when she saw her, and inquired what news she brought from the court. "I bring thee the best of news," said Luned, "for I have compassed the object of my mission. When wilt thou that I should present to thee the chieftain who has come with me hither?" "Bring him here to visit me tomorrow," said the countess, "and I will cause the town to be assembled by that ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... gretely vsed Where in we went tyll at the last A castell I sawe wherof I mused Not fully from me a stones cast To se the towres I was agast Set in a valey so strongely fortefyed So gentyll compassed and well edefyed ...
— The Example of Vertu - The Example of Virtue • Stephen Hawes

... far more than it honours the saint; and the love I bear you is such as this. Forgive me if I have dared these utterances. To save him with whose fortunes your own are to be bound up became at once my object; and as I knew with what ingenuity and craft his ruin had been compassed, it required all my efforts to baffle his enemies. The National press and the National party have made a great cause of this trial, and determined that tenant-right should be vindicated in the person of this ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... establishing the monastic rule in England was set aside. In some instances "the monastic rule was quashed, and minsters dissolved, and monks driven out, and God's servants put down, whom King Edgar had ordered the holy bishop Ethelwold to establish."[8] The queen confessed before her death to having compassed the death of Abbot Brithnoth. His body was ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting

... away angry with myself: I had been losing my time ever since I entered the place! night as it was I would go straight to the palace! From the square I had seen it—high above the heart of the city, compassed with many defences, more a ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... used to say that "he had been counsel against himself;" but Roger North frankly admits that "if this question had not come to such a composition, which diminished the ladies' fortunes, his brother had never compassed ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... by the hardest kind of hunting; and this story was repeated all over the South. Now the negro began to raise bird dogs in place of hounds, and he carried his new gun to church if services happened to be held on a week day. Finally the negro had grown up and had compassed his ambition: he could shoot partridges flying just the same as a white man, was a white man except for a trifling difference in color; and he could kill more birds, too, three times as many. It was merely a change from the ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... were given time enough, he would need a very much longer time for the accomplishment of such a task than the few hours which were to elapse before he was to be taken out of the cell and placed among the chain- gang which was to march to the silver mines. No; escape, if escape was to be compassed, would have to be effected while on the march; and Douglas fell to wondering who his companions in misfortune would prove to be, and whether they would be likely to be prevailed upon to join him in a dash for liberty. At any rate, ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... gesture, however, that infallible shorthand of the mind, which seemed the surest medium of this mute delightful intercourse. For each little gesture that she made—unconsciously, of course—expressed more than the swiftest language could have compassed in an hour. And he noted every one: the occasional flourish of the little hands, the bending of the graceful neck, the shadowy head turned sideways, the lift of one shoulder, almost imperceptible, ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... no deeper depth of degradation to which I could sink, I set about the task she had given me, laboring through it like a man in a dream. To gather up such a huge sum of money after banking hours was well nigh impossible; but I compassed the end by chartering a cab and going to anybody and everybody who could by any possibility cash my checks, leaving a disgraceful trail of the bank paper in dives and gambling dens and night resorts without number—driven to this because all respectable sources were closed ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... Carthage! I would give them all to you for one kiss. To him who has learned all secret knowledge, the mind alone is God and city and home and friends,—everything, everything save love," and his voice, harsh, and strident, sank to a whisper in which was compassed all the fierceness of ungoverned and ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... were, it would be a great shortening, aswel of the time as of the way, if any perfection could be found in it. About foure leagues from that Iland toward West-South-west is the firme land, which seemeth to be as an Iland compassed about with litle Ilands of sands. There is a goodly Cape which we named Cape Dolphin, for there is the beginning of good grounds. On the 27. of Iune we compassed the said lands about that lie West Southwest: and a farre off they seeme to be little ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... and independent importance, and to secure to the Court the unlimited and uncontrolled use of its own vast influence, under the sole direction of its own private favour, has for some years past been the great object of policy. If this were compassed, the influence of the Crown must of course produce all the effects which the most sanguine partisans of the Court could possibly desire. Government might then be carried on without any concurrence on the part of the people; without any attention to the ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... Having compassed the aims of his mission with uncommon despatch, Colonel Laurens left Paris, and reached Philadelphia towards the end of August, having been absent from the country but little more than six months. As soon as he had made a report of his doings to Congress, he repaired ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... we are perpetually reminded that our life is compassed round with darkness, but he will not suffer this darkness to overshadow his cheerfulness. On the contrary, the beautiful world, and the delights it offers, are made to stand out, as it were, in brighter relief against the ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... Queen Elizabeth's birth-night as that of their saint and patroness; yet then they were for doing the work of the Lord by arms against her; and in all probability they wanted but a fanatic lord mayor and two sheriffs of their party to have compassed it. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... We are entirely compassed about with mountains; on every side they lift their grand heads in everlasting testimony of the wonderful handiwork of the Almighty. But we have little time to gaze upon their beauty, for more precious creations of the same great Hand ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 49, No. 3, March, 1895 • Various

... buildings, do make up this city, which by some is resembled for the situation of it unto the city of Venice, which stands as this doth, upon several islands in the sea. The waters are great and deep about this city, which is compassed with mountains, except only where they give way to the passage of the waters. The town, in the prospect of it, seems to be as in the midst of the circuit of the mountains, and as it were composed of divers pieces, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... there right suddenly Lord Raoul gave rein And galloped straightway to the crowded square, — What time a strange light flickered in the eyes Of the calm fool, that was not folly's gleam, But more like wisdom's smile at plan well laid And end well compassed. In the noise of hoofs Secure, the fool low-muttered: "'Folly's love!' So: 'Silliness' sweetheart: no-brains:' quoth my Lord. Why, how intolerable an ass is he Whom Silliness' sweetheart drives so, by the ear! Thou languid, lordly, most heart-breaking ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... having never been intended as one general body, but they are received as incontrovertible authority. In former times great efficacy was attached to sacrifice and religious austerities, but the objects once accomplished in that way are now compassed by mere faith. In the Baghavat Gita, the text-book of the modern school, the sole essential for salvation is dependence on some particular teacher, which makes up for everything else. The efficacy which is thus ascribed ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... of Syria thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder

... I failed to convince myself on August 30th, when my brother came to see me, that he was no spy, I am almost sure that I should have compassed my own destruction within the following ten days, for the next month, I believed, was the fatal one of opening courts. You will recall that it was death by drowning that impended. I liken my salvation itself to a prolonged process of drowning. Thousands of minutes of the seven hundred ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... deceived by me, though since With dread attending when that fatal wound Shall be inflicted by the seed of Eve Upon my head. Long the decrees of Heaven Delay, for longest time to Him is short; And now, too soon for us, the circling hours This dreaded time have compassed, wherein we Must bide the stroke of that long-threatened wound (At least, if so we can, and by the head 60 Broken be not intended all our power To be infringed, our freedom and our being In this fair empire won of Earth and Air)— For this ill news I bring: The Woman's Seed, Destined ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton

... hours' travel, and, drenched with the furious rain, he came to Aesernia. This town stood in a strong position on an isolated hill; its massive walls yet compassed it about. On arriving at the gate he found himself unexpectedly challenged by armed men, who, though Italians, he at once suspected to be in the Gothic service. A moment's hesitancy in replying to the questions, 'Whence?' and 'Whither?' sufficed to put him under arrest. He was ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... explained much to her—else she had surely wondered that the tattered Dalfin claimed to be a prince. Yet he was princely, both in look and bearing, as he rose up and made himself known, with a bow which none but a courtier could have compassed. ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler

... American Home Missionary Society that it closes its year, not having realized its fears even if it has not absolutely compassed all its hopes. We are grateful, for its success. Our congratulations also are hearty that our great Foreign Missionary Society, the A.B.C.F.M., reports itself at the end of its fiscal half-year $78,000 in advance of what was received ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., May, 1888., No. 5 • Various

... quietly down the stairway; then, as if my feet were suddenly winged with terror, I darted by the study-door, flew lightly over the carpeted hall, and found myself, in another moment, secure within the small enclosed vestibule into which the door of entrance gave. My worst misgivings had never compassed the terrific truth. At this early hour of the evening, not only was the front door locked, but the key had been withdrawn. ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... obscuring the plain and comparatively simple question of cure with the entirely opposed problem of punishment; a confusion and losing of the way that leads inevitably into a forest-tangle of difficulty and unanswerable questions. And this heritage of wrong-thinking has compassed our feet, binding them and throwing us down, as soon as we try to move on, always hindering reform from generation to generation, and, until that entanglement is broken through, by bringing into it the light of honest thinking, ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... own child; and there he stands, and can say whether my plain speech be true or false. I was myself a father but a little while before I spirited him away from a dangerous home to a safe ship. Sir Robert believed they were both dead, and sorrowed not; although he compassed only the removal of the brother, yet the going away of his nephew made his possessions the more secure; for, as he said, times might change, and the boy be restored if he had lived. His disappearance made a ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... healthful condition in which, by the resumption of specie payments, our internal trade and foreign commerce may be brought into harmony with the system of exchanges which is based upon the precious metals as the intrinsic money of the world. In the public judgment that this end should be sought and compassed as speedily and securely as the resources of the people and the wisdom of their Government can accomplish, there is a much greater degree of unanimity than is found to concur in the specific measures which will bring the country to this desired ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes

... True it is that research in the arctic and antarctic circles remained to be pursued, and still remains. Man will not cease his efforts till he knows his planet in its entirety, though the price of the knowledge may be high. But when he has compassed the extreme ends of the globe, he will not have found a rood of ground upon which any one will ever wish to live. The earth lust of the nations is not provoked by thoughts of the two poles. Ruling out the frozen regions, therefore, ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... exceed our capacitie: for there is not any thing found in the holy Scriptures of this matter, where the place and situation of hell, or of eternall fire prepared for the deuill and his angels, and so for all damned soules, is bounded or compassed about. The holy Bible (I say) assigneth no locall or bodily situation beneath the earth, or vpon the earth, or in any other place of this world, to that prison of the damned: but it affirmeth that this earth shall perish, and that a new earth, and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... to government, arising from the continuance of the corporation, would have amounted to no trifling annual sum. But, what is of far more importance, and what was foreseen by the enemies of the Church of England when they compassed the ruin of the corporation, the means of "lengthening its cords and strengthening its stakes," would have been placed within the power of the Australian Church. And since, under every disadvantage, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... against his nephue, and therevpon wrote sundrie letters ouer vnto duke Robert, counselling him to come ouer with an armie in all hast, to take the rule vpon him, which by his practise should easilie be compassed. ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (2 of 12) - William Rufus • Raphael Holinshed

... little spot, With gray walls compassed round, Where knotted grass neglected lies, ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

... again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Then Satan was loosed out of his prison, and gathered the hosts of Gog and Magog to battle, and went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about, and fire came down out of heaven and devoured them." It seems impossible to avoid seeing in this passage a plain statement of the millennial reign of Christ on the earth with ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... physical structure, her continued uncertainty of health, she capably undertook the management of their large new house, and supervised its economies. Any one of her undertakings was sufficient for one woman, but she compassed them all. No children had more careful direction than hers. No husband had more devoted attendance and companionship. No household was ever directed with a sweeter and gentler grace, or with greater perfection of detail. When the great ones of the world came to visit America's most ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... Christ among the sons of men In humble form was found, With cruel slanders, false and vain, They compassed him around. ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... the ancient faith has been parcelled and refined away, all the religious and social divisions, all the adventurous rabble who, as children of art and ministers of pleasure, riot in the prodigalities of Herod, and all the peoples of note at any time compassed by the Caesars and their predecessors, especially those dwelling within the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... was the camp of the AEquians and after what fashion it was pitched. This done he commanded that the baggage should be gathered together into a heap, and that the soldiers should stand every man in his own place. After this he compassed about the whole army of the enemy with his own army, and commanded that at a set signal every man should shout, and when they had shouted should dig a trench and set up therein the stakes. This the soldiers did, and the noise of the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... elder poets bestowed no thought upon their verse. "Waller was smooth," but unhappily he was also flat, and his importation of the French theory of the couplet as a kind of thought-coop did nothing but mischief.[54] He never compassed even a smoothness approaching this description of a nightingale's song by a third-rate poet ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... from her robe and read: "But when ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that her desolation is at hand. Then let them which are in Judaea flee unto the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of her depart out; and let not them that are in the country enter therein. For these are days of vengeance, ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... the sirens who would have compassed the destruction of Odysseus. Such are the mermaids, to wed with one of whom must bring unutterable woe upon any of the sons of men. In lonely far-off places by the sea there still are tales of exquisite melodies heard in the gloaming, or at night when the moon makes a silver pathway across the water; ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... is the true Ramoth; He is "exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour!" He was once lowly, despised, rejected, crucified, slain. He compares Himself to a poor outcast and exile amid these forests of Gilead: "Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion."[49] But having been exalted on the cross as a suffering Saviour, He is now exalted ...
— The Cities of Refuge: or, The Name of Jesus - A Sunday book for the young • John Ross Macduff

... a man compassed with infirmities; the parting with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the pulling the flesh from the bones; and also it brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and wants, that my poor ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... end of nine months the French gentleman obtained his freedom, and by his diligence compassed that of his comrade also, who thereupon used all his efforts with the Marquis and Marchioness to bring about his marriage with Pauline. But all was of no avail; they pointed out to him the poverty wherein they would both be forced to live, as ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... essay seems like one continual strain to attain the unattainable, to compass and define Whitman, who will not be compassed and defined, I can only say that I regret it, but could not well help it. Talking about Whitman, Symonds said, was like talking about the universe, and it is so. There is somewhat incommensurable in his works. One may not hope to speak ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... sore fight and overcame his foe, who with his troops ignominiously fled. When the king and his army returned in triumph, Bakhtzaman said to him, "Harkye, O king! This be a strange thing I see in thee that thou art compassed about with this mighty great army, yet dost thou apply thyself in person to battle and adventurest thy life." Quoth the king, "Dost thou call thyself a knight and a learned wight and deemest that victory is in ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... have felt some embarrassment in going to speak to her if his modesty had not found incredulity so easy. The facile side of a union with Miss Blanchard had never been present to his mind; it had struck him as a thing, in all ways, to be compassed with a great effort. He had half an hour's talk with her; a farewell talk, as it seemed to him—a farewell not to a real illusion, but to the idea that for him, in that matter, there could ever be an acceptable pis-aller. He congratulated Miss ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... their armies of retainers, instead of exercising political power in Parliament. In his first Parliament an angry brawl arose. The lords who in the last reign had taken the side of Gloucester flung their gloves on the floor of the House as a challenge to those who had supported Richard when he compassed Gloucester's death; and though Henry succeeded in keeping the peace for the time, a rebellion broke out early in 1400 in the name of Richard. Henry, like the kings before him, found his support ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... Blount awoke with the feeling that he had definitely cut himself off from all the commonplace activities of the campaign. There were two days of suspense to be outworn, and if he could have compassed it he would have been glad to efface himself completely. Since that was impossible, and since it seemed equally impossible that he should go on keeping up the farce of the modus vivendi after he had taken the step which would presently blazon his ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... India Company, a variety of designs for the further extension of his territories. Some years after, he carried his views to certain objects of interior arrangement, of a very pernicious nature. None of these designs could be compassed without the aid of the Company's arms; nor could those arms be employed consistently with an obedience to the Company's orders. He was therefore advised to form a more secret, but an equally powerful, interest among the servants of that Company, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the new difficulties and dangers that compassed him round about, he was frequently on the verge of tears, and his couch that night was visited by dreadful dreams, in which he sought audience of the Evil One himself at cross-roads, was chased over half London by police, and dragged ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey

... father, and you may do the same, Tom, if you like, for I will be as good as a father to you, if you are as good a boy as you now seem to be, I like to be called father, somehow or another—it sounds pleasant to my ears. But come in now, I think you have compassed the compass, so ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... never thought of giving up yachting until they were turned of sixty, when, to her relief, her uncle slowly filled away on the right tack. His acceptance was expressed in highly ungracious terms; but, as has been said, Dorothy never troubled herself about forms, provided she compassed results. The moment that he had uttered the fatal words, Mr. Port fell to cursing himself in his own mind for being such a fool; but the same reason that had impelled him to give his consent withheld him from retracting it. He knew ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier

... element in that country. They were under the leadership of Admiral Coligny, who was plotting the overthrow of the ruling monarch. The French King, instigated by his mother, Catherine de Medicis, and fearing the influence of Coligny, whom he regarded as an aspirant to the throne, compassed his assassination, as well as that of his followers in Paris, August 24th, 1572. This deed of violence was followed by an indiscriminate massacre in the French capital and other cities of France by an incendiary populace, who are easily aroused ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... compassed me round about with his lances, he hath wounded my loins, he hath not spared, he hath poured out my bowels ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... nearly twenty years, and in that brief time it did a great work for Ireland. If we look for its epitaph we shall find it, strangely enough, in the words spoken in 1798 by the man who pursued Grattan's Parliament with his venomous hate, and finally compassed its doom—the famous ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender

... mixed a powerful poison with a quantity of food, with the object of making away with Bhima. That wicked youth who had nectar in his tongue and a razor in his heart, rose at length, and in a friendly way fed Bhima largely with that poisoned food, and thinking himself lucky in having compassed his end, was exceedingly glad at heart. Then the sons of Dhritarashtra and Pandu together became cheerfully engaged in sporting in the water. Their sport having been finished, they dressed themselves in white habiliments, and decked themselves with various ornaments. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... and underneath are the everlasting arms.' Our song is one of unmingled praise, and our little band is strengthened and invigorated by the voyage,—no storm permitted to alarm us by day or night We are now entering the mighty Gulf, and passing through fields of ice; but 'He who hath compassed the waters with bounds, and divided the sea with His power,' maketh a right way for us and ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe

... it was compassed, but that night Rupert of Glasgow was left bound and gagged against the door of the castle, and the night-bell pulled. And that night I was seated on the throne of the S'helpburgs. As I gazed at the Princess Flirtia, glowing in the characteristic beauty of the ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... the Court to Nikosia days of peace and sunshine had at last dawned for the distracted island kingdom—whether compassed by the wisdom of the astute and vigilant counsellors who sat close under the ear of the youthful Queen—by the superior force of the Venetian galleys, or by the winning charm of the Queen herself. The echoes of conspiracy had been stilled and the cities of Cyprus were ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... if aught beyond sweet sleep lie hidden, And sleep be sealed not fast on dead men's sight For ever, thine hath grace for ours forbidden, And sees us compassed round with change and night: Yet light like thine is ours, if love ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... have more sense," returned her acetous companion. "I have bidden her forty times o'er to have these maids well ordered, and mine house as like to an holy convent as might be compassed; and here is she none knows whither—taking her pleasure, I reckon—and these caitiff hildings making the very walls for to ring with their wicked foolish laughter!—Agatha! bring me hither the rod. ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... admitting light and air, but use no glass. The materials of their best houses are bricks and stone, well squared and built, as I have observed in Ahmedabad, which may serve as an instance for all. This is an extensive and rich city, compassed about with a strong stone-wall, and entered by twelve handsome gates. Both in their towns and villages, they have usually many fair trees among the houses, being a great defence against the violence of the sun. These ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... was a point of honour to cross the Coupee on Riding Day, and some even compassed it cautiously without dismounting, and took much credit to themselves, though others might call ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... stream is only a swollen torrent, but it runs so noisily over pebbles and rocks that it seems to be conversing with them and with the trees of the neighboring forest. In proportion as they had felt themselves alone on the road from Rome to Otricoli, they now felt themselves compassed about with the life, the fecundity, the ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... had paid him a visit and made a wonderful announcement, he, Coleman, had not been the engine of it. And then he enunciated clearly something in his mind which, even in a vague form, had been responsible for much of his early elation. Marjory herself had compassed this thing. With shame he rejected a first wild and preposterous idea that she had sent her father to him. He reflected that a man who for an instant could conceive such a thing was a natural-born idiot. With an equal feeling, he rejected also an idea that she could have known anything of her ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... varied pageantry of nature, man now addressed himself, humbly confessing his dependence on their invisible power, and beseeching them of their mercy to furnish him with all good things, to defend him from the perils and dangers by which our mortal life is compassed about on every hand, and finally to bring his immortal spirit, freed from the burden of the body, to some happier world, beyond the reach of pain and sorrow, where he might rest with them and with the spirits of good men in ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, 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 perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... one of the most wonderful in Shakspeare. Cleopatra is not a woman to grieve silently. The contrast between the violence of her passions and the weakness of her sex, between her regal grandeur and her excess of misery, her impetuous, unavailing struggles with the fearful destiny which has compassed her, and the mixture of wild impatience and pathos in her agony, are really magnificent. She faints on the body of Antony, and is recalled to life by the ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... be possessing a beautiful young woman whom he adored. He recalled how next day, in a shameless letter, she had derided him for the mistake that she had so greatly desired him to make and that she had compassed with such infamous cunning. He shuddered at the thought. It was the last thing he would have wished to think of just now, and he drove the detestable image ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler

... and silence conscience in their neighbours. They act as decoys and trappers for each other's souls. They play the Devil's cat's-paws, and procure for him the rum of their fellows, which could not be compassed without their aid. In short, the sinner is a ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth

... first court was a deep well, of excellent workmanship, compassed with carved pillars, which supported its leaden roof, and though out of repair, was in being in the year of our Lord 1651. A chapel stood in the same court, adjoining to the east watch-tower; which in the reign of Henry VIII. was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various

... and himself, at a later time, a leading member and president a mortier of that body, enjoyed rare advantages for arriving at the truth—declares (iv. 488) that the elder Gastines was a venerable man, beloved by his neighbors, and, indeed, by the entire city; and that the execution was compassed by a cabal of seditious persons, who, by dint of soliciting the judges, of exciting the people, of inducing them to congregate and follow the judges with threats as they left parliament, succeeded in causing to be punished with death, in the persons of the Gastines, an offence which, until ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... bringing him there; that step by step circumstances not in themselves evil or to be combated had led her along; that even her husband and mother had felt it their duty to assist towards this fateful climax! If Edward had never kept up his worldly friendship, if she had never been restricted and compassed in her own; if she had ever known the freedom of other girls,—all this might not have happened. She had been elected to share with Demorest and her husband the effects of their ungodliness. She was no longer a free agent; what availed her resolutions? To Demorest's imperious hope, she ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... do very wrongfully should I grant thee the other gift you require." "Sire," replied Hengist, "I would of thy bounty a certain manor. I pray thee of thy courtesy to add thereto so much land—I seek no more—as I may cover with a hide, and as may be compassed therewith. It will be but the hide of a bull, but for the gift's sake I shall go the more surely." Vortigern granted the boon, and Hengist thanked his master. He made ready his messenger, and sent for his kindred from ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace

... who can do not what he wills, should try To will what he can do; for since 'tis vain To will what can't be compassed, to abstain From idle wishing is philosophy. Lo, all our happiness and grief imply Knowledge or not of will's ability: They therefore can, who will what ought to be. Nor wrest true reason from her seat awry. Nor what a man can, should he always will: Oft seemeth sweet what after is not so; ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... accepted tenets of the rural religionist that dancing in itself is a deadly sin, and all the pulpits of the countryside had joined in fulminations against it Nothing less than a political necessity had compassed this joyous occasion. It was said to have been devised by the "machine" to draw together the largest possible crowd, that certain candidates might present their views on burning questions of more than ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... her dreams of the future, she forgot the man at her side, who now compassed her death. "I must make my treasure safe first," he craftily planned, "and then lose this hawk-eyed devil. But only when my future is secure beyond ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... need not expect to find them all combined in any one person. If you seek for a perfect character, you will be disappointed. In this as well as every other relation of life, you will need to exercise forbearance. The best of men are compassed about with imperfection and infirmity. Besides, as you are not perfect yourself, it would seem like a species of injustice to require ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... been carried by them to a perfection unknown to us. Yet, the smallest European nationality is, in truth, more interesting and instructive than the vast Celestial Empire can ever be—whose long annals are all compassed within a few hundred pages of a frigid narrative, void of life, and altogether void of soul. But why do we select, among so many others, the Irish nation, which is so little known, of such little influence, whose history occupies only a few lines in the general annals of the world, and whose ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... would become weary, for the burden would be too heavy, however great your devotion or profound your tenderness, to see my real position and my hopes, and, descending into the future, to see my ruin. You know I am ambitious without having ever compassed the scope of this ambition, and of the hopes, dreams if you like, on which it rests. Understand that these dreams are on the eve of being realized; two months more, and in December or January I pass the 'concours' for the central bureau, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... four pheasants, another couple of woodcocks, a few more snipes, a teal or two, and half a dozen rabbits picked up at various intervals, complete the day's sport, and I return home, better pleased with myself and my dogs than if we had compassed the destruction of all the hares in the county, or assisted at the immolation of ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... of Henchard increased Farfrae's suspicion that this was a ruse to decoy him on to the next wood, where might be effectually compassed what, from policy or want of nerve, Henchard had failed to do earlier in the day. He ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... lawyer saith what men have determined. The historian what men have done. The grammarian speaketh only of the rules of speech; and the rhetorician, and logician, considering what in nature will soonest prove and persuade, thereon give artificial rules, which still are compassed within the circle of a question, according to the proposed matter. The physician weigheth the nature of a man's body, and the nature of things helpful, or hurtful unto it. And the metaphysic, though it be in the second and abstract notions, ...
— English literary criticism • Various



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com