"Bespoken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but the sound of our own wheels and the rhythm of the horses' feet, and we suddenly draw up at an hotel in the midst of the Forest, its quiet well-lighted interior inviting us through the doorway, left open to the cool summer night air. We are at the Speech House. We had bespoken our rooms by wire in the morning: Senator Hoar had a chambre d'honneur, with a gigantic carved four-post bed that reminded him of the great bed of Ware. His room like my "No. 5," looked out over magnificent bays of woodland to the north. The Speech House is six hundred feet ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... so to mention it to Y.R.H., or to allude to it at all, but "necessity has no law." I only feel grateful to Him who dwells above the stars that I now begin once more to be able to use my eyes. I am at present writing a new symphony for England,[4] bespoken by the Philharmonic Society, and hope it will be quite finished fourteen days hence. I cannot strain my eyes as yet long at a time; I beg therefore Y.R.H.'s indulgence with regard to your Variations,[5] which appear to me very charming, but still require closer revision on my part. Y.R.H. has only ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... Punctuality.—The celebrated mathematical instrument maker, Mr. Ramsden, was frequently deficient in punctuality, and would delay for months, nay, for years, the delivery of instruments bespoken from him. His majesty, who had more than once experienced this dilatory disposition, once ordered an instrument, which he made Ramsden positively promise to deliver on a certain day. The day, however, came, but not the instrument. At length Ramsden sent word to ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... time half the floor and all the bed was strewn with neat-looking piles of things the varieties of her modest wardrobe Florence and Constance came in to see and talk with her, and sat down on the floor too; partly, perhaps, because the chairs were all bespoken in the service of boxes and baskets, and partly to follow what seemed to be ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... pictured—you call me to the altar. At your summons I am here. But other husbands have enjoyed your youth, your beauty, your warmth of heart and all that could be termed your life. What is there for me but your decay and death? And therefore I have bidden these funeral-friends, and bespoken the sexton's deepest knell, and am come in my shroud to wed you as with a burial-service, that we may join our hands at the door of the sepulchre and ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... famous smith, from whom he buys a huge sword, which was bespoken by his father Kalev. A great drinking-bout is held in his honour, during which he slays the smith's eldest son in a fit of drunken fury, and the smith curses him. The felling of the ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... come down to us from the North of England; but before they arrived the thing which they signify was here. "Saturday-to-Monday Parties" they were called. They were not so frequent as now, because Saturday was a favourite night for entertaining in London, and it was generally bespoken for dinners and drums. But, as the summer advanced and hot rooms became unendurable, people who lived only forty or fifty miles out of London began to ask if one would run down to them on Friday or Saturday, and stay over Sunday. Of these hospitalities I was a sparing ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... to growl!" exclaimed the thick-set soldierly fellow who had bespoken me before, whose hostile gaze had never left my face. "I'll have him flogged, mademoiselle, for ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... and endow a hospital for twelve decayed soldiers, and a chapel wherein they were to attend the daily masses he ordained to be said till the end of all time (which eternity lasted rather more than a century, pretty well for an eternity bespoken by a man), for his soul and the souls of those whom he had slain. There was a large division of the quadrangular building set apart for the priest who was to say these masses; and to watch over the well-being of the bedesmen. In process of years the origin and primary ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... his honour, and as it would be a mockery without the ladies, we are appealing to them to aid us. We plan to have a tourney of knights, each of whom is to have a damsel who shall reward him with a favour at the end of the contest. I have bespoken fair Peggy for mine, and I am sure Mobray, who is not yet returned, will ask you. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... customers are few the shopkeeper will fall asleep among his wares. The Government roads are well guarded by the native police, and at regular intervals there are stations where fresh horses can be procured if they are bespoken in time by letter ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... hearing them eternally discussed by no less active tongues! In the mean time, we of Woodbridge are not without our luxuries; I enclose you a play-bill just received; I being one of the distinguished Members who have bespoken the play. We sha'n't all sit together in a Box, but go dispersed about the house with our ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... the great hall in which were placed many small tables and in the center of them all was one of exceeding size and round. Here was to be found a place for Sir Pellimore but though the King searched long, few seats did he find which were not bespoken. Yet finally he found one which did well for the ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... there while the twilight deepened and feeling still more finely that the position of this young lady was magnificent. The evening at that height had naturally turned to cold, and the travellers had bespoken a fire with their meal; the great Alpine road asserted its brave presence through the small panes of the low, clean windows, with incidents at the inn-door, the yellow diligence, the great waggons, the hurrying, hooded, private conveyances, reminders, for ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... to this benevolent man. When I first went into his kitchen, I saw his cook, a man with a very important face, serving out a large turtle. Several people were waiting with covered dishes, for turtle soup and turtle, which had been bespoken in different parts of the city. The dishes, as fast as they were filled, continually passed by me, tantalizing me by their savoury odours. I sat down upon a stool near the fire—I saw food within my reach that honesty forbade me to touch, though I was starving: ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... "most of the votes have been bespoken or begged for. Trusty agents, at the moment of voting, placed filled-in ballots in the hands of the voters, and put in their way, on reaching the taverns, every document and suggestion calculated to excite ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... till late in the autumn, when I commenced my proposed lecture course in Missouri by an appointment at Westport, by arrangement of a gentleman of that place, whose acquaintance I had made in my Kansas campaign. Arrived at the Westport hotel, where my entertainment had been bespoken, I was taken by the landlady to her own cosy sitting-room, and made pleasantly at home. Later in the day I became aware of considerable excitement in the bar-room and street of the town. The landlord held several hurried consultations with his wife in the ante-room. My ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... course, propose to stay for the after-piece, so they rose and left the theatre; the Doctor returning to Mrs. Portman, who was on a visit at the Deanery, and the Major walking home full of thought towards the George, where he had bespoken a bed. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Oh, my most charming and kind benefactress! if you could only know, or see into my troubled heart on this subject, you would certainly feel pity and indulgence for me. The unlucky promised symphony has haunted my imagination ever since it was bespoken, and it is only, alas! the pressure of urgent occurrences that has prevented its being hitherto ushered into the world! The hope, however, of your lenity towards me for the delay, and the approaching time ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... that Canterbury is a garrison town and that other resources, and other prospects, I suppose, were open to Viola. But Viola was tired of talking to the garrison. I think she would have been tired in any case, even if the garrison hadn't been bespoken, as it were, by her unmarried sisters. (It is, humanly speaking, impossible that, even in a garrison town, seven sisters will all marry into the Service, as I fatuously supposed Mrs. Thesiger must have realized ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... the fate of many another brave man,—he was betrayed by the woman he loved. He had been smitten with a passion for the daughter of the Torda baker, the beautiful Rosalie; but her affections were already bespoken by the butcher's apprentice, Marczi by name, a youth of courage and activity. However, she deigned to receive the outlawed chieftain's attentions, her sole purpose being to entrap him and deliver him up to his foes. One evening, when she went to keep an ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... Whitsun-week, with a grave and reverend minister, Mr. Grandidge, I saw a comely and modest gentlewoman standing at the door of that house where we were invited to a wedding dinner, and inquiring of that worthy friend whether he knew her. Yes (quoth he), I know her well, and have bespoken her for your wife. When I farther demanded an account of that answer, he told me she was the daughter of a gentleman whom he much respected, Mr. George Winniff, of Bretenham; that out of an opinion had of ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... were of the highest importance; for they related to a confidential conversation with the King of Prussia on the subject of the political apple, at which all were striving for the largest bite. The King of Prussia, wrote the ambassador, had spoken jestingly of the partition of Poland. He had bespoken for himself the district of Netz and Polish Prussia, premising that Dantzic, Thorn, and Cracow were ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the temptation of conjugating the verb to love. Had he been able to choose from the two sisters, he would probably have selected Gertrude in spite of what he had said to Norman in the boat; but Gertrude was bespoken; and it therefore seemed all but unnatural that there should not be some love ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... man is bidden to take up his residence in the girl's house, observe her general character and especially her diligence, find out if she has been bespoken, gain the good will of her father and relatives, and ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... bowed low, as to one for whom first-floor rooms and a salon had been bespoken, and waved his hand towards the stairs, where stood a couple ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman |
