"Bestir" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... happened that he was in just the condition to succumb to this influence. His mental tension was relaxed. He had sat down by the wayside of life to rest awhile. He had found that there was no need that he should bestir himself in money-getting, and his mind refused to return immediately to the deep abstractions of science. It pleaded weariness of the world and of the pros and cons of conflicting theories and questions. He admitted the ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... and fertile land. The tide of invasion was checked, and with the next spring it began to roll slowly backward. The great princes of the Continent became alarmed at this new prospect of French ambition. The sluggish Emperor began to bestir himself. Spain, fast dwindling to the shadow of that mighty figure which had once bestrode two worlds, sent some troops to aid a cause which was, indeed, half her own. By sea the Dutch could do no more than keep their flag ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... presents us with a daily problem, and there is a serious interest, and some of the heat of conflict, in the mere continuing to be. So, in certain atolls, where there is no great gaiety, but man must bestir himself with some vigour for his daily bread, public health and the population are maintained; but in the lotos islands, with the decay of pleasures, life itself decays. It is from this point of view that we may instance, among other causes of depression, the decay ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and windows wide and climbed the hill. If he were to withstand the onslaught of these uncertainties, these forebodings which pressed upon him with such damnable weight, he must bestir himself. He must not sit down and brood. He knew that. It was not with any particular enthusiasm that he came upon his crew at work, that his eye marked the widening stump-dotted area where a year before the cedars stood branch to branch, nor when he looked over the long ricks of bolts waiting that ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... think of me, my Son, And of this moment; hither turn thy thoughts, And God will strengthen thee: amid all fear 415 And all temptation, Luke, I pray that thou May'st bear in mind the life thy Fathers lived, [44] Who, being innocent, did for that cause Bestir them in good deeds. Now, fare thee well— When thou return'st, thou in this place wilt see 420 A work which is not here: a covenant 'Twill be between us; but, whatever fate Befal thee, I shall love thee to the last, And bear thy memory with me to ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... the busy sound of day: at other times how insufferable he had found it! and now how joyous it seemed that men should bestir themselves, and turn to all sorts of occupations! There was a sound of crumbling snow: and how nice to have a house and a blaze upon the hearth! "And the evening and the morning were the first day!" And ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... capable of something much better than what you are doing. You must start out to-day with a firm resolution to make the returns from your work greater to-night than ever before. You must make this a red-letter day. Bestir yourself; get the cobwebs out of your head; brush off the brain ash. Think, think, think to some purpose! Do not mull and mope like this. You are only half-alive, man; get ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... not assert that men living in democratic communities are naturally stationary; I think, on the contrary, that a perpetual stir prevails in the bosom of those societies, and that rest is unknown there; but I think that men bestir themselves within certain limits beyond which they hardly ever go. They are forever varying, altering, and restoring secondary matters; but they carefully abstain from touching what is fundamental. They love change, but they dread revolutions. Although the Americans are constantly modifying ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... disappear. Lawyers do not, as a rule, concern themselves with historical fragments, but with the soundness of the present titles of their clients and their own modern duties. (I do think that historical and antiquarian societies should bestir themselves to have old deeds included among the "ancient monuments of the country" and entitled ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... above Shakspeare's grave. If the divine poet really wrote the inscription there, and cared as much about the quiet of his bones as its deprecatory earnestness would imply, it was time for those crumbling relics to bestir themselves under her sacrilegious feet. But they were safe. She made no attempt to disturb them; though, I believe, she looked narrowly into the crevices between Shakspeare's and the two adjacent stones, and in some way satisfied herself that her single strength ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the blame of their own shortcomings, so they created a new deity called Fate, and laid any misfortune which happened to them to her charge. Her worship is still very popular, especially among lazy and unlucky people, who never bestir themselves: on the ground that whether they do so or not their lives are already settled by Fate. After all, the true religion of Fate has been preached by George Eliot, when she says that our lives are the ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... nothing like making yourself comfortable," the Doctor said; "and as the servants have an easy time of it generally, it does them good to bestir themselves now and then. The expense of one or two extra bullock carts is nothing, and it makes all the ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... to victory. They are rosy with blood of victims. To bear them is to hear a horn that blows the mort: has blown it a thousand times. It is good to remember how often they have succeeded, when, for the benefit of some future Lady Vauban, who may bestir her wits to gather maxims for the inspiriting of the Defence, the circumstance of a failure has ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a rebellious feeling in the minds and hearts of the corporation against me. However, what I did, answered the end and purpose I had in view; folk began to wonder and think with themselves, what for Mr Pawkie had ceased to bestir himself in public affairs; and the magistrates and council having, on two or three occasions, done very unsatisfactory things, it was said by one, and echoed by another, till the whole town was persuaded of ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... no reply to her father's words. She sat looking into the fire. Tears were in her eyes and her heart was heavy. Everything had seemed so bright but a short time before, and now this dark cloud had arisen. Oh, if Stephen would only bestir himself. They had known each other from childhood. He had always been her hero. As a child her day-dreams and fancies were woven about him. And as years advanced their love for each other had increased. It was the natural blending of two souls which had gradually and silently grown ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... had at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle been in an even worse condition than the army; and the stadholder, as admiral-general, had been urging the Admiralties to bestir themselves and to make the fleet more worthy of a maritime power. But William's premature death brought progress to a standstill; and it is noteworthy that such was the supineness of the States-General in 1752 that, while Brunswick ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... aroused by the uneasy mooing of the cows. He sprang from bed and scarcely gave himself time to wash. He had to bestir himself, and the fagging and worry lasted without intermittence from morning until night. He had hardly time to go down to the village inn in the middle of the day ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... facetious Knight was too free of his Talk to be long secure; for a Hole was pick'd in his Coat in the succeeding Reign, and poor Sir John had all his Goods and Chattels forfeited to the King's Use. It was then time for him to bestir himself; and away to Court he goes, to recover his Lands, &c. not doubting but he had Friends there sufficient ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... call; and when the Marquis had settled himself, and when the world had begun to recognise the fact that the Marquis, with his Italian Marchioness, and his little Italian, so-called Popenjoy, were living at Manor Cross, then,—if he saw his way,—the Dean would bestir himself. ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... from believing in any such heathen goddess, or from encouraging any superstition, so we wish Mr John Fr——, or some other such philosopher, would bestir himself a little, in order to find out the real cause of this sudden transition from good to bad fortune, which hath been so often remarked, and of which we shall proceed to give an instance; for it is our province to relate facts, and we shall leave causes to persons ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... a man finds that charitable people are quite in earnest, that they really intend to place upon his shoulders the responsibility of his own family, he will bestir himself and go to work. He is not likely to stay and let his family starve. In fact, I have often found that the withholding of relief from the family of the married vagabond has the immediate effect ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... remained obdurate from Christmas until New Year, notwithstanding that his mother and Panna's father beset him early and late. The girl suffered very keenly during this period, and her eyes were always reddened by tears. But when New Year came, and still Pista did not bestir himself, the strong, noble girl, after violent conflicts in her artless mind, formed a great resolution, went to Pista herself, and said ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... with Germany and Austria, entered into a conditional compact with the Powers of the Entente. In Paris the secret quickly leaked out and was at once communicated to Berlin, whose organized espionage continued to flourish in the French capital. Thereupon Herr Jagow urged Buelow to bestir himself without delay. But the Prince was hard set. On the Italian Cabinet he had lost his hold. It had already crossed the Rubicon and passed over to the Entente. True, the Cabinet was not Italy, was not even the Government of Italy. It was hardly more ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... preaching. I care little about the sword: I will allow a thing to struggle for itself in this world, with any sword or tongue or implement it has, or can lay hold of. We will let it preach, and pamphleteer, and fight, and to the uttermost bestir itself, and do, beak and claws, whatsoever is in it; very sure that it will, in the long-run, conquer nothing which does not deserve to be conquered. What is better than itself, it cannot put away, but only what is worse. In this great Duel, Nature herself is umpire, and can ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... Storri that he might expect neither favor nor generosity from Mr. Harley; and this, considering how in all they must adventure in Credit Magellan Mr. Harley would have him in his power, filled Storri with an angry uneasiness. He decided that for his own security, if nothing more, he might better bestir himself to gain a counter-grip upon Mr. Harley. And thereupon Storri began to lie in ambush for Mr. Harley; and at a lurking, sprawling warfare that sets gins and dead-falls, and bases itself on surprise, your savage makes a ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to me a matter of surprise, that so small a portion of the public attention should be directed to the matter of extinguishing fires. It is only when roused by some great calamity that people bestir themselves; and then there is such a variety of plans proposed to avert similar cases of distress, that to attempt to concoct a rational plan out of such a crude, ill-digested, and contradictory mass of opinion, requires more labour and attention ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... gallant horseman makes the expected contemptuous reply. This is precisely in the spirit of Carlyle's sneers at the political economists,—the men who are not content to sit down and howl in this wilderness of a modern world, but bestir themselves to discover methods by which it can be ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... sons are mad!' exclaimed poor King Schelim, laying down his pipe, and rising from his recumbent position; 'and it is time that I bestir myself.' ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... it stormed; all were tired; there was no reason to bestir ourselves; it was 10 when we arose. Half an hour later Billy came to my tent and said, "Mr. Seton, here's some deer." I rushed to the door, and there, with my own eyes, I saw on a ridge a mile away four great, Caribou standing ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... that will harm ye: I think there be some bits of wood there that kin be availed of in the way of kindling a fire, and that's what I misses more than anything else, as me mither used to say when she couldn't find the whisky-bottle. Bestir yourself, me laddy, and assist me in getting ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... say, has nothing to learn there; has now quite another set of lessons to learn, far ahead of what is going on there. Sad example there, of what the issue is, and how inevitable and how imminent, might admonish the British Nation to be speedy with its new lessons; to bestir itself, as men in peril of conflagration do, with the neighboring houses all on fire! To obtain, for its own very pressing behoof, if by possibility it could, some real Captaincy instead of an ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... that lay in him. From the pupilage of Garrisonism he rose to the dignity of a teacher and a thinker; his opinions on the broader aspects of the great American question were earnestly and incessantly sought, from various points of view, and he must, perforce, bestir himself to give suitable answer. With that prompt and truthful perception which has led their sisters in all ages of the world to gather at the feet and support the hands of reformers, the gentlewomen of England [2] were foremost to encourage and strengthen him to carve ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... afternoon the expected arrival of the subject of Eustacia's ruminations created a bustle of preparation at Blooms-End. Thomasin had been persuaded by her aunt, and by an instinctive impulse of loyalty towards her cousin Clym, to bestir herself on his account with an alacrity unusual in her during these most sorrowful days of her life. At the time that Eustacia was listening to the rickmakers' conversation on Clym's return, Thomasin was climbing into a loft over her aunt's fuel-house, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... lass is going to bestir herself. Only get the thing settled, and the Commune will bind itself to keep you all your life. ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... in the valley of Rephaim. And when David inquired of Jehovah, he said, Thou shalt not go up: make a circuit behind them, and come upon them over against the mulberry trees. And it shall be, when thou hearest the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself, for then is Jehovah gone out before thee to smite the hosts of the Philistines." David obeyed the voice of the Lord, and smote his enemies from Geba ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... was willing to bestir himself enough to suit anybody, when it came to hunting, Solomon Owl did not like to work. He was no busy nest-builder, like Rusty Wren. In his search for a house he looked several times at the ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey
... dawn, Aunt Patty began to bestir herself, but before she had observed her presence, Adele had escaped to her own room. Soon, hearing Micah's voice, she went to the kitchen. She found his message from Mrs. Campbell, just the excuse she needed to enable her to dispose of Mrs. McNab. She had become quite convinced ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... within, and the household implements; from everything and every place with which she had ever been familiar, and with which she had ever entwined one recollection of herself in her unhappy husband's mind,—Fairies came trooping forth. Not to stand beside him as the Cricket did, but to busy and bestir themselves. To do all honour to her image. To pull him by the skirts, and point to it when it appeared. To cluster round it, and embrace it, and strew flowers for it to tread on. To try to crown its fair head with their tiny hands. To show ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... with the sun, and keep my clime; My wing is king of the summer-time; My breast to the sun his torch shall hold; And I'll call down through the green and gold 'Time, take thy scythe, reap bliss for me, Bestir thee under the orange-tree.'" ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... into the ground, so long as the earth is cold and dry, it lies like a person in a trance, as if it were dead; but as soon as the warm, damp spring comes, and the busy little sun-waves pierce down into the earth, they wake up the plantlet and make it bestir itself. They agitate to and fro the particles of matter in this tiny body, and cause them to seek out for other particles to seize ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... gentleman; "but no time must be lost in talking about it, or inquiring into the why or the wherefore. So here you, Timothy, John Clarke, Harris, Tom Carpenter, run for your lives, every man Jack of you to the farm, where you'll find plenty rope;—and here, miners, my dear men—do you bestir yourselves—succeed or not, I'll pay you well. Could any thing be more fortunate?" continued the old gentleman, soliloquising to himself—"could any thing be more fortunate than our show of fire-works bringing all the miners of the parish about our ears; the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... hoping for better times? We may make these times better if we bestir ourselves. Industry need not risk, and, He that lives upon hopes will die fasting. There are no gains without pains; then, Help, hands, for I have no lands; or, if I have, they are smartly taxed. He that hath a trade, hath an estate; and, He that hath ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... thought enough of Benson and his chums to want to save them for this country. So the Secretary of the Navy offered all three the rank and command of officers without the actual commissions. As soon as these young men, the Submarine Boys as they are called, are twenty-one, the Navy Department will bestir itself to give them actual commissions and make them ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... Sancho, "for I never in my life heard of a lacemaker that died for love; for your damsels that bestir themselves at some honest labor think more of their work than of their sweethearts. I know it by myself; when I am digging, I never think of my Teresa, though, God bless her! I love her ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Sellanraa at all just then—just when he was most wanted? A great one he must be for knowing things, all manner of things. Anyway, when the gentlemen up at the mine had Geissler's answer, there was nothing for it but they must bestir themselves and come all the way down to Sellanraa again. The engineer and the two mining ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... it time to bestir themselves. So much confusion prevailed, that they were wholly unobserved, and under the plea of rendering assistance, they entered houses and carried off whatever excited their cupidity, or was sufficiently portable. ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... enquired of the Lord, he said, "Thou shalt not go up; but fetch a compass behind them, and come upon them over against the mulberry trees. And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself; for then shall the Lord go out before thee, to smite the host of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... the year 1660, that the kingdom, being quite sick of distractions, restored again Charles II.; the woeful consequences are otherwise too well known; And, on this last occasion, Mr. Blair again began to bestir himself to procure union betwixt the two foresaid parties, and for that end obtained a meeting; but his endeavours were frustrated, and no reconciliation could be made, till both sides were cast into the furnace of ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... pouring down upon us! The wady is coming!" Our people, however, contented themselves at first with shouting, and made no preparations for the advancing flood; but in a short time they found it necessary to bestir themselves, and began to make dams and dykes, with the aid of sticks and hatches. These expedients proved of no avail. The waters swelled wildly up, higher and higher, and sheets of foaming waves came whirling in amongst us. I called ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... horse's hoofs and his rifle clanging madly. Reaching the room he would yell out with all the power of his lungs, thus awaking every one, "Dolmetscher! Dolmetscher!" (Interpreter! Interpreter!) "Get up!" That luckless individual had to bestir himself, tumble into his clothes and hurry to the office to assist the authorities in the official interrogation of the latest arrivals. This was one of the little worries which were sent to try us, but we soon became ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... him here in the beautiful church where he had first seen her face. Yet, as he stood looking down the marvellous perspectives of the great sanctuary, only dimly seen in the veiled and brooding light, he felt that the time was past for idle musings, that it behooved him to bestir himself, to get out into the daylight and begin ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... said Ellis quickly, "but you must find something to lay him upon; take that gate off its hinges, some of you fellows—that will answer the purpose capitally. Come, bestir yourselves; every ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... lady was so intelligent that William Wylder was obliged to exert himself in controversy with her eloquent despair; and this combat with the doubts and terrors of a mind of much more than ordinary vigour and resource, though altogether feminine, compelled him to bestir himself, and so, for the time, found him entire occupation; and thus memory and forecast, and suspense, were superseded, for the moment, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... being on the side adopted by the Doctor, found too soon that he was expected to bestir himself. More than ever anxious now to conciliate, he did his very best to conquer his natural repugnance and appear more interested than alarmed as the ball came in his way; but although (in boating slang) he "sugared" with some adroitness, he was promptly found out, for ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... old woman. Utgard-Loke bade her take a wrestle with Asa-Thor. The tale is not long. The result of the grapple was, that the more Thor tightened his grasp, the firmer she stood. Then the woman began to bestir herself, and Thor lost his footing. They had some very hard tussles, and before long Thor was brought down on one knee. Then Utgard-Loke stepped forward, bade them cease the wrestling, and added that Thor did not need to challenge anybody else to wrestle with him in his hall, besides ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... was the demand for labour and so stimulating the colonel's liberal wage, that even the drowsy Negroes around the market house were all at work, and the pigs who had slept near them were obliged to bestir themselves to keep from being run over by the wagons that were hauling brick and lime and lumber through the streets. Even the cows in the vacant lot between the post-office and the bank occasionally lifted up their gentle eyes as though wondering what strange fever ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... not think he minds that as much as one might suppose, and when I began to cry he stopped at once and tried to comfort me, and said our lot was not a hard one by any means, when compared with what many had to endure; that it was a good thing to have to bestir himself; that he had been a lazy, conceited, selfish puppy long enough, and that if it were possible he meant to be a man. And then he spoke of you as his good angel, and said you were the truest, purest, and ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... without sentence of a secular judge, it is said, was burned at St. Andrews, displaying serene courage, and hoping to be the last martyr in Scotland. Naturally there was much indignation; if the Lords and others were to keep their Band they must bestir themselves. They did bestir themselves in defence of their favourite preachers—Willock, Harlaw, Methuen; a ci-devant friar, Christison; and Douglas. Some of these men were summoned several times throughout 1558, and Methuen and Harlaw, at least, were "at the horn" (outlawed), but were protected—Harlaw ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... day, Messer Francesco thought it meet that he should rise early in the morning and bestir himself, to hear mass in the parish church at Certaldo. Whereupon he went on tiptoe, if so weighty a man could indeed go in such a fashion, and lifted softly the latch of Ser Giovanni's chamber door, that he might salute ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... my little pleasures; the thunder came quite time enough to interrupt it without being anticipated—there is another peal—I will clear away, and see that my tent is in a condition to resist the storm, and I think you had better bestir yourself." ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... her mother, "that we cannot afford to wait. November will soon be here, and your clothes may be suddenly wanted before they are ready, if we do not bestir ourselves. And Miss Rice is coming in a few days I ought to have the ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the churches were truly persuasive, truly sweet, in the evening; they seemed to bestir themselves at nightfall, and to compassionate in their solitude the sufferings of those sick ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... we will bestir ourselves. I myself have done all that is possible to obtain peace, and in three days I am going, with twelve of the principal citizens, to Bruges, where the earl arrived yesterday. We shall offer to submit ourselves to his mercy if he will have pity on the city. ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... terms to permit his crew to be mustered by any other officers but their own. The messenger departed, and then, for the first time entertaining serious misgivings, Commodore Barron ordered his decks cleared for action. But before the crew could bestir themselves, the Leopard drew near, her men at quarters. The British commander shouted a warning, but Barron, now thoroughly alarmed, replied, "I don't hear what you say." The warning was repeated, but again Barron to gain time shouted that he could not ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... mid-Natal where Sir George White with his army maintained a valiant resistance against a strenuous and determined foe without, and disease and hunger and death within, until, to use his own words, that slow-moving giant John Bull should pass from his slumber and bestir himself to take back his own. For that reason alone the story of Ladysmith will remain memorable. But it is a story which is brilliant in brave deeds, which tells of danger boldly faced, of noble self-sacrifice to duty, in calm endurance of many and ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... pumped Winchesters into the train in a highly picturesque way. The trainmen at once recognized the force of the Cracker's views on cattle-killing, but it took some considerable "potting" at the more conservative superintendents before the latter could bestir themselves and invent a "cow-attorney," as the company adjuster is called, who now settles with the bushmen as best he can. Certainly no worse people ever lived since the big killing up Muscleshell way, and the romance ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... approached and spoke: 'Heracles, I too am come to you, seeing that your parents are well known to me, and in your nurture I have gauged your nature; wherefore I entertain good hope that if you choose the path which leads to me, you shall greatly bestir yourself to be the doer of many a doughty deed of noble emprise; and that I too shall be held in even higher honour for your sake, lit with the lustre shed by valorous deeds. (35) I will not cheat you with preludings of pleasure, (36) but I will relate to you the things that ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... was re-lit in the contemplative fashion of habit. A whimper from the slumbering dogs left him indifferent. Only when the flames of his fire grew less did he bestir himself. A great replenishment and his final ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... easy-chair,' 'e says, 'snoring o' nights on your feather bed, while the brave chaps as is gone to the front lie on planks o' wood an' eat their soup without so much as a spoon, for the sake o' them who won't bestir theirselves though the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... company, reads fewer and fewer books, can hardly eat and drink unless all is exactly what he approves; till it becomes almost wearisome to be with him, because it is such anxious and scheming work to lay out everything to please him, and because he will never take his chance of anything, nor bestir himself to make anything out of a situation which has the least commonness or dulness in it. Of course only with the command of wealth is such life possible; but the more delicate such a man grows, the larger and finer his maxims ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... stand tiptoe on something or other; Greenwich Village would awaken and bestir itself. Discovery would come, and forth he would be drawn like a shy, unwilling periwinkle from its shell, once more to play his abased and bashful role of free entertainer to guffawing mixed audiences. For all others in the ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... other than what they are. You must be my messenger to England, should you arrive there without me. Tell my mother and wife where you left me, and that, if I do not come home I have fallen into the hands of one or other of my bitter foes. Bid them bestir themselves to hold England for me against my brother John, and, if needs be, to move the sovereigns of Europe to free me from the hands of my enemies. Should a ransom be needed, I think that my people of England will not grudge their ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... point Mrs. Errol floated happily away upon a voyage of day-dreams that lasted till the car stopped. So engrossed was she that she did not move for a moment even then. Not until the door was opened from outside did she bestir herself. Then, still smiling, ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... imagine how it can be accomplished, but going home ought not to be any more impossible than our coming here. Perhaps we had better bestir ourselves, for Mars is now getting farther away from the earth every day. Thorwald says the two planets were nearer each other at the recent opposition than ever before since their records began, and this is probably what drew our moon here, ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... and financial loss is brought about each year, and a frightful mortality results. It has for some time been recognized that typhoid fever is among the most preventable of all diseases, and if our people would bestir themselves and carry out the comparatively simple rules that are necessary for its prevention, the scourge would, in a short time, practically cease to exist ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... When the bank begins to send letters and the butcher to linger at the back gate, he sets to belabouring his brains after a story, for that is his readiest money-winner; and, behold! at once the little people begin to bestir themselves in the same quest, and labour all night long, and all night long set before him truncheons of tales upon their lighted theatre. No fear of his being frightened now; the flying heart and the frozen scalp are things bygone; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Let the nations bestir themselves, and come up to the Valley of 'Jehoshaphat': for there will I 'sit to judge' all the ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... on September 22d, began to bestir himself to look after Price. He left St. Louis for Jefferson City on the 27th, and sent thither the regiments that had been kept at St. Louis. Price on the same day moved out of Lexington and marched deliberately to the southwest ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... sprang up aghast, and said, "Against my will I am serving the heathen who rule here. I am keeping a place ready for Horn, the best loved of all heroes. Long I have wondered why he does not bestir himself to return and fight for his own. God give him power so to do till he slay every one of these miscreants. They put him out to sea, a tender boy, with his twelve playmates, one of whom was my only son, Athulf. Dearly he loved Horn, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... speak to the mariners: fall to 't, yarely, or we run ourselves to ground; bestir, bestir! ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... separated from the other by some twenty-feet wall, which was mutually agreed upon by themselves alone, to call it 'spare ground,' was now a grown-up institution. Hence, whenever the gutter, 120 feet below, took it into its head to bestir and hook it, the faithful shepherds would not rest until they were sure to snore in peace a foot and a half under ground from the surface, and six score feet from ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... soldiers. To many people now, the word would be, 'Rule your temper;' or, 'Be courteous to all;' or, 'Let each hold the other better than himself;' or, 'Be just to your neighbour that you may love him.' To make straight in the desert a highway for our God, we must bestir ourselves in the very spot of the desert on which we stand; we must cast far from us our evil thing that blocks the way of his chariot-wheels. If we do not, never will those wheels roll through our streets; never will our desert ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... slaves; beautiful handmaids, high breasted virgins, and splendid stuffs and costly. He then wrote a letter to Shah Zaman expressing his warm love and great wish to see him, ending with these words, "We therefore hope of the favour and affection of the beloved brother that he will condescend to bestir himself and turn his face us wards. Furthermore we have sent our Wazir to make all ordinance for the march, and our one and only desire is to see thee ere we die; but if thou delay or disappoint us we shall not survive the blow. Wherewith peace be upon thee!" Then King Shahryar, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... through the woods and fields. When he reached the cabin, he seated himself upon the bench beside the door, and there he remained building air-castles until four o'clock in the afternoon. Then he began to bestir himself, and David, who came home that night before his mother did, was surprised to find a roaring fire on the hearth, a pile of wood large enough to last all the evening beside it, and in a pan upon the table a half a dozen squirrels, dressed ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... the Emperor were by this time having an ominous effect. O'Meara reported that this was so, and the Commissioners, whose instructions from their Governments were merely formal, thought it their duty to bestir themselves, and requested the Governor to remove the causes in so far as it was "compatible with the security of his person," lest the result from want of exercise should be of serious consequences to his health. Sir Hudson was angry at the turn affairs were taking, as the Commissioners ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... farthing in their protection when spawning, and who grievously begrudge the upper proprietors every fish that is able to pass their nets and other engines of destruction. Let the upper proprietors of Salmon rivers bestir themselves so to amend the law as to give them a chance of having a supply of Salmon when they are in season. They cannot and will not have a more efficient ally than Salmo Salar. Salmo Salar is in my opinion quite right when he says that the fish kept in ponds ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... provoking pudding-bags that have tended, more than any thing else, to bring the fashion into disfavour. If too rigid and too frail, you know the catastrophe! We still remember the case of a fat friend of ours at a fancy-ball! British manufacturing ingenuity should bestir itself to invent a stuff fit for satisfactorily solving this vestimental problem of the greatest strain; and the pantaloon might then once more resume its paramount sway. To revert to the old buckskin: it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... bonny mangonel upon the place, and shoot him if he dare to stir from the spot where he stands till we get all prepared to receive him," said Flammock in his native language. "And, Neil, thou houndsfoot, bestir thyself—let every pike, lance, and pole in the castle be ranged along the battlements, and pointed through the shot-holes—cut up some tapestry into the shape of banners, and show them from the highest towers.—Be ready ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... began to bestir itself; and now, if it had been any thing, as he said, but "that 'are flute"—as it was, he looked more than ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sharp blade; devotee, enthusiast, zealot, meddler, intermeddler, intriguer, busybody, pickthank^; hummer, hustler, live man [U.S.], rustler [U.S.]. V. be active &c adj.; busy oneself in; stir, stir about, stir one's stumps; bestir oneself, rouse oneself; speed, hasten, peg away, lay about one, bustle, fuss; raise up, kick up a dust; push; make a push, make a fuss, make a stir; go ahead, push forward; fight one's way, elbow one's way; make progress &c 282; toll &c (labor) 686; plod, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... bare, and my young master, the moment ever he set foot in it out of his gig, thought all those things must come of themselves, I believe, for he never looked after anything at all, but harum-scarum called for everything as if we were conjurors, or he in a public-house. For my part, I could not bestir myself anyhow; I had been so much used to my late master and mistress, all was upside down with me, and the new servants in the servants' hall were quite out of my way; I had nobody to talk to, and if it had not been for my pipe and tobacco, should, I verily believe, ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... beginning of a better state of things; whatever may be thought of the aesthetic success in this case, the subject was treated with seriousness and expert evidence was taken. Perhaps in the near future Oxford may bestir itself in this matter, and see that nothing more is lost of its mediaeval survivals; restoration of what is actually gone is probably hopeless. Such pious conservatism would be in accordance with the spirit of the present age; for even the modern ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... him bestir himself—show a gleam of animation. A white-haired priest, all tremulous dignity and delicacy, stood for a moment beside the rope-barrier, waiting for a friend. Manisty bent over and touched him on the arm. The old man turned. The face was parchment, the cheeks cavernous. ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I must play my last card," thought Jaime. "I'll go and see the Popess Juana. I haven't seen her for many years, but she is my aunt, my nearest relative. In justice, I ought to be her heir. Ah, if only that idea would occur to her! If she would only bestir herself all my ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... enterprise. Sigurd promises to consult farther in his neighborhood, and to correspond by messages; the result is, Olaf resolutely pushing forward himself, resolves to call a Thing, and openly claim his kingship there. The Thing itself was willing enough: opposition parties do here and there bestir themselves; but Olaf is always swifter than they. Five kinglets somewhere in the Uplands, [11]—all descendants of Haarfagr; but averse to break the peace, which Jarl Eric and Hakon Jarl both have always willingly allowed to peaceable ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... as I thought of this, and my hand closed involuntarily upon the gun; but directly after I felt that we must bestir ourselves to ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... sure you are right, dear. I know I ought to bestir myself and do something, but only—— How much do you think it would take to make them comfortable? Oh, Jock, I wish that papa had put it all into somebody's hands, to be done like business—somebody that had nothing else ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... remarks on what they were doing. No immediate consequences had happened to Maria from her plain-dealing with Mr Rowland; and she was quite ready to enjoy the three months of freedom, without looking too anxiously towards the end of them. The very gardener at the Rowlands' seemed to bestir himself with unusual alacrity to put the garden into spring trim; and the cook and housemaid might be seen over the hedge, walking arm-in-arm on the gravel-walks, smelling at the mezereon, and admiring Miss Anna's border of yellow crocuses, as the gardener said, as ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... of honor," cried Thuillier. "It is now settled, isn't it? You are to manage the purchase of the house; we are to write together, you and I, my political work; and you'll bestir yourself to get me ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... on the way out of the first and worst phase. When reason began to bestir itself, I appeared each week in great open meetings in London; and when the newspapers discovered that I was not only not being torn to pieces, but that I was growing better and better liked, then the feeling that ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... place here for Monsieur le Comte. Gilles, Antoine, see to Monsieur de Chatellerault. Basile, wine for Monsieur le Comte. Bestir there!" ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... dash, for the tent, snatch my tooth-brush and make for the spigot, and bring back a basin of water for my feet. Then Knudsen will bestir himself and race me for bed, at the same time that Reardon lays by his pen and accepts our warning. We crawl between the blankets, nine over us tonight. I shall put my poncho over me next, and my overcoat on that, and with the tent-wall looped ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... Creswell and others of that Societie" (the Jesuits) "bestir'd themselves here in Conference and Persuasion with the Gentlemen that came to attend his Excellencie[172] and do secretly bragg of their much prevailinge. Two of myne own Followers I have found corrupted, the one in such sorte as he refused to come to Prayers, whom ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... Nearly every house has its loom, but I was told the trade is less flourishing than formerly. The woollen-cloth manufacturers of Transylvania have suffered very much from the introduction of foreign goods; but, on the other hand, if they would bestir themselves they might enormously increase their exports. Heltau is a market-place, and reserves many old privileges very jealously. Its inhabitants were often in dispute with the burghers of Herrmannstadt, and on one occasion they ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... as she lay like a little brown mouse under the mosquito-net, watching the stars through the open window, the old lady suddenly decided to bestir herself. ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... knowledge and our fear; and to entreat them to make a safe endeavour to return swiftly. Yet was this an error; and refused by the Master Monstruwacan; for it was not meet that we put the souls of those Youths in peril, until such time as we had certainty that they should be lost if we did not bestir ourselves. For, indeed, this Home-Call was as a mighty Voice, calling over the world, and did have so exceeding a noise, that it had immediately told all that Land how that some were yet abroad from the ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... "Bestir thee, drowsy serving-slave of Bacchus," the stranger chanted, in a pompous, high-pitched voice. "Emerge from the lubberland of dreams, and be swift in attendance upon a wight whose wandering star has led him to ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... this loss of the means of living had seemed a mere trifle beside her other griefs; indeed, it acted as a spur rather than a bludgeon. The same pride which had prompted her to continue to dance bade her bestir herself to make a living. Upon reflection, the plan of starting a school struck her as the most practicable. But it should be a school for girls; she had done with the world of men. She had loved with all her heart, and her heart was broken; it was withered, like the handful ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... be waiting on you," he said,—"Miss Faith, you ought not to be waiting on me. I shall bestir ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... vanity, Dick, I wouldn't mind,—I'd let you go to the deuce on your own mahl-stick; but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find that to vanity you add the twopenny- halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old girl, then I bestir myself ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... "Hob Wright, Rafe Wood, John Pargetter, and thou Will Green, bestir ye and marshal the bowshot; and thou Nicholas Woodyer shall be under me Jack Straw in ordering of the staves. Gregory Tailor and John Clerk, fair and fine are ye clad in the arms of the Canterbury bailiffs; ye shall shine from afar; go ye with ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... will bestir themselves and presently a red glow rises and flickers and paints what it touches, with its own colours. The dry wood crackles and flares on the brick and mortar hearth, and the great kettle is put on. Presently the water boils—in go the long bundles of fine-drawn paste, ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... gained their leave to don his plate and chain, And vowed to take that haughty man; the crew Of people over wall and rampart strain; Nor child nor elder was there, but he pressed To see which champion should bestir him best. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... thus; her Will no Thrall, But Touchstone of thy Worth in Love's Armure; They only conquer in Love's Lists that fall, And Wounds renewed for Wounds are captain Cure. He doubly is inslaved that gilts his Chain, Saith Reason, chaffering for his Empire gone, Bestir, and root the Canker that hath ta'en Thy Breast for Bed, and feeds ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... time to time where they had flung themselves down exhausted between the guns. The fact was that I was suffering from the reaction that was inevitable after so fierce and protracted a fight—the battle having lasted for over an hour—and I felt that I must bestir myself or I should become light-headed, or hysterical, or something equally foolish. I, therefore, rose to my feet, called to the steward to bring me a glass of water—the water-cask which usually stood on deck having been smashed to staves early in the fight—and then gave orders ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... 'For if thy back of yore This burly planet bore, Thy arm can set me free.' This prayer gone up, from out a cloud there broke A voice which thus in godlike accents spoke:— 'The suppliant must himself bestir, Ere Hercules will aid confer. Look wisely in the proper quarter, To see what hindrance can be found; Remove the execrable mud and mortar, Which, axle-deep, beset thy wheels around. Thy sledge and crowbar take, And pry me up that stone, or break; Now fill ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... away. Every other man in the company looked back to where the girl stood in the doorway; he did not. Private Gellatly said, with a shake of the head, as she was lost to view: "Devils bestir me, what a widdy she'll make!" It was understood that Aleck Windsor and Mab Humphrey were to be married on the coming New Year's Day. What connection was there between the words of Sergeant Fones and those of Private Gellatly? ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... then he would see some mariners and lightermen a-wrestling on the quay or strand by the river-side. From thence he came to Toulouse, where he learned to dance very well, and to play with the two-handed sword, as the fashion of the scholars of the said university is to bestir themselves in games whereof they may have their hands full; but he stayed not long there when he saw that they did cause burn their regents alive like red herring, saying, Now God forbid that I should die this death! for I am by nature sufficiently dry already, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... excited whisper, "for the dear light of heaven, bring the priest. Alack, I am sped: I am brought very low down; my hurt is to the death. Ye may do me no more service; this shall be the last. Now, for my poor soul's interest, and as a loyal gentleman, bestir you; for I have that matter on my conscience that shall drag ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gentleman was of an excellent—indeed of an illustrious family, but, by a variety of untoward events, had been reduced to such poverty that the energy of his character succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to bestir himself in the world, or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes. By courtesy of his creditors, there still remained in his possession a small remnant of his patrimony; and, upon the income arising from this, he managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to procure the necessaries of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... months without much improvement of health, I felt called on for various reasons to resign my charge in New York. Thus left with a family and very slender resources, I was compelled, feeble as I was, to bestir myself for their and my own support. No employment offered itself but that of my profession, and unfit, therefore, as I felt myself, body and mind, for this, I saw no alternative but to preach as occasion presented. It was a most cruel necessity, for without some artificial ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... of a national purpose. Our century has a host of things to do, bold things, noble things, tedious things, difficult things, enduring things. It has only a hundred years to do them in, and two of these years are gone already. We must be up and bestir ourselves. If we are called to help in this work, there is no time for an idle minute. Idle men and idle women no doubt will cumber our way, for there are many who have never heard of the work to do, many who will never know that there has been a new century. ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... l'[oe]il, Roger, et en avant la grands scne! 'come, Roger, bestir yourself; now is the time ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... where it is matter of profound deliberation, whether an egg shall be broken at the large or the small end. Such things are too bad for the nineteenth century; and in England, too, with her enlightened parliament! But until these questions are better examined, our guardian must bestir himself about articles susceptible of cholera contagion, while he enjoys his good quarantine pay, his good half pay from another department as I believe, and withall, if we are not misinformed, a smart pension from the Gibraltar revenue, for what ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... said Susan, thinking that her mother objected to this idleness of her lying in bed. And so she began to bestir herself. ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... what would befall, bestir thee than; Prevent with craft, what force could not withstand, Turn to their evil the speeches of the man, With his own weapon wound Godfredo's hand; Kindle debate, infect with poison wan The English, Switzer, and Italian band, Great tumult move, make brawls and quarrels rife, Set all the camp ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... O Rameses?" Hotep answered sternly. "He hath suffered sufficiently. Now is it time for them, who profess to love him, to bestir themselves in his behalf. Thou knowest how near the fan-bearer is to the Pharaoh. Persuasion can not reach the king that worketh against Har-hat. Thou alone art as potent with the Son of Ptah. Wilt thou not prove thy love for Kenkenes and ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... patriotic paper, the "Anti-Jacobin," under the editorship of Canning and Hookham Frere, which played no small part in arousing national ardour. On the next day the French Directory issued an appeal to France to bestir herself to overthrow the British power, and to dictate ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... cried Jack, "bestir yourselves, and let's make ourselves comfortable.—Toss out our provisions, Peterkin: and here, Ralph, lend a hand to haul up the boat. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Americanism, an interest in everything American in refreshing contrast to the laissez-faire type of native young person now so common. His conclusion, from contact with both types, is that the intenseness and enthusiasm of the foreign element will make the native element bestir ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... we are in thy chamber give us drink of thy beer" Then gave the king answer "That shall be your least care, for ye shall have to drink the while that you think good" Men brought them drink, and they gan to revel, thus said Gille Callaet—at the door he was full active "Where be ye, knights? Bestir you forth right!" And they seized the king, and smote off his head, and all his knights they slew forth-right And took a messenger, and sent toward London, that he should ride quickly after Vortiger, that he should come speedily, and take the kingdom, for that ...
— Brut • Layamon
... my story, as it first began. This worthy Phoebus doeth all he can To please his wife, in hope, so pleasing her, That she, for her part, would herself bestir Discreetly, so as not to lose his grace; But, Lord he knows, there's no man shall embrace A thing so close, as to restrain what Nature Hath naturally ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... shrill wail of the locomotive whistle broke rudely through her revery and brought her to a sudden realization that if she didn't bestir herself, Mrs. Wescott would be at the station with no ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Dick Jennifer back again all in a breath; and I made haste to shout for Darius, and for Tomas to take his horse, and otherwise to bestir myself to do the honors of my poor forest fastness ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... it, and it shall remain untouched until you are old enough to spend it for some good purpose. You are too young and inexperienced yet; so don't say any more about it. Now that we have lost Liesli and the goats, we must bestir ourselves to do something else for a living, until the spring, when we may perhaps be fortunate with the chamois. There are plenty of chamois on the hills, and my gun on the wall there has brought down many a fine buck. When spring comes we'll go out together, ...
— Harper's Young People, November 25, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... after his fashion. He rushed about to try to deaden his senses. But whereas most people only bestir themselves for selfish reasons, he was restlessly active in procuring the happiness of others. His devotion to Christophe was both touching and a bore. Christophe would snub him and then immediately be sorry for it. But Mooch never bore him any ill-will. Nothing ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... thought. "The man speaks floridly," he reflected, "yet his words contain a certain element of truth." After a moment's silence he added to Platon: "I am beginning to think that the tour might help you to bestir yourself. At present you are in a condition of mental slumber. You have fallen asleep, not so much from weariness or satiety, as through a lack of vivid perceptions and impressions. For myself, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... some effort; he had, perhaps, been writing furiously without rest. He could not recollect at the instant what the work had been; it would be delightful to read the pages when he had made up his mind to bestir himself. ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... more came alongside the steep bank at the landing the hoarse note of her whistles notified every one to get ready for the journey down the stream. The boys, who had passed the night in their tent with Alex—Moise having gone to his own tepee for the night—now began to bestir themselves before going ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... where Cockeram found them; but we are surprised to find among these hard words abandon, abhorre, abrupt, absurd, action, activitie, and actresse, explained as 'a woman doer,' for the stage actress had not yet appeared. Blunder, 'to bestir oneself,' and Garble, 'to clense things from dust,' remind us that the meanings of words are subject to change. The Second Part contains the ordinary words 'explained' by their hard equivalents, and is intended to teach a learned style. The plain man or gentlewoman ...
— The evolution of English lexicography • James Augustus Henry Murray
... population would insist upon the abandonment of such a piece of folly. But we forgot the state of coma into which respectable Paris has fallen, and that those who had allowed themselves to be ground down by a tyrannical few would scarcely bestir themselves in defence of their public monuments. It became apparent that the column was really doomed, and the Rue de la Paix was crowded by an expectant multitude at about 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon; ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... had come to supper with Master Headley, and whether it were the effect of Ambrose's counsel, or of the example of a handsome lad who had come with his father, one of the worshipful guild of Merchant Taylors, Giles did vouchsafe to bestir himself in waiting, and in consideration of the effort it must have cost him, old Mrs. Headley and her son did not take notice of his blunders, but only Dennet fell into a violent fit of laughter, when he presented the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... petition read in the United States Senate on February 2, 1837? The booksellers, magazine, periodical and newspaper publishers have before succeeded in defeating one copyright bill. They now bestir themselves again; the United States Senate consigns the petition to the archives; and the piracy goes on as industriously ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... desolate longing for home and childhood. It was all a dream. That was the end of the matter. Even now, perhaps, his tired old stupid body was lying hunched up, drenched with dew upon the little old seat under the mist-wreathed branches. Soon it would bestir itself and wake up and go off home—home to Sheila, to the old deadly round that once had seemed so natural and inevitable, to the old dull ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... with feet, more and more men surmounted it, not to return. And still they knew not in the Inner Lands upon what mystery Poltarnees looked. For on a still day and windless, while men walked happily about their beautiful streets or tended flocks in the country, suddenly the west wind would bestir himself and come in from the Sea. And he would come cloaked and grey and mournful and carry to someone the hungry cry of the Sea calling out for bones of men. And he that heard it would move restlessly for some hours, ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... soon manifest the shop paid only in the least exacting sense, and Miriam did not conceal her opinion that he ought to bestir himself and "do things," though what he was to do was hard to say. You see, when you have once sunken your capital in a shop you do not very easily get it out again. If customers will not come to you cheerfully and freely the law sets limits upon the compulsion you may exercise. You cannot ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... this return his father died, in 1697, leaving hardly anything for his family, and young Handel had now to seriously bestir himself to make a living. With this object he went to Hamburg, where he obtained a place as second violin in the Opera-house. Soon after arriving there, the post of organist at Luebeck became vacant, and Handel was a candidate for it. But ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... kind of gentleness, such as older people give to a child who has been confronted with some hard fact of life, such as a sorrow or an illness. This in a way disconcerted me; for in the moment when I had perceived the truth, there had come over me the feeling that I ought in some way to bestir myself to preach, to warn, to advise. But the idea of finding any sort of fault with these contented, leisurely, interested people, seemed to me absurd, and so I continued as before, half enjoying the life about me, and half bored by it. It seemed ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... fight for France, and He has sent me to the Governor here, who will direct me to the Dauphin, who knows nothing of me as yet. But I am to bring him help, and that by Mid-Lent. So I pray you, gentle knight, go tell Robert de Baudricourt that he must needs bestir himself in this business, for my voices tell me that the hour is at hand when, come what may, I must to Chinon, even though I wear my legs to ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... know; stay up here, edit a Greek play, or one of the epistles; bestir yourself for some rising university member in a contested election; set yourself to get a bishopric or a deanery; you could easily do it if you tried. I'll give you a receipt for it any day you like. Or go to some London church; with such sermons as you could preach ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... Atkinson) is a staunch Administration sheet, sound on the subject of industrial protection, and highly appreciated by the manufacturers. Founded in 1866, it was, we believe, the sole daily until eighteen months ago, when some of the sober-sided weeklies began to understand that they must bestir themselves and put forth a diurnal appearance. The Gazette (C. P. Johnson), a paper nearly one hundred years old, now appears daily, and expresses the opinions of the State Assembly, where the Senate has but a single ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... as a contribution to economic science, it illustrates by its success one cardinal truth, and by implication it bears witness to another. The first truth is that, no matter how desirable any object may be which is obtruded on the imagination of anybody, nobody will bestir himself in a practical way to demand it until he can be persuaded to believe that its attainment is practically possible. The other is this: that the possibilities of redistributing wealth depend on the causes by which wealth is produced. ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... a sack of provisions over his shoulder he grumbled his way across the dumps to Scipio's house. He cursed the weight he was forced to carry, and anathematized the man who had driven him to so bestir himself. He lamented over this waste of his precious energies, he consigned Scipio and his children to eternity, and metaphorically hurled Jessie headlong to the depths of the uttermost abyss of the nether-world. But he went on. In spite of his foulest language and vilest ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... that. Of course it is something to have a fellow capable of ideas before one; but besides that, lads who had gone on contentedly at their own level have had to bestir themselves not to be taken down by him. When he refused to have it forced upon him that study was not the thing at Kenminster, they found the only way to make him know his place was to keep theirs, and some of them have really found the use of their wits, and ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and shook Friar Tuck by the shoulder. "Come, rouse thee, holy man!" cried he; whereupon, with much grunting, the stout Tuck got to his feet. "Marry, bestir thyself," quoth Robin, "for yonder, in the church door, is one of thy cloth. Go thou and talk to him, and so get thyself into the church, that thou mayst be there when thou art wanted; meantime, Little John, Will Stutely, and ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... twilight of the April evening—or it was getting far into the night—were William Carlyle and Lady Isabel. It had been a warm day, but the spring evenings were still chilly, and a fire burned in the grate. There was no blaze, the red embers were smoldering and half dead, but Madame Vine did not bestir herself to heed the fire. William lay on the sofa, and she sat by, looking at him. Her glasses were off, for the tears wetted them continually; and it was not the recognition of the children she ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... in it something of the recklessness of the father before her. She was a child in all else. A wide vision of achievement was spread out before her. She could see nothing beyond. She could see nothing to give her pause, nothing even to bestir a belated caution. So she left her office for the interview Peterman had demanded without suspicion, and with a heart and mind ready to plunge her headlong into any labours which ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... way of life that is new to them. The Englishman comes to America as weary of his old, easy, family-coach life as you can be of yours: he wants to see something new under the sun,—something American; and forthwith we all bestir ourselves to give him something as near as we can fancy exactly like what he is already tired of. So city people come to the country, not to sit in the best parlor and to see the nearest imitation of city life, but to lie on the haymow, to swing in the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... soul of mine, bestir thee Lest thou sink in slumber quite, And the Bridegroom find thee sleeping When He cometh in His might. Awake, awake to praises, For He cometh ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... an object. Remove the object and you reduce him to inaction The most active man in the world will fold his arms from the instant he understands that it is madness to bestir himself, that this work will be the cause of his trouble, that for him it will be the cause of vexations at home and of the pirate's greed abroad. It seems that these thoughts have never entered the minds of those who cry out against the ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... than you, what I ought to do, to keep my promises, and ensure the tranquillity of the state. I begun with being indulgent, even to weakness and the royalists, instead of appreciating my moderation, have abused it: they bestir themselves, they conspire, and I ought and will bring them to their senses. I would rather have my blows fall on traitors, than on men who are misled. Besides, all those who are on the list, Augereau excepted, are out of France, or in concealment. I shall not seek for them: my intention is to ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... infirmities. He who had been "nourished in the schools of love," now sees nothing either to please or displease him. Old age has imprisoned him within doors, where he means to take his ease, and let younger fellows bestir themselves in life. He had written (in earlier days, we may presume) a bright and defiant little poem in praise of solitude. If they would but leave him alone with his own thoughts and happy recollections, he declared it ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... we can do nothing. And therefore Christians ought to walk with such a subordination to, and dependence on him, as if they were mere instruments, and patients under his hand. Though I think in regard of endeavoured activity they should bestir themselves and give all diligence, as if they acted independently of the Spirit, yet in regard of denial of himself, and dependence on the Spirit, each one ought to act as if he did not act at all but the Spirit only acted ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... hush of the wood that reposes, And turn and go up to the open door boldly, And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses. 'Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?' 'Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses. 'Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you! 'Tis summer again; there's two come for roses. 'A word with you, that of the singer recalling— Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is A flower unplucked is but left to the falling, ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... sight more truly interesting to a philosopher than a community where every individual has a voice in public affairs; where every individual considers himself the Atlas of the nation; and where every individual thinks it his duty to bestir himself for the good of his country—I say, there is nothing more interesting to a philosopher than such a community in a sudden bustle of war. Such clamor of tongues—such patriotic bawling—such running hither and thither—everybody in a hurry—everybody in trouble—everybody ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving |
