"Beat about" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "No need to beat about the bush, Abbot; let's have truth between old friends. You mean, to escape being burnt by you as a witch, because she had the letters which were not burned and threatened ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... wrecked railroad train at thirteen hundred yards was as easy a bull's-eye as the hands of the first baseman to the pitcher, and while the engine butted and snorted and the men with their bare bands tore at the massive beams of the freight-car, the bullets and shells beat about them. ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... obedience. Up toward the dais she went then, passing by weaponed men who sat as if abiding the council's end at the end-long tables. And now, though no shape of man there spake or breathed, yet sound lacked not; for within the hall went the wind as without, and beat about from wall to wall, and drave clang and clash from the weapons hung up, and waved the arras, and fared moaning in the nooks, and ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... do it, La Corriveau, and your reward shall be great!" answered Angelique with a burst of impatience. She could beat about the bush no longer. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... to save the ship; and as he did not know but that she might break up, Columbus decided to tranship the people to the Nina, who had by this time sent her own boat. The whole company boarded the Nina, on which the Admiral beat about miserably till morning in the vicinity of his doomed ship. Then he sent Diego de Arana, the brother of Beatriz and a trusty friend, ashore in a boat to beg the help of the King; and Guacanagari immediately sent ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... of pastry flour once, then measure and sift three times. Add a pinch of salt to the whites of eight or nine eggs or just one cup of whites, beat about one-half, add one-half teaspoon of cream of tartar, then beat the whites until they will stand of their own weight; add one and one-fourth cups of sugar, then flour, not by stirring but folding over and over until thoroughly mixed in; flavor ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... suppose, my boy. There, don't beat about the bush. We can find our way, of course. You are tired with yesterday's exertions, so why don't you frankly say that you would ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... had indignantly emptied upon the table. He could scarcely believe his eyes; he got up and looked in the kettle, but found no haricot. "Well," said he, with surprise, "if that don't beat me! I saw mother fill it with haricot myself; I'm clean beat about it." ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... "For five years I beat about from factory to factory, and got unaccustomed to the village. Then I went to the village again, looked around, and I found I could not live like that any more! You understand? I CAN'T. You live here, you don't know hunger, you don't see such outrages. ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... you on a little matter of business, Mr. Dutcher," said Ned, boldly and promptly. It never did to beat about the bush with Old Dutcher; you had to come straight to the point. "I want to know if you will rent your pond behind the barn ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a fellow-creature? How many brave women have done all necessary housework and despised ignoble "gentility"! No, I cannot quite accept the "stinted means" excuse; the fact is that the mean shrew is hard on her dependants solely because her nature is not good; and we need not beat about the bush any longer for reasons. A domestic servant under a wise, dignified, and kind mistress or housekeeper may live a healthy and happy life; the servant of the mean shrew does not live at all in any true sense of the word. No rational man can blame girls for preferring the freedom ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... cold, exhaustion, and hunger, quite childish, helpless. Peter stood out on the balcony with his arm round her, while the night wind beat about them, and pondered what was best to do. He thought she might come in and care for Stewart, at least, until he was conscious. He ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... taking no notice of us, but ever and again repeating the yell we had heard already, then dropping their noses to the ground again and tracking earnestly here and there. They now began to snuff the earth more eagerly than they had done yet, and although they were still very restless, no longer beat about in such wide circuits, but kept near to one spot, and constantly diminished the distance between ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... ever the Eastern from the Western man, even in the midst of what seems, perhaps, like intimacy; Eastern to the soul, though the fantasies, the passions, the vulgarities, the brilliant ineptitudes of the West beat about it like waves about some ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... and myself. Come, Mr. Fitzroy, I will not beat about the bush. I am afraid you are mortified, and I must say, justly mortified, at the coolness my father has shown to you. But I assure you that it is not from any disrespect to ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... "Don't beat about the bush, Edith," he cried in a voice hoarse with emotion; "I can bear anything better than suspense. Tell me, is Winnie dead? But no,"—glancing at his sister's shining garments—"it cannot be that, thank God;" and he drew a long sigh of relief at ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... in from their breakfast at the Posthof, and he met them at the door of Pupp's, where they all sat down on one of the iron settees of the piazza, and began to ask one another questions of their minds about the pleasure of the day before, and to beat about the bush where Burnamy lurked in their ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to beat about the bush," said Crawley. "I accuse Saurin there of having come to this house, one Saturday when we were all out; of having gone into my room, taken my keys out of the pocket of a coat lying there, opened the cricket and football japanned ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... a Welchman, Taffy was a thief, Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of beef; I went to Taffy's house, Taffy wasn't at home, Taffy came to my house and stole a marrow-bone; I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed, I took the marrow-bone, and beat about his head. ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies • Anonymous
... his Lord grasps his, and brings him safety, while the gentle rebuke, 'O thou of little faith! wherefore didst thou doubt?' infuses courage into his beating heart. The storm runs as high as ever, and the waves beat about his limbs, and the spray blinds his eyes. If he leaves his hold for one moment down he will go. But, as long as he clasps Christ's hand, he is as safe on that heaving floor as if his feet were on a rock; and as long as he looks in Christ's face and leans upon ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the imperturbable Kitchener sat at his desk in the War Office—another man of Blood and Iron. He ran the war as he thought it should be run despite the criticism that began to beat about his head. To the average Englander he was a king who could do no wrong. But the conduct of war had changed mightily since Kitchener last led his troops. Like Business it had become a new Science, fought with new weapons and demanding an elastic ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... perfectly well what I mean. So I'll thank you not to beat about the bush. The plain fact is that you don't care a pin ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... it, through the fog. Wind and water took the sound up and tossed it about. Confused and bewildered, we beat about it and about it; it was behind us, before us, at our right, at our left,—crying on in a blind, aimless way, making us no replies,—beckoning us, slipping from us, mocking ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... like a mad man, to save me from the mob; when they were hustling me, and dragging me along. But, while one part of them gathered round him, the other had got far enough off with me. It being all a mistake about a handkerchief: which he told them. And, though I heard him and saw him beat about just as if he had been a lion to save me, I could not forget how I had been used, when I met him the next day. But I hope God will forgive me! which I do believe he will, for Mr. Trevor has shewn him the example. I beg pardon! God forgive me! I only mean that, though ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... addressing his companions. The German bowed, got off his horse, pulled a book out of his pocket—a novel of Johanna Schopenhauer's, I fancy—and sat down under a bush; Arhip remained in the sun without stirring a muscle for an hour. We beat about among the bushes, but did not come on a single covey. Ardalion Mihalitch announced his intention of going on to the wood. I myself had no faith, somehow, in our luck that day; I, too, sauntered ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... was changed. A wild gale was blowing and rain beat about them in level sheets. A wet fog came and went and gave place at last to a steady rain, as the gale gave place to a hurricane. They spent a miserable day and night shifting from shelter to shelter with the shifting wind; another day and another night. Their provisions were almost gone, the fire ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... morning, about 5 A.M., Cap't Freebody went up to York in the pinnace to get provisions and leave to beat about for more hands. At 1 P.M. the Pinnace returned and brought word to Cap't Norton from Mr. Freebody that he had waited on his Honour the Gov'r, and that he would not give him leave to beat up for Volunteers. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... been full of pleasantry) making sport among his soldiers of the soutar's great-coat. Presently they hear disputation and the sound of blows inside. Out flies the cobbler, his coat flying, the flaps of his hat beat about his face, and the lieutenant and his soldiers mock at him as he runs off. They laugh not so hearty the next time they had occasion to visit the cell, and found nobody but a tall, pretty, grey-eyed lass in the female habit! As for the cobbler, he was "over ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the service to know that some die whose names never get on any return, and so some are reported dead who decline to be buried. Let us not beat about the bush as to what I mean. We are each doing our best to obtain possession of this lovely creature, but the father holds to his promise to the long-legged noodle, and, if he is alive, our suits are hopeless. So let them continue ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... people think that eels like carrion and favour mud. Mr. Bambridge says his experience is different, and his "advice to those about to fish" with this kind of eel-trap is suggestive of new ideas about eels. He says that "for bait nothing can beat about a dozen and a-half of small or medium live gudgeon, failing these large minnows, small dace, roach, loach, &c., though in some streams about a dozen good bright large lob worms, threaded on a copper wire ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish |
