"Bent on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gradually exposed, and were repudiated in the lump. The conviction was implanted in the minds of the people of the Free States, that the Slave Power, representing only a thirtieth part of the population of the Slave States, and a ninth part of the property of the country, was bent on governing the nation, and on subordinating all principles and all interests to its own. Not being ambitious of having the United States converted into a Western Congo, with the traffic in "niggers" as its fundamental idea, the people elected Abraham ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... and into terror changed His countenance too severe to be beheld, And full of wrath bent on his enemies. At once the four spread out their starry wings With dreadful shade contiguous, and the orbs Of his fierce chariot rolled, as with the sound Of torrent floods, or of a numerous host. He on his impious foes right onward drove, Gloomy as night: under his burning wheels The steadfast ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... like a good Christian. I am at peace with myself. I have never wronged any one." It is a trite saying that the ruling passion of a man's life asserts its power at the hour of death; and the last recorded words of Count de Cavour would seem to show that to the end he was more bent on politics than prayer. As Friar Giacomo was reciting solemnly by his bedside the prayers for the departing soul, "Frate! Frate!" he exclaimed, whilst he pressed the Friar's hand, "libera chiesa in libera ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... rich," she reflected. "As to titles, perhaps he only wants to try me. He has been told that I am mad about titles, and bent on marrying none but a peer's son. My priggish sisters have played me that trick."—"I assure you, monsieur," she said aloud, "that I have had very extravagant ideas about life and the world; but now," she added pointedly, looking at him in a perfectly distracting way, "I know where ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... see, I had nothing else to do—and that little girl! Besides, it was the most natural thing in the world for me to be going up; and the fact that I was bent on the same errand as themselves was sufficient to account for my being near the carriage, and would prevent them from supposing that I was following them. So, you see, I followed, and at length they stopped at the Hermitage. I left my horse there, and strolled forward, without going very far ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... the river and the Via Guicciardini which it gives, I advise no one to walk through the passage uniting the Pitti and the Uffizi—unless of course bent on catching some of the ancient thrill when armed men ran swiftly from one palace to the other to quell a disturbance or repulse an assault. Particularly does this counsel apply to wet days, when all the windows are closed and there is ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... peculiar sacrifices in order to rescue millions, perishing in mental thraldom, whose souls are as precious as our own; act, as if we were in earnest, as if the whole soul were kindled to a blaze of zeal, and bent on the most determined efforts for the exaltation of Christ in the salvation of men; knowing that the time allotted for the accomplishment of a task eternal in its consequences, is but ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... that these monsters, unless very hungry, are acute enough to refuse a bait if the hook is not well hidden. The line, in the shape of the gaff-topsail halliard-fall, hastily unrove for the occasion, was soon forthcoming, and the hook, being at last baited to the second mate's satisfaction, bent on to the chain. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... already dusk when the distant sound of wheels was heard, and on hastening to the window they perceived the great lumbering family coach coming up the avenue. In a couple of minutes more it had stopped at the hall door, and all eyes were bent on the spot to catch a sight of the baroness. To their surprise, however, no Madame Valricour descended from the vehicle, but they noticed that in addition to madame's coachman and footman it was accompanied by one of the Beaujardin servants on ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... had been a lad at Oxford he had broken away from his studies in 1569 to help the Protestant princes as a gentleman volunteer in France, and he took part in the famous battle of Jarnac. He is supposed to have fought in France for six years. From early youth his mind was "bent on military glory," and always in opposition to Spain. His escape from the bloody Vespers of Saint Bartholomew had given him a deep distrust of the policy of Rome. The Spaniard had "abused and tormented" the wretched inhabitants ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... was too soon for it; it was five minutes behind time. If those who saw him depart could but have divined the errand he was bent on, what a commotion would have spread over Deerham! If the handsome lady, seated opposite to him, the only other passenger in that compartment, could but have read the cause which rendered him so self-absorbed, so insensible to her attractions, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Every one seemed bent on celebrating that day as a festival. The fight was a victory, and all were rejoicing in a noisy holiday, while for some hours the crew of the ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... intelligence, the more eager may be his curiosity for, his first enjoyment of, the sins as well as the other pleasures. What banished us—Philip and me—from Ned's particular set was, first, Ned's enmity toward us; second, our attachment to a clan of boys equally bent on playing the rake in secret, though of better information and manners than Ned's comrades could boast of; third, Phil's fondness for books, and mine for him; and ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... timorous partridges raced away from the apparition of the train, looking all leg and neck, like little forest elves fleeing from human encounter. And in the distance, over the tree line, a heron or two flapped with slow measured wing-beats and an air of being bent on an immeasurably longer journey than the train that hurtled so frantically along the rails. Now and then the meadowland changed itself suddenly into orchard, with close-growing trees already showing the measure of their coming harvest, and then strawyard ...
— When William Came • Saki
... strictly to business—a leader with all authority in his hands in place of a tenth of it along with nine other generals equipped with an equal tenth apiece. They had a leader rightly clothed with authority now, and with a head and heart bent on war of the most intensely businesslike and earnest sort—and there would be results. No doubt of that. They had Joan of Arc; and under that leadership their legs would lose the art and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... warning that a ferenghi had arrived, and we were met on the road by a number of boys and men who were running down the hill to see the new arrival. The people were not particularly respectful, and freely passed remarks, not always complimentary—in fact, most offensive; but as I was bent on seeing all that there was to be seen, I paid no heed and continued to ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... our parents, not a penny thereof would he ever part with. Moreover, Ann's rare charm had touched even my grand-uncle's heart, and he must have been dull-witted indeed if he had not hit on Herdegen's true reasons; and these in his eyes would be the worst of the matter, forasmuch as he was firmly bent on bringing Ursula Tetzel and Herdegen together so soon as my brother should ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not the least likeness; she and Alice Chisane being cast in different moulds. But all that Hannasyde wanted to know and see and think about, was this maddening and perplexing likeness of face and voice and manner. He was bent on making a fool of himself that way; and he was ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... then following the stream through the gorge in the hills, leaping over the rocks until he reached the wall and the broken grille. There he paused for a moment and tried to reason with himself. But he found that he could not think and that his legs still urged him on. They were bent on carrying him to Briar Hills, he knew that much now, and that he had no power to stop them. The violence of his exercise, he said, had cleared the chaos from his brain and only the vision of the red automobile remained, Marcia's roadster. He knew it well. Had he not driven it? ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... according to Bud's story, that Belle Bates, the wife of the bandit whom Grace had wounded when he attacked the Overland Riders on the Apache Trail the summer before was the sister of Snake McGlory. It was she, bent on vengeance, who had instigated the trailing of the party and the attack on them. Snake and his gang were delighted with their task. Through a girl of Shoshone Pete's whom Belle liked and confided in, the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... front room; he placed his ear against the keyhole, and listened. Within all was silent. A fresh terror seized him. Why was no sound to be heard?...He opened the door cautiously lest it should creak. There sat his father asleep in the arm-chair, his head bent on his bosom, his arms ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... story, that stand for so much and mean so little,—"the same is Bethlehem." Who has not heard an old man thus tracing out the particulars of some remote recollected incident, dwelling for the hundredth time on the unimportant detail, the side-issue, so needlessly anxious to avoid confusion, so bent on ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... brought no important change in my position. I was an important partisan, it is true, and strongly supported, but I held no title or Government employment of my own. I recognised the necessity of establishing myself firmly in my birthplace. I had devoted friends, and formidable foes bent on my destruction whom I must put out of the way for my own safety. I set about a plan for destroying them at one blow, and ended by devising one with which I ought to have commenced my career. Had I done so, I should have saved ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... contracted each to a dot, became the central puncta of two rings of fiery light; his little sharp teeth seemed to gnash. Once before I had seen him look thus greedily, when, grasping a Troglodyte tablet covered with half-effaced hieroglyphics—his fingers livid with the fixity of his grip—he bent on it that strenuous inquisition, that ardent questioning gaze, till, by a species of mesmeric dominancy, he seemed to wrench from it the arcanum it hid from other eyes; then he lay back, pale and faint ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... Roland's accusers was the envious Count Ganelon. Ganelon had become step-sire to the young peer by wedding the widowed Bertha, but the nearness of the tie between him and Roland only seemed to make him yet more bent on ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... and Albuquerque separated, the former going to India to obtain a cargo of spices, the latter officially invested with the title of Capitam mor, and bent on the realization of his vast schemes, setting out on the 10th of August, 1507, for Ormuz, having left his nephew Alfonzo da Noronha in charge of the new fortress. He took in succession, and as if to get his hand in for the work, Calayati, where were ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... mastery of the Greek language by binding himself down to copy five times over in succession Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War"; he employed 15 years of his life in denunciation of Philip of Macedon, who was bent on subjugating his country; pronounced against him his immortal "Philippics" and "Olynthiacs"; took part in the battle of Cheronea, and continued the struggle even after Philip's death; on the death of Alexander he gave his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Several years ago, bent on revisiting Perthshire, a locality which had great attractions for me as a boy, I answered an advertisement in a popular ladies' weekly. As far as I can recollect, it was somewhat to this effect: "Comfortable home offered to a gentleman ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... He and Rosamond were bent on a tour of parochial inspection, as were Raymond and Cecil on a more domestic one, ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the uses of it; I have tasted the sweetness of liberty, and am grateful, though it was but in a dream; but as for that other word that was so great a mystery to me, I only know this, that it must remain a mystery forever, since I am fain to believe that all men are bent on getting it; though, once gotten, it causeth them endless disquietude, only second to their discomfort that are without it. I am fain to believe that they can procure with it whatever they most desire, and yet that it cankers their hearts and dazzles their eyes; that it is their ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... been done to the monastery of Batalha since the death of Dom Duarte left his great tomb-chapel unfinished. Dom Affonso v., bent on wasting the lives of the bravest of his people and his country's wealth in the vain pursuit of conquests in Morocco, could spare no money to carry out what his father had begun, and so make it possible ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... conversation with the Jews and Christians would teach him to despise and detest the idolatry of Mecca. It was the duty of a man and a citizen to impart the doctrine of salvation, to rescue his country from the dominion of sin and error. The energy of a mind incessantly bent on the same object, would convert a general obligation into a particular call; the warm suggestions of the understanding or the fancy would be felt as the inspirations of Heaven; the labor of thought would expire in rapture and vision; and the inward sensation, the invisible monitor, would ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... mendicant, moving on, and continuing as before to beg of all he met. Instead of going in the direction he had been following, however, he contrived to turn round; and Reginald saw him making his way in the direction of the northern gate, as if bent on carrying out the ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... bent on Stonor as he came in seemed to take no account of those hurried glimpses at the Tunbridges' months before, and twice to-day when other eyes were watching. It was as if now, for the first time since they parted, he stood forth clearly. This man with ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... the house of Don Jorje Hernandez. After the contradanza, to which they could be admiring spectators only, much to the delight of the caballeros, Benicia took the guitar presented by Flujencio, and letting her head droop a little to one side like a lily bent on its stalk by the breeze, sang the most coquettish song she knew. Her mahogany brown hair hung unconfined over her white shoulders and gown of embroidered silk with its pointed waist and full skirt. Her large brown eyes were alternately mischievous and tender, now and again lighted by a sudden ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... bookkeeping, and acquired that perfect command of arithmetic, and habit of bringing every thing, where it is possible, to the test of figures, by which his political and scientific writings are so pre-eminently distinguished. But his disposition was too strongly bent on scientific and physical pursuits, to admit of his remaining long in the comparatively obscure and uninviting paths of commerce. His thirst for travelling was from his earliest years unbounded, and it erelong received ample gratification. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... when the weather is very heavy, all hands have to be constantly on deck, and there is little rest for the men. Perhaps a sail, one of the few that can still be carried in such a gale, may be blown to ribbons by the furious wind, and a new one has to be bent on. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... Poor mother bent on Lorna's shoulder, without thought of attitude, and laid her cheek on Lorna's breast, and sobbed till Lizzie was jealous, and came with two pocket-handkerchiefs. As for me, my heart was lighter (if they would only dry their eyes, and come ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... bent on leaving me," said their former leader; "but you have the satisfaction of knowing that you have contributed greatly to the success of our two expeditions. You have ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... Winnipeg. The fathers of the flock evidently were seeking work and had left their families gazing through the portals of the strange new land. In the half-sad, altogether-brave lines on the young mothers' faces and their tender looks bent on the little ones we read the motive responsible for all migrations—"Better conditions for the babies." In the little fellows of seven or eight with their ill-fitting clothes and their dogged looks of determination one sees the makers ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... Turkish statesmen to the lessons taught by history, their complete sterility in the domain of political thought, and their inability to adapt themselves and the institutions of their country to the growing requirements of the age, might almost lead an historical student to suppose that they were bent on committing political suicide. The combined diplomatists of Europe, Lord Salisbury sorrowfully remarked in 1877, "all tried to save Turkey," but she scorned salvation and persisted in a course of action which could lead to but one result. That result has now been attained. The dismemberment ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... exploits of the morning, the Prince turned towards the Princess's ante-room, bent on a more difficult enterprise. The curtains rose before him, the usher called his name, and he entered the room with an exaggeration of his usual mincing and airy dignity. There were about a score of persons waiting, principally ladies; it was one of the few ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his "Trente ans de Paris" calls this sip of nectar. "C'est a dire," he explains, "pour trois sous d'un cafe savoureux balsamique raisonnablement edulcore." But Daudet must have frequented aristocratic quarters. At our cremerie we never paid more than two sous, and, bent on attaining luxury, we demanded ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... fallen logs damp with rank vegetation, and wade through a maze of cypress "knees." Unwittingly, you are sure to gather on your clothing a colony of ravenous ticks from some swaying branch. Redbugs bent on mischief scramble up on you by the score and bury themselves in your skin, while a cloud of mosquitoes waves behind you like a veil. In the sombre shadows through which you move you have a feeling that there are many unseen things ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... to examine even the half of those that were marked in his chart. Had he suspected the existence of the vast number of islands around him, he would at once have realised the hopelessness of attempting to discover the hiding-place of an able navigator bent on concealment. Whether, as has been suggested by one writer,[10-1] Christian was piloted to Pitcairn by his Tahitian companions, of whom some were descended from the old native inhabitants, or had read of it in Carteret's voyage in 1767, or had chanced upon it by accident, he could ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... old, I am alone, shapeliness and warmth are gone from me; the couch of honor shall be no more mine; I am miserable, I am bent on my crutch. ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... day the Swedes set out for Kovudoo's village bent on securing possession of the person of the white girl whom Kovudoo's runner had told them lay captive in the chief's village. How they were to accomplish their end they did not know. Force was out of the question, though they would not have ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of hunting the White Whale. Had any one of his old acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of what was lurking in him then, how soon would their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched the ship from such a fiendish man! They were bent on profitable cruises, the profit to be counted down in dollars from the mint. He was intent on an audacious, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... as stiff and proud as if she had been a maiden aunt, bent on destroying what expectations from her he might be cherishing. Who will blame her? He had done her all the ill he could, and by his own deed she was beyond his reach. Nor can I see that the debt she owed him for being her ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... itself also reforming, and with a man like Gerson—Doctor Christianissimus was the title he bore—virtually at its head. But a little consideration will dispel this surprise, and lead us to the conclusion that a council less earnestly bent on reforms of its own would probably have dealt more mildly with him. His position and theirs, however we may ascribe alike to him and to them a desire to reform the Church, were fundamentally different. They, when they deposed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... American reader will refer to the map, which presumably lies open before him, he might consider in what part of the world it is that England is now bent on a policy of aggression—where it is that collision with any Power threatens. In Asia? England's course in regard to Afghanistan and Thibet surely shows that she is content with her present boundaries, while ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... took holiday from his military duties, he was pretty sure to take it out of his regiment, the next day. On parade, next morning, he inspected the ranks, bent on detecting some defect in bearing or equipment, and peered into the faces of the men, as if hunting out the culprits in the latest breach of discipline. Men and officers looked for a three hours' drill, to improve their wind, ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... clinging to a bunch of lotus-stems in a temple-pond. There was a piece of fakir in the water with him, and about a ton of broken granary, besides the remnants of a rifle and other proof that he had come belched out of a holocaust. The men who came on him had given their officer the slip, and were bent on a private looting-expedition of their own. But by the time that they had dragged him from the water, and he had looted them of wherewithal to clothe himself, their thoughts of plunder had departed from them. Brown had a way of quite monopolizing ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... if I know what's going to happen next. I suppose it all depends on Hero Giles. Looks as though the nobles were bent on restoring Altorius—if he's ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... offenses. The man, unaccustomed to slaveholding, would be astonished to observe how many foggable offenses there are in{201} the slaveholder's catalogue of crimes; and how easy it is to commit any one of them, even when the slave least intends it. A slaveholder, bent on finding fault, will hatch up a dozen a day, if he chooses to do so, and each one of these shall be of a punishable description. A mere look, word, or motion, a mistake, accident, or want of power, are all matters for ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... Ferdinand and owing to the disability of Juana to succeed him, Charles took the title of King of Spain. Instead of countering Francis I's intrigues and his claims to the kingdom of Naples by military measures, Charles, still bent on maintaining peace with France, negotiated the treaty of Noyon, and succeeded in persuading Maximilian to agree to this treaty, in spite of the opposition of England. A few months later, the young king and his Belgian courtiers left for ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... chapter and verse being quoted or referred to with all the exactness of a theological treatise. And the tenets of the new "gospellers" are as openly maintained as those of Rome are impugned. Juventus, the hero, who is bent on going it while he is young, starts out in quest of his companions, to have a merry dance: Good Counsel meets him, warns him of the evil of his ways, and engages him on the spot in a prayer for grace to aid him in his purpose of amendment. Just at this moment Knowledge comes up, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... exposed country around began to gather itself together under the shelter of the bourg. And thus it is that the military engineering of the Holy War makes that old allegorical book most excellent to read, not only for common men like you and me, who are bent on the fortification and the defence of our own hearts, but for the military historians of those old times also, for the experts of to-day also, and for all good students of fortification. And the New Testament of the Divine peace itself, as well as ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... enough," she cried; "and if you have any love for me, Dick, you will take me away, and not expose yourself to further risk. If you are indeed bent on going on, I ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... and confronted an elderly man of florid countenance, whose white mustache and frock-coat presented a most respectable appearance. Mr. Brassfield bent on him a piercing look, and strove mentally to account for the impression that he had met this man before, wondering again at that hazy association with the mystical, dreamy region of the woman in yellow and black. It was as if he saw everything that ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... know how to write, for my head reels and swims, and my heart is very sore![51] What an awful misfortune this is! How the hand of death seems bent on pursuing that poor, dear family! once so prosperous. Poor Ferdinand so proud of his children—of his five sons—now the eldest and most distinguished, the head of the family, gone, and also another ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... salutation is prolonged by a string of words spoken in a rapid decrescendo, quick; quick; a Basque prayer rattled breathlessly, begun very loudly, then dying at the finish. And an old beggar comes out of the fern, all earthy, all hairy, all gray, bent on his stick like a man ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... tainted with the itch of gaming to leave off play in such a situation, especially when he is likewise heated with liquor, I leave to the gamester to determine. Certain it is that Booth had no inclination to desist; but, on the contrary, was so eagerly bent on playing on, that he called his friend out of the room, and asked him for ten pieces, which he promised punctually to ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... colours the advent of the foreign race, the war of extermination in which they engaged, the cruel usage to which they subjected the conquered people; he has represented the invaders as rude, savage, barbarous, bent on destruction, careless of art, the enemies of progress and civilization. He has neglected to point out, that, as time went on, there was a sensible change. The period of constant bitter hostilities came to an end. Peace succeeded to war. In Lower Egypt the "Shepherds" ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... the lee fore and main yardarms, with a standing bowline in the end of that depending from the mainyard, and with a hauling-line attached to it, was all that I required, after which I had the davit tackles overhauled to their extremest limit, with a stout rope's-end bent on to each fall just inside the sheave, so that the tackle blocks should reach quite to the water even when the ship was ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... down, now with a look to the sky, now with a flitting glance upon the dead O'Brien. All the time he kept smiling and putting his tongue out in the most guilty, embarrassed manner, so that a child could have told that he was bent on some deception. I was prompt with my answer, however, for I saw where my advantage lay and that with a fellow so densely stupid I could easily conceal my ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... repressed by repressing the volition, but the repression of the passion is also the repression of the volition. A man then who did his best to repress all movements of passion indiscriminately, would lay fetters on his will, lamentable and cruel and impolitic fetters, where his will was bent on any object good and ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... said Winnington, with a shrug. His eyes at that moment were critically bent on a group of Berliners, men of the commercial and stock-broking class, who, with their wives, had arrived a couple of nights before. The men were strolling and smoking below. They were all fat, red-faced and overbearing. When they went for walks, the man stalked in ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... highest seats of bliss. When thy firm soul Hath shaken off those tangled oracles Which ignorantly guide, then shall it soar To high neglect of what's denied or said, This way or that way, in doctrinal writ. Troubled no longer by the priestly lore, Safe shall it live, and sure; steadfastly bent On meditation. This is ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... fox!" cried Swanhild, white with wrath and casting a fierce look upon Hall. But men took no heed of Swanhild's words, for all eyes were bent on Eric. ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... House of the Sun. When the sun came tearing along the path, bent on completing its journey in the shortest time possible, the valiant youth threw his lariat around one of the sun's largest and strongest beams. He made the sun slow down some; also, he broke the beam short off. And he ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... felt some pangs myself. Where did I leave off? Oh, yes! Mme. Fauvel was frightened, and Madeleine, bent on sacrificing herself, had discarded Prosper, and consented to marry me, when the existence of Gaston was suddenly revealed. And what has happened since? You have succeeded in convincing Mme. Fauvel that you are pure, and that I am blacker than hell. She is blinded ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... bent on leading his pursuers a lengthy chase, for no sooner had they gained on him sufficiently to set Polly's heart dancing with hope than he suddenly increased his speed, at once putting a greater distance between them. Then, slowing for an instant, he ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... in the Hotel de l'Ecu de Geneve, wherein there is a large mirror shattered by a cannon-ball in the late revolution. A revolution, whatever its merits, achieved by free spirits, nobly generous and moderate, even in the first transports of victory, elevated by a splendid popular education, and bent on freedom from all tyrants, whether their crowns be shaven or golden. The newspapers may tell you what they please. I believe there is no country on earth but Switzerland in which a violent change could have been effected ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... conducted with more or less noise and hubbub, according to the humor the debaters happened to be in, but now one and all seemed bent on raising a row. They all talked at once, fists were flourished in the air and pretty close to the noses of some of the disputants, and finally the lie was passed, and Rodney Gray and several other ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... with her long after Mrs. Fisher had taken leave. She had seen very little of Rosedale since her annexation by the Gormers, for he was still steadily bent on penetrating to the inner Paradise from which she was now excluded; but once or twice, when nothing better offered, he had turned up for a Sunday, and on these occasions he had left her in no doubt as to his view of her situation. That he still ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... went over in a body to the enemy. It was an act of treachery whose fatal effect no effort could overcome. The day ended with victory in the hands of the allies. The French were driven back close upon the walls of Leipsic, with the serried columns of Germany and Russia closing them in, and bent on giving no relaxation to their ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... awake all night! I believe you are bent on my destruction." And, as she hovered over the table, she hummed the latest popular ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... "after experience of the last negotiations he would enter into no more negotiations." He warned the Government that the whole constitutional movement was in danger. There were in Ireland "serious men, men of ability, men with command of money," who were bent on smashing it. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... of the railway carriage that has brought you at leisurely speed to Deal, you cannot help thinking of another arrival that, at the time, created even more attention on the part of the inhabitants. You, bent on a visit to the genial Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, arrive from landward. JULIUS CAESAR came by sea; And yet, so narrow is the world, and so recurrent its movements, you both ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... altogether cut him out with saucy Mistress Joan, who, it must be confessed, was fond of teasing her faithful swain, and driving him to the verge of distraction. So it showed Will's good-heartedness that he did not shun and dislike his rival, but rather, when he found him bent on an errand into the forest, offered to go with him part of the way, to make ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... on the verandah, a four-year-old boy, bent on closer investigation of the enemy, escaped from the "home" battalion. His small mother pursued him, shrieking; but at the first snap the dog's teeth met in the child's fluttering shirt, and his shrieks soared, high and thin, above the deeper ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... not buyin' manny jools ner private steamboats! Millions med! I know th' kind well!" Bean felt his own indignation rise with Cassidy's. He was seeing why they had feared to have him on the board of directors. Apparently they were bent on wrecking the company by a campaign of extravagance. The substance of what he gleaned from Cassidy's newspaper was that those directors had declared a stock dividend of 200 per cent. and a cash dividend of 100 ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... met before," said Mr. Chichester dryly, "last time he posed as Rustic Virtue in homespun, to-day it seems he is the Good Samaritan in a flowered waistcoat, very anxiously bent on saving some one ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... our best and bought our experience at a heavy cost. Now every effort must be bent on saving ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... so before sailing, Mrs. Redmond Wrandall had Booth in for dinner. I think she said en famille. At any rate, Sara was not asked, which is proof enough that she was bent on ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... Witch, and, struggling to her feet, hobbled to Jocelyn and laid bony finger on wrist and brow, nodded, mumbled, and so, bent on her staff, hobbled away; but, reaching the cave-mouth, she paused, and smote stick ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... things in the world? All the governors cling fatally together among themselves, and more solidly than you think, through the old machine of chancelleries, ministries, diplomacy, and the ceremonials with gilded swords; and when they are bent on making war for themselves there is an unquenchable likeness between them all, of which you want no more. Break the chain; suppress all privileges, and say at last, "Let, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... tall hedges at either side and an occasional cottage or tree releiving the monotony of the scenery. But Helen, leaning back in her comfortable carriage is not thinking of the passing scenery, but of the extraordinary mission she is bent on. ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... the knowing smile of those Whom the too sudden vision God sometimes may disclose Of his wild, lurid world-wreck, has blinded with its sheen. Then, with a fond insistence, pathetic and serene, They pass among their fellows for lost minds none can save, Bent on their single business, and marvel why men rave. Now far away a sighing comes from the buried reef, As though the sea were mourning above an ancient grief. For once the restless Mother of all the weary lands Went down to him in beauty, with trouble in her hands, And gave to him forever ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... third time—a waltz fast and furious, which they had kept up almost incessantly till the music had ceased. Heated and breathless, he led her out of the ball-room to get some refreshment. There was a large supper-room which, on the cessation of the waltz, immediately became crowded by other couples bent on a similar errand. But there had also been established a little subsidiary buffet in a small cabinet at the furthest end of the suite of rooms, for the purpose of drawing off some of the crowd from the main supper-room. And thither Ludovico led Bianca, thinking to avoid the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... looked into each other's eyes, each endeavoring to read the other. Manuel saw some indomitable purpose, bent on conquering all obstacles. Pauline saw doubt, desire, and hope; knew that a word would bring the ally she needed; and, with a courage as native to her as her pride, ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... as we know, the lovers were forced to part in great haste. And for a time John Hancock and his companion, Samuel Adams, remained in seclusion, that they might not be seized by General Gage, who was bent on their arrest, and intended to have them sent ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... us. Now, my senior from the very first was infatuated with him, gave him a large salary, and, in spite of my warnings that he ought to be cautious, he wants to make him head-clerk, with an eye to making him partner next year. And so bent on this is he that I know he would dissolve partnership with me if I refused, take the young man, let him marry his daughter, and leave him all his money when he dies. That's no small sum, for old Mr. Beamish is worth in real estate ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... danger. Anger played its part no doubt; but in a temperament like Jugurtha's such an emotion was more likely to be the justification than the cause of a crime. His thoughts from that moment were said to have been bent on ensnaring the impetuous Hiempsal. But guile moves slowly, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... twins (Nakula and Sahadeva)? The shafts of Satyaki, frightened by which thou seekest safety in flight, are scarcely equal to those of Phalguna in battle that resemble the sun or fire in splendour. If thy heart is firmly bent on flight, let the sovereignty of the earth then, upon the conclusion of peace, be given to king Yudhishthira the Just. Before the shafts of Phalguna, resembling snakes freed from their sloughs, enter thy body, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... within and slunk in the dense shadows of the palisade toward the workshop where lay the heavy chest of their desire. At the same instant Muda Saffir with fifty of his head-hunting Dyaks emerged from the jungle east of the camp, bent on discovering the whereabouts of the girl the Malay sought and bearing her away to his savage court far within the jungle fastness ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a symptom of the Hun To be always bent on seeking after places in the sun; But I'd rather choose to follow what my deadliest foes applaud Than to ostracise ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... whose name was Prasildo, happened to be of a party one day with Tisbina, who were amusing themselves in a garden, with a game in which the players knelt down with their faces bent on one another's laps, and guessed who it was that struck them. The turn came to himself, and he knelt down to the lap of Tisbina; but no sooner was he there, than he experienced feelings he had never dreamt of; and instead of trying to guess correctly, took all the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... for some little time, carefully examining every point of his adventure. Certainly his movements would be watched; certainly this Raymond Latour might be useful to him. When he went into the street presently he looked carelessly to right and left, wondering which of the people in sight was bent on following him. ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... that the poet may labor according to an ideal— that the critic may judge from ideas, but that mere executive art is subject to contingencies, and depends for effect on the occasion. Managers will be obstinate; actors are bent on display—the audience is inattentive and unruly. Their object is relaxation, and they are disappointed if mental exertion be required, when they expected only amusement. But if the theatre be made instrumental towards higher objects, the diversion, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... had fallen. The mighty chief drew his stern features into a condensed expression of resolute despair; his face assumed an ashy hue, and his frozen lip curled with an expression of scornful defiance. Dimly but ferociously his eyes were bent on his conqueror, whilst his sinewy hand grasped firmly the weapon it could no longer wield. The gigantic frame of the Moor was convulsed, and his soul struggled fiercely to recover the lost energies of ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... increased. Firm as her resolution might be, it gave way before the bodily injury which Mrs. Gallilee had received. Her husband's help was again needed to take her to her bedroom. She stopped them at the ante-chamber; still obstinately bent on following her own designs. "I shall be better directly," she said; "put me on the sofa." Marceline relieved her of her bonnet and veil, and asked respectfully if there was any other service required. She looked defiantly at her husband, and reiterated the order—"Send ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... and says he will. He's a great one to keep his word too. Bobbie and Marjorie have hardly snuggled up in one end of a hammock to watch the moon do things to the wavelets before here is Harold, with a fresh line of talk that he's bent on deliverin' while the mood ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... Being. If there were any thing of that sensibility for the honour of God, and of that zeal in his service, which we shew in behalf of our earthly friends, or of our political connections, should we seek our pleasure in that place which the debauchee, inflamed with wine, or bent on the gratification of other licentious appetites, finds most congenial to his state and temper of mind? In that place, from the neighbourhood of which, (how justly termed a school of morals might hence alone be inferred) ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... father so bad a cause. For it is not an insignificant truth which Moses utters when he says the senses and the thoughts of the heart of man are prone to evil from his youth. This is the case especially in the sixth chapter (vs 5) where he says that the whole thought of his heart was bent on evil continually, meaning thereby that he purposes what is evil, and that in inclination, purpose and effort he inclines to evil. For example; an adulterer, whose desires are inflamed, may lack the opportunity, the place, the person, the time, and nevertheless be stirred ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... already kindled in the Revolution that France was forced into a new series of violent changes. The King himself was not sincerely at one with the nation; in everything that most keenly touched his conscience he had unwillingly accepted the work of the Assembly. The Church and the noblesse were bent on undoing what had already been done. Without interfering with doctrine or ritual, the National Assembly had re-organised the ecclesiastical system of France, and had enforced that supremacy of the State over the priesthood to which, throughout ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... comfort; the castle court was cleansed, the cattle sheds removed to the rear, and the serfs were presented with seed, and offered payment in coin if they would give their labour in fencing and clearing the cornfield and vineyard which the barons were bent on forming on the sunny slope of the ravine. Poverty was over, thanks to the marriage portion, and yet Ebbo looked less happy than in the days when there was but a bare subsistence; and he seemed to miss the full tide of city life more than did his brother, who, though he had enjoyed Ulm more ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... continued the man of science too much bent on his own ideas, to understand her interruption. "Little danger of that! I made my own base, knew the length of the perpendicular by calculation, and to draw the hypothenuse had nothing to do but to work my angle. I ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... period so important as the years between three and six, and none so fruitful. To put in the seed at that time is, as a rule, to decide the kind of harvest the child will reap later; whether he shall be a shrewd, keen, clever, ambitious man, with a hard, mechanical mind, bent on getting the best of the world; or a generous, fruitful, open-minded man, intent on living the fullest life in mind and heart. No apology is offered for giving large space to myths, legends, fairy stories, tales of all sorts, and to poetry; for in these ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various |
