"Beset" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I must have no more of you men down with sickness. Let us hope that we may win our way safely to the ship and the island yet. I would send out a little party to try and fetch help, but I fear they are beset at the residency already, and I do not think a detachment could succeed. I propose then that we all hold together ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... was effected as equivalent to the possession of knowledge that such transmutation had not been effected, how much more illegitimate must it be to commit a similar sin against logic in the case of the chemical elements, where our classification is confessedly beset with numberless difficulties, and when we begin to discern that in all probability it is a classification essentially artificial. Lastly, the mere fact that the transmutation of chemical species and the evolution of chemical "atoms" are processes which we do not now observe ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... mingling with the bittersweet stems. In my idle mood I had for some moments so accepted it without a thought, and would doubtless have left the spot with this impression had I not chanced to notice that this stem, so beset with conspicuous thorns, was not consistent in its foliage. My suspicions aroused, I suddenly realized that my thorny stem was in truth merely a bittersweet branch in masquerade, and that I had been "fooled" by a sly midget who had been an old-time acquaintance of ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... Kenneth, "and not only sense, but a sound, sweet nature. Patty is growing up a coquette, but it is only because she is beset by flattery; and, too, she IS full of mischief. She can't help teasing her suitors, as she ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... leave his roof, for a residence among strangers, the idea occurred to him of imbodying his fraternal counsel in such a form that it might be a friendly monitor to her, in the midst of those dangers and difficulties which beset the path of inexperienced youth. In prosecuting this design, it appeared hardly proper to bestow so much time upon the interests of one individual. Hence the writer concluded to commit these Letters to the press, with the hope that they might be the means of ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... and air-compression are well accomplished by direct steam applications; but pumping is beset with wholly undesirable alternatives, among which ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... announces that it is by express command of the gods that Gilgamesh has come to the mountain. Gilgamesh approaches and tells the scorpion-man of his purpose. The hero, recovering his courage, is not held back by the description that the scorpion-man gives him of the dangers that beset the one who ventures to enter the dreadful district. The gate is opened and the ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... down beside her; he was beset by a sensation of calamity. Oddly enough the hammer of fate had never yet struck on him so definitely as now with the death of a dog. But, without quite realizing it, he was considering poor black Omar ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... found who would put her baby on goat's milk and come and nurse his child for a few shillings—ten or fifteen shillings a week; Ellen's beauty was worth a great deal more. The hands of the clock went on, he had to close his letter and post it; and no sooner was it posted than he was beset by qualms of conscience. During the meeting he wondered what Ellen would think of his letter, and he feared it would shock her and trouble her; for, while considering the rights of the child, she would remember ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... of lively fancy and weak understanding only remark the freedom which he takes with existing nature, and are unable to follow him in copying the elevated necessities of his inner being. The same difficulties beset the path of the sentimental genius in this respect, as those which afflict the career of a genius of the simple order. If a genius of this class carries out every work, obedient to the free and spontaneous impulses of his nature, the man devoid of genius who seeks to imitate ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... vehemently; "see the woman's nature shrinking from the path of honor because it is beset with danger. I did well not to let you know the nature of my last labors, for with your sighs and croakings you would have turned me back again into the highway of falsehood. But you are too late, poltroon. The work is done, and it shall see light." Gluck looked at his wife's face, and ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... unhappiness. These four robber knights did beset me. And when I was overcome they demanded great ransom which I had no means wherewith to satisfy. Then, when I heard the tale of how long these fellow prisoners had been here I was greatly discouraged as to carrying out my ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... great and glorious in my eyes—for I love the hypocrite and the deceiver," he added with one of his diabolical smiles; "although I myself deceive them! Be dumb, then, in all that relates to my visit to thee here. But thou mayst so beset thy Fernand with earnest entreaties to give thee the means of departure from this island—for he can do so, if he have the will—that he shall be unable to resist thy prayer—thy fears—thy anguish, real or feigned, whichever that anguish may be. And should he not yield ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... and political associations of the Athenians—noted in ancient times for their superior piety, as well as for their accuracy and magnificence about the visible monuments embodying that feeling—we shall in part comprehend the intensity of mingled dismay, terror, and wrath which beset the public mind on the morning after this nocturnal sacrilege, alike unforeseen and unparalleled. Amidst all the ruin and impoverishment which had been inflicted by the Persian invasion of Attica, there ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... I say—that a woman, a wife cannot possibly be sure of her husband's fidelity. Think how different are the conditions. The wife, no matter if her temperament be warm or cold, is always at home, surrounded by prying eyes, rarely beset by temptation. The husband is often away, he goes on business journeys that free him temporarily from the chains which keep him in good behavior. If he is good looking, the women look at him, flirt with him. It is inevitable. The chances are that he succumbs to the first ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... her sometimes as though she were looking at a total stranger. She had never thought of him as having any capacity for the ordinary and lesser ills, vanities, and vexations—the trivial worries that beset ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... caused all eyes to focus upon the Montgomerys with a new intentness. Before her escapade they had been accepted as a matter of course; now that she had demonstrated that the Montgomerys were subject to the temptations that beset all mankind, every one became curious as to the further definition of the family weaknesses. The community may be said to have awaited the marriages of the three remaining Montgomery girls in much the same spirit that a ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... entered into the vale of Sessoine, he might see where King Arthur was embattled and his banner displayed; and he was beset round about with his enemies, that needs he must fight or yield him, for he might not flee, but said openly unto the Romans, Sirs, I admonish you that this day ye fight and acquit you as men, and remember how Rome domineth and is chief and head over all the earth and universal world, and ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... and guide whom I would welcome, even if he know but a little more than myself; while if my guide is infallible and disdainful, if he denies what he cannot see and derides what he has never felt, then I feel that I have but one enemy the more, in a place where I am beset ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in comfortable country homes, secure from every invader, find it difficult to conceive the trials that beset the hardy pioneers who settled our Western country during the ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Julian would be often constrained to trust his life to his plucky horse, swimming when out of his depth, and dragging after him, as best he might, the vehicle, heavy with its iron fixtures, and reeking with the water and the tenacious red clay mire. And then, too, the mountain streams were beset with quick-sands—indeed, every detail of the night journey was environed with danger. He could scarcely be expected to win through safely, and Gladys felt a rush of indignation that he should have attempted the feat. Must a man be as wax in a woman's hands—especially ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... he won, And others many more, whom he to bliss Exalted. Before these, be thou assur'd, No spirit of human kind was ever sav'd." We, while he spake, ceas'd not our onward road, Still passing through the wood; for so I name Those spirits thick beset. We were not far On this side from the summit, when I kenn'd A flame, that o'er the darken'd hemisphere Prevailing shin'd. Yet we a little space Were distant, not so far but I in part Discover'd, that a tribe in honour ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... 31, 1753), engaged Jacob Van Braam, a Hollander who had taught him fencing, to be his French interpreter; and Christopher Gist, the best guide through the Virginia wilderness, to pilot the party. In spite of the wintry conditions which beset them, they made good time. Washington presented his official warning to M. Joncaire, the principal French commander in the region under dispute, but he replied that he must wait for orders from the Governor in Quebec. One object of Washington's mission was to win over, if possible, the ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... Caroline's trial the mob of London sided with the Queen, and the Duke's strong adhesion to the King made him extremely unpopular. Riding up Grosvenor Place one day towards Apsley House, he was beset by a gang of workmen who were mending the road. They formed a cordon, shouldered their pickaxes, and swore they would not let the Duke pass till he said "God save the Queen." "Well, gentlemen, since you will have it ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... better than the life led by the Hewetts—better than that of other households with which he was acquainted—better far, it seemed to him, than the aspirations which were threatening to lead poor Clara—who knew whither? A temptation beset him to walk round into Upper Street and pass Mrs. Tubbs's bar. He resisted it, knowing that the result would only be a night of sleepless ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... big bull they first found. Here was meat and life, and it was guarded by no mysterious fires nor flying missiles of flame. Splay hoofs and palmated antlers they knew, and they flung their customary patience and caution to the wind. It was a brief fight and fierce. The big bull was beset on every side. He ripped them open or split their skulls with shrewdly driven blows of his great hoofs. He crushed them and broke them on his large horns. He stamped them into the snow under him in the wallowing struggle. But he was foredoomed, and he went down with the she-wolf tearing savagely ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... the demands of book-buyers. Many of these are well established and conducted upon thoroughly honest business principles; some, unfortunately, are not. The publication and sale of books—especially the so-called "de luxe" editions—is, like some other branches of industry, beset with numerous evils; so many sharp practices, indeed, having been resorted to by a few conscienceless publishers, and by a certain class of unscrupulous agents, that buyers have become wary, not to ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... comes with all new feelings—the underrating of simple pleasures apart from the intellectual—the chase of the imagination, often unduly stimulated, for things unattainable below—all these are surely among the first temptations that beset ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the recent inquiries (published in 1881[1]) by Professor Fried. Delitzsch, it must be confessed that the results obtained are such as to completely avoid all the difficulties that beset the other explanations: yet we ought not to be too confident that it is a final or absolute explanation. A certain caution and reserve will still be wisely maintained on the subject. At any rate, they show ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... shelves; and for days and days I can remember to have gone about my region of our house, armed with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees—the perfect realization of Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price. The Captain never lost dignity, from having his ears boxed with the Latin Grammar. I did; but the Captain was a Captain and a hero, in despite ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... scourging of impulse. And the scourging might well have failed, had he known all the ghastly truth as to how sorely he was beset. Had sight been granted to him again for a minute, he might have turned readily to the expedient suggested by the half-breed, which he had rejected so firmly—might have drawn the keen blade of the knife across ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... and to the manner born, seem to pass over these annoyances with more skill than I could ever acquire. More than once I have seen some of my acquaintance beset in the same way, without appearing at all distressed by it; they continued their employment or conversation with me, much as if no such interruption had taken place; when the visitor entered, they would say, "How do you do?" ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... produced heavy crops of grain, as well as pasture for cattle and valuable lumber from its forests. The Pennsylvania settlers were of a class particularly skilled in dealing with the soil. They apparently encountered none of the difficulties, due probably to incompetent farming, which beset the settlers of Delaware, whose land was as good as that of ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... may not be renounced for any easement of the body until the smoke that blinds us is blown away, and the tormenting flame has fitted us for that immortal ecstasy which is the bosom of God. Nor is it lawful that ye great ones should beset the path of travellers, seeking to lure them away with cunning promises. It is only at the cross-roads ye may sit where the traveller will hesitate and be in doubt, but on the highway ye ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... refused to show his chipped possessions. But thou wast once as eager to learn Hebrew, his grandmother said, and the chance words, spoken as she left the room, awakened his suspended interests. As soon as she returned she was beset by questions, and the same evening his father had to promise that the best scribe in Galilee should be engaged to teach him: a discussion began between Dan and Rachel as to the most notable and trustworthy, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... however, who showed but little interest in the general contentment. Of these, one was Barnaby himself, who slept, or, to avoid being beset with questions, feigned to sleep, in the chimney-corner; the other, Hugh, who, sleeping too, lay stretched upon the bench on the opposite side, in the full glare of the ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... by their own men, who, as has been told, made the attack on Milo, called in the Carthaginians to their aid when they learned that Pyrrhus was dead. Milo, seeing that his chances had been contracted to narrow limits, as the Romans beset him on the land side and the Carthaginians on the water front, surrendered the citadel to Papirius on condition of being permitted to depart unharmed with his immediate followers and his money. Then the Carthaginians, as representatives of a nation friendly to the Romans, sailed ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... addition to gibbets erected in lonely bylanes and secluded spots where crimes had been committed. "Hangman's Lanes" were by no means uncommon. He was a brave man who ventured alone at night on the highways and byways when the country was beset with highwaymen, and the gruesome gibbets were frequently ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... forcibly arrest him. A police agent who seized him turned pale and trembled. In certain circumstances, to lay violent hands upon a man is to lay them upon Right, and those who dare to do so are made to tremble by outraged Law. The exodus from the Mairie was long and beset with obstructions. Half-an-hour elapsed while the soldiers were forming a line, and while the Commissaries of Police, all the time appearing solely occupied with the care of driving back the crowd in the street, sent for orders ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... reigns gloriously. That is an amazing miracle, for countless incredible dangers of the direst sort have beset your cradle and menaced your youth. A prince of your house, backed up by ambitious inferiors, resolved to wrest the crown from you, in order to get it for himself and his descendants. The Queen, your mother, full of heroic resolution, herself had energy enough to resist the cabal; ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... are all overwhelmed by the appalling crime wave that has beset the world—not only by murders, robberies and hold-ups, but by the ghastly increase in marital unfaithfulness which clogs the divorce courts; and the attacks against women and girls which have become a daily department of the news. ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... worst perils of her lot. She did not flinch under privation, but went her way through it, if not serenely, at least without ever a thought of yielding to those temptations that beset a girl who is at once poor and charming. Fortunately for her, those in closest authority over her were not so deeply smitten as to make obligatory on her a choice between complaisance and loss of position. She knew of situations like that, the cul-de-sac ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... paper will take all that is put upon it, while abstract beings, the hollow simulacra and philosophic puppets he concocts, are adapted to every sort of combination.—That a lunatic in his cell should adopt and preach this theory is also comprehensible; he is beset with phantoms and lives outside the actual world, and, moreover in this ever-agitated democracy he is the eternal informer and instigator of every riot and murder that takes place; he it is who under the name of "the people's friend" becomes ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... me, whosoever thou art, for seeming fickle and rude to thee; I have tried to do as first proposed, to tell the tale in my own words, as of another's fortune. But, lo! I was beset at once with many heavy obstacles, which grew as I went onward, until I knew not where I was, and mingled past and present. And two of these difficulties only were enough to stop me; the one that I must coldly speak without the force of pity, the other that I, off and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... which was the most popular style of poetry at that age. At the close of the year 1300 Dante represents himself as lost in a forest at the foot of a hill, near Jerusalem. He wishes to ascend it, but is prevented by a panther, a lion, and a she-wolf which beset the way. He is met by Virgil, who tells him that he is sent by Beatrice as a guide through the realm of shadows, hell, and purgatory, and that she will afterwards lead him up to heaven. They pass the gates ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... only one thing to do and that was to set out for the mainland by a course so circuitous that they were brought a long way eastward, back towards "The Grottoes." They had very rough travelling, bad weather, and were beset with many difficulties in mounting on to the land-ice, where the depot had to be placed. Their distance from the Base at this point was only twenty-eight miles and the altitude was one thousand feet above sea-level. On the ice-cap they were delayed by a blizzard and for seventeen days—an ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... certain collaboration, and there were occasions when he was established near her, when deliberately, in cold blood and of his own initiative, he was compelled to speak to her. No language could describe the anguish and difficulty of these approaches. His way was beset by obstacles and perils, by traps and snares; and at every turn there waited for him the shameful pitfall of the aitch. He whose easy courtesy charmed away the shyness of Miss Flossie Walker, whose conversation (when he deigned ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... entered into conversation. An indistinct murmur reached me through the ceiling. Occasionally a clearer sound struck my ear, and I thought I knew that high, resonant voice. It was no doubt delusion, still it beset me there in the silence of the library, haunting my thoughts as they wandered restlessly in search of occupation. I tried to recollect all the men with fluty voices that I had ever met in Bourges: a corn-factor ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... that I might find all well! General Washington is on a journey. Would God he were returned! [The sound of a bugle is heard.] Blow, blessed bugle! Blow to the rising Sun! Blow to the dayspring of Liberty, to the new nation rising calmly above the dangers that beset her dawn. Blow bugle, and scatter ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... Church. It remains therefore for Walther to qualify as a master, and David, the apprentice of Hans Sachs the cobbler, the most popular man in Nuremberg, is bidden by his sweetheart Magdalena, Eva's servant, to instruct the young knight in the hundred and one rules which beset the singer's art. The list of technicalities which David rattles off fills Walther with dismay, and he makes up his mind to trust to his native inspiration. The Mastersingers now assemble, and Pogner announces that ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... us how solitary the inn stood. It was plainly hard upon the sea, yet out of all view of it, and beset on every side with scabbit hills of sand. There was, indeed, only one thing in the nature of a prospect, where there stood out over a brae the two sails of a windmill, like an ass's ears, but with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no, my father! My father, in mercy speak not such terrible words!" implored the princess, clinging to his robe. "Call not the wrath of heaven on thy head; think of his youth, the temptations that have beset him, the difficult task to remain faithful when all other of his house turned astray. Mistaken as he hath been, as he is, have mercy. Compel him to prove, to feel, to acknowledge thou art not the tyrant he hath been taught to deem thee; exile, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... so beset for information, that he found it necessary to abscond from his father's house; and then, to put an end to the wonderful ferment which his ingenuity had created, he published a pamphlet, wherein he confessed the entire fabrication. Besides Vortigern, young Ireland also produced a play of Henry ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... and "Skirmishers in!" And the summit is theirs to lose or win— To win with honour or lose with shame; And so to the place itself they came, And gazed with an awful thrill At the ridge of omen, Beset by foemen, At the arduous summit, the gorse-clad summit, the summit ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... teacher obtaining a hearing among them without such renunciation as a preliminary. According to Indian popular ideas a genius might become either an Emperor or a Buddha but not like Mohammed a mixture of the two. But the danger which beset Gotama, and which he consistently and consciously avoided, though Mohammed could not, was to give authoritative decisions on unessential points as to both doctrine and practice. There was clearly a party which wished to make the rule of his order more severe and, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... subject to a single figure, or at most two or three, perhaps too the repose and simplicity which characterize antique art, make the path less arduous. I never, even in the infinite vistas of the Vatican, felt the fatigue and perplexity which have beset ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... a kindly word, And a word that was lightly spoken; Yet not in vain, For it stilled the pain Of a heart that was nearly broken. It strengthened a fate beset by fears And groping blindly through mists of tears For light to brighten the coming years, Although it was ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... sale or purchase. Add to this, that, whenever you sell the liberty of a man, you have the power only of alluding to the body: the mind cannot be confined or bound: it will be free, though its mansion be beset with chains. But if, in every sale of the human species, you are under the necessity of considering your slave in this abstracted light; of alluding only to the body, and of making no allusion to the mind; you are under the necessity also of treating him, in ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... and gave him the shelter of his roof, and tried to reclaim him. Then the boys saw him going about the streets, pale and tremulous, in a second-hand suit of his benefactor's clothes, and fighting hard against the tempter that beset him on every side in that town; and then some day they saw him dead drunk in a fence corner; and they did not understand how seven devils worse than the first had entered in the place which had been ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... glorifying a socialistic, unpatriotic fanatic who refuses to uphold the institutions that his fathers before him created with their toil, blood, and sacrifice. It is not the right of the individual to judge of the necessity of a war; no layman can form an intelligent idea of the dangers that may beset his fatherland. The man is but a part of the state, and must uphold it at any cost. We are inclined to wonder at Miss Fairfield's mention of a king, when the name Phillipe La Roque so clearly proclaims ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... so beautiful to look at, was beset by serious dangers. It required more skill than the Brethren possessed, and more supervision than was humanly possible. As long as a business flourished and paid the congregation reaped the benefit; but if, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... Serbelloni Palace, where she did the honors most admirably and received the homage of the proud aristocracy of Milan. She followed her husband to the war, for he could not bear to be separated from her, and one day when, beset with dangers, she was crying, he exclaimed: "Wurmser shall pay dearly for the tears he causes you." After Arcole, Madame Bonaparte resembled a sovereign. She singularly aided her husband to play the double part which was soon to carry him to the highest rank. When it ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... noted for its pearl fisheries and its supply of rubies, sapphires, and cats'-eyes as much as for its spices; and from the hour the traveller lands until the steamer carries him off he is beset with dealers offering precious stones, worth hundreds of dollars in London or New York, for a few rupees; but those who purchase no doubt find their fate in the story of the innocent who bought his gold cheap. The government ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... danger by which they were beset, it was impossible for the men to restrain the indulgence of their humor at this singular sight, nor was the disposition at all checked, when they saw the bayonet descend and actually transfix the intruder to ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... to his domestic harmony, my stepmother becoming immoderately jealous of me; but I took good care to keep my own secret, and never exposed myself for one moment to any suspicion of my character, which hitherto, thank Heaven, has been pure, though I am exposed to a thousand temptations, and beset by the actors to become the wife of one, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was beset with scandalous nuisances, of which the following letter, from Arthur Murphy to Garrick, April 10, 1768, presents ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... with the Taranteens—distrustful of even some of their own people, who murmured at the severity of the discipline they were subjected to—the government felt that they had need of all the eyes of Argus, and of as many ears, to guard against the dangers by which they were beset. They were like, in one respect, to the timorous rabbit, snuffing the faintest hint of danger in the breeze; but unlike him in that, they sought safety, not in avoiding, but in ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... off when I stood my ground. When the election came on, to get our ballots printed I had to go to New Orleans; spies dogged me in going and coming; and as with a friend I rode toward home, we were beset and besieged in a planter's house, that they might get possession of the ballots. Finally we rode away on an unguarded road, pistol in hand, and escaped. But they afterward captured and destroyed a part of the ballots, and ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... Participle. Arise, arose, arising, arisen. Be, was, being, been. Bear, bore or bare, bearing, borne or born.[274] Beat, beat, beating, beaten or beat. Begin, began or begun,[275] beginning, begun. Behold, beheld, beholding, beheld. Beset, beset, besetting, beset. Bestead, bestead, besteading, bestead.[276] Bid, bid or bade, bidding, bidden or bid. Bind, bound, bing, bound. Bite, bit, biting, bitten or bit. Bleed, bled, bleeding, bled. Break, broke,[277] breaking, broken. Breed, bred, breeding, bred. Bring, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Disasters, losses, partings, disappointments, sicknesses, death, may any of them come at any moment, and some of them will certainly come sooner or later. Temptations lurk around us like serpents in the grass, they beset us in open ferocity like lions in our path. Is it not wise to fear unless our faith has hold of that great promise, 'Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; there shall no evil befall thee'? But if we have a firm hold of God, then it is wise not to be afraid, and terror is folly ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... drapes her black hair down over one side of her high forehead, wears daring gowns—that's what she calls 'em anyway—and reads the most outrageous kinds of poetry out loud to them that will listen. Likes this Omar Something stuff about your path being beset with pitfalls and gin fizzes and getting soused out under a tree with ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... they had the native or acquired will to vow they would do so. Those who have no other quality favourable to life, whose bodily organs are nearly all diseased, to whom each day is a day of pain, who are beset by life-shortening influences, yet do live by will alone." ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... his anger at the triumph of Huon was so great that it very near killed him. Still, as the duel had been fairly fought, he dared not punish Huon, and he was forced to content himself with sending him on a mission to the king of Babylon, knowing well the perils which would beset him on the way. ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... single instance of what the savages did during that mad retreat. More than once had my rifle been emptied in behalf of some sore-beset soldier, and I even went so far in my sympathy for the white men that I saved the life of a Tory who would have been killed had we not come up in the nick of time. After rescuing him, however, we turned the fellow over to a squad who were guarding twenty or more prisoners, ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... than once forced upon the mother's heart the conviction, that in that distant land, this frail being, after all, might prove the stronger of the two. Daily she warned them of the temptations and snares that would beset their path, and taught them to zealously shun such, as they would a viper in their way. They listened and promised; and when the expected day of departure arrived, bade her adieu in the midst of her tears, and prayers, ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... longer feel surprise at this. In truth, there is no form of misfortune and suffering but which he may expect his flesh to bring down upon him. You are right; all the hatred, malediction, and persecution which beset the demon must also beset the flesh ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... the Bonito, one of Polani's ships. She is lying outside the farther of the Venetian galleys. We bring from Venice some of the stores for which you sent. We were lying off, watching the battle, until we saw that you were sore beset and in need of help, and could then no longer remain inactive. Our captain was killed by an arrow as we ranged up alongside of the galley, and I am now in command. This is my friend, Matteo Giustiniani, a ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... not a day had passed that I had not worked at that impious occupation, and I had at that moment the proof before my eyes. The man who had loved Brigitte, who had offended her, then insulted her, then abandoned her only to take her back again, trembling with fear, beset with suspicion, finally thrown on that bed of sorrow, where she now lay ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to the verge of distraction. Oh that he had loved some young creature on his own level, some girl who would have gone sweetly to his home with him and glorified the old life! His mother had wept over and soothed the woman of his choice only yesterday, entering into all the difficulties that beset her path, and pledging her own assistance to overcome them; but now she was all in arms in behalf of her boy, whose individuality was to be crushed among them, who was to be made into an appendage to Lady Markland, ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... in which the conditions of existence are so evil that childhood is plunged, almost as soon as it is born, into an element of vice and crime, the bloom of modesty is rudely rubbed off the soul of womanhood, and manhood is so beset with temptation that escape is well-nigh impossible. Can anyone doubt that an Isaiah or a Jeremiah would, in such a state of society, have lifted up his voice like a trumpet and cast the condition of these lost children ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... he was midway in the valley of the shadow, which he represents as "The Everlasting No," and beset by "temptations in the wilderness." At this crisis he writes, "The biographies of men of letters are the wretchedest chapters in our history, except perhaps the Newgate Calendar," a remark that recalls the similar cry of Burns, "There ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... almost all the tribes were united under Shamil's command; and the Russian Government, seriously alarmed, determined that he must be effectively crushed. In the story of this campaign we have a signal and striking example of the perils that beset regular troops who encounter fierce and fearless barbarians on their own ground. The Russians had a powerful artillery; they were led by experienced commanders; their officers and soldiers fought with astonishing ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... follow that love is to be altogether banished from dramatic art. The dramatist surveys the whole field of human life and could not, if he wished, afford to neglect the most powerful and universal of human motives. All depends upon the treatment, and no subject is more beset with difficulties. The earlier Greek dramatists, with their usual unerring judgment, avoided sexual love, i.e. the love between a young woman and a young man, although love-stories and love-lyrics were ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... out the best there is in man." As a severe storm in nature purifies the elements and the earth, reviving the plants, clarifying the air, causing the sun to shine more gloriously, so, too, do the storms which beset the soul and wring from it its groans and sighs, purify the spiritual man and place him nearer to the throne of his Maker. I cannot but thank the Lord, when I contrast our present position with what would have been our lot had we remained in Kief. I know we have been favored by a kind Providence ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... came up against Alcocer, and pitched their tents round about the castle. Every day their host increased, for their people were many in number, and their watchmen kept watch day and night; and my Cid had no succour to look for except the mercy of God, in which he put his trust. And the Moors beset them so close that they cut off their water, and albeit the Castillians would have sallied against them, my Cid forbade this. In this guise were my Cid and his people besieged for three weeks, and when the fourth week began, he called for Alvar Fanez, and for his company, and said ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... believing that she he loved could see him, and as he walked out on the platform in his scanty, native attire, an Apollo of the wilderness, a hundred of the tender fancies that fleet through lovers' brains beset his imagination and softened his heart. All this was lost on Deerslayer, who was no great adept in the mysteries of Cupid, but whose mind was far more occupied with the concerns that forced themselves on his attention, than with any of the truant fancies of love. He soon recalled his companion, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... certain fanciful resemblance, to a genus of lizards belonging to the family Iguanidae, the species of which are characterized by the presence, in the males, of an erectile crest on the head, and a still higher, likewise erectile crest—beset with scales—on the back, and another on the long tail. Basiliscus americanus reaches the length of one yard; its colour is green and brown, with dark crossbars, while the crest is reddish. This beautiful, strictly herbivorous creature ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... of falling asleep is a child's immemorial and incalculable hour. It is full of traditions, and beset by antique habits. The habit of prehistoric races has been cited as the only explanation of the fixity of some customs in mankind. But if the enquirers who appeal to that beginning remembered better their own infancy, ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... you are in quest of information on a subject the most momentous which can engage the attention of a free people; that the field through which you have to travel is in itself spacious, and that the difficulties of the journey have been unnecessarily increased by the mazes with which sophistry has beset the way. It will be my aim to remove the obstacles to your progress in as compendious a manner as it can be done without sacrificing ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... as these details may seem, they are the witness to an active, eager, animated period of inventions and beginnings, in which the Greek workman triumphs over the first [235] rough mechanical difficulties which beset him in the endeavour to record what his soul conceived of the form of priest or athlete then alive upon the earth, or of the ever-living gods, then already more seldom seen upon it. Our own fancy must fill up the story of the unrecorded patience of the workshop, into which ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... thou hast driven the foe without, See to the foe within! bridge, ford, beset By bandits, everyone that owns a tower The Lord for half a league. Why sit ye there? Rest would I not, Sir King, an I were king, Till even the lonest hold were all as free From cursed bloodshed, as thine altar-cloth From that best blood it is a ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... eastern frontier towns of Missouri, the serpentine trains drag steadily west; their camp fires glitter from "St. Joe" to Fort Bridger; they shine on the summit lakes of the Sierras, where Donner's party, beset in deepest snows, died in starvation. They were a type of the human sacrifices of the overland passage. Skeletons ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... ill: the man is yet to come Who hath not journeyed in this native hell. But few have ever felt how calm and well Sleep may be had in that deep den of all. There anguish does not sting; nor pleasure pall: Woe-hurricanes beat ever at the gate, 530 Yet all is still within and desolate. Beset with plainful gusts, within ye hear No sound so loud as when on curtain'd bier The death-watch tick is stifled. Enter none Who strive therefore: on the sudden it is won. Just when the sufferer begins to burn, Then it is ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. He was a representative citizen. He had "killed his man"—not in his own quarrel, it is true, but in defence of a stranger unfairly beset by numbers. He had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had been the proprietor of a dashing helpmeet whom he could have discarded without the formality of a divorce. He had held a high position in the fire department and been a very Warwick ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he had apparently reduced to a fine art the business of keeping clear of the authorities. If he could escape from the Governor it would be to take up his old eventless life, with a recrudescence no doubt of the ills that had so long beset him; and he had utterly forgotten that he had ever been an invalid. He grinned as he reflected that he had been obliged to shoot a man to find a cure ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... same, Sally," confessed Peggy with remorse. "He is a dear lad, for all his diffidence, and yet there are times when I am beset with a desire to tease him. Why is it, I wonder, that we females delight to torment such even though they ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... of their domestic avocations; we must see them as they are, in all their excusable degradation; and not invested with a fictitious dignity, or a theatrical simplicity; we must observe them, also, unawares, and see how they conduct themselves under the ordinary influences that beset them. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... delay in beginning that form of unchurched marriage so fashionable in the art world of that day. In 1838 they went to Majorca with Sand's two children, a son and daughter, who had been born to her husband. The weather was atrocious, the accommodations primitive, and Chopin's health wretched. He was beset by presentiments and fierce anxieties, and tormented by a hatred of the place and the clime. In June of the next year they went back to Nohant, her chateau. We owe to Sand herself the account of Chopin's manner of life, his petulance, his self-inflicted torments, and the agonies of ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... and, besides, it was not supporting the family credit to encourage the idea that she had married a man whom nobody else would have. On the other hand, to exaggerate the captivating qualities of her son-in-law would be to weaken the cause of revolt, in which all her energies were deeply engaged. Beset by these opposing considerations, Mrs Jiniwin admitted the powers of insinuation, but denied the right to govern, and with a timely compliment to the stout lady brought back the discussion to the point from which it ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... of Marylanders. If such an act should be likely to pass, Gen. Winder will be beset with applications ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... arms again, as though appealing to the whole universe. "God! God! God!" he said. "What have we done, what has this poor thing done, that we are so sore beset? Is there fate amongst us still, send down from the pagan world of old, that such things must be, and in such way? This poor mother, all unknowing, and all for the best as she think, does such thing as lose her daughter body and soul, and we must ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... difficulties which beset the refugees' departure from a land where even the right to emigrate is denied him are great. * * * He may learn (Mr. Voorhees), however, from copies of over 1,000 letters in the Governor's office, that Gov. St. John has never, in reply to their appeals, failed to warn them ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams |
