"Besetting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her eyes, (we do not forget that it is of marble we are speaking,—there are tears in her eyes,) but they only linger there; she is not weeping now; her chin trembles, and one of her hands is convulsively clenched,—but it is with the anguish of her sore besetting, not the spasm of mortal fear. Though Heaven and Earth, indeed, might join to help her, we yet know that the soul of the maiden will help itself,—that her hope clings fast, and her courage is undaunted, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... third there were five, and he got the first. He heard the news of this last triumph one afternoon in a little second-hand book-store where the collegians often gathered. It was a gloomy day wrapped in a grey blanket of rain, and he was not feeling particularly confident—his besetting sin from the first was modesty—when suddenly a fellow-student rushed up and said, "Congratulations, Hart. You've come ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... service of the nation, as nearly as possible, the same amount of land at one time as at another. This is the end; and this end is paramount. But the means to that end must lie, according to the accidents of the case, alternately through moderate increase of price, or moderate diminution of price. The besetting oversight, in this instance, is the neglect of the one great peculiarity affecting the manufacture of corn—viz. its inevitable oscillation as to quantity, consequently as to price, under the variations of the seasons. People talk, and encourage mobs to think, that Parliaments ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... and consideration,—there were two people who still believed in Frank Lavender. They were Sheila Mackenzie and Edward Ingram; and a man's wife and his oldest friend generally know something about his real nature, its besetting temptations, its weakness, its strength ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... do all in my power to that end," he said in a tender tone; "but, my beloved child, the hardest part of the battle must inevitably be your own. You must watch and pray against that, your besetting sin, never allowing yourself to be a moment off ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... selfish and petty family motives, it is useless to ignore. Unless the obstacle can be pushed aside, other efforts to inspire country people to a realization of their social opportunities must surely fail. Family life in the country can be saved from its besetting sin when rural leadership undertakes this task with the seriousness its ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... same throne for the sake of the plating which still adhered to it, which he threw into the melting-pot; and passed the next three days in digging up the floors, and taking every other conceivable measure in pursuit of his besetting chimera the hidden treasure. During this interval, however, he appears to have been at times undecided; for, on the 7th he visited the Emperor in his confinement, and offered to put on the throne Mirza Akbar, the Emperor's favourite son who did in fact ultimately succeed. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... the present volumes may be—and, no doubt, they are both great and many—I have laboured to the full extent of my humble abilities to group and present my material perspicuously, and to avoid diffuseness and rhapsody, those besetting sins of ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... to you, Cap'n Hocken." Mr Philp was hurrying by, but his besetting temptation held him to a halt. "How's Cap'n Hunken in ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... aware of his one besetting weakness, nor of his inability to conquer it, than was Captain Ducie. When he could no longer muster five pounds to gamble with, he would gamble with five shillings. There was a public-house in Southwark to which, poorly dressed, he sometimes ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... young merchants of London and Bristol, who had followed the course of pilgrimage by the magnetism of fashionable resort. The Queen of the Dew-drops was seen, carrying a pitcher! Up started four or five gallants, offering assistance, and standing round her, wrangling with one another, and besetting her steps. ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the mountain castle than she could ever have believed possible. She entreated her father to take her home, but she received a sharp answer that she did not know what she was talking of: the Schlangenwald Reitern were besetting all the roads; and moreover the Ulm burghers had taken the capture of the Constance wine in such dudgeon that for a retainer of Adlerstein to show himself in the streets would be an absolute asking for ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which are resting upon them, the stream of air they give forth, loses its evenness and continuity, with the result I have just stated. It will be seen from the above explanation that this tremolo, one of the greatest vices besetting modern singing, and which has hitherto been held by many to be incurable, may be got rid of completely, though perhaps not very quickly, by the simple remedy of lung gymnastics on the right principle. The tremolo may certainly also arise ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... surprise or alarm, arouses, woven more closely to the living hopes, regrets, and fears which compose the instant of man's life. We are in the thick of the deed—how are we to judge it? How conjure the phantoms inimical to truth, which Tacitus found besetting his path as he prepared to narrate the civil struggles of Galba and Otho ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... to the 17th-century "reforms" of verse and prose; the Classicism of Milton, and of the Augustans; Classic and Romantic schools contrasted in their descriptions; Milton's Chaos, Shakespeare's Dover Cliff; Johnson's comments; the besetting sins of the two schools; Milton's physical machinery justified; his use of abstract terms; the splendid use of mean associations by Shakespeare; Milton's wise avoidance of mean associations, and of realism; ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... well as in the West, were the perils besetting the true Christian spirit at the very cradle of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... to familiarise the minds of men to the idea of miracles, by that of successive creations, but to confirm the Scriptural statement of the comparatively recent origin of our Race. Only the men of science and the men of theology must alike Guard against the besetting fallacy of their kind,—that of too hastily taking for granted that they already know the whole of their respective sciences, and of forgetting the declaration of the Apostle, equally true of all man's attainments, whether in one department of science ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... been the thought at the moment in his mind. He was standing with folded arms, looking upon the scene in the manner of a man debating with himself. Young, handsome, rich, but recently from the patrician circles of Roman society, it is easy to think of the world besetting him with appeals not to give more to onerous duty or ambition attended with outlawry and danger. We can even imagine the arguments with which he was pressed; the hopelessness of contention with Caesar; the uncertainty veiling ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... trite and homely mode of settling the matter, something conclusive, for the time, even to Mr. Bancroft. But doubt, distrust and fear, were his besetting sins, and in a little while, would come back to disturb his mind, and throw a shadow even over the sweet ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... besetting sins would crop out and Lucile would cry, despairingly, "Oh, why did I do it; I knew I shouldn't," and Jessie would stop, when plunging nobly through a box of candies, to cry penitently, "Oh, I've eaten too many," and Evelyn would often be tempted to read too long and neglect ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... prince of Gandhara, shared Duryodhan's hatred towards the sons of Pandu, and helped him in his dark scheme. Yudhishthir with all his piety and righteousness had one weakness, the love of gambling, which was one of the besetting sins of the monarchs of the day. Sakuni was an expert at false dice, and challenged Yudhishthir, and Yudhishthir held it a point of honour not to ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... The besetting sin of both Montaigne's translators seems to have been a propensity for reducing his language and phraseology to the language and phraseology of the age and country to which they belonged, and, moreover, inserting paragraphs ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... confessed. "It has. It has hit me hard on my besetting sin, Reed, the liking to know that I'm of use to people. And I was of use to Brenton; I'd hoped to keep the old relation to the end; but it's impossible. I found ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... understood at once,' he said, looking at the water. 'She found out my pet besetting sin on the spot, and paid it off. My God, how she understood! And she said I was better than she was! Better than she was!' He laughed at the absurdity of the notion. 'I wonder if girls guess at one-half a man's life. They can't, or—they wouldn't marry ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... character, it is not difficult to form some superficial opinion. He must have been an intelligent and cultivated man. It seems that he was near being a Fellow of his college at Oxford—Brasenose, as I judge from the Calendar. His besetting fault was pretty clearly that of over-inquisitiveness, possibly a good fault in a traveller, certainly a fault for which this traveller paid dearly enough ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... (I fear the notion of a certain physiological process is embraced by some minds, and that these words will be taken as curtly enunciating the Indian's besetting weakness; but pray be not too eager to dissever them from what is yet to come, as I protest that I am not now wishing to revert to this sad failing). He imbibes freely—the current fashions of the hour amongst ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... history, contained in verses 14-18, should not be permitted to conceal from us the intimate relation that subsists between this and the preceding parable. The application of the first for the reproof of covetousness, touched a besetting sin of the Pharisees, and stung them to the quick. Unable to bear in silence a rebuke which their own consciences recognised as just, they interrupted the preacher with rude derision. They attempted to shield their own open sores ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... by ill-usage or restoration. The clothes and accessories are more swiftly and summarily done, the silver lace and the high lights being touched in with amazing sureness and cleverness. The composition and arrangement is pleasing, and Stuart's besetting fault of putting his heads too low on the canvas is excused and justified in the case of Don Josef by the necessity of having his portrait correspond with that of his wife, whose elaborate and stylish head-dress fills the top of her picture. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... master's mind. He was reading his thoughts as one reads a story from the illustrations of a book. He saw relief and freedom—and, above all, thankfulness. His master's besetting sin was his dislike of scenes, his hypersensitiveness in the matter of causing pain to others, the desire to surround himself ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... this morning several besetting visions, the desire suddenly came into his breast to bathe in the Brindelle in order to refresh himself and appease the ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... were worth a thousand times more to Britain than the gilded corruption of Rome. But in the course of time the Saxons or English themselves lost spirit (S36). Their besetting sin was a stolidity which degenerated into animalism and ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... see him in the dawning light of that civilisation which, by intellect and by nature, he is some five centuries behind. See him, ignoring its hidden virtues, eagerly seize and graft its most prominent vices on to his own besetting sins. Behold him by degrees adding cunning to his cruelty, avarice to his love of possession, replacing his bravery by coarse bombast and insolence, and his truth by lies. Behold him inflaming all his passions with the maddening drink of ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... Profanity appeared to be a common evil in the institution, not only among the convicts, but also with many of those who were over them. A prisoner said to me one day, with no little emotion, "Chaplain, I am in a hard case. Swearing is my besetting sin. If I become vexed with my work, or anything else, that is my resort at once. In the meetings, I hear preaching, prayer and singing, under the influence of which, I feel a strong impulse to leave my sinful ways, and seek ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... over my life, and to gradually bring myself to a manlier frame of mind. So that I no longer hugged myself with false and pernicious hopes of what could never be brought to pass, but set myself resolutely to uproot this my besetting weakness, and thus to transfer Marian, as it might be, from the place of a mistress to that of an ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... security; and her mind was ever at stretch on that point, comparing past days and nights with the days and nights of the present. Her prevision that, when she loved, it would be desperately, had been fulfilled. He had become her life. When this befalls one whose besetting strength and weakness alike is ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... bishop, aware of his illness but not of his extremity, and none but Hugh and the Gilmores knowing that only two doors from the bishop lay Basile, also stricken, and that Ramsey and the old nurse were with the boy. The young people fell into pairs confessing their contempt for the besetting peril. Vigil is wearisome and they were almost as weary of blind precautions as, secretly, were Hugh and others. The two Napoleonites "didn't believe doctors knew a bit more than other folks—if as much!" The two cousins so unimpeachably Southern were "convinced that contagion never comes by contact," ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... to dispense charity around him, greatly aided in the benevolent task by old Richard himself, who now exhibits as much zeal in relieving poverty and distress, as he formerly did in hoarding up his treasure and ministering to his one great passion or besetting sin—avarice. ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... world: but then we are descended from the great Glendower, King of Wales (I will show you the pedigree, some day), and have Tudor blood, too, in our veins. When dear papa died and we discovered he had been speculating unfortunately in East India Stock—'buying for a fall' was, I am told, his besetting weakness, though I could never understand the process—Arthur offered me a home and maintenance for life. Of course I refused: for the blow reduced him, too, to bitter poverty, and he was married. And, besides, I could never bear his wife, who was a woman of fashion and extravagant. ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... it is," rejoined the haunted man, "why should I, therefore, be tormented? It is not a selfish thought. I suffer it to range beyond myself. All men and women have their sorrows,—most of them their wrongs; ingratitude, and sordid jealousy, and interest, besetting all degrees of life. Who would not forget their sorrows and ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... out, with Dick Peers. This Dick was one of the men employed by Dr. Fell, the Dean of Ch. Ch., to translate Wood's History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford into Latin. The translation gave rise to a number of literary quarrels. As Dean of Ch. Ch., Dr. Fell yielded to the besetting sin of deans, and fancied himself the absolute master of the University, if not something superior to mortal kind. An autocrat of this sort had no scruples about changing Wood's copy whenever he differed from Wood in political or religious opinion. Now Antony, as we said, had eyes to discern the ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... and custody of a special angel, and in the very hour of inauguration, and amongst the very birth-throes of Christianity. For in two separate modes the attention is secretly pointed and solicited to the grand serpentine artifice, which met and confronted the almost insurmountable difficulty besetting Christianity on its very threshold: First, by the record of the early therapeutic miracles, since in that way only, viz., by a science of healing, which the philosopher equally with the populace recognised as resting upon inspiration from God, could the magistrate and civil authority have ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... shall see you on Wednesday, please remember, and bring you the rest of the poem—that you should like it, gratifies me more than I will try to say, but then, do not you be tempted by that pleasure of pleasing which I think is your besetting sin—may it not be?—and so cut me off from the other pleasure of being profited. As I told you, I like so much to fancy that you see, and will see, what I do as I see it, while it is doing, as ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... druggists as a remedy for indigestion. The flower of Angoumoisin aristocracy was summoned to hear Lucien read his great work. Louise had hidden all the difficulties from her friend, but she let fall a few words touching the social cabal formed against him; she would not have him ignorant of the perils besetting his career as a man of genius, nor of the obstacles insurmountable to weaklings. She drew a lesson from the recent victory. Her white hands pointed him to glory that lay beyond a prolonged martyrdom; she spoke of stakes and flaming pyres; ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... his own mood, as she continued to regard Hugo. Hugo's mask was entirely for Westerling. He did not seem to see Marta now, and through his mask radiated the considerate understanding of one who can put himself in another's place—which was Hugo's besetting fault or virtue, as you choose. In short, the chief of staff had a feeling that this private knew exactly what he, the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... Cruikshank, the best of the artist's coloured illustrations to the "English Spy" are contained in the first volume; in the second he falls into those habits of carelessness which, with all his ability and artistic talent, were a besetting weakness. Robert lacked the genius, the fine fancy, the careful, delicate handling of George. Up to the publication of the "Life," the brothers as we have seen had worked together frequently, but after this period they ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... noted as the besetting dangers of riches are counteracted by the possession of the spirit of sacrifice which holds all things at the disposal of God, and views life as opportunity for the service of God. And in so estimating life, we must remember that money is not the only thing that human ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... night in the field. The old-world papers do not compete with those of the new in the matter of quantity of news. But just here comes in one of the chief faults of the American journal, one of the besetting sins of the American people,—their well-known love of "bigness," their tendency to ask "How much?" rather than "Of what kind?" There is a lack of discrimination in the daily bill of fare served up by the American press that cannot but disgust ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... freshness of the colouring, the good taste in the arrangement of the drapery, the uncommon delicacy of the extremities, the exquisite grace of the heads, were all so many evidences that he was no unworthy pupil of the great Reni. But Antonio had avoided this master's besetting sin of an endeavour, only too conspicuous, to sacrifice expression to beauty. It was plain that Antonio was aiming to reach Annibal's strength, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... you doing? Writing—reading—or musing of either? Are you a reviewer-man—in opposition to the writer? Once, reviewing was my besetting sin, but now it is only my frailty. Now that I lie here at the mercy of every reviewer, I save myself by an instinct of self-preservation from that 'gnawing tooth' (as Homer and Aeschylus did rightly call it), and spring forward into definite work ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... deserved the fame and money it brought him. His next book, Jack, was not so popular. Still, it showed artistic improvement, although, as in its predecessor, that bias towards the sentimental, which was to be Daudet's besetting weakness, was too plainly visible. Its author took to his heart a book which the general reader found too long and perhaps overpathetic. Some of us, while recognising its faults, will share in part Daudet's predilection for it—not so much because of the strong and ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... "patriotic" will surprise many readers of the late Bishop STUBBS. "Patriotic" is a wide term and may be applied to almost anything from after-dinner flag-wagging to successful juggling with Colonial stocks and shares; yet there are few who would have described it as the besetting virtue of HENRY I. But it was; his little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... one is deprived of sight, besetting ideas trace themselves almost materially on the brain. Yet, sometimes, by force of contemplating them with resigned alarm, it seems to me that these menacing specters have pity on me; they grow dim, fade ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... mountain-top experiences, and I came to honor the Holy Spirit and seek his power for the overcoming of sin in a new way. But Christ still remained, as before, distant, afar off, and I longed increasingly to know—to find him. Although I had much more power over besetting sins, yet there were times of ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... Rutherford, the big man sitting next the wall. What would be their next move? Perhaps if he joined them he would find out. This course held its dangers, but long experience had taught him that to walk through besetting perils was less risk ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... feelings and regrets? It is no reason, they will think, that because I have wasted my time they should waste theirs in reading the record of follies which are nothing more than the great mass of the world are every day committing; idleness, vanity, and selfishness are our besetting sins, and we are perpetually whirled about by one or other of them. It is certainly more amusing, both to other people and to myself (when I look back at what I have written), to read the anecdotes ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... that the "Miss" was dropped from her name, that her maid was treating her more familiarly than she had ever done before; and for an instant a flush showed on her cheek, for pride was Anna's besetting sin, the one from which she daily prayed to be delivered. There was an inward struggle, a momentary conflict, such as every Christian warrior has felt at times, and then the flush was gone from the white cheek, and her hand still lay on Adah's head, as she ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... October, after the summer claims of the 'Almanac' had been satisfied, he noticed that what he had written was characterized by a certain dryness. It was evident that, in his strenuous effort to avoid his besetting sin of rhetoric, he was in danger of becoming trivial. He had still a sustaining faith in the goodness of his subject, but the great problem would be to make it poetical. It was necessary to find the middle way between the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... besetting every path, Which call for constant care; There is a cross in every lot, And an earnest need for prayer; But a lowly heart, that leans on ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... Dunstable unkindly, "seems to be the besetting sin of the Menzies'. Well, what are you going to do about it? I don't wish to threaten, but I'm a demon when I'm roused. Being done out of my tea is sure to rouse me. And owing to unfortunate accident of being stonily broken, I can't go to the shop. You're responsible for the slump in ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... Bible story of man's "fall," that, when man had come to the knowledge of good and evil, the first practical duty which he recognized as incumbent upon himself, was the duty of concealment;[1] and from that day to this that duty has been incumbent on him. Man has a duty to conceal his besetting impurities of thought and inclinations to sin; to conceal such of his doubts and fears as would dishearten others and weaken himself by their expression; to conceal his unkindnesses of spirit and his unjust prejudices of feeling; to conceal, in fact, whatever ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... many similar questions, in nowise directed by his will, obtruded themselves over and over again, countless times. Neither were they connected with fear: he was conscious of no fear. Rather, they originated in a strange besetting desire to know what to do when the time came; a desire gigantically disproportionate to the few swift moments to which it referred; a wondering that was more like the wondering of some other spirit ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... distinctly avowed? Suppose I have faults,—and who has not?—why should they be cautiously concealed from my nearest friend? I am, by nature, and indulgence also, peevish and ill-humored; ought I to seek to pass for all that is opposite to this? Contentiousness is a besetting sin of my character. Shall I strive to appear, always and only, one of the most yielding of my sex? My temper is violent, or sullen, why should this fact be kept from my lover, until some outbreak after ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... will, I hope, be found to be tolerably faithful representations of the scenes. I have always endeavoured to overcome that tendency to exaggerate heights, and increase the angle of slopes, which is I believe the besetting sin, not of amateurs only, but of our most accomplished artists. As, however, I did not use instruments in projecting the outlines, I do not pretend to have wholly avoided this snare; nor, I regret to say; has the lithographer, in all cases, been content to ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... is the best, in spite of defects which would only have been worse if the book had been bigger. It is to be feared that, conscientious and honourable as his self-denial has been, even Mr. Cross has not wholly resisted the natural and besetting error of the biographer. Most people will think that the hundred pages of the Italian tour (vol. ii.), and some other not very remarkable impressions of travel, might as well or better ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley
... in agony, From weary chime to chime, With one besetting horrid hint, That rack'd me all the time; A mighty yearning, like the first ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... such difficulty as we shall find besetting the Roman commanders of the next century, in persuading his men to follow him "beyond the world,"[74] and to dare the venture, hitherto unheard of in the annals of Rome, of crossing the ocean itself. We must remember that this crossing was looked upon by the Romans as something ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... publishers must have rather a poor opinion of the average intelligence of teachers; and it also seemed as if the practical effect of such questions must often be to make the exercise of recitation more mechanical for both teachers and pupils, and to encourage the besetting sin of "learning by heart." Nevertheless, there are usually two sides to a case; and, in deference to the prevailing custom, for which, no doubt, there is much to be said, full sets of questions have been appended to each chapter and section. It seemed desirable that such questions should ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... don't want ter die no drunkard, myse'f," said Uncle Bob, whose besetting sin was love ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... affectionate and pure, which floats through life under the impulse of the feelings, with no real power of self-restraint, is indeed not without its charm, and in a well-organised society, with good surroundings and few temptations, it may attain a high degree of beauty; but its besetting failings will steadily grow; without fortitude, perseverance and principle, it has no recuperative energy, and it will often end in a moral catastrophe which natures in other respects much less happily compounded would easily avoid. Nothing can permanently ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... interests and the main chance, he is only saved by an accident from the crime of parricide, and afterwards commits a murder and poisons himself. As his career is one of terrible descent, so young Martin's is one of gradual regeneration from his besetting weakness. He falls in love with his cousin Mary—the only unselfish member of the family, by the bye—and quarrels about this love affair with his grandfather, and so passes into the hard school of adversity. There he learns much. Specially valuable is the teaching which he gets as a ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... Rosamond, for instance, whom Judith had at first regarded with mild contempt because she was greedy, but Rosamond, she found out, was aware of her besetting sin and this Lenten season was disciplining herself strictly, and no one could be more sympathetic if one were in trouble than the same Rosamond; and there was Joyce Hewson whom Judith had thought proud, but who seemed unapproachable ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... for devoting their time and wits to such riddles, perhaps. But when the mind has positive, practical work to perform, and time keeps bringing all the time specific duties, or when, as in your case, a predisposition to vague speculation is the intellectual besetting sin, I think addition to such subjects to be avoided. I suppose all human beings have, in some shape or degree, the desire for that knowledge which is still the growth of the forbidden tree of Paradise, and the lust for which inevitably thrusts ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... soul, in the multiplicity of questions besetting him, to deliberately face them and determine what is of first importance. Aspects are so diverse and bewildering that if we do not reduce them to some order, giving them rank, we are in danger of becoming purposeless drifters on the ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... He could have parodied the remark of Fletcher of Saltoun and said, "Let me supply the perquisite-requisites and I care not who makes the laws." So he grew rich—moderately rich—and lived simply and comfortably up at Camberwell, with only one besetting dissipation: he was a book-collector and had learned more Greek than Robert the Third was to acquire. He searched bookstalls on the way to the City in the morning, and lay in wait for First Editions on the way home at night. When he had a holiday, he went in search of a book. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... he needeth not to drink himself? He would thirst indeed but for my water-commanding fiend below. Or how would the birds fare, were the fountains on the islands dry in the hot summer? And what would the children say if he ceased to spout? And how would my lord's tables fare, with the armed men besetting every gate, the fish-ponds dry, and the fish rotting in the sun? See you, mistress Dorothy? And for the draw-well, know you not wherein lies the good of a tower stronger than all the rest? Is it not ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... for 1897-8 [1] took for his subject the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity in relation to contemporary idealistic philosophy. The scope of these lectures is, not to prove the doctrine of the Trinity philosophically, but to show that the difficulty besetting the conception of a multiplicity of persons united by a superpersonal bond, is just the same difficulty that brings idealistic philosophy to a dead-lock when it endeavours (1) to escape from solipsism, (2) to vindicate free-will,(3) to solve the problem ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... not, idleness, procrastination, are my besetting sins. Can't you suggest the remedy, ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... refused its office, when I would fain have asked her what she meant. Her besetting sin, poor soul, is a proud spirit. She dried her eyes on a sudden, and spoke out freely, in these words: "I am not going to cry about it. The other day, father, we were out walking in the park. A horrid, bold, yellow-haired woman passed us in an open ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... Schorlin, it seemed as if Fate had thrown him into the way of the Swiss that he might feel with twofold anguish the thorns besetting his own life path. The young knight was proffered the rose without the thorn. What cares had he? The present threw into his lap its fairest blessings, and when he looked into the future he beheld only the cheering buds ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... as well as the besetting infirmity of Weucha, have already been exhibited. The reader, therefore, will not be surprised to learn that he was the first to forget the regulations he had himself imposed. It was at the precise moment when we left Mahtoree yielding to his nearly ungovernable delight, as he surveyed ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of solid reassurance, in that the best spirit of the South is facing the besetting ills, is combating them, and being thus aroused must eventually master and expel the evil spirit. The South has a burden to carry which the North does not easily realize. There the negro is not a remote problem of philanthropy; he is not represented ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... on sport. His second son, Anthony, between five and six, was large and robust, like his father. Not having been polished at that time, it is hard to say what sort of gem Tony was. When engaged in mischief—his besetting foible—his eyes shone like carbuncles with unholy light. He was the plague of the family. Of course, therefore, he was the beloved ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... being a very troublesome instrument to make, and difficulties besetting us from every source, but little attention could be given to teaching others; and, indeed, as the facts seemed to be at this time, we knew but little of the necessary manipulations ourselves. In course of time, several established themselves. ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... girl," and here Mr. Fairfield put his arm around his daughter and looked very kindly into her eyes; "I think every New Year's day I shall give you a bit of good advice by way of correcting whatever seems to me, at the time, to be your besetting sin." ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... spirit of the truest philanthropy and most universal benevolence. The helpless victims of oppression, like little Oliver Twist, or the inmates of Dotheboys Hall, found in him an effective champion. Never has hypocrisy, the besetting vice of this age, been so mercilessly exposed as in the works of Dickens. It is not only in such a character as Pecksniff that its ugliness is revealed, but wherever pretence hides guilt behind a sanctimonious countenance, the mask is surely torn off. Dickens hated hypocrisy ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... own heart, who had been so long trained in the school of affliction, and so often manifested a very different spirit! Alas, bow easily are the best of men "led into temptation;" and how necessary is it to exercise vigilance, not only over our "easy besetting sins," but over what we deem the least vulnerable points of our character! Neglecting the requisite precautions, we may be taken even on the strongest side, and at the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... 659; knavery &c. (improbity) 940[obs3]; profligacy; flagrancy, atrocity; cannibalism; lesbianism, Sadism. infirmity; weakness &c. adj.; weakness of the flesh, frailty, imperfection; error; weak side; foible; failing, failure; crying sin, besetting sin; defect, deficiency; cloven foot. lowest dregs of vice, sink of iniquity, Alsatian den[obs3]; gusto picaresco[It]. fault, crime; criminality &c. (guilt) 947. sinner &c. 949. [Resorts] brothel &c. 961; gambling house &c. 621; joint*, opium den, shooting gallery, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a thesis; and in like manner, it stands to reason, you cannot learn to converse till you have the world to converse with; you cannot unlearn your natural bashfulness, or awkwardness, or stiffness, or other besetting deformity, till you serve your time in some school of manners. Well, and is it not so in matter of fact? The metropolis, the court, the great houses of the land, are the centres to which at stated times the country comes up, as to shrines of refinement and good ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... John. John had to decline an arrangement desired passionately, because he had indiscreetly promised not to chuck the Duffer. Caesar dropped the subject. After this, John noticed a slight coldness. He wondered whether Caesar were jealous, jealousy being John's own besetting sin. Finally, he came to the conclusion that his friend might be not jealous but unreasonable. In any case, during the last three weeks of the term, John saw less of Caesar, and more—more, indeed, than he ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... follow me if I were to summon them to Paris on such a mission. I received messages of ready acceptance, in the event of my succeeding in founding a German opera season in Paris on a solid basis, from Tichatschek, Mitterwurzer, Niemann the tenor, and also Luise Meyer in Vienna. My immediate and besetting care was then to discover in Paris a suitable man for the task, who would undertake the execution of my plan at his own risk. My object was to secure the Salle Ventadour for a spring season of two ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... hang on the same gallows, unless his master and this boar of Coningsburgh will pay well for their lives. Their wealth is the least they can surrender; they must also carry off with them the swarms that are besetting the castle, subscribe a surrender of their pretended immunities, and live under us as serfs and vassals; too happy if, in the new world that is about to begin, we leave them the breath of their nostrils.—Go," said ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... position there that Pharaoh occupied over their race in Egypt in olden time, and, if reports speak true, will wield the sceptre of authority over their captives in a somewhat similar style. Avarice is the besetting sin of the Israelite, and here his slaves are taxed beyond endurance. To exact the utmost from his labour is the constant aim, and I was informed that many of the slaves belonging to Jews were sent out, and compelled ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... was here in the 1902-4 Relief Expedition that the crew of the little "Morning" dumped twenty tons of coal for the "Discovery" to pick up on her way northward, when the time came for her to free herself from the besetting ice which held her prisoner ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... as a crumb-like contribution to the structure. The first thing to bear in mind (especially if we ourselves belong to the clerico-academic-scientific type, the officially and conventionally "correct" type, "the deadly respectable" type, for which to ignore others is a besetting temptation) is that nothing can be more stupid than to bar out phenomena from our notice, merely because we are incapable of taking part in ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... The human heart is a mansion of many chambers, and a religious sentiment, in no small degree conscientious and honest, though hollow and mistaken, may have strong possession of some of them, while others are filled to overflowing with the dear and besetting sins, whatever they are, by which the general conduct of the ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... believe in wealth and material progress, and regard the region of truth as very shadowy and remote! This is a danger besetting us all. The true forces that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... Christianity by politic concessions to heathenism, so that the successes of the Jesuit missions are magnified by reports of alleged conversions that are conversions only in name and outward form; second, a constantly besetting propensity to political intrigue.[27:1] It is hardly to be doubted that both had their part in the prodigious failure of the French Catholic missions and settlements within the present boundaries of ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... antagonist like Burke, and to come off with credit, might stimulate moderate vanity into public self-exposure; but in Paine vanity was the besetting weakness. It was now swollen by success and flattery into magnificent proportions. Franklin says, that, "when we forbear to praise ourselves, we make a sacrifice to the pride or to the envy of others." Paine did not hesitate to mortify both these failings in his fellow-men. He praises himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... a new one to me, and often I have forced myself to give a white shilling instead of a penny-bit at the kirk door, just to get the better of the de'il once in a while. But for all that I know right well that saving siller is my besetting sin. However, I have been saving for a purpose, and now I am most ready to take the desire ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... means so much, that you need not stoop to flatter me. The very vestments of you Levites should exhale infectious humility; and I especially need exhortations against pride, my besetting sin. I built this chapel, not because I am good, but in order to grow better. Every dwelling has its room in which the inmates gather to eat, to study, to work, to sleep; why not to pray, the most important privilege of many that ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... other side, but equally healthful, may be put the fact that the style and structure of the originals and earlier versions, and especially that verse division which has been now so unwisely abandoned, served as safeguards against the besetting sin of all prose writers of their time, the habit of indulging in long wandering sentences, in paragraphs destitute of proportion and of grace, destitute even of ordinary manageableness and shape. The verses saved them from that once for all; while on the ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... pane! There, syllabled by silence, let me hear The still small voice which reached the prophet's ear; Read in my heart a still diviner law Than Israel's leader on his tables saw! There let me strive with each besetting sin, Recall my wandering fancies, and restrain The sore disquiet of a restless brain; And, as the path of duty is made plain, May grace be given that I may walk therein, Not like the hireling, for his selfish gain, With backward glances and reluctant ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... wondering how I came to ride my horse in a race at Fort Ryan. Well, it was the devil laid a snare for me, and I fell in. But this I will say: I promise you I will never do the like again, and if each of you will stand up now and give me the same promise about your own particular besetting sin, then I'll feel that we have made a great gain, and I will be glad I rode that race ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... versatile, inquiring mind, which was always inclining him to meddle in matters better left alone, and to judge for himself with an independence that was perilous in times like these. Not that Martin Holt was himself averse to independence of judgment, rather the reverse; but he knew the dangers besetting the path of those who were resolved to think and judge for themselves, and he would fain have seen his youngest and dearest child safely made over to the care of one who would be content to go through life without asking troublesome questions or intermeddling with matters of danger and ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... to assure herself that her companion was conducting her in good faith to the home of her early years. An undefined feeling of insecurity was painfully besetting her, whichever way she turned. She considered and reconsidered the evidences he had brought to Cottage Island of the truth of his own statements, and of his own trustworthiness. It was all in vain. Could those papers have been forgeries? It was a ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... page to one Sir PETER LAURIE, than the zoological Mr. CROSS would think of devoting an acre of his gardens to one ass, simply because it happened to be the largest known specimen of the species. But, without knowing it, Sir PETER has given a fine illustration of the besetting selfishness of the times. Had LAURIE been born to hide his ears in a coronet, he could not have more strongly displayed the social insensibility of the day. The prosperous saddler, and the wretched, woe-begone tailor, are admirable types of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... were the very brightest of Coleridge Patteson's life. He had left all for Christ's sake and the Gospel's, and was reaping the blessing in its freshness. His struggles with his defects had been successful, the more so because he was so full of occupation that the old besetting trouble, self-contemplation, had been expelled for lack of opportunity; and he had become far more simple, since humility was ceasing to ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Bumpus and driven a knife to his heart, after which poor Corrie and the girl could have been easily dealt with; but fortunately (at least for his enemies, if not for himself) indecision in the moment of action was one of Keona's besetting sins. He suspected that other enemies might be near at hand, and that the noise of the scuffle might draw them to the spot. He observed, moreover, that the boy had a pistol, which, besides being a weapon that acts quickly and surely, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the truth is, that a vice never corrected a vice. Pope might be proud of the terror he inspired in those who feared no God in whom vanity was stronger than conscience: but that terror made no individual man better; and while he indulged his own besetting sin, he administered to the malignity of others. Your professed satirists always send me to think upon the opposite sentiment in Shakspeare, on "the mischievous foul sin of chiding sin." I remember once hearing ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... is our will to live (abhinives'a). "This is our besetting sin that we will to be, that we will to be ourselves, that we fondly will our being to blend with other kinds of existence and extend. The negation of the will to be, cuts off being for us at least [Footnote ref ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... have beaten &c.," and end with "liturgy." (b) Repeat for clearness and emphasis, "the English." (c) "The besetting basenesses of &c." ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... intimidation is the model of the New York statute and most others. It defines in great detail what intimidation is—substantially, that it is violence or threats, the persistently following, the hiding of tools, etc. or the watching or besetting the house or place of business—and menaces, as well as actual violence, are recognized as unlawful and punishable by imprisonment, in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and other countries. Germany and Austria copy the English common law ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... sufficiently platitudinous—occurs a burst of angry eloquence. For he was always at his strongest when scolding somebody. His audience included the intellectual elite of France; and he warns it against the besetting sin of university dons and the learned and lettered class in general, a supercilious, patronizing attitude towards the men of action who are doing the rough work of the world. Critics are the object of his fiercest denunciation. "A ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... that artistic memory which brings home compositions and not catalogues. There is hardly a hill, rock, stream, or sea-fronting headland in the neighborhood of his home that he has not fondly remembered. Sometimes, we think, there is too much description, the besetting sin of modern verse, which has substituted what should be called wordy-painting for the old art of painting in a single word. The essential character of Mr. Whittier's poetry is lyrical, and the rush of the lyric, like that of a brook, allows few pictures. Now and then there may ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... did not learn from his first little masterpiece the great virtue of compression. This story is short, but it is long enough; the whole history of two lives, so far as their spiritual aspect is concerned, is fully given in these few pages. The besetting sin of Dostoevski is endless garrulity with its accompanying demon of incoherence: in later years he yielded to that, as he did to other temptations, and it finally mastered him. He was never to write again a work of art that ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... evening the moment I spoke. But I am hasty. I try my best to keep quiet when I'm angry; but now and then I express myself before I realize it. You can't expect perfection in anyone. A quick temper is my besetting sin. I try to overcome it; but until I do my friends must bear with me. No ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... freedom. He had already canvassed the possibilities of escape by land, only to dismiss the idea as utterly impracticable; for even could he elude the vigilance of the sentries he could not pass as a native, and the perils besetting an Englishman were ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... he had blotted out all his hopes for the future, and perhaps killed his friend and benefactor at the same time, all because he had lacked manliness enough to cure himself of his small and odious besetting sin. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... youth was, even at that moment, under the influence of his great enemy, else his better feelings would have prevented him from speaking so rudely to a man who had never shown him anything but kindness. But he was nettled by some of his bad companions having taunted him with his slavery to his besetting sin, and had responded to Mr Crossley's summons under the impression that he was going to get what he styled a "wigging." He was therefore taken somewhat aback when the old gentleman replied to his last ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... been a charming little maiden but for her besetting fault—talebearing. She was always running in to tell her mother or governess the faults of the others. All day long it was, "Mamma, Rex took some currants," "Mamma, Minnie blotted her copy this ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... out of school for one afternoon, but mother said "No," although she suffered me to wear my pink gingham, with sundry injunctions "not to burst the hooks and eyes all off before night." This, by the way, was my besetting sin; I never could climb a tree, no matter what the size might be without invariably coming down minus at least six hooks and eyes; but I seriously thought I should get over it when I got older and joined ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... house peddling the product for undoubted fact. The scandalmonger is the murderer of reputations, the destroyer of domestic peace, the insuperable obstacle to the mutual friendliness of neighborhoods. This "rejoicing in iniquity" is the besetting sin of idle people. The man or woman who delights in this gratuitous and uncalled-for criticism of neighbors thereby puts himself below the moral level of the ones whose faults he criticises. Martineau, in his scale of the springs ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... we can plainly perceive, among a certain class of writers, a disposition to haunt us with similar apparitions, and to describe them with a corresponding tumor of words, we conceive it high time to step forward and abate a nuisance which threatens to become a besetting evil, unless checked in ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the most brazen of all the Pope's bulls. It was because Peter had given too good proof that he was more disposed to draw the sword for Christ than to perform the humble duties of a shepherd, that our Lord here strongly, though tenderly, reminds him of his besetting temptation. The words are most manifestly a reproof and a warning, not a commission. In like manner the very letter of the famous paronomastic text proves that Peter's confession, not Peter himself, was the rock. His name was, perhaps, not so much stone as stoner; ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... we remain without, John Carter; here is a slight chance for one of us. Take it and you may live to avenge me, it is useless for me to attempt to worm my way into so small an opening with this horde of demons besetting us ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... stand on this absolute basis of Christian [20] Science; namely, Cast not pearls before the unprepared thought. Idolatry is an easily-besetting sin of all peoples. The apostle saith, "Little children, ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... his speech no doubt seemed a masterpiece of eloquence. The Athenians, who, like all people of lively talent, were fond of laughing at themselves, would be especially amused by his humorous description of their own besetting weakness, their restless vanity, and inordinate ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... beautiful letter, received a short time ago from a young lady, who wrote me soon after my former services in the West End. She told me that she had been the bondslave, I think, for four or five years, of a certain besetting sin, and her first letter was the very utterance of despair. She had struggled and wrestled and prayed, and tried to overcome the sin that had been reigning over her. Now and then she would get the victory, and then down ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... them? The miseries want a good hurricane to sweep them off the land, and the dwellings the "foul fiend" hath contaminated. Man's doing, and woman's suffering, and thence even arises the beauty of loveliness—woman's patience. In the very palpable darkness besetting the ways of domestic life, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... about the house," said Pen, grimly pursuing the simile, "forty besetting thieves in the shape of lurking cares and enemies in ambush and passions in arms, my Morgiana will dance round me with a tambourine, and kill all my rogues and thieves with a smile. Won't she?" But Pen looked as if he did not believe that she ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Janice said, were happening in quick rotation nowadays. With the permanent closing of the Lake View Inn bar, several of the habitues of the barroom began to straighten up. Jim Narnay had really been fighting his besetting sin since the baby's death. He had found work in town and was taking his ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... He had a haggard look at moments when his countenance was not lighted by excitement. 'Twas whispered that he was deep enough in debt to be greatly straitened, and that his marriage having come to naught his creditors were besetting him without mercy. This and more than this, no one knew so well as my Lady Dunstanwolde; but of a certainty she had little pity for his evil case, if one might judge by her face, when in the course of the running he took a hedge behind her, and pressing his horse, came ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... passed on, and brought my eighteenth birthday. I had lost nothing of my besetting difficulty. My mother was thoroughly mortified by my conduct, and did not hesitate to lecture me soundly on my folly; and my aunt Alice emphatically declared I was the most consummate fool that she had ever seen! I knew it was true; but—so perverse is man—I did not feel at all obliged ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... to me, owing to my besetting thoughts. I willingly admit that the constant reading of Edgar Poe's works, and reading them in this place in which his heroes delighted, had exercised an influence on me which I did not ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... Moore, you should contend against these changeful humours. They are your besetting sin. One never knows ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Chiffre d'Amour, or the "Lady carving an initial," as the prosaic diction of the Wallace Collection has it (No. 382). In this the equal delicacy of the sentiment and of the painting combine to effect a little masterpiece of Louis Quinze art. It is simple and natural, and entirely free from the besetting sins of so slight a picture triviality, affectation, empty prettiness, or simply silliness. In its way it is perfect, and for that perfection is for ever reserved the popularity which we find temporarily ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... miscarried I had only a very little while longer to live—gave me a sort of stolid recklessness which amazingly helped me: stimulating me to taking risks in climbing which before I should have shrunk from, and so getting me on faster; and at the same time dulling my mind to the dreads besetting it and my body to its ceaseless pains begot of weariness and thirst and scanty food. So little, indeed, did I care what became of me that even when by the middle of my second day's march I saw no change in ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... to the roof of the cabin. The truth of the matter was, Lub always showed a disposition to put things off; procrastination was one of his greatest faults, even as too much haste had always been X-Ray Tyson's besetting sin. There was the whole day before him; so what need of undue speed. Taking things easy had become second nature with Lub. Besides, as a final argument, he had gorged himself with the fine breakfast, which of course he had helped to cook; and it would be too bad to ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... beetles, lest the sudden intrusion of trivial associations should mar the main impression. No sharp discords are allowed, even though they should be resolved the moment after. Every word and every image must help forward the main purpose. Thus, while the besetting sin of the Romantics is the employment of excessive, or irrelevant, or trivial or grotesque detail, the besetting sin of the Classics is so complete an omission of realistic detail that the description becomes inflated, windy and empty, and the strongest words in the language ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... tenderness for the brave old soldier who had so promptly assumed the part of a father towards him; and had he not been restrained by the consciousness of the vital importance of the mission he had undertaken, he would have been inclined to return at once and share whatever trials were besetting the chevalier. From him the boy's thoughts sped to France and the old chateau in which he was born. He almost laughed aloud as he imagined the look of consternation with which old Francois would regard him if he could now ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... if you didn't glory in it. Then it's simply your self-will and your pride. Self-will has been your besetting sin ever since you were a little baby crying for something you couldn't have. You kicked ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... still more, my forced leisure, the obsession of one besetting thought, my contempt for all besides, the want of money to procure other amusement, and the almost claustral seclusion in which I lived, disposed me to a life of more intense and eager study than I had yet led. I passed my whole ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... many years. And still their sin-deceived hearts are saying to them to-night, Take time! For many years, every new year, every birthday, and, for a long time, every Communion-day, they were just about to be done with their besetting sin; and now all the years lie behind them, one long downward road all paved, down to this Sabbath night, with the best intentions. And, still, as if that were not enough, that same varlet is squat at their ear. Well, my very miserable brother, you have long talked about ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... executive even at his portfolio under Macdonald in the early '80's. He has always been a prophet. Public speech is his besetting passion. He could rise anywhere and translate logic and economics into ethical emotion. No man in Canada felt the war more intensely. But Trade was not a matter of emotion; or of oratorical periods; or the right hand descending upon the left. It was a matter of ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... even more, perhaps, than the mental gifts." I add this remark from De Quincy: "More will be done for the benefit of conversation by the simple magic of good manners (that is, chiefly by a system of forbearance) applied to the besetting vices of social intercourse than ever was or can be done by all varieties of intellectual power ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... and swung into his saddle. They pounded home in silence. The lines of "The Last Ride" were besetting ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... view—and told him what and how strict was the practice of the ancient Jews, the people of God, upon this particular point. Dr. Walsingham had made a love-match, was the most imprudent and open-handed of men, and always preaching to others against his own besetting sin. To hear him talk, indeed, you would have supposed he was a usurer. Then Mr. Mervyn, who looked a little pale and excited, turned the doctor about, and they made another little circuit, while he entered somewhat into his affairs and prospects, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and councils of Walpole's enemies to concert measures against him. There is nothing incredible or even unlikely in this; but even if it were utterly untrue, we may assume that sooner or later Walpole would have got rid of Chesterfield. {9} Walpole's besetting weakness was that he could not endure any really capable colleague. The moment a man showed any capacity for governing, Walpole would appear to have made up his mind that that man and he were not to ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... one another, in order to divert the minds of the French people from the humiliation which the loss of their liberties had caused, and to direct their energies in new channels,—in other words, to inflate them with visions of military glory as his uncle had done, by taking advantage of the besetting and hereditary weakness of the national character. In the meantime the usurper bestowed so many benefits on the middle and lower classes, gave such a stimulus to trade, adorned his capital with such magnificent ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... upon half the stuff that woman is so carelessly wearing to-night. Do you think it's fair to wear, for the mere gratification of one's vanity, things that arouse in the hearts of less fortunate beings such passionate reflections and such dire temptations as those which are now besetting that man?" ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs |
