"Besiege" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I am guilty in your sight, but my affairs besiege me. The chief-justiceship of a family of nineteen persons is in itself no sinecure, and sometimes occupies me for days: two weeks ago for four days almost entirely, and for two days entirely. Besides which, I have ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thousand men, in thirty-six vessels, from Iloilo on January 5, 1606. The flagship is wrecked at La Caldera; the other vessels mistake their course, and do not reach the Moluccas until late in March. They besiege Ternate, and finally carry it by assault; the city and fort are pillaged by the soldiers. Afterward the king is induced to surrender and Acuna makes a treaty with him. The king surrenders his forts and restores all captives; delivers up any Dutchmen or Spanish renegades who ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... flew to arms, but Lancaster soon found himself ill supported by his compeers, and marching northward for reinforcements from the celebrated Bruce, King of Scotland, the King in the meantime, sent the Earl of Surrey and Kent to besiege the castle of Pontefract, which surrendered at the first summons. Lancaster was next closely pursued by the king with great superiority of numbers. "The earl, endeavouring to rally his troops, was taken prisoner, with ninety-five barons and knights, and carried to the castle of Pontefract, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... the old gates. They can't scale the rock, and they've got no boats, so we'll let them besiege us. Bah! when they find the place locked, they'll go ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... t'u-ti and bade him go and beg all the Immortals to disguise themselves as pirates and to besiege the mountain, waving torches, and threatening with swords and spears to kill her. "Then I will seek refuge on the summit, and thence leap over the precipice to prove Shan Ts'ai's ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... of South Carolina had begun the erection of batteries to isolate and besiege Fort Sumter; and the first of these, on a sand-spit of Morris Island commanding the main ship-channel, by a few shots turned back, on January 9, the merchant steamer Star of the West, in which General Scott had attempted to send a reinforcement of two hundred ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... most of the night. I suppose he did not mind such night-work. We sighted Portsmouth in the morning, and after doing the customary steam trials, proceeded up harbour. Here, as at Plymouth, there were all classes of business men waiting in boats to besiege the ship. Most of them met with disappointment, as only a few were allowed on board. This matter was the cause of complaint being made in an evening paper, which said: "No such restriction was ever manifested by any other ship coming home ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... Seine, and turned to the west to fix his capital at Tours. In 1590 he won the brilliant victory at Ivry over the armies of the League and of Spain which Macaulay has popularised in a stirring poem: the road to Paris was open and Henry sat down to besiege the city. ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... Glyndwyr rode south to besiege and burn the town of Caerdyf, while at Caer Idion Richard Holland abode tranquilly for some three weeks. There was in this place only Caradawc (the former shepherd), his wife Alundyne, and their sole daughter Branwen. They gladly perceived Sire ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... Chicago we stopped for half an hour at Little Fort, one of those flourishing little towns which are springing up on the lake shore, to besiege future Congresses for money to build their harbors. This settlement has started up in the woods within the last three or four years, and its cluster of roofs, two of the broadest of which cover respectable-looking hotels, already makes a considerable figure when ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... flower of the Christian knighthood, at Westminster, in the xiiij^{th} year of his age. In the year one thousand cccxlvj, on the third day of September, the same [Sidenote: Edward the third subjugated to his dominion the city of Caleys.] lord king Edward began to besiege the town of Caleys with the castle, and continued his siege until the third day of August, the succeeding year, on which day he subjugated the said town with the castle to his dominion. In the year one thousand cccxl, the viij kl. of July, ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous
... endeavoring to avert his resentment by any kind of concession, that they actually killed his ambassadors and threw their bodies from the top of the walls into the sea. It is easy to imagine what effect so shocking an outrage must produce in a mind like Alexander's. He instantly resolved to besiege the place, and not to desist until he had made himself master of it and razed it to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... from Schlettau to our neighborhood, on our Austrian side of the River. And at Kaditz yonder, a mile below Dresden, are not the King's people building their Pontoons; in march since 2 in the morning,—evidently coming across, if not to besiege Dresden, then to attack us; which is perhaps worse! We outnumber them,—but as to trying fight in any form? Zweibruck leaves Maguire an additional 10,000;—every help and encouragement to Maguire; whose garrison is now 14,000: 'Be of courage, Excellenz Maguire! ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Sarmatians no longer respected the barrier of the Danube. The impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and numbers of the wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even presumed, though without success, to besiege the important city of Seleucia, which was defended by a garrison of three Roman legions. Above all, the Persian monarch, elated by victory, again threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the emperor was indispensably required, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... of the Turkish generals, having advanced into the neighbourhood of Missolonghi towards the end of April, began to besiege it in good earnest, at the head of an army of some seven or eight thousand picked followers, on the 7th of May. While he was forming his entrenchments and erecting his batteries, the townsmen, augmented by a number of fierce Suliots and others, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... you have one man to help you. If they besiege us, I won't be able to communicate with you. Whatever happens, keep the engine going. Store enough slabs in here to keep her going all night, then close the door, ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... Chan Santa Cruz sentinels had seen that idiotic Jake, and followed him in order to learn where we were hiding," he said when Neal asked why they had left the ravine during the hottest portion of the day. "If the Indians should besiege us here, it would only be a few hours before surrender must be made, because of lack of water, therefore we can render our position no worse, and may succeed in bettering ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... mercy was evidently tempered according to distance. For, having the matter now under control, he nonchalantly cracked only shin bones. Fra Diavolo from his shelter roared commands and curses, but not another imp would show himself. Crouched jealously, they chose rather to besiege their lone enemy on ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... gathered together a crew as unholy as himself. And the story goes that he did it all for the sake of a girl who scorned him. Now then he holdeth Hauterive as his tower of strength, has harried Waisford, and threatens Wanmeeting town, giving out that he will edge in the lady, besiege High March itself, wed the Countess, and have the girl (when he finds her) as his concubine. So he will be lord of all, and God of no account so far as I can see. And the name of ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... by one the gay lights in the shops went out, and the shutters hid the crowded windows. One by one the passengers dispersed, some to besiege the railway-stations, some to invade the trams, others to walk in cheery parties by the frosty ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... this, Benhadad, the king of Syria, came from Damascus with a vast army and thirty-two allied kings, to besiege Samaria. Defeated in a battle with Ahab, the king of Syria fled, but returned the following year with a still larger army for the conquest of Samaria. But he was again defeated, with the loss of one hundred thousand men in a single day, and sought to make peace with ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... that ladies are litigious Upon all legal objects of possession, And not the least so when they are religious, Which doubles what they think of the transgression: With suits and prosecutions they besiege us, As the tribunals show through many a session, When they suspect that any one goes shares In that to which the law ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the naval section bears away the palm. It is for the most part composed of the elder boys and of a few girls who would be boys if they could. Its members all possess a hopeless passion for the sea, and besiege their mothers for promises that their future life shall be that of middies. They wear straw hats and loose blue shirts, and affect as much of the sailor in their costume as they can. Each has a boat, or as they call it a "vessel," and the build and rig of these vessels is a subject ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... remove/Bring up your army] [W:'fore they] I do not see the nonsense or impropriety of the old reading. Says the senator to Aufidius, Go to your troops, we will garrison Corioli. If the Romans besiege us, bring up your army to remove them. If any change should ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... the rest Of suitors that besiege your maiden breast, Why may not I My fortune try, And venture to speak one good word, Not for myself, alas! but ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... petitions. We believe it will yet have its auxiliaries in every village and hamlet, township and school district, to influence majorities when the amendment is submitted. More—we believe ere many years its powers will be so subtle and widespread that it can besiege the conservatism of Congress itself, and come away with ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Brentwood, in Essex, sailed in one night as far as Calais, in France, and afterwards returned again to its proper place. Another time I made him believe that in the forest of Sherwood, in Nottinghamshire, were seen five hundred of the King of Spain's galleys, which went to besiege Robin Hood's Well, and that forty thousand scholars with elder squirts performed such a piece of service as they were all in a manner taken and overthrown in the forest. Another time I made him believe ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... a foot of land from the father. Gradually the castles the English had taken in Scotland were won back from them. For twenty years the English had held the Castle of Edinburgh, and at the end of that time, Randolph, a Scottish noble, came to besiege it. ...
— Royal Children of English History • E. Nesbit
... Parliamentary army decided to make another and more determined effort to capture Corfe Castle, and a large force was sent to besiege it. Lady Bankes and her handful of men had now pitted against them some of the best regiments in the victorious Parliamentarian army, but they scorned to surrender ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Besiege the throne of grace, dear Egerton, in my behalf. Pray that the Lord would finish his work, and cut it short in righteousness, and make my heart a fit temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in. Oh, my son, be continually on your guard. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... blows.—Through a wrong of the greatest magnitude, an entire class which have no share in the favors of the Court, and which suffered as many injuries as any of the common plebeians, is confounded with the titled parasites who besiege the antechambers of Versailles. Twenty-five thousand families, "the nursery of the army and the fleet," the elite of the agricultural proprietors, also many gentlemen who look after and turn to account the little estates on which they live, and "who have ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... be beneficial to him. They therefore resolved to move eastward to the Castle of Slaines, on the sea coast near Peterhead. That such a step was attended by great peril they well knew, for the Comyns would gather the whole strength of the Highlands, with accessions from the English garrisons, and besiege them there. The king's health, however, was a paramount consideration; were he to die, the blow might be fatal to Scotland, accordingly the little force marched eastward. They reached Slaines without interruption, and as they expected the castle was soon surrounded and besieged by the forces ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... Cove to see something of the extensive fish business carried on there. They walked on to the Point, to see the old fort which, in the time of the revolutionary war, contained enough plucky men to seize a barge with men and a cannon, which a passing British man of War sent to besiege them. The men were taken to Gloucester, but the cannon was left there where it remained until it found a better place in the town-hall yard. There, all renovated, it now stands as a precious relic of ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... although sometimes there was none of this fore-running haze, but the whole opaque white ocean gave a start and swallowed a piece of mountain at a gulp. It was to flee these poisonous fogs that I had left the seaboard, and climbed so high among the mountains. And now, behold, here came the fog to besiege me in my chosen altitudes, and yet came so beautifully that my first thought was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in this world happens because something else happened a thousand years ago or yesterday, and the result could not possibly be different from what it is, why besiege Heaven ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... with myself that this was the market-house of the town, and hastened to besiege so desirable a city of refuge. But during my rapid approach, I observed that the external walls of the nameless edifice beneath the arcade were covered, and without a single interstitial interval, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... general of fourteen, was helping to besiege Gaeta, he had been hailed by Don Carlos as Prince of Wales, and as Prince of Wales he was invariably addressed by those outside the little circle of the sham court who wished to please the exiled princes ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... in a close room where no foe comes Unlesse it be a Weezle or a Rat (And those besiege your Larder or your Pantry), Whom the arm'd Foe never frighted ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... them to his house because a letter addressed to himself and Commissioner Van Bronkhorst by the Prince, contained tidings, that the Governor of King Philip of Spain had ordered Senor del Campo Valdez to besiege Leyden a second time and reduce it to subjection. They were aware, that William of Orange could not raise an army to divert the hostile troops from their aim or relieve the city before the lapse of several months; they had experienced ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Leicester assembled his troops at Arnheim, which he made his headquarters. After reducing Doesburg, he prepared to besiege Zutphen, an important town on the Yssel. The garrison was in sore need of provisions, which Parma, before marching to its relief, determined to supply. A convoy of corn, meat, and other necessaries, sufficient to victual the place ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... Muse, forsaking her gentle pipe to follow the drum and trumpet, shall fruitlessly besiege her again when the time comes to sit at home and write down his adventures. 'Tis her revenge, as I am extremely sensible: and methinks she is the harder to me, upon reflection how near I came to being her lifelong servant, ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... mean time, having settled his army in winter quarters, set out, with the light-armed cohorts and part of the cavalry, into a desert part of the country, to besiege a fortress of Jugurtha's, in which he had placed a garrison consisting wholly of Roman deserters. And now again Bocchus, either from reflecting on what he had suffered in the two engagements, or from being admonished by ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... for many years been a nest of pirates, who preyed upon Dutch commerce in the narrow seas. The States-General, urged on by Oldenbarneveldt, resolved in the spring of 1606 to despatch an expedition to besiege and capture Dunkirk. Both Maurice and William Lewis were opposed to the project, which they regarded as rash and risky. The States-General, however, hearing reports of the archduke's soldiery being mutinous for lack of pay, persisted in their purpose, and Maurice, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... the upper town, was situated the royal castle, called the "upper house of the king," Neh. iii. 25. Its situation could not fail to afford to it extraordinary security. This is sufficiently shown by the ridicule of the Jebusites, when David, who did not build, but only enlarged it, was about to besiege it. They were of opinion that the lame and the blind would be sufficient for its defence, 2 Sam. v. 7-9; compare Faber's ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... wall to try and capture him; nay, the burgesses even remained under arms in the streets all night guarding the principal entrances for fear lest Fatia Negra and his band might take it into their heads to formally besiege the place, and, had it only depended upon his will to do so, he would assuredly ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... was obliged to remain till the spring. Another delay was contrived by Syllaeus on their leaving Leuke Kome. After this, they seem to have proceeded with more celerity, and with very little opposition from the natives, till they came to a city of some strength: this they were obliged to besiege in regular form; but, after lying before it for six days, Gallus was forced, for want of water, to raise the siege, and to terminate the expedition. He was told that at this time he was within two days' journey of the land of aromatics and frankincense, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... Christian churches. They hear that a foreign force has been invited into the country to oppress the Bohemians. Let them be sought out, and the enemies of liberty pursued to the ends of the earth. Not an arm is raised in defence of the Archduke, and the rebels, at length, encamp before Vienna to besiege their sovereign. ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... my bed of death From bands of greedy heirs be free; For these besiege the latest breath Of fortune's favour'd sons, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall become tributary unto thee, and shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then shalt thou besiege it. And when the Lord thy God delivereth it into thine hand, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... Minaya, and Pero Bermudez, and his trusty Gil Diaz; and when they were all five before him, he began to direct them what they should do after his death; and he said to them, "Ye know that King Bucar will presently be here to besiege this city, with seven and thirty Kings whom he bringeth with him, and with a mighty power of Moors. Now therefore the first thing which ye do after I have departed, wash my body with rose-water many times and ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... at first sight, that this king had been prompted to besiege Tyre, merely from a political view, viz. that he might not leave behind him so powerful and well-fortified a city; nevertheless, a superior will had decreed the siege of Tyre.(18) God designed, on one ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... drew in toward the settlements, in the hope of more abundant foraging. Fate promptly favoured the move. Some sheep, and a heifer or two, were easily killed, with no calamitous result; and the authority of the leaders was somewhat discredited. Three of the young wolves even went so far as to besiege a solitary cabin, where a woman and some trembling children awaited the return of the man. For two hideous moonlit hours they prowled and howled about the door, sniffing at the sill, and grinning in through the low window; and when the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... repel the threatened invasion of the Feringhis. At a council held Dec. 7, the most warlike sentiments prevailed; and some of the military leaders proposed that the British should be suffered to pass the Chumbul and besiege Gwalior, while the Mahrattas, getting round their rear, were to pour down on Agra and Delhi, and raise the Hindoo population! But the news of the governor-general's arrival struck them with consternation, and vakeels were sent to Agra, to learn on what terms ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... persevered, though now all to no purpose. The King himself retired, and the attack became a failure. Still Joan desired to march upon Paris for a renewed attack; but the King would not hear of it, and she was sent with troops badly equipped to besiege La Charite, where she again failed. For four weary months she remained inactive. She grew desperate; the voices neither encouraged nor discouraged her. She was now full of sad forebodings, yet her activity continued. She repaired to Compiegne, a city already besieged by the enemy, which she wished ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... that the late General Early was not only aiming to besiege Washington, but was not far away from the defenses, there was considerable of a stir made in official circles. Timid people tried to keep their courage up in various ways. Heroes, who had never been out of Washington, now talked like very heroes; and it was intimated that the ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... must carry it to them. They've galloped down here twice an' they've looked at the river an' they've looked at us, an' they've galloped back again. We can't let 'em set over there besiegin' us, we must cross an' besiege them an' get to roarin' an' rippin' ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the Powers delayed. Prince Louis Napoleon repudiates the conduct of the Prince of Canino.—Declares for the temporal sovereignty. M11 Several Powers undertake to restore the Pope. France sends an army to Rome. Treachery of the Roman populace. Determination to besiege Rome. The siege delayed by diplomatic manoeuvres. M12 Excesses of the Revolutionists. M13 The King of Naples and the Spaniards offer to assist the French. M14 Rome surrenders to the French. M15 Colonel Niel despatched to Gaeta with the keys of the city. M16 Letter ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... Patareans resolved to make resistance and hold out their city against him, was very unwilling to besiege it, and was in great perplexity lest the same frenzy might seize them too. But having in his power some of their women, who were his prisoners, he dismissed them all without any ransom; who, returning and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... which he had limited her after Tilsit; and he was unable to conceive that Scharnhorst's plan of passing men into a reserve would send triple that force into the field.[287] As for the Russians, he writes, they are thinned by disease, and must spread out widely in order to besiege the many fortresses between the Vistula and the Elbe. Indeed, he assures his ally, the King of Bavaria, that it will be good policy to let them advance: "The farther they advance, the more certain is their ruin." Sixty thousand troops were being led by Bertrand from Italy ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... had journeyed principally between large towns and over country held by the French, but that part of their work was finished; they had accurately computed the number of the army with which Massena was to advance shortly to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo, and they had now to carry the despatches to the guerilla leaders. Hitherto they had not in a single instance excited suspicion. Not a Frenchman had asked them a question, and no adventure of anything like ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... got fame and a black face. Nor, thoughtless as she was, had she committed anything worse than laughter at everybody and everything, that came in her way. When she heard that General Clanrunfort was cut to pieces with all his forces, she laughed; when she heard that the enemy was on his way to besiege her papa's capital, she laughed hugely; but when she heard that the city would most likely be abandoned to the mercy of the enemy's soldiery—why, then, she laughed immoderately. These were merely ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... some before you go I guess!" suddenly interrupted Ned. "There's a whole crowd of 'em headed this way, and they've got clubs, bows and arrows and those blow guns! I guess they're going to besiege us." ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... representatives of the people, at the head of whom was Merlin de Thionville, the most insolent and the most ferocious of inquisitors. These men, having the orders of the Committee, pressed Pichegru to pass the Rhine and go and besiege Manheim, where Merlin had an understanding with the inhabitants. Thus, if on the one hand the Committee by its orders made Pichegru wish to hasten the execution of his plan, on the other he had not a moment to lose; for to delay obeying ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... moment they expected him to arrive. This, with a little more courage, he might easily have done, in which case he would either have increased the dissensions of the city by his presence, or, if he had stayed to besiege it, have compelled the fleet from Ionia, although the enemy of the oligarchy, to come to the rescue of their country and of their relatives, and in the meantime would have become master of the Hellespont, Ionia, the islands, and of everything ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... beyond the fleshly faculty— Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven: The man is witless of the size, the sum, The value in proportion of all things, Or whether it be little or be much. Discourse to him of prodigious armaments Assembled to besiege his city now, And of the passing of a mule with gourds— 'Tis one! Then take it on the other side, Speak of some trifling fact,—he will gaze rapt With stupour at its very littleness, (Far as I see) as if in that indeed ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... the fourth (to appear the next morning) was set up; but they had come to the end of their string, and there were various horrid gaps yet to fill in spite of a too generous spreading of advertisements. Bud Tipworthy had been sent out to besiege Miss Tibbs, all of whose recent buds of rhyme had been hot-housed into inky blossom during the week, and after a long absence the youth returned with a somewhat abrupt quatrain, entitled "The Parisians of Old," which she had produced ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... when Dionysius came back to the city, he found the harbor blocked by a great chain stretched across it to prevent the entrance of any ship; and he was forced to retreat into the citadel, where the angry Syr-a-cus'ans came to besiege him. ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... before the subsidies were granted, and nearly the end of August before (p. 160) Suffolk crossed to Calais with an army, "the largest which has passed out of this realm for a hundred years".[453] Henry and Suffolk wanted it to besiege Boulogne, which might have been some tangible result in English hands.[454] But the King was persuaded by Wolsey and his imperial allies to forgo this scheme, and to order Suffolk to march into the heart of France. Suffolk was not a great general, but he conducted the invasion with ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... you do yesterday?" The young Prince replied with some embarrassment that he had strolled about the streets. "You did very wrong," said Napoleon. "What you ought to have done was to visit the fortifications and inspect them carefully. How can you tell? Perhaps some day you will have to besiege Mayence. Who would have told me when I was a simple artillery officer walking about Toulon that I should be destined to take that city?" It was at Mayence that the treasures unjustly extorted from the German Princes were restored to them. It was at Mayence ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... one door only, of solid oak, covered with iron plates, and this led into a sombre chapel. This was St. Peter's Sanctuary, dedicated to the Holy Innocents, and to it any hunted criminal had the right of entry. Apparently, his pursuers might besiege him without danger of sacrilege, but at any rate he could defy them in tolerable security within those massive walls. There do not seem to be many records of the occasions on which it was used; we do not ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... was exciting, for, now that he had a full day in which to besiege No. 89, he felt certain of gaining a word at least with his inamorata. He was in good time, it seemed, for hardly had he taken his customary station before the Cathedral bells awoke the slumberous ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... reinforcements General Drummond, now with about 3,600 men, pushed forward to besiege Fort Erie, in which was the American army, some 2,400 strong, under General Gaines. Col. Tucker with 500 British regulars was sent across the Niagara to destroy the batteries at Black Rock, but was defeated by 300 American regulars under Major Morgan, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... unconscious of his mission; he may be false to it; but in proportion as he is a great poet, he rises to the level of it the more often. He does not always directly rebuke what is bad and base, but indirectly by making us feel what delight there is in the good and fair. If he besiege evil, it is with such beautiful engines of war (as Plutarch tells us of Demetrius) that the besieged themselves are charmed with them. Whoever reads the great poets cannot but be made better by it, for they always introduce him to a higher society, to a greater style ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... cruelly murdered, and, contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the people's suffrages, had possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea. During which siege the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, in their discourses after supper, every one commended the virtues of his own wife; among whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... society at the behest of this or that bourgeois faction, very little solid matter fell to them except some dead and wounded, besides some friendly bourgeois grimaces. Should not the military, finally, in and for its own interest, play the game of "state of siege," and simultaneously besiege the bourgeois exchanges? Moreover, it must not be forgotten, and be it observed in passing, that Col. Bernard, the same President of the Military Committee, who, under Cavaignac, helped to deport 15,000 insurgents without trial, moves at this period again at the ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... in war there is no mean to err twice, the first and last fault being sufficient to ruin an army: faults, therefore, he pardons none; they that are precedents of disorder or mutiny repair it by being examples of his justice. Besiege him never so strictly, so long as the air is not cut from him, his heart faints not. He hath learned as well to make use of a victory as to get it, and pursuing his enemies like a whirlwind, carries all before ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... for King Don Sancho, and he put himself at the head of his army and hastened through Portugal to besiege his brother in Santarem. ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... in the blockhouses withdrew under cover of night to Fort Loyal, where the whole force of the English was now gathered along with their frightened families. Portneuf determined to besiege the place in form; and, after burning the village, and collecting tools from the abandoned blockhouses, he opened his trenches in a deep gully within fifty yards of the fort, where his men were completely ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... the town of Vesoul from pillage by a passing army. This pit is carefully described by M. Hassenfratz, in the Journal de Physique, t. xx. p. 259 (an. 1782), where he says that Caesar was driven away from the town of Vesoul, which he had intended to besiege, by the floods of water poured forth from the frais-puits. I know of no such incident in Caesar's life, though M. Hassenfratz quotes Caesar's own words: the town of Vesoul, too, had no historical existence before ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... generals James Wolfe was foremost. To him was given the task of capturing Quebec. Seated on a high bluff, Quebec could not be captured from the river. The only way to approach it was to gain the Plains of Abraham in its rear and besiege it on the land side. Again and again Wolfe sent his men to storm the bluffs below the town. Every time they failed. Wolfe felt that he must give up the task, when he was told that a path led from the river to the top of the bluff above the town. Putting his men into boats, they gained the ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... S. Michaels mount by policy, and kept the same by strong hand, this Sir Iohn Arundel was Sherife of Cornwall, wherethrough, vpon duety of his office, and commaundement from the Prince, hee marched thither, with posse Comitatus, to besiege it, and there, in a Skirmish on the sands, which deuide the mount from the continent, he fulfilled the effect of the prophecy, with the losse of his life, and in the said mounts Chappell ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... journalist in question has never understood why it was considered a soothing or idyllic one. It reminds him, not of watering little budding flowers, but of wrestling for hours with gigantic angels and devils. Moral problems of the most monstrous complexity besiege him incessantly. He has to decide before the awful eyes of innocence, whether, when a sister has knocked down a brother's bricks, in revenge for the brother having taken two sweets out of his turn, it is endurable that the brother should retaliate by scribbling ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... readers should think that there was no variety to our lives in these early days, that we did nothing but resolve, complain, petition, protest, hold conventions, and besiege Legislatures, we record now and then some cheerful item from the Metropolitan papers concerning ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Galileans together, out of the country, in great multitudes, and draw the Romans off their city by another war. That he did not see what advantage he could bring to them now, by staying among them, but only provoke the Romans to besiege them more closely, as esteeming it a most valuable thing to take him; but that if they were once informed that he was fled out of the city, they would greatly remit of their eagerness against it. Yet did not this plea move the people, but inflamed them ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... that there is any chance at all of the Spaniards taking the place, if they do besiege us?" Bob asked, as Dr. Burke ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... immediately began defiling over by the bridge of Strasburg. How different from the triumphant army, which with drums beating, and colours flying, had crossed at the same place six weeks before! Marlborough, having detached part of his force to besiege Ulm, drew near with the bulk of his army to the Rhine, which he passed near Philipsburg on the 6th September, and soon after commenced the siege of Landau, on the French side; Prince Louis with 20,000 men forming the besieging force, and Eugene and Marlborough with 30,000 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... and the court forsake; Our fortunes there, nor thou, nor I, shall make. Even men of merit, ere their point they gain, In hardy service make a long campaign; Most manfully besiege the patron's gate, And oft repulsed, as oft attack the great With painful art, and application warm. And take, at last, some little place by storm; Enough to keep two shoes on Sunday clean, And starve upon discreetly, in Sheer-Lane. Already this thy fortune ...
— English Satires • Various
... willing to give me credentials, but on the day I was to receive them the government moved to Antwerp. Then the Germans entered Brussels, and, as no one could foresee that Belgium would heroically continue fighting, on the chance the Germans would besiege Paris, I planned to go to that city. To be bombarded you do ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... 1704 there reigned in France Louis XIV., called Louis the Grand. He had greatly enlarged his dominions, taking one country after another. He possessed the whole between Holland and France, and now he was to besiege Nymegen and take Holland. The Hollanders said to the British: 'We have been good friends; you are strong. Surely you will not let this cruel king rob us of the fruits of our industry? Besides, if Louis takes one country after another he will be so strong ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... it was recently difficult to collect together a score of people to listen to spiritual lectures, the largest halls are often found insufficient to accommodate my Sunday evening audiences, and the spoken blessings and thanks that follow me, as well as the floods of inquiring letters that besiege me, bear ample testimony to the fact, that the seed sown has not all fallen on ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... 1853, when the Turks were 35,000 strong at Baiandoor, six miles from Alexandropol, and the Russians had only two battalions in the fortress, the latter demolished all the houses which were on this ground. I think that should it ever be in our power to besiege this place (which is not likely, from the enormous difficulty of getting a siege train there), that batteries might be established on the hillocks between the fortress and the river, to breach the large caponniere ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... suitor, were bent on getting possession of the Princess. On discovering that she had locked herself up in the strong palace, their rage knew no bounds. They made a dozen different attempts to break open the palace door, but all in vain. Finally, they decided to besiege the fortress. ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... sensible world he could attend or not, almost at will, to this or that colour, this or that train of sounds, in the whole tumultuous concourse of colour and sound, so it was also, for the well-trained intelligence, in regard to that hum of voices which besiege the inward no less than the outward ear. Might it be not otherwise with those various and competing hypotheses, the permissible hypotheses, which, [65] in that open field for hypothesis—one's own actual ignorance of the origin and tendency of our being—present themselves so importunately, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... admit even the possibility if I were a man. I would besiege the fortress. I would sit on her front doorstep until she gave in. Don't ask her to have you. Tell her you are going to have her whether or no," I cried, thinking of Rachel's words. He looked so encouraged that I am afraid ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... from him! It is you and me, monsieur! You can laugh! The war is open', and by me! There is one great step taken: until to-night there was nothing for you to ruin, to-morrow you have got a noble of France—your own protege—to besiege and sack. And you are to lose, because you think such ruin easy, and because you understand nothing—far less—of divinity. How could you know? You have not the fiber; the heart of a lady is a blank to you; ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... which was reduced to extremities. At this time, the 1st of January, 1380, arrived Carlo Zeno, who had been cruising on the Genoese coast with fourteen galleys. The Venetians were now strong enough to besiege the Genoese. Doria was killed on the 22nd of January, by a stone bullet, one hundred and ninety-five pounds' weight, discharged from a bombard called the Trevisan. Chioza was then closely invested; five thousand auxiliaries, among whom were some English condottieri, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... sat down to besiege Edinburgh. Now, Edinburgh is a very remarkable place. It has only half the houses, but ten times the intellect, of Liverpool or Manchester. And the university has two advantages as a home of science over the English universities: it ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... young noble. The Huguenots had been holding assemblies, which were considered more political than religious, and their towns of security were a grievance to royalty. War broke out again, and Louis himself went with De Luynes to besiege Montauban. The place was taken, but disease broke out in the army, and De Luynes died. There was a fresh struggle for power between the queen-mother and the Prince of Conde, ending in both being set aside by ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ticklish weeks of Bolshevik pressure of greatly superior numbers constantly threatening to besiege Pinega, and of a political propaganda which was hard to offset, the Americans held on optimistically. If they had made a single false step politically or if their White Guards had lost their morale they would have had a more exciting and desperate ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... campaign before the summer season, had begun their march that year before the end of winter. Some prompt and easy successes exalted the ambition of Kara Mustapha; and in spite of the contrary advice of Tekeli, Ibrahim Pacha, and several other personages, he determined to besiege Vienna. He accordingly advanced direct upon that capital and encamped under its walls on July 14th. It was just at the moment that Louis XIV had captured Strasburg, and at which his army appeared ready to cross the Rhine: all Europe was in alarm, believing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... pooh-pooh: Although our threats you now pooh-pooh, A dire revenge will fall on you. A dire revenge will fall on you, If you besiege Should he besiege Our high prestige— Your high prestige— (The word "prestige" is French). The word ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... dispatches which announced Vittoria's assassination, they found in this man's boot a compromising letter, declaring Virginio a party to the crime, and asserting that Lodovico had with his own poignard killed their victim. Padua placed itself in a state of defence, and prepared to besiege the palace of Prince Lodovico, who also got himself in readiness for battle. Engines, culverins, and firebrands were directed against the barricades which he had raised. The militia was called out and the Brenta ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... spring was not far off. Marius, who was not fettered in his operations by respect for the traditional seasons which were deemed suitable to a campaign, had started with some flying columns of infantry and a portion of the cavalry to some desert spot, with a view to besiege a fortress still held by Jugurtha, and garrisoned by all the deserters from the Roman army who were now in the king's service. Sulla had been left with the usual title of pro-praetor to represent his absent ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... epidemic of ribbons, curling-irons, and fancy slippers, which grew worse as the great day approached, and when it came at last—as fine a day as one could wish—each house sent forth its quota of shining-faced, bedizened merry-makers to besiege ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... never to be lost! Reveal it to no Profane! Keep and contain it within yourselves, as an incorruptible treasure, not like gold or silver, but more precious than everything besides; for it is the knowledge of the Great Cause, of Nature, and of that which is born of both. And if you meet an Initiate, besiege him with your prayers, that he conceal from you no new mysteries that he may know, and rest not until you have obtained them! For me, although I was initiated in the Great Mysteries by Moses, the Friend of God, yet, having seen Jeremiah, I recognized him not ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... doomed to disappointment. Maximilian, finding himself, as usual, ill supplied with both men and money, and being inadequately supported by his allies of Venice and Milan, was unable to prosecute the war against Florence with any vigour. He attempted to besiege Leghorn; but his fleet was scattered and many of his ships were wrecked by a violent storm, after which he gave up the undertaking, saying that he could not fight against both God and man. One day towards the end of November, he suddenly took his departure, and, leaving Pisa, returned ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... in his extremity. He used the extraordinary powers given him to establish himself in the capital, where, for his own ends, he subjected the wretched inhabitants to the most cruel extortions. Routed at San Lorenzo* by General Diaz, who at once proceeded to besiege Mexico, he unduly prolonged the resistance of the city after the final downfall of the empire, exposing it to the unnecessary hardships of a four months' siege, the horrors of which were mitigated only by the generosity and ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... be; and yet my heart Will not confess he owes the malady That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords; Whether I live or die, be you the sons Of worthy Frenchmen; let higher Italy,— Those bated that inherit but the fall Of the last monarchy,—see that you come Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when The bravest questant shrinks, find what you ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... of two ways,—shut off provisions and starve the garrison out, or get possession of heavy artillery to batter down the walls. It is said that fortune favors the dauntless. So it was with Montgomery, for he was enabled to besiege the fort in both ways. Carleton had rushed a Colonel McLean to the relief of St. John's with a force of French volunteers, but the French deserted en masse. McLean was left without any soldiers. This cut off St. John's from supply of provisions. At Chambly Fort was a Major Stopford ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... is at our gates,—the squiline is near being taken,—and nobody stirs to hinder it! But against us you are valiant, against us you can arm with diligence. Come on, then, besiege the senate-house, make a camp of the forum, fill the jails with our chief nobles, and when you have achieved these glorious exploits, then, at last, sally out at the squiline gate, with the same fierce spirits, against the enemy. Does your resolution fail you for this? Go then, and behold ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Mr. Scrymgeour. Let me tell you in a few words how you stand. You have entered my private residence by force, or perhaps by fraud, but certainly with no encouragement from me; and you come at a moment of some annoyance, a guest having fainted at my table, to besiege me with your protestations. You are no son of mine. You are my brother's bastard by a fishwife, if you want to know. I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion; and from what I now see of your conduct, I judge your mind to be exactly suitable to your exterior. I ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... its storms would be at hand to destroy his fleet. As it began to appear that nothing was to be gained by peace, he resolved to try the effect of war, and on the 1st of September landed his army and laid his plans to besiege the city. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... to balance the separate and discordant interests of the different provinces. They dwelt upon the miseries of an internal and doubtful struggle. Determined never to depart from the assertion of what they considered as their indefeasible right, they would incessantly besiege the throne with their humble remonstrances. They would seek the clemency of England, rather than the alliance of those powers, whom they conceived to be the real enemies of both; nor would they ever be accessory to the shutting ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... Parliament held their engagement with England consistent with justice, prudence, and piety, and their military undertaking seemed to succeed to their very wish. The junction of the Scottish army with those of Fairfax and Manchester, enabled the Parliamentary forces to besiege York, and to fight the desperate action of Long-Marston Moor, in which Prince Rupert and the Marquis of Newcastle were defeated. The Scottish auxiliaries, indeed, had less of the glory of this victory than their countrymen could desire. David Leslie, with their ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... was devastated by the Carthaginians, and by the companies of disciplined free-lances who called themselves Mamertines, or Mars's men. The hopes of the Greek inhabitants of the island were centred in Hiero, son of Hierocles, who was about to besiege Messana (then held by the Carthaginians) and who had revived the courage of the Syracusans. To him Theocritus addressed this idyl, in which he complains of the sordid indifference of the rich, rehearses the merits of song, dilates on the true nature of wealth, and of the happy lift, and finally expresses ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... upon Bayonne. The next day the bridge of boats was completed, and the whole army crossed. Bayonne was eventually invested after a contest, in which it was supposed our loss exceeded 500 or 600 men. Here we remained in camp about six weeks, expecting to besiege the citadel; but this event never came off: we, however, met with a severe disaster and a reverse. The enemy made an unexpected sortie, and surrounded General Sir John Hope, when he and the whole of his staff were taken prisoners. The ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... the young lady is crying about—that she wants to get married? Now she can get married in the shortest possible time to any man she points at, for half the town will besiege the house to be a ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... a spot just beyond musket range. They there began forming a camp, so that we knew they intended regularly to besiege the fort. None of our little garrison, however, were in the slightest degree daunted. We had all the requisites for standing a siege—water, provisions, and an abundance of arms and ammunition. A few small field-pieces in our towers would have been of use, ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... something of great importance happened at Palermo. On the 4th of April the authorities became aware that arms and conspirators were concealed in the convent of La Gancia, which was to have been the focus of the revolution. Troops were sent to besiege the convent, which they only succeeded in taking after four hours' resistance; its fall was the signal for a general slaughter of the inmates, both monks and laymen. The insurrection was thus stifled in its birth ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... addicted to the pleasures of the table, was giving himself up one day to the immoderate enjoyment of a sumptuous feast, when his Vizier came to inform him that the enemy was coming to besiege his capital. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... this long, dull afternoon, my dears? Quiet as mice till just now. What woke you up? A battle of the books? Alice looks as if she had laid in plenty of ammunition, and you were preparing to besiege her." ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... seen them unanimous in demand for the merest trifle—a treat, a holiday, a lesson's remission; they could not, they would not now band to besiege Madame Beck, and insist on a last interview with a Master who had certainly been loved, at least by some—loved as they could love—but, oh! what is the love of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... inhabitants of Liege, Belgium, and Holland. 2. Carra denounces the farmers-general. Deputy Rhul moves, that the property of foreign princes be put up to sale. 3. The French raise the siege of Maestricht, and besiege Williamstadt without success. They 4. are beaten at Tongres by the Prussians. Gertruydenberg surrenders to Gen. Dumourier. Zurich, Bern, and other Swiss cantons acknowledge the French republic. Manuel accuses the jacobins (sic) of all the evils since the revolution. ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... other youths. For this reason a child of eighteen will stand up, doing nothing, with a tin sword in his hand and joy in his heart until he is dropped. If he dies, he dies like a gentleman. If he lives, he writes Home that he has been "potted," "sniped," "chipped," or "cut over," and sits down to besiege Government for a wound- gratuity until the next little war breaks out, when he perjures himself before a Medical Board, blarneys his Colonel, burns incense round his Adjutant, and is allowed to go to ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town. A commission in the army would not be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the town; and men only seek conversation and entering games, because they cannot remain with pleasure ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... pleasure at the helm?" Yet, no!—we will not fear; the loathing realm At length has burst its chains; a motley few, The pseudo-saint, the boasting infidel, The demagogue, and courtier, hand in hand No more besiege our Zion's citadel: But high in hope comes on this nobler band For God, the sovereign, and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Austrian army, awfully array'd, Boldly by battery besiege Belgrade; Cossack commanders cannonading come, Deal devastation's dire destructive doom; Ev'ry endeavour engineers essay, For fame, for freedom, fight, fierce furious fray. Gen'rals 'gainst gen'rals grapple,—gracious God! How honors Heav'n heroic hardihood! Infuriate, indiscriminate ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... Moor and the jester who enlivened the ducal palace.[429] In this month of February, 1429, he was neither desirous nor able to concern himself greatly with the affairs of France; and although brother-in-law to King Charles, he was preparing not to succour the town of Orleans, but to besiege the ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... the reduction of several places which had revolted following the example of Uguccione. Having for this purpose entered into strict alliance with the city of Pisa, she sent him supplies, and he marched with them to besiege Sarzana; but the place being very strong, before he could carry it, he was obliged to build a fortress as near it as he could. This new fort in two months' time rendered him master of the whole country, ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... from the generals' point of view, but not from hers? Because her plan was to raise the siege immediately, by fighting, while theirs was to besiege the besiegers and starve them out by closing their communications—a plan which would ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... Pulci, Ursula, ay, or the Despina of Riciardetto. Riciardetto, Ursula, is a poem written by one Fortiguerra, about ninety years ago, in imitation of the Morgante of Pulci. It treats of the wars of Charlemagne and his Paladins with various barbarous nations, who came to besiege Paris. Despina was the daughter and heiress of Scricca, King of Cafria; she was the beloved of Riciardetto, and was beautiful as an angel; but I make no doubt you are quite ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... On that you counsel took From your too lightly flattering French; two Counts Of yours you to the Pagan sent, the one, Bazan, Bastile the other, and their heads He struck off near Haltoie. As you began, War on! To Sarraguce your army lead, Besiege her walls, though all your life it take, And thus avenge the knights ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... Reynard in the bosom of his family, delivered his message, and frankly advised the fox to obey the king's summons and appear at court, where, perchance, he might yet manage to save himself; while if he remained at home the king would besiege his fortress and slay him and all his family. Reynard listened favorably to this advice, and, after bidding his wife a tender farewell, and committing his beloved children to her care, he set out with Grimbart ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... knave, to go and besiege our friend, monsieur the bailiff of the palace, and what have you to say concerning ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... bailiffs, entered a boat and were overwhelmed in the rush of the river. And one night men of the castle, maliciously seeking occasion against the commonalty of the town, went out of the castle and pretended to besiege it and shot arrows at it; and then secretly re-entered the castle and declared the townsfolk had been attacking the castle. And on this account many burgesses were imprisoned in the castle and ill-treated, and their swine maliciously killed. And things are ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... shall besiege thy brow And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held: Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days, To say, within ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... his force, the earl sent two thousand men, under the command of Lieutenant General Wyndham, to besiege the towns of Requena and Cuenca—two places of some strength which blocked the road ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... had so remorselessly inflicted on the Catholics. Drogheda, Kilkenny, Duncannon, and Waterford, capitulated to the victorious army, the garrisons marching to Limerick, towards which place William now directed his course. Douglas was sent to besiege Athlone; but the Governor, Colonel Grace, made such brave resistance there, he was obliged to withdraw, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... himself master, not only of the city, but of all the country in its vicinity. He hastened to Azerbaijan, where the same success attended him. Tabriz, Ardabil, and all the principal cities of that quarter had surrendered; and the conqueror was preparing to besiege Erivan, the capital of Armenia, when he received from his brother, whom he had left in the government of Khorasan, an account of an alarming rebellion of the Afghans of that province. He hastened ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... awake I heard stealthy steps outside, and peeping through a crevice between the logs just above the head of my bed—by the way, my bed was the skin of a bear I had myself killed—I could see a string of Utes preparing to besiege me." ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... playing her own trick on her, but her chances for getting at him again were fewer than his had been with her. She could not besiege him in his abode; and in the places where they met, large houses crowded with people, the eye of the world was upon her. For how long had she forgotten it—she who had been all her life so deferential toward it! Even now she remembered it only because it interfered with ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... he go about it? Shall he print posters of a great mass-meeting to organize a boys' club? Shall he besiege his church for expensive equipment, perhaps for a new building? Shall he ask for an appropriation for work which most of the people have not seen, and of whose value they cannot judge except from his enthusiastic ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... The boldest of the Confederate youth had cut off from them a considerable herd of cattle, on which the army could have subsisted for a long time. Ulric von Sax, leader of the Confederates, just as prudent as he was active, resolves to besiege Pavia for a while, because he thinks it not yet advisable to take it by storm. The French still endeavor to prevent a passage over the Po.[5] Here an incident happens almost as incredible as it is amusing. In the French ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... doubt that the circumstances of Lord Woldo furnished him with food for thought—and very indigestible food too.... Why, at least one hundred sprightly female creatures were being brought up in the hope of marrying him. And they would all besiege him, and he could only marry one ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... arrive at a knowledge of others. And the prince that lacks this skill lacks the essential which it is desirable that a captain should possess, for it teaches him to surprise his enemy, to select quarters, to lead armies, to array the battle, to besiege towns ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... came to Newcastle a few years after the Scotsmen had departed, regard the beauty of St. Nicholas or its Tower. They came also desiring to besiege the town, though with only spiritual weapons. The Church to them was but a 'steeple-house,' and the Tower akin to an idol. Thus slowly do men learn that 'the ways unto God are as the number of the souls of the children of men,' and that wherever ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... the capture of the town, the Mahratta horse of Salabut Jung appeared. The nizam was furious when he found that he had arrived too late; but he resolved that when the three hundred French troops, daily expected by sea, arrived, he would besiege Forde in his turn; as, with the new arrivals, Du Rocher's force would alone be superior to that of Forde, and there would be, in addition, his own army of forty ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... spectator. But the more deeply and completely you become immersed in and aware of this life, the greater the extension of your consciousness; the more insistently will rumours and intimations of a higher plane of experience, a closer unity and more complete synthesis, begin to besiege you. You feel that hitherto you nave received the messages of life in a series of disconnected words and notes, from which your mind constructed as best it could certain coherent sentences and tunes—laws, ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... foundations were of palm-trees, a hundred feet long and more—the palm-tree grows to a greater height than that, and under pressure it will curve upwards like the spine of an ass beneath a load. [12] He laid these foundations in order to give the impression that he meant to besiege the town, and was taking precautions so that the river, even if it found its way into his trench, should not carry off his towers. Then he had other towers built along the mound, so as to have as many guard-posts as possible. [13] Thus his army was ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... Personally, after seeing what I have seen, and knowing what I know, I will make no terms with it. Even now, if a fortune were offered me, made by drink, I would not benefit by it. But more, you can besiege the Government, you can give it no rest until it has removed one of the greatest hindrances ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking |
