"Seize on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Phyl as a Burgomaster gull might seize on a puffin chick, he had picked her up on the road to carry her off regardless of everything but his own desire for her—a desire so strong that he would have dashed her and himself to pieces rather than ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... conduct the mind with painful subtility through the multiplied steps of a long demonstration. At other times he would glance upon the main topics of his argument, and seize on his conclusion by a sort of intuitive penetration. He frequently embellished his subject with the higher ornaments of style, and diffused around the severer sciences the graces and elegancies of taste. For force of expression he might be compared to Chatham, and ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... stuff they work in. In moments of excitement his odd irregular features seemed to grow fluid, to unmake and remake themselves like the shadows of clouds on a stream. Darrow, through the rapid flight of the shadows, could not seize on any specific indication of feeling: he merely perceived that the young man was unaccountably surprised at finding him with Miss Viner, and that the extent of his surprise might cover all ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... determined to seize on and control all the resources of the Federal Government, and to spread their institutions through new States and Territories until the balance of power should fall into their hands and they should be able to force slavery ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... wearing away. Try always, whenever you look at a form, to see the lines in it which have had power over its past fate and will have power over its futurity. Those are its awful lines; see that you seize on those, whatever else you miss. Thus, the leafage in Fig. 16 (p. 63) grew round the root of a stone pine, on the brow of a crag at Sestri near Genoa, and all the sprays of it are thrust away in their first budding by the great rude ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... unhappy if she had missed him. I don't see what there is about you, Cynthia;" studying her intently. "You are pretty, but there are some handsome girls in Salem. And they run after Ed Saltonstall as if there was no other man in town. And my advice to you is to seize on him, for I think your chance best. He's an awful flirt, though. I think ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... is possible you may have a case though, Jasper," he said; "I think you may have a case. I will see to it at once. I will examine the will, and if there is a chance you may depend that I will seize on it. But remember this: Nicholas Tresidder is a clever fellow, and when he sets his mind on a thing it's a difficult thing to ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... commanded the royalists in this wing, restoring order to his broken forces, made a furious attack on the parliamentary cavalry, threw them into disorder, pushed them upon their own infantry, and put that whole wing to rout. When ready to seize on their carriages and baggage, he perceived Cromwell, who was now returned from pursuit of the other wing. Both sides were not a little surprised to find that they must again renew the combat for that victory which each of them thought they had already obtained. The front of the battle was now exactly ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... head away, pretending to busy himself with the coffee-making utensils. He could not bear to see that look of hopelessness in her face, for in his heart he could not find the wherewithal to cheer her. Despair was beginning to seize on him too, and this he would not let ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... absent, for the reasons before alledged. Also that an Assembly residing out of the bounds of that Colony whereof they have the government, cannot execute any power over the persons, or goods of any of the Colonie, to seize on them for debt, or other duty, in any place without the Colony it selfe, as having no Jurisdiction, nor Authoritie elsewhere, but are left to the remedie, which the Law of the place alloweth them. And though the Assembly have right, to impose a Mulct upon any of their members, that shall break ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... aversion to peace kept pace with his losses. The vehemence with which he nourished his chimerical hopes blinded him to the artful policy of his confederates, who at his expense were keeping the Swedish hero employed, in order to overturn, without opposition, the liberties of Germany, and then to seize on the exhausted North as an easy conquest. One circumstance which had not been calculated on — the magnanimity of Gustavus — overthrew this deceitful policy. An eight years' war in Poland, so far from exhausting the power of Sweden, ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... to that great watchword "Act," To leave no record written on the sand For the first wave to crumble into naught, But to materialize on thought—to raise A standard glorious with the sign of heaven, And set it waving o'er oblivion; To seize on spirit like a willow rod, And bend and fashion it to perfect use, Curbing its wayward fancies and desires, Until it sway true to the Poet's creed; To move Earth's multitudes with nervous power, And burning eloquence, as leaves are ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... gallant BRUNSWICK spoke; 'Shall we with tameness bear the Gallic yoke! 'Will ye, O Veterans, inur'd to pains 'And toils of War, drag ignominious chains? 'Turn and behold! behold where hostile bands 'Seize on your properties, lay waste your lands, 'Your daughters, wives, snatch'd forcibly away, 'Slaves to proud Gallia's sons, to best a prey! 'Hark! how with piercing Cries, the tender Maid, 'By force subdu'd, implores ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... has been seclusion and obscurity! and the best society whom the King introduced to us, was a Bohemian vagabond, by whose agency he directed us to correspond with our friends in Flanders.—Perhaps," said the lady, "it is his politic intention to mew us up here until our lives' end, that he may seize on our estates, after the extinction of the ancient house of Croye. The Duke of Burgundy was not so cruel; he offered my niece a husband, though he ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Confederates. He might cross a heavy force to the assistance of General Porter, thus enabling that officer to assume the offensive; or, finding Lee thus checked, he might advance on Magruder, crush the small force under him, and seize on Richmond, which would be at his mercy. It was thus necessary to act without delay, while awaiting the appearance of Jackson. General Lee, accordingly, directed General Longstreet, who had taken position to the right of Cold Harbor, to make a ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... at the bar, that the acts of the Legislature of Georgia seize on the whole Cherokee country, parcel it out among the neighboring counties of the State, extend her code over the whole country, abolish its institutions and its laws, and annihilate ...
— Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, at January Term, 1832, Delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in the Case of Samuel A. Worcester, Plaintiff in Error, versus the State of Georgia • John Marshall
... the tradition of Red Pierre did not begin with his ride from the school of Father Victor to Morgantown, distant many days of difficult and dangerous travel. Neither did tradition seize on the gunfight that crippled Hurley and "put out" wizard Diaz. These things were unquestionably known to many, but they did not strike the popular imagination. What set men first on fire was the way Pierre le Rouge buried his father "at the point of ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... observed, that Corpulent Persons in some Diseases, that seize on them, do fall away to wonder, not only in the Wast, but in the Arms, Legs, and Thighs; and the very Calves of the Legs have been observed so flaccid and loose, that one might wrap the skin about the bones. The reason whereof, according to the opinion deliver'd, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... early too. For being in command of a sloop of 158 tons, called the Speedy, with fourteen small guns and fifty-one men, he happened to come across a good-sized Spanish vessel, with thirty-two big guns, and over 300 men. The Spaniard, of course, was going to seize on the little English ship, and, so to speak, gobble it up. But Cochrane, instead of waiting to be attacked, made for the Spaniard, and, after receiving the fire of all her guns, without delivering a shot, got right under the side ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... philosophic, are bastard in nature, facile of execution, and feeble in result. It is one thing to write about the inn at Burford, or to describe scenery with the word-painters; it is quite another to seize on the heart of the suggestion and make a country famous with a legend. It is one thing to remark and to dissect, with the most cutting logic, the complications of life, and of the human spirit; it is quite another to give them body and blood in the story of Ajax or of Hamlet. ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... regard that as a perfectly legitimate stratagem, if she had set her mind on resisting this marriage? Easy, infinitely easy was it to believe this, in comparison with any other explanation of Emily's behaviour. In his haste to seize on a credible solution of the difficulty, Wilfrid did not at first reflect that Emily was a very unlikely person to be influenced by such means, still more unlikely that she should keep such a thing secret from him. It must be remembered, however, that the ways of treachery ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... eagerly accepted the chance. It meant a day in the country, travelling by special train, and the writing of the report did not worry her at all, as she had already served her apprenticeship to journalism, and knew how to seize on the most interesting points and condense ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... others which, in their higher developments, are no less rare—namely, a quick discernment of popular wants as they arise or an imagination which enables him to anticipate them, an instinctive insight into character which enables him to choose best men as his subordinates, promptitude to seize on opportunities, courage which is the soul of promptitude, and finally a driving energy by which the whole of his moral and intellectual mechanism is actuated. As for "the aggregate of conditions out of which he has arisen," or the aggregate ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... fiery compact with the demon! Already one victim is sacrificed—our turn will come next! See, here are the mangled limbs of his pupil, Hubert de Dreux! The fiend has claimed his reward, and borne away his soul. Seize on the wicked sorcerer, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... when the sultan sends an order to strangle a state-criminal, and seize on his effects, the officers who execute it enter not into the harem, nor touch any thing belonging ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... wonder whether You'd really taste as well. For my hand is fairly steady Though my heart is beating fast, Oh, tell me that you too are ready To make this hour your last. For repentance may come when we're sober, Let's seize on the chance while we may; Then why should we wait till October? Oh! Why not be shot to-day? Oh! tell me why, why should I remember With a thought of wild alarm, That all through the month of sweet September You should be free from harm. Why, why does ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... in everything in those days. When the little weary lamb we drive home drags its feet, we seize on it, and carry it with its head against our face. His little lamb! We ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... these inner courts and wards, their condition of mere pasturage, protects what remains of them as no defences could do. Nothing is left visible that the hands can seize on or the weather overturn, and a permanence of general outline at least results, which no other ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... these points I shall not attempt a minute criticism of his works. I can only seize on the great outlines, the salient points of those productions which have given him immortality. No lecture can be exhaustive. If it only prove suggestive, it ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... summed up existing complaints of commercial injury under three heads,—definitions of contraband, methods of blockade, and the unjust decisions of Vice-Admiralty Courts; coupled with the absence of penalty to cruisers making unwarranted captures, which emboldened them to seize on any ground, because certain to escape punishment. But no formal pronouncement further injurious to United States commerce was made by the British Government during this war, which ended in October, 1801, to be renewed eighteen months later. On the contrary, the progress of events ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... laws of nations provide a remedy for such occasions. It is a well-settled principle of the international code that where one nation owes another a liquidated debt which it refuses or neglects to pay the aggrieved party may seize on the property belonging to the other, its citizens or subjects, sufficient to pay the debt without giving just cause of war. This remedy has been repeatedly resorted to, and recently by France herself toward Portugal, under ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... them to have families, no expectation of advantage or return to be got out of them. I should rather say that mothers would be likely to be hostile and bear malice to their babes, owing to the great danger and pains of travail. And women say the lines, "When the sharp pangs of travail seize on the pregnant woman, then come to her aid the Ilithyiae, who help women in hard childbirth, those daughters of Hera, goddesses of travail,"[55] were not written by Homer, but by some Homerid who ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... other." In another place he says: "The skull of an adult male, S. caniceps, which had the bright red golden colour of the back well developed, presents so strong a resemblance to the skull of S. Blanfordii, that it is extremely difficult to seize on any point wherein they differ." After comparison of the above with skulls of S. griseimanus and S. Phayrei, he adds: "such facts taken in conjunction with those mentioned under S. Blanfordii, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... what they may, it is by no means easy to invent a new line of life; and even if you should, there are scores of people ready to start up and seize on your discovery; and as I write these lines I am by no means sure that to-morrow will not see some other Cornelius O'Dowd inviting the public to a feast of wisdom and life-knowledge, with perhaps a larger ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... behoved us to win your assent, in order to seize on the Mortimer, sith you are Keeper of the Castle, and have the keys ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... determinedly to do something, and thinks of nought but his design, he must succeed despite all difficulties in his path: such an one may make himself Pope or Grand Vizier, he may overturn an ancient line of kings—provided that he knows how to seize on his opportunity, and be a man of wit and pertinacity. To succeed one must count on being fortunate and despise all ill success, but it ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... proceeded three days' journey, word was brought to him that Ariovistus was hastening with all his forces to seize on Vesontio,[115] which is the largest town of the Sequani, and had advanced three days' journey from his territories. Caesar thought that he ought to take the greatest precautions lest this should happen, for there ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the day draws on. Languor and uneasiness seize on every one;—even the denizens of the forest betray it by their motions. By this time every voice of bird or mammal is hushed. Only in the trees is heard at intervals the whir of the cicada. The leaves, so soft and fresh ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... or bailiff to show his nose on the estate. In this dilemma, Mr. Shirley, as commander-in-chief, ordered his lieutenant and his subordinates to go forth, with a body of police, and drive in all the cattle they could seize on the lands of the defaulting tenants. The expedition started one fine morning, led on by the mounted bailiff, a fat man, trembling like a hare at the thought ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... course. He was in a furious passion, when the will was produced, and the young widow declared inheritor of the dukedom. As he was a violent, high-handed man, and one of the sturdiest knights in the land, fears were entertained that he might attempt to seize on the territories by force. He had, however, two bachelor uncles for bosom counselors, swaggering, rakehelly old cavaliers, who, having led loose and riotous lives, prided themselves upon knowing the world, and being deeply experienced in human nature. "Prithee, man, be of good ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... called 'faultless;' and this general absence of defects and equality of excellence is a great element of Raphael's wide popularity; for, as one can observe for one's self, in regarding a work of art, there is always a large proportion of the spectators who will seize on an error, dwell on it, and be incapable of shaking off its influence, and rising into the higher rank of critics, who discover and ponder over beauties. I would have it considered also, that this equality of excellence does not necessarily proceed always from a higher aim, but may arise rather ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... to seize on any distraction, went in, scarcely understanding that her bruised ambition reached for healing to such ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... will would mean dispossession to her children, and through them to herself. Nor had she any doubt, either, of Pratt's intention to profit by his discovery. She saw that he was a young man of determination, not at all scrupulous, eager to seize on anything likely to turn to his own advantage. She was, in short, at his mercy. And she had no one to turn to. Her son was weak, purposeless, almost devoid of character; he cared for nothing beyond ease ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... to seize on Pegasos, but the horse snorted wildly and tore up the ground in his fury, till Bellerophon sank wearied on the earth and a deep sleep weighed down his eyelids. Then, as he slept, Pallas Athene came and stood ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... an appalling life of purification. In blow after blow she lost her mother, her husband, her children; she went through such violent temptations to impurity that she was obliged to seize on lighted coals and cauterize the plague of her senses ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... gradually gaining ground, and this was a time of great suffering, as he stood alone in his forefathers' house, and felt himself, in his early youth, a doomed man, destined to bear the penalty of their crimes in the ruin of his dearest hopes, as if his heirloom of misery had but waited to seize on him till the very moment when it would give him ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of day: When we are got out clear, we'll seize on Roderick and his men: They are not many, but ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... standing neuter, a sad and disheartened spectator of the conflict between the rival vices. But are we in this wretched condition? It is fearful to see with what avidity the worst and most dangerous characters of society seize on the occasion of obtaining the countenance of better men, for the purpose of throwing off the restraints of law. It is always these who are most zealous and forward in constituting themselves the protectors of the public peace. To such men—men without reputation, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... It soon appeared that some were dissatisfied with the allotment of the animals; for, next morning, two kids and two Turkey-cocks were missing. As our commander could not suppose, that this was an accidental loss, he determined to have them again. The first step he took was to seize on three canoes that happened to be alongside the ships; after which he went on shore, and having found the king, his brother, Feenou, and some other chiefs, he immediately put a guard over them, and gave them to understand, that they must remain under restraint, till not only the kid and the ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... rule within doors and without. They sit on the balusters and on the spires of the steep towers, they tread through the air as the swimmer glides through the water and entice their prey down the abyss. Vertigo and the Ice-Maiden seize on men as the polypus clutches at all within its reach. Vertigo was to gain possession of Rudy. "Yes, just catch him for me" said Vertigo. "I cannot do it! The cat, the dirty thing, has taught him her arts! The child of the race of man, possesses a power, that repulses me; ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... cold; I tremble at the news; There's bags of gold, if thou wilt me excuse, And seize on them, and finish thou the strife Of those that are aweary of their life. Are there not many bound in prison strong, In bitter grief of soul have languished long, Who could but find the grave a place of rest, From all the grief in which they ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... reiterated "No," answered this appeal, and the mutineers rushed forward, not to seize on, but to lay down their weapons at the feet ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Let Vultures vil'de seize on his Lungs also: Where is the life that late I led, say they? Why heere it is, welcome those ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... deliberating and deciding by yourself, and saying to those who would hinder you, "If my life should be spent a thousand times, I wish to fulfil the will of my Father." Although bodily life be laid down for it, yet seize on the life of grace and the means of winning it for ever. Now comfort you and fear not, for you have no need. Put on the armour of the most holy Cross, which is the safety and the life of Christians. Let talk who will, and hold you ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... her in the library. Everything that had followed seemed to have grown out of that look: his way of speaking to her, his quickness in catching her meaning, his evident eagerness to prolong their excursions and to seize on every chance ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... revenge, and as he was one of those men who never give up while a gleam of hope remains, and whom no waiting can tire, he bided his time, avoiding notice, apparently resigned to circumstances, but keeping his eyes fixed on Grandier, ready to seize on the first chance of recovering possession of the prey that had escaped his hands. And unluckily the chance soon ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... de Villemessant, founder of the Figaro,—"he has nevertheless been able to seize on those dramatic effects which have so much distinguished his theatrical career, and to give those sharp and distinct reproductions of character which alone can present to the reader the mind and spirit of an age. Not a mere historian, he has nevertheless ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... representation of dramas in which they figured, and even to prohibit their costume at the masquerades. So numerous were the banditti at this time, that the Duke found no difficulty in raising an army of. them, to aid him in his endeavours to seize on the throne of Naples. He thus describes them; [See also "Foreign Quarterly Review," vol. iv. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... are to be blamed. We rouse them before we are ready for them—before we have prepared them or anything else for a result; and then it is not strange that they only rush bravely on to death and defeat. We seize on the occasion of a funeral for an outbreak without organization, and the cuirassiers of the military escort trample our ranks beneath their horses' hoofs. But for unusual efforts, such would have been the case at the funeral ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... returning home. This letter came from my sweet Gaveston: What need'st thou, love, thus to excuse thyself? I know thou couldst not come and visit me. [Reads. I will not long be from thee, though I die;— This argues the entire love of my lord;— [Reads. When I forsake thee, death seize on my heart!— But stay thee here where Gaveston shall sleep. [Puts the letter into her bosom. Now to the letter of my lord the king: He wills me to repair unto the court, And meet my Gaveston: why do I stay, Seeing that he talks thus of my marriage day?— Who's there? Baldock! See that my coach ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... lend it you, to have two or three made by it; for they be easily carried about an angler, and be of excellent use: for note, that a large Trout will come as fiercely at a minnow as the highest-mettled hawk doth seize on a partridge, or a greyhound on a hare. I have been told that one hundred and sixty minnows have been found in a Trout's belly: either the Trout had devoured so many, or the miller that gave it a friend of mine had forced them down his throat ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... God Conceived this plan, rash if you will, but grand. "Thinking him man," he said, "mere mortal man, They seek to seize him—I will make pretence To take the public bribe and point him out, And they shall go, all armed with swords and staves, Strong with the power of law, to seize on him— And at their touch he, God himself, shall stand Revealed before them, and their swords drop, And prostrate all before him shall adore, And cry, 'Behold the Lord and King of all!'" But when the soldiers laid their ...
— A Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem - First Century • W. W. Story
... begins to look like a masquerade dress hired for the occasion; of the hard and, perhaps, gallant service of months past, there is soon no other evidence, than an unnecessary loudness of speech, and a readiness to seize on any occasion to bluster or blaspheme. A friend of mine once remarked (by way of excuse for being detected in the most eccentric deshabille) that "the British dragoon, under any circumstances, was a respectable and elevating sight." I do not think the most amiable stranger ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... bring Morton and his wild crew to a better mode of life, by friendly and persuasive messages. But these only excited the contempt and derision of the ruffian; and the doughty warrior, Miles Standish, was therefore dispatched, with a band of his veteran followers, to seize on the desperadoes. They came upon them when they were in the midst of their drunken revelry, and, after a fierce struggle, succeeded in making them all prisoners, and conveying them safely to Plymouth. From thence Morton was sent, by the first opportunity, to England, ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... interesting account. In our own marriages the "best man" seems originally to have been the chief abettor of the bridegroom in the act of capture. Now as long as men habitually procured their wives through violence and craft, they would have been glad to seize on any woman, and would not have selected the more attractive ones. But as soon as the practice of procuring wives from a distinct tribe was effected through barter, as now occurs in many places, the more attractive women would generally have been purchased. The incessant crossing, however, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise. But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... would have considered the most probable of all—he might be married. Not deliberately, but suddenly; drawn into it by some of those impelling trains of circumstance which are the cause of so many marriages, especially with men; or, impelled by one of those violent passions which occasionally seize on an exceedingly good man, fascinating him against his conscience, reason, and will, until he wakes up to find himself fettered and ruined for life. Such things do happen, strangely, pitifully often. The like might have happened ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... fulfill'd, Asunder break the prison-mould; Let the goodly Bell we build, Eye and heart alike behold. The hammer down heave, Till the cover it cleave. For the Bell to rise up to the freedom of day, Destruction must seize on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... turned hither, and to our benefit; but nature, in the formation of our harbour, forbids our becoming rivals in commerce with that convenient mart; and were it otherwise, we must be dead to every idea of justice, lost to all feelings of humanity, could we indulge one thought to seize on wealth and raise our fortunes on the ruins of our suffering neighbours.'" (Holmes' Annals, etc., Vol. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... He is not wanting in his love of the beautiful, in his appreciation of poetry, in the vision which perceives the flowers blooming by the waters in the desert, and in the hearing which catches the sound of the harmonies of his palm-trees and lotus flowers, but in the sense or faculty to seize on mirth and appropriate her to his service in burden-bearing he is sadly deficient. He is but a child in this respect. While the Chinaman has inventive faculties and keen intellect and wonderful imitative powers, yet in other respects he is behind the progressive races of the world. He has made ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... speak English, and within one minute after you return to the wharf, he and I will be entangled in a rough and tumble riot. I'll attend to that. The row will be prodigious. The chief will be sent for to settle the war, and when he leaves the wharf, Quin, don't wait; seize on that silk trunk and throw it into the river. There's iron enough clamped about the corners to sink it; besides, it's packed so tightly it's as heavy as lead, and will go to the bottom like an anvil. Then from the pile pull down some trunk similar to it in looks and stand it in ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... the Bonapartists of course deny that Napoleon wished to become Director, or to seize on power at this time; see Lucien, tome 1. p. 154. Thiers (vol. v. p. 257) takes the same view. Lanfrey (tome i. p. 363) believes Napoleon was at last compelled by the Directory to start and he credits the story told by Desaix to Mathieu Dumas, or rather to the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... One felt it was genius, and could only note contributing circumstances—an eye that took in the preacher from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot; an almost uncannie insight into character; the instinct to seize on every scrap of evidence; a memory that was simply an automatic register; an unfailing sense of fitness; and an absolute ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... than such a time; he will point to a worn-out beast of burden that must die at such a time; he knows the death date of everything that springs from earth except himself. In his blind hope he grasps at the worst of straws. No new universal panacea comes out that he does not seize on it, and that he is not sure, for a little while is doing him good. At last he weakens in the struggle and is taken to the rear. The procession of Life moves on; he never joins it again. If all this ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... when Learning her lost Prize bestows The glitt'ring Eminence exempt from Foes; See when the Vulgar 'scap'd, despis'd or aw'd, Rebellion's vengeful Talons seize on Laud. From meaner Minds, tho' smaller Fines content The plunder'd Palace or sequester'd Rent; Mark'd out by dangerous Parts he meets the Shock, And fatal Learning leads him to the Block: Around his Tomb let Art and ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... and the thoughts from them one Lord in heaven? We have said and shown several times before that the whole angelic heaven is like one man in the Lord's sight, an image and likeness of Him, and all hell over against it like one monstrous man. This has been said because some natural men seize on arguments for their madness in favor of nature and of one's own prudence from even the constant and fixed which must exist for the variable to ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... irritability assumes the fallacious appearance of strength. It has become unusually sensitive to unusual stimuli and also, it is possible,—perhaps as a result of those conditions,—more liable to atavistic manifestations. An organism in this state becomes peculiarly apt to seize on the automatic sources of energy generated by emotion. The parched sexual instinct greedily drinks up and absorbs the force it obtains by applying abnormal stimuli to its emotional apparatus. It becomes largely, if not solely, dependent on the energy thus secured. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... pains; These first induce him the vile trash to try, Then lend his name, that other men may buy: This love of life, which in our nature rules, To vile imposture makes us dupes and tools; Then pain compels th' impatient soul to seize On promised hopes of instantaneous ease; And weakness too with every wish complies, Worn out and won by importunities. Troubled with something in your bile or blood, You think your doctor does you little good; And grown impatient, you require in haste The nervous cordial, nor dislike ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... before he turned his head as if listening to sounds in the road. They were the kind of sounds which had broken up The Squad, and sent it rushing down the passage into the street to seize on a newspaper. There was to be heard a commotion of newsboys shouting riotously some startling piece of news which had ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... And Lour to bouze with: I must have my Capons And Turkeys brought me in, with my green Geese, And Ducklings i'th' season: fine fat chickens, Or if you chance where an eye of tame Phesants Or Partridges are kept, see they be mine, Or straight I seize on all your priviledge, Places, revenues, offices, as forfeit, Call in your crutches, wooden legs, false bellyes, Forc'd eyes and teeth, with your dead arms; not leave you A durty clout to beg with o' your heads, Or an old rag with Butter, Frankincense, Brimston and Rozen, birdlime, ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... unexpectedly that I had dashed against something which made a bodily resistance—I received from an unseen power the most violent thrust which a human being ever felt. The working of terror was acting dreadfully within me; its effect was to close my arms as in a spasm, to seize on what stood unseen before me. I staggered onwards, and fell prostrate on the ground; beneath me on his back was a man whom I held fast, and who now ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... an eagle saw Seize on a lamb with beak and claw. Conceiving he could better do, He pounces on a well fed ewe; But he and not the sheep was caught; For when to fly with it he sought, His feet entangled in the wool, The ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... rehearsal was deadly! Every reporter in Paris! They made fun of it all. I shall underline in your copy, all the passages that they seized on. Yesterday and the day before they did not seize on them any more. Oh! well, so much the worse! It is too late. Perhaps the PRIDE of ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... see her eyes. He had remarked indeed that, whatever their expression, the brows, arched and rather wide apart, gave them a peculiar look of understanding. He thought of his picture. There was nothing in her face to seize on, it was too sympathetic, too much like light. Yet her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Israel. Therefore, mark my words. This is the Sabbath, and our hand shall not be on thee to spill thy blood upon this day; but, when the twelfth hour shall strike, it is a token that thy time on earth hath run! Wherefore improve thy span, for it flitteth fast away.—Seize on the prisoner, brethren, and take ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... my casket of ebony and electrum.' And they brought it; and he fashioned a crocodile of wax, seven fingers long: and he enchanted it, and said, 'When the page comes and bathes in my lake, seize on him.' And he gave it to the steward, and said to him, 'When the page shall go down into the lake to bathe, as he is daily wont to do, then throw in this crocodile behind him.' And the steward ...
— Egyptian Tales, First Series • ed. by W. M. Flinders Petrie
... never to treat with the English without their consent. They placed him under the charge of the Sieur de Vitre, who conducted him from castle to castle with so much secrecy, that Richard continually failed in his attempts to seize on him. Treaties were attempted, but failed, with mutual accusations of perfidy, and while Constance continued a prisoner, a most desolating war raged in the unfortunate duchy. The dislike and distrust that existed ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... you may seize on all you can, for everything he has belongs either to you or to me; for you must know that, not satisfied with the gold he carried off from your father, he broke into my house and stole the two greatest curiosities ever possessed even ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... the eyes of many tired wayfarers, as you see in the case of the Russian nobleman asleep among the portmanteaus; and Titmarsh, who has been walking the deck for some time with a great mattress on his shoulders, knowing full well that were he to relinquish it for an instant, some other person would seize on it, now stretches his bed upon the deck, wraps his cloak about his knees, draws his white cotton nightcap tight over his head and ears; and, as the smoke of his cigar rises calmly upwards to the deep sky and ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... beasts, enemies to mankind, that have double rows of teeth in their mouths. They are usurers, they come yawning for money, and the sheriff with them is come to serve an extent upon your land, and then seize on your body by force of execution: they have ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Live the Duke!" At which the joy-bells multitudinous, Swept by an opposite wind, as loudly shook. Call back the mild archbishop to his house, To bless the people with his frightened look,— He shall not yet be hanged, you comprehend! Seize on Guerazzi; guard him in full view, Or else we stab him in the back, to end! Rub out those chalked devices, set up new The Duke's arms, doff your Phrygian caps, and men The pavement of the piazzas broke into By barren poles of freedom: ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... Esq. the American consul; mentioning, that twelve sail of vessels belonging to the United States of America, with their cargoes on board, were in the road of Malaga, unable to proceed on their respective voyages, because three French privateers were waiting to seize on them the moment they got from under the guns of that port, and there was no doubt that the French consul would adjudge them to be good prizes, as he had recently adjudged several American vessels and cargoes. The consul ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... pieces, and swallows along with the shells. When caught, it fastens with indiscriminate rage upon anything within its reach, fights desperately, even when out of the water, and inflicts severe wounds if not avoided cautiously. Schonfeld relates this wolf-fish will seize on an anchor and leave the marks of its teeth in it, and Steller mentions one on the coast of Kamschatka, which he saw lay hold of a cutlass, with which a man was attempting to kill it, and break it to bits as if it had been made of glass. This monster is, from its great size, one of the most formidable ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... removal of these restraints more warmly than Lady Temple. She was perhaps the happiest of the happy, for with her there was no drawback, no sorrow, no parting to fear. Her first impulse, when Colonel Keith came to tell her his plans, was to seize on hat and shawl, and rush down to Mackarel Lane to kiss Ermine with all her heart, and tell her that "it was the most delightful thing of her to have consented at last, for nobody deserved so well to be happy as that dear Colonel;" and then she ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and feared by the Senate; but, on seeing that he took no measures to seize on power at Rome, they proceeded to thwart his wishes, and denied the expected allotments of land to his troops. The circumstances led to the formation of the first Triumvirate, which was an informal alliance between Pompeius, Caesar, and Crassus, against the Senatorial oligarchy, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... nobler advancements, whose rational and scientific advancements to the dignity and perfection of the human form, it was given to him and to his company to plan and initiate,—he declines to be held any longer responsible for the blind, demoniacal, irrational spirit, that would seize on his great instrument of science, and wrest it from its nobler object and intent, and debase it into the mere tool of the senses; the tool of a materialism more base and sordid than any that the world has ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... who by long slave-holding had sunk to the level of the whites around them, longed to seize on these valuable neighbors, and, indeed, they claimed rights of property in them as fugitives in fact from themselves. The exiles were assured by the President that they "had the right to remain in their villages, free from all interference or interruption from the Creeks." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the mode of its expression is changed. It works on modern lines, has taken to prose instead of poetry, and only occasionally unfurls wings. Why does not the Folklore Society investigate the origin of our modern myths? Why not seize on the instinct as it is seen at play in our midst, moulding movements and fashioning faiths? Why not catch it in the act—employ vivisection, so to speak, instead of dissecting dead remains? Why not try to extract from the living present the laws of the creation and development of myths and the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... KING EDWARD. Seize on the shame-fac'd Henry! bear him hence, And once again proclaim us king of England.— You are the fount that makes small brooks to flow. Now stops thy spring; my sea shall suck them dry And swell so much the higher by their ebb.— Hence ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... And they, that from the crystal river of life 350 Spring up on freshened wing, ambrosial gales! The favoured good man in his lonely walk Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks Strange bliss which he shall recognise in heaven. And such delights, such strange beatitudes 355 Seize on my young anticipating heart When that blest future rushes on my view! For in his own and in his Father's might The Saviour comes! While as the Thousand Years[122:1] Lead up their mystic dance, the Desert shouts! 360 Old Ocean claps his hands! The mighty ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... follow the principal characters of our story step for step, but merely present the prominent moments of their lives to our readers, be these great or small; we seize on them, if they in any way contribute to make the whole ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... o'clock, and which had increased in force with the increasing power of the sun, would flag and finally die away. The heat and electric tension of the atmosphere would then become almost insupportable. Languor and uneasiness would seize on every one, even the denizens of the forest, betraying it by their motions. White clouds would appear in the cast and gather into cumuli, with an increasing blackness along their lower portions. The whole eastern horizon would become almost suddenly black, and this would spread upwards, the sun at ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... asleep close by one of the party; and the sportsmen had difficulty in preventing the wounded geese from being seized before their eyes. It is said that several together (in this respect resembling the Carranchas) wait at the mouth of a rabbit-hole, and together seize on the animal when it comes out. They were constantly flying on board the vessel when in the harbour; and it was necessary to keep a good look-out to prevent the leather being torn from the rigging, and the meat or game from ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... there among you that is so athirst for blood? You save one man's life—after intercession and prayer you save one man's life—only to seize on that of another. And it is to me—it is to me, his daughter—that you come with congratulations! I am only a child; I am to be pleased: you speak of a sweetheart; but you do not tell me that you are about to murder my father! You give me my lover; ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... to me befits thee not. Desist. My potent will in vain thou wouldst resist. Seize on him, slaves, and do your work. Forbear Awhile. Reflect, and save thy life. I swear By Fo-hi's face, no harm shaft touch thy friend Nor thee, if thou consent ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... appear, I will not stir a foot from hence till they give me satisfaction for my Subjects whom they have slain, my Towns they have reduc'd to Ashes, and my Riches they have stoln from me. The Spaniards meet him, make a great Slaughter of his Men, and seize on the Person of the King Himself, who was carried in a Chair or Sedan on Mens Shoulders. There was a Treaty had about his Redemption, the King engaged to lay down Four Millions of Crowns, as the purchase of his Freedom, ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... stooped forwards, and struck the pen-knife with his whole force into the earth. But, as he was rising in order to quit so dreadful a place, he felt something pluck him forward; the apprehension he before was in, made an easy way for surprise and terror to seize on all his faculties: he lost in one instant every thing that could support him, and fell into a swoon, with his head in the vault, and part of his ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... whom Louisa had so haughtily commanded to seize on Gauffridi, were, like all other of the Franciscan orders, enemies of the Dominicans. They were jealous of the prominence gained for these latter by their demoniac friend. Their wandering life, moreover, by throwing ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... opportunity seldom returns; but I think you will agree with me that if the House of Lords, not content with its recent exploits with the legislative veto, were to seize on the new power which its backers claim for it over finance—if, not content with the extreme assertions of its own privileges, it were to invade the most ancient privileges of the House of Commons—if, ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill |
