"Beguile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was sunny; the flat rock on which they were perched lay out of the wind's reach; and to beguile the interval of waiting Annet drew out a book which she had brought with her—a much-worn copy of Hans Andersen which had arrived at Christmas, three years ago, as a gift from that mysterious Aunt Vazzy of whom their ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... bound; Yet shrank, and trembled, when success Its earnest, fullest wishes crown'd! This alien sinks, opprest with woe, And have you nothing to bestow? No language kind, to sooth or cheer?— No soften'd voice,—no tender tear?— No promise which may hope impart? No fancy to beguile the heart; To chace those dreary thoughts away, And ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... warmer than the old one, and had no other occupant. Here he passed the second week of his confinement. The stone walls of this cell had a melancholy interest. They were carved over nearly every available inch with figures of men, birds, and animals, cut, no doubt, by the former prisoners to beguile the weary hours. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... of a few months of solitude, of evanescent love affairs, when to beguile his loneliness, a man passes from the arms of one woman to those of another, had set up a new home, and had tied himself to a woman whom he had accidentally met at a party of friends, and who had managed to please him ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... 1584 and 1590, and he tells us that he accompanied Captain Clarke in an attack on the Azores and the Canaries. "Having," he tells his friend Lord Hunsdon, "with Captain Clarke made a voyage to the Islands of Terceras and the Canaries, to beguile the time with labour, I writ this book, rough, as hatched in the storms of the ocean, and feathered in the surges of many perilous seas." On August 26th, 1591, Lodge sailed from Plymouth with Sir Thomas Cavendish in the Desire, a galleon of 140 ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... were late, so to beguile the time Jacob struck up a merry tune, the whole company joining in the chorus. Song after song followed each other, interspersed with stories, some of old times and traditions, others of modern adventures at market or fair, until at midnight they all adjourned to the mill kitchen, ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... clever woman, Miss Van Tyne. You have brains in abundance. See, I do you justice. What is more, you are beautiful and can be so fascinating that a man who believed in you might easily worship you. You made him believe in you. You tried to beguile me into a condition that with my nature would be ruin indeed. You never had the baby plea of a silly, shallow woman. I took pains to find that out the first evening we met. In your art of beguiling an honest, trusting ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... these beneficial and auspicious words of Kesava, Karna worshipped Krishna, the slayer of Madhu, and said these words, "Knowing (everything), why dost thou yet, O thou of mighty arms, seek to beguile me? The destruction of the whole earth that is at hand for its cause, Sakuni, and myself, and Dussasana, and king Duryodhana, the son of Dhritarashtra. Without doubt, O Krishna, a great and fierce battle is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... would draw us on and beguile us in any sinful way, whispering that God will some day send special gifts and messengers of grace to inspire us with new life, this is his plain answer: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... greeted its familiar aspect as the face of an old friend in a foreign land. It was undoubtedly the number that had gone to press the night I had broken down, and I almost hoped to see some marks of the catastrophe in its columns. How could I beguile the coveted sheet from Miss Warren's hands and steal away ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... L'Heris is steep but not difficult, for the profusion of flowers and richly-scented plants, scattered over the short elastic turf, beguile the climber's path, and lure him pleasantly upward. The first pause I made was on a bold projection, skirting the forest of Haboura on one side, and on the other hanging over the beautiful valley of Campan. Beneath me lay the town of Bagneres, and, far as the eye could reach, extended ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... mountains all around; below, the green sea; above, the crystal solitudes of heaven; and, down in that green sea, the slumbering Siren islands: the three which stand together, and the one which swam to meet them, but has always remained half-way. These, and other reminiscences, beguile the time till the storm has passed, and the sun breaks over the great mountain which the Englishman has just described. He and little "Fortu" can now go into the village, and see the preparations being made for to-morrow's feast—that ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the hours that succeeded their departure, and few were the occupations that could beguile the tediousness of time. Adrian had outgrown his boyish amusements, and found himself very scantily provided with substitutes for them. He had naturally some taste for literature, but though, as has before been said, it was sometimes assisted by his father, it ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... his own ears. Now it fortuned that he heard one night from a certain of his nocturnal reciters[FN5] that among women are those who are doughtier than the doughtiest men and prower of prowess, and that among them are some who will engage in fight singular with the sword and others who beguile the quickest-witted of Walis and baffle them and bring down on them all manner of miseries; wherefore said the Soldan, "I would lief hear this of their legerdemain from one of those who have had to do with it, so I ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the story which the wise harper told to Siegfried as they sailed gayly along the Norwegian shore. And with many other pleasant tales did they beguile the hours away. And no one ever thought of danger, for the sky was blue and cloudless. And, besides this, Bragi himself was on board; and he could charm and ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... prayers were at eight o'clock; directly after which Mr. Bronte and old Tabby went to bed, and Martha was not long in following. But Charlotte could not have slept if she had gone,—could not have rested on her desolate couch. She stopped up,—it was very tempting,—late and later, striving to beguile the lonely night with some employment, till her weak eyes failed to read or to sew, and could only weep in solitude over the dead that were not. No one on earth can even imagine what those hours were to her. All the grim superstitions of the North ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... be right glad, Although in woe I seem to moan; Thy father is no rascal lad: A noble youth of blood and bone, His glancing looks, if he once smile, Right honest women may beguile. ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... of pilgrims, on their way to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket at Canterbury, met at the old Tabard Inn, later called the Talbot, in Southwark, and the host proposed that they should beguile the ride by each telling a tale to his fellow-pilgrims. This we all know was the origin of the immortal Canterbury Tales of our great fourteenth-century poet, Geoffrey Chaucer. Unfortunately, the tales were never completed, and perhaps that is why the quaint and curious "Canterbury Puzzles," devised ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... be a perpetual companion. Friends come and go, but the book may beguile all experiences and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... alien, and Mr. Legality is a cheat; and for his son Civility, notwithstanding his simpering looks, he is but a hypocrite and cannot help thee. Believe me, there is nothing in all this noise, that thou hast heard of these sottish men, but a design to beguile thee of thy salvation, by turning thee from the way in which I had set thee. After this, Evangelist called aloud to the heavens for confirmation of what he had said: and with that there came words and fire out of the mountain under which poor Christian stood, that made the hair ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... io parlai." Those eyes, 'neath which my passionate rapture rose, The arms, hands, feet, the beauty that erewhile Could my own soul from its own self beguile, And in a separate world of dreams enclose, The hair's bright tresses, full of golden glows, And the soft lightning of the angelic smile That changed this earth to some celestial isle, Are now but dust, poor dust, that nothing knows. And yet I live! Myself I grieve and scorn, Left ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Simpson's departure was the signal for a salute of seven guns, which was duly repeated at every subsequent fort. The whole population lined the waterside as the voyageurs struck up one of their old French folk-songs to beguile the way. The arrival at Norway House was still more imposing. The Union Jack, with the magic letters 'H. B. C.' on its fly, was hoisted, to the admiration of all the whites and Indians from that ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... explanation of this following Poem were but to beguile thy appetite and somewhat dull thy expectation; but the work it selfe being now an Orphant, and wanting him to protect that first begot it, it were an iniury to his memory to passe him unspoken of. For the man his Muse was much courted but no common ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... organ-grinder, and think himself at the opera. This temple is free for him to enter and "muse till the fire burns"; on yonder bookseller's counter is an epitome of the wisdom of ages; there he may buy a nosegay to propitiate his lady-love, or a sewing-machine to beguile his womankind, and here a crimson balloon or spring rocking-horse, to delight his little boy, and rare gems or a silver service for a bridal gift. This English tailor will provide him with a "capital fit," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... beguile the monotony of waiting she hunted up the blank-book in which she had begun to write "The Life Story of Gallant Captain Aaron Sproul." She read the brief notes that she had been able to collect from him and reflected with bitterness that there was little hope of securing much more data from ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... of walking and they sat down on a bench to rest, the Major had always some interesting story to tell, to beguile the time, and Dora was certain that no one in the whole world could tell such delightful stories as her father, who was indeed in her opinion the most agreeable and lovable of men. Her favorite tales, ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... gun crew who were not occupied in scanning the water with their glasses were glad enough to beguile the tedium of the days before the danger zone was reached in ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... impressed and influenced by colonial magnates grew and gathered strength within him. Such a ruler, of course, the serpents that had only been "scotched, but not killed," by the stern procedures of Governor Gordon, could wind round, beguile, and finally cause to fall. Measure after measure of his predecessor which he could in any way neutralize in the interests of the colonial clique, was rendered of none effect. In fact, he was subservient to the wishes of those who had all long objected to those measures, but had not dared ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... rule, mollified, held good with Miss Galindo. Certain things, in which my lady knew she took an interest, were laid out ready for her to examine on this very day; and, what was more, great books of prints were laid out, such as I remembered my lady had had brought forth to beguile my own early days of illness,—Mr. Hogarth's works, and the like,—which I was sure were put ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... larger streams our steps beguile;— We see the cascade, broad and fair, Dashed headlong down to foam, the while Its iris-spirit leaps ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... ne'er retreated, Beauty's tear will sure beguile; Hearts that armies ne'er defeated, Love can conquer with a smile. Who would strive to live in story, Did not woman's hand prepare Amaranthine wreaths of glory ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... suffic'd, did late repair To ferny heaths and to their forest lair, She made a mannerly excuse to stay, Proff'ring the hind to wait her half the way; That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk Might help her to beguile the tedious walk. With much good-will the motion was embrac'd, To chat awhile on their adventures past: Nor had the grateful hind so soon forgot Her friend and fellow-suff'rer in the plot. Yet, wond'ring how of late she grew estrang'd, Her forehead cloudy and her count'nance ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... his arm again. It was sweet at such times to feel such utter dependence upon him as the protective male, and the best in him was stirred to response. The next morning she might jar again from the hour of getting up in their ugly hotel room, through the expedition with which they would try and beguile the day, to the dinner, at which her conversation was always most noticeably trifling; but he always, to her surprise, let her go to bed alone, and came up much later to find the old magic upon her once ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... there were compassion and comprehension. The old woman could tell marvellous tales and so could beguile the waiting days. Nella-Rose meant to confide in her and ask her to hide her until Truedale came for her. It was a sudden inspiration ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... after our arrival my friend of the steamer, Madame A——, the pretty Austrian bride, invited me to breakfast, and sent her husband's brother, a fine-looking young Greek, to escort me to her house. He spoke only Greek and Italian—I neither: however, he endeavored to beguile the way by conversing animatedly in Italian. As he gazed up at the sun several times, inhaled with satisfaction the exhilarating air and pointed to the sparkling waters of the Bosphorus and the distant hills, I presumed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... plainly. What is it but a clandestine procedure to take advantage of a guardian's absence and beguile a young girl into a ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Siggeir: "I thank thee well for this, And thy bidding is most kingly; yet take it not amiss That I wend my ways in the morning; for we Goth-folk know indeed That the sea is a foe full deadly, and a friend that fails at need, And that Ran who dwells thereunder will many a man beguile: And I bear a woman with me; nor would I for a while Behold that sea-queen's dwelling; for glad at heart am I Of the realm of the Goths and the Volsungs, and I look for long to lie In the arms of the fairest woman that ever a ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... box, and certain projecting nails interfered with the letter-press and defeated all attempts to trace the thread of the nameless narrative, stole back over my brain; and I seemed once more, with my head in the Toy Box, to beguile a wet afternoon by apoplectic endeavours to follow the fortunes of Sir Charles and Lady Belinda, as they took a favourable turn in the left-hand corner at the bottom of ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... to Thorwaldsen's studio, and made mention that the Master was a bit of a poseur. Byron came, and as we know, sat for that statue which is now at Cambridge. The artist sought to beguile the melancholy sitter with pleasant conversation, but the author of "Don Juan" would have none of it, and when the work was completed and unveiled before him, he exclaimed in disappointment, "I look ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... was infinitely more slow and difficult than the ascent, and much more trying to the nerves. I had not Salvador at my side, nor the mountain before me, to beguile me from my fears; at length I prevailed on one of our attendants, a fine tall figure of a man, to sing to me; and though he had been up the mountain six times in the course of the day, he sang delightfully and with great spirit and expression, as he strided along ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... mules, took out the clothes, and steeped them in the cisterns, washing them in several waters, and afterwards treading them clean with their feet, venturing wagers who should have done soonest and cleanest, and using many pretty pastimes to beguile their labour as young maids use, while the princess looked on. When they had laid their clothes to dry, they fell to playing again, and Nausicaa joined them in a game with the ball, which is used in that country, which is performed by tossing the ball from hand to hand with ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... for the fact—that Captain Brown was heard to say, sotto voce, "D-n Dr Johnson!" If he did, he was penitent afterwards, as he showed by going to stand near Miss Jenkyns' arm-chair, and endeavouring to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing subject. But she was inexorable. The next day she made the remark I have mentioned about Miss ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... when was not something happening to some of us?) and we were shut up in a sick-room, then duly as daylight came the quick step and cheerful face of Aunt Esther,—not solemn and lugubrious like so many sick-room nurses, but with a never-failing flow of wit and story that could beguile even the most doleful into laughing at their own afflictions. I remember how a fit of the quinsy—most tedious of all sicknesses to an active child—was gilded and glorified into quite a fete by my having Aunt Esther all to myself for two whole days, with nothing to do but amuse me. She charmed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... purpose than his own amusement and the gratification of his curiosity. He could not deny it when brought squarely to the issue. He could not look me in the eyes and say that he was my honest friend. He would flirt with me, if he could, to beguile his burdensome leisure; but when I defined what some are to me, and more would be, if permitted, he found no better refuge than gallantry and evasion. What can he mean? what can he hope except to see me in his power, and ready to accept any terms he may choose to offer? O Arthur ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... office in the Siddons Theatre Building and again seated himself at his desk in front of the pile of manuscript music. This time, however, he brushed aside the title page of his Opus 47 and spread out an evening paper to beguile the tedium of awaiting Benson's "prospects." Automatically he turned to the department headed Music and Musicians, and at the top of the column his eye fell on the ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... contain the joy that is in them. They come and go aimlessly,—they whose every movement has always its precise and useful purpose—they depart and return, sally forth once again to see if the queen be ready, to excite their sisters, to beguile the tedium of waiting. They fly much higher than is their wont, and the leaves of the mighty trees round about all quiver responsive. They have left trouble behind, and care. They no longer are ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... hee shall sende vs in the shippes and according to such paternes as hee shall send. Wee doe not finde the Ambassadour nowe at the last so conformable to reason as wee had thought wee shoulde. Hee is very mistrustfull, and thinketh euery man will beguile him. Therefore you had neede to take heede howe you haue to doe with him or with any such, and to make your bargaines plaine, and to set them downe in writing. For they bee subtill people, and doe not alwaies speake the trueth, and thinke other men to bee like themselues. Therefore ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... a start," he said, as he plumped up the cushion and dusted the cup. "It won't do to begin too energetically, or Rose will be frightened. I must beguile her gently and pleasantly along till I've won her confidence, and then she will be ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... me and twine me about thy body, doing as I bid thee, and behold! for a while thy shape shall wear the shape of the Golden Helen, and thy face shall be as her face, and thine eyes as her eyes, and thy voice as her voice. Then I leave the rest to thee, for as Helen's self thou shalt beguile the Wanderer, and once, if once only, be a wife to him whom thou desireth. Naught can I tell thee of the future, I who am but a counsellor, but hereafter it may be that woes will come, woes and wars and death. But what matter these when thou hast had thy desire, when he hath sinned, and ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... She soon neared the brig which Paolo at once recognised as the English merchantman they had passed in Valetta harbour. He had heard from the chief who were the passengers on board, and the ruse to be practised had also been confided to him. He had been endeavouring to beguile, to him, the weary hours of the voyage with reading, while the chief slept, for sleep refused to visit his eyelids. A thought seemed to strike him. He wrote hastily in the book, and tearing out the leaf, placed it in his bosom. He ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... an unknown outcast. When I found you pitied me, and listened to my love—I was too weak to forego the one ray of sunshine in my wretched life—and, thinking that I had a prospect before me in an idea I promised to reveal to you later, I swore never to beguile you or myself in that hope by any act that might bring you to repent it—or myself to dishonor. But I taxed myself too much, Maruja. I have asked too much of you. You are right, darling; this secrecy—this deceit—is unworthy of us! Every hour of it—blest as it has been to me—every ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... case, urging him not to be angry with her. Defending herself, she said, "Thou shouldst not reproach me, husband, nor wouldst thou in thy heart if thou knewst what is in mine, or what my portion has been since with fair words in many-mansioned Sparta he did beguile me. With words smoother than honey, and sweeter than the comb of it he did beguile me, and with false words made me believe that I was forsaken and betrayed; and urged me to take ship with him in search of thee. Nor ever once did he reveal himself until we touched Cranae in the ship. Then ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett
... usually by previous arrangement, two letters to him, in one of which was stated the true value of the commodity and in the other the value at which it was desired to purchase or to dispose of it. The latter letter was for public perusal and rarely failed to beguile the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... (cease) 142; pause &c (be quiet) 265. wait, lie in wait, bide one's time, take time, tide it over. cool one's heels, kick one's heels; while away the time, while away tedious hours; pass the time, fill up the time, beguile the time; talk against time; let the grass grow under one's feet; waste time &c (inactive) 683. lie by, lie on the shelf, lie in ordinary, lie idle, lie to, lie fallow; keep quiet, slug; have nothing ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... more glad to me, Than to be made a queen, If I were sure they should endure: But it is often seen, When men will break promise they speak The wordis on the spleen. Ye shape some wile me to beguile, And steal from me, I ween: Then were the case worse than it was And I more wo-begone: For, in my mind, of all mankind I ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... from Nummasoolo. Was under the necessity of leaving here William Allen sick. Paid the Dooty for him as usual. I regretted much leaving this man; he had naturally a cheerful disposition; and he used often to beguile the watches of the night with the songs ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... an empty moment. If he had to wait for a dish of poached eggs, he must put in the time by playing on the flageolet; if a sermon were dull, he must read in the book of Tobit or divert his mind with sly advances on the nearest women. When he walked, it must be with a book in his pocket to beguile the way in case the nightingales were silent; and even along the streets of London, with so many pretty faces to be spied for and dignitaries to be saluted, his trail was marked by little debts "for wine, pictures, etc.," the true headmark of ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... (jolly shepheard) though with pleasing style Thou feast the humour of the Courtly trayne, Let not conceipt thy setled sence beguile, Ne daunted be through envy or disdaine. Subject thy dome to her Empyring spright, From whence thy Muse, and ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... Jose again, my Andres? He loves to play that thou and Teresita are children still, Jose; it serves to beguile him into forgetting the years upon his head! Welcome, Senors. Teresita but told me this moment that you had come. She is bringing ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... these all perish'd in one flaming pile; The foe old Priam did of life beguile, And with his ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... I could not beguile you into a discussion of the subject upon which we differ so widely. Pardon the malicious reference, but it seemed to me that you had closed the door of your "upper chamber" and hastened down here to confess your own ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... beguile his bold Unsleeping vigilance; E'en in the fireflame, old Visions unheeded dance. Fearless of lurking spy, Scornful of wassail-swell, With an ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... their dad, wi' flichterin'[320-7] noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily, His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary carking[320-8] cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Augustus at the favor of all, by the honorable virtues of your mind, being myself first a student, and after falling from books to arms, even vowed in all my thoughts dutifully to affect your Lordship. Having with Captain Clarke made a voyage to the island of Terceras and the Canaries, to beguile the time with labor I writ this book; rough, as hatched in the storms of the ocean, and feathered in the surges of many perilous seas. But as it is the work of a soldier and a scholar, I presumed to shroud it under your Honor's patronage, as ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... duty to rise above the folly of thinking too much of a man who would never be anything more to her than a mere acquaintance. With a determined effort to stifle feelings of wounded pride and disappointment, she ordered Tommy to the piano to beguile the company with ragtime ditties at which he was past-master, and while he played and others sang, notably Bobby Smart, who was not to be chained to the side of Mrs. Fox, the latter was left to cultivate the acquaintance of the shy Apollo, ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... But other people did want to know them and the newspaper reporters and busybodies of all sorts incessantly buzzed about him, employing every device from subtle flattery to masked threats to discover his designs. But Grant knew "how to keep silent in seven different languages" and no one could beguile him into opening his lips. Neither had he time nor inclination to listen to other people talk. His troops were spread over a thousand miles of territory, and never before had they been under the absolute control of any one ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... anecdote of the drowning officer's rescue. During the first eight days he remained shut up in the bed-room or sitting-room which we occupied, in expectation of despatches from Buonaparte, to whom he wrote on his arrival at Cannes. At the end of this time, having received no answer, he used to beguile his impatience by rambling on the sea shore, or watching the sports of the peasants, till at length, evidently heart-sick and desperate, he set out for Toulon on the rash expedition which closed his career. "Toujours, toujours, il avoit la mine ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... sin, taste of the heaven they miss, And they that suffer quit their debt at last. Lo! We have loved thee, laying hard on thee Grievous assaults of soul, and this black road. Bethink thee: by a semblance once, dear Son! Drona thou didst beguile; and once, dear Son! Semblance of hell hath so thy sin assoiled, "Which passeth with these shadows. Even thus Thy Bhima came a little space t' account, Draupadi, Krishna,—all whom thou didst love, Never again to lose! Come, First of ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... frightened," said the Colonel; "it was only that little witch Una who could have deluded him into such a crowd, and, as soon as she saw a bigger boy to beguile, she instantly deserted Keith, so I ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 'tis so, They shall be pleas'd, whether they will or no.— Which will come first? what, both give back! ha, neither! Why, then, yond help that both may come together[442]. So, stand still, stand [still] but a little while, And see, how I your angers will beguile. Well, yet there is no hurt; why, then, let me Join these two hands, and see how they'll agree: Peace, peace! they cry; look how they friendly kiss! Well, all this while there is no harm in this: Are not these ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... my much-loved boy! Behold his eyes, his looks, his smile! No more, alas! will he enkindle joy, Nor on some kindlier shore my woes beguile. ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... constantly attending to him, his watch being shared by the old lady and her two daughters, who proved extraordinarily kind and solicitous. Then the patient began to mend, slowly; and the young women—who proved to be twins, named respectively Clara and Dolores—did their best to beguile the time for their two guests by teaching them Spanish. And remarkably efficient teachers they proved to be, too; their pupils making enough progress within the next three weeks to enable them to gather a tolerably correct general idea of what was said to them. Thus, little by little, and by ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... To beguile one such afternoon when the rain set in early and walking was impossible, I found my way to the shop of an old dealer in bric-a-brac. It was not a monotonous display, after the manner of the Parisian dealer, of a stock-in-trade the like of which one has seen many times ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... great agitation, tossed by doubt, and full of anxiety lest his self-love should beguile him from his duty. [ Buteux, Narr, MS. ] Was it not possible that the Indians might spare his life, and that, by a timely drop of water, he might still rescue souls from torturing devils, and eternal ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... fleet he undertook to chastise the Cypriots for an outrage on some Genoese gentlemen. But calling at Rhodes on the way, the Grand Master of the Hospitallers persuaded him to try the effect of mediation first of all, and proceeded to Cyprus himself for that purpose. Whereupon the Marshal, 'to beguile the time, and give employment to the fiery spirits on board his squadron' (says a later chronicler) 'ran down at a venture to the Syrian city of Scanderoon, which place he carried by assault and plundered.' Encouraged ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... against him in the matter. Then the story of little Katy was told as one might tell something that had happened a hundred years ago, without any personal sympathy. It was simply a curious story, an interesting adventure with which to beguile a weary hour of stage riding in the darkness. It would have gratified Albert to have been able to detect the vibration of a painful memory or a pitying emotion, but Helen did not suffer her placidity to be ruffled by disturbing emotion. The conversation drifted to ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... that I shall do unto thee?' He had asked the same question a little while before, under very different circumstances. When James and John came and tried to beguile Him into a blind promise, because they knew that It was not likely that they would get what they asked if they said it out at first. He avoided the snare with that same question, To them the question was a refusal; ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... constable, who was slightly indisposed and pretended to be very much so, "I know," said he, "that you are keeping up a connection with the emperor, and that he is trying to turn your discontent to advantage, so as to beguile you; but I have faith in you; you are of the House of France and of the line of Bourbon, which has never produced a traitor." "It is true, sir," said the constable, without any confusion; "the emperor, informed by public rumor ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... so. I thought shame to beguile a poor old man that way, but, sir, I could not stop it. He came every day, and they looked in the crystal—just as they were doing this afternoon, you know. He's worse now; I think he forgets betweenwhiles what was ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... remembers the affection which the King, his father, had toward you. It appears to me that he always accorded to you all that you desired for your friends," she added, with animation, in order to put him into the track of praise, and to beguile him from the discontent which he had so ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... represent to the Phansie such as the Parties use to fear, in which his representation he may well lye as in his other Witness: For if the Devil can represent to the Witch a seeming Samuel, saying, I see Gods ascending out of the Earth, to beguile Saul, may we not think he can represent a common ordinary Person, Man or Woman unregenerate, tho' no Witch to the Phansie of vain Persons, to deceive them and others that will give Credit to the Devil." ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... thee, and made an advance, The thought to beguile, to the vineyards of France. But 'twould not be cheated; of all that was rare, Fond Nature kept whispering a wish thou could'st share: No air softly swelling, no chord struck with glee, But awoke in the bosom remembrance of thee. Even now, as the cold winds adown ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various
... when the herd give a Bachelor's ball. Then drest in their best, In their gold broidered vest, It is known as a fact, That they act with much tact, And they lisp out 'How do?' And they coo and they woo, And they smile, for a while, Their fair guests to beguile; Condescending and bending, For fear of offending, Though inert, And they spy, They exert, With their eye, To be pert, And they sigh And to ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... any thought of what would come to me if he were caught that grieved me, but only care for him; for I had come to lean in everything upon this grim and grizzled giant, and love him like a father. So when he was away I took to reading to beguile my thoughts; but found little choice of matter, having only my aunt's red Prayer-book that I thrust into my bosom the afternoon that I left Moonfleet, and Blackbeard's locket. For that locket hung always round my neck; and I often had the parchment out and read it; not that I did not know it now ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... than one tumble. Paco, either out of respect to the presence of Rita, or concern for the Count's misfortune, rode along, contrary to his custom, in profound silence, and without indulging in any of those snatches of muleteers' songs with which it was his wont to beguile ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... frost annoy'd our feet, And when the herbage all was parch'd with heat, Whether the grim wolf's ravage to prevent Or the huge lion's, arm'd with darts we went? Whose converse, now, shall calm my stormy day, With charming song who, now, beguile my way? 60 Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due To other cares than those of feeding you. In whom shall I confide? Whose counsel find A balmy med'cine for my troubled mind? Or whose discourse with innocent delight Shall fill me now, and ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... in a mystie morning if thou wilt Make pitfalls for the larke and pheldifare, Thy prop and sweake shall be both overguilt, With Cyparissus selfe thou shalt compare For gins and wyles, the oozels to beguile, Whilst thou under a ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... bewildered and cowed beneath a robust stroke of fate. I felt that the thing one ought to aim at doing was to look experience steadily in the face, whether sweet or bitter, to interrogate it firmly, to grasp its significance. If one cowers away from it, if one tries to distract and beguile the soul, to forget the grief in feverish activity, well, one may succeed in dulling the pain as by some drug or anodyne; but the lesson of life is thereby deferred. Why should one so faint-heartedly persist in making ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... others? But in writing to amuse, if I fail, the only evil is my own disappointment. If, however, I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humour with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, surely, I shall ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... what profit can you see In hating such a hateless thing as me? There is no sport in hate where all the rage Is on one side: in vain would you assuage Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, 5 In which not even contempt lurks to beguile Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate. Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate! For to your passion I am far more coy Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy 10 In winter noon. Of your antipathy If I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... professor, "it is all very well for you, who have a lovely wife and a sweet little daughter, to laugh at me. But I am a bachelor; I have no wife, no daughter, no domestic ties of any sort to beguile my restless nature and render me content to settle down in the monotonous placidity of a home; I must always be occupied in some exciting pursuit, or I should go mad from very weariness and ennui; and since our memorable cruise ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... leopard, and a great wild boar. Also he took the shape of running water, and of a flowering tree. And all the while we held him fast. When at last he was weary, he said, 'Which of the gods, son of Atreus [Footnote: A'-treus.], bade thee thus waylay me?' But I answered him: 'Wherefore dost thou beguile me, old man, with crooked words? I am held fast in this isle, and can find no escape therefrom. Tell me now which of the gods hindereth me, and how I may return across the sea?' The old man made reply: 'Thou shouldst have done sacrifice to Zeus and ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... is it that some Force, too wise, too strong, Even for yourselves to conquer or beguile, Sweeps earth, and heaven, and men, and gods along, Like the broad volume of the insurgent Nile? And the great powers we serve, themselves may be ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... recollected the little fascinating actress from whom I had so suddenly parted on the preceding night; still I must say, that I was so much occupied with the charms of her successor, that I sought the society of the youthful Melpomene more with a view to beguile the time, than from any ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... social demands on her time in Rome, she continued to devote herself to her art, and Signor Zucchi, hoping to beguile her into idleness, purchased a charming villa at Castel Gondolfo; but in spite of its attractions she was never content to be long away from Rome and ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... conscious of an indestructible dominion;—the Soul may fall away from it, not being able to sustain its grandeur; but, if once felt and acknowledged, by no act of any other faculty of the mind can it be relaxed, impaired, or diminished.—Fancy is given to quicken and to beguile the temporal part of our nature, Imagination to incite and to support the eternal.—Yet is it not the less true that Fancy, as she is an active, is also, under her own laws and in her own spirit, a creative faculty. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... would not turn away her eye from his fair face. Every day he seemed to her to be more and more like to the bright heroes who feast with the gods in the halls of high Olympos, and her heart became filled with love, and she sought to beguile Bellerophon by her enticing words. But he hearkened not to her evil prayer, and heeded not her tears and sighs; so her love was turned to wrath, and she vowed a vow that Bellerophon should suffer a sore vengeance, because he would not hear her prayer. Then, in her rage, she went ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... loved Madame de Maisonneuve, full of feeling, sense, sweetness, information to beguile me back to life, and of sympathy to open my sad ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... deck, and how it rolls like a snake along the waters! What you fancy to be merely a local head-wind blowing through the Straits, is a mistral tormenting the whole Gulf of Lions. We shall be tossing about presently in a manner unpleasant to landsmen; and when you are safely housed, I will come and beguile a little time by relating a true story of a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... these contend, Can surly Virtue hope to fix a friend? Slaves that with serious impudence beguile, And lie without a blush, without a smile, Exalt each trifle, every vice adore, Your taste in snuff, your judgment in a whore, Can Balbo's eloquence applaud, and swear 150 He gropes his breeches with ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... Nanie's charming, sweet, an' young; Nae artfu' wiles to win ye, O: May ill befa' the flattering tongue That wad beguile my Nanie, O. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... when they again emerged. A great multitude had already assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing cards to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarrelling, joking. Everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects in the centre of all—the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... hardly be with-held from returning to the scene we had quitted — You will perceive it would have been very absurd for me to argue with a man that talked so madly. — On all such occasions, the first torrent of passion must be allowed to subside gradually. — I endeavoured to beguile his attention by starting little hints and insinuating other objects of discourse imperceptibly; and being exceedingly pleased in my own mind at this event, I exerted myself with such an extraordinary flow of spirits ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... drowsiness, to beguile the time, he looks back to his past experience, and the prison became his Patmos—the gate of heaven—a Bethel, in which his time was occupied in writing for the benefit of his fellow-Christians. He looks back upon all the wondrous way through which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Trench the uncertainty of his dreadful shooting, despite all his former "practice." We might relate the interesting stories, anecdotes, and narratives with which the explorers and the hunter sought to beguile the pleasant periods that used to follow supper and precede repose, and describe the tremendous energy of Paul Burns in springing to the rescue of the self-willed baby when it fell into the fire, and the cool courage of Oliver Trench in succouring the same baby when it tumbled into ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... down at him over a carefully poised needle. "How can you be hungry when you ate your breakfast not two hours ago?" she added with the intent to beguile ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... their begetters. Of the men-children they reared most, but the women- children they slew at once; for they valued not women of their own blood: but besides the women of the Dale, they would go at whiles in bands to the edges of the Plain and beguile wayfarers, and bring back with them thence women to be their bed-thralls; albeit some of these were bought with a ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... to end as it began. Thus it is that a question, plausible to appearance, may contain within it capacities of misunderstanding, cross-purposes, and pointless issues, sufficient to occupy the long night of Pandemonium, or beguile the journey to the nearest ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... freaks of proud delight, Beguile the remnant of the night; And many a snatch of jovial song Regales them as they wind along; 590 While to the music, from on high, The echoes make a glad reply.— But the sage Muse the revel heeds No farther than her story needs; Nor will she servilely attend 595 The loitering journey ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... love to," assented Dolly eagerly. "I wish she'd let me take her," but for the present, at least, the sorrowful baby refused to leave her safe resting-place, and only clung more tightly to Mr. Marshall when the girls tried to beguile her. ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... down the garden, counting the number of steps he took, counting the number of shrubs along each path, and devising every sort of means to beguile the time, when he heard hasty steps, and Russell burst in at the back gate, breathless with ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... beguile us into believing that the interposition of the Fairies in our Baroness's domestic arrangements, grows up, if one shall so hazardously speak, from TWO seeds, each bearing two branches—namely, from two wrongs, the one hitting, the other striking from, themselves—BOTH which wrongs ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... common Mother saw; Now earlie greets black Flores banefull Ile, (Flores, from whence afflictions selfe doth draw The true memorialls of a weeping stile;) And with Caisters Querristers[1] which straw Descant, that might Death of his darts beguile, He tunes saluting notes, sweeter then long, All which are made ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... purchas'd, doth inherit paine, As painefully to poare vpon a Booke, To seeke the light of truth, while truth the while Doth falsely blinde the eye-sight of his looke: Light seeking light, doth light of light beguile: So ere you finde where light in darkenesse lies, Your light growes darke by losing of your eyes. Studie me how to please the eye indeede, By fixing it vpon a fairer eye, Who dazling so, that eye shall be his heed, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Grimhild wholly beguile; she will implore thee Brynhild to demand for the hand of Gunnar, king of Goths: the journey thou wilt forthwith promise ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... I'll take a stroll down Broadway," he said, a little coldly. "Your friend Miriam will probably be here before I return. If not, there are books yonder with which to beguile ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... but you twain should thank God and your good father and mother! for if you had been bred up with less care, this companion, whatso his name be, should have essayed to beguile you as I am a Cumberland woman. A pair of comely young lasses like you should have been a great catch ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... Macbeth. Oh! never Shall sun that morrow see! Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters:—to beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it. He that's coming Must be provided for; and you shall put This night's great business into my dispatch, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... his volume proof against the rigid censor: but to liberal criticism he submits, with the confidence of a man conscious of having neither negligence nor presumption to impute to himself. He wrote to beguile the tedium of many a heavy hour; and when he wrote looked not beyond the satisfaction which at some future period might be afforded to a few friends, as well as to his own mind, by a review of those hardships which in common with his ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... boy! I tremble with affright! Awake, and chase this fatal thought! Unclose Thine eye but for one moment on the light! Even at the price of thine, give me repose! Sweet error! he but slept, I breathe again; Come, gentle dreams, the hour of sleep beguile! O, when shall he, for whom I sigh in vain, Beside me watch to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... and the dexterous, and the discreet and the judicious, and them gifted with determination, is't not such as sufficeth for the overturning of empires and systems, O my mistress, fair one, sapphire of this city? And is't not written that I shall beguile Shagpat by its means, and master the Event, and shame the King of Oolb and his Court? And I shall then sit in state among men, and surround myself with adornments and with slaves, mute, that speak not save at the signal, and are as statues ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of a bubble, there, held fixedly by living coral, the dead shell could not choose but whistle. So I left it to its wayward pipings, happy to have been the sole auditor to a purely natural, albeit mechanical, monotone. Upon such an instrument did the heavenly maid beguile the time when she was yet uncouthly young—at the hoydenish age when men also cajoled her with clicking sticks and the beating of hollow logs, and music was but a ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Nor was't alone their avarice or pride, Their triumphs or their cares he did deride; Their vain contentions or ridiculous fears, But even their very poverty and tears. He would at Fortune's threats as freely smile As others mourn; nor was it to beguile His crafty passions; but this habit he By nature had, and grave philosophy. He knew their idle and superfluous vows, And sacrifice, which such wrong zeal bestows, Were mere incendiaries; and that the ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... his countrywomen has a right to demand, on me be all the blame. But for ten persons who give you flattery and sneers, you will not find one who will tell you wholesome truths. I will tell you what seems to me true and wholesome. Poetasters and cheap sentimentalists will berhyme and beguile you: I cannot help it; but I will at least attempt to administer the corrective of what should be common sense. The Magister was forced to let Von Falterle have a hand in Albano's education, but he "swore to weed as much out of him every day ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... al-Rahman was watching with his eyes and hearkening with his ears, and he was certified that there was no frowardness in the Dervish and he said to himself, "Were he a lewd fellow, he had not stood out against all this importunity." The boy continued to beguile the Dervish and every time he expressed purpose of prayer, he interrupted him, till at last he waxed wroth with passing wrath and was rough with him and beat him. Kamar al-Zaman wept and his father came in and having wiped away his tears and comforted him ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... us a work to accomplish, wherein our eternal interests are at stake; a work to which we are naturally indisposed. We live in a world abounding with objects which distract our attention and divert our endeavours; and a deadly enemy is ever at hand to seduce and beguile us. If we persevere indeed, success is certain; but our efforts must know no remission. There is a call on us for vigorous and continual resolution, self-denial, and activity. Now, man is not a being of ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... with impatience for the day that was to see the end of his enterprise. To beguile himself of his nervousness in the night, during the dark hours that trailed on to morning, he would venture out of the lodging where he lay in hiding throughout the day, and pick his steps in the silence up the winding streets, until he came under a narrow opening in an alley ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... time that we waste is that which is spent in anxious, trivial, conventional things. We have to bear them in our burdens, many of us, but do not let us be for ever examining them, weighing them in our hands, wishing them away, whining over them; we must not let them beguile us of the better part. If the despairing part of us cries out that it is frightened, wearied, anxious, we must not heed it; we must again and again assure ourselves that the peace is there, and that we miss it by our own fault. Above ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson |
