"Bespeak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so late that when he came in, Virginia was the only one of the four who remained at table. She stayed to pour his coffee and to bespeak peace. ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... the collection of letters you made more precious by endorsing! I beseech you to thank all my dear correspondents, and to bespeak their patience for answers, which shall arrive by every wind that I can make blow their way; but yet more, beseech their generous attention to my impatience for more, should the wind blow fair for me before it will let me hail ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... said Richie, again waving his hand, as if to bespeak his master's silence and attention; "so, I trust, you will think some time hereafter. And, as I am about to leave your service, it is proper that ye suld know the truth, that ye may consider the snares to which your youth and innocence may be exposed, when aulder and doucer heads are withdrawn from ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Saturday (the day after to-morrow) at 12 o'clock, and then kindly to help him in showing Oxford to the princeps juventutis. They leave again at 8 o'clock in the evening. The party will of course want some rooms in the best hotel, to rest themselves. So it might be well to bespeak some rooms for the travellers as a pied a terre. The party travel under the name of Colonel Fischer ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... they are associated also with its sound. Among themselves they are an extraordinarily talkative company. They chatter at the traghetti, where they always have some sharp point under discussion; they bawl across the canals; they bespeak your commands as you approach; they defy each other from afar. If you happen to have a traghetto under your window, you are well aware that they are a vocal race. I should go even further than I went just now, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... ladies (opens them). This from Melesinda, to remind me of the morning-call I promised; the pretty creature positively languishes to be made Mrs. H. I believe I must indulge her (affectedly). This from her cousin, to bespeak me to some party, I suppose (opening it),—Oh, "this evening"—"Tea and cards"—(surveying himself with complacency). Dear H., thou art certainly a pretty fellow. I wonder what makes thee such a favorite ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... the heads of the Executive Departments of the Government informs you what a signal calamity has befallen us in the death of the President of the United States, and the prominent part assigned you in those funeral honors which may bespeak a nation's respect to the memory of a departed patriot and statesman, whose virtue and talents as a citizen and soldier had achieved illustrious services, and whose sudden death has disappointed the expectation of still more important benefits to ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Harrison • James D. Richardson
... two of you are now very different men in looks and habits. He is pale and you are brown. You play football and he sits at home reading. Nevertheless, any friend who knows you both intimately will discover fifty little things that bespeak in you the same underlying nature and bent. You are both, for instance, slightly colour-blind, and both inclined to fly into violent passions on occasion. That is your common inheritance peeping out—if, at least, ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my lady's dejeuner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes, and who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the liveries ready, which my lord has done him the honour to bespeak? When the great house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed: as they say in the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... made its appearance, early in 1827, Captain Matthews was fully exonerated, so far as that body was concerned, from everything savouring of disloyalty. "The circumstances of the transaction"—thus ran the report—"as they are related without the contradiction of a single witness, irresistibly bespeak the absence of that disloyalty with which it has been basely attempted to sully the character of a most honourable man." The report moreover read a sharp lesson to the promoters of the accusation against him. It declared that "If every ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... conversation. In the preface all rivalry was earnestly disclaimed. Tickell declared that he should not go on with the Iliad. That enterprise he should leave to powers which he admitted to be superior to his own. His only view, he said, in publishing this specimen was to bespeak the favour of the public to a translation of the Odyssey, in which he had made ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... at the least; for these German woods are often very intricate, and run into one another in a most puzzling manner. This I learned to my cost a few months ago; and as a warning to other pedestrian tourists who may be as unpractised in such matters as I myself then was, I would now bespeak the reader's attention to my experiences of A ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... apartment was thrown unceremoniously open, and a young gentleman entered the room, slightly, but very gracefully made, extremely handsome in features, but pale in complexion, and with a quick, wandering, and yet marking eye, which seemed to bespeak much of intelligence, but no great steadiness of character. He was dressed strangely enough, in a silk dressing-gown of the richest-flowered embroidery, slippers of crimson velvet embroidered with gold upon his feet, and a crimson ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... classes—lean, penurious-looking mortals, or jolly fellows who are determined to get possession of, because they want to enjoy, the good things of the wo others, in the fulness of their persons and the robustness of their constitutions, seem to bespeak the reversion of a landed estate, rich acres, fat beeves, a substantial mansion, costly clothing, a chine and curkey, choice wines, and all other good things consonant to the wants and full-fed desires of their bodies. Such men charm fortune by the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Cris. I'll presently go and enghle some broker for a poet's gown, and bespeak a garland: and then, jeweller, look to your best ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... Charity could hardly bespeak them civilly. They took her curtness for snobbery, but it was not. It swept over her that these people were laughing over ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... in the end of summer; and it excited surprise, that the savages could go naked; the more so, as the nearest approach to houses consisted of branches of trees, set up behind the fire places to break off the wind. The many heaps of shells seemed to bespeak, that the usual food of these people was ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... I shall ever retain a feeling of gratitude for their hospitality. In the evening we were joined by the English surgeon of the depot, who engaged us to dine with him the following day. A servant was sent to the American hotel to bespeak rooms for us, and the day after I engaged a carriage to take us to Verdun, for which I was to pay eight napoleons, and find the coachman. In the evening, or rather night, we took possession of our ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... and will stay Till Autumn, maybe. She is, like her note, Petite and dainty, tender, loving, pure. You'd know her by a letter that she wrote, For a sweet tinted thing. 'Tis always so:- Letters all blots, though finely written, show A slovenly person. Letters stiff and white Bespeak a nature honest, plain, upright. And tissuey, tinted, perfumed notes, like this, Tell of a creature formed to pet and kiss." My listener heard me with a slow, odd smile; Stretched in abandon at my feet, the while, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... see a meagre pair, Worn out with labour, grief, and care: Whose naked babes, in hungry mood, Complain of cold and cry for food; Whilst tears bedew the mother's cheek, And sighs the father's grief bespeak; For fire or raiment, bed or board, ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... with his dark skin tanned by sun and wind and snow to a shade that was only a little lighter than an Indian's; using, when he talked, the wide, careless gestures that bespeak the far West, Bruce was so obviously of the country beyond the Mississippi that the clerk ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... literature of Europe sufficiently corroborates this remark. When a European author wishes to depict in a work of imagination any of these great catastrophes in matrimony which so frequently occur amongst us, he takes care to bespeak the compassion of the reader by bringing before him ill-assorted or compulsory marriages. Although habitual tolerance has long since relaxed our morals, an author could hardly succeed in interesting us in the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... made. What do you think of Gilt Leather for Furniture? There's your pretty Hangings for a Chamber; [2] and what is more, our own Country is the only Place in Europe where Work of that kind is tolerably done. Without minding your musty Lessons: I am this Minute going to Paul's Church-Yard to bespeak a Skreen and a Set of Hangings; and am resolved to encourage the Manufacture ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the plan or frame of the work before us. It has induced us to select the Embellishments on the annexed page; and their description, from so graceful a pencil as that of the author, will, we hope, bespeak the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... Ninth Statue than which is naught more precious in the world, and thou didst promise my father to vouchsafe me that same." And after this Mubarak instructed his master how to address the King and crave of him the boon and how to bespeak him with pleasant speech. Then he began his conjurations and fumigations and adjurations and recitations of words not understanded of any and but little time elapsed before cold rain down railed and lightning flashed ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... of winter, the shades of twilight had already fallen, and Edward found himself suddenly in a room quite illuminated with wax candles. D'Effernay stood in the middle of the saloon, a tall, thin young man. A proud bearing seemed to bespeak a consciousness of his own merit, or at least of his position. His features were finely formed, but the traces of stormy passion, or of internal discontent, had lined ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... done himself the honour of being present on one or two occasions at the Charing Cross little playhouse. He did believe himself to have some small critical judgment in musical matters. He thought he might venture—he really did think that he might venture—to bespeak a brilliant career for mademoiselle. Then, with a great many more bowings and scrapings, M. Le Gros, having done his ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... a bill sent me of 100 pounds 12 shillings 0 pence. laid out for the poor King, who ordered me to bespeak for him the best set which I could get of the glass dishes and basons for his dessert. The Regency may perhaps not want them, thinking that they have no occasion for any dessert, and that they can do without it: perhaps so, nous verrons. Old Begum, ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... eyes, his body worn away, His furrow'd cheeks his frequent tears betray; His beard neglected, and his hoary hairs Rough and uncomb'd, bespeak his bitter cares. ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... bulletin boards bespeak the country as eloquently as do the hayfields. They seem never to be new. Articles lost but long since restored to their owners are still advertised on faded brittle paper, fastened by rusted thumb tacks of a bygone age. Strawberry festivals, ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... forth, what time the village maid Oft in her slumber doth of gleaning dream, Stood in the ice there every doleful shade. Livid as far as where shame paints the cheek, And doomed their faces downward still to hold. Chattering like storks, their weeping eyes bespeak Their aching hearts, their mouths the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... time on curses vague, nor try to take his gold, Nor seek to shatter any plan that he might dearly hold. A crueler revenge than that for him I would bespeak: I'd wish his wife and little one might leave ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... in mistaken sympathy urge them to take stimulants (instead of securing them rest and change of surroundings), they have a hard road to travel, and our sincerest sympathy goes out to them all. We plead for them. We bespeak kindly and human consideration. Too frequently they are tried and condemned unheard. They are expected to prove that they are NOT frauds, instead of, as in other cases, being accepted as reputable people. So much has this been the case that some mediums of unquestioned power have retired ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... draw him down and crowd around; Their tears bespeak their love; For part of him is underground And part ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... that explanation. Poor Ray Limbert, while we talked, seemed to sit there between us: she reminded me that my acquaintance with him had begun, eighteen years ago, with her having come in precisely as she came in this morning to bespeak my charity for him. If she didn't know then how little my charity was worth she is at least enlightened about it to-day, and this is just the circumstance that makes the drollery of her visit. As I hold up the torch to the dusky years—by which I mean as I cipher up with a pen that stumbles and ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... air, whilst Raith, seizing the bone, would make the most absurd and unavailing attempts to bestride the enormous head of his subdued companion, with the most ludicrous affectation of the terrible growling, that might bespeak the loftiest description of dog-indignation. When a dog attacks Bass in the street or road, he runs away rather than quarrel; but when compelled to fight by any perseverance in the attacking party, he throws his enemy down in a moment, and then, without biting ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... be performed, if it is a "daily grind," if you have to hold yourself to it by unremitting effort of the will, you are no better than a rusty engine, and all your workings will be accompanied by jars, frictions, and complaining squeaks that bespeak a positively wicked loss ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... of Admiral Dewey's fleet, I feel obligated to extend a separate and special welcome; for without your chivalrous devotion to duty last May Day, yon shell-riven wrecks (part of unraised Spanish fleet visible above the bay) would not bespeak the down-fall of a sister nation, and we ourselves would not have been permitted to assemble here this afternoon. There is no braver man on land or sea than the American marine; and on behalf of the entire American army of occupation, I bid ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... by Mr. Scott as a translation, perceive it to be written in a style which they conceived was little to be expected in a faithful translation from a Persian original, being full of quaint terms and idiomatic phrases, which strongly bespeak English habits in the way of thinking, and of English peculiarities and affectations in the expression. Struck with these strong internal marks of a suspicious piece, they turned to the Persian manuscript produced by Mr. Scott and Mr. Baber, and comparing ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... an Eta; and my name is Chokichi. I beg to bespeak your goodwill for myself: I hope ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... Baboon came first to the possession of the Lord Strutt's estate, his tradesmen,[173] as is usual upon such occasion, waited upon him to wish him joy and bespeak his custom. The two chief were John Bull,[174] the clothier, and Nic. Frog,[175] the linen-draper. They told him that the Bulls and Frogs had served the Lord Strutts with drapery-ware for many years; that they ...
— English Satires • Various
... his men to their ship, as a pilot, as also to announce their arrival, and bespeak the attention of the magistrates at Savannah; and, on the 9th they set sail for the desired region of peace. They entered the river on the 10th, which was reminiscere-Sunday; and "they called to remembrance the former days, in which, after they were illuminated," (and because they were so,) "they ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... Light, flimsy novels suit the flying train Or Western Isle excursions of Macbrayne, Where, dazed by gleaming firths of visible heat, The torpid soul disdains substantial meat; But oft-read volumes, to which men recur The whole year round, bespeak ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... pottered too in the dairy, but that was because pretty Miss Ruth Haverly called to bespeak some of the butter before it should be sent to market, and was trying her hands at the printing. Very soft white hands they were, and Mrs. Evans ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... "I bespeak something sweet for New Year's Day. You know my style," said another young lady, privately resolving to buy the opal dress, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the thing, I've a World on't. I shou'd go and bespeak a Pair of Mittins and Shears for my Hedger and Shearer, a pair of Cards for my Thrasher, a Scythe for my Mower, and a Screen-Fan for my Lady-Wife, and many other things; my Head's full of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... your learned lecture, which has given a new value to your labors. And now, while it is in my mind, let me bespeak, as soon as leisure and inclination shall serve, a silver statue, gilded, of Apollo, for the great altar, which to-morrow will scarce be graced with such a one as will agree with the temple and its ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... mother, seated in a comfortable chair, and nursing her babe.[1131] Now and then she is draped, and holds a dove to her breast, or else she takes an attitude of command, with the right hand raised, as if to bespeak attention. Sometimes, on the contrary, her figure has that modest and retiring attitude which has caused it to be described by a distinguished archaeologist[1132] as "the Phoenician prototype of the Venus de Medici." The Greeks and Romans, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... thither, so that Rebecca, making an effort upon herself, had time to anticipate his explanation. She had already unclasped two costly bracelets and a collar, which she hastened to proffer to the supposed outlaw, concluding naturally that to gratify his avarice was to bespeak his favour. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... With that bespeak her seven brethren, Making most pitious moan: 'You may go kiss your jolly brown bride, And let ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... Creator than himself, though two of them at least have been hailed as among the first orators of the day, and spoke with an eloquence that might have moved stocks and stones. One of them dwells in New York and the other in Boston. As it would avail him little to bespeak the favour of the world in behalf of their opinions by mentioning their names, he will proceed with the matter in hand, viz. the troubles of the Marshpee people, and ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... where he became one of the first citizens of the land. His career as a cadet at West Point, his study and practice of law, his business interests, his travels and connections with learned and humanitarian societies all bespeak the many-sidedness of a useful citizen. The work contains a Latrobe genealogy and a topical index. It is well illustrated and exhibits evidences of much effort on the part ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... across the room—and exclaimed, "Well, Sir; the cabinet of my Lord Spencer wants something which I possess in yonder drawer." I told him that I knew what it was he alluded to; and, with the same decision with which I seemed to bespeak the two Virgils at Stuttgart, I observed, that "that want would soon cease; for that ere I quitted the room, the book in question would doubtless become the property of the nobleman whom he had just mentioned." Mr. Stoeger, for three seconds, was lost in astonishment: ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... examined me in some detail touching that house of entertainment, 'Yes,' he said, 'then, if you will bespeak a room for me there, I'll come to-morrow and stop for a week ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... constructive elements, all of which are generously included in the general scheme by the Department of Beaux Arts, which has provided a fund for their preservation and care, have one tithe of the appealing interest which these great churches bespeak on behalf of the contemporary life of the times in which they were built, reflecting as they do many correlated events, and forming, in the interweaving of the history of their inception and construction, an epitome ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... virtuous and deserving among the Americans, nothing can be more disagreeable than national reflections; they are, and must be, in the eyes of every judicious man, odious and contemptible, and bespeak a narrowness of soul which the virtuous are strangers to. Let not, then, any disrespectful epithets which the vulgar and illiterate may throw out, prejudice you against them; and endeavor to observe this general rule, dictated ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... state my own hypothesis about the farther limits of this extension of our personality, I shall be offering my own over-belief— though I know it will appear a sorry under-belief to some of you—for which I can only bespeak the same indulgence which in a converse case I should accord ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... servant, who had rode on before to bespeak fresh horses, told me, that the domestic of another company had been provided before him, altho' it was not his turn, as he had arrived later at the post. Provoked at this partiality, I resolved ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... the royal authority were there reduced in the face of the national representatives! from seeing the King on his return choked with anguish at the mortifications to which I was doomed to behold the majesty of a French Sovereign humbled! These events bespeak clouds, which, like the horrid waterspout at sea, nothing can dispel but cannon! The dignity of the Crown, the sovereignty itself, is threatened; and this I shall write this very night to the Emperor. I see no hope of internal tranquillity ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... transfer to the eternal substance (aidion ousian); we say it was, and is, and will be, whereas we can only fitly say it is. Past and future are appropriate to the successive nature of generated beings, for they bespeak motion; but the Being eternally and immovably the same is subject neither to youth nor age, nor to any accident of time; it neither was, nor hath been, nor will be, which are the attributes of fleeting sense—the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... it's up to me to give you an immediate opportunity," said Cameron, sighing. "But somehow I don't quite dare bespeak you on ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... for so great an extent, and the evidently calcareous nature of the bank, at least in the upper 200 feet, would bespeak it to have been the exterior line of some vast coral reef, which is always more elevated than the interior parts, and commonly level with high water mark. From the gradual subsiding of the sea, or perhaps from some convulsion of nature, this bank may have attained its present height above the surface, ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... account, Chisera. No doubt you can contrive against the fame of Simwa and bespeak the gods to neglect him; I wait to hear what proof you have that ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... how to make yourself useful. I need a boy here to run errands and look after my horse. If you like, I'll try you. You can live here, and go to school. I sometimes hear of places for boys in my rounds, and the first good one that will suit you, I'll bespeak for you. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... they know nothing; and should the casual observer meet in the street on a festival, or day of examination, a column of from 300 to 800 children, from six to ten or twelve years of age, neatly clothed, and whose happy countenances and beautiful behaviour bespeak the care with which their early education has been conducted—it never once occurs to him that these are the children of the poor, the children of the free schools of the 'Sisters' of the Ursaline Convent, or of the Congregation ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... Grahame, whose Colonial History is still among the best, says of Knickerbocker: "If Sancho Panza had been a real governor, misrepresented by the wit of Cervantes, his future historian would have found it no easy matter to bespeak a grave attention to the ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... for the permanent improvement of the island. Unlike the Gangetic race, who were the earliest colonists, and with whom originated every project for enriching and adorning the country, the Malabars aspired not to beautify or enrich, but to impoverish and deface;—and nothing can more strikingly bespeak the inferiority of the southern race than the single fact that everything tending to exalt and to civilise, in the early condition of Ceylon, was introduced by the northern conquerors, whilst all that contributed to ruin and ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... Eastwood at all, but I'm going to a horrid, odious, beastly little day school in Fairview;' and Cecil flung out some books upon the floor, in a manner which did not bespeak very exemplary submission to ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... many of them the fruits of caprice and self-indulgence as men usually suppose. There is a common sense, nay, a certain degree of wisdom, in the laws of even etiquette, while they are confined to equals, that bespeak the respect of those who understand them. As for the influence of associations on men's manners, on their exteriors, and even on their opinions, my uncle Ro has long maintained that it is so apparent that one of ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... care which Burghley bestowed from the beginning upon his young ward's affairs bespeak an interest within an interest when his prudent and calculating nature is borne in mind and the later incidents of ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... me a service in return?" I felt my whole attitude to be imploring, so warmly did I bespeak ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... like a general observance of the festival," said Clovis, "Waldo would be in such demand that you would have to bespeak him weeks beforehand, and even then, if there were an east wind blowing or a cloud or two in the sky he might be too careful of his precious self to come out. It would be rather jolly if you could lure him into a hammock in the orchard, just near the spot where ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... his physiognomy had an air of requesting your attention, which it rewarded according to the charm you found in blue eyes of remarkable fixedness, the eyes of a complexion other than his own, and a jaw of the somewhat angular mould which is supposed to bespeak resolution. Isabel said to herself that it bespoke resolution to-night; in spite of which, in half an hour, Caspar Goodwood, who had arrived hopeful as well as resolute, took his way back to his lodging with the feeling of a ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... be much talk back and forth concerning me. I pray you bespeak me, if you will, a brave, insolent, selfish, and unscrupulous man of many villainies, some wit and foresight, a disrespecter of humanity, athirst for power, and a hater of fools; but one who, at the end, was capable of a great ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... upon the art of dancing by a dancing-master, implicitly threatens so much either of the exageration of the profession, or of the recommendation of himself, and most probably of both, that it cannot be improper for me to bespeak the reader's favorable precaution against so natural a prejudice. My principal motive for hazarding this production is, indisputably, gratitude. The approbation with which my endeavours to please in the dances of my composition have been honored, ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... of brushes—buried his nose in the cool rim of the stone mug, the only beverage the club permitted, and was about to continue his talk, when his eye rested on Bianchi, who was standing in the open door, his hand upraised so as to bespeak silence. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Carbonari" or not, I bespeak your acquaintance for the translator, Mr. Eastlake. I want him to see the sort of thing that one only sees in your house, at your morning levees—the traffic of mind and literature, if I may call it so. To a man who has lived most of his ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... there, and following him into the mission house till it is completely packed. We hear also that some hearts seem to have been touched; and that the hope is cherished that some who were far off have been brought nigh. Space fails me to go into details; but I bespeak the earnest prayers of all who love this cause and love our Lord, that this evangelistic work may yield us the glad harvests for which we ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 03, March, 1885 • Various
... said they believed. Most unpractical must every man appear who genuinely believes in the things that are unseen. The man called practical by the men of this world is he who busies himself building his house on the sand, while he does not even bespeak a lodging in the ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... widespread during the sixteenth century, and vestiges of this ingenuous credulity have survived in unexpected quarters till our own time. It was perhaps unwise of Luis de Leon thus to furnish his adversaries with ammunition which they might use against him; but could anything bespeak conscious innocence more strongly than ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... he said, "I believe that you have some influence with Louise, I am sure that you are one of those who sympathize with the unfortunate. Can't I bespeak your good offices?" ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he did engage To hew the dragon down; But first he went new armour to Bespeak at Sheffield town; With spikes all about, not within but without, Of steel so sharp and strong, Both behind and before, arms, legs, and all o'er, Some five ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... friend Mr. Talbot could not afford to bespeak a dress— (Bursal and Wheeler laugh insolently.) ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... speak of my exile?" continued Mr. Jefferson. "Shall I not be among friends?" and he looked with affectionate regard toward the three young Frenchmen. "Shall I not be among friends, the truest and noblest that any country or any individual can boast? Your looks bespeak your answer! Friends, I ask you to drink to Monsieur le Marquis de Lafayette and to Messieurs ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... little head, Kate, with fear that there will not be Ophelias enough, as long as the world stands. But I wouldn't be one, if I were you, unless I could bespeak a Shakspeare to do me into poetry. That would be an inducement, I allow. How would you fancy being a Sukey ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... preliminary explanations, let us go on to consider the true aims and methods of moral education. After a few pages devoted to the settlement of general principles, during the perusal of which we bespeak the reader's patience, we shall aim by illustrations to make clear the right methods of parental behaviour in the hourly ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... awry and askew, stretching in a wavering row along the river-bank near the junction of the levee that he had built with the main line, his eyes filled. Oh, why had he not gone with the rest of the camp! he demanded of an untoward fate; why must he have stayed a day longer to bespeak the correction of an injurious error from that proud, hard man, who, however, had wrought his last injury on earth! Hoxer was sorry, but chiefly for his own plight. He felt that his deed was in self-defense, and but that he had no proof he would not fear to offer the ...
— The Crucial Moment - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... received answers, yet those of the house of Avenel who had ventured to speak to her, had never long survived the colloquy. The figure, besides, as sitting up in her bed, Mary Avenel gazed on it intently, seemed by its gestures to caution her to keep silence, and at the same time to bespeak attention. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... as we do, that the law of social progress is growth—in other words, that the condition of individual development, both physical and intellectual, is that degree of freedom which finds its expression in the increase of numbers—what does this portentous fact of a stationary population bespeak? Simply, the utmost degradation of body and mind; vice in its most hideous forms; filth, disease, unnatural crimes; a hell upon earth. These are always the characteristics of nations which have been prevented from growing. The melancholy proofs of a condition of affairs in Portugal which admits ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... Alps are easily made from there! Write soon whether you will go and drink Bavarian beer and Schnapski with me, and write also when we are to see you in Heidelberg and Carlsruhe. Remind me then to tell you about the theory of the root and poles in plants. As soon as I have your answer we will bespeak our lodgings from Dollinger, who will attend to that for us. Shall we again house together in one room, or shall we have separate cells in one comb, namely, under the same roof? The latter has its advantages for grass-gatherers and stone-cutters like ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... custom of some authors to preface their earlier works with excuses for sending their "little volume out into the world," and to bespeak in its behalf the leniency of both critic and reader. I have no such apologies, however, to make for this work. I have confidence in its success and it will win or lose, according to its merits, no ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... before the Norman Conquest.[2] It clearly appears that the Saxon leeches derived much of their knowledge directly from the Romans, and through them from the Greeks, but they also possessed a good deal of their own. The herbs they employed bespeak considerable acquaintance with botany and its application to medicine as understood at that day. The classic peony was administered as a remedy for insanity, and mugwort was regarded as useful in putting to flight what this Saxon book calls "devil sickness," ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... birthday present, for fear they should seem to establish a mutual precedent. They had never talked of their plans which involved calculation, before him; they were terribly afraid of just one thing with him, and only that one,—of anything most distantly like what Desire Ledwith called "a Megilp bespeak." But now Hazel went up to him as bold as a lion. She took it for granted he was like other people,—"real folks;" that he would do—what ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... horror at Aristophanes; it is not grim, like that of Swift; it is free from any very strong evidences of its owner having lived at a particular date, such as may be detected by the Devil's Advocate even in Fielding, even in Thackeray. No tricks or grimaces, no mere elaboration, no lingering to bespeak applause; but a moment of life and nature subjected to the humour-stamp and left recorded and transformed ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... in the course of conversation that, so long as my set of articles on various operas, which provisionally closes with the "Flying Dutchman", is going on in the Neue Zeitschrift, it seems to me more becoming not to bespeak any other musical productions of mine. None the less do I consider it desirable and quite in the interest of our cause that, for the future, the more important productions, especially the works of R. Schumann, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... alleged claret included, for an absurdly small sum; but a carton of biscuits, a tin of sardines and a can of condensed milk are usually in evidence on the littered tables of the studios, and, together with the odor of stale coffee, bespeak an economy of diet which is incompatible with the good work which comes of the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... love to his immortal soul, for whose welfare every Christian is so anxious. At this period he was in the full bloom of manhood. Nature had favoured him in his person, and had given him a noble and expressive countenance. Here was enough to bespeak his happiness in the world; but she superadded pride and untamable impetuosity of mind, which displayed itself in deep determination of purpose, and in the constant workings of a heated imagination, which was never satisfied ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... Barton, whose sad fortunes I have undertaken to relate, was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal or exceptional character; and perhaps I am doing a bold thing to bespeak your sympathy on behalf of a man who was so very far from remarkable,—a man whose virtues were not heroic, and who had no undetected crime within his breast; who had not the slightest mystery hanging about him, but was palpably and unmistakably commonplace; who was not even in love, but had ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... repose? If they would, I stop here. Your future time and wishes are sacred in my eye. If it would be only a dignified amusement to you, what a monument of your retirement would it be! It is one which would follow that of your public life, and bespeak it the work of the same great hand. I am confident, that would you either alone, or jointly with any persons you think proper, be willing to direct this business, it would remove the only objection, the weight ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... erroneous a conceit to redress other men's misfortunes upon the common considerations of merciful natures, that it may be one day our own case; for this is a sinister and politick kind of charity, whereby we seem to bespeak the pities of men in the like occasions. And truly I have observed that those professed eleemo- synaries, though in a crowd or multitude, do yet direct and place their petitions on a few and selected persons; there is surely a physiognomy, which those experienced and master mendicants ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... peculiarly graceful, and even dignified, although it was evident, from the slight, and as it were, unfinished roundness of his figure, that he was but in the first stage of youth, yet his discourse and manner were of a kind that would bespeak him noble, even had his appearance been less convincing. According to the custom of the time, which would have deemed the questioning a guest as to his name and family a breach of all the rules of chivalry and ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... road and away from the river. As we drive up the road bordered with fields of grain or grass on either side, or shaded by birch and fir trees, we catch sight of the stone building to our right, in a nest of green foliage; and on the left white garments flapping in the breeze bespeak the presence of the laundry, with the laundress' cottage close beside. A number of the girls are on the verandah, or amusing themselves on the grass, for it is play-time and school is over. Miss Cunningham, ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... that shall contain all that we do not know on the subject of drainage, would be a valuable acquisition to agricultural literature, and we bespeak an early copy ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... lily-like and weak, Does thus thy mortal state bespeak; Thou art e'en such— Gone with a touch: Thus ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... war and love some poets sing, And some of fame and glory, But few there are a tribute bring To him whose only story Is written on the sterile soil With hand of honest labor, Whose plow and hoe bespeak a toil ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... phrase, but one or two must suffice. It is a delight to read his published correspondence, because of this power of strong and luminous utterance, which he wields with such Titanic ease. Then, again, there is no affectation or cant, but an engaging candor and straightforwardness which bespeak a true man, considering the time when they were written. What clarity of political vision there is ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Amelia, this untimely grief? What has caused the sorrows that bespeak better and happier days, to those lavish out such heaps of misery? You are aware that your instructive lessons embellish the mind with holy truths, by wedding its attention to none but great and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Opportunities, which the most idle and indolent, the most insignificant and unworthy of the Society, often meet with from this Invention of valuing themselves upon Actions that were perform'd several Ages before they were born, and bespeak a Merit which they know in their Consciences that they are destitute of; if, I say, we consider what I have now mention'd, we shall be forc'd to confess, that, of all Arts and Sciences, Heraldry has ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... by the vision: and words must have a weekday meaning, since words were weekday stuff. Let them speak now: let them bespeak themselves in weekday terms. The vision should translate ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... had to make known to his companion the scheme that had been prepared to rob her of her wealth, he had to tell her that he had intended to marry her without loving her, or else that he loved her without intending to marry her; and he had also to bespeak from her not only his own pardon, but also that of his sister, and induce Mrs. Bold to protest in her future communion with Charlotte that an offer had been duly made to her ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... is a marvellous eater up of miles and Harrison Smith did not spare his engine nor linger upon the way. Evening was falling when at last they descended the hill into the little fishing village of Polperro. They ran into the inn yard and tried to bespeak a lodging for the night but in this they were unlucky for there was no accommodation to be had. The best obtainable was a shake down in the stable loft, granted on a promise to refrain from smoking. Having refilled the petrol tank and assured themselves that the Ford was in sound running order against ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... Telegraph. "They are very droll reading for an idle afternoon, or picking up at any time when 'down in the dumps.' They are very brief and very bright, and it is impossible for anyone with the slightest sense of humour to read the book without bursting into 'the loud guffaw' which does not always 'bespeak the empty mind.'" The Pall Mall Gazette says it contains "Plenty of boisterous humour of the Max Adeler kind ... humour that is genuine and spontaneous. The author, for all his antics, has a good deal more in him than the average buffoon. There is, for example, ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... Trustees of the College hereby bespeak for him the kind regards and co-operation of all the friends of education and religion with whom he may meet ...
— The Oahu College at the Sandwich Islands • Trustees of the Punahou School and Oahu College
... Hellenistic garden, slowly acclimated to the Italian soil, fed richly by years of philosophic study, braced, pruned, and reared into a tree of noble strength and classic dignity. The form and majesty of the tree bespeak infinite care in cultivation, but the fruit has not lost the delicate tang and savour of its seed. The poet of the Ciris, the Copa, the Dirae, and the Bucolics is never far to ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... enthusiastic attitude to the monarchy, its obvious delight in the splendid presence and powers of Saul, its intimate knowledge of the ecstatic prophets, its conception of the ark as a sort of fetish whose presence insures victory—all these things bespeak for the document that relates them a high antiquity. The other document represents Samuel as a great judge and virtual regent over all Israel, it has a wide experience of the evils of monarchy, it idealizes David, and it regards ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... replied the keeper, thinking he had made a mistake; 'it was Mr. Sponge whose horses I had to bespeak stalls for,' touching his hat ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... highest opinion of his liberality. But on entering the hall my friends and I soon forgot everything but the speaker. The dim-lit hall, the handful audience, the contrast of both with the illuminated chapel and ocean multitude assembled overhead, bespeak painfully the estimation in which the great cause of peace is held in Christendom. I wish all Christendom could have heard Elihu Burritt's speech. One unbroken, unabated stream it was of profound and lofty ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... is that I love you more—more than before!" And then they stood there, talking, in the warm stillness and in front of the closed dark house. "I have been talking to Charlotte—been trying to bespeak her interest with your father. She has a kind of sublime perversity; was ever a woman so bent upon cutting off her ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... prominent on the hill-side, relieved by the lengthening shadows; along a distant hill-side there ran what seemed the ruins of a grey stone fence, erected, says tradition, in a very remote age to facilitate the hunting of deer: all seemed to bespeak the place a fitting habitation for man, and in which not only the necessaries, but not a few also of the luxuries of life, might be procured; but in the entire prospect not a man nor a man's dwelling could the eye command. The landscape was one without figures. And where, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... him "some fellow who needed a taste of love," and the overgrown boys would glory in their strength as they lifted Miss Diana from the carriage after a delightful drive, and learn a strange gentleness as they were unconsciously trained in the little deeds of chivalry which bespeak a true man. ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black |
