"Accost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fixedness in her look and a recklessness in her step that showed anger and determination. It struck Lizette with a sort of awe, so that, for once, she did not dare to accost her young mistress with her usual freedom. The maid opened the door and closed it again without offering a word, waiting in the anteroom until a summons should ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... remembrance of him. Such a closing scene one day to be repeated is foreshown to us, when we look at an ignorant and thoughtless father surrounded by his untaught children. In the silence of thought we thus accost him,—The event which will take you finally from among them, perhaps after forty or fifty years of intercourse with them, will leave no more impression on their affections, than the cutting down of a decayed old tree in the neighborhood ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... of my debt, I homeward turn. Farewell, my pet! When here again thy pilgrim comes, He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs. Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant O'er all that mass and minster vaunt: For men mishear thy call in spring, As 'twould accost some frivolous wing, Crying out of the hazel copse, "Phe—be!" And in winter, "Chic-a-dee-dee!" I think old Caesar must have heard In Northern Gaul my dauntless bird, And, echoed in some frosty wold, Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold. And I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... good pigmies, but the giant for me! What a comfort to see brain and muscle together! As a rule one seems to entirely absorb the other," sighed Miss Peggy happily, then turned to accost Esther with uplifted finger. "Esther, oh, Esther, who ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... he had seen a grim, sharp-featured old man in the doorway of the shop, but it was not until after he had missed the Thursday train that he made up his mind to accost him and to have the broadsword at any price. With this object in view, he quickly crossed the square and inserted his tall frame into the narrow doorway, calling out lustily for attention. So loudly did he shout that the multitude of ancient swords and guns along the walls ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... being gradually transformed into a republic, the executive power retains the titles, the honors, the etiquette, and even the funds of royalty, long after its authority has disappeared. The English, after having cut off the head of one king, and expelled another from his throne, were accustomed to accost the successors of those princes upon their knees. On the other hand, when a republic falls under the sway of a single individual, the demeanor of the sovereign is simple and unpretending, as if his authority was not yet paramount. When the emperors exercised an unlimited ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... too evident disguise in liquor I knew the voice of my errant Pat. Would it be wise to accost him at such a moment, in such company? The streets of the Lower Town were none too peaceful after dark. And yet, if he were not altogether out of his head, it would be a good thing to stop him from going further and getting into trouble. At ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... was a triumph. I did think Tempest might have been on the look- out for me. I did not know where to go, or of whom to inquire my way. The boys I met either took no notice of me at all, or else stared so rudely at my hat and boots that I could not bring myself to accost them. At length I was beginning to think I had better march boldly to the first master's house I came to, when, as luck would have it, I stumbled up against my old travelling companion, who, having safely arrived a quarter of an hour ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... temptation to accost this mild and grave young beauty. Stepping forward as she was passing, he lifted his hat, and said, "Will you be good enough to tell me the way to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... request, out of which therefore nothing came. The Duke meanwhile lived more abandoned by everybody than ever; if in the salon he approached a group of courtiers, each, without the least hesitation, turned to the right or to the left and went elsewhere, so that it was impossible for him to accost anybody except by surprise, and if he did so, he was left alone directly after with the most marked indecency. In a word, I was the only person, I say distinctly, the only person, who spoke to M. d'Orleans as before. Whether in his own house or ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... that my servants can not obtain their wages, and if a beggar were to accost me on my way to church, I could give him nothing, because not a florin is to be found in my own purse—so empty, that our whole project of the Electoral Prince's return threatens to be wrecked thereby, for our son has incurred debts which we ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... was much too busy and important to allow me a good opportunity to accost him till the piece was over. I then seized hold of him as he was amicably sharing a pot of porter with a gentleman in black shorts and a laced waistcoat, who was to play the part of a broken-hearted father in the Domestic Draina ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... too late to make an appearance in the ball-room, I prowled round the premises, listening to the sounds of revelry within; and then seeing Miss Lovel alone here—playing Juliet without a Romeo—I made so bold as to accost her and charge her with a message ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... had been so small a thing as the fact and manner of his having been approached by the officer. That agent had, by the style of his accost, restored the loiterer to his former place in society. In an instant he had been transformed from a somewhat rancid prowler along the fishy side streets of gentility into an honest gentleman, with whom even so lordly a guardian of the peace might agreeably ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... own behalf and to the prejudice of another or others, as in the phrase "to forestall the market." But to anticipate is very frequently used in the favorable sense; as, his thoughtful kindness anticipated my wish (i. e., met the wish before it was expressed): or we say, "I was about to accost him when he anticipated me" (by speaking first); or one anticipates a payment (by making it before the time); in neither of these cases could we use forestall or prevent. To obviate (literally, to stop the way of or remove from the way), is to ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... is not the Almighty who puts the questions, but someone audaciously personating Him. And some of us find this pretension irritating; as Douglas Jerrold meeting a pompous stranger on the pavement was moved to accost him with, "I beg your pardon, Sir, but would you mind informing me—Are ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... patent to him as his own, was now a sealed book; he heard of its doings by chance, if he heard at all. Just at the time when he was feeling the most depressed from this cause, he met Jemima at a sudden turn of the street. He was uncertain for a moment how to accost her, but she saved him all doubt; in an instant she had his hand in both of hers, her face ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... his eyes big with unconcealed wonder as he looked at the odd coin, was eager to accost Harry King at once and demand to know whence the roysterer had obtained it. In, fact, the jeweler half arose from his chair, to approach the three swaggering men in the cafe section of the grill, when Colonel Ashley laid ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... of our Orator were well adapted to our situation, and produced much effect on the prisoners, who at length began to accost him as Elder or Parson Cooper. But this he would not allow; and told us, if we would insist on giving him a title, we might call him Doctor, by which name he was ever afterwards saluted, so long as he remained ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... Rottenmeier explained to Heidi with many signs how to help herself at table. She also told her never to speak to Sebastian unless it was important. After that the child was told how to accost the servants and the governess. When the question came up of how to call Clara, the older girl said, "Of course you ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... away from Mentone, because she dreaded lest some one should meet and accost her in the town. She had a dim idea that if she could get to San Remo, which was about twelve miles east of Mentone, she could take a train going north without being discovered, and accordingly she bent ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... one aroused from sleep with a rude blow. The color flamed in her cheek. "YOU to accost so one of my blood?" she cried. "Mongrel, ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... so resolv'd and bold, We shou'd as learned poets use, Invoke th' assistance of some muse: However, criticks count it sillier Than jugglers talking to familiar. 640 We think 'tis no great matter which They're all alike; yet we shall pitch On one that fits our purpose most Whom therefore thus do we accost: ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... in China two polite acquaintances accost each other, they pause before meeting and each shakes his own hand; (a much neater and more refined ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... I saw the fair Jewess on the promenade. We were near enough for me to accost her without seeming to be anxious to do so, and her ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... her illness. I did so. He was in a mean shop, whose whole contents had been displayed in thick festoons, of jackets, shirts, and pantaloons, on the outside, where a man was pacing to and fro upon the pavement, whose vocation it was to accost and convert into a purchaser every passer-by who chanced even to look, at his goods. I was most unfavorably impressed with all that I saw about the shop. When I went in, the impression deepened. There sat the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Fromenteau, whose rapid glance had enabled him to fathom Gazonal completely, "you'd think I was talking of a man of genius. First, we must have the eyes of a lynx; next, audacity (to tear into houses like bombs, accost the servants as if we knew them, and propose treachery—always agreed to); next, memory, sagacity, invention (to make schemes, conceived rapidly, never the same—for spying must be guided by the characters and habits of the persons spied upon; it is a gift of heaven); and, finally, agility, ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... the town. However, there was an expression in his countenance too amiable not to be easily recognised, and which immediately brought his features to my recollection. "Observe that young man," said I to the Marquis; "we must accost him." ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... to accost one of the four men, with a view to acting in concert with him. But as they approached the boulevard, the crowd became denser: he was afraid of losing Lupin and quickened his pace. He turned into the boulevard just as Lupin had his foot on the step of the Restaurant Hongrois, at the corner ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... returned after an absence by going across the dining-room to shake hands with them and to inquire whether they had had a good time. Even the gently frigid manner of Mrs. Drupe could not chill her friendliness; she was accustomed to accost that lady in the elevator, and demand, "How is Mr. Drupe?" whenever that gentleman chanced to be absent. It was not possible for her to imagine that Mrs. Drupe could be otherwise than grateful for any manifestation of a friendly interest in ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... will show himself? How shall I accost him?' whispered a well-known voice—could it be Hypatia's? And then the guttural Hebrew accent of the old woman answered— 'As you spoke ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... his hands with a lost gesture as I left him. I was sufficiently moved to accost the warder who ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... walk, and returned slowly and very downcast. I met two hay-carts. The drivers were lying flat upon the top of their loads, and sang. Both were bare-headed, and both had round, care-free faces. I passed them and thought to myself that they were sure to accost me, sure to fling some taunt or other at me, play me some trick; and as I got near enough, one of them called out and asked what I ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... looking out across the water at the passing shipping. She sat motionless a long time, the whole droop of her figure, the poise of her tender curved chin, wistful and unhappy, although she said no word. For myself, I did not accost her. I, too, looked up and down the great river, not knowing at what moment some discerning eye might spy us out, and I longed for nothing so much as that night ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... driver his fare—he always paid liberally—and let himself in with his latch-key. To Mrs. Hamlyn's astonishment, she had seen the woman dart from her standing-place to the middle of the road, evidently to look at or to accost Mr. Hamlyn. But his movements were too quick: he was within in a moment and had closed the outer door. She then walked rapidly ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... and coaxed him, saying, "O my lord, what is this aversion thou displayest to me? Is it pride or coquetry on thy part? But the current byword saith, 'An the salam-salutation be little in demand, the sitters salute those who stand."[FN4] So if, O my lord, thou come not to me neither accost me, I will go to thee and accost thee." Said he, "To thee belong favour and kindness, O Queen of the earth in its length and breadth; and what am I but one of thy slaves and the least of thy servants. Indeed, I was ashamed to intrude upon thine illustrious presence, O unique pearl, and my ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... two girls in white dresses, walking up the road with a man. We scurried to the side of the road as soon as we made them out. Then I decided to test the matter of our whereabouts and stepped out to accost them. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... and playing cards—as, besides this, I was at the end of my resources, having lost my last penny on the night before, at the card-table—the idea occurred to me that it would not be a bad plan to ride after Mr. Conway; accost him on the road; represent my necessities to him, and request a small loan out of his abundant means, to prevent myself from being deprived of my luxuries—liquor and cards. Is that a roundabout way of saying I intended to act the highwayman, perhaps the—murderer—on this occasion? ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... boots bet on that. She is of Castilian stock—believe me and strike me dead! I will myself at different times overlook and affront her in the stable, examine her as to the assault, and why she should do thees thing. When she is of the exercise I will also accost and restrain her. Remain tranquil, my friend! When a few days shall pass much shall be changed, and she will be as another. Trust your oncle to do thees thing! Comprehend me? Everything shall be lovely, and the ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Pons saw M. Cardot coming towards them. Warned by Count Popinot's allocution, Pons was very careful not to accost the old acquaintance with whom he had dined once a fortnight for the last year; he lifted his hat, but the other, mayor and deputy of Paris, threw him an indignant glance and went by. Pons ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... brushing one Canadian felt hat, and several others had been put to await their turn one above the other on his own head, so that he looked something like the typical Jew old-clothes man. As I drew near, he came sidling out of the doorway to accost me, with so curious an expression on his face that I instinctively prepared myself to apologise for some unwitting trespass. His first question rather confirmed me in this belief, for it was whether or not he ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... remuneration, and as his salary is often tardily paid him, he augments it in this way when he cannot see a good opportunity of turning burglar or something worse on his own account. When he is low in funds he will accost the stranger, begging a cigarette, or inviting himself at your expense to the nearest cafe, as "the day is so unusually hot." After all, we must not blame him too much—his superiors are far from guiltless, and he knows it. When ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... us on a stretch of heath, reined up as they came alongside, and accompanied us for perhaps a quarter of an hour before they galloped off again across the hillsides to our left. Great was my amazement to find the unconquerable Mr. Sim thaw immediately on the accost of this strange gentleman, who hailed him with a ready familiarity, proceeded at once to discuss with him the trade of droving and the prices of cattle, and did not disdain to take a pinch from the inevitable ram's horn. Presently I was aware ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... passengers were on deck to look—even the gamblers—and Backus knew them all, and had afflicted them all with his pet topic. As I moved away, I saw one of the gamblers approach and accost him; then another of them; then the third. I halted; waited; watched; the conversation continued between the four men; it grew earnest; Backus drew gradually away; the gamblers followed, and kept at his elbow. I was uncomfortable. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of ancient habit sometimes, dear nephew, leads us unwittingly to accost those who were once our friends by a familiar or nick-name long "after the intimacy that formerly justified it has vanished. But sometimes we intentionally revert to the use of such a name, not wishing to proclaim ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... I will accost her, and will address her thus: 'I was young— madly in love, I possessed, however, sufficient respect to throw myself at your feet, and to prostrate myself in the dust, if your looks had not raised me to your hand. I fancied I understood your looks, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "wrote under" the pseudonym of Hans Breitmann in my life, nor called myself any such name at any time. It is simply the name of one of many books which I have written. An American once insisting to me that I should be called so from my work, I asked him if he would familiarly accost Mr. Lowell as "Josh Biglow." If there is anything in the world which denotes a subordinate position in the social scale or defect in education, it is the passion to call men "out of their names," and never feel really acquainted with any one ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... gentlewoman?" "Fancy is free," quoth Peg; "I'll take my own way, do you take yours. I do not care for your flaunting beaus, that gang with their breasts open, and their sarks over their waistcoats, that accost me with set speeches out of Sidney's 'Arcadia' or the 'Academy of Compliments.' Jack is a sober, grave young man; though he has none of your studied harangues, his meaning is sincere. He has a great regard to his father's will, and he that shows himself a good son will make a good husband. ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... there are Ladies and Musick. You will see a young Lady laughing next the Window to the Street; you may take her out, for she loves you as well as she does any Man, tho' she never saw you before. She never thought in her Life, any more than your self. She will not be surprised when you accost her, nor concerned when you leave her. Hasten from a Place where you are laughed at, to one where you will be admired. You are of no Consequence, therefore go where you will be ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... his hat, and was about to step out into the darkness when the Indian girl, whom he had seen accost Harry, noiselessly entered the tent, and drawing the wet blanket from her head, said passionately, in quaint broken English, as she pointed in the direction of Shuter's store, "He go dare again—Harry—for see de white girl, Nellie; I see ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... still framing her in their lenses, mightily enjoying the fun. The last resources of the poor tailor would be, to start up, and make a dash at the rogues, with clenched fists; but upon getting as far as the mainmast, the mate would accost him from over the rope that divided them, and beg leave to communicate the fact, that he could come no further. This unfortunate tailor was also a fiddler; and when fairly baited into desperation, would rush for his instrument, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... there are times when passion overwhelms us all. But at that moment I heard the soft rustle of a dress, and wheeled to face the fair young wife of Lieutenant Helm. It was plain she had been weeping; but De Croix, ever quicker than I in such matters, was first to accost her in words of courtesy. A pretty face to him ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... Jack, "since you saw my friend—for otherwise you could not have observed his strong general resemblance to the person whom you are so anxious to meet—will you permit me to suggest that obviously the proper thing for you to have done was to accost him when the opportunity presented itself to you, instead of following me. Before I answer your question I am afraid I must ask you to favour me with your card, as a guarantee of your ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... shallows of foam that in ever-renewed curves divided the shore from the sea. After a time, she bent down, rose again, moved towards the water, and drew back. Hilda did not stir. She could not bring herself to approach the lonely figure. She felt that to go and accost Sarah Gailey would be indelicate and inexcusable. She felt as if she were basely spying. She was completely at a loss, and knew not how to act. But presently she discerned that the white foam was circling ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... taken it themselves, a different boy came each day to the room where I was writing, and waited patiently for some time, then began coughing with increasing violence, until I asked what he wanted. Then he would shyly stammer out his request. Never would they accost me or otherwise disturb me while I was writing or reading; yet at other times they could be positively impertinent, especially if excited. The islander is very nervous; when he is quiet, he is shy and reticent, but once he is aroused, all his bad instincts run riot, and ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... to Mary, who, he felt through the sure instinct of love, by which almost his body thought, was present. Her hands were busy adjusting her dress; a forced and unnecessary movement Jem could not help thinking. Her accost was quiet and friendly, if grave; she felt that she reddened like a rose, and wished she could prevent it, while Jem wondered if her blushes arose from fear, or ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Captain Broughton?' she answered, smiling. 'If the journey was too much for your poor London strength, could you not have waited till tomorrow morning, when you would have found me at the parsonage?' But she did not draw her hand away from him, or in any way pretend that he had not a right to accost her ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... the dismal band waited, there had been a sharp hopeful stir when Rufus Coleman, the Sunday editor, passed rapidly from door to door and vanished within the holy precincts. It had evidently been in the minds of some to accost him then, but his eyes did not turn once in their direction. It was as if he had not seen them. Many experiences had taught him that the proper manner of passing through this office ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... avenue of like growth leads you to the house, where barking dogs announce you, and Don Juan, an elderly gentleman in slippers and a Panama hat, his hair, face, and eyes all faded to one hue of grayness, comes out to accost us. Here, again, Hulia Protestante becomes the subject of a series of attacks, in a new kind. Don Juan first exhausts his flower-garden upon her, and explains all that is new to her. Then she must see his blind Chino, a sightless Samson of a Cooly, who is working resolutely in a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Da Souza saw him accost a policeman, and brushing close by, heard him ask the same question. The man shook his ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... whom nobody that knew him can ever forget. Tall and fine-looking in person, simple and earnest in manners, with such a warmth in his accost that to shake hands with him was to feel happier for it all the day after. I remember passing down Wall Street one day when old Robert Lenox was standing by his side. After one of those warm greetings, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... of the automobile is responsible for an easy and convenient manner of satisfying precociously aroused sex instincts in young girls and boys. Often, unconscientious pleasure-seekers roam the roads in their auto. They accost girls who are walking and offer them a "lift." When the latter refuse to gratify their desires they are often beaten and flung from the car. The daily press has given such publicity to this civilized form of "head ...
— Sex - Avoided subjects Discussed in Plain English • Henry Stanton
... about the market-woman. The basket was nearly emptied, when two of her old suitors approached. Swanhilda was confounded, and a blush of deep shame inflamed her countenance. Curiosity and the pleasure of malice spurred them to accost her; but the sometime-haughty damsel cast her eyes upon the ground, and in answer tendered her fish for sale. The knights bought; mixing, however, ungentle gibes with their good coin. Swanhilda, at the moment, caught sight of her ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... how they address themselves to their superiors, how they accost their equals, and how they treat their inferiors: and lets none of those little niceties escape him; which are to good-breeding, what the last delicate and masterly touches are to a good picture, and ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... with a good-natured face, coming down the street, and she resolved to make a beginning with him. He couldn't say much more than no to her, and she placed herself in a position to accost him. But when he came near enough, her courage all oozed out, and she let him pass without ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... "Know you!—I should know you by your eyes, if I saw nothing more of your face but your eyes,—I should know you to the last day of your life," said she. She was always talking about my eyes. She had seen me several times, but had not dared to accost me she said. I told her she ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... happen. I was disappointed. The baron, looking very cheerful and very happy, made his appearance from the temple which he had so recently profaned, and walked steadily and quietly away. I followed him, and in the excitement of the moment was about to approach and accost him, when he suddenly turned into a narrow lane, and I lost ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... began Gaunt, in a tone of ultra politeness. "Boys, do you see this gentleman who condescends to accost us? I really believe it is Sir John Ketch. What's that in his hand?—a piece of rope? Surely, Mr. Ketch, you have not been turning off that unfortunate prisoner who was condemned yesterday? Rather hasty ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... accost of Goethe, "Vous etes un homme," and "as Goethe left the room, Napoleon repeated to Berthier and Daru, 'Voila un homme!'" ("The Life ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... Argus-eyed, and thus we often saw Madame Leroy escape through the front door and roll like a huge balloon along the boulevard, bent on what she called "collecting her rents." The way she did it was to enter every open door and accost every grown person she saw with the stern reproach that he was behind-hand with his rent, and if he did not pay up by to-morrow she would send the huissier to sell him out. The poor creature was so well known in the neighborhood ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... head erect, and cast around him a cheerful and assured glance; he was beloved!—the horrors of the prison disappeared from before his eyes. Pique-Yinaigre followed him with an embarrassed air; at length, after having hesitated two or three times to accost him, he made a great effort, and slightly touched the arm of Germain before he had approached the group of prisoners, who, at a distance, were examining him with sullen hatred. Their victim could ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... permitted to go forth and post myself upon the bridge of the Darro, where you met me, waiting until some one shall arrive who may have power to break this magic spell. I have hitherto mounted guard there in vain. I walk as in a cloud, concealed from mortal sight. You are the first to accost me for now three hundred years. I behold the reason. I see on your finger the seal-ring of Solomon the Wise, which is proof against all enchantment. With you it remains to deliver me from this awful dungeon, or to leave me to keep guard here for ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... sideways, and then, since it would not "sit," and she had mislaid her hat-pins, had bound it boldly in place with a grey woollen comforter, and knotted the ends under her chin. What gave Mr. Hucks pause was, first, the brusqueness of her entry, and next, the high clear tone of her accost. ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... compassionately, "lean firmly on me. Heaven will give you strength, for you have a noble and fearless heart. Come! I will conduct you to the foot of the staircase, which the emperor will have to ascend in order to reach his rooms. You may accost him there. God and love will impart strength to ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... was. So said the maid who came in reply to the late ring, but received no command. The two girls, shut in together, Anna losing moments more golden than ever, heard the rider at the veranda steps accost the old coachman and so soon after greet Mandeville that it was plain the captain had already been ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... an inexpressible throb of exultation, after the stupor of their first momentary astonishment, that they comprehended the miracle by which in the moment when the hope of ever beholding Ida again had seemed taken from them, had restored her not only to their eyes, but to life. But how should they accost her, how make themselves known to her, how go about even to answer the question she had asked without terrifying her ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... was the only one of the patricians who made light both of the tribunes and commons and his own trial. Neither the threats of the commons, nor the entreaties of the senate, could ever persuade him even to change his garb, or accost persons as a suppliant, or even to soften or moderate his usual harshness of speech in the least degree, when his cause was to be pleaded before the people. The expression of his countenance was the same; ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... and go hang!" I cried, and up I sprang, resolved to accost the first person I met, whoever it might be, and at any rate earn ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... thing here to make him uncomfortable, soon forgot his fear, and was just beginning to enjoy himself, when he was aroused by a loud knocking at the street-door, which made the whole house shake: the giant's wife ran to secure him in the oven, and then went to let her husband in. Jack heard him accost her in a voice like thunder, saying: "Wife, I smell fresh meat." "Oh! my dear," replied she, "it is nothing but the people in the dungeon." The giant appeared to believe her, and walked into the very kitchen where poor ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... aware whether she felt ashamed or not; she seemed to be living in a horrible dream. For a quarter of an hour she remained standing erect. Men hurried by without even turning their heads. Then she moved about in her turn, and venturing to accost a man who was whistling with his hands in his pockets, she murmured, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... fancies to the borders of insanity, it seemed at best no very safe adventure to meet? one accoutred in the emblems of the King of Terrors himself, alone, and in the midst of a wild forest. Be the knight's character and purposes what they might, she resolved, however, to accost him in the language and manner observed in romances upon such occasions, in the hope even that if he were a madman he might prove a peaceable one, and accessible ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the forests surrounding Tiffauges, dark, impenetrable forests like those which Brittany still can show at Carnoet. He sobs as he walks along. He attempts to thrust aside the phantoms which accost him. Then he looks about him and beholds obscenity in the shapes of the aged trees. It seems that nature perverts itself before him, that his very presence depraves it. For the first time he understands the motionless lubricity of trees. He ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... flowing white beard, a mild, playful blue eye, a short but well-lined nose, a pale oval face, an evenly-cut mouth, and an amiable expression of countenance. He intently watches every movement of the denizens, and should one accost him, he will answer in soft, friendly accents. He seems known to Madame Flamingo, whom he regards with a mysterious demeanor, and addresses as does a father his child. The old hostess gets no profit of his visits, for "he is only a moralist," she says, and his name ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... less him; he shrewdly distrusted his ability to command the attention of the busy bees; and even a member of the Universal Knowledge Society may well be at a loss for a suitable address to an earwig. At length he determined to accost a Butterfly who, after sipping the juice of a flower, remained perched indolently upon it, apparently undecided ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... alloquy^, address; speech &c 582; apostrophe, interpellation, appeal, invocation, salutation; word in the ear. [Feigned dialogue] dialogism^. platform &c 542; plank; audience &c (interview) 588. V. speak to, address, accost, make up to, apostrophize, appeal to, invoke; ball, salute; call to, halloo. take aside, take by the button; talk to in private. lecture &c (make a speech) 582. Int. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... sir, can I speak to you for a minute?" said a gaudily-dressed, vulgar-looking personage, crossing the street to accost Tom Ryfe as he emerged from the painter's house. "It's about a lady. About her ladyship, askin' your pardon. Lady Bearwarden, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... now burning with curiosity to know something more of the strange creatures dwelling in the well, determined to stay yet another night to accost them, and to learn who and what they were. So he built him a hut of bark near, and reposed beneath it, until the shadows of night again descended upon the earth. With the beam of the rising moon again ascended these merry dancers, the Spirits of the Well, and commenced ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... laughter. "She'll probably be all dressed up to give us a treat, and, for all we know, she may have a child with her, and, if she's pretty, it's a hundred to one some fellow will be seeing her off the boat. You can't rule out any one. And to accost strange women indiscriminately is simply asking for trouble. Understand this: when I've been knocked down twice, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... a man led! Under whose wise and careful guardship I now despise fatigue and hardship, Familiar grown to dirt and wet, Though draggled round, I scorn to fret: From you my chamber damsels learn My broken hose to patch and darn. Now as a jester I accost you; Which never yet one friend has lost you. You judge so nicely to a hair, How far to go, and when to spare; By long experience grown so wise, Of every taste to know the size; There's none so ignorant or weak To take offence at what you speak.[9] Whene'er you joke, 'tis all a case Whether ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... hurricane Swept down upon us with such headlong force, That every oarsman's heart within him sank, And all on board look'd for a watery grave. Then heard I one of the attendant train, Turning to Gessler, in this wise accost him: "You see our danger, and your own, my lord, And that we hover on the verge of death. The boatmen there are powerless from fear, Nor are they confident what course to take;— Now, here is Tell, a stout and fearless man, And knows to steer with more than common skill, ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... with my hands before me, all patience, all resignation; for I think I hear him coming up. Or shall I roundly accost him, in the words, in the form, which you, my ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... that men of sense can be gulled by such professions. Despots always insist that they are merciful. The greatest tyrants that ever dripped with blood have assumed the titles of "most gracious," "most clement," "most merciful," &c., and have ordered their crouching vassals to accost them thus. When did not vice lay claim to those virtues which are the opposites of its habitual crimes? The guilty, according to their own showing, are always innocent, and cowards brave, and drunkards sober, and harlots chaste, and pickpockets ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... my memory,—when a small and youthful looking man, entered the room, and walked up towards us. Supposing him to be some stranger, or rather, not making any supposition at all, we stood looking at him as he approached, and were thunder-struck at hearing him accost us with a stern voice and sterner brow, "Take off your hats. Take off your hats, and go to your seats." The conviction immediately rushed upon our minds, that this must be our new teacher. The first emotion was that of surprise, and the second was that of the ludicrous; ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... crowd outside. She hurried on as quickly as she could, revolving what was to be said if any acquaintance were to accost her. By great good luck, and by travelling second class both in the train and on the boat, she had avoided meeting anybody she knew. But the Nord Station was crowded with English people, and she pushed her way through in a ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... been passing the chateau all day. Yesterday, trouble was a newspaper rumor; today, deadly earnestness. And what excitement all about! The air is positively charged and the whole community is agog; people with anxious faces accost each other in the street; farmers neglect their crops to come into town, bank clerks lay down their pens and shop doors are ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... this diplomacy, or secretiveness, is often very important. Once an admitted invalid, and the dikes are down. Then begin to pour in all sorts of worthy, but alarming and indiscreet persons,—they who accost one in the street declaring one is so changed, and doesn't look fit to be out,—they who invidiously inquire if you take any solid food, as if one walked the world on water-gruel,—they who come to try to make you comfortable while you do live. All these are very kind, but to a sanguine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... from which the Brighton train starts, and, when it is just moving out and all the tickets have been looked at, you will leap on board. This brings you to Brighton, and all you have to do there is to accost the man who takes the tickets in a voice hoarse with fury. "Look here," you will say, "I had an important business engagement at Streatham Common, worth thousands and thousands of pounds to me, and one of your fool porters told me a wrong platform at Victoria. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... eyes so steadily fixed on the beads that dropped through her fingers, until, as she finished, she raised up her head with a straightforward fearless look at the way she was going, so completely self-possessed that no one ventured to accost her, and to follow her at less than such a respectful distance, that she was always lost ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and admiration."[93] On Browne's premature death Fitzgerald's heart was empty. In 1859 at Lowestoft, Fitzgerald, as he wrote to Mrs. Browne, "used to wander about the shore at night longing for some fellow to accost me who might give some promise of filling up a very vacant place in my heart." It was then that he met "Posh" (Joseph Fletcher), a fisherman, 6 feet tall, said to be of the best Suffolk type, both in body and character. Posh reminded Fitzgerald of his dead friend ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... he made his first campaign; in the time when Hannibal, in the height of his success, was burning and pillaging all Italy. In engagements he would strike boldly, without flinching, stand firm to his ground, fix a bold countenance upon his enemies, and with a harsh threatening voice accost them, justly thinking himself and telling others, that such a rugged kind of behavior sometimes terrifies the enemy more than the sword itself. In his marches, he bore his own arms on foot, whilst ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... come to know of this. I'll go meet him. But (seeing THEUROPIDES) I wonder why he has so soon betaken himself homeward again. I'm afraid that he has heard something about this affair. I'll meet him, and accost him. But how dreadfully frightened I am! Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man with a guilty conscience, such as possesses myself. But however this matter turns out, I'll proceed to perplex it still further: ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... fifteen were restored to their friends, and forty-nine went back to their old ways. The building is capable of accommodating from forty-five to fifty inmates. The members of the Society go out on the streets every Friday night, and as they encounter the Street Walkers, accost them, detain them a few moments in conversation, and hand each of them a card bearing the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... him in another form. A lady of fifty or thereabouts was coming up the path, refined, sedate, mistress of herself, the one type of all others most difficult to accost. All the same he must do it. He must keep on doing it till some one yielded to his suit. The rebuffs to which he had been subjected did no more than inflame ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... is a charm that never fails When friends accost me in the street And utter agonizing wails About the price of butcher's meat. "Cheer up," I tell them, "creels on creels Are hastening to your relief; Cheer up, my friends, one pound of eels Is better than a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... incredible progress—nay, a veritable revolution—has taken place in the morals of the people. Whilst formerly, particularly among the urban proletariate, sexual licence and public prostitution were so generally prevalent that—as our Russian friends assure us—anyone might accost the first poorly clad girl he met in the streets without anticipating refusal, now sexual false steps are seldom heard of. Moreover, it is particularly interesting to observe the difference which ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... eyes fixed on the park; and after one or two jocose observations the young man became discouraged and went away. But he had thrust the fear of strangers deep into her heart; and now she dared not ask any man for information. However, when two young women passed she found sufficient courage to accost them, asking the direction of the railroad station from which trains departed ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... the knight resumed, anxious to discover his own advantage in Droop's plans. "'Twere vain for you, a stranger to the Lord High Treasurer, to accost him with it. A very circumspect and pragmatical old lord, believe me. Not every man hath admittance to him, I promise ye. As for me, why, God 'ild you, man! 'twas but yesterday a fortnight Burleigh slapped me o' the shoulder and said: 'Percevall, ye grow fat, you rogue—on the word of ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... journey. Outside the Porta Querquetulana, in front of Plosurnia's tavern, you will find one of the fastest horses in Italy, a blood-bay, noticeable for light-blue reins with silver bosses, his saddlecloth light-blue with a silver edge. Descend from your litter in front of the tavern, accost the man holding the horse, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... world for a future transmigration of souls. Still one fails to conceive that the practice can be devoid of disadvantages even to its beneficiaries. To foreigners it proves disastrously perplexing. For if you chance upon a man whom you have not met for some time, you can never be quite sure how to accost him. If you begin, "Well met, Green, how goes it?" as likely as not he replies, "Finely. But I am no longer Green; I have become Brown. I was adopted last month by my maternal grandfather." You of course ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... was guilty—when he met other robins—of boasting of his conquest of me and of my utter subjugation? I cannot believe it possible. Also I never saw other robins accost him or linger in their passage through the rose-garden to exchange civilities. And yet a very strange thing occurred on one occasion. I was sitting at my table expecting him and heard a familiar ...
— My Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Harris down the street. Harris was talking to and walking with one of his fellow-workmen, and Pickles did not care to accost him ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... It was good to have him on your side; to have him against you was fatal—you might just as well clear out of the town altogether. He had a finger in everything that went on; it was as if he owned the whole town. He had been known to meet a youth he had never spoken to before in the street and accost him with a peremptory "Understand me, young man; you will marry that girl." Yet for all this, Lorentz Uthoug was not altogether content. True, he was head and shoulders above all the Ringeby folks, but what he really wanted ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... rose slowly, like a long, slender snake in the crosswise folds of her clinging skirt, and said, in her schoolgirl accent, without looking at him: "Oh! I knew—I knew;" then moved away and paid no further heed to him. He tried to accost Hemerlingue, but that gentleman seemed deeply absorbed in his conversation with Maurice Trott. Thereupon he went and sat down beside Madame Jenkins, whose isolation was no less marked than his. But, while he talked with the poor woman, who was as ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... assured him that she had no design upon his chastity. In Moslem lands it is always advisable to accost a strange woman, no matter how young, with, "Y Ummi!" O my mother. This is pledging one's word, as it were, not to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... Andre stood gazing after her, as if uncertain of the reality of what had just occurred. He was so deeply engrossed in his reflections, that he did not hear his name repeatedly pronounced by both Adelaide and her friend. The latter at length directed the servant to accost him, and the footman was alighting for that purpose, when two men turned quickly the corner of the street, and perceiving Andre, stopped suddenly, and one of them exclaimed: 'Ah, good-evening, Bernard; you are just the very fellow we want;' and taking Andre by the arm, he drew him under ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... mort-cloth moving up and down the area thereof. Though this last part of the dreadful scene might have been sufficient to intimidate persons possessed of no ordinary degree of courage; yet such was the bravery and resolution of the Reverend Doctor, that he even ventured to accost the nocturnal disturber of their repose: when, on lifting up the mort-cloth, to his inexpressible surprise, he discovered the terrible apparition to be only an unhappy young man belonging to ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... their build and in their manner of speech. The accost and the reply sounded like reports from the same pistol. The old man was tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular—a grey edition of the son, upon whose disorderly attire he cast a glance, while speaking, with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... were evidently Ouweek's spies. They certainly did not accost me in that frank manner as the Touaricks had been wont ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... filled her with disgust. She was horrified at the publicity of hotel-life in New York. She could not tolerate the careless ease of the persons with whom she was thrown into accidental communication,—the confidence with which the very servants ventured to accost her. The absence of awe, the lack of head and knee bending, in her august presence, appeared a tacit insult. She was puzzled to reconcile the freedom with which she was constantly addressed with the great deference paid to her sex. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... thing; I listened to conversation which was not intended for my ears. It happened in this wise: I had been down-stairs on an errand for Mrs. Harrington, and was coming back through the dimly lighted hall, when I saw Dwight Pollard step out of a room in front of me and accost a man that was locking and bolting ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... arrangements which they were making, with the corresponding particulars in the setting off of a stage coach as they had witnessed it in America. While doing this Rollo walked about the premises a little; and at length, finding himself near the two children on the chest, he concluded to venture to accost ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... accost him jocularly to know why he was so finely dressed. George Washington overwhelmed her with a look of such infinite contempt and such withering scorn that all the other servants forthwith fell upon her for "interferin' in Unc' George Wash'n'ton's business." At last the Major entered the garden ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... Margaret prepared for flight. Along with the Burgundian knights and nobles who returned after the truce was proclaimed came Count Charles d'Estournel, and several of those who had fled with him. Guy met the former riding through the street on the day after his return to Paris. Not caring to accost him there, he followed him and saw him dismount at his former lodging. As soon as he had entered Guy went up to ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... observation," Ronald said, "or, not improbably, may have taken another name. The best thing we can do is to go down to the river side, inquire what vessels are likely to leave port soon, and then, if we see anyone going off to them, to accost them. We may hear of them ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... desire to accost the dread presence, or a command of the ancient Greek, after a bit Mr. Smitz turned off the gas and the noises that had heralded the visitant's appearance began in reverse order, and at their cease, the gas being turned on again, there was the circle quite bare of any ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... an only sister. This sad duty fulfilled, he was about to return, when, passing towards dusk down St. James Street, he saw Henry Grainger, habited in a remarkable sporting-dress, standing with several other gentlemen at the door of one of the club-houses. Hastening across the street to accost him, he was arrested for a minute or so by a line of carriages which turned sharply out of Piccadilly; and when he did reach the other side, young Mr. Grainger and his companions had vanished. He inquired of the porter, and was assured that no Mr. Grainger, senior or junior, was known ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... leaned moodily against the door-post at the hotel-entrance, smoking a short pipe of very strong tobacco, and speaking to no one. He had been there for some time, and the girl in the office was watching him with eyes round with curiosity. For he had not even said "Good morning" to her. She wanted to accost him, but somehow the hunch of his shoulders was too discouraging even for her. So she contented herself with ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... Dunois, "that the Count of Crevecoeur tarries below, with his retinue of pursuivants and trumpets, and says, that since your Majesty refuses him the audience which his master has instructed him to demand, upon matters of most pressing concern, he will remain there till midnight, and accost your Majesty at whatever hour you are pleased to issue from your Castle, whether for business, exercise, or devotion; and that no consideration, except the use of absolute force, shall compel him to desist ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... my troth I would not vndertake her in this company. Is that the meaning of Accost? ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... of character, which may be considered the distinguishing mark of the highest literary genius. The men and women whom he has made are not stage-puppets moved by hidden strings; they are real. We know them as intimately as the friends and acquaintances who visit us, or the people whom we accost in our ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... disappeared, to be succeeded by a curious individual bubbling over with an absurd pride for which it was not easy to find an outlet. Hitherto a rather reserved man, he was conscious now of a desire to accost perfect strangers in the street and inform them that he was not the ordinary person they probably imagined, but a father with an intensely unusual son at home, and if they did not believe him they could come right along and ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... order to reach it before George could come up with her. She realised with a quiver of alarm that it was the first time in all these months that he had ventured to approach her. It was clear that he now meant to accost her,—he might even contemplate violence! She wanted to run, but her feet refused to obey the impulse. Fascinated she watched the unsteady figure lurching toward her, and the white face growing more and more distinct and forbidding as it came out of the darkness. Suddenly ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Aiantes went everywhere on the towers, ever urging, and arousing the courage of the Achaians. One they would accost with honeyed words, another with hard words they would rebuke, whomsoever they saw utterly giving ground from the fight: "O friends, whosoever is eminent, or whosoever is of middle station among the Argives, ay, or lower yet, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... yet thought it opportune to appear from our concealment, and now he whispered that, for the avoidance of a scene before spectators, it would be best for him to follow the chair, and accost her at her own door. I should watch Falconer to his abode, and each of us should eventually go home independently of the other. Our relief to find that the English captain's presence was against Madge's will, needed no verbal expression; it was ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... mingling with the discordant noise of a ribald crowd. Farnham understood she was locked in; knew she might hope to escape only through that scene of pollution; beyond doubt, he waited in its midst to gloat over her degradation, possibly even to accost her. She shrank from such an ordeal as though ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... general neither speculation in his eyes, nor intelligence in his countenance. The whole expression is more that of an animal than of a man. He is wanting, too, in the erect and independent bearing of a man. When you, accost him, if he is not insolent—which he seldom is—he is timid and shrinking, his whole manner showing that he feels himself at a distance from you, greater than should separate any two classes of men. He is often doubtful when you address, and suspicious ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... he managed his inquiries with so much art, that in a few days he made himself acquainted with every particular of the transaction, and resolved to gratify his spleen at the expense of the impatient dupe. With this view, he took an opportunity to accost him with a very serious air, saying a friend of his had immediate occasion for a thousand pounds, and as Peregrine had the exact sum lying by him, he would take it as a great favour if he would part with ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... him from among the tombs in his sly way. And the attorney, who had a way, like him, of noting things without appearing to see them, was conscious of it, and was perhaps decided by this trifle to accost the ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and seemed disinclined to do so, or to admit anything about himself. I was sorry that I had stopped to accost him, but now that I had done so I went on quite as a matter of course to give him tidings of the old Squire and of grandmother Ruth. "They are both living and well; they speak of you at times," I said. "Your disappearance grieved them. ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... editors, that the author of the Citizen of the World condescended to take some of his ideas from Pompey the Little. In Count Tag, the impoverished little fop who fancies himself a man of quality, and who begs pardon of people who accost him in the Park—"but really, Lady Betty or Lady Mary is just entering the Mall,"—we have the direct prototype of Beau Tibbs; while Mr. Rhymer, the starving poet, whose furniture consists of "the first Act of a Comedy, a Pair of yellow Stays, two political Pamphlets, a plate of Bread-and-butter, ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... to the great neglect of debates and essays, now join issue with an adroitness on the part of their respective members which gives great promise for political life. Committees at the station-house await the arrival of every train, accost every individual of right age and verdancy; and, having ascertained that he is not a city clerk nor a graduate, relapsed into his ante-academic state, offer their services as amateur porters, guides, or tutors, according to the wants of the individual. Having thus ingratiated themselves, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... their clothes. I have seen on a chill November day, in one of these places, half a dozen men, naked to the waist, scrubbing themselves, or drying their wet shirts before the fire. I have always found them perfectly peaceable, and I have never known them to accost lonely passers-by, or women or children. If a shooting or fishing party comes along, however, large enough to put any accusation of terrorism out of the question, it is not uncommon for the "hoboes" to make a polite suggestion ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... newspapers, for allying himself with their enemies and wheedling sexagenarian baronesses, to fall upon Claude, who now became the great culprit. Well, after all, the other was only a hussy, one of the many found in the artistic fraternity, fellows who accost the public at street corners, leave their comrades in the lurch, and victimise them so as to get the bourgeois into their studios. But Claude, that abortive great artist, that impotent fellow who couldn't set a figure on its legs in spite of all his pride, hadn't he utterly compromised ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... would start from Cortlandt street at 6:30 a. m., on the 4th of August, and take passengers to Albany, there was a broad smile on every face as the inquiry was made if any one would be fool enough to go?" One friend was heard to accost another in the street with: "John, will thee risk thy life in such a concern? I tell thee she is the most fearful wild fowl living, and thy father should restrain thee." When the eventful morning came, ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... afterwards the head of a squaw was seen at an opening in a wigwam, and she was heard to accost the girl, who replied in the Indian language, and without stopping pressed forward. At length she paused and assured the scouts that the village was cleared, and that they were now in safety. She had been well aware that every pass leading out through ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... daughter of the herald Mercury, claims her place among 'The Mystic Nine.' Her language, erewhile slumbering in the pages of the Flash Dictionary, now lives upon the lips of all, even in the most fashionable circles. Ladies accost crossing-sweepers as 'dubsmen'; whist-players are generally spoken of in gambling families as 'dummy-hunters'; children in their nursery sports are accustomed to 'nix their dolls'; and the all but universal summons to exertion of every description ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... behind which came a sound of groaning and grame, weak as from an emaciated frame. I sat down before the curtain and was about to offer my salam when I bethought me of his words (whom Allah save and assain!), 'Accost not a Jew nor a Christian with the salam salutation;[FN492] and, when ye meet them in the way, constrain them to the straitest part thereof.' So I withheld my salutation, but she cried out from behind the curtain, saying, 'Where is the salutation of Unity and Indivisibility, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... reader. But we may suggest a few remembrances which will perhaps call to mind a sufficiency of others. If two men living in the same place, and frequently seeing one another, meet, say at a public assembly, any phrase with which one may be heard to accost the other—as "Hallo, are you here?"—will have an ordinary intonation. But if one of them, after long absence, has unexpectedly returned, the expression of surprise with which his friend may greet him—"Hallo! how came you here?"—will be uttered in much more strongly contrasted tones. The ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... Winnipeg that night for the Rockies. An old man, in a crowded emigrant car, with a bundle under his arm, watched the arrival of the Gaddesden party. He saw Anderson accost them on the platform, and then make his way to his own coach ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... speed!" exclaimed Jobson; "Can that be Madam Mellicent? Ah, sure enough it is her sharp wrinkled face: I never thought she would bend her stiff joints, or walk in the dirt without her riding-hood." Dr. Lloyd offered to go and accost her. "Not for your life," replied Jobson; "she never would forgive me for letting you catch her thus out of sorts. Stop behind that buttress, and I'll go and tell her there is some company coming, and when she has put on her ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... choose to perceive that several distinguished ambassadors, as well as a German prince, himself a reigning sovereign, were present as his guests. He passed them all by to accost a small, graceful man who, seated in a recess, had received no further attention from the high-born company than a condescending nod. Kaunitz gave him his hand, and welcomed him audibly. The honored guest was Noverre, the inventor of the ballet as it is performed to-day on ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the other side of the street, determined to interfere if the youth, so evidently a stranger to the lady, should accost her or annoy her. She walked steadily on, not looking behind her, and doubtless hoping that she was not followed. As soon as she reached another church she turned and entered it. Without hesitation the young man went in after her, and ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... streams of Hell. And he will see the feeble, shadowy tribes, And Balder sitting crown'd, and Hela's throne. Then must he not regard the wailful ghosts Who all will flit, like eddying leaves, around; But he must straight accost their solemn queen, And pay her homage, and entreat with prayers, Telling her all that grief they have in Heaven For Balder, whom she holds by right below; If haply he may melt her heart with words, And make her yield, and give him Balder back." She ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... apprehension. It seems rather rash at moments, all this, and I wish you were here to reassure me. I did not know I should feel so alarmed. I am frightened at every footstep, and dread lest anybody who knows me should accost me, and find out why I am here. I sometimes wonder how I could have agreed to come and enact your part, but I did not realize how trying it would be. You ought not to have asked me, Swithin; upon my word, it ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... ourselves are going to desert the young Caroline upon the floor, for Madame Pettitoes upon the sofa? If the pretty young Caroline, with youth, health, freshness, a fine, budding form, and wreathed in a semi-transparent haze of flounced and flowered gauze, is so vapid that we prefer to accost her with our eyes alone, and not with our tongues, is the same Caroline married into a Madame Pettitoes, and fanning herself upon a sofa—no longer particularly fresh, nor young, nor pretty, and no longer budding, but very ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... peasant with a swollen face and a red beard, in a tattered caftan, and patched overshoes on his bare feet. And the weather was eight degrees below zero. {24a} For the third or fourth time I encountered his eyes, and I felt so near to him that I was no longer ashamed to accost him, but ashamed not to say something to him. I inquired where he came from? he answered readily, and we began to talk; others approached. He was from Smolensk, and had come to seek employment that he might earn his bread ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... the thought that occurred to him, but it was only a passing thought. It vanished in a moment as he heard her accost Bathurst. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... the sanctimonious seyud, I encounter a prosperous-looking party of dervishes. Some of them are mounted on excellent donkeys, and for dervishes they look exceptionally flourishing and well to do. As I ride slowly past, they accost me with their customary "huk yah huk," and promise to pray Allah for a safe journey to wherever I am going, if I will only favor them with the necessary backsheesh to command ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... For there both brothers came face to face with the first mate. He had entered where Gilmore went out, and now passed them with a stare like their own, fire for fire, and at close quarters began to accost the ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... generations of men, some with a tragic roar, some quietly, but to an after-life in the city of ghosts, while from others—and thus was the death of Wickham Place—the spirit slips before the body perishes. It had decayed in the spring, disintegrating the girls more than they knew, and causing either to accost unfamiliar regions. By September it was a corpse, void of emotion, and scarcely hallowed by the memories of thirty years of happiness. Through its round-topped doorway passed furniture, and pictures, and books, until the last room was gutted ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... strolled past, wearing a fatigue cap and the usual serge jumper. His face was tanned a deep brown, and showed up in strong contrast to his fair hair and small, light-coloured moustache. Our hero's first impulse was to run after and accost the stranger, but he checked himself, and sank back into ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... purpose, and whispers in his ear, 'Are you from Leyden, sweetheart?' Then he must say 'Yes,' and accompany her till he comes to a place where he will learn what must be done and how to do it. Above all, he must follow no woman who may accost him and does not repeat these words. The girl who addresses him will be short, dark, pretty, and gaily dressed, with a red bow upon her left shoulder. But let him not be misled by look or dress ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... within reach of her, I stopped. Words were denied me; if I advanced I could but clasp her to my heart in silence; and all that was sane in me, all that was still unconquered, revolted against the thought of such an accost. So we stood for a second, all our life in our eyes, exchanging salvos of attraction and yet each resisting; and then, with a great effort of the will, and conscious at the same time of a sudden bitterness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and so often in the mountains of Languedoc that its echoes had resounded in the halls of Versailles. Cavalier had not been mistaken in thinking that everyone was curious to see him, only as no one yet knew in what light the king regarded him, the courtiers dared not accost him for fear of compromising their dignity; the manner of his reception by His Majesty would regulate the warmth of his reception ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that he should return from the dead on the third day? Finding his way to Joseph's garden, Quintus stands by an empty sepulcher. There is a group of wondering visitors near, and among them is one whose inviting face leads Quintus to accost him. Not frightened by the sword and armor of the Roman knight, but assured by his candid look, the other answers in the Aramaic which ...
— An Easter Disciple • Arthur Benton Sanford
... warriors, a father and a son, who had just performed this act of devotion, arose together, and as they gained their feet, observed their immediate predecessor in the pious act, awaiting them, as if he wished to accost them. ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... Now and then, indeed, one or two women in long cloaks and mantles glided about at a distance; but their dress was so shroud-like, and their whole appearance so ghostly, that I was more than half afraid to accost them. As the night approached, the ranges of buildings grew more and more dim, and the silence which reigned amongst them more awful. The canals, which in some places intersect the streets, were likewise in perfect solitude, and there was just light sufficient for me to observe ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... hat with this hand, raise the other hand, fingers extended, and strike out this way." After practicing him for awhile, they told him that would do—he had it right. Then he bolted for the Colonel's tent with all the assurance with which he would accost a township constable. The Colonel was a West Pointer and as dignified and austere as the Czar of all the Russias. After saluting the Colonel, he said, "Colonel, I have just come in and drawed my outfit and have called in to get my marbles." The Colonel: "The h—ll you say! Report to your ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... thorough-paced coffee-house politician; in the absence of thought, imagination, sentiment, he is attracted immediately to the nearest commonplace, and floats through the chosen regions of noise and empty rumours without difficulty and without distraction. Meet 'any six of these men in buckram,' and they will accost you with the same question and the same answer: they have seen it somewhere in print, or had it from some city oracle, that morning; and the sooner they vent their opinions the better, for they will not keep. Like ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt |
