"Beguile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about it if he had known it. The oil was not discovered until about 1895. I wish I owned a couple of acres of the land now. In which case I would not be writing Autobiographies for a living. My father's dying charge was, "Cling to the land and wait; let nothing beguile it away from you." My mother's favorite cousin, James Lampton, who figures in the "Gilded Age" as "Colonel Sellers," always said of that land—and said it with blazing enthusiasm, too,—"There's millions in it—millions!" It is true that he always said that about everything—and ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... I was not without solicitude on account of their personal safety. I was far from being perfectly at ease on that head, but entertained no distinct conception of the danger that impended over them. Perhaps to beguile the moments of my long protracted stay, they had gone to walk upon the bank. The atmosphere, though illuminated only by the star-light, was remarkably serene. Meanwhile the desirableness of an interview with Carwin again returned, and I finally ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... blessing are free schools! What a difference it makes in the life of that poor girl, to be able to read! How many weary hours of pain will a nice book beguile! And, beside, if one has not a cent in the world, if one has a good education, it is worth as much as money in the bank,—and more, too, because banks often turn out great humbugs, and then people lose all the money ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... which had already occurred, and requested me further to wait for a few minutes longer, intimating that the lady's grief was so violent, that without great effort she could not bring herself to speak calmly at all. As if to beguile the time, the good dame went on in a highly communicative strain to tell me, amongst much that could not interest me, a little of what I had desired to hear. I discovered that the grief of her whom I had come to visit was excited by the sudden death ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... once—now they are nothing, in recompense for the hopes which are for ever gone. Your thoughts are gentle, and may sooth all spirits but my own. But sounds that lull others, lull me no longer. It is not the music of a rich dream, or of a pleasant fancy, which may beguile me into pleasure. I am dead—dead as the cold rock—to their influence. The storm which blighted me has seared, and ate into the very core. I am like the tree through which the worm has travelled—it still stands, and there is foliage upon it, but the heart is eaten out and gone. Your ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... very tolerable ghost story," said the Doctor. "Have you got another? If you have, I shouldn't mind hearing it, as it will beguile ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... "it is not enough, because I know what will happen: Miss Folliard's influence over you is a proverb; now she will cajole and flatter and beguile you until she prevails upon you to let the treacherous Jesuit slip through your fingers, and then he will get off to the Continent, and laugh at you all, after having taken her with him; for there is nothing more certain, if he escapes death ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... without the casting of a ballot? And what becomes of "taxation without representation," when, from Eden down, Eve can always plead with Adam, can have the first word instead of the last—if she knows what that first word is, in herself and thence in its power with him—can beguile him to his good instead of to his harm, as indeed she only meant to do in that first ignorant experiment? Would it be any less easy to qualify for and accomplish this than to convince and outnumber in public gathering not only bodies of men but the mass ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... the notes To their Mill where it floats, To their House and their Mill tether'd fast; To the small wooden isle where their work to beguile 10 They from morning to even take whatever is given;— And many a blithe ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... the village. Alone and having to live incessantly in such close contact, the women had come to hate each other as do passengers isolated on a boat for many months. Besides, their husbands had accustomed them to the use of coffee, the seaman's drink, and they tried to beguile their tedium with strong cups of the ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of what you are pleased to call human imperfections will not bring back your own. Stay quietly at home, my son, and if you cannot be a schoolmaster, chance may one day turn you up President of these United States. Let your insanity for writing books not beguile you into crime; and above all, I would enjoin you, my son, never to write the 'Life and Character' of an in-going President, for then, to follow the fashion of the day, and make for him a life that would apply with equal truth ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... have learned that.... It is not difficult to beguile them either; to lead them, to read them. That is part of my work. I do it. I know they are afraid in battle—the intelligent ones. Yet they fight. I know they are really children—impulsive, passionate, selfish, often cruel—but, after all, they are here fighting ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... remorse for the past and fear for the future had long ago dispelled, never to return. And yet, with that sweet self-deception which all are so disposed to practise, he sought to banish reflection and beguile alarm in the pursuit of all kinds of frivolous amusements unworthy of his rank or station, and fancied he had succeeded in chasing care if for a moment he ceased ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... where one goat can jump another can follow, as the Kaffirs say, how much more is this the case when an animal so active and so vigorous as the lion is concerned! And now came the further question, how were we to beguile the lioness to return? Lions are animals that have a strange knack of appearing when they are not wanted, and keeping studiously out of the way when their presence is required. Of course it was possible that if she had found Jim-Jim ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... the languid roses keep Perpetual sweetness for the hearts that smile, Perpetual sadness for the hearts that weep, Lonely, unseen, I wander, to beguile The day that only shines to show thee bright, The night whose stars burn ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... from finding out your guilt; to beguile me to infer that Margaret's excitement proceeded from some cause not known to you. In a word, to tell me a lie—a silent lie. Moreover, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... country training—you see yourself, somewhat misty through the years, barefoot in a grassy lane, with stick in hand, urging the gentle beast. There is a subtle persuasion in the junkman's call. In these tones did the magician, bawling for old lamps, beguile Aladdin. If there were this morning in my lodging an unrubbed lamp, I would toss it from the window for such magic as he might extract from it. And if a fair Princess should be missing at the noon and her palace be skipped from sight, it will ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... well as the other thirteen entitled "A Song of Degrees," was composed for the singing on the road by those Israelites who went up to Jerusalem to keep the three grand festivals, to beguile their tedious journey, and also to soothe the dejected spirits of those who felt disheartened at having left their homes, their farms, and families without guardians. Ps. cxxvii. is of a soothing character, composed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... score of essays bright, In Addison's best style; I've taken many a lofty flight, The Muses to beguile. ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... for your emphasis on the 'now,'" she declared, indignantly. "You seem to intimate that I am going about the world trying to beguile every ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... who shall chide, with boasting pride, Delights they ne'er have tasted? Oh, let them smile while we beguile The ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... Mr. Hadger. That gentleman held the dignity of the Swiggs family in high esteem, but shook his head when he found the respectability of the house the only security offered in exchange for a loan. Ah! a thought flashed to her relief, the family watch and chain would beguile the Hebrew gentleman. With these cherished mementoes of the high old family, (she would under no other circumstance have parted with for uncounted gold,) she in time seduced Mr. Israel Moses to make a small advance. Duty, stern and demanding, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... elder brother constructed the mainland of New Guinea, while the younger fashioned the islands and the sea. When the natives first saw a steamer on the horizon they thought it was Nemunemu's ship, and the smoke at the funnel they took to be the tobacco-smoke which he puffed to beguile the tedium of the voyage.[397] They are also great believers in magic and witchcraft, and cases of sickness and death, which are not attributed to the malignity of ghosts and spirits, are almost invariably set down to the machinations of sorcerers. Only the deaths of decrepit ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... perish'd in one flaming pile; The foe old Priam did of life beguile, And with his blood, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... long-strayed eyes to me, Which, O! too long have dwelt on thee: But if from you they've learned such ill, To sweetly smile, And then beguile, Keep the deceivers, keep ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... children, (and when was not something happening to some of us?) and we were shut up in a sick-room, then duly as daylight came the quick step and cheerful face of Aunt Esther,—not solemn and lugubrious like so many sick-room nurses, but with a never-failing flow of wit and story that could beguile even the most doleful into laughing at their own afflictions. I remember how a fit of the quinsy—most tedious of all sicknesses to an active child—was gilded and glorified into quite a fete by my having Aunt Esther all to myself for two whole days, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... after an absent meditative mood, from which her lover had vainly tried to beguile her, "does it not seem to you that there is something foolish in this talk of love and confidence between you and me; and that all your promises have been a little too lightly made? What do you know of me? You ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... join his brother in Canada, and that Louisa was vehemently desirous to accompany him, but had failed to satisfy the requirements of Government as to character, so as to obtain a free passage, and was therefore about to be left behind in desertion and distress. She might beguile Michael away quietly and carry him to Canada, where, as it seemed, there were any amount of farmers ready to adopt English children—a much better lot, in Ida's eyes, than the little Tyrolese impostor deserved. She even ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... young Virgins into his snare: What He does with them, when He catches them in the water, Reverend Ladies, I leave for you to imagine—"The Fire-King" seems to be a Man all formed of flames: He raises the Meteors and wandering lights which beguile Travellers into ponds and marshes, and He directs the lightning where it may do most mischief—The last of these elementary Daemons is called "the Cloud-King;" His figure is that of a beautiful Youth, and He is distinguished by two large sable Wings: Though his outside is so enchanting, He is not ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... and rugged way, Through devious, lonely wilds I stray, Thy bounty shall my pains beguile,— The barren wilderness shall smile, With sudden greens and herbage crowned And streams shall ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... me and twine me about thy body, doing as I bid thee, and behold! for a while thy shape shall wear the shape of the Golden Helen, and thy face shall be as her face, and thine eyes as her eyes, and thy voice as her voice. Then I leave the rest to thee, for as Helen's self thou shalt beguile the Wanderer, and once, if once only, be a wife to him whom thou desireth. Naught can I tell thee of the future, I who am but a counsellor, but hereafter it may be that woes will come, woes and wars and death. But what matter these when thou ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... respect to the presence of Rita, or concern for the Count's misfortune, rode along, contrary to his custom, in profound silence, and without indulging in any of those snatches of muleteers' songs with which it was his wont to beguile the tedium ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... tidy craft, and looked very gay with even the half of her festival flags on view. But the gaiety did not beguile Jim's dampened spirits. He went aboard feeling that he'd like to rip the idiotic things down; but the yacht, at least, offered a place where he could think. The sunset light on the water blazed vermilion—just the color that Jim all at once discovered he ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... he said to me once, it is not here as in Italy; our women have no occupation save their domestic uses. Your talents may beguile your solitude; but in a country town like this all that attracts attention excites envy. One must not combat the habits of a place in which one is established. It is better to bear a little ennui than to be beset by wondering faces that every instant ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... said Louis, and hustled off to fill Abe Potash's order, whereat Abe selected a dill pickle to beguile the tedium of waiting. He grasped it firmly between his thumb and finger, and neatly bisected it with his teeth. Simultaneously the pickle squirted, and about a quarter of a pint of the acid juice struck Morris Perlmutter in ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... is a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time. Macbeth, Act ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... Siddons Theatre Building and again seated himself at his desk in front of the pile of manuscript music. This time, however, he brushed aside the title page of his Opus 47 and spread out an evening paper to beguile the tedium of awaiting Benson's "prospects." Automatically he turned to the department headed Music and Musicians, and at the top of the column his eye fell on ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... through their common calamity, had united the feelings of these simple dwellers in the woods with the strangers who had thus transiently visited them, was not so easily broken. Years passed away before the traditionary tale of the white maiden, and of the young warrior of the Mohicans ceased to beguile the long nights and tedious marches, or to animate their youthful and brave with a desire for vengeance. Neither were the secondary actors in these momentous incidents forgotten. Through the medium of the scout, who served for years afterward as a link between ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... not now, he comes not now, To chase the gloom from off my brow, He comes not with his wonted smile The weary moments to beguile. There's joy in every look I see, But mine is sad, for "Where ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... Apostle of the Carbonari, whose soul has been refreshed, made young and regenerated at the galleys; and the mad Irish priest, Magnus, are impossible personages, inviting to easy ridicule, and neither wisdom nor folly from their lips is likely to beguile the ears of ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... over bluffs immediately above it; the historic river seems well supplied with trout hereabouts, I can look down from the bluffs and observe speckled beauties sporting about in its pellucid waters by the score. Toward noon I fool away fifteen minutes trying to beguile one of them into swallowing a grasshopper and a bent pin, but they are not the guileless creatures they seem to be when surveyed from an elevated bluff, so they steadily refuse whatever blandishments I offer. An hour ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... garrison town. Will, who had during his imprisonment at Toulon studied to improve his French to the best of his ability by the aid of some books he had obtained and by chatting with his jailer, worked his hardest to add to his knowledge of the language, and as the French soldiers were quite glad to beguile the time away by talking with their captives, he succeeded at the end of the journey, which lasted nearly a month, in being able to chat with a certain amount of fluency. Verdun was one of the four places in which British prisoners were confined. At that time France ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... usual, my resource to beguile the time until the effect of the memorial and letters could be known. Being furnished by some friends with several manuscript travels and journals in the interior, and along the coasts of Madagascar, I constructed a chart of the northern half of that extensive ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... with pleasing style Thou feast the humour of the Courtly trayne, Let not conceipt thy setled sence beguile, Ne daunted be through envy or disdaine. Subject thy dome to her Empyring spright, From whence thy Muse, and ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... its island-girded bay, Full well protected from the storms which blow Across the lake, stands proudly, as well may The capital of all Ontario. So situate, its properties beguile, Inviting me ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... auction dues, court fees, and contributions from such native tribes as can be made to pay them. Since we have given up the country, the Volksraad has put a very heavy tax on all imported goods, hoping thereby to beguile the Boers into paying taxes without knowing it, and at the same time strike a blow at the trading community, which is English in its proclivities. The result has been to paralyse what little trade there was left in the ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile, And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile! Let others delight 'mid new pleasures to roam, But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of Home! Home! Home! sweet, sweet Home! There's no place like Home! there's ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... full of music, Melodious Teuton troops Beguile us, calmly smoking, On balconies and stoops. With eyes half-shut, and dreamy, We watch the fire-flies' spark, And image far-off faces, As ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... three are congenial to the tastes of the people, or permitted by the Institutions of the country. He is a slave, of course. The ladies of France (who are also slaves) invariably have their heads tied up in Belcher handkerchiefs, wear long earrings, carry tambourines, and beguile the weariness of their yoke by singing in head voices through their noses - ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... of her passing the door, Harry could not be pacified till he found himself in her arms; and not even his mother could beguile him from her through all that long afternoon. He was very feverish, and seemed to suffer much, poor little fellow. Sometimes she soothed his restlessness by singing to him in a low voice, or by telling him the tales ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... chariot of fire. Neither moneys nor high places nor worldly honors nor pleasures can stay or avert the stroke of that sword of divine justice which will 'pierce even to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow.' Let no siren voices beguile you. Without the gift of His grace who died that we might live, there is no hope for kings, none for you, none for me. I pray you consider this, my friend; for I speak as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... we are made voting citizens or not, let no man beguile himself with the thought that the old order of things will be restored. They who step into light and freedom will not retrace their steps. This end is equality, civil, religious and political—there is no stopping-place this side of that. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... took care of a small patch of ground that lay at the back of the house. She was almost glad, she said, that the lady had come to stay sometime with them, and hoped that she would allow her to often sit by her and read during the times her uncle would be away; as it might tend to beguile many a weary hour; that is, provided the lady would have to remain any length ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... she said, "Thou shouldst not reproach me, husband, nor wouldst thou in thy heart if thou knewst what is in mine, or what my portion has been since with fair words in many-mansioned Sparta he did beguile me. With words smoother than honey, and sweeter than the comb of it he did beguile me, and with false words made me believe that I was forsaken and betrayed; and urged me to take ship with him in search of thee. Nor ever once did he reveal himself until we touched ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett
... young actors in London alone who are being forcibly kept in the country to go on entertaining and playing the fool for the same sedative purpose. These youths are all healthy and fit, but it is held that their true function is to work in the theatres and halls to beguile the audiences and divert their thoughts from the terrible reality of German invasion. With each step that the Germans draw nearer the mummers redouble their efforts to excite laughter. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... can have taken possession of me, to settle myself in surroundings so utterly foreign and unknown, breathing of isolation and sadness? The waiting unnerves me, and I beguile the time by examining all the little details of the building. The woodwork of the ceiling is complicated and ingenious. On the partitions of white paper which form the walls, are scattered ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... study, and in hours of rest, You still to me my purest thoughts suggest: My heart's propensities you cherish still To Heaven thanksgiving! and to earth good-will! In you I still behold affection's smile, Which can all troubles of the heart beguile; I hear your kind approvance of my zeal, When, anxious all your merits to reveal, Having consign'd your bones to sacred earth, My mind aspir'd to memorize your worth. Grateful employment of the feeling soul! That, in despite of sorrow's dark controul Keeps the pure form of deathless virtue ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley
... that song on Sunday, To witch an idle while, I sang that song on Monday, As fittest to beguile; I sang it as the year outwore, And the new slid in; I thought not what might shape before Another ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... am that merry wand'rer of the night: I jest to Oberon, and make him smile, Oft lurk in gossip's bowl, and her beguile In very likeness of a roasted crab; And when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale; The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from ...
— A Fairy Tale in Two Acts Taken from Shakespeare (1763) • William Shakespeare
... noble and excellent words," said Hobart, coldly. "But if deeds speak in antagonism to words, we cannot let the latter beguile us out of our sense, but we ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... June—I liked the singing Of her lips, and liked her smile— But all her songs were promises Of something, after while; And July's face—the lights and shade That may not long beguile, With alternations o'er the wheat The ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... never on a Saturday had struck, But for thy entertainment, up a buck. Think of this act of grace, which by your leave Susan would not have done on Easter Eve, Had she not been inform'd over and over, 'Twas for th'ingenious author of The Lover.[4] Cease, therefore, to beguile thyself with hopes, Which is no more than making sandy ropes, And quit the vain pursuit of loud applause, That must bewilder thee in faction's cause. Pr'ythee what is't to thee who guides the state? Why Dunkirk's demolition is so late? Or why her majesty ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... given a finishing touch to the general excitement of the house: that very morning Sagnier had resumed his campaign of denunciation in the matter of the African Railway Lines. In a virulent article in the "Voix du Peuple," he had inquired if it were the intention of the authorities to beguile the public much longer with the story of that bomb and that Anarchist whom the police did not arrest. And this time, while undertaking to publish the names of the thirty-two corrupt senators and deputies in a very early issue, he had boldly named Minister ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... gave my Lydia birth, The day be sacred 'mid each varying year; How oft the name recalls thy spotless worth, And joys departed, still to memory dear! If matchless friendship, constancy, and love, Have power to charm, or one sad grief beguile. 'Tis thine the gloom of sorrow to remove, And on that tearful cheek imprint a smile. May every after season to thee bring New joys; to cheer life's dark eventful way, 'Till time shall close thee in his pond'rous wing, And angels waft thee to eternal day! Lov'd maid, farewel! ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... from the Apostles, from the prophets, by means of which, interpreted on a new and wrong principle, the unhappy soul is precipitated from the height of Catholic truth to the lowest abyss of heresy. Then with the accompanying promises, the heretics are wont marvellously to beguile the incautious. For they dare to teach and promise that in their church, that is, in the conventicle of their communion, there is a certain great and special and altogether personal grace of God, so that whosoever pertain to their number, without any labor, without any effort, without any industry, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... foster-mother, and, disabling her from following her habits of industry, stern want entered her happy cottage. Still Elizabeth appeared only as a thing of joy, contentment, and gratitude; and often did her evening song beguile her aged friend's sigh into a smile. And to better their hard lot, she hired herself to watch a few sheep upon the neighbouring hills, to the steward of a gentleman named Sommerville, who, about the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... answered the professor, "it is all very well for you, who have a lovely wife and a sweet little daughter, to laugh at me. But I am a bachelor; I have no wife, no daughter, no domestic ties of any sort to beguile my restless nature and render me content to settle down in the monotonous placidity of a home; I must always be occupied in some exciting pursuit, or I should go mad from very weariness and ennui; and since our memorable cruise in your Flying Fish, I have been unable to find ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... it rolls like a snake along the waters! What you fancy to be merely a local head-wind blowing through the Straits, is a mistral tormenting the whole Gulf of Lions. We shall be tossing about presently in a manner unpleasant to landsmen; and when you are safely housed, I will come and beguile a little time by relating a true story of a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... she had dropped the letter in the bag, returned to her chamber, and deputed Dorothy Loring, whom she met on the stairs, to run and request Rose to lend her her album to beguile the afternoon with; and Dorothy dances to Rose, saying, 'The Countess de Lispy-Lispy would be delighted to look at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... angler, and had brought her fishing-tackle with her to camp. She intended that afternoon to hire a boat from the farm and see if she could beguile some of the wily ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... to foresee, lest the Islanders beguile all your countries of the commendation of courage & constacy: namely, as they (for so it pleaseth your writers to report) who both can and will endure the torments of hell, & who are able to breake through & escape ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... young an' thochtless then, An' easy to beguile; My mither's warnin's had nae weight 'Bout man's deceitfu' smile. But noo, alas! whan she is dead, I 've shed the sad, saut tear, And hung my heavy, heavy head ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... algebraic and Trinity College fame - was good enough to promise 'to keep an eye' on me. Lord Spencer himself took me to Ely; and there I remained for two years. They were two very important years of my life. Having no fellow pupil to beguile me, I was the more industrious. But it was not from the better acquaintance with ancient literature that I mainly benefited, - it was from my initiation to modern thought. I was a constant guest ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... to point out the only solid source of comfort but in doing this she encountered many difficulties; she found her grossly ignorant, yet she did not despair: and as the poor creature could not receive comfort from the operations of her own mind, she laboured to beguile the hours, which grief made heavy, by adapting her ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... into his carriage, so that he might decide for himself what suppressions it might be necessary to make. 'Je m'ennuie en route; je lirai ces volumes, et j'ecrirai de Mayence ce qu'il y aura a faire.' The volumes thus chosen to beguile the imperial leisure between Paris and Mayence contained the famous correspondence of Madame du Deffand with Horace Walpole. By the Emperor's command a few excisions were made, and the book—reprinted from Miss Berry's original edition which had appeared two years earlier in England—was ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... During the winter, to beguile the time, the whites vied with their Indian allies in many of their sports. As game existed in superabundance, always ready for a loaded rifle, both parties were contented and happy. Time flew away rapidly and soon brought again the sunshine of spring ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... friend of my early days. He serves to beguile many a weary hour," answered the hut-keeper, with ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... 'how unlike the complex works of man, Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan, No meretricious graces to beguile, No clustering ornaments to clay the pile. From ostentation as from weakness free, It stands like the cerulean arch we see, Majestic in its own simplicity. Inscribed above the portal from afar, Conspicuous as the brightness of a star, Legible only by the light they ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... readily believed, that, in mentioning this circumstance, we lay no weight whatever upon the pretended information thus conveyed. But it often happens, such is our natural love for the marvellous, that we willingly contribute our own efforts to beguile our better judgments. Whether the coincidence which I have mentioned was really one of those singular chances, which sometimes happen against all ordinary calculations; or whether Mannering, bewildered amid the arithmetical labyrinth ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... projecting nails interfered with the letter-press and defeated all attempts to trace the thread of the nameless narrative, stole back over my brain; and I seemed once more, with my head in the Toy Box, to beguile a wet afternoon by apoplectic endeavours to follow the fortunes of Sir Charles and Lady Belinda, as they took a favourable turn in the left-hand corner at ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... full measure of her own deficiencies, and she determined to make herself a competent lyric soprano, perhaps something of a dramatic soprano. She dismissed from her mind all the "high" thoughts, all the dreams wherewith the little people, even the little people who achieve a certain success, beguile the tedium of their journey along the hard road. She was not working to "interpret the thought of the great master" or to "advance the singing art yet higher" or even to win fame and applause. She had one object—to ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... saw the old man labouring in a half-made grave. "My destiny," thought Ravenswood, "seems to lead me to scenes of fate and of death; but these are childish thoughts, and they shall not master me. I will not again suffer my imagination to beguile my senses." The old man rested on his spade as the Master approached him, as if to receive his commands; and as he did not immediately speak, the sexton opened the discourse ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... and she had only spoken those two words occasionally, when duty demanded it. For one thing, Sir Redmond was absent, and had been for two weeks, and Beatrice was beginning to miss him dreadfully. To beguile the time, she had ridden, every day, long miles into the hills. Three times she had met Keith Cameron, also riding alone in the hills, and she had endeavored to amuse herself with him, after her own inimitable fashion, and with more or ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... as he has diminished the inducement to vicious indulgence. God knows there is enough of sin and of sorrow in the world to make sad the heart of every Christian man. No one, I think, need be ashamed of his endeavours to cheer the darker hours of his fellow-travellers' steps through life, or to beguile the hearts of the weary and the heavy laden, if only for a time, into cheerful and amusing trains of thought. So far as my experience of life goes, I have never found that the cause of morality and religion was promoted by sternly checking the tendencies of our nature to relaxation and ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... was equally ill informed. It readily acquiesced: the conversation dropped, and the despatch triumphed. No governors have stood so high in the colonial-office as despatch writers; whether that ability in epistolary correspondence implies general superiority, or that they beguile the minister of his judgment by the subtlety or wisdom ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... was infinitely more slow and difficult than the ascent, and much more trying to the nerves. I had not Salvador at my side, nor the mountain before me, to beguile me from my fears; at length I prevailed on one of our attendants, a fine tall figure of a man, to sing to me; and though he had been up the mountain six times in the course of the day, he sang delightfully and with great spirit and expression, as he strided along with his hand upon my ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... silence they heard river voices; murmurings and tones and rhythms and harmonies; and Terabon, who had accumulated a vast store of information from the shanty-boaters, told her some of the simple superstitions with which the river people beguile themselves and add to the interest and ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... to be bewildered and cowed beneath a robust stroke of fate. I felt that the thing one ought to aim at doing was to look experience steadily in the face, whether sweet or bitter, to interrogate it firmly, to grasp its significance. If one cowers away from it, if one tries to distract and beguile the soul, to forget the grief in feverish activity, well, one may succeed in dulling the pain as by some drug or anodyne; but the lesson of life is thereby deferred. Why should one so faint-heartedly ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... my willing tongue, The songs that Braga fram'd and sung? Who was it op'd to me the store Of dark unearthly Runic lore, And taught me to beguile my time With Denmark's aged and witching rhyme; To rest in thought in Elvir shades, And hear the song of fairy maids; Or climb the top of Dovrefeld, Where magic knights their muster held! Who was it did all this for me? O, who, but ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... combine; Erect new stocks to trade beyond the line; With air and empty names beguile the town, And raise new credits first, then cry 'em down; Divide the empty nothing into shares, And set the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... an enormous, half-ruined oak-tree. Natural decay and the pickaxes of the woodman seeking fuel for his camp-fire had hollowed out a comfortable retreat from the storm. Surrounding the tree was a bed of wild strawberries, which helped to beguile the time. When at length the clouds cleared away, we resumed our saddles with dry jackets. But, as it turned out, the half-hour we spent under the tree lost us ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... simple wile Thy soul has strayed from honor's track, 'Tis mercy only can beguile, By gentle ways, the wanderer back. Go, go, be innocent and live! The tongues of men may wound thee sore, But heaven in pity can forgive, And bids thee go ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason
... the great griefe both of maister and mistresse, when the trueth was knowne, that they so wronged their honest servant: how it may forewarne others, I leave to your owne opinions, that see what extraordinarie devises are now avayed, to beguile the ...
— The Third And Last Part Of Conny-Catching. (1592) - With the new deuised knauish arte of Foole-taking • R. G.
... voted for the torture. One man most reasonably asked why she should be put to torture when they had ample material for judgment without it? One cannot but feel that the proceedings on this occasion were either intended to beguile the impatience of the English authorities, eager to be done with the whole business, or to add a quite gratuitous pang to the sufferings of the heroic girl. As the men were not devils, though probably possessed by this time, the more cruel among them, by the horrible curiosity, innate ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... The talent shown is astonishing, but stuff and matter are wanting. It is an effort of the imagination to stand alone—a substitute for everything else. We find metaphors, rhymes, music, color, but not man, not humanity. Poetry of this factitious kind may beguile one at twenty, but what can one make of it at fifty? It reminds me of Pergamos, of Alexandria, of all the epochs of decadence when beauty of form hid poverty of thought and exhaustion of feeling. I strongly share the repugnance which this poetical school arouses in simple ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of a certain time. When it should be elapsed, he promised that she should lead him to any part of the world she chose. Cheered by this promise, she planned many an imaginary journey to foreign lands, and many a long hour did Mary and her father beguile in arranging the ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... music bells of St. Giles had ceased playing, the landlord was fond of standing in his doorway, bareheaded and in shirt-sleeves and apron, to exchange opinions on politics, literature and religion, or to tell Bobby's story to what passers-by he could beguile into talk. At his feet, there, was a fine place for a sociable little dog to spend an hour. When he was ready to go Bobby set his paws upon Mr. Traill and waited for the landlord's hand to be laid on his head ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... been poor Sir Piers's favorite retreat. It was, in fact, the only room in the house that he could call his own; and thither would he often, with pipe and punch, beguile the flagging hours, secure from interruption. A snug, old-fashioned apartment it was; wainscoted with rich black oak; with a fine old cabinet of the same material, and a line or two of crazy, worm-eaten bookshelves, laden ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... drowsiness, to beguile the time, he looks back to his past experience, and the prison became his Patmos—the gate of heaven—a Bethel, in which his time was occupied in writing for the benefit of his fellow-Christians. He looks back upon all the wondrous way through which the Lord had led him from the City of Destruction ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... down with solemn book His sadness to beguile; A skull from off its bracket-nook Threw him a lipless smile; But its awful, laughter-mocking look, Was ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... and vexed and bitter." And with reprehensible rudeness I marched away. I was excessively impatient to leave Florence; my friend's dark spirit seemed diffused through all things. I had packed my trunk to start for Rome that night, and meanwhile, to beguile my unrest, I aimlessly paced the streets. Chance led me at last to the church of San Lorenzo. Remembering poor Theobald's phrase about Michael Angelo—"He did his best at a venture"—I went in and turned my steps to the chapel of the tombs. Viewing in sadness the sadness of ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... said, By which much Shame and Passion he betray'd: And then 'twas, Madam, I stept in and gave Counsels, I thought him fittest to receive; I sooth'd him up, and told him that the Crime I had committed, had the case been mine. I all things said that might his Griefs beguile, And brought him to the sweetness of a Smile. —To all I said he lent a willing ear, And my reproaches too at last did hear. With this insensibly I drew him on, And with my flatteries so upon him won, Such Gentleness infus'd into his Breast, As has dispos'd his wearied Soul to rest: Sleeping upon ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... thou dost cajole With seemings that beguile us well, So doeth many a human soul That teemeth ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... a just characterization of Junior Masters, he said: the three-ringed circus. He, Banneker, would run any kind of a circus they wanted, to catch and hold their eyes; the sensational acts, the clowns of the funny pages, the blare of the bands, the motion, the color, and the spangles; all to beguile them into reading ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... since he started," she mused. "It cannot be a great while ere he returns. Therefore to beguile my loneliness I will ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... devouring in his breast than his next strongest passion, love of knowledge, was sufficient to egg him on to it. Throughout life, his moral conduct was unfavourably influenced by the scantiness of his means. It was to beguile the anxiety occasioned by his narrow circumstances that he devoted himself to intense study, from knowing that superior attainments combined with splendid talents would secure for him great offices of trust ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... fathers, to make place to idle superstitions; wherefore we ought not to lead the minds of the faithful into such things, for they are rather to be instructed than played withal; neither are we to blind and beguile their eyes, but to infuse instructions into their minds." In which words Caelestinus reprehends this apparel, as a novelty which tended to superstition, and made way to the mocking and deceiving ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... any other poet, Browning— at least, his reader— needs the help of a believing, cheery, and enthusiastic guide, to beguile the weary pilgrimage. ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... charm them in, but without success—they will come no further than that tree. I think they have slipped in from the village, probably in a most unorthodox fashion, and what I am coming at is, will you go out under the tree to them and beguile them into attending a Sabbath-school for once in their lives? They look to me as though it was ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... To beguile one such afternoon when the rain set in early and walking was impossible, I found my way to the shop of an old dealer in bric-a-brac. It was not a monotonous display, after the manner of the Parisian dealer, of a stock-in-trade the like of which one has seen many times over, but a ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... till she was but three paces from him, and then she stooped down and made the sign to him, and then spake to him breathlessly, and said: "Hearken! but speak not till I have done: I bade thee to-night's meeting because I saw that there was one anigh whom I must needs beguile. But by thine oath, and thy love, and all that thou art, I adjure thee come not unto me this night as I bade thee! but be hidden in the hazel-copse outside the house, as it draws toward midnight, and abide me there. Dost thou hearken, ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... whose bewitching style, Life's tedious minutes can beguile, Makes us, with him, forget uneasy care, And not remember what we are. Who by a charm, which no one can withstand, Enchanting poison can command, Can make us share his pleasing foolery, And from dull reason ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... wanderer of the night; Jest to Oberon, and make him smile, When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, Neighing in likeness of a filly foal; And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab; And when she drinks against her lips I bob, And on her withered dew-lap pour ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... be a perpetual companion. Friends come and go, but the book may beguile all experiences ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... with Dick acting under her directions and Bob, too, assisting in a desultory way when the superior attractions of crab-hunting on his own account did not beguile him from the pursuit, all hunted everywhere, finding every variety of young whelks, cockles, and other shell-fish ova on the pier-piles, which they were able to examine at their pleasure, it being low tide, no sea ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for the arrival of the vehicle, and reading El Diario, the local daily paper—a sheet the size of the palm of one's hand—until I had the contents by rote, an incident occurred to beguile suspense. The vanguard of the corps of Sanchez Bregua, the commander of the Republican Army of the North, rode into the city. They had come from Zarauz, a seaside village four leagues away—a section ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... and primers, he will yet live to appreciate Mr. Smith's name as one associated with kindly intent and generous aspirations in his behalf. A generation of bargemen who had a less uncompromising vocabulary of oaths, who could beguile some of the tedium of their voyaging with reading, and who in other important respects showed the influences of half-time, would be a smiling reward of philanthropy and an important addition to our civilisation. That Mr. Smith anticipates some such reward is evident from ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... feeble efforts of wit did the country folk try to beguile the long evenings. In those days there were no newspapers, very few books, even if they could be read, and the only means of gathering information from other parts of the country were the peddlers or wandering minstrels, who told them the ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... tears, Kriss Kringle has come with his fatherly face To comfort complaining humanity's fears; Let music go 'round and the beautiful smile Bring gladsome delight to the bosom of bliss, Till gentle enjoyments unbroken beguile The souls of the sad with ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... I am no longer moved by the beauty of things. Or to speak more truly, the more pleasurable and splendid aspects of nature give me pain. All day long I sully sheet after sheet of paper and beguile the tedious hours with the half-faded recollections of my childhood. What I am writing will be burned. I should be ashamed that pages, tear-stained and dream-haunted, should fall beneath the eyes of grave, sober-minded folk. ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... believe I could resume it to-morrow, very little the worse from long disuse. To this present year of my life, when I sit in this hall, or where not, hearing a dull speech, the phenomenon does occur—I sometimes beguile the tedium of the moment by mentally following the speaker in the old, old way; and sometimes, if you can believe me, I even find my hand going on the table-cloth, taking an imaginary note of it all. Accept these little truths as a confirmation of what I ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... lull his watchfulness. To the man who purchased her . . . Kathlyn Hare! She laughed. The old man behind her nodded approvingly, hearing the sound but not sensing its import. Ah, when the moment came, when the fool who bought her started to lead her home, she would beguile him and at the first sign of carelessness she would trust to her heels. She knew that she was going to run as never a woman ran before; back to the beasts of the jungle, who at least made no effort to molest her so long as she kept out of ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... companionship with Sada. I had hoped his Book of Etiquette said, "After this, bow and depart." But my hopes had not a pin-feather to rest on. He stayed right where he was. All right, old Uncle, thought I, if stay you will, then I shall use all a woman's power to beguile you and a woman's wit to out-trick you, so I can make you show your hand. It is going to be a game with the girl as the prize. It is also going to be like playing leap-frog with a porcupine. He has cunning and authority to back him, and I have only my love ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... be fickle, false, and full of fraud, 1141 Bud and be blasted in a breathing-while; The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile: 1144 The strongest body shall it make most weak, Strike the wise dumb and teach ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... life found in them, and from the polish which continual use has set on the side-walls of some of the staircases. In general appearance and design the nuraghi recall the modern truddhi, hundreds of which dot the surface of Apulia and help to beguile the tedium of the railway journey from Brindisi to Foggia. The truddhi, however, are built in steps or terraces and ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... heavy outlay, with the possible result of ill-success. Indeed, I believe fifty quack remedies fail for one that succeeds; and millions must have been wasted in placards, bills, and advertisements, which never returned half their value to the speculator. If I live, I think I shall beguile my time with writing the lives of the principal quacks who have met with success. They are few in number, after all, as any one must know who recalls the countless remedies which are puffed awhile on the fences, and disappear to be heard ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various |
