"Cast about" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no single trace Exists, I know, in my fictitious face; There wants a certain cast about the eye; A certain lifting of the nose's tip; A certain curling of the nether lip, In scorn of all that is, beneath the sky; In brief it is an aspect deleterious, A face decidedly not serious, A face profane, that would ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... was inevitably, as it were, only of myself. It seemed to me that I had nothing to do but to abandon at once a cherished dream, and probably to renounce authorship. For I had not first made up my mind to write a history, and then cast about to take up a subject. My subject had taken me up, drawn me on, and absorbed me into itself. It was necessary for me, it seemed, to write the book I had been thinking much of, even if it were destined ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... that Mr. Candish was growing graver, and his sallow face beginning to flush through its thin skin. It was evident that Mrs. Fenton saw and appreciated these signs, and wished to change the subject of conversation. Philip wondered that she took the matter so gravely, but cast about in his own mind for the means of helping her. Before he could think of anything to say his cousin had started ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... found anyone else, at the Master's behest. But it did not occur to the trained collie to disobey. With a visible diminishing of his first eager excitement, but with submissive haste, the big dog stepped out on to the veranda and began to cast about in the drifts at ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... late the truth had forced itself upon him that the woman wished to entangle him in a serious affair. He could not afford to jeopardise his reputation at the very outset of his career by any such entanglement, or by the appearance of one. He cast about for some excuse to leave the Palace, yet this would separate him in a measure from his association with Berene, beside incurring the enmity of the Baroness, and possibly causing Berene to suffer from her anger ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... having forgotten somewhat, he run into the house leaving behind him an embroider'd mantle, mail'd to one of the saddles: In his absence I cut the straps and under the covert of some out-sheds we made off with it to a neighbouring forest. Being more out of danger among the thickets we cast about where we should hide the gold that we might not be either charg'd with the felony, or robb'd of it our selves: At last we concluded to sow it in the lining of an old patcht coat which I threw over my shoulders ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... one of the lately scorned sage-hens, and broiled it over a fire that invited a longer stay than an industrious bear-hunter could afford. But nightfall found him and his quarry still many miles asunder, and as he did not relish the prospect of a chaffing from the men at the station, he cast about for a camping-place, finding one in an open spot on the bank of a little stream. Two more sage-hens were added to the larder, and he was preparing to kindle a fire when the whinnying of a horse caught his ear. He ran to his own horse to check the certain ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... descent was accomplished, it was past four o'clock—summer time—and there was a pale cast about the sweet moonlight that told of the coming ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... wrote to Mrs. Blunt and asked herself to lunch, and Mrs. Blunt, being an accomplished painstaking hostess, and having no reason to suppose that her young friend desired a confidential interview, at once cast about for some one whom Agatha would like to meet. She did not ask Calder Wentworth—she was not so commonplace as that—but she invited Victor Sutton, and, delighting in a happy flash of inspiration, she added Mr. Vansittart Merceron. ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... hardwoods, and from my rocky perch I looked through their upper tracery of budding twigs, as through a veil of faint green and red, out on the brown and green plains of Tennessee shining in the sun, or left and right across the canyons of the coves to the stately procession of receding headlands. Then I cast about for a way down into one of the coves, and presently came ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... the presence of a dogma, whether it be political, moral, or religious, is to cast about for the best way to masticate, ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... making a contract with a white man, yet visits upon him no penalty when he evades and contemns such law; which, guaranteeing to him immunity for violating or dishonouring his engagement, prompts him to cast about for some new and, haply, more admired expedient, whereby he may circumvent and defraud his creditor? Is that an enviable position for one to be placed in, who, ignorant of the disability I have mentioned, and guileless enough to suppose, that an Indian, who has fair ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... myself sufficiently master of my business I began to cast about for an opportunity of launching into the world, in hope of finding some provision that might make amends for the difficulties I had undergone; but, as this could not be effected without a small sum of money to equip me for the field, I was in the utmost perplexity how to ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... mail that "hosses and carages" are to be found at Parrsboro, and that the sailing of the steamer is "rooled by the tide," eager looks are cast about on alighting at that charming village, the natives of which, to our surprise, are not backwoodsmen or rough countrymen. Mine host, genial and gentlemanly, becomes visible; and we are soon bowling merrily along through the neat village, the picturesque country beyond, and ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... their iournie with great ioy and gladnesse, as men put in comfort to find out the wished seats for their firme and sure [Sidenote: Brute with his companie landed in Affrike.] habitations. From hence therefore they cast about, and making westward, first arrived in Affrica, and after keeping on their course, they passed the straits of Gibralterra, and coasting alongst the shore on the right hand, they found another companie ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (2 of 8) - The Second Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... passed, as a matter of course, following such a line of procedure, he became a very rich man, and his disposition being of an enterprising nature, he began to cast about him for new investments, seeking new fields to conquer. The explosion of a boat on the Hudson, discommoding for a time the existing line, offered to Drew the favorable opportunity for which he was looking, ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... not, albeit she was always entreating me in nowise to thwart or gainsay my father. I cannot but hope that these long months of absence will have gone far to break the spell that those evil men seemed to cast about him. Be that as it may, I myself have grown from a child to a woman, and I say now, as I said then, that no power in the world shall induce me to give my hand in marriage to Peter Sanghurst. I ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... silly boy!" Fancy reproved him, while conscious of a highly delicious thrill and an equally delicious fear. ("O, youth, youth! and the wonder of first love!") She cast about for escape, and forced a laugh. "Do you know, you're the very first as has ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... novel. I could supply conversation and description, but it was very difficult to invent a plot, and still more difficult to invent one which of itself would speak. I had collected a quantity of matter of all kinds before I began, and then I cast about for a frame in which to fit it. At last I settled that my hero, if hero he could be called, should fall in love with a poor but intelligent and educated girl. He had a fortune of about two thousand pounds a year, nearly the whole of which he lost through the defalcations of a brother, whose ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... of 1892, I added "big Bill Lange," who has since become one of the stars of the League, and Irwin to my string of fielders, and cast about to strengthen the pitching department of the team as much as possible, Gumbert and Luby having been released. Having this object in view no less than eleven twirlers were signed, of whom all but four proved comparative failures, Hutchinson, McGill and Mauck having to do the greater part of the ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... faces, a few incidents have an emphasis in your memory out of all proportion to their apparent significance if you measure them by ordinary standards. They relate to your gift. Let them have their weight, and do not reject them, or cast about for illustrations and facts more ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... him? He was Richard's pupil. I was forced to take the child with me, for old Sir Reginald had been unruly enough, and I thought would be the less troublesome to my father were his son in my keeping. But I half repented when I saw what a small urchin it was, to be cast about among grooms and pages! But Richard aided the little uncouth varlet, nursed him when sick, guarded him when well, trained him to be loyal and steadfast. The little fellow came bravely to my aid in my grapple with the traitor before Acre; and when the blow had ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one of the great beauties of Laverick Wells is, that it is just as much in vogue in summer as in winter, the inhabitants consoled themselves with the old aphorism, that there is as 'good fish in the sea as ever came out of it,' and cast about in search of some one to supply his place at as small cost to themselves as possible. In a place so replete with money and the enterprise of youth, little difficulty was anticipated, especially when the old bait of ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... wait and cast about for words of hatred strong enough to carry the arrows of enmity which nothing could stop me from delivering. But while I waited Tokudo announced for the third time that my husband was wanted at the telephone. And a very simple ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... neuer bring in a wall. What say you Bottome? Bot. Some man or other must present wall, and let him haue some Plaster, or some Lome, or some rough cast about him, to signifie wall; or let him hold his fingers thus; and through that cranny shall ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... When a child is nearly grown, a collar bearing his name and the device of his house is cast about his neck. This collar is made of 'arenak,' a synthetic metal which, once formed, cannot be altered by any usual means. It cannot be scratched, cut, bent, broken, or worked in any way except at such a high temperature that death would result, if such heat were applied to the collar. ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... stairs," the mother had said, on going, with a warning nod toward the bed where Jake and Ikey slept. He didn't intend to. Besides, they were fast asleep. Abe cast about him for fun of some kind, and bethought himself of a game of jacks. That he had no jackstones was of small moment to him. East Side tenements, where pennies are infrequent, have resources. One penny was Abe's hoard. With that, and an accidental ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... felt on the top of Slide, after we had got some rest, was a want of water. Several of us cast about, right and left, but no sign of water was found. But water must be had, so we all started off deliberately to hunt it up. We had not gone many hundred yards before we chanced upon an ice-cave beneath some rocks,—vast masses of ice, with crystal pools of ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... passage. On this primaeval ground one is so constantly being baulked. There are so many knotted jungles of splintered rock, such frequent swamps, so much fallen timber. And, moreover, the watercourses and torrents were all new-bloated with the rain, so that we had to cast about for fords, and then to grip one another at stiff arm's length, so as not to get swept adrift whilst wading amongst the eddying boulders. And when at last we did come to the lake, we saw there in the gray dusk ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... radius from Brompton Church, that the houses which came nearest to his ideal cottage in a walled garden were either too far away from Hyde Park, or they were not to be let, or they were to be let unfurnished. So, like a prudent person, he moderated his desires, and began to cast about for any furnished house of fairly cheerful aspect, with a garden behind. But here again he found that the large furnished houses were out of the question, because they were unnecessarily expensive, and that the smaller ones were mostly to be found in slummy streets; while in ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... I must. You know what I've been preaching and talking: I have meant every word of it in good faith, and when I began to doubt the good faith of those behind me, I was forced to cast about for a weapon. It was handed to me almost miraculously, and as long as I held it my good name before the people of the State was safe. As the matter stands now, I'm a broken man, dad. After the election I shall be billeted from ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... its ground against the new rival. The 'Izwi', though somewhat too pronounced against the traditional policy of the Dutch, appealed to a large section mainly by reason of its Imperial sentiment. The result was that Mr. Tengo-Jabavu's paper began to sink into difficulties and had to cast about for a financial rescuer. Prominent supporters of the present Ministry came to the rescue; three out of the ten members of the first Union Cabinet became shareholders in the sinking 'Imvo', so that the editor, in a sense, cannot ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... Ling keeps a restaurant, and, some years ago, when my ways were cast about West India Dock Road, I knew him well. He was an old man then; he is an old man now: the same age, I fancy. Supper with him is something to remember—I use the phrase carefully. You will find, after supper, that soda-mints and potass-water are ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... distressed at his son's state, cast about how he should find the golden-haired Princess, and after calling his ministers and nobles to help him, came to the conclusion that it would be best to employ a wise woman. So he called the wisest woman in the land to him, ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... he denied that he did. But at the time I believed that he was guilty. I saw that he would be arrested, and in a frenzy of alarm I cast about for some means to save him. I remembered your motor-car was waiting at the gates. I sent Trim away ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... the winds. You are not obliged to assault people with discourses that are out of their road, when you see that their received notions must prevent your making an impression upon them. You ought rather to cast about and to manage things with all the dexterity in your power, so that if you are not able to make them go well they may be as little ill as possible; for except all men were good everything cannot be right, and that is a blessing that I do not ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... say how—the south-eastern corner of the Bordelais, and am now at Bazas in very hot September weather, I am not only as warm as a lizard of the dusty roadside likes to be, but am hungry and thirsty. I therefore cast about for an inn that looks both cool and capable of giving a fair meal to a tired wanderer. My choice rests with one that swings the sign of the White Horse; for, to tell the truth, I have somewhat of a superstitious belief in the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the two barrels, and by their side an axe. His first impulse was to dash in the heads of the casks where they stood; but a moment's reflection told him that the odor, so near the cabin, would be unpleasant to every one, and might have a tendency to exasperate the owner of the liquor. He cast about him, therefore, for the means of removing the casks, in order to stave them, at a distance from ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... Bruneau was hurried on deck, the noose was cast about his neck, and as Cartier drew near the vessel his astonished eyes were greeted by the sight of the struggling form of the burly villain ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... confine the stock within as limited a space as was consistent with good health, and to feed cultivated forage and crops. In drawing my map, the forty which Polly had segregated left the northeast forty standing alone, and I had to cast about for some good way of treating it. "Make it your feeding ground," said my good genius, and thus the wrath of Polly was made ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... and sore with Ellen, but she was bound to admit that her grievance had a certain justification. After all, she had always meant her to be a lady, and now, she supposed, she was merely behaving like one. She cast about her for means of introducing her sister into the spheres she coveted ... if only Sir Harry Trevor would come home!—But she gathered there was little prospect of that for some time. Then she thought of Mr. Pratt, ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... am I gone weary that I should need to tell so much concerning the air of that Time and Place; for surely I do seem to make this my story as that I did make a lecturing upon matters of chemistry; and so do I cast about, that I may not bother to tell more upon this matter. Yet, in truth, a little more of my thinkings and observings had I better set down here, and so be done with it. But you shall have patience with me, and know that had this, ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... Then he cast about with his eyes fixed on the loose gravel over which they had scrambled, until he came to a spot where a wide patch of half-rotted needles lay beneath another belt ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... vvas called the New yeares gift, fell into a great leake, being laden with ordinance, hides, and other spoiles, and in the night shee lost the companie of our Fleete, vvhich being missed the next morning by the Generall, he cast about vvith the whole Fleete, fearing some great mischance to be happened vnto her, as in verie deede it so fell out, for her leake vvas so great, and her men were all tyred vvith pomping. But at the last hauing found her and the Barke Talbot in her companie, vvhich staied ...
— A Svmmarie and Trve Discovrse of Sir Frances Drakes VVest Indian Voyage • Richard Field
... the pillows of his bed a beautiful brown wicked looking thing like some velvet snake, who leaned over him as he threw down the painted cards upon the lace, and who had cast about his throat her curved bare arm with the great coils of dead gold all ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... stockings had fallen. His shirt buttons were gone, and the bosom was guiltless of its former immaculateness. After a time he became conscious of a burning pain in the elbow of his right arm. He glanced down at his hand, to find it covered with drying blood. He jumped up and cast about his clothes. One leg of his trousers was soaked, and the dull ache in his thigh told the cause. He salved the wounds and bound them in strips of handkerchiefs, which he held in place by using some of ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... grumble fast enough if there was anything—which positively there wasn't—to grumble about. All of which, though it charmed Katherine, appeased her anxiety but moderately. The young man worked too hard. His opportunities of amusement were too scant. Katherine cast about in thought, and in prayer, for some lightening of his daily life, even if such lightening should lessen the completeness of his dependence upon herself. And it was just at this juncture that Miss St. Quentin wrote proposing to come to Brockhurst for a week. She had not been there since the Whitsuntide ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... was what I wished for: but my wishes, raised at first by your love, were rather governed by my despair of other refuge [having before cast about, and not being able to determine, what I ought to do, and what I could do, in a situation so unhappy] than by a reasonable hope: For why indeed should any body embroil themselves for others, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... which had whizzed so near his crown, he cast about for a moment and picked it up from the earth where it lay but a few feet distant. As he balanced it in his hand, he observed that it was about six feet in length, was made entirely of wood, which was heavy and as hard and ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... beneficence may be best reached by a course of systematic effort, the very fact should lead to its immediate adoption. At the close of the preceding arguments, without reasoning in a circle, this may be adduced as a consideration of no small force, inducing every one to cast about him, and solemnly consider whether he is conducting his charities in the most efficient method; manner and spirit being as binding as the generous deed itself. And on this principle, every precept, promise, and example of revelation, enforcing ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... as Dryden and Pope; two men of such admirable talent, both of them, and one of them, Dryden, a man, on all sides, of such energetic and genial power? And yet, if we are to gain the full benefit from poetry, we must have the real estimate of it. I cast about for some mode of arriving, in the present case, at such an estimate without offence. And perhaps the best way is to begin, as it is easy to begin, ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... had mated him twice, and he was still gazing blankly at the mess into which she had driven his forces, she sat up sideways, gathering her slim ankles into one hand, and cast about her for something to do, eyes wandering ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... threw its blue and hazy light into the cave. In spite of the gloomy poetic effects which Mademoiselle de Verneuil's imagination cast about this vaulted chamber, which was echoing to the sounds of a pitiful prayer, she was obliged to admit that the place was nothing more than an underground kitchen, evidently long abandoned. When the formless mass was distinguishable it proved ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... reflections and his skin prickled as at the touch of something loathsome. Up to that moment he had suffered none of the pains of the hunted fugitive; but he knew now that he had fairly entered the gates of the outlaw's inferno; that however cunningly he might cast about to throw his pursuers off the track, he would never again know what it was to be wholly free from the terror of the arrow that ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... England! wouldst thou have thy government sound and healthful? Then cast about and see and search diligently to find out all those burthens that came in by Kings, and remove them; and then will thy Commonwealth's Government arise from under the clods under which as yet it is buried and covered with ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... one name, And Shame can be slow poison if it will; This is the truth I saw then, and see still; Nor is there any magic that can stain That white truth for me, or make me blind again. Come, I will show thee how my spirit hath moved. When the first stab came, and I knew I loved, I cast about how best to face mine ill. And the first thought that came, was to be still And hide my sickness.—For no trust there is In man's tongue, that so well admonishes And counsels and betrays, and waxes fat With griefs of its own gathering!—After ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... could not stand that. There must somehow be a way to save him. She cast about desperately for one, and had not found it when she begged the outlaw chief ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Addison and Thomas peered round the fallen rock and cast about for some means of ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Mme. Cibot's mind. She cast about for some way of making the sick man understand that she expected a legacy. That evening, when Schmucke was eating his dinner as usual by Pons' bedside, she went out, hoping to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... seemed at first, what he intended to do. The Spanish fleet were by this time on his weather bow, and he was persuaded (we here take his cousin Raleigh's beautiful narrative, and follow it in Raleigh's words) 'to cut his mainsail and cast about, and trust to the sailing of ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... he said to them, "of the beauty and goodness of the Roman princess. I desire her for my wife. So cast about quickly for some way by which ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... related in the foregoing chapter, I had nourished my knowledge of the council into maturity, I began to cast about for the means of exercising the same towards a satisfactory issue. But in this I found a great difficulty, arising from the policy and conduct of Mr Andrew M'Lucre, who had a sort of infeftment, as may be said, of the office of dean ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... been told to exercise systematically for her body's good, or her mind's. She went in a spirit of unwholesome brooding curiosity and a bitter resentment. Going to France, was she? Lots of good she'd do there. Better stay home and—and what? Tessie cast about in her mind for a fitting job for Angie. Guess she might's well go, after all. Nobody'd miss her, unless it was her father, and he didn't see her but about a third of the time. But in Tessie's heart was a great envy of this girl who could bridge the hideous waste of ocean that separated ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... "I exempt Bottles. And considering, John, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, to be kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast about among our friends for a certain selected number of the most reliable and willing—form a Society here for three months—wait upon ourselves and one another—live cheerfully and socially—and see ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... Something beyond the chilliness was wrong with him, and he did not know what it was. There is no condition so vexatious as an unexplainable lack of ease; and Old Dalton twisted, gathered up his knees, straightened them again, tensed, relaxed, shifted the bedclothes, and busily but vainly cast about for the source of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... man across the table did not hesitate nor did he cast about for words. On the contrary, he replied with embarrassing promptness: "I ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... turtle-doves. He, too, was a moral and social reformer. But men must live. The refined social status attached to Mr. Parker's honorary post producing nothing tangible in the way of ready cash, he began to cast about for some means of livelihood. They wre getting into debt once more. Something must be done, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... were not less propitious, as being touched more with the points of honour and victory, yet were they troubled and loaded ever, both with domestic and foreign machinations; and, as it is already quoted, they were such as awakened her spirits and made her cast about her to defend rather by offending, and by way of provision to prevent all invasions, than to expect them, which was a piece of the cunning of the times; and with this I have noted the causes and PRINCIPIUM {57} of the wars following, and likewise points to the seed-plots from whence she took up ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... third day you will cast about in your mind to explain this; and so in time you will come to find that it is the spirit of Troy that plays this trick upon you. For you will have learnt to love the place, and love, as you know, dear sir or madam, is apt ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a balance on the right side of the balance-sheet. This thought has let states with a limited territorial basis like Tyre, Carthage, Venice, Holland, and England, for instance, to secure the carrying trade. I cast about for some such notion as this to apply to our little world, so as to inaugurate a third commercial epoch. Our town is so much like any other, that our prosperity was scarcely visible to a passing stranger; it was only for me that it was astonishing. The folk had come together ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... ought a theme, in its abstract form, to be the first germ of a play? Ought the dramatist to say, "Go to, I will write a play on temperance, or on woman's suffrage, or on capital and labour," and then cast about for a story to illustrate his theme? This is a possible, but not a promising, method of procedure. A story made to the order of a moral concept is always apt to advertise its origin, to the detriment of ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... boat and tramping about on the slippery ice tried to ascertain its thickness and how far under water it extended. The boys soon tired of sitting idle in the boat and, as they had been forbidden to land on the treacherous ice of the reef, cast about for something to do. The professor soon ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... speak of motives in the divine mind as in ours; they imply a previous state of indecision and an act of choice, from which comes the slow emerging of a resolve like that of the moon from the sea. A given end being considered by us desirable, we then cast about for means to secure it, which again implies limitation of power. Still we can speak of God's motives, if only we understand, as this epistle puts it so profoundly, that His 'is an eternal purpose which He purposed in Himself,' which never began to be formed, and was not formed ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... boarding an old motor-bus (6-1/2 h.p.). There was nothing to show to outward appearance that the dreaded Germans were within 250 miles of the little townlet where I found myself (name suppressed). After booking my room at the only decent hotel in the place, I cast about for something to eat. Alas, the only eatables were roast duck and apple tart (the last probably we should ever see). I then unpacked my kit, and after folding my riding breeches I placed them under the mattress, wondering when I should take them out again. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... torture to the raw torn flanks. Rode him till his eyes rolled white and crazed. For the superintendent had gone mad too, mad with vain rage. He laid his rope across the roan's dripping withers; it did not help; it was inadequate. With staring eyes he cast about for a more efficient weapon. Then he drew his gun ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... exaltation at having found a solution, she had gone to Ditmar's office in the mill. What had happened to stay her? It was when she tried to find the cause of the weakness that so abruptly had overtaken her, or to cast about for a plan to fit the new predicament to which her failure had sentenced her, that the fantasies intruded. She heard Ditmar speaking, the arguments were curiously familiar—but they were not Ditmar's! They were her father's, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... utterly devoid of nerves, and he could not appreciate the part they played in a man of normal make-up. My being threatened with nervous prostration he regarded as a joke. His pleasantries rather damped my interest in deep-sea fishing, however, and I cast about for something else. It was at this juncture that I thought of Four-Pools Plantation. "Four-Pools" was the somewhat fantastic name of a stock farm in the Shenandoah Valley, belonging to a great-uncle whom I had not seen ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... from Lexington to Prattsville was only seven miles, and I had no luggage, it might readily be accomplished on foot. He opened his eyes, and, perhaps, finding the Lexington hotel not likely to be benefited by my delay, cast about for some way of obliging me. As we drove up to the post office, the door was found locked, and Uncle Samuel's agent absent, which circumstance, taken in connection with the fact that the mail comes to Lexington only twice per week, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... once felt when he had heard a blackbird lamenting for her nestlings, which Matthew had crushed with a stone, and that was not a pleasant feeling. Unable to find anything very appropriate to say in order to comfort her, he began to cast about in his mind what he could do. He smiled. The lad's smile gave ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... when Roosevelt and I discussed this episode we cast about for reasons to account for the Kaiser's sudden back-down. We concluded that after the first interview Holleben either did not cable to Berlin at all, or he gave the message with his own comment that it was all a bluff. After the second interview, he consulted Buenz, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... caught a warning glance from Barbara and subsided. Then conversation languished and Lucy looked across longingly at her sister, to see if she had done her duty. But not being able to catch her eye, she sighed, and supposing she had not yet fulfilled her part, cast about in her mind for something ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... hadn't gone far till he came to a field where his father was ploughing. Now the goodman was dreadfully put out when he found his son was going away, and still more so when he heard he had chosen his mother's malison. So he cast about what to do to put things straight, and at last he drew out of his pocket a little golden snuff-box, and gave it ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... well while either sitting or standing up, or when lying at full length on the deck, with the back against a pillow propped by the mizen mast, the blight sun or moon overhead, and a turn or two of the mainsheet cast about your body to keep the sleepy steersman from rolling over into the ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... St Kilda his reflections were of the same unpleasant nature, and he cast about in his own mind how he could get rid of this pertinacious friend. He could not turn him off openly, as Pierre might take offence, and as he knew more of M. Vandeloup's private life than that young gentleman cared about, it would not do to run the ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... cast about vainly for a clue to the other's whereabouts; for if the night was thick in the open, here in the trench its density was as that of the pit; the man could distinguish positively nothing more than a pallid rift ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... from the Vice-President's chair, was not assuring to the occupant of that lofty seat. If General Jackson could not be used as a fulcrum for the further elevation of Mr. Calhoun, would it not be advisable to begin to cast about for another? ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... thought to herself as she gazed at the roughly clad group about her, the shabby tent, the mining implements cast about carelessly here and there and the smoldering fire with the blackened cooking pots ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... will appear to be of a contrary nature to that of all other reckonings, inasmuch as of this you must never look to have a good account if you be strict in imposing checks. Let a council of huntsmen, assembled beforehand, tell you which way the stag shall run, where you shall cast about at the fault, and how you shall ride to be in at the chase all the day; but these may as well do that, as a council of war direct a general. The hours that have painted wings, and of different colors, are ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... to find out how glad he was to receive this laconic epistle from his only living relative. He cast about ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... when the time drew till an end That she should lighter be, She cast about to find a wile To set her ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... who was my sire, and Layn Calvo's line, A breed that never brook offence, nor challenge fit decline; How dared ye thus provoke a man whom only Heaven may, And not another' while the son lives to avenge the day! Ye cast about his noble face dishonor's sombre pall, But I am here to strip it off and expiate it all; For only blood will cleanse the stain attainted honor brings, And valid blood is that alone which from the aggressor springs; Yours it must be, Oh tyrant, since by its overplay It moved ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... friends, and know 'em not? my name is Diego, But if either I remember you or your Father, Or Nova Hispania (I was never there Sir) Or any kindred that you have—for heaven-sake, Master, Let's cast about a little, and consider, We may ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... a fair young knight, and renowned in arms, lay sick at your lady's house, she nursing him, would you not have cast about for ways ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... a long oblong plate on which is cast the arms of Browne of Brenchley, in Kent, probably made in the second half of the seventeenth century. There are others with cherubs and curious supporters of shields of arms. A still earlier piece, probably cast about the year 1600, is an oblong Sussex back deeply recessed, on which is the arms of John Blount, Earl of Devonshire, another bearing the Royal arms of the Tudor period. In Hampton Court Palace there are some especially fine grate backs, ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... to cast about in my mind for some means by which I might drive the creatures away. I had a knife with a long, strong, sharp blade, attached to my neck by a lanyard, and I looked about me to see if there was anything available which I could convert into a spear by lashing the knife to it; but there was nothing; ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... began to cast about in his mind for a way whereby he might do some hurt to Sir Tristram, or even ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... said to us in our time, after a great disappointment in love; which the Doctor took for exactly what it was worth, although poor little Cecil's distress was very keen; and, remembering some old bygone day when he had suffered so himself, he cast about to find some ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... idol. Now he is quite alone; and for centuries has this grand old figure sat, exposed to the elements, serenely smiling on the varying scene beneath him. The figure is of bronze, and is supposed to have been cast about the year ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... The reverse, the reverse: weel, sir, seeing myself in this unprofitable situation, I reflected deeply; I cast about my thoughts morning, noon, and night, and markt every man and every mode of prosperity,—at last I concluded that a matrimonial adventure, prudently conducted, would be the readiest gait I could gang for the bettering of my condition, and ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... the last word, I have three vowels and three consonants. I cast about again, I try all the letters, one after the other, and, starting with the principle that the two first letters are necessary consonants, I find that three words apply: F*EUVE, PREUVE and CREUSE. I eliminate the words F*EUVE and PREUVE, as possessing no possible ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... aleadged, I wil here omit to discouer. But will hie me to another sorte of Iugglers, or rather cosoners, calling themselues by the name of alchimistes, professing themselues learned men, and to haue the Philosophers stone, these professors of the mysty or smokie science, studie and cast about how to ouer-reach and cosen the simple, and such as are giuen to coueteousnes or greedy desire after gaine, with such they insinuate themselues by little and little, professing a shew of honesty and plainnes, vntill they are acquainted with their desires, and ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... face was charming... I see it, Fine as the day, running after her, I, like a fool, left the house paternal, And fled there'on to woods and vales Her hair, in sombre rolls, On her neck threw warm shades, Her eyes of enveloping azure, Cast about glances fresh and pure. And as our car without shock or tremor Carried our loves and hearts, her vibrant voice and sweet, To the heav'ns that listened, threw the conq'ring cry, And the eternal echo resounded ...
— The Tales of Hoffmann - Les contes d'Hoffmann • Book By Jules Barbier; Music By J. Offenbach
... pleaded Norah. As a matter of stern fact, Norah preferred bread-and-butter to pikelets, but the human beam in the cook-lady's eye was not to be neglected. "We haven't had any for ages." She cast about for further encouragement for the beam. "Miss de Lisle, I suppose you have a ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... what I had heard of cannibals. I was within an ace of calling for help. But the mere fact that he was a man, however wild, had somewhat reassured me, and my fear of Silver began to revive in proportion. I stood still, therefore, and cast about for some method of escape; and as I was so thinking, the recollection of my pistol flashed into my mind. As soon as I remembered I was not defenceless, courage glowed again in my heart; and I set ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... towards the luckless cosmopolite, for he is a little prone to like such half-vagrant characters. He cast about in his mind how he should contrive once more to anchor Slingsby in his native village. Honest Jack had already offered him a present shelter under his roof, in spite of the hints, and winks, and half remonstrances of the shrewd Dame Tibbets; but how to provide ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... rest; and being in full Cry and maine Chase, Comfort and Cheer them with Horn and Voice. Be sure to take notice of him by some Mark, and if your Dogs make Default, rate them off and bring them to the Default back, and make them cast about till they have undertaken the first Deer; then cheer them to the utmost, and so continue till they have either set up or slain him. It is the Nature of a Stag, to seek for one of his kind, when he is Imbost or weary, and beating him up, ly down in his ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... told me all about it yesterday. I am very sorry for you to have had such a charge, but what could you expect of girls cast about as they have been, ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dismissed Claire from his thoughts. And his newborn hate concentrated on her brother who had betrayed to death his rescuer. Obsessed with the fierce craving to stand face to face with the blonde-bearded giant he banished his lethargy of hopelessness and cast about for means of escape. out of ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... put us again in a quake, and now, the snow beginning to fall pretty heavily, we went into the shed to cast about as to what on earth we should do next. There we sat, glum and silent, watching idly the big flakes of snow fluttering down from the leaden sky, for not one of us could imagine a ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... sure The eagle's death bequeathed new lease of life. We cast about at once, in hope to find Some object for defense. The tomb was strange. Alone the spider could have known of it. A rich sarcophagus stood in the midst, Of deftly inlaid woods, or carved, or bronzed. ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... with either or both batteries on indicated pretty strongly that the trouble was in the coil; but it is so seldom a coil goes wrong that everything was looked over, but no spark of any size was to be had, therefore there was nothing to do but cast about for a place to spend the night, for it was ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... after an unusually low obeisance, Ruthven told the following tale:—Walking alone, on the previous evening, in the fields near Perth, he had met 'a base-like fellow, unknown to him, with a cloak cast about his mouth,' a common precaution to avoid recognition. Asked who he was, and what his errand 'in so solitary a part, being far from all ways,' the fellow was taken aback. Ruthven seized him, and, under his arm, found 'a great wide pot, all full of coined ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... climbed back to the passage and closed the hatch. He cast about for his next move. He was looking toward the bow, but on hearing the subdued clink of ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl
... Old Pierre, in the kindness of his heart, used to select the fattest and the best pieces for his companions. This did not long escape the keen-eyed bourgeois, who was greatly disturbed at such improvidence, and cast about for some means to stop it. At last he hit on a plan that exactly suited him. At the side of the meat-room, and separated from it by a clay partition, was another compartment, used for the storage of furs. It had no other communication with the fort, except through a square hole ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... having been again taken from me, I cast about for some new occupation. I found one in the problem of warmth. Though I gave repeated expression to the benumbed messages of my tortured nerves, the doctor refused to return my clothes. For a semblance of warmth I was forced to depend upon ordinary undergarments and ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... too fierce for her to hope to do anything at all. Men and women hurried by in long, shifting lines. She felt the flow of the tide of effort and interest—felt her own helplessness without quite realising the wisp on the tide that she was. She cast about vainly for some possible place to apply, but found no door which she had the courage to enter. It would be the same thing all over. The old humiliation of her plea, rewarded by curt denial. Sick at heart and in body, she turned to the west, the direction of Minnie's flat, which she had ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... make her cry," argued Joey wisely, then cast about in his mind for an inducement. "They have parties to that school, they do," finally he observed, "fer I seen 'em settin' 'round tables ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... As she cast about for words to carry her on, I drew up a chair for her. She looked at it uncertainly, seated herself. "When mama was here—this afternoon," she went on, "she was urging me to—to do what she wished. And after she had used several arguments, she said something I—I've been ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... trembling, ran desperately up to Bertrand, who had angrily drawn his dagger, and would have fallen upon the two favourites to take vengeance for the insults they had offered to the queen; but he was very soon disarmed by the lovely shining eyes raised to him in supplication, the two arms cast about him, and the tears shed by Joan: he fell at her feet and kissed them rapturously, with no thought of seeking excuse for his presence, with no word of love, for it was as if they had loved always: he lavished the tenderest caresses on her, dried ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... been said and written during the past few years on the subject of American manners, and the consensus of opinion is, on the whole, unfavourable. We have been told, more in sorrow than in anger, that we are not a polite people; and our critics have cast about them for causes which may be held responsible for such a universal and lamentable result. Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, for example, is by way of thinking that the fault lies in the sudden expansion of wealth, in the intrusion into the social world of people who fail to understand ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... is difficult to bring voters to the polls unless, as in some Swiss cantons, they are fined for absence. In Colorado, Miss Sumner shows that women cast about forty per cent. of the total vote in the earlier years of their enfranchisement, though they were in a minority of the total population.[49] In the work of the primaries they were in a much smaller minority, except when some special problem or candidate appealed ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... confidence; all the others sailed on a blind errand, trusting to the skipper, who was a shrewd man and severe. And the brigantine wallowed around the Cape and toiled on and on up the coast, and every day Acuma grew more restless; every day he cast about the water with eyes that seemed to pierce to the very bottom of ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... humour and the beauty of the scene, we made little progress all that afternoon; and at last finding the sun, although still far from setting, was already beginning to desert the narrow valley of the Tarn, I began to cast about for a place to camp in. This was not easy to find; the terraces were too narrow, and the ground, where it was unterraced, was usually too steep for a man to lie upon. I should have slipped all night, and awakened towards morning with my feet or ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... George Flack cast about—the air of the question was so candid, suggested so complete an exemption From prejudice. "Oh I'm very careful about what I put in the paper. I want everything, as I told you; Don't you remember ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... who was a witch-wife and a woman of crafty mind, marked the love of Gudrun for Sigurd, and marked moreover how his power and honour in the land would soon be greater than that of her own sons. Therefore she cast about for some shift that might bind Sigurd to serve with ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... Officers, National Guards, gunners, gendarmes, huzzars, advanced slowly, high above the backs of the citizens, a man of a bilious complexion, a wreath of oak-leaves about his brow, his body wrapped in an old green surtout with an ermine collar. The women threw him flowers, while he cast about him the piercing glance of his jaundiced eyes, as though, in this enthusiastic multitude he was still searching out enemies of the people to denounce, traitors to punish. As he went by, Gamelin ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... day, and I was fain to admit to my special friend that I had put myself in an awkward, if not an unenviable, position. However, I was in for it, and being naturally of an elastic temperament, began to cast about for a cheerful view of my undertaking. In the course of the day preliminaries were arranged and reduced to writing with all the care which Englishmen practice in such affairs of "honor." I only stipulated that I should be allowed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... course with the Executive Committee, his refusal to do anything that appeared to him to be futile, his firmness not to cast about and experiment after a policy, his basing of all his plans on the vision in his own mind of their sure fruitage—these continued to be his key-notes throughout the campaign. They ruled his action in a difficult matter with ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... day F—— got a bad attack of fever, the intermittent fever common in all the Danubian Provinces. After supper the rain came on again, not violently, but enough to make everything very damp. I felt that under the circumstances the hut was a very bad place for him, so I cast about to see what I could do. As good-luck would have it, not very far off I discovered a horizontal fissure in the cliff, a sort of wide slit caused by one rock overhanging another ledge. It was fortunately sheltered from the wind, and promised to ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... what he might, Michael could not in this instance leave it alone. He cast about incessantly for some device by which he could break his son loose from the girl. It was all in vain. She might be frivolous, but there was nothing against her character, and he saw evident signs that if ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... their prudence who thus wisely cast about how to provide for their own souls, against they come into Purgatory, so I cannot but more highly magnify their charity, who, less solicitous for themselves, employ their whole care to save others out of that dreadful fire. And sure I am, they can lose nothing ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... not win in fair fight against Norman of Torn; that the wily Frenchman saw; but now that death was so close upon him that he felt its cold breath condensing on his brow, he had no stomach to die, and so he cast about for any means whereby he might escape the result ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... stealers abroad, and they cannot hear Of them: where the devil are my men to night? Sirra, go up the wind towards Buckleyes lodge. I'll cast about the bottom with my hound, And I will meet ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... of his chair growing even more uncomfortable than before, and he cast about for an avenue of escape. One ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... Russ began to cast about in his ingenious mind for some means of getting the younger children's attention off the discomfort of a room the temperature of which was down to sixty. In one corner were two stacks of sectional ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... admired him and wished for his good opinion and to hear him talk. Doubtless they soon would meet again, and if they were left in conversation for a decent length of time she would ask him to call. She cast about in her mind for a subterfuge which would justify a note, but she could think of none, and was too worldly-wise to evoke a smile from the ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... She cast about her despairingly for some way to tell him the truth. But even when she spoke she knew she was ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to cast about to bring both ends together, Mrs Turner and Weston being already hanged for killing Overbury with poison; but he, being the very quintessence of the law, presently informs the jury that if a man be done to death with pistols, poniards, swords, halter, poison, etc., so he be done ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... reflecting for a while, replied, "Well, sir, it's not a difficult matter to set right: and yet it will require some little management. However, if your lordship will do me the honour of coming to see me again the day after to-morrow, I will cast about me in the meanwhile, and will let you know then the result ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... wonderingly for a moment, and then full consciousness returned and he realized the seriousness of his predicament. Accustomed almost from birth to relying solely upon his own resources, he did not cast about for outside aid now, but devoted his mind to a consideration of the possibilities for escape which lay within himself and ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... expectations were more than realized by the honor conferred on me at the moment when I took my leave. For, Tinged with celestial sandal, from the breast Of the great Indra, where before it hung, A garland of the ever-blooming tree Of Nandana was cast about my neck By his own hand: while, in the very presence Of the assembled gods, I was enthroned Beside their mighty lord, who smiled to see His son Jayanta envious of ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... I cast about me in search of red cedar that I might make a bow. I searched the willow thicket for arrow shafts, and prowled among little flints and pointed stones on the shores of our stream, seeking arrow points. It finally appeared to me that we might rest here for a time and be fairly safe to make a living ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... I haue already founde a strategeme To sound the bottome of this doubtfull theame. My lord, for once you shall be rulde by me; Hinder me not what ere you heare or see: By force or faire meanes will I cast about To finde the truth of all this ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... the river route and the sufferings and toils of the Chilcoot and the White Pass became known, the adventurers cast about to find other ways of reaching the gold fields, which had come now to be called "The Klondike," because of the extreme richness of a small river of that name which entered the Yukon, well on toward the ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... she was trained by men!" Genevieve threw in, a little anxiously. Alys was so tactless, when George was tired and hungry. She cast about desperately for some neutral topic, but before she could find one the ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... Queen, who was of a very jealous disposition, could not bear the idea of any one being more beautiful than she was herself, so she cast about in her mind how she could destroy the lovely Aubergine. If she could only inveigle the girl into the palace, she could easily do the rest, for she was a sorceress, and learned in all sorts of magic. So she sent a message to the Princess Aubergine, to say ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... Certainly they were in no present danger of discovery, and perhaps might never be. But his following us, his disregard of the grave danger to himself, gave me a new measure of his savage determination to baffle us; I found myself more and more beginning to fear him. My fancy cast about him a sinister cloud, from the depths of which he peered out at us, ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... Cashell snorted within, and Shaynor settled himself up in his chair over which he had thrown a staring red, black, and yellow Austrian jute blanket, rather like a table-cover. I cast about, amid patent medicine pamphlets, for something to read, but finding little, returned to the manufacture of the new drink. The Italian warehouse took down its game and went to bed. Across the street blank shutters flung back the gaslight in cold smears; the dried ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... survey the situation. "No sleep comes to me in all those dark hours," writes Powell. To meet with such a reverse at so early a stage was very discouraging, but Powell had counted on disaster, and, as he was never given to repining, as soon as breakfast was eaten the next morning he cast about for a way to rescue the barometers which were in a part of the wreck that had lodged among some rocks a half mile below. Sumner and Dunn volunteered to try to reach the place with the small boat, and they succeeded. ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... the larger part of their industry endures wind and weather but for a short time. Spinoza's object was not to make a scheme of the universe. He felt that the things on which men usually set their hearts give no permanent satisfaction, and he cast about for some means by which to secure "a joy continuous and supreme to all eternity." I propose now, without attempting to connect or contrast Spinoza with Descartes or the Germans, to name some of those thoughts in his ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... However, she still cast about for weapons, for protection of some sort; and she said to herself that, though he had fulfilled the eight conditions and restored the cornelian clasp to her before the eighth hour had struck, she was nevertheless protected by the fact ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... in a trap, Elizabeth Farnshaw let her future husband study her curiously, while she deliberated and cast about for some means of getting his approval to her scheme without villifying her parents by telling ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... us together Miss Haldin had an intention—that something was entrusted to me, since, by a mere accident I had been found at hand. On this assumed ground I put all possible friendliness into my manner. I cast about for some right thing to say, and suddenly in Miss Haldin's last words I perceived the clue to ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... as Leander young was drown'd No heart by Love receiv'd a wound, But on a rock himself sat by, There weeping sup'rabundantly. Sighs numberless he cast about, And, all his tapers thus put out, His head upon his hand he laid, And sobbing deeply, thus he said: "Ah, cruel sea," and, looking on't, Wept as he'd drown the Hellespont. And sure his tongue had more express'd But that his tears ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... and when he was a-weary of looking for his death and the term of his life seemed distant, he took counsel with certain of his partisans and they said, "The Minister is the monarch's counsellor and but for this Wazir the king were kingdomless." So the pretender cast about for the ruin of the defender, but could find no means of furthering his design; and when the affair grew longsome upon him, he said to his wife, "What deemest thou will gar us gain herein?" "What is it?" "I mean in the matter of yonder Minister, who inciteth ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the sassafras beyond the fence, he started with a shout at the heels of the pursuing pack. Swinging himself over the brushwood, Christopher followed slowly across the waste of lifeeverlasting, tearing impatiently through the flowering net which the wild potato vine cast about his feet. ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... wit, and aptitude as well as experience in that business of toad-eater which had been his calling and livelihood from his very earliest years,—ever since he first entered college as a servitor, and cast about to see by whose means he could make his fortune in life. That was but satire just now, when we said there were no toad-eaters left in the world. There are many men of Sampson's profession now, doubtless; nay, little boys at our public schools are sent thither at the earliest ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pleasant and high, and bold to fall withall. At three of the clock in the after-noone, wee came to three great rivers. So we stood along to the northermost, thinking to have gone into it, but we found it to have a very shoald barre before it, for we had but ten foot water. Then we cast about to the southward, and found two fathoms, three fathoms, and three and a quarter, till we came to the souther side of them; then we had five ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... You may cast about and reflect long, Lorand, before you discover whose writing it is. You never thought of her who wrote this letter. You never even noticed her existence! It is the writing of Fanny, of the jolly little ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... did at last get home, eager enquiries made as to the whereabouts of the nectar met with incoherent replies, since the seekers for information generally failed to profit by what they were told, and had to cast about aimlessly for some time before finding the food. I also observed that another ant was perfectly unselfish, and not only would inform her companions directly she discovered honey, but would assiduously feed the queen before attending to her ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... began to cast about for two or three of the right sort of boys to join him. Three were quickly chosen out of his own and a neighboring outfit. They were Mitch Lee and Taggart, two white cowboys of his own type and temper, and George Cleveland, a negro, known as a desperate ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... described in the journal: "At three of the clock in the afternoon we came to three great rivers. So we stood along to the northernmost, thinking to have gone into it, but we found it to have a very shoal bar before it, for we had but ten foot water. Then we cast about to the southward and found two fathoms, three fathoms, and three and a quarter, till we came to the southern side of them; then we had five and six fathoms, and anchored. So we sent in our boat to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... and left his pipe behind him—accidentally, no doubt. Doocheek watched his opportunity and secured the fire-bag which contained the smoking implements. Stolen waters are sweet, even in cold climates where all the waters freeze, and the boy cast about for a secluded place in which he might enjoy the sweetness of his pipe to the full without fear of interruption. A blue cavern in an iceberg might do, but the atmosphere in such caves was rather cold. Under the cliffs there were many sheltered ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... its success at once decided that literature should form the main business of Scott's life. Its design arose originally from the suggestion of the lovely Countess of Dalkeith, who had heard a wild, rude legend of Border diablerie, and sportively asked him to make it the subject of a ballad. He cast about for a new variety of diction and rhyme, and having happened to hear a recitation of Coleridge's unpublished "Christabel" determined to adopt a similar cadence. The division into cantos was suggested by one of his friends, after the example of Spenser's "Faery ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various |
