"Beguile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the argument deserve, still more shall we discover of management and disingenuousness in the form under which they are dispersed among the public. Infidelity is served up in every shape that is likely to allure, surprise, or beguile the imagination; in a fable, a tale, a novel, a poem; in interspersed and broken hints, remote and oblique surmises; in books of travels, of philosophy, of natural history; in a word, in any form rather than the right one, that of a professed and regular disquisition. ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... 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 earn her living on the ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... most desperate dying Lover that ever was, represented the transports she shou'd be in when the blest discovery shou'd be made, held long discourses with him, and formed answers such as she supposed he wou'd make on such an occasion. Thus, for some hours did she beguile her Cares, but Love, who takes delight sometimes to torment his Votarys wou'd not long permit her to enjoy this satisfaction.... Reason, with stern remonstrances checked the Romantick turn of her late thoughts, and showed her the improbability of the hope she had entertained: Were he, ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... sooth, when a shift's turned up, delay is meet for naught but dalliance. Boccaccio hath a story of a priest that did beguile a maid into his cell, then knelt him in a corner to pray for grace to be rightly thankful for this tender maidenhead ye Lord had sent him; but ye abbot, spying through ye key-hole, did see a tuft of brownish ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... none otherwise reckon themselves than sinners, for, as St. Paul saith, "My conscience grudgeth me not of anything, but yet am I not thereby justified," and, as St. John saith, "If we say that we have no sin in us, we beguile ourselves and truth is there not in us." Yet, forasmuch as the cause is to them not so certain as it is to the others afore-mentioned in the first kind, and forasmuch as it is also certain that God sometimes sendeth tribulation to keep and preserve a man from such ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... he lost a companion which had for two years helped to beguile the solitude of his captivity. This was a mouse, which he had tamed so perfectly, that the little creature was continually playing with him, and would eat out of his mouth. "One night it skipped about so much ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... said he, turning to the students, "I marvel that you, being cavaliers of family, and doubtless holding yourselves men of honor, should beguile these poor knaves into certain ruin, whilst yourselves could reap nothing but a brief mockery of the authority which you could not ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... foreground. Around its rim ran an inscription in Latin, warning mortal man that time flows as swiftly as water and exhorting him to make the most of his hours; after which piece of Jacobean moralising it set itself shamelessly to beguile all who might pass that way into an abandonment of contemplative repose. On all sides of it a stretch of smooth turf spread away, broken up here and there by groups of dwarfish chestnut and mulberry trees, whose leaves and branches cast ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... didst my soul beguile, Why hast thou left me? Still in some fond dream Revisit my sad heart, auspicious Smile! As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam: What time, in sickly mood, at parting day 5 I lay me down and think of happier years; Of joys, that glimmer'd in Hope's twilight ray, Then left me darkling ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... 's a poor woman, But she nursed earl's children three, And I got it from a foster-sister, To beguile such ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... as one who needs support? "The last hour of our talk was all of you," she said again, and oh, the velvet of her eyes was asking him for some aid, some mercy; and his soul leaped in anguish as he saw it. "He says I must beguile you to be less formal with us. Before our marriage, he tells me, your Grace came often to Dunstan's Wolde, and now you seem ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... if like Nero, for a while, With Arts of Kindness he beguile, How shall the Tyrant be withstood, When he has ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various
... excuse for his not seeing her to her home. They could not leave her alone in the wilderness, and therefore of necessity she was going with them to their town; afterwards to be taken back to the estancia—to her mother. With such false tales, cunningly conceived, does he endeavour to beguile the ears ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... furlough, and the last was left in entire charge of the women's side of the work at Creek Town. It was the final stage of her training for the larger responsibilities that awaited her. There was at first little in the situation to beguile her spirits. It was a bad season of rain and want, and she was seldom out of the abodes of sickness and death. So great was the destitution that she lived on rice and sauce, in order to feed the hungry. And never ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... was full of his plans, and they served at all events to beguile many a weary mile, as he trudged on through the country, contentedly as usual, selling his fish. One day, however, when walking along the streets of the town, he met with an accident. A horse, dragging a cart, took fright ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... pass over a wound, or a foe (And mem'ry but part us awhile), To breathe forth a prayer that His love I may know, Whose mercies my sorrows beguile,— ...
— Poems • Mary Baker Eddy
... explanation of this following Poem were but to beguile thy appetite and somewhat dull thy expectation; but the work it selfe being now an Orphant, and wanting him to protect that first begot it, it were an iniury to his memory to passe him unspoken of. For the man his Muse was much courted but no common mistresse; and though but seldome seene ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... benevolence of the King in these words; he remembers the affection which the King, his father, had toward you. It appears to me that he always accorded to you all that you desired for your friends," she added, with animation, in order to put him into the track of praise, and to beguile him from the discontent which he ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... a part of it, white silk; and another part of it with silver thread: the tail and fins were of a quill, which was shaven thin: the eyes were of two little black beads: and the head was so shadowed, and all of it so curiously wrought, and so exactly dissembled, that it would beguile any sharp-sighted Trout in a swift stream. And this minnow I will now shew you; look, here it is, and, if you like it, lend it you, to have two or three made by it; for they be easily carried about an ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... might, if he so chose, transfer part of his credit to a woman favorite, which then remained hers for life or until she used it up, and of course, the prime object of most women, whether as wives, or favorites, was to beguile a settlement of this sort ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... that great platform were covered with wagons and carts, and everywhere were set booths and tents, and in them men and women were eating and drinking, having come from far. There were, too, shows of every kind to beguile the hours of waiting or to tempt the curious, for many of the people, thralls and unfree men, had taken holiday with their masters, and had come to see the Moot, though they had no part in the ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... What is it but a clandestine procedure to take advantage of a guardian's absence and beguile a young girl into a ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... poetry. An old woman is delighting the ears of her neighbours with complaints of her son; a humorous young one, in a voice half bursting with laughter, relates in the ears of her companions whose husbands are absent some jocose story of her husband's, to beguile the pain of separation. Some are reproaching the Grihini (house-mistress), some the Korta (master), some the neighbours; some reciting their own praises. She who may have received a gentle scolding in the morning from Surja Mukhi on account of her stupidity, is bringing ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... companies 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 crowd together by ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... of maintaining an independent position in society, as either the lawyer or the physician. In schools truly national—with no sheepskin authority to sleep over on the one hand, and no idle dream of semi-ecclesiastical 'induction' to beguile on the other—the item of religious teaching, brought into prominence by both the Free and the Established Churches in the preliminary struggle, would assert and receive its due place. Scotland would possess what it never ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... Jassy returned to Benson's office in the Siddons Theatre Building and again seated himself at his desk in front of the pile of manuscript music. This time, however, he brushed aside the title page of his Opus 47 and spread out an evening paper to beguile the tedium of awaiting Benson's "prospects." Automatically he turned to the department headed Music and Musicians, and at the top of the column his eye fell on ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... take it not amiss That I wend my ways in the morning; for we Goth-folk know indeed That the sea is a foe full deadly, and a friend that fails at need, And that Ran who dwells thereunder will many a man beguile: And I bear a woman with me; nor would I for a while Behold that sea-queen's dwelling; for glad at heart am I Of the realm of the Goths and the Volsungs, and I look for long to lie In the arms of the fairest woman that ever a king may kiss. So I go mine house ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... apparently received a letter of some importance, for she was standing at the gate waiting for him. She ran out hatless to see him on his quarter-deck, and to her surprise found him not. She soon saw him coming, however, and to beguile the time fell to reading her letter a second time, with a little frown, as if ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... to travel through the forest before he could reach the little log cabin where his wife, as well as his little daughter Zella, awaited his return, but he was used to long walks and tramped along the path whistling cheerfully to beguile the time. ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... first met his. Alas for Mark, also for Helen, that both should be so cruelly deceived. Had the latter known of the loving words sent from the true heart which longed for some word of hers to lighten the long march and beguile the tedious days of absence, she would not have said to Katy, when asked if going to Mrs. Grandon's, "Oh, no; please don't urge me. I would so much ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... quit-rent on farms, transfer dues and stamps, 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 ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... upon the table laid, Who 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 thinks fit to cease The din of war, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... chearful birds, chirping him sweet good-morrow, With nature's music do beguile his ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various
... heat till Hymens flame With sacred fire hath warmd vs, and her rites Fully performd do warrant those delites. By this the Soueraigne of heauens flaming beame Had got the full height of the starrie heauen, And she requests the boy, that for a while He will depart the roome, she may beguile The clothes of her blest presence. He obaid, And in a chamber next to hers he staid. He being gone, the sheets away she flung, Which loth to let her go, about her clung; And as she stroue to get out from the sheet, The vpper clothes ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... done so. At his table, petty differences, professional heart-burnings, and quarter-deck etiquette, were forgotten and laid aside. A liberal and pleasant host made merry guests; and amongst the many ways in which we strove to beguile the winter of 1850-51, none have more ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... could not beguile you into a discussion of the subject upon which we differ so widely. Pardon the malicious reference, but it seemed to me that you had closed the door of your "upper chamber" and hastened down here to confess your own reality. And no challenge, however ingenious, could provoke you into displaying ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... 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 ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... described that I will not attempt to draw a picture of its romantic though deceitful beauties. Its blue sky and calm waters, its verdant groves and majestic mountains, its graceful villas and flowering shrubs, put one in mind of a lovely woman who employs her charms to beguile and destroy those who ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... disregarding his words from supreme contempt, the slender-waisted Krishna reproving said unto the king of Sindhu, 'Speak not thus again! Art thou not ashamed? Be on thy guard!' And that lady of irreproachable character anxiously expecting the return of her husband, began, with long speeches, to beguile him completely." ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... deductions may be safe guides for the opinions of others? But in writing to amuse, if I fail, the only evil is my own disappointment. If, however, I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humour with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... of the weight of dignity involved in his captaincy, the war became a sort of holiday, and the tall private from New Salem enjoyed it as much as any one. He entered with great zest into the athletic sports with which soldiers love to beguile the tedium of camp. He was admitted to be the strongest man in the army, and, with one exception, the best wrestler. Indeed, his friends never admitted the exception, and severely blamed Lincoln for confessing himself defeated ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... a knight, that had a gate to ward, A man of chiefest trust about his king, Hath promised so to beguile the guard That me and mine he undertakes to bring Safe, where the tyrant haply sleepeth hard He counselled me to undertake this thing, Of these some little succor to intreat, Whose name alone ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... 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 and the man to say, in the dialect the little dog best understood: "Bide a wee. Ye're no' ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... honeymoon tour the bridal party landed on Molokai, to await the passing of heavy weather, and the young couple were playing draughts to beguile the time, when a dark and sudden cloud fell upon their happiness. One of the servants of the queen was a girl named Kaikinani, who had a lover, and while the king was studying his next move he heard a man's voice call, as he thought, "Come, Kaikilani, your lover is waiting." ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... 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 ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... trustful nature. She had been brought up in the religion of her fathers, and had listened with awe and with deep interest on many a long winter night to the wild legends with which the scalds, or poets of the period, were wont to beguile the evening hours in her father's mansion; but about a year before the time of which we write, an aged stranger had come from the south, and taken up his abode in the valley, in a secluded and dilapidated hut, in which he was ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... passing through Ballinderry, will consider it to have been justly designated the garden of the north. The multitude of pretty little villages, scattered over the landscape, each announcing itself by the tapering tower of a church, would almost beguile the traveller into believing that he was passing through a rural district in one of ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... beside herself, and breaking open the door she entered in. Then U Raitong, having stopped playing, was annoyed that, to add to his misfortunes, this woman had come to trouble him thus. When she tried to beguile him, U Raitong admonished her and sent her away. She departed just before daybreak. U Raitong then took off his fine clothes, and putting on his rags, sprinkled himself with dust and ashes, and ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... their common enterprise, had ceased, and that they no longer busied themselves with the necessary work about the still, nor with the snickering interludes and horse-play with which they were wont to beguile their labors. They had all seated them-selves, and were looking from one to the other of the more important members of the guild with an air which betokened the momentary expectation of a crisis. The only exception was the man who had the violin; with the persistent, untimely industry of ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Choiring [1]the hours of prime? and call thine ear To the gay viol dinning in the dale, With tabor loud, and bag-pipe's rustic drone To merry Shearer's dance;—or jest retail From festal board, from choral roofs the song; And speak of Masque, or Pageant, to beguile The caustic memory of a cruel wrong?— Thy lips acknowledge this a generous wile, And bid me still the effort kind prolong; But ah! they wear a cold ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... many fine-weather diversions to beguile the time. There was a single chess-board and a single pack of cards. Sometimes as many as twenty of us would be playing dominoes for love. Feats of dexterity, puzzles for the intelligence, some arithmetical, some of the same order as the old problem of the fox and goose and cabbage, were always ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of my much-loved boy! Behold his eyes, his looks, his smile! No more, alas! will he enkindle joy, Nor on some kindlier shore my woes beguile. ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... well I know what you say about the truth of Mother's sayings of the soothing effects of Nature! I used to feel it about gardening also so much. Visions of three yellow, three white, and three purple crocuses blooming in one pot beguile the mind from less happy fancies—perhaps too the largeness and universality of Nature disperse the selfishness of personal cares and worries. Then I think the smell of earth and plants has a physical anodyne about it somehow! One ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... it could be otherwise, since our usage and wont is that a woman shall prepare for the reception of visitors by adorning her rooms with flowers and dressing herself in fine linen and silk attire, and be to all men alike as they come and go. She must cover all with winning glances, and beguile all with seductive eyes and foot, and talk about love, though, perhaps she would prefer to think of one who is far away. Men do not live under such restraint. A man may reserve all his thoughts for his mistress, but the moment he leaves, his mistress must begin to cajole the new-comer, ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... will not, will not share; Thy hatred only wakes a smile; Thy griefs may wound—thy wrongs may tear, But, oh, thy lies shall ne'er beguile! While gazing on the stars that glow Above me, in that stormless sea, I long to hope that all the woe Creation knows, is ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... me. Hold, sir, here's my purse. In the south suburbs, at the Elephant, Is best to lodge. I will bespeak our diet, Whiles you beguile the time and feed your knowledge With viewing of the town; ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... charm your enemy," she said in a still, fascinated voice (as if she were forced by a spell to speak obscenity): "to beguile your enemy—to make him—make him—seek me? Him, the man who tried to murder you? Charm him? Charm ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... exciting fluids, and the green curtain has therefore unduly delayed its ascent, you perceive that the thorough-bass in the orchestra charitably devotes himself to a prelude of astonishing prolixity, calling in "Lodoiska" or "Der Freischutz" to beguile the time, and allow the procrastinating histrio leisure sufficient to draw on his flesh-colored pantaloons and give himself the proper complexion for a Coriolanus or Macbeth,—even so had Sir Sedley made that long speech requiring no rejoinder, till he saw the time had ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... loved Madame de Maisonneuve, full of feeling, sense, sweetness, information to beguile me back to life, and of sympathy to open my sad ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... 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 them and civilized life, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... implacable about this demand for food. If you skimped in the morning you must make amends at the next meal. He passed the time as on the previous day, a somewhat blase actor resting between pictures, and condescending to beguile the tedium by overlooking the efforts of his professional brethren. He could find no set that included a barber shop, although they were beds on every hand. He hoped for another night in the cabin, but if that were not to be, there was a ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... beautiful, has wealth in plenteous store, And fortune fine in calves and kine, and lovers half a score; Her faintest smile would saints beguile, or sinners captivate, Oh! I think a dale of Moya, but ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... very soon frightened," said the Colonel; "it was only that little witch Una who could have deluded him into such a crowd, and, as soon as she saw a bigger boy to beguile, she instantly deserted Keith, so I ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Vercingetorix revolted, and who was in all his master's confidence, had allowed his little mind to become filled with pride and ambition until he began to believe that he was at the bottom of Csar's success, and probably as great a general as he! He was ready to allow the Pompeians to beguile him from his allegiance, and at last went over to them. Csar, to show how little he cared for the defection of Labienus, hastened to send his baggage after him; but in Rome he was welcomed with acclamations. Cicero, the trimmer, exclaimed: ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... set before your eyes the vagrants and runagates by name, so I will tell you, that among yourselves, some of them shall creep in to beguile you, even such as would seem, and that in appearance are, very rife and hot for religion. And they, if you watch not, will do you a mischief, such an one as at present ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... oft They swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb, And vex their flesh with artificial sores, Can change their whine into a mirthful note When safe occasion offers, and with dance, And music of the bladder and the bag, Beguile their woes, and make the woods resound. Such health and gaiety of heart enjoy The houseless rovers of the sylvan world; And breathing wholesome air, and wandering much, Need other physic none to heal the effects Of ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... rather to the convenience of the horses than to our impatience; and finding, at the quaint little inn where we now halted, that we must wait for a nail or two in a loose shoe of one of our relay, we consulted, and being both hungry, agreed to beguile the time with an early dinner, which we enjoyed very sociably in a queer little parlour with a bow window, and commanding, with a litle garden for foreground, a very ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... for a brisk walk in the country, hoping later to beguile that gentleman into the American church for his soul's sake. He found Alfred the gimlet-eyed washing the asphalt walk ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... in a mystie morning if thou wilt Make pitfalls for the larke and pheldifare, Thy prop and sweake shall be both overguilt, With Cyparissus selfe thou shalt compare For gins and wyles, the oozels to beguile, Whilst thou under a ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... to be kissed and coaxed, and washed and dressed, and told marvelous tales to beguile him into listening submission. "Mother, mayn't I put Bobby's Sunday dress on him?" called Betty, from the head ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... young visitor. When the elder daughter, to whom my visit was made, was at school, he would care for my entertainment by telling a story, or propounding a riddle, or providing an entertaining book to beguile the ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... loneliness; The urgent prayer, the hope, the humble fear, Which seek beyond the grave that soul so dear,— These yet are thine, but thine to tell no more. Hide, then, from careless hearts thy sad but precious store, And if life's struggle should thy thoughts beguile, Quicken the pulse, and tempt the cheerful smile, Should worldly shadows cross that form unseen, And duty claim a place where grief hath been, Spurn not the balm by toil o'er suffering shed, Nor fear to ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... put her whole reliance on an effort to temporize. She felt that her only recourse in this emergency must lie in deceiving the ruffian who thus beset her. Much as she abhorred him, she had no choice. There was none to whom she could appeal for succor. She must depend absolutely upon her ability to beguile him. She must hide the revulsion inspired by his mere presence. She must arm herself with the world-old weapons of her sex, and by wiles blind him to the truth of her feeling, gain time for—something, anything! At least here was room for hope, uncertain, absurd even, yet ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... I'd love to," assented Dolly eagerly. "I wish she'd let me take her," but for the present, at least, the sorrowful baby refused to leave her safe resting-place, and only clung more tightly to Mr. Marshall when the girls tried to beguile her. ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... is a surer guide 15 Than reason-boasting mortals' pride; And that brute beasts are far before 'em, 'Deus est anima brutorum'. Who ever knew an honest brute At law his neighbour prosecute, 20 Bring action for assault and battery, Or friend beguile with lies and flattery? O'er plains they ramble unconfin'd, No politics disturb their mind; They eat their meals, and take their sport, 25 Nor know who's in or out at court; They never to the levee go To ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... Of bars too strong to sever, One love with golden pinions caught, And caged him there forever; Instructing thereby, all coquettes, Whate'er their looks or ages, That, though 'tis pleasant weaving Nets, 'Tis wiser to make Cages. Thus, maidens, thus do I beguile The task your fingers ply— May all who hear, like Susan smile, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... 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 of time ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... up in full council. The thing is beyond doubting of, as George says and as you thought yesterday. And then George has it in his head to beguile the Duke of Palmella out of a smaller cabin, so that I might sail from the Thames on the twentieth—and whether he succeeds or not, I humbly confess that one of the chief advantages of the new plan if not the very chief (as I see it) is just ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... person aged thirteen who will not write a romance of her own without putting her hero at the very summit of the peerage—or wicked baronets, or marble halls. These tastes are by no means confined to women; sailors in far-away seas most persistently beguile their scanty leisure by studying tales of sentiment, and soldiers are, if possible, more eager than seamen for that sort of reading. The righteous organiser comes on the scene, and says, "We must not let these poor souls fritter away any portion of their lives ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... 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 ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... asked Lucilla, facing him, sternly. "My wife? yes, my fairest. Wife is a solemn title of honor and has nothing to do with the joys of life. How could I mention your name in the same hour with those of the poor children who help me to beguile an idle hour." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that occasion (though there was talk of the probability of Mr. Landor's "throat being cut in his sleep"—) as on other occasions, Robert succeeded in soothing him—and the poor old lion is very quiet on the whole, roaring softly, to beguile the time, in Latin alcaics against his wife and Louis Napoleon. He laughs carnivorously when I tell him that one of these days he will have to write an ode in honour of the Emperor, to ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... at morning tolled the funeral bell; Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark foregoes, Touched by the beggar's moan of human woes; The shady porch ne'er offered a cool seat To pilgrims overcome by summer's heat. [65] 245 Yet thither the world's business finds its way At times, and tales unsought beguile the day, And there are those fond thoughts which Solitude, [66] However stern, is powerless to exclude. [67] There doth the maiden watch her lover's sail 250 Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale; At midnight listens till his parting ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... confinement. The stone walls of this cell had a melancholy interest. They were carved over nearly every available inch with figures of men, birds, and animals, cut, no doubt, by the former prisoners to beguile the ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... innovation, we tread under foot the order which hath been delivered unto us by our 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
... convict and 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 ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... preferred the dross of gold, and the indulgence of your own luxury and that of the sybarite, your father, to the passionate affection I bore you. It is too late now for regret or recrimination. Go, I command you! accomplish your destiny; continue to beguile Miriam with the tale of your affection, and in return reap your harvest of deluded affection and golden store from her! and from me receive your guerdon of scorn. For I, Claude Bainrothe, know you as you are, and despise you utterly!" Her voice trembled with ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... his den, unable to provide himself with food. So he said to his friend the Fox, who came to ask how he did, "My good friend, I wish you would go to yonder wood and beguile the big Stag, who lives there, to come to my den: I have a fancy to make my dinner off a stag's heart and brains." The Fox went to the wood and found the Stag and said to him, "My dear sir, you're in luck. You ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... can beguile his bold Unsleeping vigilance; E'en in the fireflame, old Visions unheeded dance. Fearless of lurking spy, Scornful of wassail-swell, With an ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... on the same pillow, as she did when a child; and I must open my lids to see. And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a night to be always disappointed. It was a strange way of killing, not by inches, but by fractions of hairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteen years." This mania of expectation stretching the nerves to their uttermost strain, relaxed sometimes; and then Heathcliff was dangerous. When filled ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... 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 news as they passed ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... fair play. I will tell all England how you took advantage of a girl's youth and inexperience, above all, of the fact of her being an orphan, to beguile her into making you a promise of marriage, and how since you have traded, you coward, on her weakness, on her love for her husband, on the best part of her nature; and I will tell my story so honestly, so well, that every honest man shall ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... out. 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. What would ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... equal grace Both of his wisdom and his face; In cut and die so like a tile, A sudden view it would beguile; The upper part thereof was whey; The nether, orange mix'd with grey. 153 BUTLER: Hudibras, Pt. i., Canto i., ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... life of society, so to speak. It is co-operation that is insisted upon—the ministering influence of the woman with the business tact of the man. In prisons, hospitals, work-houses, and lunatic asylums the influence of well-trained women, to soften rigor, charm routine, beguile poverty, and tranquilize distraction is often wanted; not so much to talk as to ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... if not the only cultivated class among us, have not taken very cordially to the Sunday edition, except for its social gossip; they certainly do not go to it for their fiction, and its fiction is mainly of the inferior sort with which boys and men beguile their leisure. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... thou that thinkest to beguile me? Where is the Dauphin? Come, come from behind; I know thee well, though never seen before. Be not amazed, there's nothing hid from me. In private will I talk with thee apart. Stand back, you lords, and give ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... guest, laughing as he leaned over the tea-table toward two little maids, vainly trying to beguile their willing and sweetly puckered lips into pronouncing his name. "Faduel Moghabghab," he repeated in syllables, pointing to the card he had passed to them. "Accent the u and drop those g's which your little throats cannot manage," he went on kindly, while the merriment sparkled in his dark ...
— The Song of our Syrian Guest • William Allen Knight
... its free course by a thousand rocky prejudices lavished itself upon these little ones. By bribes of gingerbread of her own making, stamped with a royal crown, she tempted their sunny sportiveness beneath the gloomy portal of the province-house, and would often beguile them to spend a whole play-day there, sitting in a circle round the verge of her hoop-petticoat, greedily attentive to her stories of a dead world. And when these little boys and girls stole forth again from the dark, mysterious mansion, they went bewildered, full ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... gnat, and fly, Serve us for our minstrelsy; Grace said, we dance a while, And so the time beguile; And if the moon doth hide her head, The glow-worm lights us ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... 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
... the fleeting testimonial through the mazy symptoms of disease (largely imaginary) and cure (wholly mythical). To extract from the great and shining ones of political life commendations of Certina; to beguile statesmen who had never tasted that strange concoction into asseverating their faith in the nostrum's infallibility for any and all ailments; to persuade into fulsome print solemnly asinine Senators and unwarily flattered Congressmen—that ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Africa, to live his life away. There, if the reports be true, their food was so scanty that the ladies of the family had to spin to get enough for them all to eat, while the despondent emir tried to beguile the weary hours with poetry. The hardships of their life were so great that finally the emir was left alone in his captivity, and it was four long years before he ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... request I originally inscribed this skit to our whole party. In its republication, however, I can but feel that the dedication should be more particular. Written because you asked it, first read aloud to beguile our ride across the great American desert, and finally printed because you wished a copy as a souvenir of our journeyings, no one can so naturally be called upon to stand sponsor to the little tale. Should the story but give its readers a fraction of the pleasure I owe to your ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... for the day that was to see the end of his enterprise. To beguile himself of his nervousness in the night, during the dark hours that trailed on to morning, he would venture out of the lodging where he lay in hiding throughout the day, and pick his steps in the silence ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... body, doing as I bid thee, and behold! for a while thy shape shall wear the shape of the Golden Helen, and thy face shall be as her face, and thine eyes as her eyes, and thy voice as her voice. Then I leave the rest to thee, for as Helen's self thou shalt beguile the Wanderer, and once, if once only, be a wife to him whom thou desireth. Naught can I tell thee of the future, I who am but a counsellor, but hereafter it may be that woes will come, woes and wars and death. But what matter these when thou hast had thy desire, when he hath sinned, and hath ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... under him an engineer and a Dutch lad. The former of these has, of course, his special duties; the latter is cook and steward, sailor, landing-agent, and general utility man. He goes by the name of "The Crew." To beguile the tedium and monotony of constant voyaging, "The Crew" is wont to exercise his mind by conversation with such passengers as there may be. He is of a very inquiring disposition, and asks leading questions of a very personal nature. Seeing that ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... in Chimene's castle. Her women try to beguile their mistress's sorrow by songs, and when they see her soothed to quiet, they retire noiselessly. But hardly does she find {401} herself alone than pain and grief overcome her again. She longs to avenge her ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... their conversation must relate to Nizza Macascree, Leonard did not attempt to follow, but, accompanied by Bell, who continued to gambol round him, directed his steps towards the grave of Dame Lucas. Here he endeavoured to beguile the time in meditation, but in spite of his efforts to turn his thoughts into a different channel, they perpetually recurred to what he supposed to be taking place inside the house. The extraordinary effect produced by Nizza Macascree on Thirlby—the resemblance ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... unclouded brow, Glad April seems to wear a constant smile, Troop boys and damsels: One, whose fountains flow, On the green margin sings in dulcet style; Others, the hill or tufted tree below, In dance, or no mean sport the hours beguile. While this, who shuns the revellers' noisy cheer, Tells his love sorrows ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... 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 ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... on his promise, and sends a false Dream to beguile Agamemnon, promising that now he shall take Troy. Agamemnon, while asleep, is full of hope; but when he wakens he dresses in mufti, in a soft doublet, a cloak, and sandals; takes his sword (swords were then worn as part of civil costume), and the ancestral ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... reckoning to be? McGuire had already fallen a victim to the man's devilish skill and audacity. And Beth——? What match was she for a clever desperate rogue who balked at nothing? How had he learned of Beth's existence and how, knowing of it, had he managed to beguile her away from the village? Peter was beginning to believe with McGuire that Hawk Kennedy was indeed in league with ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... necessary precaution, since if 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 to her liking she would come back to see if there were any ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... furnished the members of their senate, and were the conservators of their history, had mostly fled to Canada or the West. The result was that among the interminable stories with which the common people beguile their winter nights, the traditions of Atotarho and Hiawatha became intermingled with the legends of their mythology. An accidental similarity, in the Onondaga dialect, between the name of Hiawatha ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... the youths with such a look Of anguish and reproach that well they knew Her thought, and almost wished the deed undone. Frankly they owned the charge: "And pardon us; We did it all in love; we could not bear That the cold world of waters and the strange Beings that dwell within it should beguile Our sister from us." Then they told her all; How they had seen her stealthily bestow The slippers in the cleft, and how by stealth They took them thence and bore them down the brook, And dropped them in, and how the ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... the interference of Anna, Elvira, and Ottavio, who have made their way into his palace in masks and dominoes. In the next act the vengeance of the three conspirators appears to hang fire a little, for Don Giovanni is still pursuing his vicious courses, and employing Leporello to beguile the too trustful Elvira. After various escapades he finds himself before the statue of the murdered Commandant. He jokingly invites his old antagonist to sup with him, an invitation which the statue, to his intense surprise, hastens to accept. Leporello and his ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... Some four years before its illustrations riveted the name of a stripling artist to that of the world-renowned scholar, Erasmus had fallen ill while a guest in the sunny Bucklersbury home where three tiny daughters and a baby son were the darlings of Sir Thomas More and his wife. To beguile the tedium of convalescence the invalid had scribbled off a jeu d'esprit, with its punning play on More's name, Encomium Moriae, in which every theme for laughter, in a far from squeamish day, was collected ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... enjoy'd Through life, from early youth to latest age. No. Be not angry now; pardon the fault That I embraced thee not as soon as seen, For horror hath not ceased to overwhelm My soul, lest some false alien should, perchance, Beguile me, for our house draws num'rous such. Jove's daughter, Argive Helen, ne'er had given Free entertainment to a stranger's love, Had she foreknown that the heroic sons 260 Of Greece would bring her ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... some time, thus to beguile the way, till I reached a space more than commonly abrupt, and which required all my attention. My rude ditty was suspended till I had surmounted this impediment. In a few minutes I was at leisure to renew it. After finishing the strain, I paused. In a ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... "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 ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... time, during this long period in various pursuits calculated to beguile the weary days, and he sometimes planned schemes for escape. There were also a great many fruitless negotiations attempted between the king and the Parliament, which resulted in nothing but to make the breach between them wider and wider. Sometimes the king was ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... an honest brute At law his neighbours prosecute, Bring action for assault and battery Or friends beguile with lies and flattery?" ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... maids, but you twain should thank God and your good father and mother! for if you had been bred up with less care, this companion, whatso his name be, should have essayed to beguile you as I am a Cumberland woman. A pair of comely young lasses like you should have been a great catch for ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... I took to it, or acquired in it, I have so retained as that I fully 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 ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... friends, your family, for me, an unknown outcast. When I found you pitied me, and listened to my love—I was too weak to forego the one ray of sunshine in my wretched life—and, thinking that I had a prospect before me in an idea I promised to reveal to you later, I swore never to beguile you or myself in that hope by any act that might bring you to repent it—or myself to dishonor. But I taxed myself too much, Maruja. I have asked too much of you. You are right, darling; this secrecy—this deceit—is unworthy of us! Every hour of it—blest as it has been to me—every moment—sweet ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... golden time, it has been my privilege even to see the bigger beadle's wife. She brought him his dinner in a basin, and he ate it in his arm-chair, and afterwards fell asleep like a satiated child. At Mr. Truefitt's, the excellent hairdresser's, they are learning French to beguile the time; and even the few solitaries left on guard at Mr. Atkinson's, the perfumer's round the corner (generally the most inexorable gentleman in London, and the most scornful of three-and- sixpence), condescend a little, as they drowsily bide or recall their turn for chasing the ebbing Neptune ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... delights are vaine, and that most vaine Which with paine purchas'd, doth inherit paine, As painefully to poare vpon a Booke, To seeke the light of truth, while truth the while Doth falsely blinde the eye-sight of his looke: Light seeking light, doth light of light beguile: So ere you finde where light in darkenesse lies, Your light growes darke by losing of your eyes. Studie me how to please the eye indeede, By fixing it vpon a fairer eye, Who dazling so, that eye shall be his heed, And giue him light ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... they believe in no more gods but in Him that was at the beginning, and made of naught all things visible and invisible, which Lord took flesh and blood, being in the Virgin, the same God. But ye have many false ways, to beguile the innocent people with sleights ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... three: we eat because we are hungry. We rarely fail to eat excessively to satisfy the sense of relish after the normal hunger sense has been dissipated; we may eat to satisfy relish as we eat ice cream, fruits, and the enticing extras that beguile us to put more food into the stomach after it is already overfilled for its working capacity. But our actual need of food, the best reason for taking it, is to make up for the wastes from the general activities; and this is a process in the order of Nature that actually tires the entire ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... you lean up against the rail; soon you begin to look about as much discouraged as a Brooklyn Alderman in contempt of court. Your more experienced and sympathizing friends tell you that it will soon pass over, and it does. You even try to beguile your misery with pleasant recollections of Shakespeare. The only line that seems to come to your memory is the advice of Lady Macbeth—"To bed, to bed!"—and when you are tucked away in your berth and ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... way To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day: Here on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread, The drooping wretch reclines his languid head; For him no hand the cordial cup applies, Or wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes; No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile, Or promise hope till ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... always looked as though it had been cut short like a boy's, her strong rough movements, and Caroline, so neat and shining and entirely feminine that her only business in the world seemed to be to fascinate, beguile and bewilder the opposite sex. Whatever the aunts may have thought of this new friendship, they said nothing. Caroline had her way with them as with every one else. Maggie wondered often as to Aunt Anne's, real thoughts. But Aunt Anne only smiled her dim cold smile, gave her cold hand ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... frequently even laughable. Moreover, the desert rocks of Naxos are here smoothed down to modern drawing-rooms; and the princes who people them, with all the observances of politeness seek to out-wit each other, or to beguile the unfortunate princess, who alone has anything like ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... made answer and said: "Not in this wise, strong as thou art, O godlike Achilles, beguile thou me by craft; thou shalt not outwit me nor persuade me. Dost thou wish, that thou mayest keep thy meed of honour, for me to sit idle in bereavement, and biddest me give her back? Nay, if the great-hearted Achaians will give me a meed suited to my mind, that the recompense ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... that thee and Preble, and thy Comrades will remain in your wigwams at Machias and not come to Passamaquadie to beguile and disturb our weak and young Brethren. We will have nothing to do with thee or them or with your storys, for we have found you out; and if you persist in tempting us we warn you to take care of yourselves. We shall not come to Machias ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... issued from his pen since his promise to that effect; and that these false accusations had injured him cruelly in ease, reputation and interest. This solemn declaration that the now detested Muses shall no longer beguile Fielding's pen affords excellent reading in view of the fact that this absorbed barrister must, within a year or two, have been at work on Tom Jones. The whole emphatic outburst was probably partly an effort to assert himself as now wholly devoted to the law, and partly an example of one ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... international relations, current politics, the leaders in public affairs, and other peculiarly American interests without some understanding of the United States since the Civil War. I have tried in a small way to make some of this information conveniently available without attempting to beguile myself or others into the belief that I have written with the accuracy that ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... must put in the time by playing on the flageolet; if a sermon were dull, he must read in the book of Tobit or divert his mind with sly advances on the nearest women. When he walked, it must be with a book in his pocket to beguile the way in case the nightingales were silent; and even along the streets of London, with so many pretty faces to be spied for and dignitaries to be saluted, his trail was marked by little debts "for wine, pictures, etc.," the true headmark of a life intolerant of any joyless passage. He ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... where is my husband?' Quoth she, 'Upon his forehead is written what Allah hath decreed to him; as soon as the writing which is there writ is fulfilled to him, there is no help for it but he come hither, and we will beguile the time of our separation from him with songs and playing upon instruments of music, till it please Allah to unite us with him.' So I abode all these days with her till Allah brought us together in this church." Then Husn Maryam ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... morning." So he sent for Dunyazad, and she waited till the Sultan had done his desire of her sister and they were all three awake, when she coughed and said, "O my sister, an thou be not asleep, tell us one of thy pleasant stories, to beguile the watches of our night, and I will take leave of thee before the morning." "With all my heart," answered Shehrzad, "if the good king give me leave." The King being wakeful, was pleased to hear a story and said, "Tell on." Whereat she rejoiced greatly ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... had to go through the ultimate stages of the combat once more and force himself to face the dread reality so that he should never again beguile himself with a single hope. This was really the situation as he understood it. He finally wrought himself up to that supreme point, and leaping from his ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... us but a little while Methought I sensed her spirit here and there About my house: upon the empty stair Her robe brusht softly; o'er her chamber still There lay her fragrant presence to beguile Numb heart, dead heart. I knelt before her chair, And praying felt her hand laid on my hair, Felt her sweet breath, and ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... thy beauty, 'twas thy pleasing smile, Thy grace and comeliness did me beguile; Thy rose-like cheeks, and unto purple fair Thy lovely eyes and golden ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... winds have stripped the garden green. Alas, my friends! beneath the fierce sun's weight A barren reef lies where Love's flowers have been, Nor ever lover on that coast is seen! So be it, for we seek a fabled shore, To lull our vague desires with mystic lore, To wander where Love's labyrinths, beguile; There let us land, there dream for evermore: 'It may be we ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... of education to Mechanics, Robert Hall says that it has a tendency to exalt the character, and, in some measure, to correct and subdue the taste for gross sensuality. It enables the possessor to beguile his leisure moments (and every man has such) in an innocent, at least, if not in a useful manner. The poor man who can read, and who possesses a taste for reading, can find entertainment at home, without being tempted to repair to the public-house for that purpose. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... trellis-work, around the supports, hanging in festoons from the roof, were a thousand different creeping flowers. The legend of the house—for, as in India, almost every bungalow on the West Coast has its tale—was that one of the early missionaries had built it, and, to beguile the long months of the rainy season, had carefully collected these creepers to beautify the place against the arrival of his young wife. She never came. A telegram stopped her. A snake interrupted his labour ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... you how and by whom the killing of Theodore and his wife was engineered, you will begin to understand the fantastic trick that Fate played when she sent her emissary to the hunchback artist in the Louvre. But it is a long story, and it will beguile the journey across Austria, while there are many things you must attend to ere you leave Paris in ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... We beguile the three hours' wait with a lunch, a walk, and an idiot beggar with an imposing wen or goitre. This creature crouches persistently by the carriages while the horses are reharnessed and we are taking our places. ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... to beguile the nerves of the three young people while they waited for Turl to come. But as the hands of the clock neared the appointed minute, Edna's excitement returned, and Larcher found himself becoming fidgety. What Florence felt ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens |
