"Hard-pressed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the ring, too. No woman in Indiana had the like of that. An ugly thing, but very ancient and of pure gold. Once Tom had wanted to sell it when he was hard-pressed back at Nolin Creek, but she had fought for it like a tigress and scared the life out of Tom. Her grandfather had left it her because she was his favourite and it had been her grandmothers, and long ago had come from Europe. It was lucky, and could cure rheumatism if worn next the heart ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... sleep. Thus the long and persistent attack on the British frontier station of Malakand languished and ceased. The tribesmen, sick of the slaughter at this point, concentrated their energies on Chakdara, which they believed must fall into their hands. To relieve this hard-pressed post now became the duty of the ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... Dutchman who has come and stuck himself on the throne. Why, sir, you ought to take a pleasure in breaking his laws, after the way he has robbed you, and turned you from a real gentleman, into a poor, hard-pressed country squire, who—" ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... declaration after it was made. Without Morris, indeed, it is hard to see how the Revolution could have succeeded. He was the great financier of his time, and his efforts in raising money for the support of our hard-pressed armies were wonderful. ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... common one. Men and women will gamble recklessly at Bridge, lose heavily, pay up, at whatever cost, because it is a debt of honour. All the while a hard-pressed tailor, a famished dressmaker and her children are kept out of their money, because it is only a debt of commerce. Could there be a more ghastly parody ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... standpoint to be those forms of conduct which conduce to social harmony, to social efficiency, and so to the survival of the group. Groups, however, as we have already pointed out, cannot do as they please. They are always hard-pressed in competition by other groups and have to meet the standards of efficiency which nature imposes. Morality, therefore, is not anything arbitrarily designed by the group, but is a standard of conduct which necessities ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... things I have to tell you, but you can not bear (understand) them now," so, we may well believe that Mohammed was hard-pressed to find language comprehensible to his followers, in which to explain the all-knowingness and all-powerfulness of God, and at the same time, not have them fall into the error of the ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... against Queenston and Fort George? For three weeks they awaited Chauncey's fleet to attack from the water side, so the army could rush the fort from the land side; but Chauncey was ill and could not come, and the interval gave the hard-pressed Canadians their chance. Drummond comes from Kingston with four hundred fresh men; also he calls on the people to leave their farms and rally as volunteers to the last desperate fight. This increased his troops by another thousand, though many of the volunteers ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... been horrible enough in the past; but now the rajah's men were smarting from a sharp defeat. And I felt that they would make fierce reprisals on the hard-pressed garrison, all of whom would certainly be put to ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... the Turks, after repeated assaults upon the British lines, massed for a final attempt to drive the invaders into the sea. On and on they came, concentrating on the hard-pressed Third Brigade as the weak spot in the British defense. Fighting gamely against heavy odds, this Australian Brigade which had borne the brunt of the landing attack and which had been almost continually counterattacked all afternoon, gave way slowly, selling every inch of ground dearly. Hundreds ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... good woman, and as she stood before me, laying bare the scheme that, no matter what the conditions, had in it the smallest selfish consideration, I felt my heart warm to her again, and I could not but feel that the little whitewasher—a kindly, hard-pressed family man of slight account—would do well to lay his brood upon her ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... and life, so well sustained throughout that grown-up readers may enjoy it as much as children. This 'Covey' consists of the twelve children of a hard-pressed Dr. Partridge out of which is chosen a little girl to be adopted by a spoiled, fine lady. We have rarely read a story for boys and girls with greater pleasure. One of the chief characters would not have disgraced ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... hard-pressed miner made no haste to accept the offer. To leave Aurora meant the surrender of all hope in the mines, the confession of another failure. He wrote Barstow, asking when he thought he might be needed. And at the same time, in a letter to Orion, ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to almost absolute power in England, and was busied in reforming the abuses in the army and navy, dismissing incapable officials, and preparing to render some efficient aid to its hard-pressed ally. The proposal that Prince Ferdinand should assume the command of the army—whose efforts had hitherto been rendered nugatory by the utter incompetence of the Duke of Cumberland who, although personally as brave as a lion, was absolutely ignorant of war—afforded ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... man beside her was now trembling from head to foot. Constance, hard-pressed, conscience-struck, utterly miserable, did not know what to ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... last night, orders reached General Pipes to fall back on this place, where his reserves were diverted to support Piffle, hard-pressed on the Sandusky. This morning the manoeuvre was effected in good order, the enemy following us through Grierson and capturing one hundred prisoners. The battle was resumed on the Sandusky with the same fury; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... linked the fortunes of the young Napoleon Buonaparte with those of France. After the downfall of Genoese rule in Corsica, France had taken over, for empty promises, the claims of the hard-pressed Italian republic to its troublesome island possession. It was a cheap and practical way of restoring, at least in the Mediterranean the shattered prestige of the French Bourbons. They had previously intervened in Corsican affairs on the side of the Genoese. Yet in 1764 Paoli appealed ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... my departure. The tempest was at its height, and a blinding sheet of rain and ocean-spray drove wildly into my face at each step. The breakers dashed furiously upon the beach—so furiously, indeed, that the usual route along the hard-pressed sand had become impassable, and I was obliged to take a higher path through the loose, yielding pebbles. But I persevered bravely and determinedly, though so sorely fettered in my steps, and buffeted in my face, and, after nearly two hours, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... less degree of sovereignty over Louisiana than was held by France when she transferred it, or by Spain when she owned it, was never dreamed of when the negotiation was made. It was an afterthought on the part of the hard-pressed defenders of the right of secession. It was the ingenious but lame device of an able lawyer who undertook to defend what ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... letter received through the mail, telling of an intrigue in which David's name was coupled with that of another woman and lay abed quietly hugging the thought. She looked at the face of the sleeping David tenderly. "Poor hard-pressed boy," she muttered. "I shall be resigned and cheerful and lead him gently back to his old ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... and reverently await our leadings. In every stormy trial, in every doubtful moment, in every hard-pressed circumstance we stand aside and let the divine will work through us. There can be no mistaking this standing aside. It is not to sit down idly with no thought of responsibility or effort, but it is to do the best we can so far as we know, constantly ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... have travelled on the Continent, and who have noticed on tobacconists' counters a small machine, somewhat like a coffee-mill, which a man works with one hand, while he holds a hard-pressed plug of tobacco about a pound weight against the revolving grater, and produces snuff while the snuff-taker waits for it, may imagine that snuff in England is produced on a somewhat similar small scale. But this, like many kindred theories, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... the crisis approached. Whether or not the Revolution would be depended upon the Junta, and the Junta was hard-pressed. The need for money was greater than ever before, while money was harder to get. Patriots had given their last cent and now could give no more. Section gang laborers-fugitive peons from Mexico—were contributing half their scanty wages. But more than ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... clearness. It made him feel, this acquired faculty, like some monstrous stealthy cat; he wondered if he would have glared at these moments with large shining yellow eyes, and what it mightn't verily be, for the poor hard-pressed alter ego, to be confronted with such ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... attacks came on, but the gray-clad waves broke down before the gallant defense. And then, above the roar of battle, came a rousing American cheer, and into the woods came plunging rank after rank of fresh troops to relieve their hard-pressed comrades. ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... synoptic Gospels. If their report on a matter of such stupendous and far-reaching practical import as this is untrustworthy, how can we be sure of its trustworthiness in other cases? The favourite "earth," in which the hard-pressed reconciler takes refuge, that the Bible does not profess to teach science,[56] is stopped in this instance. For the question of the existence of demons and of possession by them, though it lies strictly within the province of ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... of the First Division, scattered along behind the French lines, being drilled as rapidly as possible to take their place in the trenches for the relief of the hard-pressed French. The nucleus is made up of the men of the old army, who have seen service in Cuba, Porto Rico, the Philippines, Texas, or along the Mexican border. And with them are young boys of nineteen, twenty, or twenty-one, with clear faces, fresh from their homes, chiefly ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... years earlier, and it was evident that she had been very little used since then. The paint was peeling from her cracked and weathered side, her gear was frayed and bleached with frost and rain, and only very hard-pressed men would have faced the thought of going to sea in her. Wyllard and his companions were, however, very hard-pressed indeed, and they preferred the hazards of a voyage in the crazy vessel to falling into the Russians' ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... suits of some of the suitors had been hard-pressed by Mrs. Valentine. "You will go through the woods to find a crooked stick at last, Dorothea," she would say. "You don't know a desirable parti when you see one. You must have an extraordinary opinion of your own charms to think that you have only to pick and choose. Those charms will fade, rather ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... solution of this problem such subjects as gymnastics, games, dancing, needlework, cooking, and domestic economy will come in as a welcome relief from the more directly intellectual studies, and equally as a relief to the conscientious but hard-pressed woman who is trying to save her pupils from the evils of unoccupied time on the one hand and undue mental ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... comrades wished to give him all the encouragement in their power, another cheer went up as he entered the pit, and took up his position on the floor of hard-pressed ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... The hard-pressed but amiable priest—for such he was—adopted this language of truth, because he knew the squire's character, and felt that it would serve him more effectually than if he had attempted to conceal his profession. "I am a Catholic priest, sir, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... arrangements for receiving subsidies in black mail, are as carefully recorded as his lavish highland hospitalities; and when he sends his silver cup to the Gaelic bard who chaunts his greatness, the faithful historian does not forget to let us know that the cup is his last, and that he is hard-pressed for the generosities of the future. So too the habitual thievishness of the highlanders is pressed upon us quite as vividly as their gallantry and superstitions. And so careful is Sir Walter to paint the petty pedantries of the Scotch traditional ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... The hard-pressed man could scarcely disguise the relief which these words brought. He began a grateful acknowledgment of the kindness, when Arnault interrupted him by saying, "Oh, that's nothing—mere matter of business. I will write you a check to-night for ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... that he may at all hazards score a point, he introduces the argument that "probably the British farmer ... does not regard this competition of German with English manure manufacturers as altogether disadvantageous." This is all very well; but even a hard-pressed critic cannot serve two masters; he cannot set out to prove that the Germans are not beating us, and then, when he tumbles against an instance to the contrary which repulses all attempts to explain it away, turn round and say that it is a very good thing. It is possible ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... could not keep his eyes from this photograph. It was Di at her curliest, at her fluffiest, Di conscious of her bracelet, Di smiling. Bobby gazed, his basic aversion to her hard-pressed by a most reluctant pleasure. He hoped that he would not see her, and he listened ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... have hurried away in spite of his master's supplications, protests and offers of free drinks, had it not been for the fact that a mob collected and forcibly prevented them. Other gangs hurrying to the assistance of their hard-pressed comrades—to the number, it is said, of sixty men—a free fight ensued, in the course of which a burly constable, armed with a formidable longstaff, was singled out by the original gang, doubtless on account of the prominent part he took in the fray, as a fitting substitute for the apprentice. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... reached the vessel; none did damage. The soldiers disappeared behind the warehouse, still running at a headlong pace. Before they reappeared on the other side, Antonius had brought his craft to the quay. There was no time for mooring, and the instant the barge lost way the hard-pressed Caesarians were on shore. Another instant, and the clumsy vessel had been caught by the current, and swung out into ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... evidently been the atrium; the round shield, with its pointed boss, the spear, sword, and small curved saex of the early Teuton, were suspended from the columns on which once had been wreathed the flowers; in the centre of the floor, where fragments of the old mosaic still glistened from the hard-pressed paving of clay and lime, what now was the fire-place had been the impluvium, and the smoke went sullenly through the aperture in the roof, made of old to receive the rains of heaven. Around the Hall were still left the old cubicula or ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... vengeance. He had avoided addressing himself to any one whom he suspected of intimacy with Tito, lest an alarm raised in Tito's mind should urge him either to flight or to some other counteracting measure which hard-pressed ingenuity might devise. For this reason he had never entered Nello's shop, which he observed that Tito frequented, and he had turned aside to ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... destroy the enemy by an ambuscade as he marched through the narrow part of the path. Erik foresaw this, having reconnoitred his means of advancing, and thought he must withdraw for fear, if he advanced along the track he had intended, of being hard-pressed by the tricks of the enemy among the steep windings of the hills. They therefore joined battle, force against force, in a deep valley, inclosed all round by lofty mountain ridges. Here Halfdan, when he saw the line ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... She gave him a quick, searching glance, then sank down upon the rock. She seemed suddenly exhausted, like a woman who, hard-pressed in the midst of peril, ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... in its general aspect, suggested the same small, hard-pressed professional life. It was narrow and dull; it mounted abruptly towards the hill of Montmartre, with its fort and cemetery, and, but for the height of the houses, which is in itself a dignified ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... respect of the benefits which each conferred upon the Greeks. Philopoemen and the others were all Greeks, who fought with other Greeks, while Titus was not a Greek, and yet fought on behalf of the Greeks. When Philopoemen despaired of helping his hard-pressed follow citizens and sailed to Crete, Titus was gaining a victory in the centre of Greece, in consequence of which he bestowed freedom on Philip himself, and on all the nations and cities which had been subject to him. If one carefully examines the battles fought by each ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... asylum of the hard-pressed advocate of the doctrine of uncaused volition is usually, that, argue as you like, he has a profound and ineradicable consciousness of what he calls the freedom of his will. But Hume follows him even here, though only in a note, as if he thought the extinction of so transparent ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... Benedek's defeated troops to get back in safety. At Rezonville (August 16, 1870) von Bredow's Cavalry Brigade was ordered to charge the French batteries and their infantry escort, in order to give some breathing time for the hard-pressed Prussian infantry. The charge was successful and the time was gained, but as at Balaclava (October 26, 1854) there were few survivors from "Von Bredow's Todtenritt" (death ride). After the battle of Le Cateau (August 26, 1918) and during the Retreat from Mons, the British ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous |
