"Rife" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the cynic sneers At such a rule of life; That, after but a few short years, Dissension should be rife. Ah! Lady, you'll avoid heart-ache, And scorn of bard satiric, If haply you should deign to take A lesson ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various
... Holland has Java. Germany is burdening herself with the unborn troubles of a Hinterland. And as for England, she staggers on still under the increasing load of India, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, the West Indies, Fiji, New Guinea, North Borneo—all of them rife with endless race-questions, all ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... seemed no adequate reason for being either surprised or offended; yet surprised and offended most people were, and scandal ran rife, and rumor wagged all its poisonous tongues to spread evil reports against the Princess Ziska's name and fame, till Denzil Murray, maddened and furious, rushed up to his sister in her room and swore that he would marry the Princess if ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... open sea, whose rage it seems to court, Flying the dangerous pity of the port. The noise, the terror, and that fearful cry, Give fatal augury Of the impending stroke. Death hesitates, For each already dies who death awaits. With portents the whole atmosphere is rife, Nor is it all the effect of elemental strife. The ship is rigged with tempest as it flies.* It rushes on the lee, The war is now no longer of the sea; Upon a hidden rock It strikes: it breaks as with a thunder shock. Blood flakes the foam ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... that. The sound went on, and on, wild and lone and constant, ascending to the confines of the room, transcending the confines of reason. It was crescendo incarnate; it was purpose gone rife; it was human and more than human, with all the fears and hopes and hates, as it attained a high-pitched scream with wailing overtones such as even Arnold had never heard. There was sentience in it, there was awareness in it, there was fury ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... "one day as I sat at his table, there was a layman cunning in the law who began to praise the rigorous justice that was done upon felons, and to marvel how thieves were nevertheless so rife." ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... days all sorts of rumors were rife as to what was doing in Paris, but nothing definite was learned till about the 9th; then Count Bismarck informed me that the Regency had been overthrown on the 4th, and that the Empress Eugenie had escaped to Belgium. The King of Prussia offered her an asylum with the Emperor at Wilhelmshohe, ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... caprices to which the players were subjected, were not attributable solely to the action of the Masters of the Revels. The Privy Council was constant in its interference with the affairs of the theatre. A suspicion was for a long time rife that the dramatic representations of the sixteenth century touched upon matters of religion or points of doctrine, and oftentimes contained matters "tending to sedition and to the contempt of sundry good orders and laws." Proclamations were from time to time issued inhibiting ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the Spanish Main, he began his search. Cruising about the spot indicated by his seafaring informant as the location of the sunken vessel, sounding and dredging occupied the time of the treasure-seekers for months. The crew, wearying of the fruitless search, began to murmur, and signs of mutiny were rife. Phipps, filled with thoughts of the treasure for which he sought, saw not at all the lowering looks, nor heard the half-uttered threats, of the crew as he passed them. But finally the mutiny so developed that he could no ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... is almost an invariable custom now for the Indians on entering a dwelling-house to leave all their weapons, as rife, tomahawk, &c., outside the door, even if the weather be ever so wet; as they consider it unpolite to enter a ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... South itself delivering anti-slavery lectures and organizing scores of such societies. The New York Anti-Slavery Society was secretly organized in 1832 in spite of the opposition of a determined mob. Mob violence was everywhere rife. Meetings were broken up, negro quarters attacked, property destroyed, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... necessary to speak of other classical romances, and it is of course very desirable to keep in mind that the Alexander story, in no form in which we have it, attempts any strictly novel interest; while though that interest is rife in some forms of "Troilus," those forms are not exactly of the period, and are in no case of the language, with which we are dealing. It was an Italian, an Englishman, and a Scot who each in his own speech—one in the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... Rumors became rife, charges were brought and proved. The Church is now, and always has been, very lenient in its treatment of erring priests. In fact, those in authority take the lofty ground that a priest, like a king, can do no wrong, and that sins of the flesh are impossible to one ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... and indeed, under old Mexican administration, it would have been but slight blame, or shame, to him. And not such a great deal either under the new, at the time of which we write, but perhaps still less. Compared with other crimes then rife in California, contrabandism might almost be reckoned an ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... the fields are new, For us the woods are rife With fairy secrets, deep and true, And heaven is but a tent of blue Above ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... not attainable by finite men; but as surely as our hearts beat, we are gradually getting further from its opposite, the coarse rule of force and brutality, such rule as in the twelfth century was rife all around ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... to Sir Job Whitelaw must become known; impossible for such a matter to be kept secret; all who took any interest in the young man had long been privately acquainted with the facts of his position. Now that discussion was rife, it would have been prudent in the Misses Lumb to divulge as much of the truth at they knew, but (in accordance with the law of natural perversity) they maintained a provoking silence. Hence whispers and suspicious questions, all wide of the mark. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... of us who remained was to fulfil the commission assigned us. A young friend, of whom mention has been already made, joined me that evening. He had been two days in search of me, and was greatly exhausted by anxiety and fatigue. Rumours of various kinds were rife. But, what was most disheartening was that the courage of the people was fast subsiding. Men who were most eager for deeds of any daring two days previously, began to exhibit symptoms of hesitation, doubt, and even indifference. But a far sadder disaster had ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... November 5th, and was due at Colombo on the 22nd. Before 9 a.m. on the morning of the capture both ships had turned about, the prize now being in command of the Germans, and were going back on the course the Wolf had followed since the destruction of the Hitachi. Discussion was rife among the prisoners as to what would be done with the new capture, and whether the Commander of the Wolf would redeem his promise to transfer the married couples to the ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... is as rife as false rumors usually are. Every one reports with confidence, and every one else believes with assurance, that you are both in Annapolis, and will certainly be found by the officers within a few days. This is good, as it will lead off all ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... of Safety obtained and outfitted fifteen vessels for the protection of the town and the Potomac. On two occasions the people became much excited and badly frightened. Rumor was rife in 1775 that Governor Dunmore had dispatched an expedition of warships up the Potomac to "lay waste the towns and the country, capture Mrs. Washington, and burn Mount Vernon."[44] Martha Washington remained calm, and though finally ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... ginger pops Stood handily on all the "tops:" And, also, with amusement rife, A "Zoetrope, or Wheel ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... maiden of the sea, Of wisdom thou art rife; Say, if I go to Hvenild's land, Can I ...
— Grimhild's Vengeance - Three Ballads • Anonymous
... grades of competence for investigation, the man may be social, or may flee his fellows; may be witty, or incapable of seeing the broadest fun; a poet, or almost devoid of creative imagination; full of refinement and rife with multiple forms of culture, or neither scholarly nor well-informed outside of his especial line of work. According as he is endowed with mental graces and forms of culture, apart from his science, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... At Paris, for example, where these establishments were numerous, the 'stove-keepers' went about the city announcing that the water was hot. It is not until the Renaissance that uncleanliness becomes rife in France. When you think that that delicious Reine Margot kept her body macerated with perfumes but as grimy as the inside of a stovepipe! and that Henri Quatre plumed himself on having 'reeking feet ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... the imperial house of Germany, the White Lady is supposed to appear in the palace before a death or misfortune in the family, and this superstition is still so rife in Germany, that the newspapers in 1884 contained the official report of a sentinel, who declared that he had seen her flit past him in one of the ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... to add up the spendings of the handsome widow and prove, categorically, her ruin. Rumors were so rife that bets were made for and against the marriage. By the laws of worldly jurisprudence this gossip was not allowed to reach the ears of the parties concerned. No one was enemy or friend enough to ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... grew rife Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep Fed in silence—above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep; And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie 'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... delicacy they used to have, and says 'the present age seems to aim at abolishing all subordination and dependence and reducing all ranks as near a level as possible.'! Idleness, drunkenness, and what was then often looked on with disgust and contempt, excessive tea-drinking, were rife. Tea then was very expensive, 8s. or 10s. a lb. being an ordinary price, so that the poor had to put up with a very much adulterated article, most pernicious to health. The immoderate use of this was stated to have worse ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... patibulary forks, and prisons of death everlasting:—dost thou doubt it? Unhappy mortal, Nature otherwise were herself a Chaos and no Cosmos. Nature was not made by an Impostor; not she, I think, rife as they are!—In fact, by money or otherwise, to the uttermost fraction of a calculable and incalculable value, we have, each one of us, to settle the exact balance in the above-said Savings-bank, or official register kept by Nature: Creditor by the quantity of veracities we have done, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... will not know how to enforce it when he becomes an officer, and still less will he be fit for his position when he obtains command. It is to be feared that many never learn this lesson, and that this is the cause of much of the insubordination rife in these days. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... be instituted in Poland in opposition to Russian oppression, be deeply humiliated. Let the grievances of the Irish people be probed, and let them be remedied when their true nature is discovered. Fenianism is rife, not only in Ireland, but also in England, and an armed police required, which is an insult to our liberty. I did not know much of the Irish land question, but I know that measures have been over and over again brought into the House ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... had not quitted his bed for over a score of years, it might seem that his novelty as a subject of discussion would have been long since exhausted. But not so. His daughter was the most devoted of daughters, and his name was ever rife on her lips. What he required done for him and what he required done to him were the main ends of her existence, and the demands of his comfort, daily or annual, resulted in numerous phrases of a startling ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... day, naturally, the whole ship buzzed with the news of the night's happenings, and speculation ran rife as to who could have attacked the diamond merchant, who had recovered consciousness and was able to talk. He himself had not the slightest idea of his assailant. He had sat up till late in the smoking saloon, he said, and was coming along the corridor to his stateroom ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... on, stern foe of mortal life, Feast on!—but think not that a strife, With such promiscuous carnage rife, Protracted space may last; The deadly tug of war at length Must limits find in human strength, And cease when these are past. Vain hope!—that morn's o'erclouded sun Heard the wild shout of fight begun Ere he attained his height, And through the war-smoke, volumed ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... Queen's chaplains in 1859, and in 1873 was appointed canon of Westminster. After publishing "Village Sermons" and "The Saint's Tragedy," Kingsley took part with F.D. Maurice in the Christian Socialist movement of 1848, attacking the horrible sweating then rife in the tailoring trade, calling attention to the miserable plight of the agricultural labourer, and the need for sanitary reform in town and country. In "Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet," first published in 1849, Kingsley writes from the point of view of the earnest ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... when the excitement was rife over the murder of Bessie Moore, the terrible details of which sent a thrill of horror over the entire United States. It rained during the several days of our stay there; but thanks to the earnest endeavors of Mrs. Frazer, of the Frazer House, I did very well in my ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... that some new landing on a vast scale was about to be attempted," he wrote, "and surmise has therefore been rife as to the exact point on which the blow would fall. It was hoped to take the Turk completely by surprise, and to obtain a firm foothold on the shore before he could bring up his reenforcements. In this it would seem as if we have been successful, for two divisions were yesterday (August 7, 1915) ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... hornbeam and hop-hornbeam, willows, black-cherry and choke-cherry, dogwood and other cornels, several viburnums, bush maples of two or three kinds, alder, elder, sumach, hazel, witch-hazel, the shadblow and other perennial, fair-blooming, sweet-smelling favorites, beneath which lies a leaf-mould rife with ferns and ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... climbed to the highest point within easy reach, now stood interestedly watching the slow approach of the ship, her progress under the impulse of the gentle breeze being greatly retarded by the ebb tide. Speculation was rife among the little group of boys upon the question of the ship's identity, some maintaining that she must necessarily be a Plymouther, otherwise what was she doing there, while others, for no very clearly denned reason, expressed the ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... success. Somewhere in the big, busy world perhaps, crime, and misery, and shame, and sorrow, and starvation, and all the catalogue of earthly horrors, were rife, but not at Danton Hall. Time trod on flowers; enchanted music drifted the bright hours away; the golden side of life was uppermost; and if those gay dancers knew what tears and trouble meant, their faces never showed it. Kate, with her tranquil ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... country was ready for him, and he accordingly went to fetch it. During his absence from the seat of government, and under the less vigorous administration of Don Diego Columbus, who had been left at the head of affairs at Isabella, those discontents among the Spaniards, which had no doubt been rife for a long time, broke out in a distinct manner. I allude to the well-known insurrection of Roldan, whom the admiral, on his departure, had left as chief justice in the island. The disputes between the chief justice and the governor were to form the first of a series of similar proceedings ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... of dissension ran rife; and petty altercations between the British soldiers and the citizens were of daily occurrence. A trivial happening brought about the Boston Massacre. A "Son of Liberty" and a British soldier disputed the right of way of ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... several sizes too large for the crime. Later, having displayed him on the streets in witness to his good faith, Roland spent the evening with Mr. Burnham mysteriously confabulating behind closed doors in the hotel. Speculation ran rife through the town until nine o'clock, and land for several days basked in ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... Lucius Brady, his biographer to be, that Stingaree confided the data of all the misdeeds recounted in these pages; but of his life during the quiet intervals, of his relations with confederates, and his more honest dealings with honest folk (of which many a pretty tale was rife), he was not to be persuaded to speak ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... speculators, merchants, tradesmen, and adventurers of all sorts, that exercise even on the quarterdeck could only be coaxed by the general forbearance and good-humour of the crowd. Before starting there were stories to the prejudice of the steamer, the Oregon, belonging to the Pacific Mail Company, rife enough to damp the courage of the timid; but she behaved well, and beat another boat that had five hours' start of her. The fact is we had a model captain, a well-educated, gentlemanly man, formerly a lieutenant in the United States navy, whose intelligence, ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... solitude shine, for me. For life's fair outward part are rife The silver noises; let them be. It is the very soul of life Listens for thee, listens ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell
... defender of robbers and murderers.[579] He reminded the king of the declaration of Maximilian, the present Emperor of Germany, in a letter written before his election to Charles himself: "All the wars and all the dissensions that are to-day rife among the Christians have originated from two cardinals—Granvelle and Lorraine."[580] And he closed the long and eloquent document by protesting, in the sight of God and of all foreign nations, that the Huguenot nobles sought the punishment of Lorraine and his associates ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... O thou life of life, How worldlings, that profane thee rife, Can wrest thee to their appetites! How princes, who thy power deny, Pretend thee for their tyranny, And people for their ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... rife; and at the present juncture these agencies were successfully employed to effect the recall of a really able general who had been sent from Peking to recover lost ground, and prevent further encroachments by the Manchus. For ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... it be true that a military training is essential to success, millions of Germans have received that training. Let only the merest fraction of the people raise the standard of rebellion, and let the spirit of rebellion be rife, and that spirit will spread like wild-fire, and the Hohenzollern Monarchy after this war will be brought to the ground like a decaying ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... grows and the wind as it blows tosses the swallows over the hollows and down on the shallows till every feather doth shake and quiver and all their feathers go all together blowing the life and the joy so rife into the swallows that skim the shallows and have the yellowest children for the wind that blows is the life of the river flowing for ever that washes the grasses still as it passes and feeds the daisies the little white praises and buttercups ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... being only too glad to escape from a house where pestilence was rife, we went out into Chicago. It is a wonderful place, and tells more forcibly of the astonishing energy and progress of the Americans than anything I saw. Forty years ago the whole ground on which the town stands could have been bought for six hundred dollars; now, a person would ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... unaccustomed. The country families came gladly to pay their compliments to the newly married couple. The lady's wealth was the subject of everybody's talk, and no doubt did not decrease in the telling. Those naughty stories which were rife in town, and spread by her disappointed suitors there, took some little time to travel into Hampshire; and when they reached the country found it disposed to treat Lord Castlewood's wife with civility, and not inclined to be too curious about her behaviour in town. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... minutes later she began to tell him the things which for years he had been longing to know, and concerning which gossip had been rife. ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... most useful levers in the humble labourers whose characters he had studied, whose condition he sought to make themselves desire to elevate. Unconsciously his whole practice began to refute his theories. The abuses of the old Poor Laws were rife in his neighbourhood; his quick penetration, and perhaps his imperious habits of decision, suggested to him many of the best provisions of the law now called into operation; but he was too wise to be the Philosopher Square of a system. He did not attempt ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the thirteenth, and afterwards to the eighteenth, of November. In the meantime, public attention was engaged by the equipment of a large squadron of men-of-war and transports at Portsmouth, and speculations were rife as to the policy of the monarch—whether it would be favourable to war or to peace. All classes of society, however, agreed in anticipating the happiest results from his rule, since he had been born and bred among them, and was well acquainted with the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... hedge, plunged into a bramble-bush to scratch them in again, I fled to Venice to recover the composure I had disturbed." When his imagination begins to outline a new novel, with vague thoughts rife within him, he goes "wandering about at night into the strangest places," he says, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... hands from the threshold, and the beloved has called "good-bye" and waved, and smiled back—for the last time. And yet love faces the fears, not only of hours, but of weeks and months; weeks and months on seas bottomless with danger, in lands rife with unknown evils, dizzily taking the chances of desperate occupations. And the courage is the greater, because, finally, in this world, love alone has anything to lose. Other losses may be more or less repaired; but love's loss is, of its essence, irreparable. ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... are met, as we draw towards the end of the eighteenth century, we are met by the great name of Burns. We enter now on times where the personal estimate of poets begins to be rife, and where the real estimate of them is not reached without difficulty. But in spite of the disturbing pressures of personal partiality, of national partiality, let us try to reach a real estimate of the ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... patrons of the Prize Ring, cricketers, rowing-men, billiard-players, jockeys—what not? Its less important representative men, statesmen, bishops, writers, artists, lawyers; soldiers and sailors even, though here concession was rife, had to take a second place. But there was one class—a class whose members may have belonged to any one of these—of which Michael's experience was very limited. It was the class of gaol-birds. This type, the most puzzling to eyes that see it for the first time, the most unmistakable ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... connection with the miraculous feeding of the five thousand,[485] and as associated with Philip in arranging an interview between certain inquiring Greeks and Jesus.[486] He is named with others in connection with our Lord's ascension.[487] Tradition is rife with stories about this man, but of the extent of his ministry, the duration of his life, and the circumstances of his death, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... I go any farther, I will here take an occasion to touch a little upon those sins that are so rife in many professors in this day: and they are, covetousness, pride, and uncleanness. I would speak a word to them in this place, the rather because they are they which spoil both Christian brotherhood, and civil neighbourhood, in too ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... was rife with explorations in South Australia. A party of settlers consisting of Messrs. Swinden, Campbell, Thompson, and Stock set out, and at about seventy miles from the head of Spencer's Gulf, found fine pastoral country, and a permanent waterhole, PERNATTY. To the ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... and generous a man as Burgoyne did not escape these imputations. "It may well be imagined that while Burgoyne was advancing, declamations against his and the Indians' cruelty (for no distinction was admitted) were rife on the American side. By such means, and still more, perhaps, by the natural spirit of a free-born people when threatened with invasion, a resolute energy against Burgoyne was roused in the New ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... to this unmeasured punishment was "looking impudent!"—and the look of supposed impudence was produced by a temporarily swollen lip; but the swollen lip was the effect of a single combat with a schoolfellow; and fighting was so rife, and so severely repressed, that it appeared less dangerous to meet the consequences of the supposed impertinent face than those of the battle. The unfortunate pupil of course continued to grimace, and the wretched schoolmaster to flog, till the pupil streamed with blood, and the master sat down ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... tongue, the glorious battle, With completed victory rife, And above the Cross's trophy Tell the triumph of the strife, How the world's Redeemer conquered By surrendering of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... brain and muscle can achieve nothing without wise and harmonious union. If boys and men would reflect more deeply on this great truth, pride, boasting, and the false separation of classes would be less rife. We say false, because there is a separation of classes which is natural and unavoidable. No one ever complains of that. If ill-advised or angry navvies were to refuse to work, what could directors and engineers do? If, on the other hand, ill-advised or angry ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... continued: "Perhaps no minister of war—and the archives of the ministry are there for reference—ever received the portfolio under more critical circumstances: civil war within, a foreign enemy at our doors, discouragement rife among our veteran armies, absolute destitution of means to equip new ones. That was what I had to face on the 8th of June, when I entered upon my duties. An active correspondence, dating from the 8th of June, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... effort not to be surpassed by each other. The result was that the authorities could not carry on their accustomed tasks, courts came to a stop, no contract was entered into, and other sorts of confusion and disorder were rife everywhere. The place bore the name of city, but was no whit different from a ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... as all had entered the senate room, Brederode advanced, made a low obeisance, and spoke a brief speech. He said that he had come thither with his colleagues to present a humble petition to her Highness. He alluded to the reports which had been rife, that they had contemplated tumult, sedition, foreign conspiracies, and, what was more abominable than all, a change of sovereign. He denounced such statements as calumnies, begged the Duchess to name the men who had thus aspersed an honorable and loyal company, and called upon her ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... became rife when it began to dawn on the Provincials that they would have to garrison Louisbourg till the next open season. The unwelcome truth was that, except for a few raw recruits, no reliefs were forthcoming from any quarter. The promised regulars had left Gibraltar so late that they ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... however. Temperance was rife among us in those days; it was 'in our midst,' as people ought not to say, and the drunken disgraces of John the Inebriate were appreciated. Still, there was an evident feeling of unsatisfied anticipation, which grew with every act, and in all the house there was not a soul ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... have are redeemed by a page torn from the authoress's own heart. "Changing the Nurseries" is a chapter no woman, mother, or maid could read without a lump in her throat. The strong maternal element, which is the chief virtue of the Irish, is rife in it, and the thousand and one little trivialities that our life is made up of are admirably commented upon.'—St. ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... its door. Many curious eyes followed them as they paused before it, and Jimsy inserted a key in the stout padlock. Who could the two pretty girls in natty motor bonnets, with goggles attached, the plain, heavy skirts and dark shirt-waists be? Speculation ran rife. There was a regular stampede of reporters and photographers to the shed of the Nameless. But when they arrived there, to their chagrin, they found that their prospective victims had slipped inside and only the blank doors ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... in a friendly country, nor in an ordinary situation; we must not expose ourselves uselessly. We shall certainly fall in with some French, Spanish, or Flemish band, for in the present state of Flanders, adventures of all kinds must be rife. If you were a man I should speak differently; but you are a young and beautiful woman, and would run a double risk for ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... Sport thick as motes in morning beam— Or bid me sail from Iceland Isle, With Rosmer and fair Ellenlyle, What time the blood-crow's flight was south, Bearing a man's leg in its mouth. Though rough and rude, those strains are rife Of things kin to immortal life, Which touch the heart and tinge the cheek, As deeply as divinest Greek. In simple words and unsought rhyme, Give me the songs of ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... side, she alleged she had second sight, like St. Francis. These traits or predispositions made her a willing listener to all the uncertain science of mesmerism and its goblin brood, which have been rife in recent years. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... near the path: Yet deem not these devotion's offering— These are memorials frail of murderous wrath; For, wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath Pour'd forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife, Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath; And grove and glen with thousand such are rife, Throughout this purple land, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... the front and at home bitter differences of opinion are rife as to the offensive against the Central Powers demanded by the Allies and now also energetically advocated by Kerenski in speeches throughout the country. The Bolsheviks, as also the Socialists under the leadership of Lenin, with their Press, are taking ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... ballroom again. Forced to receive adieus, I was separated from Flavia: everyone, when they left me, went to her. Sapt was out and in of the throng, and where he had been, glances, smiles, and whispers were rife. I doubted not that, true to his relentless purpose, he was spreading the news that he had learnt. To uphold the Crown and beat Black Michael—that was his one resolve. Flavia, myself—ay, and the ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... mortal heart some wish, some hope, some fear, Linked with the morrow's dawn, must cherish here To bear the troubles with which earth is rife, The dull montony [Transcriber's note: ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... ye dying gales! The saddest of your tales Is not so sad as life; Nor have you e'er began A theme so wild as man, Or with such sorrow rife. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... tell thee here is an evil place for thee: they do say the devil is abroad and goeth up and down and to and fro begirt in mail, lady, doing such deeds as no man ever did. Pentavalon is rife with war and rumours of war, everywhere is whispered talk of war—death shall be busy within this evil Duchy ere long—aye, and even in Mortain, perchance—nay, hearken! Scarce was thy flight discovered when there came messengers ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... their dawn of love o'ercast, Nor blasted were their wedded days with strife; Each season looked delightful, as it past, To the fond husband, and the faithful wife. Beyond the lowly vale of shepherd life They never roamed; secure beneath the storm Which in Ambition's lofty land is rife, Where peace and love are cankered by the worm Of pride, each bud ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... by one seceded during that winter and spring, and the country was rife with war and the terror of it, the Coldwater people fished on dully as ever. Joe brought home stories of "fighting beyond there," and of men he had met on the Sandusky wharf who had gone, and then whittled and whistled as usual: the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... a high constable concerned with some great sheep-stealing. Not that any such crime was known in the village itself of Flamborough, which confined its operations to the sea; but in the outer world of land that malady was rife just now, and a Flamborough man, too fond of mutton, had farmed some sheep on the downs, and lost them, which was considered a judgment on him for ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... traders of the South-West, even the directors of the sleepy old Hudson's Bay Company—all turned longing eyes to that Pacific north-west coast whence came sea-otter skins in trade, each for a few pennies' worth of beads, powder, or old iron. Rumours, too, were rife of the great wealth of the seal rookeries, and the seal proved as powerful a magnet to draw the fur traders as the little beaver, the pursuit of which had ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... I remember. She was in your employ. Yes,' he sighed; 'she contracted typhoid fever in Paris. It's always more or less endemic there. And what with this hot summer and their water-supply and their drainage, it's been more rife than usual lately. Tudor called me in at once. I am qualified both in England and France, but I practise in Paris. It was a fairly ordinary case, except that she suffered from severe and persistent headaches at the beginning. ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... "Then will it be time to close the courts themselves." May we not hope, Mr. Editor, that this example of one occupying this high place in our country may have some influence in staying the spirit and deeds of violence now so rife, and that they who are so ready to resort to the rifle and revolver may learn to regard them only as the instruments of the coward or ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... at the same time, of driving the forces of opposition to a closer union and more constant vigilance. Throughout the century the tone of party politics was continuously low. Bribery and other forms of corruption were rife, and the powers of government, both national and local, were in the hands regularly of an aristocratic minority which ruled in its own interest. The high-water mark of intrigue was reached in 1783 when the old Tories, led by Lord North, allied themselves with the old Whigs, ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... America. On the passage he found himself, with the ship, confronted by an apparent danger, which occasioned a display of the fearlessness and energy always latent in his character. Those were days when piracy was rife upon the seas in the neighborhood of the West Indies and of the Spanish Main. The system was an outgrowth of the privateering carried on by French and Spanish marauders, for they were little better, against both British and neutral commerce during the wars of the ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... notice of my intention to any person, I determined to try for it. Being open to the entire university, the universal expectation was that it would be awarded to a senior, as had hitherto been the case, and speculations were rife as to what mem- ber of the graduating class would take it. When the committee made their award to the essay on "The Greater Distinctions in Statesmanship,'' opened the sealed envelopes and assigned the prize to me, a junior, there was great surprise. The encouragement came to me ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... hae wished it had been the deil himself—be good to and preserve us!—rather than Christie o' the Clint-hill," said the matron of the mansion, "for the word runs rife in the country, that he is ane of the maist masterfu' thieves ever lap ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... true that dissatisfaction was rife on every side, but had they not hundreds and thousands of allies at hand ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... those who would subject all science and all the actings of the human mind to the authority of the Church, and those who would limit the exercise of that authority more or less to the proper subject-matter of theology, is rife and increasing. The words of, perhaps, the ablest living member of the Roman Catholic communion have rung through Europe, and many a heart in all religious communions has been saddened by the thought of Dr. Doellinger's virtual censure. ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... accession of governors and the registration of royal edicts. In comparison with her southern rivals, the progress in material prosperity was very slow. Idleness and drunkenness, with all their attendant evils, were rife to a most injurious extent. The innumerable fetes, or holidays of the Church, afforded opportunities to the dissolute, and occasioned frequent instances of serious disorders, till the king was urged to interfere: the number of these fete-days was then very much reduced, to ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... struggle as he undoubtedly did, the instinct of correct spelling was absent, and thus every now and then a verbal slip appeared: extravagence, lettely (for lately), glew, riffle (for rifle), latten (for Latin), immagine, winder, rief (for rife), oppertunity, spirma citi, yellow oaker,—such are types of his lapses late in life, while his earlier letters and journals are far more inaccurate. It must be borne in mind, however, that of these latter we ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... to hours and days, that hour by hour And day by day Just going on a little way, We might be able all along To keep quite strong. Should all the weight of life Be laid across our shoulder, and the future, rife With woe and struggle, meet us face to face At just one place, We could not go, Our feet would stop; and so God lays a little on us every day, And never, I believe, on all the way Will burdens bear so deep, Or pathways lie so threatening and so steep, But ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... o' Christianity, my master.' They said, sae was Satan, for that he was the firmest believer in a' the truths of Christianity that was out o' Heaven; an' that, sin' the Revolution that the Gospel had turned sae rife, he had been often driven to the shift o' preaching it himsel, for the purpose o' getting some wrang tenets introduced into it, and thereby turning it into ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... of thirty years before. He was cold and distant and serene in a cloud-capped way of ice. He trusted no one but himself, took no man's word save his own, was self-reliant to the point of bitterness, and rife of proud suspicions. Also, he had carried concealment to the plane of Art, and those who knew him best were most in the dark concerning him. And yet Mr. Bayard made a specialty of verbal truth, and his word was a word ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... which are stated to be marching north from Canton, are a rabble. Many are without weapons and a large percentage of the uniforms are merely rags. There is no discipline, and gambling and opium-smoking are rife. ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... from her presence into the little sordid houses where disease and sickness were rife, he felt as if he had dropped from heaven to earth, from paradise to purgatory. When in heaven and paradise every obstacle to his wishes vanished, and he was lapped in elysium; but when he returned to earth and purgatory, the idea of marrying Lady ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... attached itself, long forgotten and now revived;—that moor, so barren to an ordinary eye, was yet productive of some rare and curious herb, whose properties afforded scope for lively description;—that old mound was yet rife in attraction to one versed in antiquities, and able to explain its origin, and from such explanation deduce a thousand classic or ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... music was recently discussed by Mr. CYRIL SCOTT in his interesting volume on Modernism in Music. It is satisfactory to know that the subject is not to be allowed to drop. Grave discontent is rife in orchestral circles at the monopoly enjoyed at spiritualist seances by the tambourine, and it is reported that Mr. ERNEST NEWMAN, the distinguished and outspoken musical critic, will shortly deliver ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... important a topic of conversation in Chelton as the loss of the twenty thousand dollars. Speculation was rife, and opinion was equally divided on the question of whether it had been lost or stolen, or both, for that it might have been stolen after it was lost ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... poured into both Houses. The excitement in the country rose steadily week by week, mingled with expressions of satisfaction that the Bill was to be committed to the charge of such able hands. In Parliament speculations were rife as to the scope of the measure, whilst rumours of dissension in the Cabinet flew around the clubs. Even as late as the middle of February, the Duke of Wellington went about predicting that the Reform question could not be carried, ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... laborers, lamentations over its wretchedness, denunciations of all who are supposed to be indifferent to it, projects of one kind or another for improving it, were in no country and in no time of the world so rife as in the present generation; but there is a tacit agreement to ignore totally the law of wages, or to dismiss it in a parenthesis, with such terms as "hard-hearted Malthusianism"; as if it were not a thousand times more hard-hearted ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... and prettinesses they banished altogether. Indeed, in those days it seems not to have occurred to people that such things had anything to do with religion. It was not that they did not know how to talk in the sweet way—never has sentimentalism been more rife in general literature than then, but they would not talk in that way; the stern traditions of Holy Church throughout all the world forbade. Religion was a most serious thing to their minds, and they would speak of it most seriously or ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... played at the opera, her slim figure swaying, her whole beautiful face and body glowing with the melody she made, the girls found the situation piquant, altogether delightful. Although she did not suspect it, many rumors were rife about Harmony in the workroom. She was not of the people, they said—the daughter of a great American, of course, run away to escape a loveless marriage. This was borne out by the report of one of them who had glimpsed the silk petticoat. It was rumored also that she wore no chemise, but instead ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... not now losing its inhabitants as it was after the Regulations of 1831, when we read that "in vain the rivers are assiduously watched, as if in a state of siege; the emigrants cross at the places which are clear of troops. Emigration is especially rife in winter, when the frozen Danube presents an ever-open bridge," yet among the Roumanians of Serbia it has been handed down from father to son what happened in the reign of Prince Milo[vs]. To take one case out of many such that are preserved in the National Archives at Belgrade, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... on the Minstrel's magic shore, Can we the footstep of sweet Fable trace! The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life; Vainly we search the earth of gods bereft; Where once the warm and living shapes were rife, Shadows alone are left! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... to the conviction that they have to face much modern prejudice. On the one hand there is still rife in the Church of England the Puritan spirit, which condemns in one and the same category things essentially Roman, and things which are really primitive, but which have been retained by Rome. On the other hand, there undoubtedly exists an occasional reaction from ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown
... increases the occlusion (closing) of the bowels, but makes very easy indeed the entrance and propagation of micro-organisms in the sub-mucous coat of the intestine. The conditions are now ripe and rife for auto-infection. Which of the following microbes are the most active agents of progressive auto-infection: the streptococcus lanceolatus, the bacterium pyogenes, the bacillus subtilis, the staphylococci, the bacterium coli commune? They all play a part in the ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... A spirit is rife in France that renders the position of premier in it almost untenable; and he must unite the firmness of a stoic, the knowledge of a Machiavelli, and the boldness of a Napoleon, who could hope to stem the tide that menaces to set ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... O'er us breaks the mighty day, And the sunbeam, cold and gory, Lights us on our fearful way. In the womb of coming hours, Destinies of empires lie, Now the scale ascends, now lowers, Now is thrown the noble die. Brothers, the hour with warning is rife; Faithful in death as you're faithful in life, Be firm, and be bound by the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... her; through my span of life, She might have been my cherished wife; And I had striven, with ceaseless strife, To make her days with pleasures rife; She would not ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... know not whether your party at Teddesley are good thermometers, by which to judge of the state of political feeling here in London, but at this moment the rumor is rife that the Ministry dare not make the new batch of Peers, cannot carry the Bill, and must resign. To whom? is the next question, and it seems a difficult one to answer. One hardly sees, looking round the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... "spirits," for neither his father nor any of his forefathers had been so recognised and distinguished by any "sign" as a rightful inheritor to the Uganda throne: an anti-Christian interpretation of omens, as rife in these dark regions now as it was in the time of King Nebuchadnezzar. At midnight the three muskets were returned, and I was so pleased with the young king's promptitude and honesty, I begged he would ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... [12] While I muse upon thy face; And a languid fire creeps Thro' my veins to all my frame, Dissolvingly and slowly: soon From thy rose-red lips MY name Floweth; and then, as in a swoon, [13] With dinning sound my ears are rife, My tremulous tongue faltereth, I lose my colour, I lose my breath, I drink the cup of a costly death, Brimm'd with delirious draughts of warmest life. I die with my delight, before I hear what I would hear from thee; Yet ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... the services before the funeral, and the funeral. Thousands of people calculated the hour, and the best spot to see them with absolute accuracy. At one such funeral, just after rumors of a fresh "plot" had been rife, I saw the great crowd surge up with a cheer towards the Emperor's carriage, though the Russians are very quiet in public. The police who were guarding the route of the procession ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... all a lamentable lay Of great unkindnesse, and of usage hard, Of Cynthia the Ladie of the Sea, Which from her presence faultlesse him debard. And ever and anon, with singults rife, He cryed out, to make his undersong; Ah! my loves queene, and goddesse of my life, Who shall me pittie, when thou ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... ago the elders and deacons of a Scotch church were assembled in solemn conclave to discuss the prospective installation of a pipe organ. The table was piled high with plans and specifications and discussion ran rife as to whether they should have a two-manual or a three-manual instrument—a Great and Swell or a Great, Swell, and Choir organ. At last Deacon MacNab, the church treasurer and a personage of importance, got ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... William and after him. Frenchmen who had in Edward's time settled in England as the land of their own choice, reckoned as Englishmen. Other enactments, fresh enactments of older laws, touched both races. The slave trade was rife in its worst form; men were sold out of the land, chiefly to the Danes of Ireland. Earlier kings had denounced the crime, and earlier bishops had preached against it. William denounced it again under the penalty of forfeiture of all lands and goods, ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... Ally, And influence other Chiefs by his Example, To muster all their Strength against our Father. Fathers perhaps will fight against their Sons, And nearest Friends pursue each other's Lives; Blood, Murder, Death, and Horror will be rife, Where Peace and Love, ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... who attempted to gather and string the facts of Marco Polo's personal history was his countryman, the celebrated John Baptist Ramusio. His essay abounds in what we now know to be errors of detail, but, prepared as it was when traditions of the Traveller were still rife in Venice, a genuine thread runs through it which could never have been spun in later days, and its presentation seems to me an essential element in any full discourse ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp: Then fearful he had let thee win Too far beyond him to be gathered in, Snatched thee, o'er eager, with ungentle grasp. Ah! I remember me How once conspiracy was rife Against my life— The languor of it and the dreaming fond; Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought, The breeze three odors brought, And a gem-flower waved in a wand! Then when I was distraught And could not speak, Sidelong, full on my cheek, What should ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost |
