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Beguile   /bɪgˈaɪl/   Listen
Beguile

verb
(past & past part. beguiled; pres. part. beguiling)
1.
Influence by slyness.  Synonyms: hoodwink, juggle.
2.
Attract; cause to be enamored.  Synonyms: becharm, bewitch, captivate, capture, catch, charm, enamor, enamour, enchant, entrance, fascinate, trance.



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"Beguile" Quotes from Famous Books



... Harris were for guard, and they sat up laughing and talking with the natives long after we retired to rest. Fraser, to beguile the hours, proposed shaving his sable companions, and performed that operation with admirable dexterity upon their chief, to his great delight. I got up at an early hour, and found to my surprise that the whole of them had deserted us. Harris told ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... sea-bird on the wing. She soon neared the brig which Paolo at once recognised as the English merchantman they had passed in Valetta harbour. He had heard from the chief who were the passengers on board, and the ruse to be practised had also been confided to him. He had been endeavouring to beguile, to him, the weary hours of the voyage with reading, while the chief slept, for sleep refused to visit his eyelids. A thought seemed to strike him. He wrote hastily in the book, and tearing out the leaf, placed it in his bosom. He then roused his companion from his slumber. The Greek ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... old French colony taken from Spain by France. The names of the streets are French, and the language about equally French and English. The market is handsome and well supplied, all produce being conveyed by the river. We were much pleased by the chant with which the Negro boatmen regulate and beguile their labour on the river; it consists but of very few notes, but they are sweetly harmonious, and the Negro voice is ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... twinkling feet of the maids of Araby. As, with their transparent tunics and white arms, they gleamed, without an echo, through that cool and voluptuous chamber, they might well have seemed the Peris of the eastern magic, summoned to beguile the sated leisure of a youthful Solomon. With them came a maiden of more exquisite beauty, though smaller stature, than the rest, bearing the light Moorish lute; and a faint and languid smile broke over the beautiful face of Boabdil, as his eyes rested upon her ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... herself practically useful, as was her way, and she did almost more than anybody to beguile Catherine's recovery by her hours of Long Whindale chat. She had no passionate feeling about the place and the people as Catherine had, but she was easily content, and she had a good wholesome feminine curiosity as to the courtings and weddings and buryings of the human beings about her. So she ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... to give a seemingness and colour to my story, but to shew what ill-judged, misinformed knaves were they who did afterwards attribute friendship between my Lord and this Will Shakespeare, even to the saying that he made sonnets to my Lord. Howbeit, my Lord was exceeding wroth, and I, to beguile him, did propose that we should leave our horses and cargoes of manuscript behind and cross on the ice afoot, which conceit pleased him mightily. In sooth it chanced well with what followed, for hardly were we on the river when we saw a great crowd coming from Westminster, ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... when competitors like these contend, Can surly Virtue hope to fix a friend? Slaves that with serious impudence beguile, And lie without a blush, without a smile, Exalt each trifle, every vice adore, Your taste in snuff, your judgment in a whore, Can Balbo's eloquence applaud, and swear 150 He gropes his breeches ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... General Lee—procured though Vincent's mediation. There were a score of the Caribees in Castle Winder, and to these the boy came as a good fairy in the tale. For he distributed money, tobacco, and other things, which enabled the unfortunates to beguile the tedious hours of confinement. The prisoners were crowded like cattle in the immense warehouse in squads of a hundred or more. They had blankets to stretch on the floor for beds, a general basin to wash in, and for some time amused themselves watching through the barred ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... Prince, now in his twentieth year, accompanied him, and commanded one of the largest vessels. The day on which the Spanish fleet would make its appearance had been nicely calculated. Edward waited impatiently for its approach, and, to beguile the time, made the musicians play an air which the famous Chandos, who was now with him, had brought from Germany. During the concert, the king, from time to time, turned his eye to the watcher at the masthead. In a short time the music was interrupted ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... gentleman and I first began to beguile our days with these fancies, and our nights in communicating them to each other. We are now four. But in my room there are six old chairs, and we have decided that the two empty seats shall always be placed at our ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... was a perilous tenderness; for the rat, trained to beguile neurotic patients in his absurd practice, could croon like the very ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... his tales Jack never said a word that Lady Coke would not have liked; and there always seemed some good in every person he had met, even the roughest and toughest. Estelle delighted in his stories. They served to beguile many an hour of weakness and weariness. When, however, even these did not please her, Jack would carry her round the room, and point out various little things she had not noticed. He would tell her how he had found them, or he would take down ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... 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

... wert not destined to beguile my mind, nor keep the winsome lands and pour forth thy fair waters. Nay, here shall my honour also dwell, not thine alone." So he spoke, and overset a rock, with a shower of stones, and hid her streams, the Prince, ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang

... her father and her brother find it necessary to warn her simplicity, give her lessons of worldly wisdom, and instruct her "to be scanter of her maiden presence," for that Hamlet's vows of love "but breathe like sanctified and pious bonds, the better to beguile," we feel at once that it comes too late; for from the moment she appears on the scene amid the dark conflict of crime and vengeance, and supernatural terrors, we know what must be her destiny. Once, at Murano, I saw a dove caught in a tempest; perhaps it was young, and either lacked strength ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... it was plain that he desired only to take him prisoner. He might have sprung upon his prey in the woods, but there he ran the risk of being seen by the child soon enough for him to make an outcry, which would not fail of bringing immediate assistance. His plan, therefore, was, to beguile the little fellow on until he had walked directly into the snare, as a fly is lured into the ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... in some secluded corner one might happen upon a man and a girl. They would be sitting very close together, and behaving... well, as men and maidens sometimes do, to beguile the ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... sympathizing with her; and she tried to point out the only solid source of comfort but in doing this she encountered many difficulties; she found her grossly ignorant, yet she did not despair: and as the poor creature could not receive comfort from the operations of her own mind, she laboured to beguile the hours, which grief made heavy, by adapting her ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft

... which the dead woman lay and the calm on her face he thought death must have come instantly and unexpectedly. Probably the murderer stole behind her whilst she was standing at the foot of the sofa which he had partly seen through the window. It was likely that, to beguile the time of waiting for her daughter's return, she had taken a book from a little cabinet immediately behind the door, and support for this theory came in the shape of a book which had evidently fallen out of her hand between the position in which she ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace

... something so 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 ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... have no fair show," maintaining that when he was "ropin' a steer he didn't want no blanked tenderfoot to be shovin' in his rope like Bill there." But Bill steadily maintained his position that "the story of that there picnic was a little too unusual" for him. Bruce was trying meanwhile to beguile The Duke into a discussion of the physics and metaphysics of the case. But The Duke refused with quiet contempt to be drawn into a region where he felt himself a stranger. He preferred poker himself, if Bruce cared to take ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor

... beguile the hours and lighten her task; and although not accompanied by any music, her silvery voice ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... Mr. Smithson's only idea of Divinity; and Chance had hitherto been kind to him. There had been dark hours in his life, but the darkness had not lasted long; and the lucky accidents of his career had been of a nature to beguile him into the belief that among the favourites of Destiny he stood first ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... 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 ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... Parted lovers beguile absence by a thousand chimerical devices, which possess, however, a reality of their own. They are prevented from seeing each other, they cannot write to each other; they discover a multitude of mysterious ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... 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 I'll surely ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... for the arrival of the vehicle, and reading El Diario, the local daily paper—a sheet the size of the palm of one's hand—until I had the contents by rote, an incident occurred to beguile suspense. The vanguard of the corps of Sanchez Bregua, the commander of the Republican Army of the North, rode into the city. They had come from Zarauz, a seaside village four leagues away—a section of mounted Chasseurs in a uniform like to that of the old British Light Dragoons. The troopers were ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... Margaret for him, and sets out on a visit to Friar Bacon at Oxford, to learn from the conjurer how his suit is going to speed. Lacy thinks the Prince's aim is not to wed the girl, but to entrap and beguile her; besides, his own heart is already interested; so he goes to courting her in good earnest for himself. Meanwhile the Prince with his company, all disguised, arrives at Friar Bacon's; and, through the conjurer's art, learns what Lacy is ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... and the children's play was never hushed on his account. Nor did he forget the 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 time till ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... a' keep a gude heart, Nor e'er envy a comrade, For be your een black, blue, or gray, Ye 're bonniest aye to some lad. The tender heart, the charming smile, The truth that ne'er will falter, Are charms that never can beguile, And time ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... in sooth she can beguile Girlhood's romantic hours: but soon She yields to taste and mode and style, A siren of the ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... gun, of no great consequence; so he had to be thankful that an opportune legacy enabled him to turn farmer, a great degradation in his opinion. But his blood warmed, as he told the specksioneer, towards a sailor, and he pressed Kinraid to beguile the time when he was compelled to be ashore, by coming over to see him at Haytersbank, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... Imagination the 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, cryed she, ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... glimpse of her passing the door, Harry could not be pacified till he found himself in her arms; and not even his mother could beguile him from her through all that long afternoon. He was very feverish, and seemed to suffer much, poor little fellow. Sometimes she soothed his restlessness by singing to him in a low voice, or by telling him the tales that had amused him many a time during the long winter. Sometimes she walked ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... sunlit river still gleaming upon the right, and the bare poplars bristling up upon either side. John and Alleyne rode silent on either side, but every inn, farm-steading, or castle brought back to Aylward some remembrance of love, foray, or plunder, with which to beguile the way. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... apply to the Second Class, here termed ROMANTIC BALLADS; intended to comprehend such legends as are current upon the border, relating to fictitious and marvellous adventures Such were the tales, with which the friends of Spenser strove to beguile his indisposition: ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... earth; and when they were assembled upon the earth, at the council, both the I-am-woi and the gods from under the seas, after much debate, and long consultation, they resolved to make a great feast upon the earth, and to invite We-suk-kah, that they might thus beguile him, and at the feast lay hands upon him and ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... escaped. In the pressure of business there is present safety and ultimate relief. Harder is the lot of those who have few necessary occupations, enforced by other claims than their own harmlessness and profitableness. Reading often fails. Now and then it may beguile; but much oftener the attention is languid, the thoughts wander, and associations with the subject of grief are awakened. Women who find that reading will not do, will obtain no relief from sewing. Sewing is pleasant enough in moderation to those whose minds are at ease ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... the herd give a Bachelor's ball. Then drest in their best, In their gold broidered vest, It is known as a fact, That they act with much tact, And they lisp out 'How do?' And they coo and they woo, And they smile, for a while, Their fair guests to beguile; Condescending and bending, For fear of offending, Though inert, And they spy, They exert, With their eye, To be pert, And they sigh And to flirt, As ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various

... kinsman; therefore if any one is to die for beguiling us, let it be the Puny Fox. Secondly, we may well wot that heavy need hath driven the man to this beguilement; and I say that it was no unmanly deed for him to enter our hall and beguile us with his sleight; and that he hath played out the play right well and cunningly with the wisdom of a warrior. Thirdly, the manliness of him is well proven, in that having overcome us in sleight, he hath spoken out the sooth concerning our beguilement ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris

... though feigning sickness 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 loathsome diet, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... life: And thus ensueth one hard hap upon another, to the great griefe both of maister and mistresse, when the trueth was knowne, that they so wronged their honest servant: how it may forewarne others, I leave to your owne opinions, that see what extraordinarie devises are now avayed, to beguile the simple and ...
— The Third And Last Part Of Conny-Catching. (1592) - With the new deuised knauish arte of Foole-taking • R. G.

... down at him over a carefully poised needle. "How can you be hungry when you ate your breakfast not two hours ago?" she added with the intent to beguile ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... the room, or even resting her darling head 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 with the thought of Catharine, ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... his heart must feel, his tongue would say: Yet ah! not all his heart must sadly feel! How oft the flow'ret's silken leaves conceal The drug that steals the vital spark away! And who that gazes on that angel-smile, Would fear its charm, or think it could beguile! ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... and Neddy "Pandy" were late, so to beguile the time Jacob struck up a merry tune, the whole company joining in the chorus. Song after song followed each other, interspersed with stories, some of old times and traditions, others of modern adventures at market or fair, until at midnight they all adjourned to the mill kitchen, where Shan had ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... glittering wampum have I come thy smiles to woo; But I offer a cabin passage down life's river in my canoe; And to beguile the voyage, if thou wilt come aboard, Till sunset fire the waters the fire-water shall be poured. While clad in noiseless moccasons the feet of the years shall fall; And I will cherish thee, my love, till Time shall ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the cynic snarl or smile, And his great intellect beguile; My little dog, so true to me, Will dear ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... 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 angler, and be of excellent use: for note, that a large Trout will come ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... but though delicacy prevented her enquiring after him, conversation soon became irksome to her, and she retired to the apartment of Madame de Menon. There she employed herself in painting, and endeavoured to beguile the time till the hour of dinner, when she hoped to see Hippolitus. Madame was, as usual, friendly and cheerful, but she perceived a reserve in the conduct of Julia, and penetrated without difficulty into its cause. She was, however, ignorant of the object ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe

... waited with impatience 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 up the winding streets, until ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... liar had need possess a good memory to prevent his contradicting himself. Where he is consistent throughout a long narrative, the natural deduction is, that he has mainly depended on his memory, rejecting, for the occasion, his temptation to beguile.[13] ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... hers was indeed a frightful desert when art did not beguile it with its illusions; a desert mournful and flat, where everything was lost, reduced to one level, beneath the same monotonous immensity, the naive love of a child of twenty, a passionate duke's caprice, in which all was overwhelmed by an arid sand driven by blasting fates. Paul was conscious ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... it. He loves Brichtiva, on the other side of the wood, and he will not look on me. I hate her. I want to beguile his heart ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... Thorwaldsen's studio, and made mention that the Master was a bit of a poseur. Byron came, and as we know, sat for that statue which is now at Cambridge. The artist sought to beguile the melancholy sitter with pleasant conversation, but the author of "Don Juan" would have none of it, and when the work was completed and unveiled before him, he exclaimed in disappointment, "I look far more ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... this to provoke him. Weyburn was driven on a half-circle of the lane to the gate, where he jumped out to greet Lady Charlotte trotting back for another smack in the face of her enemy,—a third rounding of her Troy with the vanquished dead at her heels, as Weyburn let a flimsy suggestion beguile his fancy, until the Homeric was overwhelming even to a playful mind, and he put her in a mediaeval frame. She really had the heroical aspect in a grandiose-grotesque, fitted to some lines of Ariosto. Her head wore a close hood, disclosing a fringe ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... my heart as life's warm stream, Which animates this mortal clay; For thee I court the waking dream, And deck with smiles the future day; And thus beguile the present pain, With hopes that ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... 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 ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... new spirit which he was breathing into that new life, so sensitively open to impression in the first freshness of its recovered sense. "She has nobody else to amuse her, poor thing," he used to think, sadly, sitting alone in his small second-floor room. "If a rough fellow like me can beguile the weary hours till her friends come here, she is heartily welcome to all that I ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... is the Irish Church which I cut down: J are the Jobs which I kill with a frown, K are the Knocks which I give and I take: L are the Liberals whom I forsake. M are the Ministry whom I revile; N are the Noodles my speeches beguile. O is the Office I mean to refuse: P is the Premier—I long for his shoes. Q are the Qualms of my conscience refined; R is the Rhetoric nothing can bind, S is Herr Schliemann who loves much to walk about T ancient Troy, which I love much to talk about. U is the Union ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling

... my Lady Scrope's today," said Dorcas. "I was behind her chair, with her fan and essence bottles, and the lap dogs, when in comes one and another of the old beaux who beguile their leisure with my lady's sharp speeches; and they spoke of this thing, and she laughed them to scorn, and called them fools for listening to old wives' fables. It is her way thus to revile all ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... tempted him with it.[FN348] Accordingly, he took it and she said to him, 'The measure is meted out and the equilibrium established. Eat, O man, till thou pass repletion; nought shall be thy ruin but greediness. Knowest thou not that I did but tempt thee, that I might beguile thee? See: this is check-mate: put off thy clothes.' 'Leave me my trousers,' quoth he, 'so God requite thee;' and he swore by Allah that he would contend with none, so long as Taweddud abode at the Court of Baghdad. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... ten children, (and when was not something happening to some of us?) and we were shut up in a sick-room, then duly as daylight came the quick step and cheerful face of Aunt Esther,—not solemn and lugubrious like so many sick-room nurses, but with a never-failing flow of wit and story that could beguile even the most doleful into laughing at their own afflictions. I remember how a fit of the quinsy—most tedious of all sicknesses to an active child—was gilded and glorified into quite a fete by my having Aunt Esther all to myself for two whole days, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... pretty, feminine work might beguile you of a few of the long hours of these long days," said mother. "One can't ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... tranquil days, studying, planning, training his hand to mastery, but enjoying in his leisure all that such a home could give him of varied entertainment. Music and dancing, literature and good company, all had their charms for him, though none of them could beguile him into neglecting his work. Fortune had tried him with her frowns and with her smiles; under temptations of both sorts he remained but more faithful ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... th' equal grace Both of his wisdom and his face; In cut and dye so like a tile, A sadden view it would beguile: The upper part whereof was whey, The nether orange mixt with grey. This hairy meteor did denounce The fall of sceptres and of crowns; With grisly type did represent Declining age of government, And tell, with hieroglyphic spade, Its own grave and ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... seemed its accomplishment, the more I shrunk from the thought of deceiving Ernest, in this hour of restored tranquillity and abounding love. I loathed the idea of deceiving any one,—but Ernest, my lover, my husband,—how could I beguile his ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... while she sat so straight and still, he felt that she held herself 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 ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the baronet, "it is not enough, because I know what will happen: Miss Folliard's influence over you is a proverb; now she will cajole and flatter and beguile you until she prevails upon you to let the treacherous Jesuit slip through your fingers, and then he will get off to the Continent, and laugh at you all, after having taken her with him; for there is nothing more certain, if ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... in my story, include the original underwriters' agreement, which, at great cost of time and money, has so far been kept from the public, and they show some of the greatest bankers in the land deliberately planning, by the use of fraudulent papers and bogus agreements, to beguile investors to adventure their money in a scheme the sole purpose of which was the enrichment of its organizers. The whole performance reveals a depravity so profound and a greed so heartless that the people may well tremble ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... schools! What a difference it makes in the life of that poor girl, to be able to read! How many weary hours of pain will a nice book beguile! And, beside, if one has not a cent in the world, if one has a good education, it is worth as much as money in the bank,—and more, too, because banks often turn out great humbugs, and then people lose all the money they ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... 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 master return to ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... faintly comes the sound! There is death in that feeble blast!" said the emperor; and Duke Naimes interrupted eagerly: "Sire, Roland is in peril; some one has betrayed him—doubtless he who now tries to beguile you! Sire, rouse your host, arm for battle, and ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... Edward was came before her in a light so piteous, so miserable, that she made up her mind, let it cost her what it would, that she would do everything in her power to unite him again with Charlotte, and she herself would go and hide her sorrow and her love in some silent scene, and beguile the time with such employment as ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... will land? The fires of the Vesta are not so hot; and, by the Stator of our father Romulus, I would die, if die I must, in Rome. Avernus is here; there, in the square before the Forum, I could stand, and, with my hand raised thus, touch the floor of the gods. Ha, by Venus, my Flavius, thou didst beguile me! I ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... beguile his tedium at the camp of Compiegne, the dauphin, it is said, overtaxed his strength, and died at the age of thirty-six on the 20th of December, 1765, profoundly regretted by the bulk of the nation, who knew his virtues without troubling themselves, like the court ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... impression I each time had it. I dare say it wasn't there, though, I did have it," he after an instant pursued, "for I've somehow a confused image of a shop in Oxford Street—or was it rather in Regent?—into which I gloomily wandered to beguile the moments with a mixture that if I strike you as upset I beg you to set it all down to. Do you know in fact what I've been doing for the last ten minutes? Roaming hither and thither in your beautiful Crescent till I could venture ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... 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 father's death on Diaz, and yet deep ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... 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 they see in ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France

... of the wall and saw him, and she was 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 went to plough as was ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... same low level as his heroes, if not lower. When the spouse of Zeus, king of the gods, wishes to beguile him, she knows no other way than borrowing the girdle of Aphrodite. But this scene (Iliad, XIV., 153 seq.) is innocuous compared with the shameless description of the adulterous amours of Ares and Aphrodite in the Odyssey (VIII., 266-365), in presence of the gods, who treat the matter ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... breathe quicker, I measured and timed each heavy inspiration; I did not speak, nor move, nor even open my eyes, for long after I was in my full, my miserable senses. I heard some one treading softly about the room, as if with a purpose, not as if for curiosity, or merely to beguile the time; some one passed in and out of the salon; and I still lay quiet, feeling as if death were inevitable, but wishing that the agony of death were past. Again faintness stole over me; but just as I was sinking into the horrible feeling of nothingness, ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... gentlemen," 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 ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... 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 ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... any other poet, Browning— at least, his reader— needs the help of a believing, cheery, and enthusiastic guide, to beguile the weary pilgrimage. ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... are far more abstruse than ordinary men suppose, they were gradually initiated by Mr. Weller, who possessed a perfect knowledge of such pastimes. Thus, notwithstanding that they were in a great measure deprived of the comfort and advantage of Mr. Pickwick's society, they were still enabled to beguile the time, and to prevent its hanging heavily on ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... breast than his next strongest passion, love of knowledge, was sufficient to egg him on to it. Throughout life, his moral conduct was unfavourably influenced by the scantiness of his means. It was to beguile the anxiety occasioned by his narrow circumstances that he devoted himself to intense study, from knowing that superior attainments combined with splendid talents would secure for him great offices of trust and ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... thought, hardly noticed that the driver of his carriage descended from the box and lounged toward the archway, where the hum of traffic and the passage of many people would serve to beguile a long wait. After a minute's delay, a driver returned and climbed to the seat—but it was not the same driver. He wore the same coat and hat, but a different face looked out from the sheep-skin collar turned up to the ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... ye ain't on ter yer job. Youse can't sell nuttin' dat way," scoffed a friendly voice. "Here, now, watch!" And before the Millionaire could collect his wits he saw the four papers he had bought that morning to help beguile a dreary day, snatched into the grimy hands of a small boy ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter

... reasons, or perhaps 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 brain ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... 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

... and he subjected the neighbouring parts of Iberia, most of which, indeed, voluntarily joined him, chiefly by reason of his mild treatment and his activity; but in some cases he availed himself of cunning to beguile and win over the people, the chief of which was in the affair of the deer, which was ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... means filled her day. An hour or so in the morning was all they occupied at most, and the time must have hung heavy on her hands had she had no other pursuit to beguile her. Fortunately she had no intention of allowing her plans for the improvement of her mind to lapse simply because she had married. On the contrary, she felt the defects of her education more keenly than ever, and expected Dan to sympathise ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... thinking, probably, she had the most sense; and she told it to me, as Leoline's future husband. It is somewhat long to relate, but it will help to beguile the time while we are ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... me for my repose. It was narrow, damp, and unwholesome. The slumbers of a mind, wearied, like mine, with the most detestable uniformity, to whom neither amusement nor occupation ever offered themselves to beguile the painful hours, were short, disturbed, and unrefreshing. My sleeping, still more than my waking thoughts, were full of perplexity, deformity, and disorder. To these slumbers succeeded the hours which, by the regulations of our prison, I was obliged, though awake, to spend in solitary ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... do for a start," he said, as he plumped up the cushion and dusted the cup. "It won't do to begin too energetically, or Rose will be frightened. I must beguile her gently and pleasantly along till I've won her confidence, and then she will be ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood

... studies, the days passed swiftly for "the Golden Shoemaker." Very different were the methods by which the majority of his fellow-passengers endeavoured to beguile the time. Amongst the least objectionable of these were concerts, theatricals, billiards, and all kinds of games. Much time was spent by the ladies in idle chat, to which the gentlemen added the seductions of cigar and pipe. There ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... 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 ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford

... piece; no one could do it with more perfect knowledge or a more exquisite taste; and for her, as we both knew, he would turn scene-painter, if necessary. And so I rambled on, soothing her shaken feeling and my own until she had let me beguile her out of her attitude of reluctance and shrinking into one at least ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... she had dropped the letter in the bag, returned to her chamber, and deputed Dorothy Loring, whom she met on the stairs, to run and request Rose to lend her her album to beguile the afternoon with; and Dorothy dances to Rose, saying, 'The Countess de Lispy-Lispy would be delighted to look at your ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... been winging Toward vaporous heights which beckon and beguile I sink back, saddened to my inmost mind; Even as I list a-dream that mother singing The poesy of sweet tone, and sadden, while Her voice is cast in troubled wake behind The keel of her keen spirit. Thou art enshrined In a too primal innocence for this eye - Intent on such untempered ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson

... priggish or surly Thou didst not enthuse or beguile; But tilted a little and curly Of brim—how seductive thy style! And never was pride that is proper Sartorially better expressed Than when an immaculate topper Sat light ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various

... I ripped up my muff and made me the very best sort of a hot, gray, smothery face that I could—and I went out to Cambridge and sat three hours on the footboard of a bed, cracking jokes—and nuts—to beguile a little child's death-pain. And somehow it broke my heart—or my spirit—or something. Somehow I think I could have stood it better with my own skin face! Anyway the little girl doesn't need me any more. Anyway, it doesn't matter if someone did need me!... I tell you I'm 'broke'! I tell you ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... once—now they are nothing, in recompense for the hopes which are for ever gone. Your thoughts are gentle, and may sooth all spirits but my own. But sounds that lull others, lull me no longer. It is not the music of a rich dream, or of a pleasant fancy, which may beguile me into pleasure. I am dead—dead as the cold rock—to their influence. The storm which blighted me has seared, and ate into the very core. I am like the tree through which the worm has travelled—it still stands, and there is foliage upon it, but ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... panther's treacherous seeming, That looks so lovely to beguile its prey; Seek not to match the basilisk's false gleaming, That charms ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... joking; why, a child costs terribly dear!" exclaims a ten-times-too-happy husband, at the baptism of his eleventh, called the little last newcomer,—a phrase with which women beguile their families. ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac

... as numerous as they were quaint after he had once begun to relate them. To beguile the slowly moving hours the boys insisted upon his recounting many of his adventures, some of which were exceedingly thrilling, so thrilling indeed that none of the boys accepted ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay

... hair that 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 ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... has proved to me that the only way of getting sitters who persist in assuming a set look to resume their habitual expression, is to lead them into talking about some subject in which they are greatly interested. If I can only beguile them into speaking earnestly, no matter on what topic, I am sure of recovering their natural expression; sure of seeing all the little precious everyday peculiarities of the man or woman peep out, one after another, quite unawares. The long, maundering ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... Twirls his moustache, and seems to fear That some gay friend may catch him here. The Widowed wretch, who only fed, On bitter thoughts and tear-wash'd bread, Forgets her cares, and seems to smile To see friend Punch her babe beguile. Magician of the wounded heart, Oh! there thy wonted aid impart: Long be the merryman of our Isle, And win ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... author, whose bewitching style, Life's tedious minutes can beguile, Makes us, with him, forget uneasy care, And not remember what we are. Who by a charm, which no one can withstand, Enchanting poison can command, Can make us share his pleasing foolery, And from dull ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus

... which each of us has a minute grain, may find its voice in some individual of that last group, gifted with a power of expression and courageous enough to interpret the ultimate experience of mankind in terms of his temperament, in terms of art. I do not mean to say that he would attempt to beguile the last moments of humanity by an ingenious tale. It would be too much to expect—from humanity. I doubt the heroism of the hearers. As to the heroism of the artist, no doubt is necessary. There would be on his part no heroism. ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... was it taught my willing tongue, The songs that Braga fram'd and sung? Who was it op'd to me the store Of dark unearthly Runic lore, And taught me to beguile my time With Denmark's aged and witching rhyme; To rest in thought in Elvir shades, And hear the song of fairy maids; Or climb the top of Dovrefeld, Where magic knights their muster held! Who was it did all this for me? O, who, but ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... real weight and place in 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 ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin

... himself to have been tricked by Heliodora in the matter of her removal to the Palatine, and had not the least faith in her power to beguile Bessas, swore by all the saints that the day of his revenge should come; but for the present he had to think of how to keep himself alive. Money he had none; it was idle to hope of attaching himself to another household, and unless he escaped to the Goths, there was ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing



Words linked to "Beguile" :   bewitch, rip off, chisel, cheat, attract, hold, juggle, appeal, work



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