"Besiege" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... three thousand men, in thirty-six vessels, from Iloilo on January 5, 1606. The flagship is wrecked at La Caldera; the other vessels mistake their course, and do not reach the Moluccas until late in March. They besiege Ternate, and finally carry it by assault; the city and fort are pillaged by the soldiers. Afterward the king is induced to surrender and Acuna makes a treaty with him. The king surrenders his forts and restores all captives; delivers up any Dutchmen or Spanish renegades who may be in Ternate; ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... knowledge of the aspect of one country one can easily arrive at a knowledge of others. And the prince that lacks this skill lacks the essential which it is desirable that a captain should possess, for it teaches him to surprise his enemy, to select quarters, to lead armies, to array the battle, to besiege towns to advantage. ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... (to appear the next morning) was set up; but they had come to the end of their string, and there were various horrid gaps yet to fill in spite of a too generous spreading of advertisements. Bud Tipworthy had been sent out to besiege Miss Tibbs, all of whose recent buds of rhyme had been hot-housed into inky blossom during the week, and after a long absence the youth returned with a somewhat abrupt quatrain, entitled "The Parisians of Old," ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... idea insane, from the generals' point of view, but not from hers? Because her plan was to raise the siege immediately, by fighting, while theirs was to besiege the besiegers and starve them out by closing their communications—a plan which would require months in ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... children continued to besiege the farmer, all talking at once. He bent to kiss them, one ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the herald; "listen, all ye faithful subjects, to the words he speaks to you by my mouth. Here are our deadly enemies, who have scattered our troops, and have come to besiege the capital of our kingdom. If we do not send them, by daybreak to-morrow, twenty-four waggons, each drawn by six horses and loaded with gold, they threaten to take the town and destroy it by fire and sword, and to deliver our land to the soldiers. It is certain that we cannot hold ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... uselessness of his summons Arnold marched away about twenty miles, and encamped to wait for Montgomery's arrival from Montreal. He soon arrived. But even with hid men the colonists only numbered about eight hundred, far too small a company with which to besiege a fortress such as Quebec. Still they resolved to take the ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town. A commission in the army would not be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the town; and men only seek conversation and entering games, because they cannot remain with pleasure ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... platform. The moment your committee abandons this aim, I shall lose all interest in your work. You say: "Prominent Republicans are besieging us to relieve their party of the embarrassment of this demand." So did they besiege us twenty-seven years ago. No; not for a moment should you think of relieving the politicians from the duty of declaring for this amendment. If you do, you are unworthy the trust reposed in you. I surely never would have ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... women, fearing the cruelty of the bailiffs, entered a boat and were overwhelmed in the rush of the river. And one night men of the castle, maliciously seeking occasion against the commonalty of the town, went out of the castle and pretended to besiege it and shot arrows at it; and then secretly re-entered the castle and declared the townsfolk had been attacking the castle. And on this account many burgesses were imprisoned in the castle and ill-treated, and their swine maliciously killed. ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... the court forsake; Our fortunes there, nor thou, nor I, shall make. Even men of merit, ere their point they gain, In hardy service make a long campaign; Most manfully besiege the patron's gate, And oft repulsed, as oft attack the great With painful art, and application warm. And take, at last, some little place by storm; Enough to keep two shoes on Sunday clean, And starve upon discreetly, in Sheer-Lane. Already this thy fortune ...
— English Satires • Various
... the neighbouring villages are full of needy wretches, whose children clamour for bread. So, before the factory is well finished, the workers hasten to offer themselves. Where a hundred are required three hundred besiege the doors, and from the time his mill is started, the owner, if he only has average business capacities, will clear L40 a year out of each ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... guided in the noonday to these doors, Tumultuous, naked, and unsightly throng, With mutilated limbs and squalid faces, In litters and on crutches, from afar Comfort yourselves, and with expanded nostrils Drink in the nectar of the feast divine That favorable zephyrs waft to you; But do not dare besiege these noble precincts, Importunately offering her that reigns Within your loathsome spectacle of woe! —And now, sir, 'tis your office to prepare The tiny cup that then shall minister, Slow sipped, its liquor to thy lady's ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... is not known: Late did he shine upon the English side; Now we are victors; upon us he smiles. What towns of any moment but we have? At pleasure here we lie near Orleans; Otherwhiles the famish'd English, like pale ghosts, Faintly besiege us ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... stratagem, subterfuge, finesse. Ascend, mount, climb, scale. Associate, colleague, partner, helper, collaborator, coadjutor, companion, helpmate, mate, team-mate, comrade, chum, crony, consort, accomplice, confederate. Attach, affix, annex, append, subjoin. Attack, assail, assault, invade, beset, besiege, bombard, cannonade, storm. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... sanguinary conflicts, which cause so many millions of men to perish; which unceasingly depopulate the earth, and desolate the world we inhabit? Is there any one who has sufficient compass of comprehension to ascertain the advantages that result from the evils that besiege us on all sides? Do we not daily witness beings consecrated to misfortune, from the moment they quitted the womb of the parent who brought them into existence, until that which re-committed them to the earth, to sleep in peace with their fathers; ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... have I taken notice of, with thanksgiving. When I was a soldier, I, with others, were drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it; but when I was just ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room, to which, when I had consented, he took my place; and coming to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot into the head with a musket bullet, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... see more, there was an epidemic of ribbons, curling-irons, and fancy slippers, which grew worse as the great day approached, and when it came at last—as fine a day as one could wish—each house sent forth its quota of shining-faced, bedizened merry-makers to besiege the ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... cross the water of Gironde with a hundred thousand men in order to craventer et confondre the pagan host,—how he must be towards his own proud vassals "like a man-eating leopard," and if any dare levy war against him, must summon his knights, besiege the traitor's castle, waste and spoil all his land, and when he is taken show him no mercy, but lop him limb from limb, burn him in fire, or drown him in the sea.[36] It is not precisely an amiable spirit, this spirit of the chansons: but there is this to be said ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... to Puarma and Las(?)-mer-sekni, the Nubian generals stationed in Egypt, and told them to assemble the troops, to seize the territory of Hermopolis, to besiege the city itself, to seize all the people, and cattle, and the boats on the river, and to stop all the agricultural operations that were going on; these orders were obeyed. At the same time he despatched a body of troops to Egypt, with careful instructions as to the way ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... gives the possessions of the feeble to the strong; which begins with God and ends in the beasts; since all these, by nature, seek, the stronger to have advantage over the weaker. Cease, therefore, to pity the Clusinians whom we besiege, lest ye teach the Gauls to be kind and compassionate to those that are oppressed by you." By this answer the Romans, perceiving that Brennus was not to be treated with, went into Clusium, and encouraged and stirred up the inhabitants to make a sally with them upon the barbarians, which they did ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Legislature it petitions. We believe it will yet have its auxiliaries in every village and hamlet, township and school district, to influence majorities when the amendment is submitted. More—we believe ere many years its powers will be so subtle and widespread that it can besiege the conservatism of Congress itself, and come away with the laurel ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... this, Benhadad, the king of Syria, came from Damascus with a vast army and thirty-two allied kings, to besiege Samaria. Defeated in a battle with Ahab, the king of Syria fled, but returned the following year with a still larger army for the conquest of Samaria. But he was again defeated, with the loss of ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... permit yourself, knave, to go and besiege our friend, monsieur the bailiff of the palace, and what have you to say concerning this ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... seen leaning on a tree; towards him, with his hands over his head, and his steps smothered in the sand, the clerk painfully waded. The surrounding glare threw out and exaggerated the man's smallness; it seemed no less perilous an enterprise, this that he was gone upon, than for a whelp to besiege a citadel. ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... is one of the most impossible towns in the geography of story. Pagan lords have lived there, one of whom gave as a dower to his daughter the strips of land in Borysthenes called the "race-courses of Achilles." The Duke de Guyenne, in the fabliaux, passes through Rheims on his way to besiege Babylon; Babylon, moreover, which is very worthy of Rheims, is the capital of the Admiral Gaudissius. It is at Rheims that the deputation sent by the Locri Ozolae to Apollonius of Tyana, "high priest of Bellona," "disembarks." While ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... Borroughcliffe; "I thought I recollected the liquid sounds of his voice. It will be well to speak to him of the good fare of St. Ruth; and you may add, that I know my man: I shall besiege, instead of storming him, with the certainty of a surrender when his canteen is empty. The vault he is in holds no such beverage as the cellars ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... The impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and numbers of the wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even presumed, though without success, to besiege the important city of Seleucia, which was defended by a garrison of three Roman legions. Above all, the Persian monarch, elated by victory, again threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the emperor was indispensably ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... leave the fruit and hide itself in a quiet, secure position to undergo the transition from the larva to the pupa state, which requires, in the early part of the season, eight or ten days; after this time the miller is hatched and is again ready to besiege the fruit with its sting. The insect, being two-brooded in this climate at least, if not disturbed, has an aggregating force to do mischief the second time. The progeny for the succeeding year have alone to depend on the security of this second generation of larvae. As they may often be found in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... post of duty, impassive beneath both affronts and blows.—Through a wrong of the greatest magnitude, an entire class which have no share in the favors of the Court, and which suffered as many injuries as any of the common plebeians, is confounded with the titled parasites who besiege the antechambers of Versailles. Twenty-five thousand families, "the nursery of the army and the fleet," the elite of the agricultural proprietors, also many gentlemen who look after and turn to account the little estates on which they live, and "who have not left their homes a year in their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... He rules the sea: you see him ride in't; And, if provoked, he soundly firks his Rebellious waves with rods, like Xerxes. He would have seized the Spanish plate, Had not the fleet gone out too late; And in their very ports besiege them, But that he would not disoblige them; And make the rascals pay him dearly For those affronts they give him yearly. 'Tis not denied, that, when we write, Our ink is black, our paper white: And, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... revolt, and the King of France aiding the same, and the Duke is fled over hither to King Edward, leaving my Lady Duchess shut up in the Castle of Auray, which 'tis thought the French King shall besiege. Man reckons he comes for little—I would say, that our King shall give him little ado over that matter, without it were to ransom my Lady, should she be taken, she being step-daughter unto ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... ferocity against human beings, and those animals which are not wild, that the natives of these regions suffer more detriment from these, than they do from true and natural wolves; for when a human habitation has been detected by them isolated in the woods, they besiege it with atrocity, striving to break in the doors, and in the event of their doing so, they devour all the human beings, and every animal which is found within. They burst into the beer-cellars, and there they empty the tuns of beer ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... from my design to ride forth against thee with a thousand thousand[FN177] and an hundred thousand fighting men, all furious giants on elephants, and I will range them round about my Wazir and bid him besiege thee three years, in lieu of the three days' delay thou appointedst to thy messenger, and I will make myself master of thy dominion, except that I will slay none save thyself alone and take captive therefrom none but thy Harim." Then the boy drew his own portrait in the margin of the letter ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... New York City to become a writer. There was a stormy discussion in the Hurst family, but it ended in her going away, with a bundle of manuscripts in her trunk, to brave the big city alone. She found a tiny furnished room and set forth to besiege the editors' offices. One evening she returned, to find the house being raided, a patrol wagon at the curb, and the lodgers being hustled into it. She crossed the street and walked on, and never ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... education was of no account, it often happened that his teacher's salary was several months in arrears, and the city of Carpentras, "not being in funds," paid it only by instalments, and even so kept him a long time waiting. "One has to besiege the paymaster's door merely to obtain a trifle on account. I am ashamed of the whole business, and I would gladly abandon my claim if I knew where to raise ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... everything else had failed, she managed to make her brother, who was king of the neighbouring country, declare war against the emperor, and besiege some of the frontier towns with a large army. This time her scheme was successful. The young emperor sprang up in wrath the moment he heard the news, and vowed that nothing, not even his wife, should hinder his giving them battle. And hastily assembling whatever soldiers happened ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... are going to besiege Mons: I wish all the war may take that turn; I don't desire to see England the theatre of it. We talk no more of its becoming so, nor of the plot, than of the gunpowder-treason. Party is very silent; I believe, because ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... used the extraordinary powers given him to establish himself in the capital, where, for his own ends, he subjected the wretched inhabitants to the most cruel extortions. Routed at San Lorenzo* by General Diaz, who at once proceeded to besiege Mexico, he unduly prolonged the resistance of the city after the final downfall of the empire, exposing it to the unnecessary hardships of a four months' siege, the horrors of which were mitigated only by the generosity and forbearance ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... the extensive fish business carried on there. They walked on to the Point, to see the old fort which, in the time of the revolutionary war, contained enough plucky men to seize a barge with men and a cannon, which a passing British man of War sent to besiege them. The men were taken to Gloucester, but the cannon was left there where it remained until it found a better place in the town-hall yard. There, all renovated, it now stands as a precious relic of ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... hereditary magistrates, to prevent their citizens from becoming so established in wealth and power, as to be thought worthy of alliance by marriage with the nieces, sisters, &c. of Kings, and, in short, to besiege the throne of Heaven with eternal prayers, to extirpate from creation this class of human lions, tigers, and mammoths, called Kings; from whom, let him perish who does not say, 'Good Lord, deliver us;' and that so we may say, one and all, or perish, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... beset, combat, invade, assault, besiege, encounter, set upon, beleaguer, charge, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... whose long and short guns, used at the Siege of Madrid in A.D. 1084, are preserved in the Armeria Real. Viardot has noted that the African Arabs first employed cannon in A.D. 1200, and that the Maghribis defended Algeciras near Gibraltar with great guns in A. D. 1247, and utilised them to besiege Seville in A.D. 1342. This last feat of arms introduced the cannon into barbarous Northern Europe, and it must have been known to civilised Asia for many a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... ardent desire of Sang to heal his wife, as he has healed many others. But the doubt in her mind baffles him, and for a long time he is unsuccessful. At last, however, he resolves to make a mighty effort—to besiege the Lord with his prayer, to wrestle with him, as Jacob did of old, and not to release him, until he has granted his petition. While he lies thus before the altar calling upon the Lord in sacred rapture, a tremendous avalanche sweeps down ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... extensive plans of operating in the heart of Germany, and ruining the Kaiser there. But first he needs, and the Kaiser is aware of it, a "basis on the Rhine;" free bridge over the Rhine, not by Strasburg and Kehl alone: and for this reason, he will have to besiege and capture Philipsburg first of all. Strong Town of Philipsburg, well down towards Speyer-and-Heidelberg quarter on the German side of the Rhine: [See map] here will be our bridge. Lorraine is already ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... ask not that my bed of death From bands of greedy heirs be free; For these besiege the latest breath Of fortune's ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... winters shall besiege thy brow And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held: Then, being ask'd where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days, To say, within ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... first half of March, the Washington government marked time. The office-seekers continued to besiege the President. South Carolina continued to clamor for possession of Sumter. The Confederacy sent commissioners to Washington whom Lincoln refused to recognize. The Virginia Convention swayed this ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... devastated by the Carthaginians, and by the companies of disciplined free-lances who called themselves Mamertines, or Mars's men. The hopes of the Greek inhabitants of the island were centred in Hiero, son of Hierocles, who was about to besiege Messana (then held by the Carthaginians) and who had revived the courage of the Syracusans. To him Theocritus addressed this idyl, in which he complains of the sordid indifference of the rich, rehearses the merits of song, dilates on the true nature of wealth, and of the happy lift, and finally expresses ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... forces were now withdrawn into their works on Brooklyn Heights, and Howe advanced to besiege them. During the next two days Washington collected boats and on the night of the 29th conveyed the army across the East River to New York. With the enemy's fleet patrolling the harbour and their army watching the works, this was a most remarkable performance. To this day one cannot understand, ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... ease had made Playground of dimples, joy's rose-seat; And could these eyes ope they would speak Of one who bought her dreams of Death and paid. If blind thou shrinkest yet To meet Truth bare, Then as thou'st dealt with this pale maid Life shall thine own besiege. Injustice holds No sanctuary folds; To fence out care We must the planet hedge; Justice is God, and waits Behind our blood-built tower-gates; And as indifference Was once our soul's pretence, Who then ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... army advancing to besiege Rome had passed the Tiber before Belisarius was aware that his troops, stationed to defend the Milvian bridge, had abandoned their post. On going out to reconnoitre, he fell in with the enemy. Instead of retreating, he led on the cavalry that attended him to the charge. He was mounted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... except a hissing up on the roof, and then a great slithering rumble down below, which boomed like the distant cannons the Margraf sent to besiege us. I listened and shuddered; but it was only the snow from the tall roof of the Red Tower which had slipped off and fallen to the ground. Then I had a vision of a slender little figure clambering on the leads and the treacherous snow striking her out into the air, ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... are expected to pay the musicians. But the trifle spent on the gunpowder for their cannons, or the breath from their lungs, is well repaid by the mighty mass of air they start into waves of music. Here, too, the "auxiliary forces," or pony boys, besiege us with their sure-footed, shaggy "coppaleens." They have come galloping down the pass at break-neck speed to lend us the assistance of their light cavalry. Wonderful creatures they are, these horses and riders. The peasant boys are for ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... Scrymgeour. Very well, Mr. Scrymgeour. Let me tell you in a few words how you stand. You have entered my private residence by force, or perhaps by fraud, but certainly with no encouragement from me; and you come at a moment of some annoyance, a guest having fainted at my table, to besiege me with your protestations. You are no son of mine. You are my brother's bastard by a fishwife, if you want to know. I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion; and from what I now see ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... blockhouses withdrew under cover of night to Fort Loyal, where the whole force of the English was now gathered along with their frightened families. Portneuf determined to besiege the place in form; and, after burning the village, and collecting tools from the abandoned blockhouses, he opened his trenches in a deep gully within fifty yards of the fort, where his men were completely protected. They worked so well that ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... "the Samburus have defeated Fumba's warriors; they killed a multitude of them and dispersed those they did not kill. They besiege Fumba in a boma on Boko Mountain. Fumba and his warriors have nothing to eat in the boma and will perish if the great master does not kill Mamba and all ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... employment. It is obliged in consequence to resign itself to feeding the first mentioned and to having the others as its enemies. From the top to the bottom of the social pyramid, from the humblest clerk to the professor and the prefect, the immense mass of persons boasting diplomas besiege the professions. While a business man has the greatest difficulty in finding an agent to represent him in the colonies, thousands of candidates solicit the most modest official posts. There are 20,000 schoolmasters and mistresses without employment in the department of the ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... them. They've galloped down here twice an' they've looked at the river an' they've looked at us, an' they've galloped back again. We can't let 'em set over there besiegin' us, we must cross an' besiege them an' get to ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... file, the law-abiding women, desire the ballot; not only that they desire it, but they mean to have it. And to accomplish this result I need not remind you that they will work year in and year out, that they will besiege members of congress everywhere, and that they will come here year after year asking you to protect them in their rights and to see that justice is done in the republic. Therefore, for your own peace, we hope you will not keep ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Visitation of Cambridge, the Earl of Manchester was away, as we have seen, in May 1644, with his Lieutenant-general, Cromwell, to add the force of the Associated Eastern Counties to the forces of the Scots and Fairfax, then about to besiege the Marquis of Newcastle in York. The joint forces, numbering some 25,000 men in all, were hopefully conducting the siege when the approach of Prince Rupert out of Lancashire, with a Royalist army of over 20,000, compelled them to raise it, in order to oppose him (June 30). He avoided them, relieved ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... sailor sighed, and longed that he could write such neat verses, and sing them so sweetly. How he would besiege the ear of Rose Salterne with amorous ditties! But still, he could not be everything; and if he had the bone and muscle of the family, it was but fair that Frank should have the brains and voice; and, after all, he was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and it was just the same ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... And the story goes that he did it all for the sake of a girl who scorned him. Now then he holdeth Hauterive as his tower of strength, has harried Waisford, and threatens Wanmeeting town, giving out that he will edge in the lady, besiege High March itself, wed the Countess, and have the girl (when he finds her) as his concubine. So he will be lord of all, and God of no account so far as I can see. And the name ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... not accepted, my officers will first hang the prisoners, then they will ravage the country round; and will then proceed to besiege the city and, when they capture it, take vengeance for the innocent blood that has been shed within its walls. You best know what is the strength of your garrison, and whether you can successfully resist an assault by ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... she persevered, though now all to no purpose. The King himself retired, and the attack became a failure. Still Joan desired to march upon Paris for a renewed attack; but the King would not hear of it, and she was sent with troops badly equipped to besiege La Charite, where she again failed. For four weary months she remained inactive. She grew desperate; the voices neither encouraged nor discouraged her. She was now full of sad forebodings, yet her activity continued. She repaired to Compiegne, a city already besieged by the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... Rivers), half-clad, gypsy-looking women and young, nut-brown girls besiege the passengers to partake of fresh pulque, which they serve in small earthen mugs. Two stout engines are required to draw us over the steep grade. The highest point reached is at Cima (The Summit) twenty-four miles from ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... deeply and completely you become immersed in and aware of this life, the greater the extension of your consciousness; the more insistently will rumours and intimations of a higher plane of experience, a closer unity and more complete synthesis, begin to besiege you. You feel that hitherto you nave received the messages of life in a series of disconnected words and notes, from which your mind constructed as best it could certain coherent sentences and tunes—laws, classifications, relations, and the rest. But now you reach out towards the ultimate ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... between Egypt and Assyria, so does Mansoul lie between two immense empires also. And, surely, I do not need to explain to any man here who has a man's soul in his bosom that the two armed empires that besiege his soul are Heaven above and Hell beneath, and that both Heaven and Hell would give their best blood and their best treasure to subdue and to possess his soul. We do not value our souls at all as Heaven and Hell value them. There are savage ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... grounds it engulfed the mansion and poured in by windows as well as doors, until the reception rooms were packed to suffocation. Other guests, bidden and unbidden—"statesmen and stable-boys, fine ladies and washerwomen, white people and blacks"—continued for hours to besiege the doors. "I never saw such a mixture," records Judge Story; "the reign of King Mob seemed triumphant. I was glad to escape from the scene as soon as possible." The President, too, after being jostled for an hour, very willingly made ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... and accent which was to the French-Canadian patois as Shakespeare's English is to that of Seven Dials. Pierre's methods of inquisitiveness were not strictly dishonest. He did not open letters, he did not besiege dispatch-boxes, he did not ask impudent questions; he watched and listened. In his own way he found out that the man had been a soldier in the ranks, and that he had served in India. They were most attached to the child, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... besiege Ossowetz; Russians gain in the Carpathians and again invade Bukowina; Russian wedge splits Austrian Army in the Carpathians; ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... general in the Swedish service, now arrived with some Swedish troops, and prepared to besiege the town. The rest of Munro's regiment accompanied him, having arrived safely at their destination, and the whole were ordered to aid in the investment of Colberg, while Hepburn was to seize the town and castle of Schiefelbrune, five miles distant, and there to check the advance of ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... when our soldiers effected a safe landing. They immediately attacked the French; and, after a sharp encounter, forced them from the batteries. Before the enemy retreated they blew up several of them, lest they should fall into our hands. Our men now proceeded to besiege the citadel, and my master was ordered on shore to superintend the landing of all the materials necessary for carrying on the siege; in which service I mostly attended him. While I was there I went about to different ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... Civil Law found it otherwise! Why then the Uncivil Law shall make it mine again, I'll be as dreadful as a Shrove-Tuesday to thee; for I'll besiege thy squalling catterwauling Castle, with my Friends the Mob, and gut thy stinking Nursery, but I'll both see and have ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... command of an English general. William was much annoyed at this, for any brilliant success attained by Marlborough would have increased the feeling against his foreign favourites. He had, therefore, despatched the division of General Scravenmore to besiege the town on the land side, and had placed in command of it the Duke of Wirtemberg, whose rank as a prince, and as a general of higher rank than Marlborough, would enable him to claim the supreme command, and to carry off the honour ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... make such a terrible noise, that they will be forced to give you back yours. We shall insist on getting her, even if we have to break down the doors." Forthwith the self-constituted champions formed in battle array, and armed, some with sticks and some with stones, they proceeded to besiege the monastery, if not strictly according to the rules of war, at least with resolute hearts determined never to yield until the fortress had surrendered. Many of the spectators laughed as the belligerents ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... clouds. Ill fares the bark, with trembling wretches charg'd, That tost amid the floating fragments, moors Beneath the shelter of an icy isle, While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror looks More horrible. Can human force endure Th' assembled mischiefs that besiege 'em round! Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness, The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice, Now ceasing, now renew'd with louder rage, And in dire ecchoes bellowing ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... after I was committed to prison, the sultan marched with his army to besiege the city of Sanaa, having, as I said before, 30,000 footmen, besides 3000 horsemen, born of Christian parents, who were black like the Ethiopians, and had been brought while young from the kingdom of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... olive-tree, and spake The self-same words. On that you counsel took From your too lightly flattering French; two Counts Of yours you to the Pagan sent, the one, Bazan, Bastile the other, and their heads He struck off near Haltoie. As you began, War on! To Sarraguce your army lead, Besiege her walls, though all your life it take, And thus avenge the knights the ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... throat to the sword of their pitiless tyrants, in whom they would find the most visible cause of the evils under which they groan, and for which they uselessly implore the assistance of Heaven? Credulous people! in your adversities redouble your prayers, your offerings, your sacrifices; besiege your temples, strangle countless victims, fast in sackcloth and in ashes, drink your own tears; finally, exhaust yourselves to enrich your gods: you will do nothing but enrich their priests; the gods of Heaven will not be propitious to you, except when the gods of the earth will recognize ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... vessels and 15,000 men was sent under Drake and Sir John Norris against Lisbon. Its chances of success hung on a quick arrival in Portugal, but the fleet touched at Corunna, and after burning the ships in its harbour the army was tempted to besiege the town. A Spanish army which advanced to its relief was repulsed by an English force of half its numbers. Corunna however held stubbornly out, and in the middle of May Norris was forced to break the siege and to sail to Lisbon. But the delay had been ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... suggested and made as to whether he was compos mentis. The parties who made the inquiry reported that he was not insane, but was actuated by a fiendish malignity, a love of notoriety and the expectation of extorting money by blackmail. For years—indeed until September, 1871—he continued to besiege and annoy the grand juries of the United States courts with his imaginary grievances, until he became an intolerable nuisance. His exemption from punishment had emboldened him to apply to the officers of the court—the judges, clerks, and jurors—the most offensive and insulting ...
— 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
... knew very well where the house was to which he had been taken by Tommaso, for he was a Roman, and every yard of the road was familiar to him. Within less than an hour it was more than likely that he would send a force of sbirri to besiege the house, men who would not hesitate to break down the doors if they were not admitted, and by no means so easy to frighten away as the clumsily armed watchmen whom the Bravi had put to flight. The only possible ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall become tributary unto thee, and shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then shalt thou besiege it. And when the Lord thy God delivereth it into thine hand, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take for a prey unto thyself; ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... the most of the night. I suppose he did not mind such night-work. We sighted Portsmouth in the morning, and after doing the customary steam trials, proceeded up harbour. Here, as at Plymouth, there were all classes of business men waiting in boats to besiege the ship. Most of them met with disappointment, as only a few were allowed on board. This matter was the cause of complaint being made in an evening paper, which said: "No such restriction was ever manifested ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... Carolina had begun the erection of batteries to isolate and besiege Fort Sumter; and the first of these, on a sand-spit of Morris Island commanding the main ship-channel, by a few shots turned back, on January 9, the merchant steamer Star of the West, in which General Scott had attempted to send ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... bored with reporters, who besiege her from morning till night. One—a woman—who sat with note-book in hand for ages ("une eternite" she said) reporting, the next day sent her the newspaper in which a column was filled with the manner she treated her nails. Not one word about ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... Baptist minister at Bedford, had been a Royalist. The only incident which Bunyan speaks of connected with his military experience points in the same direction. 'When I was a soldier,' he says, 'I was with others drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it. But when I was just ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room. Coming to the siege as he stood sentinel he was shot in the heart with a musket bullet and died.' Tradition agrees that the place to which these words refer was Leicester. Leicester was stormed by the ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... the Catholics. Drogheda, Kilkenny, Duncannon, and Waterford, capitulated to the victorious army, the garrisons marching to Limerick, towards which place William now directed his course. Douglas was sent to besiege Athlone; but the Governor, Colonel Grace, made such brave resistance there, he was obliged to withdraw, and join ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... of the Turkish generals, having advanced into the neighbourhood of Missolonghi towards the end of April, began to besiege it in good earnest, at the head of an army of some seven or eight thousand picked followers, on the 7th of May. While he was forming his entrenchments and erecting his batteries, the townsmen, augmented by a number of fierce Suliots and others, were strengthening ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... fair or foul means wherein they promised to assist him. John goes to Kintail, desires him to render the place to him, which he refused, for which cause John ordered bring all his cattle to those he employed to besiege the castle till Malcolm (the governor) would be starved out of it. Yet this did not prevail with the governor, till he got Hector's consent, who, being acquainted, came to Lochalsh and met with his nephew, and after concerting the matter, Hector ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... residence to Avignon has left many and deep traces on the history of French Catholicism. The Holy See was no longer far remote; the French ecclesiastic desirous of promotion had no dangerous mountains to traverse, no strange city to enter, no foreign Pontiff to besiege, ignorant or indifferent to his claims. The next successor of Saint Peter would logically be a Frenchman, and there was not only a possibility, but a probability for every man of note, that he might be either the occupant ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... the anonymous writer compares him gravely to Hannibal, who knew how to conquer, but not how to use his conquest.) and Gibbon blame him, the reason is sufficiently clear—"Volea pecunia per soldati"—he wanted money for the soldiers! On his return as Senator, it must be remembered that he had to besiege Palestrina, which was considered even by the ancient Romans almost impregnable by position; but during the few weeks he was in power, Palestrina yielded—all his open enemies were defeated—the tyrants expelled—Rome free; and this without ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... if I have ranged, Like him that travels, I return again, Just to the time, not with the time exchanged, So that myself bring water for my stain. Never believe, though in my nature reigned All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stained To leave for nothing all thy sum of good! For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose: in it thou art ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... breasts and the children sport about in the snow. Wrapping himself in his pelisse the Russian sleeps in the snow. This influence of habit is seen in the inability of intruders in northern lands to endure the cold, which has no effect on the indigenous people. On their way to besiege a Norwegian stronghold in 1719, 7000 Swedes perished in the snows and cold of their neighboring country. On the retreat from Prague in 1742, the French army, under the rigorous sky of Bohemia, lost 4000 men in ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... said of their armies and troops; all the forces of their empire, though they were to bring two millions of men into the field together, would be able to do nothing but ruin the country and starve themselves. If they were to besiege a strong town in Flanders, or to fight a disciplined army, one line of German cuirassiers, or of French cavalry, would overthrow all the horse of China; a million of their foot could not stand before one embattled body of our infantry, posted ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... I know not you besiege us here, threatening this Abbey and its Religious with fire and sword. I am told that Cicely Foterell is your leader. Say, then, to that escaped witch that I hold the man she calls her husband, and who is the father of ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... many Indians, led by Tecumseh, sallied out of Amherstburg with a naval force of two gunboats. Heavy guns were dragged from Detroit to batter down the log walls, for it was the intention to surround and besiege Fort Meigs in the manner taught by the military science of Europe. Meanwhile Harrison had come back from a recruiting mission; and a new brigade of Kentucky militia, twelve hundred strong, under Brigadier General Green Clay, was to follow in boats down the Auglaize and Maumee rivers. Procter's ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... having the matter now under control, he nonchalantly cracked only shin bones. Fra Diavolo from his shelter roared commands and curses, but not another imp would show himself. Crouched jealously, they chose rather to besiege their lone ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... to the pleasures of the table, was giving himself up one day to the immoderate enjoyment of a sumptuous feast, when his Vizier came to inform him that the enemy was coming to besiege his capital. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... Mephistopheles carry his diabolisms into the souls of human kind, and hold there his mystic reign. Yet there are those, and you find Asmodeus is one, who dream of a day when the Mephistophelean dynasty is to be overthrown,—when the sappers and miners of the great army of human progress are to besiege him in his strong-holds, and to lead him captive in eternal bondage. Of all the guides who lead that mighty host, none rank above the Faust of whom tradition tells such wondrous tales. Not the bewigged and motley personage Gounod has sung, not the impassioned lover Goethe drew, but the great genius ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... of Bolshevik pressure of greatly superior numbers constantly threatening to besiege Pinega, and of a political propaganda which was hard to offset, the Americans held on optimistically. If they had made a single false step politically or if their White Guards had lost their morale they would have had a more exciting ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... another event occurred to add to our perplexities. The kelp around the vessel suddenly became alive with a small species of black crab. These creatures must have scented the food from our vessel, and they came in millions to besiege us in order to devour it. The deck was soon black with them, and they swarmed below in ever-increasing numbers. Nothing escaped them, and most of our provisions were quickly demolished. We killed them in thousands, and the stench ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... ever lead you near a hotel that transiently shelters some one of these splendid touring grandees, I counsel you to seek Lucullus Polk among the republican tuft-hunters that besiege its entrances. He will be there. You will know him by his red, alert, Wellington-nosed face, by his manner of nervous caution mingled with determination, by his assumed promoter's or broker's air of busy impatience, and by his bright-red necktie, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... he builds on Helm a keep, With massive walls and towers high; His raging foes besiege it close, Germans and ...
— Marsk Stig - a ballad - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... getting through this long, dull afternoon, my dears? Quiet as mice till just now. What woke you up? A battle of the books? Alice looks as if she had laid in plenty of ammunition, and you were preparing to besiege her." ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... that ladies are litigious Upon all legal objects of possession, And not the least so when they are religious, Which doubles what they think of the transgression: With suits and prosecutions they besiege us, As the tribunals show through many a session, When they suspect that any one goes shares In that to which the law makes ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... during which time something of great importance happened at Palermo. On the 4th of April the authorities became aware that arms and conspirators were concealed in the convent of La Gancia, which was to have been the focus of the revolution. Troops were sent to besiege the convent, which they only succeeded in taking after four hours' resistance; its fall was the signal for a general slaughter of the inmates, both monks and laymen. The insurrection was thus stifled ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the rest Of suitors that besiege your maiden breast, Why may not I My fortune try, And venture to speak one good word, Not for myself, alas! but for ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... the great hero was against Eurytus, king of Oechalia, to revenge himself upon this king and his sons for having refused to bestow upon him the hand of Iole, after having fairly won the maiden. Having collected a large army Heracles set out for Euboea in order to besiege Oechalia, its capital. Success crowned his arms. He stormed the citadel, slew the king and his three sons, reduced the town to ashes, and carried away captive the young ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... hasten back to Rome and summon a council for the deposition of the pontiff, whose conduct certainly furnished ample justification. But the Romans refused to accept a pope chosen under Otto's auspices, and he had to return again to Rome and besiege the city before his pope was acknowledged. A few years later, still a third expedition was necessary in order to restore another of the emperor's popes who had been driven out of Rome by ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... found no difficulty in marching along the Mediterranean coast like the conquering Pharaohs who had preceded him. In his temple palace at Medinet Habu he has left a record of the conquests that he made in Syria. The great cities of the coast were untouched. No attempt was made to besiege or capture Tyre and Sidon, Beyrout and Gebal, and the Egyptian army marched past them, encamping on the way only at such places as "the headland of Carmel," "the source of the Magoras," or river of Beyrout, ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... from Germany to besiege Milan, having carefully concluded treaties with her rivals in Lombardy, in the Mark of Verona, in Emilia and the Marches. With their help he starved the impregnable city into a surrender on terms dictated ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... were all assembled, Washington consulted them about a plan for storming the English batteries. But it was their unanimous opinion that so perilous an enterprise ought not to be attempted. The army, therefore, continued to besiege Boston, preventing the enemy from obtaining supplies of provisions, but without taking any immediate measures to get possession of the town. In 'this manner the sum met, autumn, and ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Mediterranean, but landed in Sardinia, and after recruiting here again set sail, and anchored off Carthage. He met with opposition, instead of welcome, from the inhabitants of the coast, and was obliged to besiege Tunis. The excessive heat of the climate and the unhealthiness of the soil proved a second time fatal to the army. Plague at last broke out, and Louis was himself seized. Finding himself dying, he sent for ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various |
