"Bestir" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Henry had not spoken, but thought was busily at work. He could not bestir himself; he had no energy for that now; but he could marry Ella Campbell, whose wealth would keep him in the position he now occupied, besides ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... ball of many pounds' weight. He could not be cared for elsewhere, as his family was very poor, and though usually perfectly sane he had dangerous intervals. The management of the almshouse was culpably bad, and though about this time benevolent persons began to bestir themselves, and there was some amelioration of conditions, yet this young man was certainly placed in as narrowing circumstances as could surround a human being. He was poor to the degree of pauperism, he had an incurable disease and he was almost absolutely in the power of tyrants. ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... guarded the ordinary passage of the river. Idumea, Palestine, Phoenicia, and Syria submitted to him, and for three years he remained in undisturbed possession of his conquest. Then, however, the Babylonians, who had received these provinces at the division of the Assyrian Empire, began to bestir themselves. Nebuchadnezzar marched to Carchemish, defeated the army of Neco, recovered all the territory to the border of Egypt, and even ravaged a portion of that country. It is probable that in this expedition he was ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... twinkling tapers that lit the altar where his armor lay piled in a heap, heard again the deep breathing of his companions of the watch sleeping in some empty stall, wrapped each in his cloak, and saw the old chandler bestir himself, and rise and come forward to snuff the candles. At such times he saw again the day growing clearer and clearer through the tall, glazed windows, saw it change to a rosy pink, and then to a broad, ruddy glow that threw a halo of light around Father ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... wail of the locomotive whistle broke rudely through her revery and brought her to a sudden realization that if she didn't bestir herself, Mrs. Wescott would be at the station with ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... "bestir yourselves, and let's make ourselves comfortable.—Toss out our provisions, Peterkin: and here, Ralph, lend a hand to haul up ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... around them began to bestir themselves with the nervous restlessness of pent-up energy. Parker Hitchcock came into the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... rose Robin Hood and shook Friar Tuck by the shoulder. "Come, rouse thee, holy man!" cried he; whereupon, with much grunting, the stout Tuck got to his feet. "Marry, bestir thyself," quoth Robin, "for yonder, in the church door, is one of thy cloth. Go thou and talk to him, and so get thyself into the church, that thou mayst be there when thou art wanted; meantime, Little John, Will Stutely, and I will follow ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... chocolates whenever she could get them, and read novels assiduously all day long and in bed too, might with justice be said to lead a busier life than she did. But, though Hilary often felt vaguely dissatisfied at the way in which she dawdled through the days, she had not strength of mind to bestir herself to pass them otherwise. After all, what was there for her to do? she asked herself irritably. She was supposed to have finished her education, and though she was dimly aware that she was shamefully ignorant, there seemed no especial object ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... seductively among the shadows; anon, the uncertain gleam thrown from a shop-window or a street lamp bestows a fleeting lustre, nearly always deceptive, on the unknown woman, and fires the imagination, carrying it far beyond the truth. The senses then bestir themselves; everything takes color and animation; the woman appears in an altogether novel aspect; her person becomes beautiful. Behold! she is not a woman, she is a demon, a siren, who is drawing you by magnetic attraction to some respectable house, where the worthy bourgeoise, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... this an error; and refused by the Master Monstruwacan; for it was not meet that we put the souls of those Youths in peril, until such time as we had certainty that they should be lost if we did not bestir ourselves. For, indeed, this Home-Call was as a mighty Voice, calling over the world, and did have so exceeding a noise, that it had immediately told all that Land how that some were yet abroad from the Great Redoubt. ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... turned aside to address his men. "Two of you outside, guard that window," he ordered. "The rest of you, in the passage. Bestir there!" ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... to herself that morning in the brief moment she could snatch for her toilet, welcomed the cool and quiet little Mrs. Arles, who might be forty, but looked any age between twenty and thirty, with affectionate warmth, and made all the world bestir themselves for her comfort. It is only justice to the owner of the little Andalusian foot to say that in her specific domain things immediately changed for the better. But that was merely within-doors, and because she tightened the reins and used the whip in a manner which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... otherwise with us, where life presents us with a daily problem, and there is a serious interest, and some of the heat of conflict, in the mere continuing to be. So, in certain atolls, where there is no great gaiety, but man must bestir himself with some vigour for his daily bread, public health and the population are maintained; but in the lotos islands, with the decay of pleasures, life itself decays. It is from this point of view that we may instance, among other causes of depression, the decay of war. We have been ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said Mr Marline, who was the first to bestir himself, "do you think there's any prospect of our ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... thou not then bestir thyself to cast fetters about this wretch, that the Sire may not ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... my lads! Are we to sit guzzling here all day? Time flees, and there's a deal to be done if we are to make our entry into Guichen at noon. Go, get you dressed. We strike camp in twenty minutes. Bestir, ladies! To your chaise, and see that you contrive to look your best. Soon the eyes of Guichen will be upon you, and the condition of your interior to-morrow will depend upon the impression made by your exterior to-day. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... fine summer morning, somewhere about four o'clock, when I wakened from my night's rest, and was about thinking to bestir myself, that I heard the sound of voices in the kail-yard stretching south from our back windows. I listened—and I listened—and I better listened—and still the sound of the argle-bargling became more distinct, now in ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... you to bestir yourself," he went on. "I give you four months. After the first of the year you can't stay here unless you pay ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... an actor after his fashion. He rushed about to try to deaden his senses. But whereas most people only bestir themselves for selfish reasons, he was restlessly active in procuring the happiness of others. His devotion to Christophe was both touching and a bore. Christophe would snub him and then immediately be sorry for it. But Mooch never bore him any ill-will. Nothing abashed him. ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... slug, on that a butterfly. Nay, he who hooked the salmo pendent here, Also exhibited, this same May-month, 'Foxgloves: a study'—so inspires the scene, The air, which now the younger personage Inflates him with till lungs o'erfraught are fain Sigh forth a satisfaction might bestir Even those tufts of tree-tops to the South I' the distance where the green dies off to grey, Which, easy of conjecture, front the Place; He eyes them, elbows wide, each hand to cheek. His fellow, the much older—either say A youngish-old man or man oldish-young— Sits at the table: wicks are noisome-deep ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... But to bestir himself was better than to make verses; and indeed of all the labors for a livelihood in which a man may cultivate verse, that of literature is the last he should choose. Compare the literary efforts of Burns with the songs he wrote ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... private households, dangled before him the baits for which he was greedy: the luxuries of Nero's Court, the marriages he could make, the adulteries he could commit, and all the other imperial pleasures. They were his, they pointed out, if he would bestir himself; it was shameful to lie quiet and leave them to others. He was also incited by the astrologers, who declared that their study of the stars pointed to great changes and a year of glory for Otho. Creatures of this class always deceive the ambitious, though those in power distrust ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... gone away, should evil men Be thy companions, let this Sheep-fold be Thy anchor and thy shield; amid all fear And all temptation, let it be to thee An emblem of the life thy Fathers liv'd, Who, being innocent, did for that cause Bestir them in good deeds. Now, fare thee well— When thou return'st, thou in this place wilt see A work which is not here, a covenant 'Twill be between us—but whatever fate Befall thee, I shall love thee to the last, And bear thy memory with ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... By George, Archie, it occurs to me that you must have left your kit behind you in that absurd drug store at the Harbor! It is just as well that you are no longer encumbered with those playthings. Trust the Governor in future. I'm yearning for a cool grapefruit, so bestir yourself." ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... actually advancing on the bridge, the British condescended to bestir themselves, and some of them began to raise the planks. Upon this, the Americans, who meant to cross, broke into a trot. Mr. Emerson, leaning out of his window, with the light of battle in his eyes, saw three or ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... is going to bestir herself. Only get the thing settled, and the Commune will bind itself to keep you all your life. ...
— Fruits of Culture • Leo Tolstoy
... society has every kind of moral want. The necessity for education exists in a thousand forms; and if the friends of it do not bestir themselves, the enemies will. The friends of the Sunday School Union, in Michigan, feeling impressed with these views, issued a circular this day, making an appeal which deserves a hearty response. Michigan mind appears ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... and others of that Societie" (the Jesuits) "bestir'd themselves here in Conference and Persuasion with the Gentlemen that came to attend his Excellencie[172] and do secretly bragg of their much prevailinge. Two of myne own Followers I have found corrupted, ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... Garrisonism he rose to the dignity of a teacher and a thinker; his opinions on the broader aspects of the great American question were earnestly and incessantly sought, from various points of view, and he must, perforce, bestir himself to give suitable answer. With that prompt and truthful perception which has led their sisters in all ages of the world to gather at the feet and support the hands of reformers, the gentlewomen of England [2] were foremost to encourage and strengthen him to ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... days later Flockart, with clever cunning, seemed to alter his ingenious tactics completely, for suddenly he had commenced to bestir himself in Sir Henry's interests. One morning after breakfast, taking the Baronet by the arm, he led him for a stroll along the drive, down to the lodge-gates, and back, for the purpose, as he explained, of speaking with ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... soundly at Roccaleone," quoth Francesco. "Bestir that knavish garrison of yours, and bid the lazy dogs let down the bridge. I have ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... like to be waiting on you," he said,—"Miss Faith, you ought not to be waiting on me. I shall bestir myself ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... when their captain, in whom they had unbounded faith, told them he had good reason to believe they would have a nasty, and perhaps disastrous, encounter with the pirate ship during which they bid fair to be bested if they did not bestir themselves and ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... bottom of this gulf? Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!" They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread, Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake. Nor did they not perceive the evil plight In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Waved round the coast, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... has its sphere on the deck and in the hollow interior of a ship, where their world has exclusively been. For other pastime, they quarrel among themselves, comrade with comrade, and perhaps shake paralytic fists in furrowed faces. If inclined for a little exercise, they can bestir their wooden legs on the long esplanade that borders by the Thames, criticizing the rig of passing ships, and firing off volleys of malediction at the steamers, which have made the sea another element than that they used to be acquainted with. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... nation, then, bestir themselves. Long ages of oppression unfortunately have rendered them somewhat timid and seemingly afraid of jeopardizing the important interests confided to their care. Let them lift up their eyes and see that the time for timidity ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... the next day to warn us of the General's approach. Of course he came by a fresh road. And now, to avoid the inevitable anti-climax, I will ring down the curtain as the General steps from his car, demoralised reapers bestir themselves into some semblance of activity, and the commander of the ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... understand that the noble young man slaving away at his lessons was not asking for charitable help, but for his rightful due, though the debt was not a legal one; that, correctly speaking, he was not asking for anything, but it was merely his friends who had thought fit to bestir themselves on his behalf. With the cool insolence of a bloated capitalist, secure in his millions, he majestically drew a banknote for fifty roubles from his pocket-book and sent it to the noble young man as ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... there came into the hall an old woman. Utgard-Loke bade her take a wrestle with Asa-Thor. The tale is not long. The result of the grapple was, that the more Thor tightened his grasp, the firmer she stood. Then the woman began to bestir herself, and Thor lost his footing. They had some very hard tussles, and before long Thor was brought down on one knee. Then Utgard-Loke stepped forward, bade them cease the wrestling, and added that Thor did not need to challenge anybody ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... some effort; he had, perhaps, been writing furiously without rest. He could not recollect at the instant what the work had been; it would be delightful to read the pages when he had made up his mind to bestir himself. ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... was a hard season with actors, and as Handy was one of the guild he suffered like the rest of his calling. He was not so fortunate as to have country relatives with whom he might visit and spend a brief vacation down on the old farm, so he had to bestir himself to hit upon some scheme or other to bridge over the so-called dog days. He pondered over the matter, and finally determined to organize a company to work the towns along the Long Island Sound coast. Most men would ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... loath to make the accusation direct, but I must tell you that I never had from Mr. Bryan any acknowledgment of this original cablegram or of the other and even more insistently appealing telegrams I filed in rapid sequence; nor, so far as I have been able to ascertain, did he in the least bestir himself on behalf of Fernbridge Seminary for ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... son. With the best of intentions Wolfgang failed to make his way except as a piano teacher. The father had resorted to the same means of securing the extra sums required, and wrote quite sharply to the son to bestir himself and get something settled ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... nothing that will harm ye: I think there be some bits of wood there that kin be availed of in the way of kindling a fire, and that's what I misses more than anything else, as me mither used to say when she couldn't find the whisky-bottle. Bestir yourself, me laddy, and assist me in getting together ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... is bound to serve the Knight in whose company he finds himself," said d'Aubricour. "Know you not thus much of the laws of chivalry? Come, bestir yourself, that he may be better provided in future. You must present yourself to the Prince to-morrow, ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sun, and keep my clime; My wing is king of the summer-time; My breast to the sun his torch shall hold; And I'll call down through the green and gold 'Time, take thy scythe, reap bliss for me, Bestir ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... been apparent and recognised; yet people were too indolent, and too indifferent to suffering not their own, to bestir themselves about putting an end to them, until at last a benevolent reformer devoted his whole life to effecting the necessary changes. He divided all illnesses into three classes—those affecting the head, the trunk, and the lower limbs—and obtained an enactment that all ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... away. Every other man in the company looked back to where the girl stood in the doorway; he did not. Private Gellatly said, with a shake of the head, as she was lost to view: "Devils bestir me, what a widdy she'll make!" It was understood that Aleck Windsor and Mab Humphrey were to be married on the coming New Year's Day. What connection was there between the words of Sergeant Fones and those of Private ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the work was begun not one was standing of all the trees which had covered the angle of the Amazon and the Nanay. The clearance was complete. Joam Garral had not even had to bestir himself in the demolition of a forest which it would take twenty or thirty years to replace. Not a stick of young or old wood was left to mark the boundary of a future clearing, not even an angle to ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... would soon triumph. But when they witnessed the great victorious onward rush of the Russian army, which for a time manifested such a degree of efficiency as they had never believed to be possible, they began to bestir themselves. From this quarter came the suggestion, very early in the war, as Plechanov and his associates charged in their Manifesto, that the Czar ought to make an early ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... petition read in the United States Senate on February 2, 1837? The booksellers, magazine, periodical and newspaper publishers have before succeeded in defeating one copyright bill. They now bestir themselves again; the United States Senate consigns the petition to the archives; and the piracy goes on as industriously ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... wholly leaving the Neckar and its Conti; having weighty business quite in the other direction,—on the north side of the Mayn, namely; on the Kinzig River, where Bathyani (who has taken D'Ahremberg's command below Frankfurt, and means to bestir himself in another than the D'Ahremberg fashion) is to meet him on a set day. Traun having thus, by strategic suction, pulled the Middle-Rhine Army out of his and Bathyani's way, hopes they two will manage a junction on the Kinzig; after junction they will be a little stronger than Conti, though ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the planter must, and will bestir himself, to meet the ever-increasing demand. To do this with profit to himself, he must study this crop from beginning to end, he must learn the nature of the Peanut plant fully and correctly, and discovering how to increase the yield per acre to its maximum, unravel the secret ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... before I left, I met a man who knew a man then staying at the Riffel Alp. My man was a sapper with whom I had had a very slight acquaintance out in India, but he happened to be one of those good-natured creatures who never hesitate to bestir themselves or their friends to oblige a mere acquaintance: he asked if I had secured rooms, and on learning that I had not, insisted on telegraphing to his friend to do his best for me. I had not hitherto appreciated ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... obliged to do," Mrs. Delvin answered, "if you had remained in London. You must go to Redwood Hall tomorrow, as Emily has arranged it. If Mrs. Rook is not there, you must ask for her address in Scotland. If nobody knows the address, you must still bestir yourself in trying to find it. And, when you do ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... don't know; stay up here, edit a Greek play, or one of the epistles; bestir yourself for some rising university member in a contested election; set yourself to get a bishopric or a deanery; you could easily do it if you tried. I'll give you a receipt for it any day you like. Or go to some London church; with such sermons as you could preach you might have London at your ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... wise; so I remain King-elect till you reach Delgratz. The newspapers are pestering me to declare a program. They all expect that I shall leave Paris to-night or early to-morrow. Indeed, an impudent fellow representing 'Le Soir' says that if I don't bestir myself I shall be christened the Sluggard King. But I shall humbug them finely. Leave that to me. Your portmanteaus have been smuggled out by way of the servants' quarters, and you must vanish unseen. Buy a ticket for Vienna, ignore Stampoff ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... afternoon the expected arrival of the subject of Eustacia's ruminations created a bustle of preparation at Blooms-End. Thomasin had been persuaded by her aunt, and by an instinctive impulse of loyalty towards her cousin Clym, to bestir herself on his account with an alacrity unusual in her during these most sorrowful days of her life. At the time that Eustacia was listening to the rickmakers' conversation on Clym's return, Thomasin was climbing into a loft over her aunt's fuel-house, where the store-apples were kept, to search ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... of the South of England may bestir themselves ere it be too late, and discover that the only defence against want is self-restraint; the only defence against slavery, obedience to rule; and that, instead of giving themselves up, bound hand and foot, by their ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... lose thy soul, it is thou also that must bear the blame. It made Cain stark mad to consider that he had not looked to his brother Abel's soul. How much more will it perplex thee to think that thou hadst not a care of thine own? And if this will not provoke thee to bestir thyself, think again. ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... Germany and Austria, entered into a conditional compact with the Powers of the Entente. In Paris the secret quickly leaked out and was at once communicated to Berlin, whose organized espionage continued to flourish in the French capital. Thereupon Herr Jagow urged Buelow to bestir himself without delay. But the Prince was hard set. On the Italian Cabinet he had lost his hold. It had already crossed the Rubicon and passed over to the Entente. True, the Cabinet was not Italy, was not even the Government of Italy. It was hardly more than a ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... fashion which pervades its beach in the brighter months of August and September. The town looked gray, cold, and forbidding in the bleak October morning, when Ida found herself alone amidst its stoniness, the native population only just beginning to bestir itself in the street above the quay, and making believe, by an inordinate splashing and a frantic vehemence in the use of birch-brooms, to be the cleanest population under the sun; an assertion of superiority somewhat belied by ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... began to bestir itself; and now, if it had been any thing, as he said, but "that 'are flute"—as it was, he looked more than ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... among the nations. The curse of India is her overpopulation and the inability of her people to extract from the earth sufficient means for existence. If I may say so, the ordinary native is a dreamer who prefers to starve on a treasure hoard rather than bestir himself to unbury it. Lack of energy, lack of initiative, lack of opportunity, lack also of guides have made your subjects suffering idlers whose very existence is a curse to themselves and an unsolved problem for others. Charity can not help them—that ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... said Gunnar, "then who am I to strive Against the change of my life-days, while the Gods on high are alive? I shall ride as my heart would have me; let the Gods bestir them then, And raise up another people in the stead of the Niblung men: But at home shalt thou sit, King's Daughter, in the keeping of the Fates, And be blithe with the men of thy people and the guest within thy gates, Till thou know of our glad returning ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... bestir herself if even this small amount of comfort and well-being were to be kept up. Madame's income would not maintain their household even on its present humble footing. Felicita's first book had done well; it had been fairly ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... morning when Dame Alice awoke, it was broad daylight, and she jogged the fisherman with her elbow and said, "Get up, husband, and bestir yourself, for we must be king ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... encouraging the notion that all the truths most important to know are already known, they repress those aspirations, and dull that generous confidence in the future, without which nothing really great can be achieved. A people who regard the past with too wistful an eye will never bestir themselves to help the onward progress. They will hardly believe that progress is possible. To them antiquity is synonymous with wisdom, and every ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... the first grey regiment began to bestir themselves. Fall in—Fall in—Fall in! Edward rose. "Well, we shall see what we shall see. Good-bye, Richard!" The two shook hands warmly; Cary ran to his place in the line; the "Tuckahoe" regiment, cheered by the 65th, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... picture is infinitely dreary. As he travels across the dark sea to the land where the pillars of Atlas are visible far off, towering into the sky, the light decreases. In the murky and dangerous twilight he forces the Graiai, those grey-haired sisters with their miserable fragmentary life, to bestir their aged limbs and guide him to the Gorgons' den. By the dark stream, where the yellow light brooded everlastingly, he reached at last that cave of horrors. Well was it then for Perseus that he ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... after her marriage Cressida had only twenty-five performances at the Metropolitan, and she was singing out of town a great deal. Her husband did not bestir himself to accompany her, but he attended, very faithfully, to her correspondence and to her business at home. He had no ambitious schemes to increase her fortune, and he carried out her directions exactly. Nevertheless, Cressida ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... muttered as he stretched himself. "My blood is evidently thickening. I must bestir myself, or else I shall ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... not be detained in the South against their will. It is unwise for them to devise schemes for importing Chinese, or encouraging the immigration of white labor as a substitute for negro labor, when they may much better bestir themselves to make the present ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Pleeceman 'e says, 'That's right, my fine fellow; you sit at 'ome in your easy-chair,' 'e says, 'snoring o' nights on your feather bed, while the brave chaps as is gone to the front lie on planks o' wood an' eat their soup without so much as a spoon, for the sake o' them who won't bestir ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... "Will you bestir yourself, you boor, and' not keep my horse and saddle out under such a torrent?" he cried, "otherwise I must only bring him into the house, and then you may say for once that you've had the ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... and my aunt-in-law, with whom I am resolved to remain; for I have taken a great displeasure against my husband, Messire Jean de Boulogne; for it is his business to recover for me my heritage, kept from me by the Count of Armagnac, who holds my sister in prison; but he will bestir himself in nothing, for he is a craven knight, fond of his ease, and has no care but to eat and drink, and spends his goods upon idle and sensual enjoyment. And he boasts that when he becomes count he will sell his inheritance in order to satisfy his foolish and childish wishes; for this cause ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... delivered us from the hand of our enemies. And oh! my fellow-countrymen, who read this brief account of my early days, I, now an old man, would urge you, when our beloved country is, as soon she may be, beset with foes, burning with hatred and longing for her destruction, that while you bestir yourselves like men and seize your arms for the desperate conflict, you ever turn to the God of battles, the God of your fathers, the God of Israel of old, and with contrite hearts for our many national ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... play my last card," thought Jaime. "I'll go and see the Popess Juana. I haven't seen her for many years, but she is my aunt, my nearest relative. In justice, I ought to be her heir. Ah, if only that idea would occur to her! If she would only bestir herself all my troubles would ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... settled himself, and when the world had begun to recognise the fact that the Marquis, with his Italian Marchioness, and his little Italian, so-called Popenjoy, were living at Manor Cross, then,—if he saw his way,—the Dean would bestir himself. ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... desolated, and for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith,—and because that the Knights and Brethren of the said Order of Christ against the said Moors and other enemies of the Faith have waged war with the Grace of God, under the banner of the said Order,—and to the intent that they may bestir themselves to the said war with yet greater fervour, we do to each and all of those engaged in the said war, by Apostolic authority and by these letters, grant full remission of all those sins of which they shall be truly penitent at heart and of which they have made confession by their mouth. ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... five minutes if you'll only bestir yourself. The wits say that there's no need for George to furnish the town with a new queen as I have ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... Tiresias, 'bestir thyself, I beseech thee. I have brought thee a Queen. Guide her Majesty, I entreat thee, with safety through this ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... as it first began. This worthy Phoebus doeth all he can To please his wife, in hope, so pleasing her, That she, for her part, would herself bestir Discreetly, so as not to lose his grace; But, Lord he knows, there's no man shall embrace A thing so close, as to restrain what Nature Hath naturally set ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... when ye like, will ye? and do nout but what pleases yourselves, won't you? And who'rt thou? Dost 'eer—who are ye, I say; and what the deil seek ye in the woods here? Come, bestir thee!' ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... indeed necessary that he should bestir himself; for, a few days after his arrival, he learned that, on the other side of the Pale, all was ready for action. The greater part of the English force was collected, before the close of May, in the neighbourhood ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to say that Carew made the most pointed inquiries as to whether I had any other profession than that of landscape-painting. Would it not be strangely comical if he should bestir himself to get me some Civil appointment! I almost fancied he must have been thinking of doing so, from some scraps of talk I heard him let fall at dinner. Curiously enough, by-the-by, who should have ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... already on the way out of the first and worst phase. When reason began to bestir itself, I appeared each week in great open meetings in London; and when the newspapers discovered that I was not only not being torn to pieces, but that I was growing better and better liked, then the feeling ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... of flotsam and jetsam cast upon the not too hospitable shore of civilization after the great storm had lashed the Southern sea to frenzy and the ship of slavery had gone to pieces forever. Possibly he is a good deal more human than he looks, and if he chose to bestir himself and to address himself to articulate discourse, could tell you a great many things about his wants and wishes, his views and feelings on things in general which, to you, might prove little more than amazing. As things go, he prefers to do nothing and to proffer no kind of explanation ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... children," I replied, "we must not despair, although we seem deserted. Only let us bestir ourselves, and each cheerily do his best. Who has ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... saints can never inherit the earth in peace. Should I be honoured as an instrument to begin this great work of purification, I should rejoice in it. But, then, where had I the means, or under what direction was I to begin? There was one thing clear, I was now the Lord's and it behoved me to bestir myself in His service. Oh that I had an host at my command, then would I be as a devouring fire among ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... village, when all its inhabitants mow a field belonging to the commune, or farmed by it. There you will see what man can produce when he works in common for communal production. Comrades vie with one another in cutting the widest swathe, women bestir themselves in their wake so as not to be distanced by the mowers. It is a festival of labour, in which a hundred people accomplish in a few hours a work that would not have been finished in a few days had they worked separately. What a miserable contrast ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... man speaks floridly," he reflected, "yet his words contain a certain element of truth." After a moment's silence he added to Platon: "I am beginning to think that the tour might help you to bestir yourself. At present you are in a condition of mental slumber. You have fallen asleep, not so much from weariness or satiety, as through a lack of vivid perceptions and impressions. For myself, I am your complete antithesis. I should be only ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Anson's gang did not bestir themselves at the usual early sunrise hour common to all woodsmen, hunters, or outlaws, to whom the break of day was welcome. These companions—Anson and Riggs included—might have hated to see the dawn come. It meant only another meager ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... Murillo, cost $125,000. Russia is following in the same path. Italy, Greece, and Egypt, by stringent regulations, are making it yearly more difficult for any precious work to leave their shores. If, therefore, America is ever to follow in the same path, she must soon bestir herself, or she will have nothing but barren ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... singularly unambitious man. Loving the outdoor life and being sufficiently resourceful to live alone in a wilderness cabin without becoming morbid, he had naturally drifted into the Forest Service. Without being slothful, he had been foolishly unaspiring, and he saw that now. "I must bestir myself," he said, sharply. "I must wake up. I must ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... Charles's verse much semi-ironical regret for other days, and resignation to growing infirmities. He who had been "nourished in the schools of love" now sees nothing either to please or displease him. Old age has imprisoned him within doors, where he means to take his ease, and let younger fellows bestir themselves in life. He had written (in earlier days, we may presume) a bright and defiant little poem in praise of solitude. If they would but leave him alone with his own thoughts and happy recollections, he declared it was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... placed before the reformers of Great Britain, what assistance, what sympathy, do we receive? Why, I have got some half dozen drivelling letters from political unions and political characters, asking me whether I advise them to petition or bestir themselves in our behalf! ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... nations bestir themselves, and come up to the Valley of 'Jehoshaphat': for there will I 'sit to judge' ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... remembrance; and, with little disguise, a new opposite Commandment, Thou shalt steal, is everywhere promulgated,—it perhaps behooved, in this universal dotage and deliration, the sound portion of mankind to bestir themselves and rally. When the widest and wildest violations of that divine right of Property, the only divine right now extant or conceivable, are sanctioned and recommended by a vicious Press, and the world has lived to hear it asserted ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... other. He must indeed present himself beneath the roof of a man whom he could not regard as a "good citizen," and must thus seem to approve his host's improper composition, now imminent, with the powers that be; but he should bestir himself to withstand the pressure exerted by Giles, by Medora herself, by Bond, by mischievous Clytie Summers, by the whole idle horde of studio loungers to force him into such an atmosphere of frivolity, license and dissipation as could ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... store with a sack of provisions over his shoulder he grumbled his way across the dumps to Scipio's house. He cursed the weight he was forced to carry, and anathematized the man who had driven him to so bestir himself. He lamented over this waste of his precious energies, he consigned Scipio and his children to eternity, and metaphorically hurled Jessie headlong to the depths of the uttermost abyss of the nether-world. But he went on. In spite of his foulest language and vilest epithets, ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... often looking from the paper and gazing on the stranger who had delivered it, as if he meant to read the purport of the missive in the face of the messenger. Julian at length called to the female,—"Catherine, bestir thee, and fetch me presently that letter which I bade thee keep ready at hand in thy casket, having no sure lockfast place ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... him here in the beautiful church where he had first seen her face. Yet, as he stood looking down the marvellous perspectives of the great sanctuary, only dimly seen in the veiled and brooding light, he felt that the time was past for idle musings, that it behooved him to bestir himself, to get out into the ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... Beaton, was tried for heresy, and, without sentence of a secular judge, it is said, was burned at St. Andrews, displaying serene courage, and hoping to be the last martyr in Scotland. Naturally there was much indignation; if the Lords and others were to keep their Band they must bestir themselves. They did bestir themselves in defence of their favourite preachers—Willock, Harlaw, Methuen; a ci-devant friar, Christison; and Douglas. Some of these men were summoned several times throughout 1558, and ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... and held to be devoid of all intelligence and truth. Even so I solemnly declare that the religion now preached in our Danish church is not Christianity, is nothing but a tissue of deception and falsehood, and that unless Danish pastors bestir themselves and fight for the restoration of God's word and the Christian faith there will soon be no Christian church ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... Errol floated happily away upon a voyage of day-dreams that lasted till the car stopped. So engrossed was she that she did not move for a moment even then. Not until the door was opened from outside did she bestir herself. Then, still smiling, she ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... what they will bring with them will be concern enough of ours. Would it not be our concern if there was small- pox, scarlet fever, cholera among them? Should we not fear lest that might hurt us? Would you not bestir yourselves then? And do you not know that it is among such people as these that pestilence is always bred? And if not, is not the pestilence of the soul more subtle and more contagious than any pestilence of ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... Gods were misapplied: and the whole of their theology grew more and more corrupted; so that very few traces of the original were to be discovered. In short, almost every term was misconstrued, and abused. This[520] aera of darkness was of long duration: at last the Asiatic Greeks began to bestir themselves. They had a greater correspondence than the Helladians: and they were led to exert their talents from examples in Syria, Egypt, and other countries. The specimens, which they exhibited of their genius were amazing: and have been justly esteemed a standard for ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... steamers one of the latter had been sunk, thus reducing their total to four. But there were none of the warrior tribes of Kordofan and Darfour at any of these places, or nearer than the six camps which had been established round Khartoum. The news of the English advance made the Mahdi bestir himself, and as it was known that the garrison of Omdurman was reduced to the lowest straits, and could not hold out many days, the Mahdi despatched some of his best warriors of the Jaalin, Degheim, and ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Christmas morning. Ten o'clock had struck before Madame Descoings began to bestir herself about the breakfast, which was only ready at half-past eleven. At that hour, the oblong frames containing the winning numbers are hung over the doors of the lottery-offices. If Madame Descoings ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Here follows my hypothesis. There is in the history of every art (and for brevity's sake, I include in this term every distinct category, say, renaissance sculpture as distinguished from antique, of the same art) a moment when, for one reason or other, that art begins to come to the fore, to bestir itself. The circumstances of the nation and time make this art materially advantageous or spiritually attractive; the opening up of quarries, the discovery of metallic alloys, the necessity of roofing larger spaces, the demand for a sedentary amusement, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... whose course the earth hath bent and bowed her, Beneath whose course the (kine) behoofed bestir them, Beneath whose course the plants stand multifarious, He—thou, Parjanya—grant us great protection! Bestow Dyaus' rain upon us, O ye Maruts! Make thick the stream that comes from that strong stallion! With this thy thunder come thou onward, hither, Thy waters pouring, a spirit ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... around him, on the shelves and in the cases, were the books he loved so well. Ah, who shall say that on that morning his fancy was not verified, and that as the gray light came reverently through the window, those cherished volumes did not bestir themselves, awaiting the cheery voice: "Good day to you, my sweet friends. How lovingly they beam upon me, and how glad they are that ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... too," added Sancho, "for I never in my life heard of a lacemaker that died for love; for your damsels that bestir themselves at some honest labor think more of their work than of their sweethearts. I know it by myself; when I am digging, I never think of my Teresa, though, God bless her! I love her more than my ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... to bestir themselves, and to ask whether there was no one to take care of the old man, who might die from age and none near. Where were his own friends and relations? One strong son had enlisted and gone to India, and though his time ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies |
