"Threaten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... joining in their exercises and games, as if they had not been his keepers, but his guards. He wrote verses and speeches, and made them his auditors, and those who did not admire them, he called to their faces illiterate and barbarous, and would often, in raillery, threaten to hang them. They were greatly taken with this, and attributed his free talking to a kind of simplicity and boyish playfulness. As soon as his ransom was come from Miletus, he paid it, and was discharged, and proceeded at once to man ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... to sanity; but on the other hand if there is {302} anything which human history demonstrates, it is the extreme slowness with which the ordinary academic and critical mind acknowledges facts to exist which present themselves as wild facts, with no stall or pigeon-hole, or as facts which threaten to break up the accepted system. In psychology, physiology, and medicine, wherever a debate between the mystics and the scientifics has been once for all decided, it is the mystics who have usually proved to be right about the facts, while the ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... clams and, after stuffing them with peanuts, fry them over a slow fire. Now remove the necks from the clams and add baking soda. Let them sizzle. Take the juice of a lemon and threaten the clams with it. Serve hot with pink finger-bowls with your initials on them. Some people prefer to have their initials on the clams, but such an idea is only for ...
— Skiddoo! • Hugh McHugh
... use to me; but perhaps he serves us best at a distance. All I ask is that he shall not risk himself too near Father Ignazio's talons, for he would be a pretty morsel to throw to the Holy Office, and the weak point of such a man's position is that, however dangerous in life, he can threaten no one from ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... "Threaten them with the pistols if they don't get out of the way," the sergeant proposed. "They are jamming us ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... know already that I am going to sea? Do my thoughts crawl around on my forehead, that you can read them so easily? Or did the old man fly into a passion in his old way and threaten to shut me out of the house? Bah! That would be very much the same thing as if the jailer had sworn to me: You shall not stay in prison any longer—I am going to shove you ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... customary services, and forced work on all who had no income in land, or were not otherwise engaged. The lord on whose manor the tenant had heretofore dwelt had preferential claim to his labour, and could threaten with imprisonment every refractory villein. Within two years a statute had been enacted by Parliament which was far more detailed in its operation, fixing wages at the rate they had been in the twentieth year of the King's reign ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... to my lady your wife's conduct; threaten to part with her. My lady loves her, and will come to any composition to save her reputation. Take the opportunity of breaking it just upon the discovery of this imposture. My lady will be enraged beyond bounds, and sacrifice niece, and fortune and ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... the prey approach that he wishes to destroy? What was it that made him press his lips so tightly, one against the other, as if he would repress a cry of agony, or an execration? And why does he listen now with bated breath, his gaze fixed upon the hut, and both hands raised, as if to threaten an approaching enemy? Suddenly he sprang up, and rushed trembling to the door, and, while in the act of bursting it open, he fell back, pale as death, as if his foot had trodden upon a poisonous serpent. Thus retreating, with wildly staring eyes, with half-open lips, which seemed stiffened ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... industrial liberty of the citizens of these states. It is to arm the federal courts within the limits of their constitutional power, that they may co-operate with the state courts in checking, curbing, and controlling the most dangerous combinations that now threaten the business, property, and trade of the people of the United States. And for one I do not intend to be turned from this course by finespun constitutional quibbles or by the plausible pretexts of associated or ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... below the town. At the time of Chesney's survey of the Euphrates in 1838 this canal was still navigable for craft of some size. At present it serves no other purpose than to increase the floods which periodically turn Bagdad into an island city, and sometimes threaten to overwhelm the dikes which protect it and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... has been, like myself, deceived as to the real motive of your intentions; we have believed, and we have been wrong in so believing, that you were capable of abusing the name which you have taken. In order to escape a fresh danger with which you seemed to threaten us, it became necessary to attempt a means, very uncertain, doubtless, but which might succeed. I could not escape—that would be only to meet you. I gave the necessary orders, then, that you should be introduced ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... fever of the small-pox, when the tumor of the face subsides. This new swelling in the parotitis mutabilis is liable to affect the testes in men, and form a painful tumor, which should be prevented from suppuration by very cautious means, if the violence of the pain threaten such a termination; as by bathing the part with coldish water for a time, venesection, a cathartic; or by a blister on the perinaeum, or scrotum, or ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... encroachment which his successful generalship had brought to naught. The French, he says, had planned a military and naval depot at Los Martires, whence they would make a descent upon Havana, and another at the Bay of Ponce de Leon, whence they could threaten Vera Cruz. They had long been encroaching on Spanish rights at Newfoundland, from which a great arm of the sea—doubtless meaning the St. Lawrence—would give them access to the Moluccas and other parts of the East Indies. He adds, in a later despatch, that by this passage they ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... me she was dying?" he said. "I ask you that question: why do you not answer me? Oh, by the way, you threaten me with your vengeance. Know you not that I long to meet you front to front, and to the death? Did I not tell you so—did I not try to move your slow blood—to insult you into a conflict in which I should have gloried? ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... kind, must needs be the monstrous dwarf, or one of his kin; and the flesh crept upon Walter's bones with the horror of him. But the King's Son spoke unto the Maid: "Sweetling, I shall take the gift thou givest me, neither shall I threaten thee any more, howbeit thou givest it not very gladly ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... straight and turned his head aside, Where seeing pale-faced Death, aloud he cried], Lean famished slave! why do you threaten so, Whence come you, pray, and whither must ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... and Ferrara, prepared to take a stand against enemies within or without, in Italy or outside. Ludovico Sforza, who was more than anyone else interested in maintaining this league, because he was nearest to France, whence the storm seemed to threaten, saw in the new pope's election means not only of strengthening the league, but of making its power and unity conspicuous in the sight ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... remnant was driven upon the coast of Africa, but nothing could be saved which could be made available for the purpose intended. As for Cassius's intended expedition to Egypt, it was not carried into effect. The dangers which began now to threaten him from the direction of Italy and Rome were so imminent, that, at Brutus's urgent request, he gave up the Egyptian plan, and the two generals concentrated their forces to meet the armies of the triumvirate which were now rapidly advancing ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... you like me to tell you the reason why These sixteen Specials kept letting fly From eleven till one, as the Chronicle speaks? They did it, my boys, to annoy the Greeks, Who kept up a perpetual cannonade On the walls, and threaten'd an escalade. The sixteen Specials were so arranged That the shots they shot were not shots exchanged, But every shot so told on the foe The Greeks were obliged to draw it mild: Diomedes—"A fix," Ulysses—"No go" ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... You may reply that any savage can do the same thing. Yes, but any civilized man cannot; and the Japanese has been a highly civilized man for at least a thousand years. Hence his present capacity to threaten Western manufacturers. ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... death and the introduction to another life.[584] But the passages give the sense of an actual attack on the waves—living things which men might terrify, and perhaps with this was combined the belief that no one could die during a rising tide. Similarly French fishermen threaten to cut a fog in two with a knife, while the legend of S. Lunaire tells how he threw a knife at a fog, thus causing its disappearance.[585] Fighting the waves is also referred to in Irish texts. Thus Tuirbe Tragmar would "hurl a cast of his ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... was breaking out with violence; one of those terrible storms seen only in the South, when the congregated clouds, parting suddenly, shed torrents of rain and of hail, and threaten another deluge. The roar of the thunder drew nearer and was like the noise of a cannonade. The gulf, lately so calm and smooth that the island was reflected as in a mirror, had suddenly darkened; the furiously leaping waves flung themselves ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of no use talking like that," the Jew said quietly. "We are useful to each other. I have saved your life from the gibbet, you have done the work I required. Between us, it is worse than childish to threaten in the present matter. I do not doubt that you will do your business well, and you know that you will be well paid for it; what can either of ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... understand that it is your intention to threaten to go to law, unless Oceana gives us ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... some volatile element that could, one feels, have escaped through the bars and sung above the ground. Donne and Swift were morbid men suffering from claustrophobia. They were pent and imprisoned spirits, hating the walls that seemed to threaten to close in on them and crush them. In his poems and letters Donne is haunted especially by three images—the hospital, the prison, and the grave. Disease, I think, preyed on his mind even more terrifyingly than warped ambition. "Put all the miseries that man is subject to together," ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... the government must deal with high rates of unemployment and poverty. Unemployment officially is 21%, but unofficial estimates place it closer to 40%. HIV/AIDS infection rates are the highest in the world and threaten Botswana's impressive economic gains. Long-term prospects are overshadowed by the prospects of a leveling off in diamond ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... in the event of any one of the watchers falling overboard. On the banks of the river, cedar groves are frequently seen. Florida supplies the world with the wood required for lead pencils, and the inroads made into her cedar forests for this purpose threaten to eventually rob the State of one of its most unique features. Cypress, a wood which is just beginning to be appreciated at its true worth, is also abundant in this vicinity, and many of the much talked-of cypress swamps ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... gets the longer rope and makes it fast. You straighten up and look at your hands. They are ruined. You can scarcely relax the crooks of the fingers. The pain is sickening. But there is no time. The skiff, which is always perverse, is pounding against the barnacles on the piles which threaten to scrape its gunwale off. It's drop the peak! Down jib! Then you run lines, and pull and haul and heave, and exchange unpleasant remarks with the bridge-tender who is always willing to meet you more than half way in such repartee. And finally, at the end of an hour, with ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... she lived until quite recently, did this pure-minded creature devote herself to what she believed to be the eternal welfare of the man who had so interwoven himself with her virgin affections as to threaten, at one time, to disturb the just ascendency of the dread ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the chapel of the priory of Saint-Michel, or the fortifications, in which the marquis of Villars withstood the attacks of Henry IVth; nothing of them remains at the present day, except two remnants of a wall, which threaten to fall on the traveller, who is imprudent enough to approach ...
— Rouen, It's History and Monuments - A Guide to Strangers • Theodore Licquet
... on Joe's fears, so to trade on his affections for his mother and his early home, and if necessary, so to threaten to deliver him up to his old master, who could punish him for running away, that Joe himself, to set himself free, would part with Cecile's ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... has happened to Jake!" and Mrs. Conklin sank weakly into the nearest chair; "but thar ain't no swimmin' nor skatin' now. When he comes in I'll frighten him; I'll threaten to tell the Elder. He mustn't miss his schoolin', for he's real bright, ain't he?—Loo? Her father sent her to the Morrises, about somethin'—I don't ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... the Palace!" he repeated; "Why? What for? To do her harm? To make her miserable? To insult and threaten her? No, she shall ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently timed, Mahomet like, to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar. Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed to threaten, on the decease of a leader and the choice of a new one (for elections among ruffians could not be very orderly) induced many at first to favour hereditary pretensions; by which means it happened, as it hath happened since, that what at first was ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... should have to be fought in the streets of their capital. The municipality certainly took no part in the earlier massacres, whatever they may have done later. Tavannes complains of the "want of zeal" in some of the citizens, and Brantome admits that "it was necessary to threaten to hang ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... matter is as wonderful and mysterious in its character as spirit. Further we must note that the researches of Einstein, culminating in the formulation of his general Theory of Relativity and his special Theory of Gravitation, which are arousing such interest at the present time, threaten very seriously the older static views of the universe and seem to frustrate any efforts to find and denote any stability therein.[Footnote: Consult on this Dr. Einstein's own work of which the translation by R. W. Lawson is just published: ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... Olson. Either to me or to the Chief at headquarters. You've become a live suspect. Figure it out yourself. You threaten Cunningham by mail. You make threats before people orally. You come to Denver an' take a room in the next house to where he lives. On the night he's killed, by your own admission, you stand on the platform a few feet ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... Ross gazed at him with a face of despair. His misfortunes were accumulating; he had a sense of nightmare and oppression. Surely this hideous thing could not be true! no such disgrace could threaten him and his! If an earthquake had opened in the Woodcote grounds, he could not ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... ecclesiastics had shown themselves uniformly so little capable of distinguishing between right and wrong when the interests of religion were at stake, that the jealousy, once aroused, could not be checked. The irritation became so hot and so general as to threaten again the most dangerous consequences; and Paget, pretending to be alarmed at the excitement which he had raised, urged Renard to use his influence with the queen to ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... must have felt the full force of Carbajal's admonition, when too late to profit by it. The unfortunate commander was in the situation of some bold, high-mettled cavalier, rushing to battle on a war-horse whose tottering joints threaten to give way under him at every step, and leave his rider to the mercy of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears, by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens, careful of their safety, against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... weapons the submarine was brought earlier to a state of war efficiency, and because it seemed to threaten the security of our island and the power of our navy, it excited the greater apprehension. But the navigation of the air, whether by airship or aeroplane, is now recognized for the more formidable novelty. The progress ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... us, an aboriginal Catholic population, a priest in the house, and a chapel within 100 yards. We hope Badeley may turn up to-day, but are in doubt whether he will be as happy here as in Paper Buildings. The first necessaries of life sometimes threaten to fail us, and we have to lay in stores as if we were going on a sea voyage. At this moment we are in doubt about a cargo of flour from Glasgow, and our coal-ship has been long due. What Badeley will say to oat-cakes and turf fires remains ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... and in a louder and ever louder voice he continued: "Ah! you prate of the scandal that would be created by my resistance to your demands. That's your system; but, with me, it won't succeed. You threaten me with a law-suit; very good. I'll take it upon myself to enlighten Paris, for I know your secrets, Mr. Dressmaker. I know the goings on in your establishment. It isn't always to talk about dress that ladies stop at your place on returning from the Bois. You sell silks and satins no doubt; but you ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... More than that, he had cut down an alder, leaving some three or four sharp prongs over which he had spread her blankets. She would have been as comfortable on the teeth of a hay-rake, and had not even dozed in consequence. With her own ears she had heard "Red" McGonnigle threaten to "fix" her, and he had done it. If he was not discharged she would return to Prouty at the first opportunity. This ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... movements seem to be rapidly communicated to them, while theirs come to us slowly and indistinctly. I have two regiments here, with others coming up. I think we shall shut up this road to the Central Railroad which they strongly threaten. Our supplies come up slowly. We have plenty of beef and can get some bread. I hope you are well and are content. I have heard nothing of you or the children since I left Richmond. You must write there.... The men are suffering from the measles, etc., as elsewhere, ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... She had spoken truly when she had hinted how she was averse to the company of her own thoughts. It was then that clouds seemed disposed to threaten the ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... politicians who throttle commerce at its neck, and threaten to confiscate trust-money, say that when the war is over, and the South is subdued, then the turn of the old country will come, and a direful retribution shall be taken for our conduct. This has been the cry all through ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for dramatics, Captain Kidd." I raised my voice so that all might hear plainly. "You threaten to torture me. You forget that this is the year 1913. The inquisition is a memory. You are not in Russia now. American sailors—even mutineers—will draw the line ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... cockade, and in issuing proclamations in which the Union was dissolved and religious liberty promised. One thing the young Prince could not be induced to do: none of the arguments of his counsellors could prevail upon him to threaten severe measures against the prisoners fallen into his hands. It was urged that unless the government treated their prisoners as prisoners of war and not as rebels, the Prince would be well advised to retaliate by equal harshness to the captives in his power. But on this point the Prince ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the second part of the performance, was a dreadful mistake. It was not only unsatisfactory in result, but—and no doubt this was the reason—it was so mismanaged as to threaten more than once to eventuate in a riot. Twelve or fourteen persons were to form a committee representing the audience, and to sit in a circle, with the Indescribable Phenomenon in their centre, while we remained below in Egyptian darkness and received their report. Of course we all felt ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... thus formed, was ready to turn his attention to the lower Shenandoah Valley. At Early's suggestion General Lee authorized him to move north at an opportune moment, cross the upper Potomac into Maryland and threaten Washington. Indeed, General Lee had foreshadowed such a course when Early started toward Lynchburg for the purpose of relieving the pressure in front of Petersburg, but was in some doubt as to the practicability of the movement later, till persuaded to it by the representations of Early after ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... a gulp, 'I think, perhaps—they might.' It was obvious the admission had cost her something. We were all dumfounded. The Family Egotist forgot his burning desire for speech and ceased to threaten his wineglass; the Gentle Lady was quite excited; the Weary Roue became almost alert, and the Good Stockbroker looked as if he were about to ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... pirates to prey upon our commerce, a concerted movement to blot out the United States of America from the map of the globe. The question is, Are we to maintain the country of our fathers, or allow it to be stricken down by those who, when they can no longer govern, threaten to destroy? ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... life may last," said I, "I know not; This know, how soon soever I return, My wishes will before me have arriv'd. Sithence the place, where I am set to live, Is, day by day, more scoop'd of all its good, And dismal ruin seems to threaten it." ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... right. The Harper girl was, among other mountain women, like a moon among stars. Her local admirers might hate and threaten one another, but against an intruder from elsewhere they would unite as allies. Such a prize would be fought for, murdered for if need be—but one ray of encouragement played among the clouds. Any lover ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... here flowed so fast as to threaten the interruption of her narrative. When she resumed it, it was with a ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... securities, and had procured advances thereon, were compelled to pay up or substitute increased collaterals. Our own house was not a borrower in New York at all, but many of our Western correspondents were, and it taxed my tune to watch their interests. In September, the panic extended so as to threaten the safety of even some of the New York banks not connected with the West; and the alarm became general, and ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... smile, John grew dyspeptic after a course of dainty dishes and ungratefully demanded plain fare. As for buttons, she soon learned to wonder where they went, to shake her head over the carelessness of men, and to threaten to make him sew them on himself, and see if his work would stand impatient and clumsy ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... admitted, must be based, not upon national selfishness, but upon the principle of the good of humanity; and there can be no doubt that the good of humanity demands that every nation protect its people and its institutions from elements which may seriously threaten their stability and survival. The arguments in favor of further restrictions upon the immigration into this country may be ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... for many homilies! "My views," he wrote, "concerning the dangers of patronage or appointments for personal or partisan considerations have been strengthened by my observation and experience in the executive office, and I believe these dangers threaten the stability of ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... them all; I have read their hopes through their feigned rage; I know that they tremble while they threaten. I know that even now they are ready to make their peace by giving me up; but it is my part to sustain them and to decide the King. I must do it, for Marie is my betrothed, and my death is written at Narbonne. It is voluntarily, ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... the flower!" said the old woman, "but place yourself here, and when Death comes,—I expect him every moment,—do not let him pluck the flower up, but threaten him that you will do the same with the others. Then he will be afraid! he is responsible for them to Our Lord, and no one dares to pluck them up ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... facilitated the great invasion of Vandals, Suevi and Alani into Gaul, by which that province and Spain were lost to the empire. We next hear of Alaric as the friend and ally of his late opponent Stilicho. The estrangement between the eastern and western courts had in 407 become so bitter as to threaten civil war, and Stilicho was actually proposing to use the arms of Alaric in order to enforce the claims of Honorius to the prefecture of Illyricum. The death of Arcadius in May 408 caused milder counsels to prevail in the western cabinet, but Alaric, who had actually entered Epirus, demanded ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... brown lady with oblique eyes and a fan, all day long; just so long will the bulldog snarl, the flaxen-haired maiden look sulky, the chin-whisker become stiffer and more provocative, and the fluttering fan seem to threaten blows. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... compositions of another kind. The prophets wrote in an era of decrepitude, dissolution, sin, and shame, when the glory of Israel was falling round them into ruin, and their mission, glowing as they were with the ancient spirit, was to rebuke, to warn, to threaten, and to promise. Finding themselves too late to save, and only, like Cassandra, despised and disregarded, their voices rise up singing the swan song of a dying people, now falling away in the wild wailing of despondency over the shameful and desperate present, now swelling in triumphant hope ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... point. And he proceeds to try to minimize or overcome the difficulties, the dangers. He struggles now gently, now earnestly, now violently—but always toward his fixed objective. He is driven back, to one side, is almost overwhelmed. He causes commotions that threaten to engulf him, and must pause or retreat until they have calmed. You may have to watch him long before you discover that, where other strugglers have been aimless, he aims and resolves. And little by little he gains, makes progress ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... setting out For the same destination: impatient, no doubt! Here some commonplace compliments as to "the marriage Through his speech trickled softly, like honey: his carriage Was ready. A storm seem'd to threaten the weather; If his young friend agreed, why not travel together? With a footstep uncertain and restless, a frown Of perplexity, during this speech, up and down Alfred Vargrave was striding; but, after a pause And a slight hesitation, the which ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... not have them coming here: I've told them so at Headquarters. The Service Battalions simply must be led by the officers who have trained them if they are to have a Chinaman's chance when we go out. I shall threaten to resign if they try any more of their tricks. That'll frighten 'em! Even dug-outs like me are rare and valuable ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... into a partisan weapon—politicians being ready, in Geneva, as in San Francisco, to take advantage of the law for party purposes. For example, the representatives of a minority party, seeking a concession from a majority which has just passed a bill, will threaten, if their demands are not granted, to agitate for the Referendum on the bill; this, though the minority itself may favor the measure, some of its members, perhaps, having voted for it. As the majority may be uncertain ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... her head. "You threaten me, sir, with your displeasure? If there are clouds between us, see that they disperse from your own brow, and show me the face of a loyal subject and a respectful son. I will not consent to this visit to the King of Prussia; the very thought ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... north-western Europe, had crossed the Channel in the year 55 B.C. and had conquered England. During four centuries the country then remained a Roman province. But when the Barbarians began to threaten Rome, the garrisons were called back from the frontier that they might defend the home country and Britannia was left without ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... and daughters, and several others following the Indian to his wigwams. Had these people put themselves under our protection, and the men aided us in defence, we might have laughed defiance at the five score of the enemy who threaten." ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... prospect of the life to come [Footnote: We'd jump the life to come.], clinging with growing anxiety to his earthly existence the more miserable it becomes, and pitilessly removing out of the way whatever to his dark and suspicious mind seems to threaten danger. However much we may abhor his actions, we cannot altogether refuse to compassionate the state of his mind; we lament the ruin of so many noble qualities, and even in his last defence we are compelled to admire the struggle ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... and for his men, to make allowances for them, and to keep his temper with them, as he did this day. True, he had seen Drake in a rage; he had seen him hang one man for a mutiny (and that man his dearest friend), and threaten to hang thirty more; but Amyas remembered well that that explosion took place when having, as Drake said publicly himself, "taken in hand that I know not in the world how to go through with; it passeth my capacity; it hath even bereaved ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... it, Craig," I confessed, "but here one day they give the news to the papers, and two days later they almost threaten us with suit if we don't ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... your children from a lion with a pen-knife, foretells enemies will threaten to overpower you, and will well nigh succeed if you allow any artfulness to persuade you for a moment from duty ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... are uncourteous so to rebuke me as ye do, for meseemeth I have done you good service, and ever ye threaten me I shall be beaten with knights that we meet, but ever for all your boast they lie in the dust or in the mire, and therefore I pray you rebuke me no more; and when ye see me beaten or yielden as recreant, then may ye bid me go ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... after he retired from practice, being one day in company where the uncertainty of the law became the topic of conversation, was applied to for his opinion, upon which he laconically observed, "If any man were to claim the coat upon my back, and threaten my refusal with a lawsuit, he should certainly have it, lest in defending my coat I should too late find that I was ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... worse; they had to bale night and day, and they threatened Grettir. Haflidi when he heard them went up to Grettir and said: "I don't think your relations with the crew are very good. You are mutinous and make lampoons about them, and they threaten to pitch you overboard. ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... Science has already to some extent leavened the world; it will leaven it more and more. I should look upon the mild light of science breaking in upon the minds of the youth of Ireland, and strengthening gradually to the perfect day, as a surer check to any intellectual or spiritual tyranny which may threaten this island, than the laws of princes or the swords of emperors. We fought and won our battle even in the Middle Ages: should we doubt the issue of another conflict with our ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... met, though nothing seemed to threaten mischief, it met with a sturdy purpose of bringing to account certain delinquents whose arrogance and vexations of the subjects had provoked the country, and who were supposed to shelter themselves under the countenance of Buckingham. Michell and Mompesson were rascals whose misdemeanors might ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... Paul at left-half, but did not form one of the heroic tandem. His shoulder bothered him a good deal for the first minute or two, but after he had warmed up to the work he forgot about it and banged it around so that Simson was obliged to remonstrate and threaten to take him out. On the second's twenty yards Neil was given a chance at a goal from placement, and, in spite of his right shoulder, and to the delight of the coaches, sent the leather over the bar. When he turned and trotted back up the field he almost ran ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... perpendicular face of Beachy Head, gleaming white in a brilliant six-o'clock-in-the-morning sun. This fair daybreak, however, soon changed its aspect. A cold wind and a pale mist descended upon the sea, and seemed to threaten a ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... hear the villain words addressed to them and they turned about and gazed behind them, whereat both men and horses became black boulders." But when the Darwaysh had told her every whit, the Princess made reply, "From what thou sayest it seemeth clear to me that these Voices can do nothing but threaten and frighten by their terrible din; furthermore that there is naught to prevent a man climbing up the hill, nor is there any fear of any one attacking him; all he hath to do is on no account to look behind him." And after a short pause she presently added, "O Fakir, albeit a woman yet I have both ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... politicians, are themselves perhaps but creatures; are themselves but effects, which as first causes we choose to worship. They certainly grew under the same shade in which learning flourished. They too may decay with their natural protecting principles. With you, for the present at least, they threaten to disappear together. Where trade and manufactures are wanting to a people, and the spirit of nobility and religion remains, sentiment supplies, and not always ill supplies, their place; but if commerce and the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... will become mere fault-finding, and a fault-finding ministry is a ministry of desolation. Again, without a pitiful heart the preacher's utterance of the divine judgment will be but more or less terrifying threats, and the pulpit is not set up to threaten but to pronounce. We have heard preaching of this order. "I am not at all well to-night," said a clergyman of whom we once read, "and I shall give it 'em hot." Men are sometimes reminded of their sins, not out of a sense of duty borne in upon a reluctant spirit, but because the wind happens ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... the ethnologist. When the sign is such as was used in the old method of telegraphing, and meant a real word, or, as in modern electric telegraphy, even a letter, this is really speaking by signs; and so is the finger language of the deaf and dumb. But when I threaten my opponent with my fist, or strike him in the face, when I laugh, cry, sob, sigh, I certainly do not speak, although I do make a communication, the meaning of which cannot be doubted. Not every communication, therefore, is language, nor does every act of speaking aim at ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... to congratulate himself that, at last, he had secured her unawares, but the last remark confounded him altogether—baffled in every attempt he gave up trying to threaten her, and resolved to come back now, if he could, at least to her ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... death-dealing. The old prohibitions are still active in it in the terror with which life is viewed, in the menace and cruelty of things, the sharpness of edges encountered, the weight of the masses that threaten to fall and overwhelm, the fury and blackness and horror of nature once again regarded. Again and again there passes through it the haggard, shrouded figure of the Russian Jew. The "Poems of 1917" are full of the wailings and rockings of little old Ghetto mothers. Again and again Ornstein ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... dangers which threaten the Establishment? Reduce this declamation to a point, and let us understand what you mean. The most ample allowance does not calculate that there would be more than twenty members who were Roman Catholics in one house, and ten in the other, if the Catholic emancipation were carried into ...
— English Satires • Various
... Harvard College, the author speaks as follows, in reference to the same subject, as connected with the English universities. "The excerpts from the body of Oxford statutes, printed in the very year when this College was founded, threaten corporal punishment to persons of the proper age,—that is, below the age of eighteen,—for a variety of offences; and among the rest for disrespect to Seniors, for frequenting places where 'vinum aut quivis alius potus aut herba Nicotiana ordinarie venditur,' for coming home to their rooms ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... the Hint that he was going through Long-Acre towards St. James's: While he whipped up James-Street, we drove for King-Street, to save the Pass at St. Martin's-Lane. The Coachmen took care to meet, jostle, and threaten each other for Way, and be entangled at the End of Newport-Street and Long-Acre. The Fright, you must believe, brought down the Lady's Coach Door, and obliged her, with her Mask off, to enquire into the Bustle, when she sees ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... terribly cultured people, who would come with veils in closed carriages and would be afraid their husbands would find out, and then, if they didn't pay the bill rendered, all that was necessary was to threaten suit to have them go into a panic and rush the money to us in a hurry. It is wonderful how easy a person drops into new views of what is fair and right when their surroundings change, and something else is wonderful—the fact that I, who sit here with the two of you now, a broken old housemaid, ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... justified by the danger which the Chamber may threaten, it is difficult to suppose that the electoral assemblies would be tranquil. And if agitation should exhibit itself, the return of the foreigners is to be apprehended from that cause. The dread of this consequence, in either case, will induce the King to hesitate; and whatever ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a pretty little country town, noted for its woollen-mill, about the most flourishing of the colony. Kapiti, Rauparaha's stronghold, is just being reserved by the Government as an asylum for certain native birds, which stoats and weasels threaten to extirpate in the North Island. Over the English grasses which now cover the hills round Akaroa sheep and cattle roam in peace, and standing by the green bays of the harbour you will probably hear nothing louder than a cow-bell, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... For herself she wanted nothing,—but was it not the duty of her whole life to fight for her daughters? Poor woman! If somebody would only have taught her how that duty might best be done, she would have endeavoured to obey the teaching. "You know I do not want to threaten you," she said to Mr. Gibson; "but you see what my brother says. Of course I wrote to my brother. What could a poor woman do in such circumstances except ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... has shown himself long-suffering and eager to guard the honor of the papacy, but that the pope has mistaken his humility for fear. "Thou hast not hesitated," the letter concludes, "to rise up against the royal power conferred upon us by God, daring to threaten to deprive us of it, as if we had received our kingdom from thee. As if the kingdom and the Empire were in thine and not in God's hands.... I, Henry, King by the grace of God, together with all our bishops, say unto thee, come down, come ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... to lessen the probability of corners in coffee; but this protection is further given by the stringent rule that the maximum fluctuations on the Exchange can be only two cents a pound on coffee in one day and one cent on sugar. If greater changes should threaten, the Exchange ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... again, but no French interference afterwards. Most of Great Britain favoured the new king, William III; most of Ireland the old one, James. This greatly endangered British sea-power; for the French fleet had been growing very strong, and an enemy fleet based on Ireland would threaten every harbour in Great Britain from Bristol to the Clyde. More than this, a strong enough fleet could close the Channel between the south of Ireland and the north of France. There would then be no way out of Great Britain on to the Seven Seas ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... Water," she used to say; and sometimes she would threaten that if I did not go to sleep the Woman of the Water would steal up to the high window and carry me away ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... specially set forth in the programme entrusted to the exclusive few, that those States were to remain in the 'Old Union' as a fender between the 'South' and the free States; always ready in Congress to stand up for a good fugitive slave law, and various other little privileges, and prepared to threaten secession if Congress did not yield just what was demanded. In this way the free States would be perpetually entangled by embarrassing questions, and the new empire left to pursue unrestricted its dazzling plans of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... threaten, but we fear not, and sincerely hope they will soon tremble before God, and prepare to meet their Judge, who will do right, and who will have no ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... now shook from side to side with frequent and violent concussions; or to escape to the open country, where the calcined stones and cinders fell in such quantities, as notwithstanding their lightness, to threaten destruction. In this dilemma they decided on the open country, as offering the greater chance of safety; a resolution which, while the rest of the company hastily adopted it through their fears, my ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... must be watched over, and brought up to a higher standard of piety. Revivals must be promoted. But passing by these claims for labor, look at the wide-spreading desolations of the West, where ignorance, infidelity, and Romanism prevail, and threaten, at no very future day, to be the overthrow of our government—the extinguishment of our dearly-bought and precious inheritance. All our exertions must be put forth to save our country; for the progress of light and knowledge ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... collected large bodies of troops, both in Aracan and Assam. The government of Bengal made preparations to defend our frontier, and especially the position in the north, as an advance of the Burmese in this direction would not only threaten the important towns of Dacca and Moorshedabad, but would place the invaders in dangerous proximity to Calcutta. Accordingly, a portion of the 10th and 23rd Native Infantry, and four companies of the Rungpoor local ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... sire! chide, my angry dame! Set your slaves to spy; threaten me with shame; But neither sire nor dame, nor prying serf shall know, What angel nightly tracks that ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... a reputation for it, and the Big Tongue did not threaten her any more. Too many squaws and girls joined in the laugh against him. Perhaps the fact that Ha-ha-pah-no had a husband over six feet high had something to do with it, and that Na-tee-kah was the only daughter of Long Bear. It was not safe to quarrel overmuch with ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... front of Jove himself, An eye like Mars, to threaten and command, A station like the herald Mercury New-lighted ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... with perhaps 10,000 men, is believed to be in Winchester to-day. He will probably be soon playing havoc with the enemy's railroads, stores, etc., and perhaps may threaten Washington or Harrisburg, or both; and so have Grant called off from his ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... matters are becoming more and more interesting. The people of the country everywhere are desirous of availing themselves of its facilities, and the lines are being extended in all directions. As might be expected then, I have my plans interfered with by mercenary speculators who threaten to put up rival telegraphs and contest my patent. I am ready for them. We have had to apply for an injunction on the Philadelphia and Pittsburg line. The case is an aggravated one and will be decided on Monday or Tuesday at Philadelphia in Circuit Court of United States. I ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Arfog and his company,' she said sadly. 'And he goeth, as is his wont, to visit my mistress, and to insult her, and to treat her unmannerly, and to threaten that he will drive her from the one remaining roof-tree she possesses. And so will he and his knights sit eating and drinking till night, and great will be my lady's sorrow that she hath no ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... edge of refusing. I hardly had the heart to worry you. And yet," she added wistfully, "after all, in a way, it is just simply your own, dear fault. For if you will be a sort of little kingdom of heaven to us, you see, it's inevitable that, when you threaten to slip away from us, we should play the part of the violent and do our best to take our kingdom by force and keep it in ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... captiuate your mynde in the pleasures of Ladies? Where is the auncient generositie and nobilitie of your bloud? Wher is magnanimitie and valour, wherewith you haue astonned your eunemies, shewed your selfe amiable to your frends, and wonderfull to your subiects? Touching the last point, wherin you threaten, that if my doughter doe not agree to your desire, you will forcibly enioye her, I can neuer confesse that to be the fact of a valiaunt and true king, but of a vile, cowardly, cruell and libidinous Tryaunt. I trust ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... you hurt me, as you threaten, you will find yourself in difficulties. You will be arrested, and you will have no opportunity to deliver the documents on time. My position as minister—my extra-territoriality—will make it very difficult for ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... sword, and the arm of man wielding it. If, indeed, Christians are so far forgetful of the spirit of the Gospel as, on the plea of defending and spreading its genuine doctrines, to disturb the peace, and shake the foundations, and threaten the overthrow of society, the civil magistrate, whether Christian or heathen, will interpose. But neither has he, more than the church, any authority whatever for interfering by violence with the faith of any one. It is the duty of a Christian ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... General's representative, it is needless to say that I merely desired to avoid provoking another quarrel. If those persons were really impudent enough to call at the hotel, I had arranged to threaten them with the interference of the police, and so to put an end to the matter. Romayne expressed no opinion on the subject, one way or the other. His conduct inspired me with a feeling of uneasiness. The filthy insult of which he had been made the object seemed to be ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... you, Ramon, that that man, whoever he was, actually dared to threaten father. When I heard that word 'blackmail' in the angriest tones which I had ever heard my father use, I did something mean, despicable, which only my culminating anxiety could have induced me to do. I slipped on my robe and slippers, stole half-way ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... swords. Whoso passes Beppo's castle is prayed in courtesy to leave a remembrance, and receives the blandest bow and thanks in return. Shall we, then, say, the former are nobles and gentlemen,—the other is a miserable beggar? Is it worse to ask than to seize? Is it meaner to thank than to threaten? If he who is supported by the public is a beggar, our kings are beggars, our pensions are charity. Did not the Princess Royal hold out her hand, the other day, to the House of Commons? and does any one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... "Get me a priest, a monk, a bishop,—anything that wears a frock and can speak Latin. Bring him here. Threaten his life, in my name, if you like. Tell him Don John of Austria is in extreme need, and must have a priest. Quick, man! Fly! Your life and fortune are in your ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... false, traitorous De Haldimar." Here the agitation of Wacousta became terrific. The labouring of his chest was like that of one convulsed with some racking agony and the swollen veins and arteries of his head seemed to threaten the extinction of life in some fearful paroxysm. At length he burst into a violent fit of tears, more appalling, in one of his iron nature, than the fury which had preceded it,—and it was many minutes before he could so far compose ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... guiding his horse carefully down the next hollow, for the moon had gone behind a cloud just then, "when the Crees found out what had been done, they were naturally very angry—an' I don't wonder—an' they threaten now to expel the Saulteaux from Red River altogether, an' the white men along wi' them, unless the names of the Saulteaux chiefs are wiped out o' the contract, an' the annual payment made to the ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... a year from us, and you spend it on English commissioners, English dockyards, English museums, English ambition, and English pleasures. With an enormous taxation, our public offices have been removed to London, and you threaten to remove our Courts of Justice, and our Lord Lieutenancy, the poor trapping of old nationhood. We have no arsenals, no public employment here; our literary, scientific, and charitable institutions, so bountifully ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... his life back again from out the dale. And thus must he speak and no otherwise: O Earth, thou and thy first children, I crave of you such and such a thing, whatsoever it may be. And if he speak more than this, then is he undone. He shall answer no question of them; and if they threaten him he shall not pray them mercy, nor quail before their uplifted weapons; nor, to be short, shall he heed them more than if they still were stones unchanged. Moreover, when he hath said his say, then shall these wights throng about him and offer him gold and gems, and all the wealth ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... suspicions that made her feel herself degraded, pure soul, concerning her brother's relation with her employer's wife. Many letters had passed between them, through her hands too. Too often had she heard her unthinking little pupils threaten their mother into more than customary indulgence, saying: "Unless you do as we wish, we shall tell papa about Mr. Bronte." The poor girl felt herself an involuntary accomplice to that ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... query. The passages are too long to cite, but Mr. C. will find sufficient proof of the part of a royal residence having once stood in this obscure lane, now almost demolished in the sweeping city improvements, which threaten in time to leave us hardly a fragment of the ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.22 • Various
... which lately occurred in my presence will better illustrate what I wish to convey than any elaborate exposition could do. One day, a poor simple-hearted married couple, from the country, called on a medical friend of mine, to consult him about a complaint in the eyes of the husband, which seemed to threaten him with total blindness. The wife entered at great length into all the symptoms of the complaint, and was extremely voluble in her expressions of sympathy and of anxiety that something should be done to remove the disease. It was difficult to repress a smile at the scene, and yet it ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... this condition, Aeschines, was Philip reduced by my statesmanship. This was the tone of his utterances, though before this he used to threaten the city with many a bold word. For this I was deservedly crowned by those here assembled, and though you were present, you offered no opposition; while Diondas, who indicted the proposer, did not obtain the necessary ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... would neither praise nor blame him, but pressed him for an account of a matter which they could not understand: and I believe your Lordships understand it no more than they, for it is not in the compass of human understanding to conceive or comprehend it. Instead of an account of it, he dares to threaten them: "I may be tempted, if you should provoke me, not to be an honest man,—to falsify your account a second time, and to reclaim those sums which I have passed to your credit,—to alter the account again, by the assistance of Mr. Larkins." What a dreadful declaration is this of his dominion ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... added Don Juan sententiously, "to raid trains, and to threaten murder as you have done in this room. Your band too was none too scrupulous in hanging Jimenez the half-breed, though he was an informer. Tell me now, why did you hold up the train? why did you try to rob ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... of opinion that it is a libel. But under all the circumstances, I should think it better to give him an opportunity of altering his definition; and, in case he do not, to threaten him ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell |
