"Besiege" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... protection. The majesty of the consuls was insufficient to preserve order, and while the discord was rapidly increasing, horsemen rushed into the gates announcing that an enemy was actually upon them, marching to besiege the city. The plebeians saw that their opportunity had arrived, and when proud Appius Claudius called upon them to enroll their names for the war, they refused the summons, saying that the patricians might fight their own battles; ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... heav'n-designed soul! Amongst the rest Of suitors that besiege your maiden breast, Why may not I My fortune try, And venture to speak one good word, Not for myself, alas! but for ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... to besiege Rome had passed the Tiber before Belisarius was aware that his troops, stationed to defend the Milvian bridge, had abandoned their post. On going out to reconnoitre, he fell in with the enemy. Instead of retreating, he led on the cavalry that attended him to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... man to help you. If they besiege us, I won't be able to communicate with you. Whatever happens, keep the engine going. Store enough slabs in here to keep her going all night, then close the door, and fasten it ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... into the Cabinet, which was a fitter Theatre for his Abilities; for there being out of the Reach of Swords and Guns, and left to undisturbed Reflection, his Advice and Schemes were of excellent Service. I now shall leave Zeokinizul in the pure Embraces of his Consort, and preparing to besiege a Place of Strength, to ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... a slight lifting of the eye-brows; "we live in an age when new dictionaries and vocabularies are necessary to understand each other's meaning. It is artlessness, with a vengeance, to beset an old fellow of fifty, as one would besiege a town. Hist!—Ned is retiring with his daughter, my dear Mrs. Bloomfield, and it will not be long before I shall be summoned to a family council. Well, we will keep the secret until it ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... long and more—the palm-tree grows to a greater height than that, and under pressure it will curve upwards like the spine of an ass beneath a load. [12] He laid these foundations in order to give the impression that he meant to besiege the town, and was taking precautions so that the river, even if it found its way into his trench, should not carry off his towers. Then he had other towers built along the mound, so as to have as many guard-posts as possible. [13] Thus his army was employed, ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... plainly in words for me. That is my creed to-day. That is the creed of all those yonder, who sit in the camp and besiege this city. And we number on our side, now, all in Atlantis save those in the city and a ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... fields and pastures. There were hills beyond; the mountains themselves seemed very near. Scattered about on the hill slopes were farmhouses, which stood so far apart, with their clusters of out-buildings, that each looked lonely, and the pine woods above seemed to besiege them all. It was lighter on the uplands than it was in the valley, where the three men sat on their bench, with their backs to the store ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... to besiege Mons: I wish all the war may take that turn; I don't desire to see England the theatre of it. We talk no more of its becoming so, nor of the plot, than of the gunpowder-treason. Party is very silent; I believe, because the Jacobites have better hopes than from parliamentary divisions,-those in ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... to Egypt with a goodly store of gold and silver, of lapis lazuli and other precious stones, of vases in silver and in bronze, of corn, wine, incense, balsam, honey, iron, lead, emery, and male and female slaves. At another, he would march by land, besiege and take the inland towns, demand and obtain the sons of the chiefs as hostages, exact heavy war contributions, and bring back with him horses and chariots, flocks and herds, strange animals, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... it was a sumptuary law which incited the women of Rome to make their first great public demonstration, and to besiege the Forum as belligerently as the women of England have, in late years, besieged Parliament. The Senate had thought fit to save money for the second Punic War by curtailing all extravagance in dress; and, when the war was over, showed no disposition to repeal a statute which—to the simple masculine ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... blockhouses withdrew under cover of night to Fort Loyal, where the whole force of the English was now gathered along with their frightened families. Portneuf determined to besiege the place in form; and, after burning the village, and collecting tools from the abandoned blockhouses, he opened his trenches in a deep gully within fifty yards of the fort, where his men were completely protected. ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... all; abundance of game attracts trespassers; I shall soon have poachers to punish; I shall require prisons, gaolers, guards, and galleys; all this strikes me as cruel. The wives of those miserable creatures will besiege my door and disturb me with their crying; they must either be driven away or roughly handled. The poor people who are not poachers, whose harvest has been destroyed by my game, will come next with their complaints. Some ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... of Protestants threw themselves into Rouen. Antony of Bourbon headed an army of the Catholics to besiege the city. A ball struck him, and he fell senseless to the ground. His attendants placed him, covered with blood, in a carriage, to convey him to a hospital. While in the carriage and jostling over the rough ground, and as the thunders of the cannonade were pealing in his ears, the spirit of ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... the meatballs, the erbswurst, the caribou jelly, the rice, and the tea—our staples—were abundant for two weeks, with four gallons of coal-oil and a gallon of alcohol. The end of our painful transportation hither was accomplished; we were within one day's climb of the summit with supplies to besiege. If the weather should prove persistently bad we could wait; we could advance our parallels; could put another camp on the ridge itself at nineteen thousand feet, and yet another half-way up the dome. If we had to fight our way step by step and could advance but a couple of hundred feet a ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... Christian faith, then half of Spain will he leave to thee to hold in fief. The other half shall be given to Count Roland—a haughty companion thou wilt have there. If thou wilt not agree to this, Charlemagne will besiege Saragossa, and thou shalt be led captive to Aix, there to die a vile and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... instance. Molestum est possidere, quod nemo habere dignetur, a misery to possess that which no man likes: on the other side, Difficile custoditur quod plures amant. And as the bragging soldier vaunted in the comedy, nimia est miseria pulchrum esse hominem nimis. Scipio did never so hardly besiege Carthage, as these young gallants will beset thine house, one with wit or person, another with wealth, &c. If she he fair, saith Guazzo, she will be suspected howsoever. Both extremes are naught, Pulchra ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... bosom of his family, delivered his message, and frankly advised the fox to obey the king's summons and appear at court, where, perchance, he might yet manage to save himself; while if he remained at home the king would besiege his fortress and slay him and all his family. Reynard listened favorably to this advice, and, after bidding his wife a tender farewell, and committing his beloved children to her care, he set out with Grimbart to ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... will yet have its auxiliaries in every village and hamlet, township and school district, to influence majorities when the amendment is submitted. More—we believe ere many years its powers will be so subtle and widespread that it can besiege the conservatism of Congress itself, and come away with ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... that for King Don Sancho, and he put himself at the head of his army and hastened through Portugal to besiege ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... than rocks more hard, The English undertake th' unequal war; Sev'n ships alone, by which the port is barr'd, Besiege the Indies, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... lived long in placid quiet. There was no other castle within long marches through forest and bogland hard to pass over; and, for all of Ulf's peacefulness, if Thorfin, or some of his mates, wanted excitement, and thought it would be a good day to ride out and harry the land or besiege the home of a neighbour, someone would remember the old, old days around Sigurd's Vik, and suggest that to-morrow would be a better day than this to visit Ulf; the to-morrow that ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... after this, Benhadad, the king of Syria, came from Damascus with a vast army and thirty-two allied kings, to besiege Samaria. Defeated in a battle with Ahab, the king of Syria fled, but returned the following year with a still larger army for the conquest of Samaria. But he was again defeated, with the loss of one hundred thousand men ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... with bare breasts and the children sport about in the snow. Wrapping himself in his pelisse the Russian sleeps in the snow. This influence of habit is seen in the inability of intruders in northern lands to endure the cold, which has no effect on the indigenous people. On their way to besiege a Norwegian stronghold in 1719, 7000 Swedes perished in the snows and cold of their neighboring country. On the retreat from Prague in 1742, the French army, under the rigorous sky of Bohemia, lost 4000 men in ten days. It is needless to speak of the thousands lost ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... to Avignon has left many and deep traces on the history of French Catholicism. The Holy See was no longer far remote; the French ecclesiastic desirous of promotion had no dangerous mountains to traverse, no strange city to enter, no foreign Pontiff to besiege, ignorant or indifferent to his claims. The next successor of Saint Peter would logically be a Frenchman, and there was not only a possibility, but a probability for every man of note, that he might be either the occupant of the Sacred Chair or its favoured supporter. So Avignon became a ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... country to oppress the Bohemians. Let them be sought out, and the enemies of liberty pursued to the ends of the earth. Not an arm is raised in defence of the Archduke, and the rebels, at length, encamp before Vienna to besiege their sovereign. ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... time Genghis Khan sent his son Jughi with a large detachment to besiege and take a certain town named Saganak. As soon as Jughi arrived before the place, he sent in a flag of truce to call upon the people of the town to surrender, promising, at the same time, to treat them kindly if ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... him, "Castruccio was absent, engaged in one of those perpetual campaigns against Florence which occupied so large a portion of his short life. At that very moment he was encamped on the heights of San Miniato, preparing to besiege the hated rival of our city—broken and reduced by the recent victory he had gained over her at Altopasso. At Altopasso he had defeated and humiliated Florence. Now he had planted our flag under her very walls. Upon the arrival of the ambassadors sent by the Lucchese Republic—one of ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... thoughtless as she was, had she committed anything worse than laughter at everybody and everything, that came in her way. When she heard that General Clanrunfort was cut to pieces with all his forces, she laughed; when she heard that the enemy was on his way to besiege her papa's capital, she laughed hugely; but when she heard that the city would most likely be abandoned to the mercy of the enemy's soldiery—why, then, she laughed immoderately. These were merely reports invented for the sake of experiment. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... Pandora's box, as old as the fall of man, I have stood at your altar,— have sworn undying hatred to your hereditary foe, Nature, as the son of Hamilcar to the seven hills of Rome,—have sworn to besiege her with a whole army of medicines,—to throw up barricades round the obstinate soul,—to drive from the field the insolents who cut down your fees and cripple your finances,—and on the Archaean battle-plain to plant your midnight standard. In return (for one good turn deserves ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... to say of both them and the country. "Mrs. Brittania," remarked Horace Walpole, "orders her Senate to proclaim America a continent of cowards, and vote it should be starved, unless it would drink tea with her. She sends her only army to be besieged in one of her towns, and half her fleet to besiege the terra firma; but orders her army to do nothing, in hopes that the American Senate in Philadelphia will be so frightened at the British army being besieged in Boston that it will sue for peace." There was sting in these words, but ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... that there was no variety to our lives in these early days, that we did nothing but resolve, complain, petition, protest, hold conventions, and besiege Legislatures, we record now and then some cheerful item from the Metropolitan papers concerning some of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and animating strain of defiance; and the foremost troops who advanced to the assault were checked or destroyed by showers of arrows from every side of the intrenchments. It was determined, in a general council of war, to besiege the King of the Huns in his camp, to intercept his provisions, and to reduce him to the alternative of a disgraceful treaty or an unequal combat. But the impatience of the barbarians soon disdained these cautious and dilatory measures; and the mature ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... to be seen leaning on a tree; towards him, with his hands over his head, and his steps smothered in the sand, the clerk painfully waded. The surrounding glare threw out and exaggerated the man's smallness; it seemed no less perilous an enterprise, this that he was gone upon, than for a whelp to besiege ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... office of Theophilus Parsons, afterwards the Chief Justice of Massachusetts. On July 15, 1790, being twenty-three years old, he was admitted to practice. Immediately afterward he established himself in Boston, where for a time he felt strangely solitary. Clients of course did not besiege his doors in the first year, and he appears to have waited rather stubbornly than cheerfully for more active days. These came in good time, and during the (p. 018) second, third, and fourth years, his business grew apace to ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... insane, from the generals' point of view, but not from hers? Because her plan was to raise the siege immediately, by fighting, while theirs was to besiege the besiegers and starve them out by closing their communications—a plan which would require months ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... a hissing up on the roof, and then a great slithering rumble down below, which boomed like the distant cannons the Margraf sent to besiege us. I listened and shuddered; but it was only the snow from the tall roof of the Red Tower which had slipped off and fallen to the ground. Then I had a vision of a slender little figure clambering on the leads and the treacherous snow striking her out into the air, and then—the cruel stones ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... And his subsequent language shows that there was a confraternity existing among the initiates like that of the masonic institution; for he says, with his peculiar mysticism, "If you meet an initiate, besiege him with your prayers that he conceal from you no new mysteries that he may know; and rest not until you have obtained them. For me, although I was initiated into the Great Mysteries by Moses, the friend of God, yet, having seen Jeremiah, I recognized ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... service he put me upon had like to have embroiled me with one of his favourite colonels. The king was marching through the Bergstraet, a low country on the edge of the Rhine, and, as all men thought, was going to besiege Heidelberg, but on a sudden orders a party of his guards, with five companies of Scots, to be drawn out; while they were drawing out this detachment the king calls me to him, "Ho, cavalier," says he, that was his usual word, "you shall command this party;" and thereupon gives ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... winter passed, and brought, in passing, the news that Lerida had surrendered, and that the young and indefatigable general was about to besiege Tortosa. This was the last blow for poor Clarice. She understood that spring was coming, and with it a new campaign, which would retain the duke with the army. Strength failed her, and she was obliged ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... other hand, Don Alberto knew very well where the house was to which he had been taken by Tommaso, for he was a Roman, and every yard of the road was familiar to him. Within less than an hour it was more than likely that he would send a force of sbirri to besiege the house, men who would not hesitate to break down the doors if they were not admitted, and by no means so easy to frighten away as the clumsily armed watchmen whom the Bravi had put to flight. The only possible safety for the Bravi lay in ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... Pedro Sanches Farfan. In the next place, Cortes required the new prince of Tezcuco to supply him with a number of labourers to open up the canals leading to the lake, on purpose to admit our vessels which were to be put together at Tezcuco. He also informed him of our intentions to besiege Mexico, for which operation the young prince engaged to give all the assistance in his power. The work on the canals was conducted with all expedition, as we never had less than seven or eight thousand Indians employed[2]. As Guatimotzin, the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... Strasburg. How different from the triumphant army, which with drums beating, and colours flying, had crossed at the same place six weeks before! Marlborough, having detached part of his force to besiege Ulm, drew near with the bulk of his army to the Rhine, which he passed near Philipsburg on the 6th September, and soon after commenced the siege of Landau, on the French side; Prince Louis with 20,000 men forming ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... church may dare Still to besiege Thy throne with prayer, Sheathe not, we implore Thee, Lord, Sheathe not Thy victorious sword. Still Panonia pines away, Vassal of a double sway: Still Thy servants groan in chains, Still the race which hates Thee reigns: Part the living ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... He had been promised by the administration a very much larger force, or claimed that he had, and he was a man of veracity. Twelve thousand was a very small army with which to penetrate two hundred and sixty miles into an enemy's country, and to besiege the capital; a city, at that time, of largely over one hundred thousand inhabitants. Then, too, any line of march that could be selected led through mountain passes easily defended. In fact, there ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... it had been, put the finishing touch on Leonora's eminence! "Ah! La Brunna!" people would declare enthusiastically. "The favorite of king Ernesto.... Our greatest artist." And troops of adorers began to besiege her under the keen, mercenary eyes of ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... never to call on foreign powers to settle their differences, to guard against hereditary magistrates, to prevent their citizens from becoming so established in wealth and power, as to be thought worthy of alliance by marriage with the nieces, sisters, &c., of Kings, and, in short, to besiege the throne of heaven with eternal prayers, to extirpate from creation this class of human lions, tigers, and mammoths called Kings; from whom, let him perish who does not say, "good Lord deliver us;" and that ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... Brittany is in revolt, and the King of France aiding the same, and the Duke is fled over hither to King Edward, leaving my Lady Duchess shut up in the Castle of Auray, which 'tis thought the French King shall besiege. Man reckons he comes for little—I would say, that our King shall give him little ado over that matter, without it were to ransom my Lady, should she be taken, she being step-daughter unto my ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... Cumberland, who makes no resistance, step by step, into the sea; victoriously plundering, far and wide in those countries, Hanover itself the Head-quarter. In the Versailles circles, it is farther expected that Richelieu, "Conqueror of Minorca," will shortly besiege and conquer Magdeburg, and so crown his glories. Why not; were ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... visions of Attila, beat the Mantuans and take the city. From the Lombards the Greeks, sent thither by the Exarch of Ravenna, captured Mantua about the end of the sixth century; and then, the Lombards turning immediately to besiege it again, the Greeks defend their prize long and valiantly, but in the end are overpowered. They are allowed to retire with their men and arms to Ravenna, and the ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... while I am in his house he is in a measure held responsible for my treatment. The bicycle is kept down-stairs, where it performs the office of a vent for the rampant curiosity of the thousands who besiege the proprietor for a peep ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... in their own dust concealed; Now no Bosch troubles them nor any shell, But almost quiet holds the thankful field, While men draw breath, and down the Arras road Come the slow mules with battle's dreary stores, And there is time to see the wounded stowed, And stretcher-squads besiege the doctors' doors. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... flows from our receiving of an answer of prayer, when we supplicated for mercy at the hand of God. See the proof for this—"If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpillar; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities, whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be: what prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in his extremity. He used the extraordinary powers given him to establish himself in the capital, where, for his own ends, he subjected the wretched inhabitants to the most cruel extortions. Routed at San Lorenzo* by General Diaz, who at once proceeded to besiege Mexico, he unduly prolonged the resistance of the city after the final downfall of the empire, exposing it to the unnecessary hardships of a four months' siege, the horrors of which were mitigated only by the generosity and forbearance of the ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... were bent on getting possession of the Princess. On discovering that she had locked herself up in the strong palace, their rage knew no bounds. They made a dozen different attempts to break open the palace door, but all in vain. Finally, they decided to besiege the fortress. ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... again summoned to the walls of Saintes, for the citizens had risen; and fearing that an army would besiege them if they held for the Protestants, they resolved to turn out those who were within their walls, and give themselves up to the king's officer. Bussac was obliged therefore to yield, and was allowed to march out of one gate as Puytaille ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... fast to cover the distance to the village post-office, and back before the breakfast hour: and they had plenty of time, arriving too early for the opening of the door, so that Crossjay began to dance with an appetite, and was despatched to besiege a bakery. Clara felt lonely without him: apprehensively timid in the shuttered, unmoving village street. She was glad of his return. When at last her letter was handed to her, on the testimony of the postman that she was the lawful applicant, Crossjay and she put out on a sharp ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the Friends, who came to Newcastle a few years after the Scotsmen had departed, regard the beauty of St. Nicholas or its Tower. They came also desiring to besiege the town, though with only spiritual weapons. The Church to them was but a 'steeple-house,' and the Tower akin to an idol. Thus slowly do men learn that 'the ways unto God are as the number of the souls of the children of men,' and that wherever a man truly seeketh God in whatsoever fashion, ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... Visitation of Cambridge, the Earl of Manchester was away, as we have seen, in May 1644, with his Lieutenant-general, Cromwell, to add the force of the Associated Eastern Counties to the forces of the Scots and Fairfax, then about to besiege the Marquis of Newcastle in York. The joint forces, numbering some 25,000 men in all, were hopefully conducting the siege when the approach of Prince Rupert out of Lancashire, with a Royalist army of over 20,000, compelled them to raise it, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... think that there is any chance at all of the Spaniards taking the place, if they do besiege us?" Bob asked, as Dr. ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... disaffected towards the Court than anybody; suppose further that M. de Beaufort and I have a mind to relieve the Princes, in what way could we do it? Is not the whole garrison in that castle in the King's service? Has his Royal Highness any regular troops to besiege Vincennes? And, granting the Frondeurs to be the greatest fools imaginable, will they expose the people of Paris at a siege which two thousand of the King's troops might raise in a quarter of an hour though it consist of a hundred thousand citizens? I therefore conclude that the removal would ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... everything that came in her way. When she was told, for the sake of experiment, that General Clanrunfort was cut to pieces with all his troops, she laughed; when she heard that the enemy was on his way to besiege her father's capital, she laughed hugely; but when she was told that the city would certainly be abandoned to the mercy of the enemy's soldiery—why, then she laughed immoderately. She never could be brought to see ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... 1759.—Of all the younger generals James Wolfe was foremost. To him was given the task of capturing Quebec. Seated on a high bluff, Quebec could not be captured from the river. The only way to approach it was to gain the Plains of Abraham in its rear and besiege it on the land side. Again and again Wolfe sent his men to storm the bluffs below the town. Every time they failed. Wolfe felt that he must give up the task, when he was told that a path led from the river to the top of the bluff above ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... beetle : skarabo, blato. beg : peti, almozpeti. begin : komenci, ek-. behave : konduti. behold : rigardi; jen! bell : sonorilo. below : sube, malsupre. belt : zono. bench : benko; (joiner's) stablo. bend : fleks'i, -igxi; klin'i, -igxi. bent : kurb'a, -igita. bequeath : testamenti. berry : bero. besiege : siegxi. bet : veti. betray : perfidi. betrothal : fiancx' (-in-) igxo. bewitch : sorcxi. bilberry : mirtelo. bile : galo. bill : kalkulo; kambio; afisxo; beko. billiards : bilardo bind : ligi; (books) bindi; ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... under Drake and Sir John Norris against Lisbon. Its chances of success hung on a quick arrival in Portugal, but the fleet touched at Corunna, and after burning the ships in its harbour the army was tempted to besiege the town. A Spanish army which advanced to its relief was repulsed by an English force of half its numbers. Corunna however held stubbornly out, and in the middle of May Norris was forced to break the siege and to sail to Lisbon. But ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... made against us by the enemy, with views beyond their own security and defence. It does not yet appear, sir, that our enemies, however insolent, look upon us as the proper objects of a conquest, or that they imagine it possible to besiege us in our own ports, or to confine us to the defence of our own country. We are not, therefore, to have recourse to measures, which, if they are ever to be admitted, can be justified by nothing but the utmost distress, and can only become proper, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... a quiet, secure position to undergo the transition from the larva to the pupa state, which requires, in the early part of the season, eight or ten days; after this time the miller is hatched and is again ready to besiege the fruit with its sting. The insect, being two-brooded in this climate at least, if not disturbed, has an aggregating force to do mischief the second time. The progeny for the succeeding year have alone to depend on the security of this second generation of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... Action of the Powers delayed. Prince Louis Napoleon repudiates the conduct of the Prince of Canino.—Declares for the temporal sovereignty. M11 Several Powers undertake to restore the Pope. France sends an army to Rome. Treachery of the Roman populace. Determination to besiege Rome. The siege delayed by diplomatic manoeuvres. M12 Excesses of the Revolutionists. M13 The King of Naples and the Spaniards offer to assist the French. M14 Rome surrenders to the French. M15 Colonel ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... "The English resolved to march on Taranaki province and besiege Mataitawa, William Thompson's fortress. But they did not carry it without great loss. Just as I was leaving Paris, I heard that the Governor and the General had accepted the submission of the Tauranga tribes, and left them in possession of three-fourths ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and numbers of the wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even presumed, though without success, to besiege the important city of Seleucia, which was defended by a garrison of three Roman legions. Above all, the Persian monarch, elated by victory, again threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the emperor was indispensably required, both in the West ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... plank in the platform. The moment your committee abandons this aim, I shall lose all interest in your work. You say: "Prominent Republicans are besieging us to relieve their party of the embarrassment of this demand." So did they besiege us twenty-seven years ago. No; not for a moment should you think of relieving the politicians from the duty of declaring for this amendment. If you do, you are unworthy the trust reposed in you. I surely never would have promised to go into your campaign, or begged the friends to contribute, had ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... not long before Gen. Lamarque was attacked by his final disease, and as there appeared to me to be improbability in the rumour of the affair of the Boulevards, I quite rightly set it down as one of the exaggerations that daily besiege our ears. It being near six, I consequently returned home to dinner, supposing that the day would end as so many ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... have I taken notice of, with thanksgiving. When I was a soldier, I, with others, were drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it; but when I was just ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room, to which, when I had consented, he took my place; and coming to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot into the head with a ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Gironde with a hundred thousand men in order to craventer et confondre the pagan host,—how he must be towards his own proud vassals "like a man-eating leopard," and if any dare levy war against him, must summon his knights, besiege the traitor's castle, waste and spoil all his land, and when he is taken show him no mercy, but lop him limb from limb, burn him in fire, or drown him in the sea.[36] It is not precisely an amiable spirit, this spirit of the chansons: but there ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... Punham (a petty Sachem in this province of Rhode Island) twenty years against this colony, and his chief Sachem, and did by armed soldiers besiege and take prisoners Gorton, Hamden, Weeks, Green, and others in this province, and carried them away to Boston, put them in irons, and took eighty head of cattle from them, for all of which they could never obtain any ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... made against these foes. He sails with over three thousand men, in thirty-six vessels, from Iloilo on January 5, 1606. The flagship is wrecked at La Caldera; the other vessels mistake their course, and do not reach the Moluccas until late in March. They besiege Ternate, and finally carry it by assault; the city and fort are pillaged by the soldiers. Afterward the king is induced to surrender and Acuna makes a treaty with him. The king surrenders his forts and restores all captives; delivers up any Dutchmen or Spanish renegades who may ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... fifteen of his heathen bearing olive boughs of peace and speaking flattering words, as now? Hast thou forgot that when thou didst hearken unto his words and send two of thy chiefest knights to treat with him, he did cause their heads to be stricken off? War! I say. End as you began. Besiege him in Saragossa!" ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven: The man is witless of the size, the sum, The value in proportion of all things, Or whether it be little or be much. Discourse to him of prodigious armaments Assembled to besiege his city now, And of the passing of a mule with gourds— 'Tis one! Then take it on the other side, Speak of some trifling fact,—he will gaze rapt With stupour at its very littleness, (Far as I see) ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... who besiege her from morning till night. One—a woman—who sat with note-book in hand for ages ("une eternite" she said) reporting, the next day sent her the newspaper in which a column was filled with the manner she treated her nails. Not one word about "mon ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... a panic ensued, and they retreated upon Bayonne. The next day the bridge of boats was completed, and the whole army crossed. Bayonne was eventually invested after a contest, in which it was supposed our loss exceeded 500 or 600 men. Here we remained in camp about six weeks, expecting to besiege the citadel; but this event never came off: we, however, met with a severe disaster and a reverse. The enemy made an unexpected sortie, and surrounded General Sir John Hope, when he and the whole of his staff were taken prisoners. The French killed and ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... had been sacked. Negotiations were proceeding, which eventually ended in the peace of Barcelona (June 20, 1529), whereby the Emperor engaged to sacrifice the Republic to the Pope's vengeance. It was expected that the remnant of the Prince of Orange's army would be marched up to besiege the town. Under the anxiety caused by these events, the citizens raised a strong body of militia, enlisted Malatesta Baglioni and Stefano Colonna as generals, and began to take measures for strengthening the defences. What may be called the War Office of the Florentine Republic ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... had made Playground of dimples, joy's rose-seat; And could these eyes ope they would speak Of one who bought her dreams of Death and paid. If blind thou shrinkest yet To meet Truth bare, Then as thou'st dealt with this pale maid Life shall thine own besiege. Injustice holds No sanctuary folds; To fence out care We must the planet hedge; Justice is God, and waits Behind our blood-built tower-gates; And as indifference Was once our soul's pretence, Who then shall heed us, who shall understand, When our crushed hearts ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... he was saved from that extremity by Fairfax. On the approach of the latter Goring drew off from Taunton, and fixed his quarters at Langport, where he was attacked and defeated. This success on the part of Fairfax not only saved Taunton, but enabled him to besiege Bridgwater, which was defended by Wyndham with little resolution, and fell on July 23, within a fortnight of Goring's defeat at Langport. Fairfax also took Nunney Castle; and as in 1646 Dunster, the last place in Somerset supporting the ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... concession, that they actually killed his ambassadors and threw their bodies from the top of the walls into the sea. It is easy to imagine what effect so shocking an outrage must produce in a mind like Alexander's. He instantly resolved to besiege the place, and not to desist until he had made himself master of it and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... all assembled, Washington consulted them about a plan for storming the English batteries. But it was their unanimous opinion that so perilous an enterprise ought not to be attempted. The army, therefore, continued to besiege Boston, preventing the enemy from obtaining supplies of provisions, but without taking any immediate measures to get possession of the town. In this manner, the summer, autumn, and winter ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... them the sufferings they had so remorselessly inflicted on the Catholics. Drogheda, Kilkenny, Duncannon, and Waterford, capitulated to the victorious army, the garrisons marching to Limerick, towards which place William now directed his course. Douglas was sent to besiege Athlone; but the Governor, Colonel Grace, made such brave resistance there, he was obliged to withdraw, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... so strange a fortress should be such, and so feebly commanded, as never to make a sally; and that, contrary to all which has hitherto been seen in war, an infinitely inferior army, with the shattered relics of an almost annihilated navy, ill found and ill manned, may with safety besiege this superior garrison, and, without hazarding the life of a man, ruin the place, merely by the menaces and false appearances of an attack? Indeed, indeed, my dear friend, I look upon this matter of our defensive system as much the most ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... and scorn?— And then to ask me! You, by whom was torn And then cast by, like some vile rag, my name! What shelter could you give me, now, that blame And loathing would not share? that wolves of vice Would not besiege with eyes of glaring ice? Wherein Sin sat not with her face of flame? "You love me"?—God!—If yours be love, for lust Hell must invent another synonym! If yours be love, then hatred is the way To Heaven and God! and not with soul but dust Must burn the faces ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... sense of a whole people. It is one thing to be one, as a united family, each working for the good of each and all; it is another thing, and a worse thing, to be one as a vast and idle army, sitting down to besiege its own storehouses, each eating something of the whole and doing nothing to increase that whole, till all is gone, and the vision fades in the awakening from the dream, leaving the bare nakedness of desolation to tell the story of ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... in Calatayud came they. And they sent forth their heralds through the length of all the land. A great and sovran army they gathered to their hand. With the two Kings Fariz and Galve (these are the names they bear). They will besiege my noble lord the Cid ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... tolerably tried! The Minister knows very well he could move the Monument sooner than me. I love the people; and am half mad to see that they have no love for themselves. Why do not they meet? Why do not they petition? Why do not they besiege the throne with their clamors? They are no better than beasts of burthen! If they were any thing else, the whole kingdom would rise, as one man, and drive this arrogant upstart from the helm. I say, Mr. Evelyn, I love the people; I love my country; I ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... mixed the medicines and dried and infused herbs; they, too, controlled the patients when they were delirious. The insane engraver was sullen in appearance and sparing of words; at night he would sing a song about 'lovely Venus,' and would besiege every one he met with a request for permission to marry a girl called Malanya, who had long been dead. The one-armed peasant woman used to beat him and set him to look after the turkeys. Well, one day I was at Kapiton's. ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town. A commission in the army would not be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the town; and men only seek conversation and entering games, because they cannot remain with pleasure ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... now in the enemy's country, and with their little force they could not successfully besiege the palace, so, much against ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... almost at will, to this or that colour, this or that train of sounds, in the whole tumultuous concourse of colour and sound, so it was also, for the well-trained intelligence, in regard to that hum of voices which besiege the inward no less than the outward ear. Might it be not otherwise with those various and competing hypotheses, the permissible hypotheses, which, [65] in that open field for hypothesis—one's own actual ignorance of the origin and tendency of our being—present themselves so importunately, some ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... course the naval section bears away the palm. It is for the most part composed of the elder boys and of a few girls who would be boys if they could. Its members all possess a hopeless passion for the sea, and besiege their mothers for promises that their future life shall be that of middies. They wear straw hats and loose blue shirts, and affect as much of the sailor in their costume as they can. Each has a boat, or as they call it a "vessel," and the build and rig of these vessels is a subject of constant ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... Superbus, after he had caused his own father-in-law Servius Tullius to be cruelly murdered, and, contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the people's suffrages, had possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea. During which siege the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, in their discourses after supper every one commended the virtues of his own wife; among whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... Professor Leacock we learn that some twenty years ago there was a considerable change in the Canadian schools and universities. "The railroad magnate, the corporation manager, the promoter, the multiform director, and all the rest of the group known as captains of industry, began to besiege the universities clamouring for practical training for their sons." Mr Leacock tells of a "great and famous Canadian public school," which he attended, at which practical banking was taught so resolutely ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... a few words how you stand. You have entered my private residence by force, or perhaps by fraud, but certainly with no encouragement from me; and you come at a moment of some annoyance, a guest having fainted at my table, to besiege me with your protestations. You are no son of mine. You are my brother's bastard by a fishwife, if you want to know. I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion; and from what I now see of your conduct, I judge your mind to be exactly suitable to your exterior. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had just taken place and how Webster and Forster wanted to insist on Miss Hahlstroem's appearing that very night. The artists' chivalry was aroused. They declared unanimously that they would refuse to give up their lovely ward, even if all New York were to come and besiege them. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... besiege the Castle?' said Talbot, smiling sarcastically. 'Well, unless my old commander, General Preston, turn false metal, or the Castle sink into the North Loch, events which I deem equally probable, I think we shall have some time to make ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... interesting to pause for a moment and look at the collections. The poorer classes besiege the stores on Saturday with anxious inquiries for 'stickeys,' i.e., threepenny-pieces. To a poor man with a large family of church-goers this matter of church collections is a serious business unless he can get four mites out of a ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... awfully array'd, Boldly by battery besiege Belgrade; Cossack commanders cannonading come, Deal devastation's dire destructive doom; Ev'ry endeavour engineers essay, For fame, for freedom, fight, fierce furious fray. Gen'rals 'gainst gen'rals grapple,—gracious God! How honors Heav'n heroic hardihood! Infuriate, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... the Mediterranean coast like the conquering Pharaohs who had preceded him. In his temple palace at Medinet Habu he has left a record of the conquests that he made in Syria. The great cities of the coast were untouched. No attempt was made to besiege or capture Tyre and Sidon, Beyrout and Gebal, and the Egyptian army marched past them, encamping on the way only at such places as "the headland of Carmel," "the source of the Magoras," or river of Beyrout, and the Bor or "Cistern." ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce |
