"Fourscore" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reached Amiens he was too tired and hungry to think of 'receiving' people or making speeches. Count Leon de Chassepot had nothing, I believe, to do with the invention of the guns which bear his name. But he has a glance like a rifle-shot, and at fourscore years 'Spring still makes spring in the mind' of this vivacious veteran. I asked him how Amiens behaved when the news came there of the capture of Paris by the revolutionists of September 4, 1870. Was the new republic hailed with enthusiasm? ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... their bowes, Their hearts were good and trew, At the first flight of arrowes sent, Full fourscore ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... couple of hundreds, grants the Jew his bond for Four hundred payable at the end of four years. At the end of four years there is, of course, still no money; and the Jew now gets a bond for Eight hundred and eighty pounds, to be paid by instalments, Fourscore pounds every year. Here was a way ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... big-bellied Ben, He ate more meat than fourscore men; He ate a cow, he ate a calf, He ate a butcher and a half; He ate a church, he ate a steeple, He ate the priest ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous
... travel, bearing along with it the Trees that grew upon it, the Sheep-folds, and Flocks of Sheep abiding there at the same time. In the place from whence it was first moved, it left a gaping distance forty foot broad, and fourscore Ells long; the whole Field was about twenty Acres. Passing along, it overthrew a Chappell standing in the way, removed an Ewe-Tree planted in the Churchyard, from the West into the East; with the like force it thrust before ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... him with a most amusing respect: and this lets us into the secret, that the venerable forms that so awed our childhood were just such impostors. Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then a young heart beating under fourscore winters. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... that there was a woman in New York who had aspired to the hand of Colonel Burr, and who, when she heard of his union with another, wrung her hands and shed tears! A feeling of that nature can seldom, since the creation of man, have been excited by the marriage of a man on the verge of fourscore. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... only to be huddled into its dishonorable grave. But the wrecks of precious virtues, which had been covered with the waves of prosperity, came up also. And all sorts of unexpected and unheard-of things, which had lain unseen during our national life of fourscore years, came up and are coming up daily, shaken from their bed by the concussions of the artillery bellowing ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... force, to withstande a violence, and thei to be also betwen the Drumme and the Ansigne: this is thorder, with the whiche I would dispose a maine battaile, whiche should bee the disposyng of halfe the armie, and it should take in breadth three hundred fourscore and twoo yardes, and in length as moche as above is saied, not accomptyng the space, that thesame parte of the extraordinarie Pikes will take, whiche muste make a defence for the unarmed, whiche will bee aboute lxxv. yardes: the other maine battaile, I would ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... who, having in reversion above fifty thousand crowns yearly revenue, died necessitous and overwhelmed with debt at above fifty years of age; his mother in her extremest decrepitude being yet in possession of all his property by the will of his father, who had, for his part, lived till near fourscore years old. This appears to me by no means reasonable. And therefore I think it of very little advantage to a man, whose affairs are well enough, to seek a wife who encumbers his estate with a very great fortune; there is no sort of foreign debt that brings ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... make use of oil that came from the Greeks, and thereby transgress their own laws. Now this was said by John, not out of his regard to religion, but out of his most flagrant desire of gain; for he knew that two sextaries were sold with them of Caesarea for one drachma, but that at Gischala fourscore sextaxies were sold for four sextaries. So he gave order that all the oil which was there should be carried away, as having my permission for so doing; which yet I did not grant him voluntarily, but only out of fear ...
— The Life of Flavius Josephus • Flavius Josephus
... be a' my warnin', Death? I'm fourscore year an' four, Yet niver a drogue has crossed my lips Nor a ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... stick'st a dagger in me: I shall never see my gold again: fourscore ducats at a sitting! ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... they made any offer to stir; when about two hours before night, they came down directly upon us; and, though we had not perceived it, we found they had been joined by some more of the same, so that they were near fourscore horse, whereof, however, we fancied some were women. They came in till they were within half a shot of our little wood, when we fired one musket without ball, and called to them in the Russian tongue, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... irresistibly touching, and suggestive of dependence on, humility toward, and entreaty for merciful consideration at the hands of a superior race. Perhaps, however, the old folks enjoyed the occasion most, particularly the negresses: one wrinkled crone, of at least fourscore years, her head bound in, the usual gaudy handkerchief, and her hands resting on a staff or crutch, went off into a downright chuckle of irrepressible exultation after the closing benediction, echoed ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to seem a part of the texture of the skin, mere shadings, evenly distributed throughout, and no longer affecting the expression of the face as the deep wrinkles had done in former days; at threescore and ten, at fourscore, and even at ninety years. The century that had passed had taken with it its marks and scars, leaving the great features in their original purity of design, lean, smooth, and clearly defined. That last change in living man is rare enough, but when once seen is not to be forgotten. There ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... the foot of the hills the brigands came out singly, fourscore of them at least. Each man looked up at the plateau as he issued from the path, and the manner in which his eager steps gave way at once to an easier and more slouching gait showed plainly enough that the object of their coming had ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... had been all lost, for we promised to return before night; and sent the Lion's Whelp's ship's boat with Captain Whiddon to follow us up the river. But the next day, after we had rowed up and down some fourscore miles, we returned, and went on our way up the great river; and when we were even at the last cast for want of victuals, Captain Gifford being before the galley and the rest of the boats, seeking ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... within less than a year, to about fourscore houses and cottages, such as they are, where merchants and handicrafts are following their vocations as fast as they can; while the countrymen are close at their farms. Some of them got a little winter corn in the ground last season; and the generality have had a handsome summer-crop, ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... not be deemed inappropriate to the occasion for me to dwell for a moment on the memory of the most eminent citizen of our country who during the summer that is gone by has descended to the tomb. The enjoyment of contemplating, at the advanced age of near fourscore years, the happy condition of his country cheered the last hours of Andrew Jackson, who departed this life in the tranquil hope of a blessed immortality. His death was happy, as his life had been eminently useful. He had an unfaltering confidence in the virtue and capacity of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... contrary?" "The contrary! Nay, by Allah and the Prophet; never was my army vanquished; never was a battalion beaten; and never did the Mussulmans hesitate to follow me when I led them forty against fourscore." (Fauriel, Histoire de la Gaule, &c., t. III., pp. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Ouranaquoy gained two advantages, for first he involved the English in a war with the people with whom they had entertained a friendship for twenty years, and in the next place gained time, while the English army were so employed, to enter twenty-five miles within their country, destroying fourscore whites and three hundred Indians and negroes. But this insult did not remain long unrevenged, for the troops in which Weaver served arriving immediately after from Europe, the army (who before they had ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... in 1798 Dragonetti visited Haydn in Vienna, and was much delighted with the score of "The Creation," just completed. Several eminent violinists were in London at the time of Haydn's visit. The most distinguished of them was perhaps Felice de Giardini, who, at the age of fourscore, produced an oratorio at Ranelagh Gardens, and even played a concerto. He had a perfectly volcanic temper, and hated Haydn as the devil is said to hate holy water. "I don't wish to see the German dog," he remarked in the composer's hearing, when ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... way!" exclaimed Rose Mary with distress in her blue eyes that she raised to Uncle Tucker's, that were bent benignly upon her as she stood in the barn door beside him. "She says that as the Lord has granted her her fourscore years by reason of great strength, she oughtn't to remind Him that He has forgotten her by having an eighty-second birthday. Everybody in Sweetbriar has been looking forward to it for a week, and it was going to be such a lovely party. What shall we do? She says she just won't ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Portsmouth, announcing his arrival, and three words to Clive, conveying the same intelligence. The letter was served to the boy along with one bowl of tea and one buttered roll, of eighty such which were distributed to fourscore other boys, boarders of the same house with our young friend. How the lad's face must have flushed and his eyes brightened when he read the news! When the master of the house, the Reverend Mister Popkinson, came into the lodging-room, with a good-natured face, and ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Farm, like the poor of the parish, did not buy its herring until after the autumn, when it was as dry as sticks and cost almost nothing. At that time of year, herring was generally plentiful, and was sold for from twopence to twopence-halfpenny the fourscore as long as the demand continued. After that it was sold by the cartload as food for the pigs, or went on ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... through irregular habits and the inherited disposition to rove over the world, became poor, and sometimes, when remote from his family and friends, in real want, yet he, the youngest of the four, lived past the traditional family fourscore years, dying poor (near Lawrenceville, Illinois), but leaving children and grandchildren in many States of the West, who had become, at his death, or since became, distinguished as soldiers and eminent citizens. ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... help, cut several arms of trees half off, and laid them hanging across from one tree to another, and in a manner fenced us in. About two hours before night they came down directly upon us; and though we had not perceived it, we found they had been joined by some more, so that they were near fourscore horse; whereof, however, we fancied some were women. They came on till they were within half-shot of our little wood, when we fired one musket without ball, and called to them in the Russian tongue to know what they wanted, and bade them ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... and a toast laid in the fire. Be kind to the poor old school-girl of ninety, who has had leave to come out for a day of Christmas holiday. Shall there be many more Christmases for thee? Think of the ninety she has seen already; the fourscore and ten cold, cheerless, ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... dictated by reason and passion, by enthusiasm and by selfish motives, some useful and sublime truths were disgraced by a mixture of the most abject and dangerous superstition. The Magi, or sacerdotal order, were extremely numerous, since, as we have already seen, fourscore thousand of them were convened in a general council. Their forces were multiplied by discipline. A regular hierarchy was diffused through all the provinces of Persia; and the Archimagus, who resided at Balch, was respected as the visible head ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... close your eyes and see them—the mighty giant of fourscore, with his whitened locks, and the slight, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... could bring him an untarnished name. And the two walked together down to the old family graveyard, where the Major said that the two in the mountains should be brought some day and where the two brothers who had parted nearly fourscore years ago could, side ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... of Mr. Caskie, the dreaded school-master of the long ago, caused a momentary commotion in the audience, and immediately a man of white hairs and bowed by the weight of more than fourscore years, was lifted to the front of the platform. With arm about my neck, he earnestly inquired: "Adlai, I came twenty miles to hear you speak; don't you remember me?" The audience apparently appreciated the instant ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... Nathaniel Crouch, who wrote much for his own press under the pseudonym of "R. B." (later expanded to "Richard Burton"), published as early as 1688 (not 1706, as says the Dict. Nat. Biog.) The Kingdom of Darkness: or The History of Daemons, Specters, Witches, ... Containing near Fourscore memorable Relations, ... Together with a Preface obviating the common Objections and Allegations of the Sadduces [sic] and Atheists of the Age, ... with Pictures. Edward Stephens, first lawyer, then clergyman, but always a pamphleteer, brought ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... decay and would always be able to speak and be pleasant company for them. "A long time will you be on the road," he said. "In Harlech you will feast seven years, the birds of Rhiannon singing to you all the while. And at the Island of Gwales you will dwell for fourscore years, and you may remain there, bearing the head with you uncorrupted, until you open the door that looks towards the mainland; and after you have once opened that door you can stay no longer, but must set forth ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... these plaintive November winds that note bore a great resemblance to the ruins of human song which remain to the throat of fourscore and ten. It was a worn whisper, dry and papery, and it brushed so distinctly across the ear that, by the accustomed, the material minutiae in which it originated could be realized as by touch. It was the united products of infinitesimal vegetable causes, and these were neither stems, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... and fourscore concubines, And maidens without number. My dove, My perfect one, is but one; She is the only one of her mother; She is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and called her blessed; Yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her, saying, Who is she ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... in his stout ship lay On the bright sand in Thursa bay; With fourscore men he had no fear, Nor thought the Norse king was so near, He who provides the eagle's meals In three small boats along-shore steals; And Maddad's son must ransom pay For his bad outlook ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... capture of Therouenne, we were besieged in Hesdin. There was a clear stream of running water within shot of our cannon, and about it were fourscore or an hundred of the enemy's rabble, drawing water. I was on a rampart watching the enemy pitch their camp; and, seeing the crowd of idlers round the stream, I asked M. du Pont, commissary of the artillery, to send one cannon-shot among ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... rear of the Huns till they reached the confines of Thuringia. The Thuringians served in the army of Attila: they traversed, both in their march and in their return, the territories of the Franks; and it was perhaps in this war that they exercised the cruelties which, about fourscore years afterward, were revenged by the son of Clovis. They massacred their hostages, as well as their captives: two hundred young maidens were tortured with exquisite and unrelenting rage; their bodies ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... co-operate in the great cosmopolitan enterprise of the transit. France and Germany each sent out six expeditions; twenty-six stations were in Russian, twelve in English, eight in American, three in Italian, one in Dutch occupation. In all, at a cost of nearly a quarter of a million, some fourscore distinct posts of observation were provided; among them such inhospitable, and all but inaccessible rocks in the bleak Southern Ocean, as St. Paul's and Campbell Islands, swept by hurricanes, and fitted only for ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... clutch the long, fair hair that even the fingers of love have caressed but with reverent half-touch,—and love and hope and life go out in one dread moment of horror and despair. Now, through the reverberations of more than fourscore years, through all the tempest-rage of a war more awful than that, and fraught, we hope, with a grander joy, a clear, young voice, made sharp with agony, rings through the shuddering woods, cleaves up through the summer sky, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... Darius. But he did not long enjoy the benefit of the king's kindness for him, any otherwise than that soon after falling sick and dying, he had a magnificent funeral, and the army raised him a monument of earth, fourscore cubits high, and of a vast circumference. His ashes were conveyed in a very rich chariot, drawn by four horses, to ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... in the Canaries, off the west of Africa. There, to everybody's great 'amaze,' the Spaniards 'appeared levelling of bases [small portable cannon] and arquebuses, with divers others, to the number of fourscore, with halberds, pikes, swords, and targets.' But when it was found that Hawkins had been taken for a privateer, and when it is remembered that four hundred privateering vessels—English and Huguenot—had captured seven hundred Spanish prizes during the previous summer ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... sent the Adelantado. That strong man chose fourscore Spaniards, armed them and departed. By boat and through thick forest he reached Quibian's village, descended upon it like a hurricane and seized Quibian, much as long ago—long, long ago it seemed to us—Alonso ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... to-day, on account of the Sarkee being absent. I passed the slave-stalls, and saw another poor old woman for sale, upwards of fourscore years of age. The slave-merchants offered her for four thousand wadas, about eight shillings. People purchase these poor old creatures that they may fetch wood and water, even until their strength fails them and ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... in the purple; since his sire, a Revolutionary colonel, and formerly collector of the port, had created an office for him, and appointed him to fill it, at a period of the early ages which few living men can now remember. This Inspector, when I first knew him, was a man of fourscore years, or thereabouts, and certainly one of the most wonderful specimens of winter-green that you would be likely to discover in a lifetime's search. With his florid cheek, his compact figure smartly arrayed in a bright-buttoned blue coat, his brisk and vigorous ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... king, immediately on his appearance preferred an accusation against Godwin for the murder of Alfred, and demanded justice for that crime. Godwin, in order to appease the king, made him a magnificent present of a galley with a gilt stern, rowed by fourscore men, who bore each of them a gold bracelet on his arm, weighing sixteen ounces, and were armed and clothed in the most sumptuous manner. Hardicanute, pleased with the splendour of this spectacle, quickly forgot his brother's murder; and on Godwin's ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... and hoary-headed man, who had passed the limits of fourscore, once said to me, "My father was in the army during the whole eight years of the Revolutionary War, at first as a common soldier, afterwards as an officer. My mother had the sole charge of us four little ones. Our house was ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... announced were "sources of immorality and dissipation in such a settlement." [Footnote: Do.] He had no idea that he was in danger of attack from without, for his spies brought him word that Clark had only a hundred and ten men in the Illinois county [Footnote: Do. "Fourscore at Kaskaskia and thirty at Cahokia."]; and the route between was in winter ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the two faces would have been common enough, but one of love's divinest gifts is the power to bestow beauty wherever it goes. The old man, bent with years, with the snows of his fourscore winters lying heavily upon his head, may seem an object of kindly pity as he hobbles along with crutch or cane, going oh, so slowly, where once his feet were fain to run from very joy of living. The light may be gone from his ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... generation in a multitude of forms the consciousness at once of the power and the rights of human intelligence. Another might well have said of him what he magnanimously said of his famous contemporary, Montesquieu, that humanity had lost its title-deeds, and he had recovered them. The fourscore volumes which he wrote are the monument, as they were in some sort the instrument, of a new renaissance. They are the fruit and representation of a spirit of encyclopaedic curiosity and productiveness. Hardly a page of all these countless leaves is common form. Hardly a sentence ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... into their faces, a sudden gust—no more, and these declared that some one was burning cedarwood there. Men had dreamed that there is a witch there, walking alone through the cold courts and corridors of marmorean palaces, fearfully beautiful and still for all her fourscore centuries, singing the second oldest song, which was taught her by the sea, shedding tears for loneliness from eyes that would madden armies, yet will she not call her dragons home—Carcassonne is terribly guarded. Sometimes she swims in a marble bath through whose deeps a river tumbles, ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... balcony, I am confident, I saw several thousands in the street, and counted at least seventeen, who were upon their knees, and seemed in actual devotion. Eleven of them, indeed, appeared to be old women of about fourscore; the six others were men in advanced life, but (as I could guess) two of them might ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... Manifesto rang through the civilized world. In all lands it was hailed as the end of despotism and the triumph of democracy and freedom. The joy of the Russian people was unbounded. At last, after fourscore years of heroic struggle and sacrifice by countless heroes, named and nameless, the goal of freedom was attained. Men, women, and children sang in the streets to express their joy. Red flags were displayed everywhere and solemnly saluted by the officers and men of the ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... nature bribe To make you look like beauty's queen, And hold for ever at fifteen; No bloom of youth can ever blind The cracks and wrinkles of your mind; All men of sense will pass your door, And crowd to Stella's at fourscore. ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... unlocked her most hidden secrets. His hollow eyes, sunk in their orbits, retired from the view of vulgar objects, and turned inwards, overleaped the boundary prescribed to human knowledge. Intense thinking during fourscore and ten years, had whitened the scattered locks on his head, which, like the summit of the distant mountain, appeared to be bound by ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... it used to be while the Chancellor stood up. From that we discoursed of the evil of putting out men of experience in business as the Chancellor, and of the condition of the King's party at present, who, as the Papists, though otherwise fine persons, yet being by law kept for these fourscore years out of employment, they are now wholly uncapable of business; and so the Cavaliers for twenty years, who, says he, for the most part have either given themselves over to look after country and family business, and those the best of them, and ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... HIS fourscore years have bent a back of oak, His earth-brown cheeks are full of hollow pits; His gnarled hands wander idly as he sits Bending above the hearthstone's feeble smoke. Threescore and ten slow years he tilled the land; He wrung his bread from out the stubborn soil; He saw ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons
... and sad and poor, To our shame, not to his—so he lived on, Till man's allotted fourscore years were gone, And scarcely then had leave to ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... clock. And about six of the clock we came to her and boarded her, and shot at her three pieces of ordnance, and strake down her mizen; and, being entered, we found in her great riches, as jewels and precious stones, thirteen chests full of reals of plate, fourscore pound weight of gold, and six-and-twenty ton of silver. The place where we took this prize was called Cape de San Francisco, about 150 leagues [south] from Panama. The pilot's name of this ship was Francisco; and amongst other ...
— Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World • Francis Pretty
... fourscore towers / without they saw rise tall, Three spacious palaces / and moulded well a hall All wrought of precious marble / green as blade of grass, Wherein the royal Brunhild / with company of fair ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... and substantial growth in the feeling for international responsibility and justice among the great civilized nations during the past threescore or fourscore years. There has been a real growth of recognition of the fact that moral turpitude is involved in the wronging of one nation by another, and that in most cases war is an evil method of settling international difficulties. But as yet there has been ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... craft that bore him into a slow-forming curve that did not end for fourscore miles before the wild flight was checked. He swung it back, to guide the ship with shaking hands where a range of mountains rose in icy blackness, and where a gleaming cylinder rested upon a bank of snow whose white expanse showed a figure that came ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... that was "of all flowres the flowre," in the estimation of the Patriarch of English poets, and which so delighted Wordsworth in his childhood, in his middle life, and in his old age. He gazed on it, at intervals, with unchanging affection for upwards of fourscore years. ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... abovementioned pickle introduced dry for his use; which, as he was mincing, he called aloud to the company to observe him; "I here present you, my lords and gentlemen," said he, "with a sight that may henceforward serve you to talk of as something curious, namely, that you saw an Archbishop of Dublin, at fourscore and seven years of age, cut capers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... country: they visited all them that were slain and rode all day in the fields, and returned again to the host as the king was going to supper. They made just report of that they had seen, and said how there were eleven great princes dead, fourscore banners, twelve hundred knights, and more than thirty thousand other.[1] The Englishmen kept still their field all that night: on the Monday in the morning the king prepared to depart: the king caused the dead ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... its gates to him: he made himself master of Fronsac, Castillon, and some other places: affairs began to wear a favorable aspect; but as Charles hastened to resist this dangerous invasion, the fortunes of the English were soon reversed: Shrewsbury, a venerable warrior, above fourscore years of age, fell in battle; his conquests were lost; Bordeaux was again obliged to submit to the French king;[***] and all hopes of recovering the province ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... discover that the 'ballad in print' is the broadside, the narrative ballad, sung of a usurer's wife brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden, or of a fish that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April: in short, as Martin Mar-sixtus says (1592), 'scarce a cat can look out of a gutter but out starts a halfpenny chronicler, and presently a proper new ballet of a strange sight is indited.' Chief amongst these 'halfpenny chroniclers' were William ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... college, but the idea of the castle grew in Aunt Marcia's brain. Towns and villages were spreading up the river, and one day she was offered what seemed a fabulous sum for her old home of rocky woodlands. She was still shrewd, if she had come to fourscore, and offered them half, on her own terms, holding off with the most provoking indifference until they came to an agreement. Then she announced her intention of building a home for Floyd, who was to ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... cried Martin, "here are fourscore volumes of the 'Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences;' perhaps there may be something curious and valuable in this collection."—"Yes," answered Pococurante; "so there might, if any one of these compilers of this rubbish had only invented ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... mock me: I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward; Not an hour more, nor less: and, to deal plainly, I fear, I am not in my perfect mind. Methinks, I shou'd know you, and know this man; Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant What place this is; and all the skill I have ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... than the full fourscore lay hallowing hands on a sacred head— Scarce one score of the perfect four uncrowned of fame as they smiled and fled: Still and soft and alive aloft their sunlight stays though the ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... short of fourscore at the time of his death he was Lancaster's oldest inhabitant. His fellow pioneer, Lawrence Waters, who was the elder by perhaps a years, till survived, though blind and helpless; but he dwelt with a son in ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... friend of all the friendless 'neath the sun; Whose hand had wiped away a thousand tears; Whose eloquent lips and clear, strong brain have done God's holy service through his fourscore years." ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... great gate fronting to the north was about four feet high, and almost two feet wide, through which I could easily creep. On each side of the gate was a small window, not above six inches from the ground: into that on the left side, the king's smith conveyed fourscore and eleven chains, like those that hang to a lady's watch in Europe, and almost as large, which were locked to my left leg with six-and-thirty padlocks. Over against this temple, on the other side of the great highway, at twenty ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... man of the book, and had, therefore, got a little of the truth in him, though unhappily not much, since his heart had not been opened to that of the Koran. Nathu could have told him that he also had a book, which he and some fourscore millions more thought as good as his or better; but he was afraid to descant upon the merits of his 'shastras', and the miracles of Kishan Ji [Krishna], among such fierce, cut-throat-looking people; he looked, however, as if he could have eaten the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... little great-great-grand-daughter of the Lord Kilmarnock of 1745 was brought down from the nursery to see an old, more than octogenarian, soldier who had distinguished himself in recent wars, and reached the rank of general. This tottering old man, more than fourscore years of age, took the wee maiden of hardly four upon his knee, and told her in simple words the story she was never to forget—how he had been a tiny boy running to school on the day of the execution of the "rebel lords," and how, seeing a vast, eager crowd all setting toward the Tower ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... be removed? he said, When Sir Hector Munro came afterwards to Tanjore, the old daubiere was mentioned, and recommended to the Rajah as successor to his then dewan.—Being asked, Of what age was the daubiere at that time? he said, Of a very great age: upwards of fourscore.—Being asked, Whether a person called Kanonga Saba Pilla was not likewise named? he said, Yes, he was: he was recommended by Sir Thomas Rumbold; and one recommendation, as well as I can recollect, went through me.—Being ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... would certainly be fatal to themselves. If I have room at the bottom of this paper, I will transcribe a petition to the present ministry, sent me by one of these authors, in behalf of himself and fourscore others of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... hundred Years old, who, for thirty Years past, lived on nothing but Chocolate and Biscuit. He sometimes indeed had a little Soop at Dinner, but never any Fish, Flesh, or other Victuals: He was, nevertheless, so vigorous and nimble, that at fourscore and five, he could ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... in this case, he had lied in all. So held the angry caliph, who turned upon him with bitter abuse, calling him thief and liar, and swearing by Allah that he would crucify him. In the end he ordered the old man, fourscore years of age, corpulent and asthmatic, to be exposed to the fierce sun of Syria for a whole summer's day, and bade his brother Omar to see that the ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... they at least fourscore, We rushed upon them, and a midnight pall Over the seething lake our pinions spread, 'Neath which our gleaming arrows thickly sped, As shooting stars that in the rice-moon fall. Rent by our beating wings the cloud-waves swung In eddies ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... welcome to its republication; but a third edition of it, by another hand, ought not to have been published without permission. The ORIGINAL of this Portrait has ceased to exist. After a laborious life of fourscore years, the learned Schweighaeuser has departed—in the fullest maturity of reputation arising from classical attainments; to which must be added, all the excellences of a mild, affable, christian-like disposition. As a husband, a father, and a friend, none went before him: no one displayed ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... body of Abyssins had posted themselves in a narrow pass with an intent to surround and destroy them; therefore, without long deliberation, I assembled my friends, both Portuguese and Abyssins, to the number of fourscore, and went to their rescue, carrying with me provisions and refreshments, of which I knew they were in great need. These glorious confessors I met as they were just entering the pass designed for the place of their destruction, and doubly preserved them from famine ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... twelve, dozen; thirteen; long dozen, baker's dozen; quintuplet; twenty, score; twenty-four, four and twenty, two dozen; twenty-five, five and twenty, quarter of a hundred; forty, two score; fifty, half a hundred; sixty, three score; seventy, three score and ten; eighty, four score; ninety, fourscore and ten; sestiad^. hundred, centenary, hecatomb, century; hundredweight, cwt.; one hundred and forty-four, gross. thousand, chiliad; millennium, thousand years, grand [Coll.]; myriad; ten thousand, ban [Jap.], man [Jap.]; ten thousand years, banzai ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dined with us, also Colonel Russell. What a man for fourscore or thereby is Old Haly—an Indian too. He ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... 6, 1731. At six in the evening preached at Kennington; but such a sight I never saw before. Some supposed there were above 30,000 or 40,000 people, and near fourscore coaches, besides great numbers of horses; and there was such an awful silence amongst them, and the Word of God came with such power, that all seemed pleasingly surprised. I continued my discourse for an hour and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... meadows are on those high grounds, whose slope is very gentle; we also find there tall forests, and thickets in the low bottoms. In the meadows we observe here and there groves of very tall and straight oaks, to the number of fourscore or an hundred at most: there are others of about forty or fifty, which seem to have been planted by men's hands in these meadows, for a retreat to the buffaloes, deer, and other animals, and a screen against storms, and the sting ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... obstructions of age and care's incumbent cloud into that flow of thought and brightness of expression which subjects so polite require," yet it is more like the production of untamed, unbridled youth, than of jaded fourscore. Some sevenfold volumes put him in mind of Ovid's sevenfold channels of the Nile ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... the greatest curiosity of the story? The whole plan and execution of the second act was laid and adjusted by my Lady Suffolk herself and Will. Chetwynd, master of the mint, Lord Bolingbroke's Oroonoko-Chetwynd; he fourscore, she past seventy-six; and, what is more, much worse than I was, for, added to her deafness, she has been confined these three weeks with the gout in her eyes, was actually then in misery, and had been without sleep. What spirits, and cleverness, and imagination, at that age, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... of Rechab, into the house of Baal, and said unto the worshippers of Baal, Search, and look that there be here with you none of the servants of the Lord, but the worshippers of Baal only. 24. And when they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings, Jehu appointed fourscore men without, and said, If any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escape, he that letteth him go, his life shall be for the life of him. 25. And it came to pass, as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Whose service is my special dignity, And she my loadstar while I go and come. And so because you love me, and because I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name: In you not fourscore years can dim the flame Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws Of time and change and mortal life ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... white as snow. Still there was that in his gait, attitudes, and all his movements which indicated physical vigor, not to say the remains, at least, of great elasticity and sinewy activity. Aged as he was, and he must have long since passed his fourscore years, his form was erect as that of a youth. In stature he was of rather more than middle height, and in movements deliberate and dignified. His dress was quite plain, being black, and according to the customs of the day. The color of his face and hands, however, as well as the bold ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... inclination for trade, the summit of his ambition was to be a country gentleman, to found a family, and to pass the remainder of his days in rural ease and dignity, and all this he managed to accomplish; he disposed of his business, purchased a beautiful and extensive estate for fourscore thousand pounds, built upon it the mansion to which I had the honour of welcoming you to-day, married the daughter of a neighbouring squire, who brought him a fortune of five thousand pounds, became a magistrate, and only wanted a son and heir to make ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... marriage so much to heart. There is nothing sinful, or even radically objectionable in a second marriage; though I admit that, to my mind, a woman is worthier in remaining faithful to her first love; like Anna the prophetess, who had been a widow fourscore-and-four years. Who shall say that her exceptional gift of prophecy may not have been a reward for the purity and fidelity ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... the least reserve, during a journey of many hundred miles; and in all that time I never heard him speak one improper word, nor saw him do an improper action. To conclude; many exemplary men have I known, holy in heart and life, within fourscore years, but one equal to him I have not known—one so inwardly and outwardly devoted to God. So unblamable a character in every respect I have not found either in Europe or America; and I scarce expect to find another such on this side of eternity.' Fletcher, on his part, was one of the few parish ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... Pretender, having withdrawn to Rome, Madame des Ursins attached herself to him and his fortunes; she did the honours of his house: and thus she remained until her death, which took place December 5th, 1722, at the age of fourscore and upwards. ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... grief and trouble, but with solid joy and peace." "But, oh! now how was my soul led on from truth to truth by God; now had I evidence of my salvation from heaven, with many golden seals thereon all banging in my sight, and I would long that the last day were come, or that I were fourscore years old, that I might die quickly that my soul might be ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... retired village in England not of a mountainous district. No turnpike road went through the parish. It lay in the line of no thoroughfare. The only inhabitants of education were the clergyman, a man of great simplicity of character, who had never been at the University, and my great-uncle, of above fourscore, and a recluse. The people were uneducated to an extent now unusual. Nearly all the letters of the village were written by my uncle's gardener, a Scotchman, who, having the degree of education usual with his countrymen of the profession, ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... eager to see whatever there was of interest. As it would be best to wait until morning for looking at the pictures, they at once set forth and walked along the narrow streets lined with arcades, and through grassy Il Prato, with its fourscore and more statues of Padua's famous men ranged between the trees. They saw the traditional house of Petrarch, and that of Dante, in front of which stands a large mediaeval sarcophagus reported to contain the bones of King Antenor, who, according to the poet Virgil, founded ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... see that mirror; make my head-dress higher; let me show my mouth more; drop the pleat over the eyes;[74] alter my eyebrows," etc. etc. But beyond the washing of hands before the feast, this French book that Crapelet printed fourscore years ago goeth not. Perhaps it was a mere accident; perhaps the writer had a shrewd notion that whatever he wrote would seem but stale in its reminder of the night when Partenopeus lay awake, and seemingly alone, in the enchanted palace—now ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... adherents of what was called "the New England way"; and a year later saw in London alone the rise of "fourscore congregations of several sectaries," as Bishop Hall scornfully tells us, "instructed by guides fit for them, cobblers, tailors, felt-makers, and such-like trash." But little religious weight however could be attributed as yet to the Congregational movement. Baxter at this time had not heard ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... know how to contain my elevation of spirits. I thought myself one of the greatest geniuses in Europe. I thought I could write all sorts of books, and work at all handicraft trades. I imagined that I had fourscore millions of money out at interest, and that I should actually be chosen Pope at the next election. I obtest you, my friend, in the warmest spirit of love to return to her Ladyship my most sincere thanks, and tell her that when the planets permit us to meet, she ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... seemed that the pestilence had visited Gorumna in the absence of its mistress, and that the Dark Master had caught a score of the O'Malleys who had been wrecked in Bertraghboy Bay, promptly hanging them all. Between the plague and the hanging Nuala had a bare fourscore men left within the castle, and she counted Brian's offer as a ruse on the part of O'Donnell, for she was ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... have styled them; and the phrase is to be taken in its full significance. A more odd-looking set of fellows never mustered in a Mexican piazza, nor elsewhere. There are fourscore of them; and but that each carries a yager rifle in his hand, a knife in his belt, and a Colt's pistol on his thigh, you could not discover the slightest point of resemblance between any two of them. Their arms are the only things about them denoting uniformity, ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... of horse-sheds, and still further on in that direction, where the trees began, the eye caught fragmentary glimpses of low roofs and the fronts of tiny cottages, withdrawn from full view among the saplings and underbrush. At the other side of the clearing, fully fourscore tents were pitched, some gray and mended, others dazzlingly white in their newness. The more remote of these tents fell into an orderly arrangement of semi-circular form, facing that part of the engirdling woods where the trees were largest, and their canopy of overhanging ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... well-belov'd, I have in thee The only blessing left on earth to me, The one sweet solace in my dreary life Of fourscore years of racial hate and strife; Dear Comforter, 'tis true, our feet now stand Within the limits of our people's land; Behind us are the obloquy and pain Endured in cruel, persecuting Spain, Yet feel I ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... Is life a boon? If so, it must befall That Death, whene'er he call, Must call too soon. Though fourscore years he give, Yet one would pray to live Another moon! What kind of plaint have I, Who perish in July, who perish in July? I might have had to die, Perchance, in June! I might have had to die, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... That's Walter Ewbank. [F] He had as white a head and fresh a cheek As ever were produced by youth and age 210 Engendering in the blood of hale fourscore. Through five [24] long generations had the heart Of Walter's forefathers o'erflowed the bounds Of their inheritance, that single cottage— You see it yonder! and those few green fields. 215 They toiled and wrought, and still, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... with us,' continued Probus; 'he beareth long and patiently. We are not destroyed because in the first years of our life we do not rise to all virtue, but are spared to fourscore. Ought we not to manifest a like patience and forbearance? By waiting patiently we shall see our faults, and one by one correct them. There is still some reason and discernment left among us. We are not all fools and blind. And the faults which we correct ourselves, by our ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... sensitive, child as she was, languishing and dying before her time, in spite of all the bitter things she swallowed,—God help all little children in the hands of dosing doctors and howling dervishes! Restless Samuel Gorton, now tamed by the burden of fourscore and two years, writes so touching an account of his infirmities, and expresses such overflowing gratitude for the relief he has obtained from the Governor's prescriptions, wondering how "a thing so ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... given herein shows the return of the procession, just as the gorgeous state coach is about to wend its way up Ludgate Hill. The coach is, doubtless, the most imposing feature of the modern show, and has thus played its part for nearly fourscore years and ten. It is a piece of cumbrous magnificence, better assorting with the leisurely progress of other days than the notions of these progressive times. Yet it is a sight which may have inspired many a City apprentice, and ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... gentleman was lately telling in a company where I was present, that in France as soon as a man of fashion marries, he takes an opera girl into keeping; and this he mentioned as a general custom. "Pray, Sir, (said I,) how many opera girls may there be?" He answered, "About fourscore." "Well then, Sir, (said I,) you see there can be no more than fourscore men of fashion ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... unexpected, that the king's officer took them for merchants, paying with his life for the mistake.[198] A Welsh chronicle, known by the name of Brut y Tywysogion, or the Chronicle of the Chieftains, has a corresponding record under the year 790: "Ten years with fourscore and seven hundred was the age of Christ when the pagans went to Ireland." Three MSS. add, "and destroyed Rechren." Another chronicle mentions, that the black pagans, who were the first of their nation to land in Ireland, had previously been defeated in Glamorganshire, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... looking up to heaven, he said, 'Away with the atheists.' Was he then yielding? The Proconsul had misunderstood him, but he pressed him hard and said 'Swear the oath, and I will release thee. Revile the Christ!' Polycarp looked him in the face, and gave him the answer which can never die. 'Fourscore and six years have I been His servant, and He hath done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King Who saved me?' The words of pity changed into threats. 'I have wild beasts here,' said Statius, 'and I will throw thee to ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... of Baden, is now near fourscore years of age. At this period of life if any passions remain, avarice is more common than ambition; because treasures may be hoarded without bustle, while activity is absolutely necessary to push forward to the goal of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... is our unapproachable language that the number can only be faintly conjectured. Some claim fivescore thousand different written symbols; the least exacting agree to fourscore thousand." ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... shoemaker, sitting with his head on his knees, in a hole in the wall from morning to night, in any respect to be pitied? Is the solitary orphan, that sits all day sewing in a garret, while the old woman for whom she works is out washing, an object of compassion? or the widow of fourscore, hurkling over the embers, with the stump of a pipe in her toothless mouth? Is it so sad a thing indeed to be alone? or to have one's motions circumscribed within the narrowest imaginable limits? ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... slight employment as a perfect garden, with no weeds in it, demanded. But, as soon as they had sinned, the best thing for them was to be turned out where they would have to work. We know what a withering thing it is for a man to have nothing to do. Old Ashbel Green, at fourscore years, when asked why he kept on working, said, "I do so to keep out of mischief." We see that a man who has a large amount of money to start with has no chance. Of the thousand prosperous and honorable men that you know, nine hundred ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... number who lost their lives on this singular occasion was fourscore and four persons, including fifteen children; and at this expense of blood was extinguished a flame that arose as suddenly, burned as fiercely, and decayed as rapidly, as any portent of the kind within the annals of superstition. The Commissioners returned to Court with ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... there we might see Sogliardo sit in a chair, holding his snout up like a sow under an apple-tree, while the other open'd his nostrils with a poking-stick, to give the smoke a more free delivery. They had spit some three or fourscore ounces between 'em, ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... public character," once common, seems to be going out of fashion, perhaps because there are fewer examples of the thing. It fits Josiah Quincy exactly. Active in civic and academic duties till beyond the ordinary period of man, at fourscore and ten his pen, voice, and venerable presence were still efficient in public affairs. A score of years after the energies of even vigorous men are declining or spent, his mind and character made themselves felt as in their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... Lord Keith at sea, Massena and the French troops held on grimly to the besieged city of Genoa, until twenty thousand of its innocent inhabitants had perished by that most awful and lingering of deaths, famine. It would be no extravagant estimate to believe that during the fourscore years and more which have since elapsed, the demon of play, enthroned along the whole of the Riviera, has caused as much misery to its hapless victims as the fatal siege of Genoa, which Dr. Arnold selected as exemplifying the direful horrors of which war was ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... some of his near relations, a religious community, known as the "Arminian Nunnery," some account of which is given in Shorthouse's "John Inglesant"; it was broken up by the Puritans in 1647; he was the intimate friend of George Herbert; this community consisted of some "fourscore persons, devoted to a kind of Protestant monasticism; they followed celibacy and merely religious duties, employed themselves in binding prayer-books, &c., in alms-giving and what charitable work was possible to them in their desert retreat, kept up, night and day, a continual repetition ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... remaining son, in the forty-fourth year of his age, a man of much ability and reputation, worthy to have supported the honour of his name. Notwithstanding these repeated sorrows, and the weight of nearly fourscore years, Evelyn still enjoyed uninterrupted health, and unimpaired faculties; he enjoyed also the friendship of the wise and the good, and the general esteem beyond any other individual of ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... to give the least attention to this compliment. The moment he cast his eyes on the forty trays, full of the most precious and beautiful jewels he had ever seen, and the fourscore slaves, who appeared by the elegance of their persons, and the magnificence of their dress, like so many princes, he was overwhelmed. Instead of answering the compliment of Aladdin's mother, he addressed himself to the grand vizier, who could not any more than the sultan comprehend ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... a week ago to-day that the coach from New York set down at my door a stranger of fine and quaint appearance, whose white hair betokened him to be aged, but whose alert and energetic movements showed that, if he had passed the line of fourscore, he had still enough of the fire of youth remaining to make his presence welcome in whatever place he chose to enter. As had happened sixteen years before, I was looking out of the window when the coach drove up, and, being at once attracted by the stranger's person and manner, ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... till now, almost fourscore, There lived he, but now lived there no more. At seventeen many their fortunes seek; But at fourscore it ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... man, son of a wicked man, and descendant of Nimrod the wicked, who incited the world to rebel against God! Behold, the days of the years of a man are threescore years and ten, or perhaps by reason of strength fourscore years. It takes five hundred years to traverse the distance of the earth from the first heaven, and as long a time to penetrate from the bottom to the top of the first heaven, and not less are the distances ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... No Landlord cry. The land was stolen from the people, and the people carefully remember the fact. You hear Nationalists speaking ill of the Irish members. The members have done well for us. They have done grandly. Fourscore Irishmen have conquered the British Empire, and without firing a shot. That after all beats the record of the Boers, but they got complete independence. We are not yet there; but it ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... more or less flushed by this uproarious sympathy so gallantly shown, and the very thunder of so many horses' feet, each carrying a friend, was very exciting and glorious. Why, before they got to the village they had fourscore ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... did the Greek hosts gather, until a hundred thousand men and eleven hundred fourscore and six ships were ready to cross the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... myself led the rest into that house. There while we slew all those that yielded not, came Arnald with the others, bringing our horses with them; then all the enemy threw their arms down. And we counted our prisoners and found them over fourscore; therefore, not knowing what to do with them (for they were too many to guard, and it seemed unknightly to slay them all), we sent up some bowmen to the walls, and turning our prisoners out of gates, bid them run ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris
... broken in a hundred places by the malignants of the opposite factions; and from a body spent with poxes ill cured, by trusting to bawds and surgeons, who, as it afterwards appeared, were professed enemies to me and the government, and revenged their party's quarrel upon my nose and shins. Fourscore and eleven pamphlets have I written under three reigns, and for the service of six and thirty factions. But finding the state has no farther occasion for me and my ink, I retire willingly to draw it out into speculations more becoming a philosopher; ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... English archers bent their bows,— Their hearts were good and true; At the first flight of arrows sent, Full fourscore Scots ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... of life's toil and travail: he who like me has seen pass of years fourscore, well may he be sick of life! I know what To-day unfolds, what before it was Yesterday; but blind do I stand before the knowledge To-morrow brings. I have seen the Dooms trample men as a blind beast at random treads: whom they smote, he died; whom they missed, he ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... four foot high, and about two foot wide, through which I could easily creep. On each side of the gate was a small window, not above six inches from the ground: into that on the left side the king's smiths conveyed fourscore and eleven chains, like those that hang to a lady's watch in Europe, and almost as large, which were locked to my left leg with ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... was sung by divers of the Queen's Chapel and children. And after Mass was done every clerk went their procession, two and two together, each having a surplice, a rich cope and a garland. After them fourscore standards, streamers and banners, and every one that bare had an albe, or else a surplice, and two and two together. Then came the waits playing, and then between, thirty Clarkes again singing Salva festa dies. So there were four quires. Then came a canopy, borne by four of the masters of the Clarkes ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... close behind him were descending some fourscore men, whose musket-barrels and cocked hats we could distinguish swaying above the bushes, as ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... old age he was reduced to poverty, or rather to actual beggary; for shortly before his death, when fourscore years old, he was permitted, by royal letters patent, to become a mendicant. This curious document is printed in Mr. Bolton Corney's Curiosities of Literature Illustrated, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various
... shore and moor her hard by Hallblithe's boat. They cried out when they saw her, and when they were aland they gathered about her to note her build, and the fashion of the spear whereto she was tied. Then in a while the more part of them, some fourscore in number, departed up the valley toward the great house and left none but a half dozen ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... shall be burlesqued with his own doggrel rhymes; the painter shall himself vanish into an imaginary landscape; and the physician shall want food more than his patients do physic. In short, without self-love, instead of beautiful, you shall think yourself an old beldam of fourscore; instead of youthful, you shall seem just dropping into the grave; instead of eloquent, a mere stammerer; and in lieu of gende and complaisant, you shall appear like a downright country clown; it being so necessary that every one should think well of himself before ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... shattered and sounding their way cautiously through the new marks and shoals of once familiar ports. And as the storms subsided men perceived that everywhere the days were hotter than of yore, and the sun larger, and the moon, shrunk to a third of its former size, took now fourscore days between its new ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long: Even wondered at, because he dropt no sooner. Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years; Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more, Till like a clock worn out with eating time, The wheels of weary life ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... Anna, a prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; (37)and she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, who departed not from the temple, serving day and night with fastings and prayers. (38)And she, coming up at that very time, likewise gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of him to all that were looking for ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... if they knew what those jewels meant? "No," said they, "we hope you will be pleased to inform us." "These are," she replied, "the rings of all the men to whom I have granted my favours. There are fourscore and eighteen, which I keep as memorials of them; and I asked for yours to make up the hundred. So that I have had a hundred gallants already, notwithstanding the vigilance of this wicked genie, who never ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... belvedere hight the Palace of Pleasure and the Pavilion of Pictures, the whole belonging to the Caliph Harun al-Rashid who was wont, when his breast was straitened with care, to frequent garden and palace and there to sit. The palace had eighty latticed windows and fourscore lamps hanging round a great candelabrum of gold furnished with wax- candles; and, when the Caliph used to enter, he would order the handmaids to throw open the lattices and light up the rooms; and he would ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... his country; and that, if life should not allow him time to see his endeavours crowned with success, his children will see it? The impatient patriots are like the young men (mentioned in the beautiful fable of LA FONTAINE) who ridiculed the man of fourscore, who was planting an avenue of very small trees, which, they told him, that he never could expect to see as high as his head. 'Well,' said he, 'and what of that? If their shade afford me no pleasure, it may afford pleasure to my children, and even to you; and, therefore, the planting of them ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett |
