"Bestride" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... muscles shall be more exercised than the affections. When you have had your will of the forest, you may visit the whole round world. You may buckle on your knapsack and take the road on foot. You may bestride a good nag, and ride forth, with a pair of saddle-bags, into the enchanted East. You may cross the Black Forest, and see Germany wide-spread before you, like a map, dotted with old cities, walled and spired, that dream all day on their own reflections in the Rhine or Danube. You may pass the spinal ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a glorious Whore; where be your Fighters? what mortal Fool durst raise thee to this daring, And I alive? by my just Sword, h'ad safer Bestride a Billow when the angry North Plows up the Sea, or made Heavens fire his food; Work me no ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... "Freckles" had received a majority vote. Freckles had long ceased to impress the observer as a pathetic object. He was an energetic, pin-feathery creature, noted equally for his appetite and his pugnacity. Dorothy who had not hesitated to bestride Farmer Cole's boar, and was absolutely fearless as far as Hobo was concerned, retreated panic-stricken before Freckles' advances. For owing to reasons not apparent, Freckles found an irresistible temptation ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... When his story comes to the fighting, he must rise, get something by way of a sword and have a set-to with a piece of furniture, until he is out of breath. When he comes to ride with the king's pardon, he must bestride a chair, which he will so hurry and belabour and on which he will so furiously demean himself, that the messenger will arrive, if not bloody with spurring, at least fiery red with haste. If his romance involves an accident upon a cliff, he must clamber in person about the chest of drawers ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. He urged me to do likewise, to misbehave, to sin with officers of the garrison. He implored me to soil his letter in an unspeakable manner, to chastise him as he richly deserves, to bestride and ride him, to give him ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Mrs. Kawdle and attended by Dolly, travelled in their own coach, drawn by six dappled horses. Dr. Kawdle, with Captain Crowe, occupied the doctor's post-chariot, provided with four bays. Mr. Clarke had the honour to bestride the loins of Bronzomarte. Mr. Ferret was mounted upon an old hunter; Crabshaw stuck close to his friend Gilbert; and two other horsemen completed the retinue. There was not an aching heart in the whole cavalcade, except that of the young lawyer, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... Meantime his steps are bathed in the warm dew Of bloodshed, and of tears;—but his dread name Shall perish—the loud clarion of his fame One day shall cease, and, wrapt in hideous gloom, Forgetfulness bestride his shapeless tomb! But bear thou fearless on;—the God of all, To whom the afflicted kneel, the friendless call, 140 From His high throne of mercy shall approve The holy deeds of Mercy and of Love: For when the vanities of life's ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, ha! He bounds from the earth as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus qui a les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and you will see how instinctively, as it were, his eyes are fixed upon a sporting piece by Wouvermans. The hooded hawk, in his estimation, hath more charms than Guido's Madonna:—how he envies every rider upon his white horse!—how he burns to bestride the foremost steed, and to mingle in the fair throng, who turn their blue eyes to the scarcely bluer expanse of heaven! Here he recognises Gervase Markham, spurring his courser; and there he fancies himself lifting ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... and some medicines. Captain Lewis and some men went ahead. They were looking for Indians. They wanted to buy some horses. After a time the river grew so narrow that a soldier put one foot on one bank and his other foot on the other bank. Then he said, "Thank God, I am alive to bestride the mighty Missouri." Before this, people did not know where the Missouri began. A little way off was the beginning of the mighty Columbia River. The soldiers reached this place in August. Captain Lewis was very happy as he drank some cold water from the beginnings of these two ...
— The Bird-Woman of the Lewis and Clark Expedition • Katherine Chandler
... pig's skin; and, ye Centaurs! what seats were there!" It must have been a sight for proper men to see. Not the veriest tailor would walk on Derby day. He "would mount a mis-teached hippogriff, and risk the chance of a purl, rather than not show at the covert-side." Who, indeed, would not bestride a steed when he might meet the Assassin and the O'Bluster in the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... When its spirit to the Yue Ling hath flown, 'tis hard to say 'tis spring. The russet clouds across the 'Lo Fu' lie, so e'en to dreams it's closed. The green petals add grace to a coiffure, when painted candles burn. The simple elf when primed with wine doth the waning rainbow bestride. Does its appearance speak of a colour of ordinary run? Both dark and light fall of their own free will ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... abandoned; but he would have refurnished the whole deanery had he been allowed. He sent down a magnificent piano by Erard, gave Mr. Arabin a cob which any dean in the land might have been proud to bestride, and made a special present to Eleanor of a new pony chair that had gained a prize in the Exhibition. Nor did he even stay his hand here; he bought a set of cameos for his wife and a sapphire bracelet ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... doth bestride the narrow world, Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... I loved the maid I married: never man Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here, Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart Than when I first my wedded mistress saw Bestride my threshold." ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... tradition, on revelation; while that false, monstrous, and unconditioned science to which the pride of human reason has always aspired, which would grasp at every thing at once by one despotic clutch, and by a violent bound of logic bestride and beride the ALL, is, and remains, an oscillating abortion that always would be something, and always can be nothing. A living, personal, moral God, the faith of nations, the watch-word of tradition, the cry of nature, the demand of mind, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... not knowing what was required of her, she turned to Alessandro, the chief executioner, and asked what she was to do; he told her to bestride the plank and lie prone upon it; which she did with great trouble and timidity; but as she was unable, on account of the fullness of her bust, to lay her neck upon the block, this had to be raised ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... this, he lost his senses for affright, but the Jinni said to him, "Fear not; no harm shall befal thee. Mount thy horse and leap him on to the Ifrit's shoulders." "Nay," answered he, "I will leave my horse with thee and bestride his shoulders myself." So he bestrode the Ifrit's shoulders and, when the Jinni cried, "Close thine eyes, O my lord, and be not a craven!" he strengthened his heart and shut his eyes. Thereupon the Ifrit rose ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... lady. Oh, so light of foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint: A lover may bestride the gossamer, That idles in the wanton summer air, And yet not fall, ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... and plenty to this happy valley. It was not, however, destined to be entered by us without a fierce combat for precedence between two of our steeds. The animal whom it was the evil lot of Meliboeus to bestride, suddenly threw back its ears, and darted madly upon the doctor's quadruped, which, on its side, manifested no reluctance ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... the roan I bestride," said the Duke; "but a bold rider curbs it with the steel of the bit, and guides it with the goad of ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... after him, and ran to meet her. The leopardess, to avoid knocking him down, pulled herself up so suddenly that she went rolling over and over: when she recovered her feet she found the child on her back. Who could doubt the subjugation of a people which saw an urchin of the enemy bestride an animal of which they lived in daily terror? Confident of the effect on the whole army, we ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... of which it was equally perplexing and delightful, for a change, to proceed. Everything, for that matter, becomes interesting from the moment it has closely to consider, for full effect positively to bestride, the law of its kind. "Kinds" are the very life of literature, and truth and strength come from the complete recognition of them, from abounding to the utmost in their respective senses and sinking deep into their consistency. I myself have scarcely to plead the cause of "going behind," which ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... the children are abed, and even grown people are snoring under quilts, does it not seem impertinent to leave these ginger-bread figures winking and tinkling to the stars and the rolling moon? The gargoyles may fitly enough twist their ape-like heads; fitly enough may the potentate bestride his charger, like a centurion in an old German print of the Via Dolorosa; but the toys should be put away in a box among some cotton, until the sun rises, and the children are abroad again ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the old horse he had ridden into the lake he was bestride a noble steed, and as the steed swam to the bank the Dwarf felt a change coming over himself, and an unknown ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... GENTLEMEN:—There is no help for it, alas! now. The Pilgrim or Puritan doth bestride the broad continent like another Colossus and we Dutch, English, Scotch, Scotch-Irish, and Irish walk about under his huge legs [laughter]; "we must bend our bodies when he doth carelessly nod to us." For ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... afternoon sun smoulders in the drowsy sky. I have everything to make me glad I am alive. I am filled with dreams and mysteries. I am all sun and air and sparkle. I am vitalised, organic. I move, I have the power of movement, I command movement of the live thing I bestride. I am possessed with the pomps of being, and know proud passions and inspirations. I have ten thousand august connotations. I am a king in the kingdom of sense, and trample the ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... had gazed awhile, Noorna bin Noorka said, 'In these meadows the Horse Garraveen roameth at will. Heroes of bliss bestride him on great days. He is black to look on; speed quivers in his flanks like the lightning; his nostrils are wide with flame; there is that in his eye which is settled fire, and that in his hoofs which is ready thunder; when he paws the earth kingdoms quake: no animal liveth ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... if other men have experienced what I am about to mention or not; but certainly to me there is no more painful sensation than to find yourself among a number of well-mounted, well-equipped people, while the animal you yourself bestride seems only fit for the kennel. Every look that is cast at your unlucky steed—every whispered observation about you are so many thorns in your flesh, till at last you begin to feel that your appearance is for very little else than the amusement ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... words ran in his head; and the honey took on visible form, the quay rose before him and he knew it for the lamplit Embankment, and he saw the lights of Battersea bridge bestride the sullen river. All through the remainder of his trick, he stood entranced, reviewing the past. He had been always true to his love, but not always sedulous to recall her. In the growing calamity of his life, she had swum more ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... longer but that I was awakened by my hosts, if so I may term them. My clothes were quite dry; I got into them, and was escorted outside at once. The first thing I saw was a detachment of cavalry, mounted on little shaggy Tartar ponies. One of these I was invited to bestride, and a moment afterwards, without the possibility of explanations being either asked or given, we ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... steaming without steering. Set them on a finely broken horse, on a colt, or a restive horse, and they become helpless children—the powerless prisoners of the brutes they bestride. How often does one see one's acquaintance in this distressing situation, with courage enough to dare what man dare, but without the power to do what the rough-rider has just done! First comes the false ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... steel did smite His Trojan horse, and just as much He mended pace upon the touch; 920 But from his empty stomach groan'd Just as that hollow beast did sound, And angry answer'd from behind, With brandish'd tail and blast of wind. So have I seen, with armed heel, 925 A wight bestride a Common-weal; While still the more he kick'd and spurr'd, The less the ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... reader is aware, a little round man, and what is vulgarly called duck legged, had planted himself like a red pincushion (for he was wrapped in a scarlet cloak, over which he had slung a hawking pouch), on the top of a great saddle, which he might be said rather to be perched upon than to bestride. The saddle and the man were girthed on the ridge bone of a great trampling Flemish mare, with a nose turned up in the air like a camel, a huge fleece of hair at each foot, and every hoof full as large in circumference as a frying pan. The contrast between the beast and the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... feet. The color had left his face, and ages seemed to bestride his bent shoulders. His voice quavered as ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking |
