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Beguile   Listen
verb
Beguile  v. t.  (past & past part. beguiled; pres. part. beguiling)  
1.
To delude by guile, artifice, or craft; to deceive or impose on, as by a false statement; to lure. "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."
2.
To elude, or evade by craft; to foil. (Obs.) "When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage."
3.
To cause the time of to pass without notice; to relieve the tedium or weariness of; to while away; to divert. "Ballads... to beguile his incessant wayfaring."
Synonyms: To delude; deceive; cheat; insnare; mislead; amuse; divert; entertain.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Beguile" Quotes from Famous Books



... to my heart as life's warm stream, Which animates this mortal clay; For thee I court the waking dream, And deck with smiles the future day; And thus beguile the present pain, With hopes that we ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... Tweil, wi' steady hands, Did guide along the vallow lands The heavy zull, wi' bright-sheaer'd beam, Avore the weaery oxen team, Wi' Spring a-gone there come behind Sweet Zummer, jay ov ev'ry mind, Wi' feaece a-beamen to beguile Our weaery souls ov ev'ry tweil. While birds did warble in the dell In softest air o' sweetest smell; An' she, so winsome-feaeir did vwold Her comely limbs in green an' goold, An' wear a rwosy wreath, wi' studs O' berries green, an' new-born buds, A-fring'd in colours ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... our day, the strides of history, the breakdown and overthrow of many things held sacred by our forefathers—and all these changes and ruptures in the order of a former generation are now used to beguile the flock of Christ and sway them from the paths of truth and righteousness. But amid all this din and uproar of conflicting voices, amid the wrangling tumult and confusion of converging opinions, those who will may hear and discern the loving voice of the true Shepherd speaking to the ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan

... Choiring [1]the hours of prime? and call thine ear To the gay viol dinning in the dale, With tabor loud, and bag-pipe's rustic drone To merry Shearer's dance;—or jest retail From festal board, from choral roofs the song; And speak of Masque, or Pageant, to beguile The caustic memory of a cruel wrong?— Thy lips acknowledge this a generous wile, And bid me still the effort kind prolong; But ah! they wear ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... joy, come praise the Creator, While other birds are sound asleep and cannot sing!... The stars are shining in the sky in honour of God.... My dearest little bird, we will not be the laziest of all And lie asleep; we will beguile the time with praise Till dawn refreshes ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... spirits,[:] will disappear from conversation. I pray you do not listen to unsubstantiated words: Then who will dare to deceive the age with soft-sounding phrases. Our religion is for all who choose to seek it; But we build no chapels to beguile the foolish. Our true religion has existed from of old, up to the present day, undergoing no change. Its true principles include in their application those of the middle and outside nations alike. Great is the advantage to us! Great is the good influence on this generation! Of all religions the ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... and she had only spoken those two words occasionally, when duty demanded it. For one thing, Sir Redmond was absent, and had been for two weeks, and Beatrice was beginning to miss him dreadfully. To beguile the time, she had ridden, every day, long miles into the hills. Three times she had met Keith Cameron, also riding alone in the hills, and she had endeavored to amuse herself with him, after her own inimitable fashion, and with more or less success. The trouble was, that sometimes Keith ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... Nummasoolo. Was under the necessity of leaving here William Allen sick. Paid the Dooty for him as usual. I regretted much leaving this man; he had naturally a cheerful disposition; and he used often to beguile the watches of the night with the songs of ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park

... Which with paine purchas'd, doth inherit paine, As painefully to poare vpon a Booke, To seeke the light of truth, while truth the while Doth falsely blinde the eye-sight of his looke: Light seeking light, doth light of light beguile: So ere you finde where light in darkenesse lies, Your light growes darke by losing of your eyes. Studie me how to please the eye indeede, By fixing it vpon a fairer eye, Who dazling so, that eye shall be his heed, And giue him ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... he exclaimed, "was it for this that thou hast pretended to beguile us with thy damnable sorceries? Seize him! Away to the Tower Hill! and let the priest patter an ave while the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to his keeper and run bleating among the rocks till he came upon Jesus whom he recognised at once and refused to leave, thrusting a nozzle into Jesus' hand and lying down by his side. Nor could the brethren beguile the lamb from Jesus with milk, and Jesus taking pity on the faithful animal said: give me the feeding bottle, I will feed him. Whereupon Caesar began to bleat, and so cheerfully, that all conceived a new affection ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... sit 'neath a fond father's smile, And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile! Let others delight 'mid new pleasures to roam, But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of Home! Home! Home! sweet, sweet Home! There's no place like Home! there's ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... from it, not being able to sustain its grandeur; but, if once felt and acknowledged, by no act of any other faculty of the mind can it be relaxed, impaired, or diminished.—Fancy is given to quicken and to beguile the temporal part of our nature, Imagination to incite and to support the eternal.—Yet is it not the less true that Fancy, as she is an active, is also, under her own laws and in her own spirit, a creative faculty? In what manner Fancy ambitiously aims at a rivalship with Imagination, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... always looked as though it had been cut short like a boy's, her strong rough movements, and Caroline, so neat and shining and entirely feminine that her only business in the world seemed to be to fascinate, beguile and bewilder the opposite sex. Whatever the aunts may have thought of this new friendship, they said nothing. Caroline had her way with them as with every one else. Maggie wondered often as to Aunt Anne's, real thoughts. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... not like smiles that I cannot understand, so I changed the subject. "The plan is simple, monsieur," I said briskly. "Singing Arrow will come to the window, and you are to make love to her. After a time—not too long—you are to beguile her inside. I think the guards will be complaisant, if you play your part well. Be as debonair as possible. A soldier is always tempted to be lenient ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... cultivated class among us, have not taken very cordially to the Sunday edition, except for its social gossip; they certainly do not go to it for their fiction, and its fiction is mainly of the inferior sort with which boys and men beguile ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... happy lovers fly where pleasures call, With festive songs beguile the fleeting hour, Lead beauty through the mazes of the ball, Or press her wanton in love's ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... her alone at night, and she had found her voice, she began to woo him and softly to beguile him with a hand to his chin, judging it a propitious time, while one of his held her head. All the arts of woman were hers that night, but his were the new purposes of a man. He had had a rude shock, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... the herbage all was parch'd with heat, Whether the grim wolf's ravage to prevent Or the huge lion's, arm'd with darts we went? Whose converse, now, shall calm my stormy day, With charming song who, now, beguile my way? 60 Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due To other cares than those of feeding you. In whom shall I confide? Whose counsel find A balmy med'cine for my troubled mind? Or whose discourse with innocent delight ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton

... affection—when love is indeed no more—is a hatred that can never die. But we have wandered an immense distance from the unlucky chicken-thief or burglar overhead. Dr. Ritchie's sudden and ostentatious attack of philanthropy will hardly beguile him into watching over his charge—a guardian angel in dress-coat and white silk ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... after day she went to her seat in the workroom where a dozen other young women sat sewing busily on gay garments, with as much lively gossip to beguile the time as Miss Cotton, the forewoman, ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... judicial jest, Witnesses, jurors, suitors smile, They quite understand I do my best, A wearisome action to beguile: "Silks" and "Juniors" seem to force, A jeering laugh as a matter of course. Ah me! who would be, A jocular Judge of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various

... new kind of wickedness, such as I never read of in any books of theology wherein is much to be learned. I have spoken with some, however, knights and men of this world, who deemed that he did but beguile our eyes ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... with pleasing style Thou feast the humour of the Courtly trayne, Let not conceipt thy setled sence beguile, Ne daunted be through envy or disdaine. Subject thy dome to her Empyring spright, From whence thy Muse, and ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... said: the three-ringed circus. He, Banneker, would run any kind of a circus they wanted, to catch and hold their eyes; the sensational acts, the clowns of the funny pages, the blare of the bands, the motion, the color, and the spangles; all to beguile them into reading and ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... pool, thou dost cajole With seemings that beguile us well, So doeth many a human soul That teemeth with the lusts ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... down with solemn book His sadness to beguile; A skull from off its bracket-nook Threw him a lipless smile; But its awful, laughter-mocking look, Was ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... the music bells of St. Giles had ceased playing, the landlord was fond of standing in his doorway, bareheaded and in shirt-sleeves and apron, to exchange opinions on politics, literature and religion, or to tell Bobby's story to what passers-by he could beguile into talk. At his feet, there, was a fine place for a sociable little dog to spend an hour. When he was ready to go Bobby set his paws upon Mr. Traill and waited for the landlord's hand to be laid on his head and the man to say, in the dialect the ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... some secluded corner one might happen upon a man and a girl. They would be sitting very close together, and behaving... well, as men and maidens sometimes do, to beguile the ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... delay, He only named yon holy fane As fitting place to meet again. Be sure he's safe; and for the Graeme,— Heaven's blessing on his gallant name!— My visioned sight may yet prove true, Nor bode of ill to him or you. When did my gifted dream beguile? Think of the stranger at the isle, And think upon the harpings slow That presaged this approaching woe! Sooth was my prophecy of fear; Believe it when it augurs cheer. Would we had left this dismal ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... mules, took out the clothes, and steeped them in the cisterns, washing them in several waters, and afterwards treading them clean with their feet, venturing wagers who should have done soonest and cleanest, and using many pretty pastimes to beguile their labour as young maids use, while the princess looked on. When they had laid their clothes to dry, they fell to playing again, and Nausicaa joined them in a game with the ball, which is used in that country, which is performed by tossing the ball from ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... with the other in his left hand, he said, "And here I pledge you the word of a soldier that I acknowledge the claim in full, not only for Hilland's sake, but your own. You have generously sought to beguile the tedium of a crotchety and irritable old man; but such as he is he gives you his hand as a true, stanch friend; and Grace knows this means a great ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... something happening to some of us?), and we were shut up in a sick-room, then duly as daylight came the quick step and cheerful face of Aunt Esther,—not solemn and lugubrious like so many sick-room nurses, but with a never failing flow of wit and story that could beguile even the most doleful into laughing at their own afflictions. I remember how a fit of the quinsy—most tedious of all sicknesses to an active child—was gilded and glorified into quite a fete by my having Aunt Esther all to myself for two whole days, with nothing to do but amuse ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... smile scarcely showed. It was a mere sketch of a smile, a kind of instalment, or payment on account; it seemed to say that she would smile more if she had time, but that you could see, without this, that she was gentle and easy to beguile. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... bridge crossing the River Sutlej. The overflow of the river extends for miles, converting the depressions into lakes and the dry ditches into sloughs and creeks. Resting under the shade of a peepul-tree, I while away a passing hour watching native fishermen endeavoring to beguile the finny denizens of the overflow into their custody. Their tactics are to stir up the water and make it muddy for a space around, so that the fish cannot see them; they then toss a flat disk of wood so that it falls with an audible splash a ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... having made the circuit a dozen times, and while one part of my intelligence knew, in all reason, there was not a vestige of hope, yet some strange fascinating aberration bewitched and compelled me still to beguile myself with expectation. The other part of my brain seemed to tell me that while there was no possibility of my father being alive, yet, if I quit making the circuitous pilgrimage, if I paused for a single moment, it would be acknowledgment of defeat, and, should I do this, I ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson

... dulness and indolence and appetite, which indeed are no more than fear's three crippled brothers who make ambushes and creep by night, are against him, to delay him, to hold him off, to hamper and beguile and kill him in that quest. He had but to lift his eyes to see all that, as much a part of his world as the driving clouds and the bending grass, but he kept himself downcast, a grumbling, inglorious, dirty, fattish little tramp, full of dreads and ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... queen know all this, when there was no one near enough to rescue her? Does not the Poet intend the mode of her death given here for an invention of the queen, to hide the girl's suicide, and by circumstance beguile ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... — Finding ourselves rather tired of Sirinugger, and with no other books than Hindostanee to beguile the time, we resolved upon an expedition across the mountains into the regions of Little Thibet. Began preparations by hiring twelve coolies, at thirteen shillings each per mensem, and a mate or ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... worthy of his reward, and of maintaining an independent position in society, as either the lawyer or the physician. In schools truly national—with no sheepskin authority to sleep over on the one hand, and no idle dream of semi-ecclesiastical 'induction' to beguile on the other—the item of religious teaching, brought into prominence by both the Free and the Established Churches in the preliminary struggle, would assert and receive its due place. Scotland would possess what it never yet possessed,—not even some twenty years or so after the ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... through all our lingering walk, As soft as dew on fragrant lawns, The wandering music of her talk! Ah! dreaming heart, that asked no more When dower'd with that o'erflowing smile: Ah! foolish heart, to linger o'er The memories that can still beguile.' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... just; He will come some day in a chariot of fire. Neither moneys nor high places nor worldly honors nor pleasures can stay or avert the stroke of that sword of divine justice which will 'pierce even to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow.' Let no siren voices beguile you. Without the gift of His grace who died that we might live, there is no hope for kings, none for you, none for me. I pray you consider this, my friend; for I speak as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... cause—I knew not what. Vanity, of which no doubt I possess my share, had not interpreted those tender glances aright—had not even whispered me they were the flowers of love, easily ripened to its fruits. Had I been instrumental in nurturing those flowers of the heart?—had I done aught to beguile ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... me about thy body, doing as I bid thee, and behold! for a while thy shape shall wear the shape of the Golden Helen, and thy face shall be as her face, and thine eyes as her eyes, and thy voice as her voice. Then I leave the rest to thee, for as Helen's self thou shalt beguile the Wanderer, and once, if once only, be a wife to him whom thou desireth. Naught can I tell thee of the future, I who am but a counsellor, but hereafter it may be that woes will come, woes and wars and death. But what matter these when thou hast had thy ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... grains and fruits without their assistance, and unless a few flighty little women, particularly inaccessible to the higher philosophy, should surprise these transcendental and passionless thinkers in an unguarded moment, and beguile them into committing some slight ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... always fair— God smiled on Waterloo! And mother rode the dark brown mare, And took the mule colt, too; For fashion then did not beguile A mother's heart with worldly wile, Ah! happy days agone! Oh! days no more when mothers wore Sunhood and riding skirt, And fathers dressed their Sunday best, A plain check-cotton-shirt,— Ah! ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe

... Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark foregoes, Touched by the beggar's moan of human woes; The shady porch ne'er offered a cool seat To pilgrims overcome by summer's heat. [65] 245 Yet thither the world's business finds its way At times, and tales unsought beguile the day, And there are those fond thoughts which Solitude, [66] However stern, is powerless to exclude. [67] There doth the maiden watch her lover's sail 250 Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale; At midnight listens till his parting oar, And its last echo, can ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... more, ending his life peacefully on his fair estate in Champagne. No doubt he liked to look back to the stirring days of his youth, and I dare say the young folk who gathered round his hospitable hearth knew the Sire de Joinville for a good story-teller, who could beguile a winter evening with tales of that luckless Crusade in which he bore his part, and of his hero and leader, sovereign, saint, and soldier in one, Louis, the cross-bearing King of France; and, happily for us, before the stories ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... Trinity College fame - was good enough to promise 'to keep an eye' on me. Lord Spencer himself took me to Ely; and there I remained for two years. They were two very important years of my life. Having no fellow pupil to beguile me, I was the more industrious. But it was not from the better acquaintance with ancient literature that I mainly benefited, - it was from my initiation to modern thought. I was a constant guest at the Deanery; where I frequently met such men as Sedgwick, Airey the Astronomer-Royal, Selwyn, Phelps ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... winds are high and Helle's tide Rolls darkly heaving to the main; And Night's descending shadows hide That field with blood bedewed in vain, The desert of old Priam's pride; The tombs, sole relics of his reign, All—save immortal dreams that could beguile The blind old man of Scio's ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... her hand in his. His chest rose. He knew she was seeking to beguile him, but he could not take his eyes off hers. He was in a worse plight than a woman listening to the first ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... vouch for the fact—that Captain Brown was heard to say, sotto voce, "D-n Dr Johnson!" If he did, he was penitent afterwards, as he showed by going to stand near Miss Jenkyns' arm-chair, and endeavouring to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing subject. But she was inexorable. The next day she made the remark I have mentioned ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... bed, after a time she could use her hands, and often would ask for sewing to beguile the tedium. She had become very expert with her needle the first year of her release from Mrs. B., and she had forgotten none of her skill. Mrs. H. praised her, and as she im- proved in health, was anxious to employ her. She told her she could in this way replace ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson

... Tityrus, all in the shade of the wide-spreading beech tree reclining, Sweet is that music you've made on your pipe that is oaten and slender; Exiles from home, you beguile our hearts from their hopeless repining, As you sing Amaryllis the while in pastorals ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... expected to need. There was something so implacable about this demand for food. If you skimped in the morning you must make amends at the next meal. He passed the time as on the previous day, a somewhat blase actor resting between pictures, and condescending to beguile the tedium by overlooking the efforts of his professional brethren. He could find no set that included a barber shop, although they were beds on every hand. He hoped for another night in the cabin, but if that were not to ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... Komodotragodiai, of which Plautus's Amphitruo is the best known instance. However this may be, they were mock-heroic compositions in which the subjects consecrated by tragic usage were travestied or burlesqued. It is probable that they were mere literary exercises designed to beguile leisure or to facilitate the labour of composition, like the closet tragedies composed by Cicero and his brother Quintus; and Varro certainly owed none of his fame to them. Other poems of his are referred to by Cicero, and perhaps by Quintilian; [5] but in the absence of definite ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... to be over as soon as possible, and though I don't stop them I've my way of putting them through. That's my little system; and, if you want to know," said Maria Gostrey, "it's my real secret, my innermost mission and use. I only seem, you see, to beguile and approve; but I've thought it all out and I'm working all the while underground. I can't perhaps quite give you my formula, but I think that practically I succeed. I send you back spent. So you stay back. Passed ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... judge what the powers of that roan must have been, who could beguile an erudite critic into such an ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... laborious pace, I hasten and beguile By fancies, which I backwards trace To things I loved erstwhile; The weary sweetness of your face, Your ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.

... his humor's sake, For he would oft beguile My heart of thought, that made it ache, And ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... Trevor furnished in a stately manner, hanging a selection of his mezzotints on the walls—ladies of old years, after Romney, Reynolds, Hoppner, and the rest. A sober opulence and comfort characterised the chambers; a well-selected set of books in a Sheraton bookcase was intended to beguile the tedium of waiting clients. The typewriter (Miss Blossom accepted the situation) occupied an inner chamber, opening out of that which was to ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... close contact, the women had come to hate each other as do passengers isolated on a boat for many months. Besides, their husbands had accustomed them to the use of coffee, the seaman's drink, and they tried to beguile their tedium with strong cups of ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... as well as the other thirteen entitled "A Song of Degrees," was composed for the singing on the road by those Israelites who went up to Jerusalem to keep the three grand festivals, to beguile their tedious journey, and also to soothe the dejected spirits of those who felt disheartened at having left their homes, their farms, and families without guardians. Ps. cxxvii. is of a soothing ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various

... it is the nature of man to be deceived by fancies of this sort, and it is a sign of a mind which is still weak to be so easily drawn away at the suggestion of the enemy. For he careth not whether he deceive and beguile by true means or false; whether he throw thee down by the love of the present or fear of the future. Therefore let not thy heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Believe in Me, and put thy trust in My mercy.(3) When thou thinkest thyself far removed from ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis

... dovelike sighs, Chase not slumber from thine eyes! Sweet moan, sweeter smile, All the dovelike moans beguile! ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... I can help to beguile them for you. Now tell me what you honestly think of my work? Criticism is always valuable, and I should really like yours, Mrs. Basset," said Randal, wondering what the good woman would make of the delicate analysis and worldly wisdom on which ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... time, thus to beguile the way, till I reached a space more than commonly abrupt, and which required all my attention. My rude ditty was suspended till I had surmounted this impediment. In a few minutes I was at leisure to renew it. After finishing the strain, I paused. In ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown

... run through the streets and courtyards of Genoa a rumour that in prison there lay a certain Venetian captain, with tales so wonderful to beguile the passing hours that none could tire of hearing them; and anon the gallants and sages and the bold ladies of Genoa were flocking, just as the men of the Rialto had flocked before, to hear his stories of ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... passing through Ballinderry, will consider it to have been justly designated the garden of the north. The multitude of pretty little villages, scattered over the landscape, each announcing itself by the tapering tower of a church, would almost beguile the traveller into believing that he was passing through a rural district in one of the midland ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... hearing of her mother's statue, which is in the keeping of Paulina,—a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano, who, had he himself eternity, and could put breath into his work, would beguile nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that they say one would speak to her and stand in hope of answer:—thither with all greediness of affection are they gone; and there they intend ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare

... That life of hers was indeed a frightful desert when art did not beguile it with its illusions; a desert mournful and flat, where everything was lost, reduced to one level, beneath the same monotonous immensity, the naive love of a child of twenty, a passionate duke's ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... put her whole reliance on an effort to temporize. She felt that her only recourse in this emergency must lie in deceiving the ruffian who thus beset her. Much as she abhorred him, she had no choice. There was none to whom she could appeal for succor. She must depend absolutely upon her ability to beguile him. She must hide the revulsion inspired by his mere presence. She must arm herself with the world-old weapons of her sex, and by wiles blind him to the truth of her feeling, gain time for—something, anything! At least here was room ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... She tried to beguile him with the news of the neighborhood, and to inspire him with bright hopes for the future; that future in which they should clasp hands again and find their duty and their pleasure in living for the welfare and happiness of our race, as ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... pleased, in prose, with the verbosities, the redundant metaphors, the ludicrous digressions of Cicero. There was nothing to beguile him in the boasting of his apostrophes, in the flow of his patriotic nonsense, in the emphasis of his harangues, in the ponderousness of his style, fleshy but ropy and lacking in marrow and bone, in the insupportable ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... whom I had come to visit, for the slight delay which had already occurred, and requested me further to wait for a few minutes longer, intimating that the lady's grief was so violent, that without great effort she could not bring herself to speak calmly at all. As if to beguile the time, the good dame went on in a highly communicative strain to tell me, amongst much that could not interest me, a little of what I had desired to hear. I discovered that the grief of her whom I had come ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... to find something further wherewith to beguile the monotony of the way, and finding it barren, Mr. Ryde falls back upon ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... girl felt very old and experienced, and miserably wise in the ways of the world. It was as if in some other incarnation she had known women like this, and their influence over men: how, if they tried, they could beguile chivalrous men into being sorry for them, and doing almost anything which they wished ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... merry a company gathered under his roof, etc., etc. But of greater moment for future generations was his suggestion that, as there was no comfort in riding to Canterbury dumb as a stone, the pilgrims should beguile their journey by telling stories. The suggestion was loudly acclaimed and the scheme unanimously pledged in further copious draughts of wine. And then, to "reste wente echon," until the dawn came again and smiled down upon that brave company whose tale-telling pilgrimage has since been followed ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... beard was th' equal grace Both of his wisdom and his face; In cut and die so like a tile, A sudden view it would beguile; The upper part thereof was whey; The nether, orange mix'd with grey. 153 BUTLER: Hudibras, Pt. i., Canto ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various

... displayed the certainty of his deadly aim, and Master Trench the uncertainty of his dreadful shooting, despite all his former "practice." We might relate the interesting stories, anecdotes, and narratives with which the explorers and the hunter sought to beguile the pleasant periods that used to follow supper and precede repose, and describe the tremendous energy of Paul Burns in springing to the rescue of the self-willed baby when it fell into the fire, and the cool courage of Oliver Trench in succouring ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne

... effort to forget her, to forget my love, my wife. My God! I can see her face now, when she flashed across my sight at a provincial circus. It was in France. I was a young man drum-mad, and went to the circus to beguile my time, for I couldn't practise all day. Then I saw her—"Mlle. Leontine, the Aerial Virtuoso of the Century," the playbills called her. She was fair and slim, and Heaven had smiled into ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... these facts from Billy, I had never known him to play his game so openly before. But when I mentioned the thing to Solon, thinking to beguile him from his trouble, I found him more interested than I had thought he could be; for Solon knew Billy as well as ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... which ruin other men, are the fortunate chances of great poets. Then it was that the idea arose of a meeting of pilgrims at the Tabard in Southwark, of their riding to Canterbury, and of the different personages relating stories to beguile the tedium of the journey. The notion was a happy one, and the execution is superb. In those days, as we know, pilgrimages were of frequent occurrence; and in the motley group that congregated on such occasions, the painter of character had full ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... Rugs of priceless fur concealed the rough flooring. Chinese silks, Japanese damasks,—Oriental tapestries smuggled in by the fur traders,—covered the walls; and richest of silk attired the Russian officers and their ladies, compelled to beguile time here, where the only break in monotony was the arrival of fresh ships from America, or exiles from St. Petersburg, or gambling or drinking or dancing or feasting the long winter nights through, with, ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... and shook his head As one exceeding ill at ease, and said, "I doubt the singing thou hast heard was no Voice of the waters billowing below, But rather of some evil spirit near, Who sought with singing to beguile thine ear, Spreading a snare to catch the soul of thee In meshes of entangling melody, Which taketh captive the weak minds of men. Therefore if thou should'st hear the sound again, Look thou content thee not with hearkening, But cast thine eyes around, ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... make a debate that is pretty sure to end as it began. Thus it is that a question, plausible to appearance, may contain within it capacities of misunderstanding, cross-purposes, and pointless issues, sufficient to occupy the long night of Pandemonium, or beguile the journey to ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... herself practically useful, as was her way, and she did almost more than anybody to beguile Catherine's recovery by her hours of Long Whindale chat. She had no passionate feeling about the place and the people as Catherine had, but she was easily content, and she had a good wholesome feminine ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... were always perpetrated in defence of some supposed right of a defenceless and friendless race, overwhelmed with poverty—the bondmen of ignorance—who had no money with which to corrupt, no art with which to beguile, and no power with which to overawe these representatives of authority. For the first time in the history of mankind, the corrupt and unprincipled agents of undefined power became the servants, friends, protectors, agents, and promoters ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... apparent consideration, rendering no one desperate, promising much, holding back the least possible proprio motu of himself, and surrounding Madame de Chevreuse herself with attention and homage without suffering any illusion to beguile him as to the nature of her sentiments—she, on her part, paid him back in the same coin. La Rochefoucauld says that during these mollia tempora, Madame de Chevreuse and Mazarin actually flirted with each other. ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... To beguile one such afternoon when the rain set in early and walking was impossible, I found my way to the shop of an old dealer in bric-a-brac. It was not a monotonous display, after the manner of the Parisian dealer, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... feeling flattered at such an offer from him,—him, William Murray Bradshaw, the rising young man of his county, at her feet, his eyes melting with the love he would throw into them, his tones subdued to their most sympathetic quality, and all those phrases on his lips which every day beguile women older and more discreet than this romantic, long-imprisoned girl, whose rash and adventurous enterprise was an assertion of her womanhood and her right to dispose of herself as she chose. He ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... sagest deductions may be safe guides for the opinions of others? But in writing to amuse, if I fail, the only evil is my own disappointment. If, however, I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humour with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, surely, ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving

... this abrupt retirement on the part of the captain was little Kitty among the trees. The captain went out of sight and waited, and kept out of sight and waited, until it occurred to him to beguile the time with another cigar. He lighted it, and smoked it out, and still he was out of sight and waiting. He stole within sight at last, and saw the lovers, with their arms entwined and their bent heads touching, ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens

... beguile Mr. Lovecraft from his chosen path are probably unaware of the attitude which he consistently maintains toward hostile criticism. Mr. Lovecraft contends that it gives him pleasure to write as the Augustans did, and that those who do not relish his ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... has resemblances to it in Boccaccio and Chaucer, is told to Rinaldo while riding through a wood in Asia, with a damsel behind him on the same horse. He has engaged to combat in her behalf with a band of knights; and the lady relates it to beguile the way. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... allusion to the party, not the wine, 'is a Mingling that repays one for much disappointment and vexation. Let us be merry.' Here he took a captain's biscuit. 'It is a poor heart that never rejoices; and our hearts are not poor. No!' With such stimulants to merriment did he beguile the time and do the honours of the table." Moreover it is a mournful thing and an inexplicable, that a man should be as mad as Mr. Dick. None the less is it a happy thing for any reader to watch Mr. Dick while David explains his difficulty to Traddles. Mr. Dick was ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... the discerning and the dexterous, and the discreet and the judicious, and them gifted with determination, is't not such as sufficeth for the overturning of empires and systems, O my mistress, fair one, sapphire of this city? And is't not written that I shall beguile Shagpat by its means, and master the Event, and shame the King of Oolb and his Court? And I shall then sit in state among men, and surround myself with adornments and with slaves, mute, that speak not save at the signal, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... He had used it frequently in his business as a property by which to arouse the emotions of his audiences. That it should some day stand at his side, looking into his eyes, never occurred to him. He tried to think, to beguile himself into the belief that he should presently awake to find it a dream. Futile expedient! She was dead; that dear, kind, loving heart was dead. Ah! and she had died alone! A great sob choked him. He sank into a chair and buried his face in his ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... justified in having come," he said, in a tone of relief. "If I could have known you ignorant of the infamous wrong that was done you, by the unscrupulous means used to beguile you into a marriage which must so have tortured and humiliated any woman, I might have kept silent. It might perhaps have been best to omit from the list of the wrongs you must have suffered this crowning infamy of all. But since it seemed certain ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder

... gentleman and I first began to beguile our days with these fancies, and our nights in communicating them to each other. We are now four. But in my room there are six old chairs, and we have decided that the two empty seats shall always be placed at our table when we meet, to remind us that we may yet increase our company ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... robust stroke of fate. I felt that the thing one ought to aim at doing was to look experience steadily in the face, whether sweet or bitter, to interrogate it firmly, to grasp its significance. If one cowers away from it, if one tries to distract and beguile the soul, to forget the grief in feverish activity, well, one may succeed in dulling the pain as by some drug or anodyne; but the lesson of life is thereby deferred. Why should one so faint-heartedly persist in making choice of experiences, in welcoming what is ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... boundless as the vapour into which thou meltest as a holocaust for thy happy devotees. If the pipe could but speak, what mysteries could it reveal! the rapturous visions of the inspired lover, rising in the circular imageries of its vaporous fumes, to beguile his fancies in the absence of his loved one; or the workings of a deep despondency and bitter disappointment, carrying its victim with blind impetuosity to a melancholy contemplation of a drear destruction, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... probably the most momentous inspiration that he ever had. "I know what I'll do," he said. "I'll use a long, long stick that'll reach way, way, way out." And he glanced about him in quest of a "long, long stick" with which to beguile the bashful eels. His inquiring eye lit upon one of the long clothes-line supporters which Townsend had driven into the river bottom to help hold the island ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... may set the young artist's mind somewhat more at rest, or furnish him with defence from the urgency of ill-advisers, I will glance over the main heads of the matter here; trusting that my doing so may not beguile you, my dear reader, from your serious work, or lead you to think me, in occupying part of this book with talk not altogether relevant ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... being given to think for herself in all cases of counsel from Aunt Jane, thought it could do no harm to beguile the brushing of the child's hair by asking why Kalliope would not come to ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... with the world that its witness could no longer be received; and the professing members of it, who were placed in circumstances such as to enable them to become aware of its corruptions, and whom their interest or their simplicity did not bribe or beguile into silence, gradually separated themselves into two vast multitudes of adverse energy, one tending to Reformation, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... I may hit in the right vein, Where I may beguile easily without any great pain. I will flaunt it and brave it after the lusty swash:[147] I'll deceive thousands. What care I who lie in ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... To beguile the winter's hour, which, however, was never dull in his society, he would recall to memory the past anecdotes of his father, and repeat them till the tears ran down his face, from the fond recollection of his beloved parent. The relation of ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... of men, and Nicolas L'Oyseleur, the spy and traitor, who voted for the torture. One man most reasonably asked why she should be put to torture when they had ample material for judgment without it? One cannot but feel that the proceedings on this occasion were either intended to beguile the impatience of the English authorities, eager to be done with the whole business, or to add a quite gratuitous pang to the sufferings of the heroic girl. As the men were not devils, though probably possessed by this time, the more cruel among them, by the ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... was not without solicitude on account of their personal safety. I was far from being perfectly at ease on that head, but entertained no distinct conception of the danger that impended over them. Perhaps to beguile the moments of my long protracted stay, they had gone to walk upon the bank. The atmosphere, though illuminated only by the star-light, was remarkably serene. Meanwhile the desirableness of an interview with Carwin again returned, and I finally ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... The Circassians also beguile the way on their journeys with riding songs. These are sung in alternate strains, one being generally a clamorous recitative, and the other a kind of choral fugue, strange and romantic, and heard with pleasing effect in the mountains. ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie

... loved thee more! Fair queen, I'll meet woe's fearfulest frown—and smile; If mid the scene severe Thou'lt drop on me one tear, And let thy flitting form sometimes beguile The present of its ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks

... morning, full of uneasiness, I climbed onto the platform. Captain Nemo hadn't left it. He stood in the bow next to his flag, which a mild breeze was unfurling above his head. His eyes never left that vessel. The extraordinary intensity of his gaze seemed to attract it, beguile it, and draw it more surely than if he ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... wife, and share his home, and reign queen of his heart—I consented. When the June roses blossomed, we were married. The balmy air and opening buds spoke of a new life. They typified my new life, truly. The glitter and gloss which had deceived me in youth would never beguile me more. I had learned that it was not the external man, but the internal that ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... been winging Toward vaporous heights which beckon and beguile I sink back, saddened to my inmost mind; Even as I list a-dream that mother singing The poesy of sweet tone, and sadden, while Her voice is cast in troubled wake behind The keel of her keen spirit. Thou ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson

... it enabled them to see one another quite clearly. But the Tube itself was only dark metal, smooth as glass but exactly the same from one of its ends to the other. Therefore there was no scenery of interest to beguile ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... confessor, who had tried a similar trick upon the Elector Frederick, conceived the idea that if Von Sickingen and Bucer could be won for the plot, a proposal to compromise the whole matter amicably might serve to beguile him to the chateau of his friend at Ebernburg till his safe-conduct should expire, and then the liars could throw off the mask and dispose of him with credit in the eyes of Rome. The glib and wily Glapio led in the attempt. Von Sickingen and Bucer were entrapped by his bland ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... expatriation. It was you who preferred the dross of gold, and the indulgence of your own luxury and that of the sybarite, your father, to the passionate affection I bore you. It is too late now for regret or recrimination. Go, I command you! accomplish your destiny; continue to beguile Miriam with the tale of your affection, and in return reap your harvest of deluded affection and golden store from her! and from me receive your guerdon of scorn. For I, Claude Bainrothe, know you as you are, and despise you utterly!" ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... are one of the daily preoccupations of our household: in the evening, when we return from our walk, after the clamber up, which makes us thirsty, and Madame L'Heure's waffles, which we have been eating to beguile the way, we always find them empty. It seems impossible for Madame Prune, or Mademoiselle Oyouki, or their young servant, Mademoiselle Dede,—[Dede-San means "Miss Young Girl," a very common name.]—to ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti

... early in the morning to visit the Catacombs. He chose the early part of the day so as to be back before it got hot. Arriving at the Church of St. Sebastian he found to his disappointment that it was not open yet. So he thought he would beguile the time by walking about. So he strolled off to the tomb of Caecelia Metella, which was the most striking object in view. He walked around it, and broke off a few pieces of stone. He took also a few pieces of ivy. These he intended to carry away as relics. At last he ventured ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille

... superiority of silence to speech, or rather of the active to the contemplative life. The career of a great conqueror, a great legislator, a man who in any capacity has moulded the doctrines of the race, had a charm for his imagination which he could not find in the pleasant idlers, who beguile our leisure by singing ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... Naso telleth all. But shortly to the ende tell I shall. The goddes have her holpen for pity, And in the sign of Taurus men may see The stones of her crown all shining clear. I will no further speak of this matter. But thus these false lovers can beguile Their true love; the ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... good with Miss Galindo. Certain things, in which my lady knew she took an interest, were laid out ready for her to examine on this very day; and, what was more, great books of prints were laid out, such as I remembered my lady had had brought forth to beguile my own early days of illness,—Mr. Hogarth's works, and the like,—which I was sure were put out for ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... long and earnestly with Lily ayah, respecting methods to be adopted, pretences effected, infinitesimal doses exchanged for the usual amount, and the patient craftily beguiled—but it is almost impossible to beguile a person who is suffering from the fierce craving for a drug; and the want of her normal supply soon began to make itself apparent in Mrs. Krauss, and there were ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... on the frugal fare before them; and to the silent and deserted shop on the other side of the street, from which the noise of his hammer and the clip of his adze had come to them. A week wore away and nothing was done but the most necessary offices of the household. The neighbors came frequently to beguile their grief, and the minister made several visits, bearing to them the consolations of the gospel, and the tender message of a ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic

... suppose, they were gradually initiated by Mr. Weller, who possessed a perfect knowledge of such pastimes. Thus, notwithstanding that they were in a great measure deprived of the comfort and advantage of Mr. Pickwick's society, they were still enabled to beguile the time, and to prevent its hanging heavily on ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... To beguile the time on the journey to Canterbury, all these various pilgrims are required to tell some story peculiar to their separate walks of life; and it is these stories which afford the best description we have of the manners and customs of the fourteenth century, as ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... was waiting for the arrival of the vehicle, and reading El Diario, the local daily paper—a sheet the size of the palm of one's hand—until I had the contents by rote, an incident occurred to beguile suspense. The vanguard of the corps of Sanchez Bregua, the commander of the Republican Army of the North, rode into the city. They had come from Zarauz, a seaside village four leagues away—a section of mounted Chasseurs in a uniform like to that of the old British Light Dragoons. ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... overlooked the garden. This was her bower—an intimate cosy room, reflecting on every hand the gentle, industrious personality of the owner. On an oak table near the window were spread some papers and account-books concerned with the estate—with which she had sought to beguile the time of waiting. She led the way towards this, and, sinking into the high-backed chair that stood before it, she looked up at him expectantly. She was pale, there were dark stains under her eyes, and wistful ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... government of their common enterprise, had ceased, and that they no longer busied themselves with the necessary work about the still, nor with the snickering interludes and horse-play with which they were wont to beguile their labors. They had all seated them-selves, and were looking from one to the other of the more important members of the guild with an air which betokened the momentary expectation of a crisis. The only exception was the man who had the violin; with the persistent, untimely industry ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... They thus beguile the way Untill the blustring storme is overblowne, When weening to returne whence they did stray, They cannot finde that path which first was showne, But wander to and fro in waies unknowne. —Spenser's "Faerie Queene," book i. canto ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Dasu Rai's poetry. An old woman is delighting the ears of her neighbours with complaints of her son; a humorous young one, in a voice half bursting with laughter, relates in the ears of her companions whose husbands are absent some jocose story of her husband's, to beguile the pain of separation. Some are reproaching the Grihini (house-mistress), some the Korta (master), some the neighbours; some reciting their own praises. She who may have received a gentle scolding in the morning from Surja ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee

... silence they heard river voices; murmurings and tones and rhythms and harmonies; and Terabon, who had accumulated a vast store of information from the shanty-boaters, told her some of the simple superstitions with which the river people beguile themselves and add to the interest and difficulties of ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... among strangers of him that seemes simple or drunken, for vnder their habit the most speciall cosoners are presented, and while you thinke by their simplicitie and imperfections to beguile them, (and thereof perchance are perswaded by their confederates) your very friends as you thinke, you your selfe will be most ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid

... dispossessed, for a space at least, if not for ever, of the only documents which seemed to promise some light upon the dubious events which had of late influenced his destiny. With such melancholy thoughts he had to beguile about four or five ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... relieve the terrible tedium and beguile their thoughts from the peril in which they were placed. The lapse of time was discussed, and the possibility of the slackening of the furious flow of the falling river so that a boat might come down in search of the unfortunates, ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... go afloat together in the face of his frown. From that day he has gone on swallowing up fleets and men without his resentment being glutted by the number of victims—by so many wrecked ships and wrecked lives. To-day, as ever, he is ready to beguile and betray, to smash and to drown the incorrigible optimism of men who, backed by the fidelity of ships, are trying to wrest from him the fortune of their house, the dominion of their world, or only ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... fading shepherdess, Gathers the young girls round her in a ring, Teaching them wisdom of love, What to say, how to dress, How frown, how smile, How suitors to their dancing feet to bring, How in mere walking to beguile, What words cunningly said in what a way Will draw man's busy fancy astray, All the alphabet, grammar ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... on Sunday, To witch an idle while, I sang that song on Monday, As fittest to beguile; I sang it as the year outwore, And the new slid in; I thought not what might shape before ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... read Miss Edgeworth's tales;—now, have you? If you had, you'd have recollected that there was such a word, even if you didn't remember what it was. If you've never read those stories, they would be just the thing to beguile your solitude—vastly improving and moral, and yet quite sufficiently interesting. I'll lend them to ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... at first, but I'd beguile her. I'm the youngest, and I always get my own way. I told Sylvia Trevor, who was staying with us, and she was very kind, giving me good advice not to do it, but it is to be a surprise for Bridgie to help her to pay the bills. If ye want money, ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... transports she shou'd be in when the blest discovery shou'd be made, held long discourses with him, and formed answers such as she supposed he wou'd make on such an occasion. Thus, for some hours did she beguile her Cares, but Love, who takes delight sometimes to torment his Votarys wou'd not long permit her to enjoy this satisfaction.... Reason, with stern remonstrances checked the Romantick turn of her late thoughts, and showed her the improbability of the hope she had entertained: Were he, ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... us but a little while Methought I sensed her spirit here and there About my house: upon the empty stair Her robe brusht softly; o'er her chamber still There lay her fragrant presence to beguile Numb heart, dead heart. I knelt before her chair, And praying felt her hand laid on my hair, Felt her sweet breath, ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... by a sneer. He did not believe in meekness. In his estimation, women who pretended to be meek and submissive were only trying to beguile a man. In his heart he knew that this gentle obedience was not natural to Alice, who had a high spirit and plenty of fortitude; and instead of attributing it to the grace of God, which was its real source, he set it down to a desire to cheat him ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... ever vary, ever change, Yet ever please—a thing most strange! And here each thing is told that's new } What Loundoun or what Richlieu do, } Each secret expedition too— } And then great FREDERICK'S noble feats, When he th' imperial forces beats. Such themes the lazy hours beguile; There's nothing else that's worth our while. * * * ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... would never have marred his epic by sickly irresolution and the struggles of a divided will in the principal characters. Perhaps his mind reverted to his old dreams when he came to describe the pastimes wherewith the rebel angels beguile their time in Hell:— ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... sight, I recollected the little fascinating actress from whom I had so suddenly parted on the preceding night; still I must say, that I was so much occupied with the charms of her successor, that I sought the society of the youthful Melpomene more with a view to beguile the time, than from ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... closer hand their pomp Vanishes. Earth's glories thus With their myriad light-effects Still beguile ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine

... saith the Queen, in her oiliest voice, "hold you so light your own life and your mother's? Was your uncle (that wist full well how to beguile you) dearer to you than I, on whose bosom you have lain as babe, and whose heart hath been rent at your ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... life away in following fads that make for license—but you must come into the household of a man who has tried to fight God's battles; standing against these encroachments of Satan which you advocate—and beguile my only daughter into telling me that I must choose between surrender or the wretchedness of ending my life in ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... high abode look down, With tender love the while, And save us from our foes who would Our wayward hearts beguile. ...
— Hymns from the Greek Office Books - Together with Centos and Suggestions • John Brownlie

... unto us by our fathers, to make place to idle superstitions; wherefore we ought not to lead the minds of the faithful into such things, for they are rather to be instructed than played withal; neither are we to blind and beguile their eyes, but to infuse instructions into their minds." In which words Caelestinus reprehends this apparel, as a novelty which tended to superstition, and made way to the mocking ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... singing-birds," replied I, "condemned to wear out their lives in confinement, which they try to beguile by the exercise of accomplishments, which would have adorned society, had they been ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... the shore come the notes To their Mill where it floats, To their House and their Mill tether'd fast; To the small wooden isle where their work to beguile 10 They from morning to even take whatever is given;— And many a blithe ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... this night and that she may take leave of me before the morning." So he sent for Dunyazad, and she waited till the Sultan had done his desire of her sister and they were all three awake, when she coughed and said, "O my sister, an thou be not asleep, tell us one of thy pleasant stories, to beguile the watches of our night, and I will take leave of thee before the morning." "With all my heart," answered Shehrzad, "if the good king give me leave." The King being wakeful, was pleased to hear a story and said, "Tell on." Whereat she rejoiced greatly ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... has twice tried to charm them in, but without success—they will come no further than that tree. I think they have slipped in from the village, probably in a most unorthodox fashion, and what I am coming at is, will you go out under the tree to them and beguile them into attending a Sabbath-school for once in their lives? They look to me as though it was probably ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... folded in motherly arms in spite of the bundle and the great umbrella, which the lassie stoutly refused to part with for a moment; and Mary Dennett, crossing over to the counter on the far side of the room, bought her cakes and apples; while the children, not to be outdone, made shy endeavors to beguile her into their ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... again; but ye maun promise never to speak o' whatever ye may see strange aboot the hoose; for, atween oursells, there are anes expeckit there this verra night wha's names wadna cannily bear tellin'; and Jeanie trusts me, and I maunna beguile her. But the waters are out, and we will hae a lang and cauld tramp through the bogs, sae get a drap o' somethin' for the road, and I'll hae Tam Herron's Sunday suit ready for you after bed-time. Saul! ye'll mak a braw weaver wi' the beard; and wi' ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud, 1141 Bud and be blasted in a breathing-while; The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile: 1144 The strongest body shall it make most weak, Strike the wise dumb and teach ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare

... difficulties which compass a man about. And with such clearness did Chichikov mentally picture to himself the life of grateful toil which lies removed from the bustle of towns and the temptations which man, forgetful of the obligation of labour, has invented to beguile an hour of idleness that almost our hero forgot his unpleasant position, and even felt ready to thank Providence for the calamity which had befallen him, provided that it should end in his being released, and in his receiving back a portion of ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... not obedience, Godfrey. I did not tell you to imitate me in all things. Wine in moderation may be good for a man, and help to beguile a weary hour, and yet may be ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... king: stand up. Said my father with a smile: "Daughter mine, your mother comes to sit with you awhile, She's sad to-day, and who but you her sadness can beguile?" ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... a long time on the deck, listening to the sea songs with which the crew beguile the evening watch. Though the humorous songs were applauded sufficiently, yet the plaintive and pathetic seemed the favourites; and the chorus to the Death of Wolfe was swelled by many voices. Oh, who shall say that fame is not a real good! It is twice ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham



Words linked to "Beguile" :   beguiler, beguilement, enchant, rip off, juggle, attract, appeal, trance, becharm, cheat, fascinate, work, enamor, charm, hold, enamour, capture, hoodwink, captivate, catch, entrance, chisel



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