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Beset   /bɪsˈɛt/   Listen
Beset

verb
(past & past part. beset; pres. part. besetting)
1.
Annoy continually or chronically.  Synonyms: chevvy, chevy, chivvy, chivy, harass, harry, hassle, molest, plague, provoke.  "This man harasses his female co-workers"
2.
Assail or attack on all sides:.  Synonym: set upon.
3.
Decorate or cover lavishly (as with gems).  Synonyms: encrust, incrust.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Beset" Quotes from Famous Books



... sign was sufficient to chase away the imaginative notions that had beset Pen's awakening. His hand went at once to the water-bottle slung to his side, and, as he held the mouth to his comrade's lips and forgot the pain he suffered in his strained and stiffening joints, he ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... and of the whole picture, is concentrated in the eyes. Those sad, dark eyes, steady and immovable in their fixed gaze, reveal whole pages of history and whole years of suffering. The fugitive king is not thinking of his flight, of any dangers that may beset him, of the companions at his side, or even of where he shall lay his perilled head in the night that is coming. Those eyes have shut away the physical and the real, and through the mists of the future they are trying to read the great question of ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... the Chisera. We should not have let them find us here; they will neglect their business with her to beset us with questions. ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin

... legs over the bench and took up his brushes. In ten minutes the most fervent loyalist would have looked in vain for any resemblance, and with a sigh at the pitfalls which beset the artist he returned to his interrupted meal and hailed the ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... beset with the perplexities this likeness had brought upon him. The chain which the goldsmith had given him was about his neck, and the goldsmith was reproaching him for denying that he had it, and refusing to pay for it, and Antipholus Was protesting that the goldsmith freely ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... that defile The Seats that sacred ought to be, the customes are so quaint, As if I would describe the whole, I feare my pen would faint. In summe, I say I neuer saw a prince that so did raigne, Nor people so beset with Saints, yet all but vile and vaine. Wilde Irish are as ciuill as the Russies in their kinde, Hard choice which is the best of both, ech bloody, rude and blinde. If thou bee wise, as wise thou art, and wilt be ruld by me, Liue still at home, and couet not those barbarous coasts to see. No good ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt

... China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established an autocratic socialist system that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed strict ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... vague, adroit hints of the perils that beset a fascinating actor's life, of the women that had come and gone in his life. And Lena, all a-tremble with jealous anxiety, was in the parlor of a Lutheran parsonage, with the minister reading out of the black book, before she was quite aware that she and her cyclonic ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips

... so often said: "Sorrow is essential in bringing out the best there is in man." As a severe storm in nature purifies the elements and the earth, reviving the plants, clarifying the air, causing the sun to shine more gloriously, so, too, do the storms which beset the soul and wring from it its groans and sighs, purify the spiritual man and place him nearer to the throne of his Maker. I cannot but thank the Lord, when I contrast our present position with what would have ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... strait. Bears and lions to rend them wait, Wiverns, snakes and fiends of fire, More than a thousand griffins dire; Enfuried at the host they fly. "Help us, Karl!" was the Franks' outcry, Ruth and sorrow the king beset; Fain would he aid, but was sternly let. A lion came from the forest path, Proud and daring, and fierce in wrath; Forward sprang he the king to grasp, And each seized other with deadly clasp; But who shall conquer or who shall fall, ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... am better this morning, but it snows so incessantly that I do not know how I shall be able to keep my appointment this evening. What say you? But you have no petticoats to dangle in the snow. Poor women,—how they are beset with plagues ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... been happening with regard to the inner life of the child. We are beset by such anxieties as these: it is necessary to form character, to develop the intelligence, to aid the unfolding and ordering of the emotions. And we ask ourselves how we are to do this. Here and there we touch the soul of the ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... guarded by a fortress which occupied the spot now called Pevensey, the future landing-place of the Norman Conqueror; and the fall of this fortress of Anderida in 491 established the kingdom of the South Saxons. "AElle and Cissa beset Anderida," so ran the pitiless record of the conquerors, "and slew all that were therein, nor was there afterward ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... another light. The following considerations may serve to remove certain untoward difficulties in metaphysics and optics, which beset the path, not only of the uninitiated, but even of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... the burgomaster was very great. Tumults were of daily occurrence. Crowds of rioters beset his door with cries of denunciations and demands for bread. A large and turbulent mob upon one occasion took possession of the horse-market, and treated him with personal indignity and violence, when he undertook to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... anything with a latent idea of its indirect effect upon the little girls, her companions. She was simply herself; she even confessed (where the confession was called for) to short-comings, to faults, and never denied the force of temptations, either of those which beset little children, or of those which occasionally assailed herself. Pure, simple, and truthful to the heart's core, her life, in its uneventful hours and days, spoke many homilies. Maggie, who was grave, imaginative, and somewhat quaint, ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... he catches you alone, he is a button-holder of great tenacity) encourages free speech in others; they have no more reticence in his presence than if he were the butler. He has belonged to no cliques, and thereby escaped the greatest peril which can beset the student of human nature. A man of genius, indeed, in these days is almost certain, sooner or later, to become the centre of a mutual admiration society; but the person I have in my mind is no genius, nor anything like one, and he thanks Heaven for it. ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... country has been found which has been both able and willing to make trial of the principle which has been so strongly contended for by the author of "Progress and Poverty," and by those who have seen in his proposals a way of escape from many of the most serious difficulties that beset civilized communities at the present day. There is probably no other country which is to-day in so good a position to enter upon experimental legislation in this and other directions as the British colony of New Zealand. ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... not who the man may be, Nor how his tasks may fret him, Nor where he fares, nor how his cares And troubles may beset him, If books have won the love of him, Whatever fortune hands him, He'll always own, when he's alone, A friend who ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest

... found out how Mrs. Whately had tried to help his cause by appealing to my father, his anger was a fury. Poor Mrs. Whately, who had meant only for the best, beset with the terror of disgrace to Marjie through the dishonorable acts of her father, tried helplessly to pacify him. Between her daughter and herself a great gulf opened whenever Judson's name was mentioned; but in everything else the bond between ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... measure because they are plagued and beset so constantly by the devil. Their afflictions so sorely oppress them that they conclude that no one suffers so severely as do they. Especially does this seem the case in the great spiritual temptations which ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... this much, Tom; we are bound upon an errand of peril. We have some difficult journeyings to make, and there will be certain persons lying in wait for messengers from Marlborough; and we may be sore beset to avoid them. Tom, do you remember the tall dark man with whom my ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... stood the squirrels made more noise than did the House of Burgesses when dissolved by Governor Dunmore for expressing revolutionary sentiments. A most gracious country, and because of its fairness, most fearfully beset. That which is worthless needs no sentinels. I met with no humans, white or red; but when within a few miles of Patrick Davis' home on Howard Creek I came upon a spot where three Indians had eaten their breakfast ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... The eternal whisper behind you, when you pass by: 'there she is, that same famous one!' Anonymous letters, the brazenness of back-stage habitues ... why, you can't enumerate everything! But surely, you yourself are often beset by female psychopathics ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... think why he did it, he showed none in his calm, observant face. Buttoning up his coat as he went: the October sunset looked as if it ought to be warm, but he was deathly cold. On the street the young doctor beset him again with bows and news: Cox was his name, I believe; the one, you remember, who had such a Talleyrand nose for ferreting out successful men. He had to bear with him but for a few moments, however. They met a crowd of workmen at the corner, one of ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis

... La Descoucounado (The Opening of the Cocoons), and it must be confessed that there is a slight falling off in interest. All that describes the life of the country-folk is full of sustained charm, but Mistral has not escaped the dangers that beset the modern poet who aims at the epic style. Here begins the recounting of the numerous superstitions of the ignorant peasants, and the wonders of Provence are interpolated at every turn. The maidens, while engaged in stripping the cocoons, make known ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... then in a lower voice, "They wur a power o' help to Liz an' me. Liz wur hard beset then, an' she's only a young thing as canna bear sore trouble. Seemed loike that th' thowt as some un had helped her wur a comfort ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... more production was the byword during the war and still is during the transition from war to peace. However, when deferred demand slackens, we shall once again face the deflationary dangers which beset this and other countries during the 1930's. Prosperity can be assured only by a high level of demand supported by high current income; it cannot be sustained by deferred needs and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman

... only instance in his military career where enmity came to overt action and open speech. The first and the last of its kind, this assault upon him has much interest, for a strong light is thrown upon his character by studying him, thus beset, and by seeing just how he passed through this most ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... to do for breakfast?" was Billy's manner of voicing the general question that beset them all after they had washed off some of the mud of ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... Nell's strength, and during all this time they would be forced to remain in the company of knaves and murderers. At the recollection of that young Arab, whom the Bedouins had butchered like a lamb, fear and sorrow beset Stas. He decided not to speak of it to Nell in order not to frighten her and augment the sorrow she felt after the disappearance of the illusory picture of the oasis of Fayum and the city of Medinet. He saw before their arrival at the ravine that tears were ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... wondered how this bird was kept in check; in the struggle for existence it would appear to have greatly the advantage of other birds. It cannot, for instance, be beset with one tenth of the dangers that threaten the robin, and yet apparently there are a thousand robins to every shrike. It builds a warm, compact nest in the mountains and dense woods, and lays six eggs, ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... thing for this youth was to think more about my misfortunes than his own. I therefore told him how it was that I came before him in this plight, barefoot, bareheaded, bleeding and in rags. I told him of my concern for Virginia, of the deadly perils that beset her, and concluded by assuring him that the one service of any moment which he could do me was to devise me some means of communicating with Gioiachino, the vendor of cat's-meat in Lucca. Belviso had put his head between his knees, and so remained for some time after I ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... she whispered back, very, very close in my ear, "I was not thinking of money—that is all in checks, safely deposited in—in—in te-he! inside the lining of my waist. I was only referring to the dangers which ever beset the unmarried lady, especially the unsophisticated maiden, far, far from her native village. Why, would you believe it, already, sir, since I left home, a man, a gentleman, sitting in the very seat where you sit now, made ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... every artist should be treated as a solitary craftsman, indifferent to the commonwealth and unconcerned about moral things. To write on that principle in the present case, however, would involve all those delicate difficulties, known to politicians, which beset the public defence of a doctrine which one heartily disbelieves. It is quite needless here to go into the old "art for art's sake"—business, or explain at length why individual artists cannot be reviewed without reference to their traditions and creeds. ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... is not very apt to love the English people, as a whole, on whatever length of acquaintance. I fancy that they would value our regard, and even reciprocate it in their ungracious way, if we could give it to them in spite of all rebuffs; but they are beset by a curious and inevitable infelicity, which compels them, as it were, to keep up what they seem to consider a wholesome bitterness of feeling between themselves and all other nationalities, especially that of America. They will never confess it; nevertheless, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... The custom of the country compelled this man, whom it had long since selected as its ruler, to make a journey of extreme danger without any species of protection whatsoever. So far as peril went, no other individual in the United States had ever, presumably, been in a peril like that which beset him; so far as safeguards went, he had no more than any other traveler. A few friends volunteered to make the journey with him, but they were useless as guardians; and he and they were so hustled and jammed in the railway stations that one of them actually had ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... heavily laden with the heads and horns of a multitude of different beasts, from the gaping jaws of hippopotami to the vicious-looking heads of rhinoceroses and buffaloes, while the skins of lions and various antelopes were piled above masses of the much-prized hide of the rhinoceros, we were beset by crowds of people, who were curious to know whence so strange a party had come. We formed a regular procession through the market, our Tokrooris feeling quite at home among ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... this brief letter with a sinking heart. How was she to keep up without Uncle John? How was she to cope with all the difficulties that beset her path like sharp-thorned briers? If she had but Aunt Faith—if she had but some one to turn to! She had tried to take counsel with Mrs. Peyton, but the beautiful woman was still, at fifty, a spoiled ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards

... The literary reformers of a later day denounce the men of this period as 'artificial'! a phrase the antithesis of which is 'natural.' Without asking at present what is meant by the implied distinction—an inquiry which is beset by whole systems of equivocations—I may just observe that in this generation the appeal to Nature was as common and emphatic as in any later time. The leaders of thought believe in reason, and reason sets ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... altar of love, the whole assembly again joined together in acts of prayer, and again lifted up their voices in song of praise. This duty being performed, we separated and sought the streets. The storm which had begun in violence, had increased, and it was with difficulty that beset by darkness, wind, and rain, I succeeded without injury in finding my ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... happier, freer regions of man. As they rushed, they bore her with them to those shadowy lands far away in the sweet stillness of summer-scented noons, in the solemn quiet of autumn nights. Her days were beset with visions like these—visions of a cool, quiet, tranquil world; of conditions of peace; of yearnings satisfied; of toil that did not lacerate. Yes! that world was, somewhere. Her heart was convinced of ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... Bacon, were inclined toward Puritanism; and so were the naval heroes who won the most fruitful victories of that century, by shattering the maritime power of Spain and thus opening the way for Englishmen to colonize North America. If we would realize the dangers that would have beset the Mayflower and her successors but for the preparatory work of these immortal sailors, we must remember the dreadful fate of Ribault and his Huguenot followers in Florida, twenty-three years before that ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... a very irregular manner, and without any object in view. Early in the forenoon of our third day we observed these footprints to be much more numerous than ever, and in one particular spot they diverged off into the woods in a regular beaten track, which was, however, so closely beset with bushes that we pushed through it with difficulty. We had now become so anxious to find out what animal this was and where it went to, that we determined to follow the track, and, if possible, clear up the mystery. Peterkin said, in a bantering ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... ladders were descended before her home was reached. The old woman was Spider Woman, the little grandmother who belonged to the Holy Ones. Her home was well kept, clean and comfortable, and the boys were glad to rest. Said she, "My grandchildren, your journey is long and many trials will beset you before you reach the end. Take these life feathers; they will help you; if difficulties befall you, use them," and she gave to each two feathers ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... rights of weakness, I, the babe, Call on my sire to shield me from the ills That still beset my path, not trying me With snares beyond my wisdom or my strength, He knowing I shall use them to my harm, And find a tenfold misery in the sense That in my childlike folly I have sprung The trap upon myself as vermin ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... candelabra, and attains a height of three to five feet. As it grows old, the top joints of the branches become thick and heavy and are easily broken off by the wind. The joints, like all other parts of the plant, are beset with numerous inch-long spines, and many of them fasten in the loose, moist soil and strike root. In this way many new plants are formed, standing in a circle around the mother plant. On sloping ground the young plants form rows, some forty feet long. There was ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... a really serious man, and developed that extraordinary power of self-control which stood him in good stead in his later years. Naturally a man of violent passions, he could never have steered clear of the dangers that beset him without unusual capacity for curbing his temper, concealing his intentions, and keeping his own counsel. Ministers might flatter themselves that they could read his mind and calculate his actions, but it is ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... that beset even the courageous and the competent were enormous. The general paralysis of industry, the breaking up of society, and poverty on all sides bore especially hard on those who had not previously been manual laborers. Physicians could get practice enough but no fees; lawyers who had supported the ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... fugues),—ever since it was first sung, I say, men and women and children have loved this song. We hear of its being sung by camp-fires, on ships at sea, at gay parties of pleasure. Was it not at the siege of Lucknow that it floated like a breath from home through the city hell-beset, and brought cheer and hope and comfort to all who heard it? The cotter's wife croons it over her sleeping baby; the lover sings it to his sweetheart; the child runs, carolling it, through the summer fields; finally, some world-honored ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards

... his return from the land-office. In that time, his fear had slowly vanished, his confidence returned. And he had begun to show streaks of the bravado that, in his stronger days, made him an efficient section-boss. Rosy dreams, even, beset his brain—dreams upon which Marylyn, despising her father's meaner structures (and kept in ignorance of what might, at any moment, raze them), piled many a rainbow palace. For, to the younger girl, certain calico-covered books on the mantel had invested the events of the fortnight just ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... and finally went downstairs in alarm to tell La Cibot that Schmucke would not open the door; Fraisier made a note of this. Schmucke had never seen any one die in his life; before long he would be perplexed by the many difficulties which beset those who are left with a dead body in Paris, this more especially if they are lonely and helpless and have no one to act for them. Fraisier knew, moreover, that in real affliction people lose their heads, and therefore immediately after breakfast he took up his position in the porter's ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... not be satisfied until the whole work shall have been completed. Its author, Pierre M. Irving, sets forth with the announcement that his plan is to make the patriarch of American literature his own biographer. It is nothing new that this branch of letters is beset with peculiar difficulties. Some men suffer sadly at the hand of their chronicler. Scott misrepresents Napoleon, and Southey fails equally in his Memoirs of Cowper and of the Wesleys. Friendship's colors are too bright for correct portraiture, and prejudice equally ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... could have ordained it, he would have dismissed himself from life and ceased to be a living partaker in the scenes about him. Even then—for happy as he was, he dreaded in prophetic fear, the chances which beset our mortal path. The weight of mortality was heavy upon the ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews

... was at another time very ill and weak, all that time also the tempter did beset me strongly (for I find he is much for assaulting the soul; when it begins to approach towards the grave, then is his opportunity), labouring to hide from me my former experience of God's goodness: also setting before me the terrors of death, and the ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan

... stand or fall by this measure. No serious resistance was offered by the opposition to its first or second reading, but Peel took occasion to protest against a transparent inconsistency which seems to beset the advocacy of Irish claims. It is generally assumed, and with too much justice, that Ireland is so backward and helpless a country as to require exceptional treatment; in short, that it must be governed by Irish ideas, with little regard to English principles of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... out from the narrow track upon the open slope of the heath, and this order was maintained, let him diverge as he would to either side, there was no longer room to doubt that he was beset by these fellows. He stopped, as a last ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... of a snowy Sunday afternoon to scribble all this down for you because you are in the same difficulty that beset me formerly: namely, the absolute blank in the history of the immediate past that confronts every man when he first takes to public life. Written history stops several decades back; and the bridge of personal recollection on which older men stand does not exist for the recruit. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... man, and it was incredible that I had been chosen the hero of such an extraordinary romance—intensified, if anything, by the fact that it was set in roaring New York, where you have to talk at the top of your voice to hear yourself think. . . . But that passed—in a measure. I was beset by the fear—at times, I mean: I was not always in a state to look inward—that you were slipping away. Not that I doubted for a moment you would marry me, but that your innermost inscrutable self had withdrawn, ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... him. Whether she had unwittingly deceived him in the first place, and in the second ought to sacrifice herself for him, unloving, was each a question on which she pondered full of those doubts and self-reproaches that so grievously beset her. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... remnant of strength to aid her to lay her cold hand in his and he had seen shrinking terror in her eyes when she lifted them to his as he put on her wedding ring. He had also known perfectly what memory had beset her at the moment and he had thrown all the force of his will into the look which had answered her—the look which had told her that he understood. Yes, the awakening must have been sudden and he asked himself how it had come about—what had ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Valley, and Prideaux with large colonial forces to reduce Fort Niagara. Both had orders, being successful in these initial attacks, to move down the St. Lawrence and unite with Wolfe, who was to sail up that river and beset Quebec. Prideaux was splendidly successful, as indeed was Amherst in time, though longer than he anticipated in securing Ticonderoga and ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... she conceived that she was from the very beginning particularly regarded by her. She therefore offered sacrifice of thanks to Venus. And first caused a great image of gold to be erected to her, which she called the image of Venus, and by it placed the picture of a dove beset with jewels, and every day implored the favour of the goddess with sacrifice and prayer. She sent to Hermotimus her father many rich presents, and made him wealthy. She lived continently all her life, as both the Grecian and Persian women affirm. On a time a neck-lace was ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... an inclination to give up all attempts after the devout life, in consequence of the difficulties by which it is beset, and our already numerous failures in it. We lose heart; and partly in ill-temper, partly in real doubt of our own ability to persevere, we first grow querulous and peevish with God, and then relax in our efforts to ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... credit your ears. But you have heard correctly. And now—as you might put it—it is up to you. I have been in your country." He smiled pitifully. "I think I know you Americans. You are not the sort to refuse a man when he is sore beset—as ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers

... Beset by ethnic and civil strife since independence in 1991, Georgia began to stabilize in 1994. Separatist conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia have been dormant since spring 1994, although political settlements remain elusive. Russian peacekeepers ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... of the scout, that altercation would be useless. Munro had again sunk into that sort of apathy which had beset him since his late overwhelming misfortunes, and from which he was apparently to be roused only by some new and powerful excitement. Making a merit of necessity, the young man took the veteran by the arm, and followed in the footsteps of the Indians and the scout, who had ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... the banks rose sharply on both sides of the stream, forming a tiny canon for the channel. The steep slope on the east side, where the girl now ascended, was closely overgrown with laurel and little thickets of ground pine, through which she was hard beset to force her way—the more since she must move with what noiselessness she might. But her strength and skill compassed the affair with surprising quickness. Presently, she came to the brim of the little cliff, and lying outstretched, cautiously looked down. Already, ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... difficulties that beset this passage of the L Ki, I am not disposed to reject it altogether. It derives a certain amount of confirmation from the passage quoted from the Official Book of Ku on p. 278, showing that in the Ku dynasty there was a collection of poems, under the divisions ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... die. The same thing is less confidently to be said of Protestants. How frequently is the story told of the most exemplary Protestant Christians, nay, how common is it to read in the lives of the most exemplary Protestant ministers, that they were beset with doubts and terrors in their last days! The blessing of the viaticum is unknown to them. Man is essentially an idolater,—that is, in bondage to his imagination,—for there is no more harm in the Greek word ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... letters at this time we see him studying himself in the circles of fashion and learning. He could look on Robert Burns, as he were another person, brought from the plough and set down in a world of wealth and refinement, of learning and wit and beauty. He saw the dangers that beset him, and the temptations to which he was exposed; he recognised that something more than his poetic abilities was needed to explain his sudden popularity. He was the vogue, the favourite of a season; but public favour was capricious, and next year the doors of ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... well what had happened, .007 was flying up the track into the dumb, dark world. Then fears of the night beset him. He remembered all he had ever heard of landslides, rain-piled boulders, blown trees, and strayed cattle, all that the Boston Compound had ever said of responsibility, and a great deal more that came out of his own head. With a very quavering voice he whistled ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... our hunters were to pass in pursuit of their game was so beset with briars, that it greatly obstructed their walk, and caused besides such a rustling, that Jones had sufficient warning of their arrival before they could surprize him; nay, indeed, so incapable was ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... into conversation. An indistinct murmur reached me through the ceiling. Occasionally a clearer sound struck my ear, and I thought I knew that high, resonant voice. It was no doubt delusion, still it beset me there in the silence of the library, haunting my thoughts as they wandered restlessly in search of occupation. I tried to recollect all the men with fluty voices that I had ever met in Bourges: a corn-factor from the Place St. Jean; Rollet, the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... last, on a sad, sad day, the trusty Gouvernail came to Sir Tristram with word that a summons had been sent him from King Arthur, to go to the aid of Sir Triamour of Wales, for he was sore beset by a monster named Urgan, and ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... that; it is the occasional glint of the sun on a native spear-head. I have been through the Kaffir war, and have seen the same thing before, though not so distinctly as now, our present towering height above the ground giving us an advantage in that respect which we sadly lacked before. We are beset by the natives. You cannot see one, I know, but they are all about us, all the same. Ah! look there, just behind that magnolia bush. Do you see a small dark object rising slowly into view? That is the head of a savage, ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... wrought more ruin to more people than the Messina catastrophe, also the floods that had destroyed crops in the fertile river bottoms a few weeks before, one could understand popular opposition to more dangers and more taxes. These were some of the perplexities that beset the Government. No wonder that the diplomats were weighing their words cautiously at the Consulta, also weighing with extreme fineness the quid pro quo they would accept as "compensation" from Austria for upsetting the Balkan situation. It was, indeed, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... Alvinczy understood that it was not Joubert's division, but Bonaparte's army, which was before him. A fifth Austrian column then pressed forward from the bank of the Adige to scale the height of Rivoli, and Joubert, whose left at St. Mark was hard beset, could not check the movement. For an instant he left the road unprotected. The Austrians charged up the hill and seized the commanding position; but simultaneously there rushed from the opposite side three French battalions, clambering ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... white Jeypore marble, resting upon a lower platform of sandstone: "A thing of perfect beauty and of absolute finish in every detail, it might pass for the work of a genii, who knew naught of the weaknesses and ills with which mankind are beset. It is not a great national temple erected by a free and united people, it owes its creation to the whim of an absolute ruler who was free to squander the resources of the State in commemorating his ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... was easy. Arrived at the top of the cliff, I saw before me on the other side a vast and gradual declivity of stone, lying bare to the moon and the surrounding mountains. Nowhere was any vantage or concealment; and knowing how these deserts were beset with spies, I made haste to veil my movements under the blowing trail of smoke. Sometimes it swam high, rising on the night wind, and I had no more substantial curtain than its moon-thrown shadow; sometimes again it crawled upon the earth, and I would walk in it, no higher than to my shoulders, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... these gentlemen in office were seated at breakfast as usual, or were engaged in getting rid betimes of some of the numerous engagements which beset busy men on a busy day, when the cry arose that the Queen was there, in the midst of them, with nobody to meet her, no silver keys on a velvet cushion to be respectfully offered and graciously returned. The ancient institution of the Royal Archer Guard, one of the chief glories ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... to his home that night; and when he saw how weak he was, how little able to struggle by himself against his enemy, he kept him there; for he knew all the dangers which might beset him in most of the places where he might be able to find a temporary home. From that time, for the next few months, all things were ordered there with reference to Morely. It was a poor place enough, for ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson

... Without delay the fiend should die, For, see, the twilight hour is nigh. And at the joints of night and day Such giant foes are hard to slay." Then Rama, skilful to direct His arrow to the sound, With shafts the mighty demon checked Who rained her stones around. She sore impeded and beset By Rama and his arrowy net, Though skilled in guile and magic lore, Rushed on the brothers with a roar. Deformed, terrific, murderous, dread, Swift as the levin on she sped, Like cloudy pile in autumn's sky, Lifting her two vast arms on high, When Rama smote her with a dart, Shaped like a crescent, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... Zeus, that oft would make a mist and smother Some swain beset, and screen him from the crowd, I prayed for vapours; but his mind was other: Yet was I answered, though the god was proud, For, anyhow, I trod on Miss Pritt's mother And left ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various

... Ah, the House is beset, surrounded and confounded with profane tinkling, with Popish Horn-Pipes, and Jesuitical Cymbals, more Antichristian and Abominable than ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... (I could smell that) with condensed milk. Did I want my tea? I noticed there were two men between me and the exit, and no room to pass. The room was hot. The bench was rising and falling. My soul felt pale and faintly apprehensive, compelling me, now I was beset, to take hold of it firmly, and to tell it that this was not the time to be a miserable martyr, but a coarse brute; and that, whether it liked it or not, I was going to feed at once on fish, ham, and sickly ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... Preterit. Participle. Participle. Arise, arose, arising, arisen. Be, was, being, been. Bear, bore or bare, bearing, borne or born.[274] Beat, beat, beating, beaten or beat. Begin, began or begun,[275] beginning, begun. Behold, beheld, beholding, beheld. Beset, beset, besetting, beset. Bestead, bestead, besteading, bestead.[276] Bid, bid or bade, bidding, bidden or bid. Bind, bound, bing, bound. Bite, bit, biting, bitten or bit. Bleed, bled, bleeding, bled. Break, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... of the year 1817, his grief, slowly abating, left him a prey to solitude and defenceless under the monotony of the life he was leading, which heavily oppressed him. At first he struggled bravely against the allurements of Science as they gradually beset him; he forbade himself even to think of Chemistry. Then he did think of it. Still, he would not actively take it up, and only gave his mind to his researches theoretically. Such constant study, however, ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... fade visibly. When I "returned" in a week, she was so ill that a few steps tired her. Her appetite all but vanished. She seemed genuinely glad to see me. She was beset by nightmares, she said. Could I help her get some rest? I took her to a physician who sagely prescribed a change in climate, rest and a diet rich in blood and iron, gave her a prescription for sedatives, and called ...
— Each Man Kills • Victoria Glad

... weary with tossing and beset with horrid phantoms of remorse and jealousy, instantly fell dead in love with that sun-chequered, echoing corner. Holding his feet, he stared out of a drowsy trance, wondering, admiring, musing, losing his way among uncertain thoughts. There is nothing that so apes the external bearing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... beset; and close behind him came, with steady rush, the mighty eagle Thiassi. He was almost upon his prey as they neared the walls, but Loki made a last violent effort, which was successful, and he fell exhausted into the midst of ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... external aspects of it, to lose sight of the solemn truths which make it so grand, and to think of it as commonplace because it is common, as ordinary because it is familiar. And from these most real dangers, which beset us all, there is no refuge but the frequent, the habitual, gaze into the open heavens, which will show us again the realities of things, and bring to our spirits, dwarfed even by habits of goodness, the renewal of former motives by the vision of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... a very unhappy life. I was born in India thirty-nine years ago, and while my every act has been as open and as free of wrong as are those of an infant, I have constantly been beset by such untoward affairs as this in which you have rendered such inestimable service. At the age of five, in Calcutta, I was in peril of my liberty on the score of depravity, although I never committed any act that could ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... from the punishment of his crimes. Do not thank me, for time presses, and you must be moving, so as to be well away before it is known that you have left. May the God we both worship, though as yet in ignorance, guide and preserve you and carry you and your friends through the dangers that beset you." ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty

... character of the Darling. The Grenadier bird. The Doctor and the natives. A range discovered by refraction. Dance of natives. A lake. Tombs of a tribe. Plan of natives' hut. Method of making cordage. The tall native's first visit. Channel of a small stream. The carts beset on the journey by very covetous natives. Mischievous signals. Cattle worn out. The tall man again. Approach of the Fishing tribe. Covetous old man. Conduct on witnessing the effect of a shot. The party obliged to halt from the weak state of the cattle. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... he portrays Logan as a messenger from Boon's Station, is in error as to the siege of the latter, etc.] Kentucky during her earliest and most trying years received comparatively little help from sorely beset Virginia; but the backwoodsmen of the upper Tennessee valley—on both sides of the boundary—did her real and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... by way of variety last Saturday—Capt. Comstock having been duly indicted and arraigned for Humbug, in permitting us to be so long beset by all manner of easterly winds with never a puff from the westward. Hon. Ashbel Smith, from Texas, officiated as Chief Justice; a Jury of six ladies and six gentlemen were empaneled; James T. Brady conducted the prosecution with much wit and spirit; while AEolus, Neptune, Capt. ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... impossible. I meet her every day, but she is always beset with the Strangeways, and I think ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... sort of prescience; and what was more to the point he had apparently reduced to a fine art the business of keeping clear of the authorities. If he could escape from the Governor it would be to take up his old eventless life, with a recrudescence no doubt of the ills that had so long beset him; and he had utterly forgotten that he had ever been an invalid. He grinned as he reflected that he had been obliged to shoot a man to find a ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... person—enough to have tempted the cupidity of some lawless wretch. He shrank in horror from pursuing conjecture—it was worse than torture, worse than madness to him. Oh, blindness and frenzy; why had he not thought of these dangers so likely to beset her solitary path? Why had he so recklessly exposed her to them? Vain questions, alas! vain as was his self-reproach, ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... to fail them, as a last hope, they made a desperate sally during the night, but were driven back with considerable loss. The failure of this attempt damped their resolution, and some of the less courageous even murmured against an exploit beset with difficulties, which it appeared next ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... daybreak, the neighbourhood of the camp was beset by numberless birds, among which I distinguished storks and kites, and soon perceived that they were employed in gobbling up the locusts. The most numerous, however, were small birds about the size of swallows. Mr Fraser told me this was a species of thrush ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... and do not speak. Dost feel the green globe whirl? Seven times a week Climbeth she out of darkness to the sun, Which is her god; seven times she doth not shun Awful eclipse, laying her patient cheek Upon a pillow ghost-beset with shriek Of voices utterless which rave and run Through all the star-penumbra, craving light And tidings of the dawn from East and West. Calmly she sleepeth, and her sleep is blest With heavenly ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald



Words linked to "Beset" :   torment, dun, assail, nark, haze, assault, annoy, nettle, bedevil, needle, beautify, decorate, set on, rile, crucify, get at, devil, adorn, frustrate, vex, irritate, embellish, goad, attack, ornament, grace, gravel, get to, rag, bother, hassle, chafe



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