"Harass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bombardment. But Tripoli was a hard nut to crack. On the ocean side it was protected by forts and batteries and the harbor was guarded by a long line of reefs. Through the openings in this natural breakwater, the light-draft native craft could pass in and out to harass the blockading fleet. ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... castle vault at Arundel. Mr. Hope-Scott's last and only surviving son is James Fitzalan Hope, born December 18, 1870.] There are, however, many days of sunshine still to record. Abbotsford and Dorlin, as before, were the chief retreats in which Mr. Hope-Scott found repose from the toil and harass of his professional life. At Arundel Castle and Norfolk House he and his family were, of course, frequent guests. From 1859 it was thought necessary that the surviving child of his first marriage should spend every winter in a warm climate. Hyeres, in the south ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... any man his wealth, or his ease; he many a time on his way home, with the lump of coal on his head, was happier than the rich employer who passed him in his carriage; he had no ambitious schemes with which to harass his mind, his highest object was to glorify God in a consistent Christian life, and try to lead others to do the same. When his day's work was ended, he could lift his burden on his head, and journey homeward with a light heart; the only weight he felt was upon his head; ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... follow after them, and was also in the French city by the sea, which later on the Kaiser became so wild to possess in order to harass the coast of England twenty miles away that he ordered mad charges on the part of his men, and thousands on thousands were slaughtered without accomplishing any ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... believe to be a precious superabundance in such matters. But doubtless you do not know what became of the Moor placed in religion by the said knight, Bruyn de la Roche-Corbon. I know very well. Now if this etymology of the street harass you, and also the Egyptian nun, I will lend you a curious and antique parchment, found by me in the Olim of the episcopal palace, of which the libraries were a little knocked about at a period when none of us knew if he would have the ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... opposition, had declared Tascheron innocent, and who had done their best to break down the verdict, now clamored because the sentence was not executed. When the opposition is consistent it invariably falls into such unreasonableness, because its object is not to have right on its own side, but to harass the authorities and put ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... escape from them all at once. A fresh and unexpected debt of somewhere about four thousand pounds does not sit lightly on a comparatively poor man. In spite of his philosophy for Letty's benefit, he must needs harass himself anew about his money affairs, planning and reckoning. How many more such surprises would his mother spring upon him—and how was he to control her? He realised now something of the life-long burden his dull old father had borne—a burden which ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of all races who have had hard taskmasters or other misfortune in their civilian sphere, and expect to be hurt again. It is not unusual for this kind of material to show badly in training because of an ingrained fear of other men. At the same time, they can face mortal danger. To harass the man who is trying, but can't quite do it, therefore cuts double against the strength of organization. It may ruin the man; it may also give his comrades the feeling that he ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... opportunity. Perhaps the French court did not follow closely what was going on in Acadia. The successive French Governors of Canada at Quebec were, however, alert; and their policy was to incite the Abenaki Indians on the New England frontier to harass the English settlements, and to keep the Acadians an active factor in the support of French plans. The nature of French intrigue is best seen in the career of Sebastien Rale. He was a highly educated Jesuit ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... we opened upon them in volleys, they soon went to the right about. We peppered them all the way up the hill and, as I could see from my glasses, killed a good many of them. However, it took all the fight out of them, and they made no fresh attempt to harass the column." ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... but unchivalrous policy,* the retreat of the army was as uneventful as had been the movement of concentration. The Liberal forces offered no opposition, and their guerrillas did not even harass the rear-guard of the retreating French. Several thousand men, mainly from the foreign legion, however, deserted. It is said that the marshal claimed them, but General Marquez replied that if he wanted them he might come ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... a son of AGENOR, King of Thrace. At the bidding of his jealous wife, IDAEA, daughter of DARDANUS, PHINEUS put out the sight of his children by his former wife, CLEOPATRA, daughter of BOREAS. To punish this cruelty, the gods caused him to become blind, and the harpies were sent continually to harass and affright him, and to snatch away his food or defile it by their presence. They were afterwards driven away by his brothers-in-law, ZETES and CALAIS. It has been suggested that originally the harpies were nothing more than personifications of the swift storm-winds; and few of ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... vest Of earthly mould first took the Lady dear, Who him that sends us, feather'd captives, here Awakens often from his tearful rest— Lived we in freedom and in quiet, blest With everything which life below might cheer, No foe suspecting, harass'd by no fear That aught our wanderings ever could molest; But snatch'd from that serener life, and thrown To the low wretched state we here endure, One comfort, short of death, survives alone: Vengeance upon our captor full and sure! Who, slave himself at others' ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... subject "enquire diligently concerning this," for he cannot fail to enquire wisely. Let him enquire, and he will find that "the former days" of England were days of discord, tyranny, and oppression; days when an Empson and a Dudley could harass the honest and well-disposed, through the medium of the process of the odious star-chamber; when the crown was possessed of almost arbitrary power, and when the liberty and personal independence of individuals were in no way considered or regarded; days when the severity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... cavalry were huddled together pell-mell; no commands could be acted upon, and indeed the whole army was so disorganised that it could have been easily beaten by a handful of men. In effect, the enemy at last tried to take advantage of our confusion, by sending a few troops to harass us. But it was too late; we had sufficiently rallied to be able to turn upon them, and they narrowly escaped falling into our hands. We encamped that night in the plain on the banks of the Necker—our rear at ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... that no catastrophe followed the events of the day. Heriot, they thought, might have upset the boat, saved Julia, and drowned Boddy, and given us a feast of pleasurable excitement: instead of which Boddy lived to harass us with his tyrannical impositions and spiteful slaps, and it was to him, not to our Heriot, that Julia was most gracious. Some ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... liable to it, as well as that: for wherever the power, that is put in any hands for the government of the people, and the preservation of their properties, is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the arbitrary and irregular commands of those that have it; there it presently becomes tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many. Thus we read of the thirty tyrants at Athens, as ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... defensive security. With numbers scanty for their work, and obliged to concentrate instead of scattering, the British, prior to Warren's arrival, had not disposable the cruisers with which greatly to harass even the hostile shipping, still less to institute a commercial blockade. The wish to stock the Spanish peninsula and the West Indies with provisions contributed further to ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... tribes retained their old pastoral mode of life and predatory habits, and harassed the Russian agricultural population of the outlying provinces in the same way as the Red Indians in America used to harass the white colonists of the Far West. A large section of the Horde, inhabiting the Crimea and the Steppe to the north of the Black Sea, escaped annexation by submitting to the Ottoman Turks and ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... grew and were trained by their father just as his mother had trained him; though wider knowledge and experience gave him many advantages. He knew so well the country round and all the feeding-grounds, and how to meet the ills that harass partridge-life, that the summer passed and not a chick was lost. They grew and flourished, and when the Gunner Moon arrived they were a fine family of six grown-up grouse with Redruff, splendid in his gleaming copper feathers, at their head. He ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... are a sort of quasi-jurors must not commit themselves to a decision prematurely. The grave and inevitable difficulties besetting the administration in this matter were seriously enhanced by the conduct of Mr. Clay. Seeking nothing so eagerly as an opportunity to harass the government, he could have found none more to his taste than this question of South American recognition. His enthusiastic and rhetorical temperament rejoiced in such a topic for his luxuriant oratory, ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... "I confess that in some respects I do not understand you; and before you enter upon another London season, through which I cannot be at your side, I would obtain from you some assurance of the nature of your regard for me. I do not wish to harass you with jealous importunity. You have given me the most unequivocal tokens of a feeling different from that which inspires the ordinary intercourse of a lady and gentleman in society; but of late it has seemed to me that you maintain as little ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... of the Holt are much thinned and reduced by the night-hunters, who perpetually harass them in spite of the efforts of numerous keepers, and the severe penalties that have been put in force against them as often as they have been detected, and rendered liable to the lash of the law. Neither ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... met under the roof of the Eternal Painter. His palette is somewhere in the upper ether and his head in the interplanetary spaces. His heavy eyebrows twinkle with star-dust. Dodging occasional flying meteors, which harass him as flies harass a landscapist out of doors on a hot day, he is ever active, this mighty artist of the changing desert sky. So fickle his moods, so versatile his genius, so quick to creation his fancy, that he ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... still whips the pane And I must turn to work again Where the brown stout of Erin hums Through Dublin's aromatic slums And Sinn Fein youths with shifty faces Hold "Parliaments" in public places And, heaping curse on mountainous curse In unintelligible Erse, Harass with threats of war and arson Base Briton and still baser CARSON. But some day when the powers that be Demobilise the likes of me (Some seven years hence, as I infer, My actual exit will occur) Swift o'er the Irish Sea I'll fly, Yea, though each wave be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... allies counselled caution; in vain the Irish chiefs recommended him to avoid a pitched battle, and harass the enemy by skirmishing. Edward indignantly bade them 'draw aside, and look on,' which Barbour declares they did. A very interesting account on the battle on St. Callixtus' day is given in the Ulster Archaeological Journal. The ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... the trouble they could, and they'd be patriotic. So we've got to be mighty careful this next week about how we take any information we pick up in that fashion. If the people on the farms take the game seriously, and enter into the spirit of it, they'll do all they can to harass ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... one, may be going on well in his classes, while the other, from the concurrence of some accidental train of circumstances, may be behindhand in his work, or wrongly classed, or so situated in other respects that his school duties perplex and harass him day by day. Now how different will be the feelings of these two boys in respect to coming to school. The one will be eager and prompt to reach his place and commence his duties, while the other will love much better to loiter in idleness and liberty in the open air. ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... served a king from interest," said the old man. "Besides, it is for him to remember. Poor king! he must be weary indeed of those who harass him. If he gave them all France in bits, they ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... decamped silently in the night, and took the road towards Santee. On the return of day announcing their flight, Marion ordered me to take the mounted riflemen, thirty in number, with fifty horse, and pursue and harass the enemy as much as possible, till he could come ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... devoted to the erection of a high philosophic edifice, the author of this great contribution found himself in the midst of a very sea of small troubles. And they were troubles of that uncompensated kind that harass without elevating, and waste a man's spirit without softening or enlarging it. First, the jar of temperament between Comte and his wife had become so unbearable that they separated (1842). It is not expedient for ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... the God of Nature has given—which is an abundance of this world's goods—we agree to take from the one, and give to the other; and that the wealthy, or the enemies of this society, shall be the ones we will strive to harass, by disapprobation of their tyrannical course; and no respect will we pay to persons, either politically or religiously, but swear to prove true to all the bearings which we have laid down ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... indeed, far from desiring to increase in this kingdom the number of executions; yet I cannot but think, that they who destroy the confidence of society, weaken the credit of intelligence, and interrupt the security of life; harass the delicate with shame, and perplex the timorous with alarms; might very properly be awakened to a sense of their crimes, by denunciations of a whipping-post or pillory: since many are so insensible of right and wrong, that they have no standard ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... themselves. From time to time one party would gain the upper hand, and would drive the other from the Valley in apparently hopeless destitution; but the defeated ones, to whichsoever side they might belong, invariably contrived to re-muster their forces, and return to harass and drive out their opponents in their turn. The only purpose for which they could be induced to temporarily lay aside their disputes and band themselves together in a common cause, was to repel the incursions of marauding Indians, to which the valley was occasionally subject. ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... not been used to bear-hunting—hence their signal defeat; but this was not the case with the others, all of which were old campaigners; and Poker especially, although not old in years, was a practical fighter, having been trained not to attack but to harass. The systematic and steady way in which they advanced before the bear, and retired, right and left, leading her into a profitless pursuit, was very interesting to witness. Another volley from the hunters caused them to make off more rapidly, and wounded the cub severely, so much so ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... could not for my Business. Business would not permit me hitherto to come to see you. These Floods of Business that I have been plung'd in would not permit me to pay my Respects to you. I have been so busy I could not come. I have been harass'd with so many vexatious Matters that I could not get an Opportunity. I have been so taken up with a troublesome Business that I could never have so much Command of myself. You must impute it to my Business, and not to me. It was not for Want of Will, but Opportunity. I could ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... 3rd and De Lisle's 2nd Cavalry Brigades (3rd Cavalry Brigade: 4th Hussars, 5th Lancers, and 16th Lancers; 2nd Cavalry Brigade: 4th Dragoon Guards, 9th Lancers, and 18th Hussars) to threaten and harass the flanks of the advancing German troops, whilst Bingham's 4th Cavalry Brigade remained ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... weather and rain, which all go to increase the murmurs and complaints of the people. Internally, the rebels are accumulating strength against an opportune time to rise; externally, powerful neighbouring countries are waiting for an opportunity to harass us. Why then should our Great President risk his precious person and become a target of public criticism; or "abandon the rock of peace in search of the tiger's tail"; or discourage the loyalty of faithful ones and encourage the sinister ambitions of the unscrupulous? Ch'i-chao sincerely hopes ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... to do, I began to dread it. Ginger, too, seemed restless, though she said very little. At last I thought the worst was over; for several days there was no more shortening, and I determined to make the best of it and do my duty, though it was now a constant harass instead of a pleasure; but the worst ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... work in it. The villages that it instructs are as follows: The village of the natives and Lutaos [14] of the same Zamboanga, who number 800 families. In place of paying tribute, they serve as rowers in our fleets, which are quite usually cruising about in defense of our coasts and to harass the enemy. The island of Basilan opposite the presidio of Zamboanga and two leguas distant, has about 1,000 families—who, attracted by the industry, affection, and care of the mission fathers are most ready to show ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... only with the view of weakening the army that six thousand troops were ordered to be detached from it, and solely to harass it by a winter campaign that they were now called upon at this inhospitable season to undertake the recovery of Ratisbon. The Jesuits and the ministry enriched themselves with the treasure wrung from the provinces, ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... practically nothing. Fruits of a variety ample to sustain life, grow wild in abundance. Vegetables planted are harvested seemingly without blight or hazard of any kind. No destructive insects have ever impeded agriculture; no wild animals have ever existed to harass humanity. Nature in fact, offers every help and no obstacle towards making a simple, primitive life ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... of the Tetons appeared from time to time upon the river banks, following the boats, begging, threatening, doing everything in their power to harass the advance. No doubt they had already repented of their brief show of decency, and would have made an open demonstration had they dared. Through those days the men generally encamped upon islands or sand-bars in mid-stream, deeming it wise to avoid further contact with the tribe. ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... personal insult. Francis had not been in the habit of troubling himself about the private opinions of the learned on vexed points of theology; nor had he been inclined to permit his more fanatical subjects to harass any of those eminent scholars whose literary attainments added lustre to his brilliant court. Yet his claim to the right of enforcing uniformity of belief—and that uniformity a complete conformity to his own creed—had rather been held in abeyance than relinquished. ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... 22 to 19, then to the vanishing point of 1, and finally to a minority of 16. Every incident connected with the war, the taxes, parliamentary reform, and all other questions upon which it was possible to raise a discussion, were seized upon by the opposition to harass the Ministry. The total surrender of York Town by Lord Cornwallis, with the whole army under his command, to Washington, and of the British vessels in the harbour to the French Admiral de Grasse in the October of 1781, awakened universal indignation; and, when Parliament ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... known a dark hour when the importunate wish has risen that it were possible and right to lay down the burdens that oppress, the perplexities that harass, and hasten the coming of the long sleep that needs no lullaby. Such an hour was this to Christie, for, as she stood there, that sorrowful bewilderment which we call despair came over her, and ruled her with a power ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... for the timely arrival of Karaiskakes and Fabvier, each with a strong body of troops, who diverted the enemy by formidable attacks in the rear. Karaiskakes and his force continued, with various success, to watch and harass the enemy from without. On the 12th of December Fabvier, by a brilliant exploit, forced his way into the Acropolis with about six hundred men. He had intended only to give it temporary relief, but many of the native chiefs, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... should consider themselves as runners in the Olympian games, and never seek to trip, jostle, harass or annoy a rival, but run the race squarely and fairly, satisfied to be beaten if the other is the stronger and better man. An unfair victory gains only the anger of ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... cause of this second fit of silence, I cannot conjecture; but after one trick, I will not be cheated by another, nor will harass my thoughts with conjectures about the motives of a man who, probably, acts only by caprice. I therefore suppose you are well, and that Mrs. Boswell is well too; and that the fine summer has restored Lord Auchinleck. I am much better than you left me; I think I am better ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... between thirty and forty miles from its junction with the Tigris. When they had got a little way forward, Mithridates again appeared with a few hundred cavalry and bowmen. He approached them like a friend; but as soon as he was near enough, suddenly began to harass the rear with a shower of missiles. What surprises us most, is, that the Persians, with their very numerous force, made no attempt to hinder them from crossing so very considerable a river; for Xenophon estimates the Zab at 400 feet broad,—and this seems below the statement of modern travellers, ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... Enoch yearn'd to see her face again; 'If I might look on her sweet face gain And know that she is happy.' So the thought Haunted and harass'd him, and drove him forth, At evening when the dull November day Was growing duller twilight, to the hill. There he sat down gazing on all below; There did a thousand memories roll upon him, Unspeakable for sadness. By and by The ruddy square of ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... harm all ranks, all arts, all crafts appal: At Mars' harsh blast arch, rampart, altar fall! Ah! hard as adamant, a braggart Czar Arms vassal-swarms, and fans a fatal war! Rampant at that bad call, a Vandal-band Harass, and harm, and ransack Wallach-land! A Tartar phalanx Balkan's scarp hath past, And Allah's standard falls, alas! ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... pursuer, by his ingenuity and resources, keeping his victim in a state of the most fearful alarm. This was the project of my third volume. I was next called upon to conceive a dramatic and impressive situation adequate to account for the impulse that the pursuer should feel, incessantly to alarm and harass his victim, with an inextinguishable resolution never to allow him the least interval of peace and security. This I apprehended could best be effected by a secret murder, to the investigation of which the innocent victim should be impelled by an unconquerable spirit ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... time he never disguised from himself for an instant that but for a prospective 20,000 l. the facts concerned would not have affected him in the least. Till to-night it had been to his interest to back the strike, and to harass the employers. Now things were changed; and he took a curious satisfaction in the quick movements of his own intelligence, as his thought rapidly sketched the "curve" the Clarion would have to take, and the arguments by which he would ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in her eyes. Her mien became even more lofty; her voice less salient; and a shadow fell gently over her life. The sisters thought it was age; but Sulpizia was young. Others thought it was care; but her duties could not harass such a spirit. Others thought it was repentance; but natures like hers ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... of the Emperor with MacMahon's army would look like personal cowardice and a mean desertion of Bazaine at Metz. The Empress was for fighting a outrance, and her Government issued orders for a national rising and the enrolling of bodies of irregulars, or francs-tireurs, to harass ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... the Astrolabe was so overloaded that it grounded. The natives at once decided to harass the wounded in their retreat. They hastened in great numbers towards the reefs, within six feet of which the boats must necessarily pass. The little ammunition which remained was exhausted upon these savages, and the boats at ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... always thought it was. And the parents like it, for the coppers it brings in. And the farmer gets his apples saved. If that's so,' says he, 'here's a transaction that benefits everybody concerned, instead of which the Board goes out of its way to harass me for it.' The chairman, Sir Felix, owned he was right, too. 'Bosenna,' says he, 'I can't answer you if I would. Nothing grieves me more, sitting here, than having to administer the law as I find it. But, as things are, I can't let you ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... was always doing something or other to annoy me—or I felt as if he were, which was the same thing—had brought his conduct to a climax, by taking it into his head that he would go to India. Why should he go to India, except to harass me? To be sure he had nothing to do with any other part of the world, and had a good deal to do with that part; being entirely in the India trade, whatever that was (I had floating dreams myself concerning golden shawls and elephants' teeth); having been at Calcutta in his youth; and ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... he was bilious from hard work at portraits and the harass of fashionable life. And his post of portrait-painter to the Prince had its trials. The Carlton House porter had been ordered to get the railings fresh painted. In his ignorance the man went to Hoppner to request ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... anxious questionings, as we go about our daily business, whether the placens uxor forgot to remind Mary, when she went out, to pull the blinds down; whether Mary followed the instructions if given; whether those confounded patent ventilators have snapped to again. Green fly does not harass us. One syringing a day, and one watering per week suffice. Truly these are not grave things, but the issue at stake is precious: we enjoy the boon of ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... elections depending or imminent. The evil complained of, if it exists in the present state of things, would hardly be removed by a triennial Parliament: for, unless the influence of government in elections can be entirely taken away, the more frequently they return, the more they will harass private independence; the more generally men will be compelled to fly to the settled systematic interest of government, and to the resources of a boundless civil list. Certainly something may be done, and ought to be done, towards lessening that influence in elections; and this ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was quite well, but as he was at once trusted by his superiors, and acceptable to the captive, he was employed in many of those lesser communications between her and her keepers, for which the two knights did not feel it necessary to harass her with their presence. His post, for half the twenty-four hours, was on guard in the gallery outside her anteroom door; but he often knocked and was admitted as bearer of some message to her or her household; and equally often was called ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it will not fail them. And the sight of him, the look of him, filled her not with the mere belief, but with the absolute conviction that no malign power in all the world or in the mystery round the world could come past him to her to harass or harm her. The doubts, the sense of desolation that had so agitated her a few minutes before now seemed ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... one, but they very often go in couples; and sometimes three of them will work together. I don't think one privateer alone would venture to attack us, though she might harass us a bit, and keep up a distant fire, in hopes that another might hear it and bear down to her aid. But it is always as well to keep free of them, if one can. You see, an unlucky shot might knock one of our sticks out of us, which would mean delay ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... harass the government, it is not all. There is another party in Spain, which it is feared will rise up and fight both the Carlists and the government. This party is called the Republican party, and it is thought to be the ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, April 1, 1897 Vol. 1. No. 21 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... can put all the people to the trouble and expense of a vote upon any measure, and the inquiry may well arise whether the cause of settled and orderly government will be promoted by vesting power in the minority thus to harass and annoy the majority. In my own state, for example, who can doubt that the prohibitory amendment, or some one of the statutes enacted for its enforcement, would have been resubmitted again and again ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... could not bear to think of the peril for her and the younkets. I am no witch, my lord, unless it be Satan that gives us to know more than others. But I have hated the Normans who came here to steal our land, and have helped my people to harass them in years gone by. All but you and Sir Hugh l'Estrange, they have despoiled and plagued the folk. But build no wall above the stream, for 'twill fall—'twill fall—'twill fall. The waters will ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... upon as heroes, by whose valour the Cross was exalted, and the Crescent bowed down to the dust. Those were the days when, on the ruins of Spalatro, we swore to live like eagles, amidst barren cliffs and naked rocks, the better to harass the heathen—the days when the power of the Moslem quailed and fled before us. And had not your sordid Venetian traders stepped in, courting the infidel for love of gain, the Cross would still be worshipped ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... and your actual knowledge are concerned, all matter is simply thought, and you have never doubted your ability to dismiss a thought. It is for you, then, here and now, to decide whether you will harbor sensory pictures that impede your progress and allow them to harass and dominate you and interfere with the achievement of your ambition, or whether you will ignore these ...
— Applied Psychology: Making Your Own World • Warren Hilton
... of West African States (ECOWAS) intervened to attempt to resolve the dispute over two villages along the Benin-Burkina Faso border that remain from 2005 ICJ decision; in recent years citizens and rogue security forces rob and harass local populations on both sides of the poorly-defined Burkina Faso-Niger border; despite the presence of over 9,000 UN forces (UNOCI) in Cote d'Ivoire since 2004, ethnic conflict continues to spread into neighboring states who can no longer send their ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... loyalists and the English troops were disheartened and disgusted at seeing an army of 30,000 fine troops kept inactive, while the enemy, with but 4000 men, who were wholly incapable of opposing an equal number of English troops, were allowed to wander unchecked, to attack and harass the English pickets, and to utilize the whole of the resources of their country. Had General Howe entertained a fixed desire to see English authority overthrown in America he could not have acted in a manner more calculated to ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... months before her father's death, was brutally insulted, and forbidden the house. All, however, failed to shake the mother's resolution; and at length, finding all his efforts fruitless, Thorndyke appeared to yield the point, and upon this subject at least ceased to harass his unfortunate victim. ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... unjust. Had he not paid, a thousand times over, the full penalty for his offense, trivial or terrible whichever it might have been? Why should the accusing ghost of it come back after all these years, to hound and harass him and make his whole ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... doubtless remember the Plagues of Egypt.... At least three of these survived at Ayun Musa to harass, thousands of years later, unfortunate soldiers who were trying to win a war. We had lice, boils and blains, and flies—particularly and ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... B1 and B2, stands with regard to himself. B2 is isolated and thrust outward. The enemy, M, upon the right, attacking along the lines XX, may be able to give B2 a very bad time before he gets into the area of B1, and long before he gets into the area of the stronger Power, A. It is open to M so to harass B2 that B2 is prepared to break with B1 and give up the war; or, if the bond between B2 and B1 is strong enough, to persuade B1 to give up the struggle at the same time that he does. And if B2 is thus harassed to the breaking-point, the whole alliance, A plus B, will lose the men ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... expected that you will give battle to a large force, but by felling trees, burning bridges, removing supplies of forage and subsistence, attacking his trains, stampeding his animals, cutting off his detachments, and other similar means, you will be able materially to harass his army and protect this region of country. You must endeavor by every means to maintain yourself in the Territory independent of this army. In case only of absolute necessity you may move southward. If the enemy threatens to march ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... that before my arrival I felt an occasional qualm Lest the shock of the unexpected might shatter my wonted calm; But it gave me the richest rapture to find I was wholly free From the crude and vulgar emotions that harass ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... peace at so critical a time. In the condition in which your army was, you could not have advanced into the Seneca country without utter defeat. The Senecas had double palisades, which could not have been forced without great loss. Their plan was to keep three hundred men inside, and to perpetually harass you with twelve hundred others. All the Iroquois were to collect together, and fire only at the legs of your people, so as to master them, and burn them at their leisure, and then, after having thinned their numbers ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... the heavy-armed infantry arranged in three lines: first, the younger men; next, the more experienced warriors; and lastly the veterans. A battle began with skirmishing by the light troops, which moved to the front and discharged their darts to harass the enemy. The companies of the first line next flung their javelins at a distance of from ten to twenty paces and then, wielding their terrible short swords, came at once to close quarters with the foe. It was like a volley of musketry followed by a ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... idolatry, and drew to his standard a large band of ruffians as skilled as himself in villainous devices. Insurgency, in the true sense of the word, did not exist in Negros; opposition to the American domination was merely a pretext to harass, plunder, and extort funds from the planters and property-owners. The disaffected people increased so largely in numbers that Colonel Smith was obliged to call for reinforcements, and the disturbances ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... of Miss Gordon, harass and persecute a very unhappy and unfortunate woman, who asks at his hands only to be forgotten completely, to be ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... their landing on the island, as its great extent affords a variety of places favorable for that purpose, and the whole of our works on it are at the end opposite to the city. However, we shall attempt to harass them as much as possible, which will be all that we can do." To the same effect Colonel Reed's letter of August 23d: "As there were so many landing-places, and the people of the island generally so treacherous, we never expected to prevent the landing." General ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... his autocratic prerogatives. Likewise he dis- ciplines the pack when he thinks they need it or when he feels like it, and he is always the ringleader in mischief. When there is an outcast he is a doomed dog. The others harass and fight him at every opportunity. They are pitiless. They do not associate with him, and sooner or later a morning will come when they are noticed licking their chops contentedly, as dogs do when they have had a good meal— and after that no more ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... the McGraw thumb, and I have them! I'll demand cash on the nail for my services. They will be unable to pay me. I'll harass them and threaten to sue them, and then, when I have them thoroughly cowed, I'll send a secret agent around to buy their land from them at ten dollars an acre. After using their constitutional right to purchase lieu lands, ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... lighted up in Europe a little before our last meeting has not yet extended its flames to other nations, nor been marked by the calamities which sometimes stain the foot-steps of war. The irregularities, too, on the ocean, which generally harass the commerce of neutral nations, have, in distant parts, disturbed ours less than on former occasions; but in the American seas they have been greater from peculiar causes, and even within our harbors and jurisdiction infringements on the authority of the laws have been committed which have ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... complained of in the Declaration of Independence. The king is blamed "For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world," that is, enforcing the trade laws; again, "He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people," that is to say, the vice-admiralty judges and naval officers sworn to act as customhouse officers and seize smugglers. In doing this duty these officers did "harass ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... the dog and the song of the bird, And only the kalao's hoarse call resound; Nor is the voice of vain man to be heard, My mind to harass or my steps to begird; The woodlands alone and the ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... case he means to do, but it will make the doing easier. We see admirably working parallels to this in the German insurance laws and their provision for death, disease and old age. They benefit those whom they appear to harass. Insurance against fatherhood will work in the same way. The State will not be antagonistic to the father, but will be his best friend, knowing that its best friends are good fathers and mothers. There will be far less worry and anxiety for well-meaning ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... commanded as it was by a skillful and brave general, who drew from the centre of the military operations numerous troops, with which he might throw himself into Hanover, or Hesse, or even Holland, and by joining the English troops harass the rear of the Grand Army. The Grand Duke of Berg explained to me his plans and expectations, and soon after announced their fulfilment in several letters which contained, among other things, the particulars of the taking ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... restlessness, approached a desk that stood in one corner of the room, and drew from it a somewhat defaced bill of sale. There was something connected with that bit of paper, which, apart from anything else, seemed to harass him most. "But a minute before you entered I looked upon that paper," he spoke, throwing it upon the table, "and thought how much trouble it had brought me, how through it I had left a curse upon innocent life. I paid fifteen ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... harass my own feelings nor yours, my dear Edward, by entering into further details of your father's illness, for such it was obvious his indisposition had become. It was the only consolation, and that was a sorry one, that we could use with Constance, ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... be lured from her home, or plucked from her home, and if reluctant, disgraced, that she may be dependent utterly on the man stooping to pick her up! He was equal to the projecting of a scheme socially infamous, with such fanatical intensity did the thought of his losing the woman harass him, and the torrent of his passion burst restraint to get to her to enfold her—this in the same hour of the original wild monster's persistent and sober exposition of the texts of the law with the voice of a cultivated ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... outdone: insomuch that he held palpable evidence of the Fates at work to harass and drive him. She was married to the young ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... long before I answered. Was God really asking me not merely to let Martha and her father live with me on sufferance, but to rejoice that He had seen fit to let them harass and ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... Lafayette was endeavoring to avoid a general action with Cornwallis, and yet to harass him. Early in July, 1781, the British army marched from Williamsburg, and encamped on the banks of the James River, so as to cover a ford leading to the island of Jamestown. Soon after, the baggage and some of the troops passed the ford, but the main army kept its ground. Lafayette ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... his old-time enemy, Ike Slump, and a crony of his named Mort Bemis. They had been hired by Farrington to harass Ralph in every way possible. Ralph had searched for the motive ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... of the soul may lose in importance thereby does but go to swell the dignity of the universe. And loss of grandeur to the sage there is none; for he is as profoundly sensitive to the greatness of nature as to the greatness that lurks within man. Why harass our soul with endeavour to locate the infinite? As much of it as can be given to man will go to him who has learned ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... describe it as harsh; but I understand it in a way. Miss Glynn came over to London almost penniless, and expecting the birth of her illegitimate child. She suffered all that a woman suffers in such circumstances. I do not want to harass you unnecessarily by going over it all again, but I do wish you to forgive her somewhat intemperate letter. I'll speak to her about it, and I am sure she will write to you in a more kindly spirit later on; meanwhile, rest assured that she is doing well, and not forgetful of ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... with ease The violence of that dread shock surmount, Or rise to air again, so burthensome His drench'd apparel proved; but, at the last, He rose, and, rising, sputter'd from his lips The brine that trickled copious from his brows. Nor, harass'd as he was, resign'd he yet His raft, but buffetting the waves aside With desp'rate efforts, seized it, and again Fast seated on the middle deck, escaped. 390 Then roll'd the raft at random in the flood, Wallowing unwieldy, toss'd from wave to wave. As when in autumn, Boreas ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... harass her, however, chief among them being that the board of aldermen were strongly against her, men of the old regime mostly, ready to fight against any radical reforms and to begin work already to defeat her most ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... any opportunity to reveal his feelings. I really think that he would willingly have refused to attend to the British soldiers at all if his superior orders had not charged him with this duty. So he did the next worse thing to harass our heroes. He expressed his intention to attend first to the Belgians, then to the French, and to the British last. They could wait, notwithstanding that their injuries were more severe and the patients more numerous than those of the other two ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... into the camps, and as soon as their opponents came against them, to flee without the least shame and to ride up to the fortifications at full speed. And he also stationed some men inside this gate. So the men under Trajan began to harass the barbarians, as Belisarius had directed them to do, and the Goths, gathering from all the camps, began to defend themselves. And both armies began to move as fast as they could toward the fortifications of the city, the one ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... ourselves, and say that, in the measure in which we belong to Christ, and hear the marks of His possession of us, in that measure are we free from the disturbance of earthly influences and of human voices; and from all the other sources of care and trouble, of perturbation and annoyance, which harass and vex other men's spirits. 'Ye are bought with a price,' says Paul elsewhere. 'Be not the servants of men.' Christ is your Master; do not let men trouble you. Take your orders from Him; let men rave as they like. Be content to be approved by ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Most of its naval forces had been destroyed during the Armada adventure, and neither the few galleys brought by Spinola to Sluis, before the taking of this town by Maurice of Nassau (1604), nor the privateers from Dunkirk were able to do more than harass Dutch trade. With the defeat of the reorganized Spanish fleet at the Battle of the Downs, the last hope of seeing the Dutch blockade raised vanished. Not only was the Lower Scheldt firmly held, but enemy ships cruised permanently outside Ostend, Nieuport and Dunkirk. The attempts made by ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... mere book-knowledge is needed, to elevate and refine the family. One of the most direct results of female education thus far in Syria has been the abolition from certain classes of society of some of those superstitious fears which harass and torment ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... war's loud commotion the hostile Dane landed, Or seen on the ocean with white sail expanded, Like thee, swoll'n stream, down our steep vale that roarest, Fierce was the chieftain that harass'd them sorest. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... orders. In this carnival of patriotism and hurly-burly of organization the weaknesses as well as the virtues of human nature quickly showed themselves; and, as if the new President had not already enough to distress and harass his mind, almost every case of confusion and delay was brought to him for complaint and correction. On him also fell the delicate and serious task of deciding hundreds of novel questions as to what he and his cabinet ministers ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... first the American plans went ill. The more easterly force met with ignominious defeat by a handful of French Canadians at Chateauguay. Wilkinson did little better. British troops, among them Nairne's regiment, were hurried down the river under Colonel Morrison to harass, if possible, Wilkinson's rear and to fire upon his 300 boats from the points of vantage on the shore. After a slow descent, day after day, on the night of November 10th the rear of the American force, under General Boyd, ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... she died,—in my arms. I will not try to harass you by telling you what those few days were; how absolutely he was struck to the ground, how terrible was the grief of the daughter, how the boys were astonished by the feeling of their loss. After a few days they went away. It was, I think, their father's wish that they should ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... and of good courage, therefore, with reference to the new administration. No soldier or civil servant shall harass you for his own pleasure. No tax-collector shall load you with burdens of his own imposition. We are determined to keep not only our own hands clean, but also those of our officials. Otherwise, vainly does a good Judge guard himself from receiving money, if he leaves to the many under him licence ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... heart and hand. During several days Reuben's recollection strayed drowsily among the perils and hardships through which he had passed, and he was incapable of returning definite answers to the inquiries with which many were eager to harass him. No authentic particulars of the battle had yet been circulated; nor could mothers, wives, and children tell whether their loved ones were detained by captivity or by the stronger chain of death. Dorcas nourished her apprehensions in silence till one afternoon when Reuben awoke from an ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... they were not pursued, stopped in a posture of surprise. It became evident that they could never be run down; they would have to be surrounded; the plateau on which they were aided this manoeuvre. The hunters, leaving Duke to harass them, descended through the neighboring ravines, so as to get around the plateau. Altamont and the doctor hid behind a rock at one end, while Hatteras, suddenly advancing from the other end, should ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... continued to harass his soul, always on the same line. "Suppose," he said, "for the sake of argument, that I have tamed my pride, and subdued my body, suppose that at present there were nothing to do, but to go forward, I am still brought up, for the ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... but whom you cherish to your bosoms as a viper. I, who am greater than you all, have laid my commands upon him, and he has seen fit to disobey. He is now in hiding among you. This man must be produced. I would not willingly harass you, but this, my will, must be carried out. If he is not found by six to-morrow a sign will be sent to you that you may believe. I am patient, ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White |
