"Balked" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... afterwards when he reached his room. He had said nothing, done nothing—what use were words or deeds? Old Jimmy Robinson was right; she had "balked" sure enough. ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... stopping suddenly, 'do not let me be balked in this matter—do not give information to the local authorities—do not obtain the assistance of several peace officers, to take either me or Doctor Slammer, of the 97th Regiment, at present quartered in Chatham Barracks, into ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... at Cragg's Crossing rendered Josie O'Gorman uneasy. She had the Cragg case so well in hand, now, and the evidence in her possession was so positively incriminating, in her judgment, that she did not like to be balked by a clever female detective from her father's own office. She had little doubt but Nan would do all in her power to save old Hezekiah Cragg from the penalty of his misdeeds, and her greatest fear was that he might utterly disappear before ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... repeated, "on some business of my own. A man has a right to protect his family," he interrupted himself and arched a brow. "Anyway there come an awful rainstorm and creeks busted over their banks till I couldn't ford 'em—not even on Queen, as high-spirited a nag as any man ever straddled. But she balked that day seeing the creeks full of trees pulled up by the roots and even carcasses of calves and fowls. Queen just nat'erly rared back on her haunches and wouldn't budge. Couldn't coax nor flog her to wade into ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... he who has no balked ambition, No hopeless hope, no loss beyond repair, But sick and sated with complete fruition, Keeps not ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... been thawing and freezing, freezing and thawing, for so long that men lost account of the advance of a summer coming, with such balked, uncertain steps. Indeed, the weather variations had for several weeks been so great that no journey, not the smallest, could be calculated with any assurance. The last men to reach Minook were two who had made a hunting and prospecting trip to an outlying ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... did the invaders rush in than they were cut down by those inside; in vain were more men thrust in to take the place of those slain; the advantages of position were too great, and they were obliged at length to desist. But Genghis was not to be balked of his victims, and his devilish cunning suggested the expedient of lighting straw at the mouth of the cave to suffocate those inside, but the size of the place prevented his plan from taking effect; ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... wanted to stay and see what he could do for his fellow creatures in bondage." At the thought of it all, the triumph of slavery, the treachery of black men, the immedicable grief which arises from wasted labors and balked purposes, and widespreading failures, is it surprising that in that supreme moment hot tears gushed from the eyes of that ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... with the generosity of the Major's good-humour. On the contrary, it quite took aback and disappointed poor Pen, whose nerves were strung up for a tragedy, and who felt that his grand entrance was altogether balked and ludicrous. He blushed and winced with mortified vanity and bewilderment. He felt immensely inclined to begin to cry. "I—I didn't know you were come till just now," he said; ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... sentiment, but the director insisted that the person speaking, being an Englishman of studious disposition, would not say anything so inaccurate. "He would use much more correct language," said the director. "He ought to say 'I purpose to send.'" We balked mildly at this. "All right," said our mentor. "The trouble with you is you don't know any English. I'll send you a copy of ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... any—that we had among our youth scores who, moved by high ideals, stood ready to risk their lives for a sentiment—stood ready to brave the myriad discomforts of the trenches, the bursting shrapnel, the mutilating liquid fire, the torturing gas that German autocracy should be balked of its purpose of dominating ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... angered the warrior, and he spat at him; then he turned and grunted an order in his own language. With blows of their sticks the Indians got us on our feet; but when they sought to drive us up the steep bank to the prairie, Ol' Burns balked and ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... approved. Our foreign relations must be described as ignominious. Jefferson had taken Franklin's place as Minister to France, but we had no credit and he could not secure the loan he was seeking. John Adams in London, and John Jay in Madrid, were likewise balked. Jay had to submit to the closing of the lower Mississippi to American shipping. He did this in the hope of thereby conciliating Spain to make a commercial treaty which he thought was far more important than shipping. Our people in the Southwest, however, regarded ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... the obvious has balked the work of the Commission I need not elaborate. That the long process of civilizing sex received perfunctory attention; that the imaginative value of sex was lost in a dogma; that the implied changes in social life were dodged—all that has been pointed ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... perceiving that he could not outrun the beast, tried the same plan as the other hunter did when the rhinoceros charged him: stopping short, he jumped on one side, that the animal might pass him; but the brute was not to be balked a second time; he caught the man on his horn under the left thigh, and cutting it open as if it had been done with an ax, tossed him a dozen yards up in the air. The poor fellow fell facing the rhinoceros, with his legs spread; the beast rushed at him again, and ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... him later on. When Harry was a boy he punished him as boys were punished; when he became a man he punished him as men were punished. But for St. George the plan would long since have worked. St. George had balked him twice—once at the club and once at his home in Kennedy Square, when he practically ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... answered Mr. Fulton. "Nothing at all. In fact, the excitement's all over. I'm certainly very glad that you balked yesterday on buying that 'pig in a poke,' my dear baronet. It seems," flapping the opened telegram against his other hand, "it seems, my very dear sir, that the American government, being confronted by a situation which bears more than a promise of war, has offered to buy the ideas which are ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... after eleven, owing to an excitement over in the band quarters, and then Blake thought it best to wait until morning, and so it happened that one woman whose heart was full of faith in and sympathy for Ray was balked of her desire to send him full assurance of her thought for him. She could not sleep, however, and at midnight walked alone down the row and asked the soldier at the gate to give this little note for Ray to the sentinel within, but the man came sadly and respectfully ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... frightful struggle; two thousand Sepoys held the garden, and these, caught like rats in a trap, fought with the energy of despair. Nothing, however, could withstand the troops, mad with the long-balked thirst for vengeance, and attacked with the cry—which in very truth was the death-knell of the enemy—"Remember Cawnpore!" on their lips. No quarter was asked or given. It was a stubborn, furious, desperate strife, man to man—desperate Sepoy against furious Englishman. But in such a strife ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... from me.' That prayer implies that God will not contradict Himself. His promises are commandments. If He bids us seek He binds Himself to show. His veracity, His unchangeableness, are pledged to this, that no man who yields to His invitation will be balked of his desire. He does not hold out the gift in His hand, and then twitch it away when we put out encouraged and stimulated hands to grasp it. You have seen children flashing bright reflections from a mirror on to a wall, and delighting ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... for a moment, but it is only for a moment—amain they gather together, forming themselves into a circle, in the centre of which they place the foals. Onward comes the wolf, hoping to make his dinner on horse-flesh; he is mistaken, however, the mares have balked him, and are as cunning as himself: not a tail is to be seen—not a hinder quarter—but there stands the whole troop, their fronts towards him ready to receive him, and as he runs around them barking and howling, they rise successively on their hind legs, ready to stamp him ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... "Thor has balked again?" gasped the dazed Hicks, whom Butch now allowed to sit up, as he showed interest. "Has the engine of destruction stalled? Why, as fast as we get him lined up, off he slides at an angle! Well, you fellows did perfectly right to bring this baffling problem, whatever it ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... out. At such times she would storm at the men in the stable-yard and call them ill names for their impudence in letting the beast go, which would cause them great merriment, as she knew nothing of who the man was who had balked her, since she was, in truth, not so much as conscious of her father's existence, never having seen or even heard more of him than his name, which she in ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... speaking was a quiet announcement to Hunt that his plans were for the present a closed subject. Hunt felt balked, for this lean, alert, much-talked-of adventurer piqued him greatly; but he switched to other subjects, and during the rest of the meal did most of the talking. The Duchess was silent, and seemingly was concerned only with her food. Larry got in a fair ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... The wild black promontories of the coast extend Their savage silhouettes; The sun in universal carnage sets, And, halting higher, The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats, Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, That, balked, yet stands at bay. Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline, A wan Valkyrie whose wide pinions shine Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray, And in her hand swings high o'erhead, Above the waste of war, The silver torch-light of the evening star Wherewith to search ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... can disfigure a woman more successfully than an unbecoming hat and a cheap black veil, which imparts a dingy, leaden tint to the complexion. I had every reason to be satisfied with my disguise that afternoon, but I wasn't. Not a bit! I felt cross, and irritated, and balked! ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... often went along on these hunting parties. Peter, curiously enough, discovered in himself the same "complex" as the balked soldier boys. Peter had been reading war news for five years, but had missed the fighting; and now he discovered that he liked to fight. What had kept him from liking to fight in the past was the danger of getting hurt; but now that there was no such danger, ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... official handicappers think it is worthless, and the gambler at last finds that he has some great prize almost at his mercy. Then with slow dexterity the horse is backed to win. If the owner shows any eagerness, his purpose is balked once and for all; he may have to employ half-a-dozen agents to bet for him, until at last he succeeds in wagering so much money that he will gain, say, one hundred thousand pounds by winning his race. The fluttering jackets ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... I listened, with every faculty alert to reckon with the task of rescue, I take no shame in saying that the problem balked me. Lacking the strength to mount and ride in my own proper person, there was nothing for it but to find a messenger; and who would he be in a region at the moment distraught with war's alarums, and needing every man ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... give it you in very few words. My friend was very young and enthusiastic. He was on his way through the galleries of Italy, brush in hand, his heart full of the ceaseless song of youth in holiday. The world never had played him false, nor balked him. He made the future bend to the fancy of his dreams. He seldom descended among common men from those loftier realms where the contemplation of endless masterpieces kept his spirit as on wings. He admired, copied, filled his soul with ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... angry hands to rend his garment, but found that he had left it behind. Balked here, he was about to let them loose on his hair, when the Morrell Twins, at a sign from Andrew P. Hill, now speechless with anger, sprang up and seized Little O'Grady by both shoulders and hustled him out of ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... Pirate about and sent him back at a run. Pirate balked. Round he went again, down the field and back. This time he cleared the wall with a good foot to spare. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... for me two evenings out of the week ever since I wrote you, and he has taken me in his car and simply forced me to drive him for an hour over what appeals to me to be the most difficult roads he could select. So far I have not balked at anything but he has had the consideration not to direct me to the mountains. He is extremely attractive, Linda, and I do enjoy being with him, but I dread it too, because his grief is so deep and so apparent that it constantly ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... on! What's the matter with you?" And from the light in his eye it was evident that he would not be balked. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... at Cambridge, and now that he was just ready to step into a "living"—right in the line of promotion of which his beauty and intellect tokened a sure presage—he balked. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... perhaps that I gradually became fitted to return to society. I do not think so. For the sympathy that I desired must be so pure, so divested of influence from outward circumstances that in the world I could not fail of being balked by the gross materials that perpetually mingle even with its best feelings. Believe me, I was then less fitted for any communion with my fellow creatures than before. When I left them they had tormented me but it was in the same way ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... Latin languages, of mathematics, history, and geography. In Munster particularly schools and academies of literature flourished; the ardor of the people for the acquirement of knowledge could not be balked by such paltry obstacles as the laws ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... as risky as the rope escape was tried, though probably had Paul been required to go through an equally hazardous feat he would not have balked. Moving picture actors often take very big chances, and the public, looking at the finished film, little ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... was I was none too soon, for the green warrior had been overtaken ere he had made half the distance to the forest, and now he stood with his back to a boulder, while the herd, temporarily balked, hissed and screeched ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... for thee to wear whilst thou dost share my forest life; it will be safer for thee, and more commodious likewise. I will also buy us victuals and a coil of rope. Then we twain can set to work over our task, and it will be strange indeed if we be balked in it, seeing that the hardest part is already accomplished. The ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... belongings—the smaller and the more precious portion; or he may find some one else to lend him the money, and so get off clear and save his sticks. It is, as the modern Shylock declares, a most wicked and iniquitous Act, by which the shark may be balked, and many an honest tradesman, who would otherwise have been most justly ruined, is enabled to save his stock, and left to worry along until the times become more prosperous. To a man like Mr. David Chalker, such an Act ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... reported having seen,—things so at variance not only with my own observations, but with those of all other observers and with the fundamental principles of animal psychology, that my "will to believe," always easy to move, balked and refused to ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... and sensitive reserve had balked this scheme. Roger Chillingworth, however, was inclined to be hardly, if at all, less satisfied with the aspect of affairs, which Providence—using the avenger and his victim for its own purposes, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... who use the watchwords of Liberalism were to return upon its principles, instead of dwelling exclusively on practical compromises, the tone of public life would be immeasurably raised. The cause of social improvement would be less systematically balked of the victories that are best worth gaining. Progress would mean something more than mere entrances and exits on the theatre of office. We should not see in the mass of parliamentary candidates—and they are important people, because ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... nights, dampening their ardor somewhat. General Saxton agreed with me that if there is no more earnestness and sincerity among other army officers than among the specimens we have had here, we should all go to the dogs. His expedition was so successful that he was in good spirits till balked by General Brannan. The best item in it was that one of the rebel prisoners taken was marched to Beaufort jail guarded by one of his former slaves! The conduct of the negro troops was very well spoken of by their officers, but is the subject of a good deal of ribaldry ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... hates. That was the thing that, as the minutes labored by, Faxon was becoming most conscious of. The watcher behind the chair was no longer merely malevolent: he had grown suddenly, unutterably tired. His hatred seemed to well up out of the very depths of balked effort and thwarted hopes, and the fact made him more pitiable, and ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... did not strike the fatal blow till his horse had carried him past the fainting Indian; but, balked of his prey, his anger was kindled against my father, and turning round, he made a cut at him with his sword. Fortunately I carried a heavy riding-whip, with which I was able to parry the blow. The man did not attempt to repeat it, for the junior officer ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... I can say," answered Sam. "I know that I did not tell him; he heard it by some means, and that was the reason he bought you of the old Sheik, and paid such a high price for you too. So you see he is not likely to be balked, and I'd advise you to come with a good grace. I am very sorry that you should have to do what you do not like, but you see you have no choice in the matter; when he asked me I had to confess that it ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... if now he asked for one, it would not be refused. He determined, if the answer to his cable gave him the address, he would return at once, and again offer her his love, which he now knew was deeper, finer, and infinitely more tender than the love he first had felt for her. But the cable balked him. "Address unknown," it read; "believed to have gone abroad in capacity of governess. Have employed foreign agents. ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... western Pomerania; and Denmark was to take possession of Holstein and the mouths of the Elbe and Weser. Charles XII was to retain only his kingdom in the Scandinavian peninsula and the grand duchy of Finland. At the last moment Brandenburg balked, but Saxony, Denmark, and Russia signed the nefarious alliance in 1699. The allies expected quick and decisive victory. All western and southern Europe was on the verge of a great struggle for the Spanish ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... to-day would still be world-wide. Had he confined his genius into this one channel of literary expression, as was his original intention, with his mental equipment, and a Napoleonic ambition that balked at nothing, the product would have been as original and extraordinary, we may be sure, as is his art-product in music. Wagner, the musician, is so commanding a figure that the literary man is obscured; but when we consider the magnitude of ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... shoulders that he will fly back and stop the other horse; the teamster will continue his driving without any cessation, and by the time he has the slow horse started again he will find that the free horse has made another jump, and again flew back, and now he has them both badly balked, and so confused that neither of them knows what is the matter, or how to start the load. Next will come the slashing and cracking of the whip, and hallooing of the driver, till something is broken or he is through with his course of treatment. ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... survey on westward was within easy striking distance of both my ranches. My wife was dazed and delighted over the success of the summer's drive, and when I offered her the money with which to build a fine house at Fort Worth, she balked, but consented to employ a tutor at the ranch ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... peculiarities a particular dislike to be put out of his way on any occasion, had arranged to call at his office on his way to the country to sign the dispatches; but as those addressed to Howe had not been faircopied, and he was not disposed to be balked of his projected visit to Kent, they were not signed then and were forgotten on his return home." These were the dispatches instructing Sir William Howe, who was in New York, to effect a junction at Albany with Burgoyne, who had marched from Boston for that purpose. ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... he willed to lead—whether in business circles, in the vestry, in his own home—the strength of his intellect, the force of his purpose and his quiet but tangible assertiveness were felt. He had never been balked in any ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... delayed the final trial as long as possible, hoping that some more direct testimony might be discovered. This hope was balked. No one had really suffered from the deeds imputed to these young men, except the Treasury, whose misfortunes concerned no one. The trial could not be ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... The main grounds for continued resistance are the personal ambition of the members of the Government, who well know that if they sign an armistice, which is tantamount to peace, they will hereafter be made scapegoats, and be told that the Parisians were balked of their desire to perish to the last man; the mulish obstinacy of Trochu; and the dread of the capital losing its supremacy over the Provinces. Of course, there are some who wish to fight on to the bitter end. The "Ultras" hope to found on a war a outrance a democratic ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... illustrious minister of the King most wish to hear. Yet you will find figuring in it great men like our flaming hero General Wolfe, and also General Montcalm, who, I shall ever keep on saying, might have held Quebec against us, had he not been balked by the vain Governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil; together with such notorious men as the Intendant Bigot, civil governor of New France, and such noble gentlemen as the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... slave, because it was his own property; as though the lust of cruelty in a brutal nature were, while it lasted, not ten times as strong as the lust of gain. There are moments when a man is ready to part with not only his earthly prospects, but his hopes of heaven, rather than be balked of an immediate satisfaction: that of striking his brother to the heart, or growing rich by one stroke of fraud, or ruining forever the woman that loves him best; and there are many men, in no such desperate case, whose only guide is Impulse, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... notes it seemed as if he had found some clue—had found some clue, or thought that he had found it. In this game of hunt the slipper he had imagined that he was growing "hotter" and "hotter" till death balked him at the finish. Westray recollected Mr Sharnall saying more than once that Martin had been on the brink of solving the riddle when the end overtook him. And Sharnall, too, had he not almost grasped the Will-of-the-wisp when fate tripped him on that windy night? Many thoughts came ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... hated to be balked and seldom allowed anything to interfere with his amusements. One letter, from a housemaster at a famous public school, covered a number of bills, which, the writer stated somewhat curtly, ought to have been paid. Another announced ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... Nelson had reconnoitred Toulon. A new vice-admiral had hoisted his flag in place of Latouche Treville, who had died on the 20th of August. "He has given me the slip," wrote Nelson, who felt himself balked of his vengeance. "The French papers say he died of walking so often up to the signal-post, upon Sepet, to watch us: I always pronounced that would be his death." His successor was Villeneuve, the predestined ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... week after his memorable first day upon the survey, he had rushed to Brent's room each morning at dawn to get the party started; and Brent had good-naturedly submitted. But now the engineer suddenly balked, flatly refusing to take him out again. Miss Liz arose in her wrath, but he told her that he would not risk another day of starvation should this fanatic choose to throw the lunch away—and it was too much work going every day, anyhow. But, ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... demanded immediate payment of the money he had advanced them, in consideration of which they had jointly signed an acknowledgment for five pounds. They had, indeed, kept away from the yard when their money was all gone, but Josiah Slam was not to be balked in that manner. He went over to Weston, and accosted Saurin ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... gave me the opportunity I craved to capture one of these herbivorous cetaceans—that is what Perry calls them—and make as good a meal as one can on raw, warm-blooded fish; but I had become rather used, by this time, to the eating of food in its natural state, though I still balked on the eyes and entrails, much to the amusement of Ghak, to whom I ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... she'll not forgive me in a year for upsetting her fine plan of going up there to beard the hermit in his den. She rarely takes these fancies, I must own; and when she does, she is not accustomed to be balked of them. As it has turned out, I might as well have let her have her way that time; there was no harm in it. "Princess, haven't you trampled on me enough? I was wrong, and I'm very sorry: what more can a man say? But Hartman had no hand ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... in proof of which, only look at your rascal of a postilion, whom any one of my friends would have sent post-haste to the devil for half the trouble he gave me. Easy as I am, I never choose to be balked in my humors. I must have the fifty and the buss, and then I'm off, as soon as you like; and I may as well have the kiss while the old lady signs the check, and then we shall have the seal as well as the signature. Poh—poh—no nonsense! Many a ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... nothing to Little John, who was not, accustomed to be balked by trifles; so he gave a mighty kick, which burst open the door, and then ate and drank as much as he would, and when he had finished all there was in the buttery, he went down into ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... naturally expect missionaries and reformers to find their occupation going, if not quite gone; that modern reforms would be mere play compared with the stern and mighty movements that in former times have blessed mankind and balked the Evil One. But somehow the need for missionary work seems greater every year. We are not even permitted to go to the heathen. They come to us without waiting for an invitation; if not as pupils in the lessons of civilization, ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... have made confession that you are tired. You have flown the white flag of fatigue. You have nailed up a notice to the effect that life is ebbing down in you. You have run away from life. You have played a trick, shabby trick. You have balked at the game. You refuse to play. You have thrown your cards under the table and run away to hide, here amongst ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... word in her heart's sore ache; But peering thro' the dimness, naught discerning, Trudged home, her pitcher dripping all the way; So crept to bed, and lay Silent till Lizzie slept; Then sat up in a passionate yearning, And gnashed her teeth for balked desire, and wept As if her heart ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... hadn't a chance to get by with it," said Pringle slowly and thoughtfully. "If I hadn't balked you, the Barelas stood ready; if the Barelas failed, yonder big dust was on the way; half your own posse would have turned on you for half a guess at the truth. It's a real nice little world—and it ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... I, as I turned round in my saddle to observe him. Once more she came at it, and once more balked, rearing up, at the same time, almost ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... who loves boys will not be balked by the pettiness and inability of denominationalism. His hope lies not solely in the church or the churches, but largely in the intelligence, sympathy, and generosity of the unchurched citizens, whose number and importance in the small town is probably in the inverse ratio of the ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... difficult. In English it is impossible. There are subjects that permit of a hint, particularly if it be masked to the teeth, but there are others that no art can drape. "The inexpressible does not exist," Gautier remarked, when he finished a notorious romance, nor does it; but even his pen would have balked had ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... F. Seward, another former Minister to China, lauded the Ambassador's long and distinguished services to his country and to the world at large. After a brief response through his interpreter, Li left the banquet hall at eight-thirty, and went to his night's rest. His hosts, however, were not to be balked of their evening's entertainment, and the oratorical feast ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... radical features of the law are not completed in the foregoing description. The bill having reduced potash prices, the mine owners threatened to recoup themselves by reducing wages. But the members of the Reichstag were not to be balked by such threats; they could legislate about wages just as easily as about prices and allotments. So they amended the bill by providing that if any owner should reduce wages without the consent of his employees, his allotment should be restricted in ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... Travis balked at that. From the first he had been willing enough to slug it out with the Red, weapon to weapon, man to man. Also, he had wanted to take a captive, not stand over a body. But to use the nature of the country against the enemy, that was the oldest Apache trick of all and one they would have to ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... Accordingly Fairchild's California volunteers, Mason's battalion and Perry's dismounted cavalry were ordered to cut their way around the lake shore and join Bernard. Fairchild's men passed over the point without loss, but several of Mason's men were killed in plain sight. The soldiers balked and refused to advance. Col. Green ran down the line and leaping upon the point turned his back to the Indians and with a gauntlet in his hand used language that was scarcely fit for a parlor. Gen. Wheaton also joined and with a sword taken from a bugler boy, ran down the line urging the men ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... traditions of unnumbered centuries. Unfortunately the work of putting the new policies into effect was entrusted to the slow and bungling hands of the old literati; but this was a necessary stroke of policy, for without their support the new movement would have been hopelessly balked. ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... it was too late. He could expect nothing from life but the unspeakable monotony of his father's dwelling, the bare office. He had worked hard, been as full of splendid early resolutions as anyone, and he wasn't blamable if chance balked his ambition. A soul was nothing more than a twisting leaf in the wind of fate. There remained only to take what escape was offered—golden visions, luxury, ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... her philanthropic intentions balked, stood on the car track, but realizing that she was making a spectacle of herself, she returned to the sidewalk, where the gibing comments of those who had witnessed the scene caused her to blush with anger, and she was glad to escape the words of advice that were called ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... himself to be too crafty for the best revenue officers put upon his track. And when failure after failure became the rule, the Big Boss had decided to change the policy they had hitherto followed and put an air pilot on the job as being able to go swiftly and easily where others had been so cleverly balked. ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... strong qualities have been indicated. He never learned the technicalities, what some would call the tricks, of the profession. The sleight of plea and demurrer, the legerdemain by which justice is balked and a weak case is made to gain an unfair advantage, was too subtle and shifty for his strong and straightforward intelligence. He met these manoeuvres sufficiently well, when practiced by others, but he never could get in ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... be balked!" exclaimed the master. "We'll make our way somehow or other through the forest;" and the boat was run with her bow against the yielding bank. "You'll follow me!" As he said this he sprang on shore, or rather on to the trunk of a tree. "All right—come ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... was not such a one. Nature, who had richly endowed him with the qualities that make a virtuoso, had denied him one, perhaps the meanest of all, certainly the least dispensable, the want of which balked him of the fulfilment of the promise with which the others had flattered him, of the most brilliant reward of his striving. In the lists where men much below his worth won laurels and gold in abundance he failed to obtain a fair share of the popular acclamation. ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... that he was hers—hers now, this minute, and hers for ever. Beulah was a fatalist, although she had never analyzed her own beliefs enough to know it, but she knew that Destiny had linked her life with his and that Destiny would not be balked. Her mind had been feeling its way, through the darkness of months, to this sudden ecstasy, but now that she had reached it she felt that it could never, never fail her. Her sense of possession, of mergement, was complete; she felt that already their ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... He is a sort of door-keeper besides; and, when he opens the portals, music seems to issue forth to wake the soul to ecstasy." The skilful metaphysician or the psychologist pauses before him, completely balked: they cannot classify this mind, human-like indeed in some respects, yet in many others surpassing all humanity, and closely approximating that which ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... shriek from the whistle the train started. Sinclair and Sam saw the men quietly returning the firearms to their places as it gathered way. Then they walked back to their quarters. The men on the mesa, balked of their purpose, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... I sort of balked again. Well, we kept on sitting there, and afterwhile she began to talk again and got kind of excited about how no war could do anything or anybody any good, and all war was wicked, no matter what it was about, and nothin' could be good that was founded on ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... acquaintances. Sometimes she hits me a clip on de haid, den, ag'in Boomerang, mah mule, gits it. He jest had his trouble. Got a stone under his shoe, an' didn't want t' move. Den when I did git him started he balked on me. But I'se all right now. But I suah am sorry fo' you. Can't I ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... that mule o' mine; for, you see, I had no other conveyance, and had to drive my wisitor here in the cart. And, if ever Old Scratch got into a brute beast, he got into that mule this morning. Couldn't get him out of a creep to save my life! And he balked so, coming up Indian Creek Hill, that I thought he would have upset us into the water—and it froze over! So we didn't get here till after the ceremony was over. There, that is all I know about it! Miss ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... and knowledge, we acquire pieces of knowledge; and presently in the generality of men, there arises the desire to relate these pieces of knowledge to our sense for conduct, to our sense for beauty,—and there is weariness and dissatisfaction if the desire is balked. Now in this desire lies, I think, the strength of that hold ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... "unless you decide to listen to reason. Believe me, my dear friend, I shall miss you and our small encounters exceedingly, but, unfortunately, you stand in the way of my career. You are the only man who has persistently balked me. You have driven me to use against you means which I had grown to look upon as absolutely extinct in the upper ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... (as well as Pansa, the editor himself) is the creature of the mob; and the mob will not hear of delay; they will not be balked in the very moment of expectation. Besides, the publicity of the appeal would forewarn the cunning Egyptian. It is evident that he has some interest in these concealments. No; fortunately thy slaves are ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... conclusive test of their discipline, nor proof that their training at arms is satisfying a legitimate military end. The old game of follow-the-leader has no point if the leader himself, like the little girl in a Thomas Hardy novel, is balked by insuperable obstacles one-quarter inch high. All military forces remain relatively undisciplined until physically toughened and mentally conditioned to unusual exertion. Consider the road march! ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... 20,000 men, Romans, Isaurians, Lycaonians, and Arabs. His troops were already interposed between the Persians and their longed-for prey, Belisarius having fixed his headquarters at Chalcis, half a degree to the west of Gabbula, and twenty-five miles nearer to Antioch. Thus balked of their purpose, and despairing of any greater success than they had already achieved, the allies became anxious to return to Persia with the plunder of the Syrian towns and villages which they had sacked on their advance. Belisarius was quite content that they should carry off their ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... of India. It is a lens, of course, that distorts: the long past is shown through a temperament,—made into poetry and romance; not left bare scientific history. But perhaps poetry and romance are after all the truest and final form of history. Perhaps, in looking at recent ages, we are balked of seeing their true underlying form by the dust of events and the clamor of details; for eyes anointed they might resolve themselves into Moyturas and Camlans endlessly fought; into magical weapons magically ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... rushed on, "an' some ruins other men. He done thet ter me—an' whenever I boggled or balked he cracked his whip anew—an' I wasn't nuthin' but his pore white nigger thet obeyed him. I ached ter kill him an' I didn't even dast ter contrary him. His ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... curing them. They had lain in a shed loft all summer, and the wagon had been to town a dozen times. But today, when he wanted to go to Frankfort clean and care-free, he must take these stinking hides and two coarse-mouthed men, and drive a pair of mules that always brayed and balked and behaved ridiculously in a crowd. Probably his father had looked out of the window and seen him washing the car, and had put this up on him while he dressed. It was like his father's ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... shape of the hill was to their right, and they circled its base almost waist-deep in drift. This brought the wind directly into their faces, and the horses balked, dragging back and compelling both men to beat them into submission. Wasson was jerking at the bit, his back turned so that he could see nothing ahead, but Hamlin, lashing the rear animal with his quirt, still faced ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... pleasure of a secret flirtation with her, while at the same time he intended to continue his attentions to Miss McKenzie in public, and he did not like to be balked in his purpose. ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... and blatantly unskilfully, with riotous puffs and spinning of wheels, the great car started,—faltered,—balked a bit,—then dragged crushingly across the Senior Surgeon's flattened body, and with a great wanton burst of speed tore down the sloping meadow into the brook—rods away. Clamping down the brakes with a wrench and a racket like ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... of editing, although its possession was unknown to him, began to assert itself when, just as he seemed to be getting along fairly well, he balked at following the Spencerian style of writing in his copybooks. Instinctively he rebelled at the flourishes which embellished that form of handwriting. He seemed to divine somehow that such penmanship could not be useful or practicable ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... ourselves or hope to understand. Their mental processes were the same. The Japanese thought with the same thought-symbols as did the Chinese, and they thought in the same peculiar grooves. Into the Chinese mind the Japanese went on where we were balked by the obstacle of incomprehension. They took the turning which we could not perceive, twisted around the obstacle, and were out of sight in the ramifications of the Chinese mind where we could not follow. They were brothers. ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... has balked for some reason or other," said Betty in brisk, business-like tones, "and we have to fix it. If we don't we are likely to be caught in a thunder storm. So get out, girls, and let's hunt for trouble. Grace, if you have any chocolates left you might offer them as a prize for the one ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... purposes; but after this little talk it appeared as if something had risen up between them,—a sort of mist, a medium, in which their intimacy was not increased; for the flow and interchange of sentiment was balked, and they took only one or two turns in silence along Septimius's trodden path. I don't know exactly what it was; but there are cases in which it is inscrutably revealed to persons that they have made a mistake in what is of the highest concern to them; and this truth ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wrath was extreme. He ordered that Kiyomaro's name should be changed to Kegaremaro, which was equivalent to substituting "foul" for "fair;" he banished him to Osumi in the extreme south of Kyushu, and he sent emissaries whose attempt to assassinate him was balked by a thunder-storm. But before he could bring any fresh design to maturity, the Empress died. Dokyo and Asomaro were banished, and ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... riding at anchor before the house. Several times he stood in front of the door and looked out over his few acres of land. What his thoughts were he kept to himself, but the expression, of determination in his eyes told of a man who would not easily be balked in the object upon which he had set his ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... Finding itself balked for the time of its expected prey, the parliament resolved to avenge the slight put upon its authority, by compassing the ruin of a larger number of victims. On the eighteenth of November, 1540, the order was given which ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... gravely walked and talked. He read her no more verses, and he stayed Only until their conversation, balked Of every natural channel, fled dismayed. Again the next day she would meet him, trying To give her tone some healthy sprightliness, But his uneager dignity soon chilled Her well-prepared address. Thus Summer ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... engineering. A tunnel about ten miles long ran underneath the whole of the Hindenburg Line. It was about thirty or forty feet down, and had been dug, we heard, by Russian prisoners. The tunnel was about six feet wide and about five feet high. It had been roughly balked in with timber, and at every twenty yards, a shaft led out of the tunnel up into the trench. Borwick found a large mirror which he felt could not be wasted under the circumstances. He could not resist its ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... Balked of his design to stroll beside Betty, Percy was forced to be content with Mollie, and she, with malice aforethought, talked at him in a way he could not understand, but which, the other girls overhearing, sent them ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... not to be balked, but to insist upon the punishment of the ringleader. I accordingly went toward him with the intention of seizing him; but he, being backed by upward of forty men, had the impertinence to attack me, rushing forward with a fury that was ridiculous. ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... is a delight which is miraculous in its intensity. But it is very lonesome and far. It is curious to feel that you are really there, delighting in the vividness of this recollection of the past, and yet balked by the knowledge that you are, nevertheless, outside this world of home, though it looks and smells and sounds so close; and that you may never enter it again. It is like the landscape in a mirror, ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... the old man. Covering his evil doings with witty sayings, he obtained indulgence for them, in a land where wit is always applauded,—especially when addressed to obvious self-interest. In those words the notary read the concentrated hatred of a man whose calculations had been balked by Nature herself, and who revenged himself upon the innocent object of an impotent love. This opinion was confirmed to some extent by the obstinate resolution of the doctor to leave nothing to the Rabouilleuse, saying with a bitter smile, when ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... we are living in give most of us excitement enough,' said Donogan. 'The man who wants to gamble for life itself need not be balked now.' ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... to accomplish and actually finished in less than three weeks. It was indeed an easy task for a man so highly skilled in the manufacture of chirograhic antiquities, but he had found himself unexpectedly balked at the outset, and the ingenuity he displayed in overcoming the difficulties he ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... late, however. Sam, seeing that he might be balked in his purpose, took no more chances. He made one flying leap almost over the heads of Grant and George, who were waiting to seize him. This was done so unexpectedly that the two boys were taken by surprise, and though they tried to do as Fred had begged ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... reciprocal, and when a good converser flings out his ball of thought he knows just how the ball should come back to him, and feels balked and defrauded if his partner is not even watching to catch it, much less showing any intention of tossing it back on precisely the right curve. "The habit of interruption," says Bagehot, "is a symptom of mental deficiency; it proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... time have been, and ascending to the door, I knocked once, and again, and again, and got no admittance. Going round to the shop-entrance, I tried to open it, but found it as fast bolted as the gate of Paradise. It is mortifying to be so balked in one's little enthusiasms; but looking round in quest of somebody to make inquiries of, I was a good deal consoled by the sight of Dr. Johnson himself, who happened, just at that moment, to be sitting at his case nearly in the middle of St. Mary's Square, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to the representative of Athene the opportunity of sharing that which may be with the help of her wisdom, which without her is impossible. [Greek expression omitted] Shall Eros, invincible for ages, be balked at last of the noblest game against which he ever drew ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... cut for me was one I hated to perform. I could refuse, but what then? Some one else would carry out Rogers' mandate, and where should I and my great copper structure be? If I balked here, they would go no farther with me—and remember, we were just at the beginning of our association. Had I foreseen the misery and ruin with which the future was fraught, I should have stopped then and there; but the future was ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... proceeding in Mrs. Payson Osborne to seek out any one that it excited my wonder. But she was not to be balked by anything; moreover, I had great faith in her motives, which were sound and good, even if her plans of carrying them out inclined to ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... it was our water-tanks. And while they were being looked after, the Johnnie was overhauled, her bottom scrubbed and topsides painted. Old Mr. Duncan, we found, was beginning to take a lot of pride in our vessel and balked at no expense to have her in trim. And now that the Ripley was lost, he would have only two vessels to represent him in the big fishermen's race, which was then ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... indifferent and hardened against the mere trouble of answering. Not another word could be extracted, and Ebbo's position was very uncomfortable, keeping guard over his condemned felon, with the sulky peasants herding round, in fear of being balked of their prey; and the reluctance growing on him every moment to taking life in cold blood. Right of life and death was a heavy burden to a youth under seventeen, unless he had been thoughtless and reckless, and from this Ebbo had been prevented by his peculiar life. The lion cub had ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... evil tidings to send, for so the wounding of Harris would be regarded, and the recapture of poor Mrs. Bennett without her children would hardly compensate. There was still another thing to be considered, but even Willett balked at saying this. He had said enough to induce Archer to hold his hand another day at least, so why use more ammunition until he ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... about as well as anybody; and if he ever goes to preaching he'll know what he's preaching about." The old man smiled his fierce, simple smile, and in his sharp eyes March fancied contempt of the ambition he had balked in his son. The present scene must have been one of many between them, ending in meek submission on the part of the young man, whom his father, perhaps without realizing his cruelty, treated as a child. March took it hard that he should be made to suffer in the presence of a co-ordinate ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... denying that the rebellion of 1837 had been primarily his handiwork. 'I was,' he said in 1847, 'neither more nor less guilty, nor more nor less deserving, than a great number of my colleagues.' The truth seems to be that Papineau always balked a little at the idea of armed rebellion, and that he was carried off his feet at the end of 1837 by his younger associates, whose enthusiasm he himself had inspired. He had raised the wind, but he could not ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... crossed the stream and climbed straight up toward the bait until he reached the first fish-line; where he stopped. Without pressing the string sufficiently to set off its gun, he followed it to the barrier of trees. Being balked there, he turned about, retraced his steps carefully and followed the string to the barrier of rocks. Being blocked there, he back- tracked down the slide and across the stream, over the way he came. Then he widely circled the whole theatre, and came ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... forbearance. The foxes in Charleston, who have already lost their tails in the trap of Secession, wished to throw upon him the responsibility of that second blow which begins a quarrel, and the silence of his guns has balked them. Nothing would have pleased them so much as to have one of his thirty-two-pound shot give a taste of real war to the boys who are playing soldier at Morris's Island. But he has shown the discretion of a brave man. South Carolina will soon learn how much she has undervalued ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... King's, was holding the castle against his sovereign with a resolution and valor which caused a great fury and annoyance on the part of the Monarch with the Lion Heart. For brave and magnanimous as he was, the Lion-hearted one did not love to be balked any more than another; and, like the royal animal whom he was said to resemble, he commonly tore his adversary to pieces, and then, perchance, had leisure to think how brave the latter had been. The Count ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray |
