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Bespeak   Listen
verb
Bespeak  v. i.  (past bespoke, archaic bespake; past part. bespoken; pres. part. bespeaking)  To speak. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bespeak" Quotes from Famous Books



... regent of it. Some time after the prince asked him if the regent knew of that assembly, and Barlaitnont hesitated not a moment to avow to him the truth. All the steps which have been ascribed to him bespeak a man whom neither influence nor fear could tempt, who, with a firm courage and indomitable constancy, remained faithful to the party which he had once chosen, but who, it must at the same time be confessed, entertained ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... must comport himself toward this strange wild people. Seating Muriel gently on the ground, Mali beside her, and stepping forward himself, with Peyron's hand in his, he beckoned to the vast and surging crowd to bespeak respectful silence. ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... a hill—a gentle slope Rising above old tombs to greet the gleam From soft spring skies. Beyond these skies dwells hope, But those green graves bespeak a broken dream. ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... him. It is a matter of regret that I am so situated as to be unable to accompany Mr. Williams to Cape Mount. It would have afforded me pleasure to visit your establishment, and it might have facilitated our mission operations, could I have done so. Allow me, however to bespeak for Mr. Williams your attention and patronage, both of which you have, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... Knowing, as we do, that the law of social progress is growth—in other words, that the condition of individual development, both physical and intellectual, is that degree of freedom which finds its expression in the increase of numbers—what does this portentous fact of a stationary population bespeak? Simply, the utmost degradation of body and mind; vice in its most hideous forms; filth, disease, unnatural crimes; a hell upon earth. These are always the characteristics of nations which have been prevented from growing. The melancholy proofs of a condition of affairs in Portugal which admits ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... inscription, that was discovered in the ruins (still standing) of a priory, that was built there A. D. 1449. The characters in this inscription are much more remote from the Roman character in use among us than those used in the inscriptions on the box. The letters on the box bespeak a later period, when English cultivation had begun to produce some effect in our island, and the Roman character was winning its way into general use. I shall probably be able to let you see the Devenish inscription, and ajuxta position of it and the others ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... soft endearing flush Invades thy face, and dimples in the blush Bespeak attention,—as a rose's pout Absorbs the stillness when the sun is out, And all the air retains the glow thereof. In all the world there is not light enough Nor sheen enough, all day, nor any warmth, Till thou be near me, arm'd with ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay

... maintaining of this blessed communion. But, I say, what a thing is this, that God, the great God, should choose to have fellowship and communion with the soul above all. We read, indeed, of the greatness of the angels, and how near also they are unto God; but yet there are not such terms that bespeak such familiar acts between God and angels, as to demonstrate that they have such communion with God as has, or as the souls of His people may have. Where has He called them His love, His dove, His fair one? and where, when He speaketh of them, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... excepting to his patients, and now and then, very gently, to the lady, Dr. Dare. He was always pliable to the influence of a woman's voice or to womanly manner. He had, in the presence of women, the quick responsiveness and sudden change of color and sensitiveness of intonation which bespeak the man whose highest graces and lowest faults are likely to be ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... Hisham; so the Arab repeated the following verses: A hawk once seized a sparrow, so have I heard men say, A sparrow of the desert, that fate to him did throw; And as the hawk was flying to nestward with his prize, The sparrow in his clutches did thus bespeak his foe: "There's nought in me the stomach of such as thou to stay; Indeed, I'm all too paltry to fill thy maw, I trow." The hawk was pleased and flattered with pride and self conceit; He smiled for self-contentment and let the sparrow go. At this ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... birds are on the wing, When bee and bud and babbling flood Bespeak the birth of spring, Come, sweetheart, be my sweetheart And wear ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... written in the same year, there are some touches both of sisterly and of conjugal feeling, which seem to bespeak a heart happy in ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... wardenry of his affairs To his old friend the Bishop. But his words Bespeak too much anxiety for me, And underrate his services so far That he has doubts if his high deeds deserve Such size of recognition by the State As would award slim pensions to his kin. He had been fain to write down his intents, But the quill dropped from his unmuscled hand.— ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... a marvellous eater up of miles and Harrison Smith did not spare his engine nor linger upon the way. Evening was falling when at last they descended the hill into the little fishing village of Polperro. They ran into the inn yard and tried to bespeak a lodging for the night but in this they were unlucky for there was no accommodation to be had. The best obtainable was a shake down in the stable loft, granted on a promise to refrain from smoking. Having refilled the petrol tank and assured themselves that the Ford was in sound ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... Port Jackson, having fallen to the low pitch of their voices, recommenced their song at the octave, which was accompanied by slow and not ungraceful motions of the body and limbs, their hands being held up in a supplicating posture, and the tone and manner of their song and gestures seemed to bespeak the good will and forbearance of their auditors. Observing that they were attentively listened to, they each selected one of our people, and placed his mouth close to his car, as if to produce a greater effect, or, it might be, to teach ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... reduced in the face of the national representatives! from seeing the King on his return choked with anguish at the mortifications to which I was doomed to behold the majesty of a French Sovereign humbled! These events bespeak clouds, which, like the horrid waterspout at sea, nothing can dispel but cannon! The dignity of the Crown, the sovereignty itself, is threatened; and this I shall write this very night to the Emperor. I see no hope of internal tranquillity ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... activity. His successful career in the Central Congregational Church of Brooklyn, where I shared the privilege of his valuable co-operation, and in the Trinity Church of East Orange, New Jersey, of which he is now the beloved and honored pastor, bespeak the merits of this series of addresses to Boys and Girls. They are at once an efficient protest against the Protestant neglect of the young and a remedy for that neglect. Parents, instructors, and guardians of the juvenile members of our Churches will be wise to read, mark, learn, and inwardly ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley

... in the end of summer; and it excited surprise, that the savages could go naked; the more so, as the nearest approach to houses consisted of branches of trees, set up behind the fire places to break off the wind. The many heaps of shells seemed to bespeak, that the usual food of these people was ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... my instruction in Elocution, and I take pleasure in saying that she was so earnest in study, and so faithful in practice, that her proficiency was very great. I bespeak for her added success as a teacher; and from the repertoire which her recent study has given, new triumphs as ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... To describe it—but let me first bespeak the indulgence of my feminine readers. I am not an authority upon hats—most distinctly not; and I shall probably display my ignorance with the first word out of my mouth. But what matter. I am simply trying to tell of what these poor ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... in the town, and that there was to be a bespeak night, when her Majesty's Judges and the Midland Circuit would honour, etc. Derby is not behind other ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... and carouse and drink with him and had offered him to such end abounding wealth, but he never would. It fortuned that this Abd al-Malik bin Salih came to the door of Ja'afar bin Yahya, so he might bespeak him of certain requisitions of his, and the chamberlain, doubting not but he was the Abd al-Malik bin Salih aforesaid (whom Ja'afar had permitted him admit and that he should suffer none but him to enter), ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... head and tail-cuts, well bespeak the ups and downs and bursts of the Revolution. They are as plentiful in this volume, as the balls were about ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various

... English. Then he will find a very large number who speak a pure English and a very poor French. Between these classes he will find those speaking all grades of French and English. These last mentioned are the connecting links, and the connecting links bespeak a line of evolution where those of French descent are gradually passing over to a class which will finally speak the English ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley

... box, the woodbine trained up against the wall, and hanging its blossoms about the lattice; the pot of flowers in the window; the holly, providently planted about the house, to cheat winter of its dreariness, and to throw in a semblance of green summer to cheer the fireside; all these bespeak the influence of taste, flowing down from high sources, and pervading the lowest levels of the public mind. If ever Love, as poets sing, delights to visit a cottage, it must be the cottage ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... sweeping verdict may be true if taken in the sense that one is as good as another, but they are of the old Italian type which our winter in Rome had taught us to think obsolete; now we found that it was only obsolescent. We had written to bespeak a room with fire in it, and this was well, for the hotel was otherwise heated only by the bodies of its frequenters, who, when filled with Chianti, might emit a sensible warmth; though it was very modern in being lighted with electricity, and ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... are deformed by an undue attachment to certain leading ideas, which, harmonizing with his habits of mind, had acquired an excessive preponderance in the course of his long and uncontroverted meditations. He possessed extensive knowledge, and his works bespeak a philosophical spirit; but their great and characteristic excellence proceeds from that glow of fresh and youthful admiration for everything that is amiable or august in the character of man, which, in Necker's heart, survived all the blighting vicissitudes it had passed through, combining, ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle

... delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. If you enter his house—his drawing-room—his library—you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor."—Diary, 1813; Letters, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... This went on for a while. But death approached, And the good father grew embarrassed. So To disappoint two sons, who trust his promise, He could not bear. What's to be done. He sends In secret to a jeweller, of whom, Upon the model of the real ring, He might bespeak two others, and commanded To spare nor cost nor pains to make them like, Quite like the true one. This the artist managed. The rings were brought, and e'en the father's eye Could not distinguish which had been the model. Quite overjoyed ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

... yet another box. He unrolled cables. He selected machines whose flickering lights seemed to bespeak eagerness to be of use. He coupled them to the newly unboxed machines, whose ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... Besides his agency she sometimes treats for a new piece, collects a little company, and tours the provincial theaters. He always plays them a week at Taddington, and with perfect gravity loses six pounds per night. Then he has a "bespeak," Vizard or Uxmoor turn about. There is a line of carriages; the snobs crowd in to see the gentry. Vizard pays twenty pounds for his box, and takes twenty pounds' worth of tickets, and ,Joseph is in his glory, and stays behind the company to go to Islip Church next day, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... and here, after crossing himself, Master Headley rapidly repeated a Paternoster, and ratified his vow of presenting a bronze image of the hound to whom he owed his rescue. One of the clergy came up to register the vow, and the good armourer proceeded to bespeak a mass of thanksgiving on the next morning, also ten for the soul of Master John Birkenholt, late Verdurer of the New Forest in Hampshire—a mode of showing his gratitude which ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... physical accompaniment of ecstasy; the elevation of the entire body from the ground, and its suspension in the air for a considerable space of time; and we have sufficient examples of the mysterious ways in which the bodies of Saints bespeak the purity which dwells within them, and in a degree anticipate the corporeal perfections of those glorified habitations in which the souls of the just will dwell after ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... elongated chin—that capacious mouth—those lack-lustre eyes, and shrivelled complexion—that most polite and well-educated nose, which is continually bowing to the neighbouring chin; in fine, those long shaggy tresses of hair, which, if we must judge by their consistency, bespeak thee endowed ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... triumphs, that adorn Fitliest our nature, and bespeak us born For loftiest action;—not to gaze and run From clime to clime; or batten in the sun, Dragging a drony flight from flower to flower, Like summer insects in a gaudy hour; Nor yet o'er lovesick tales with fancy range, And cry, ''Tis pitiful,'tis passing ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... future Queen should not be made aware of her coming greatness, which, for that matter, continued doubtful in her earlier years. She was to grow up free from the impending care and responsibility, happy and healthful in her unconscious girlhood—above all, unassailed by the pernicious attempts to bespeak her favour, the crafty flattery, the undermining insinuations which have proved the bane of the youth of so many sovereigns. In order to preserve this reticence, unslumbering care and many precautions were absolutely necessary. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... am an Eta; and my name is Chokichi. I beg to bespeak your goodwill for myself: I hope we may ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... Raghuvansam, the Kumarasambhavam, the Meghadutam and the Ritusanharam. It is believed that he wrote a treatise on Astronomy and one on Sanskrit Prosody. His genius was of a versatile nature. He was a poet, a dramatist and an astronomer. His works bespeak the superior order of his scholarship—his acquaintance with the important systems of philosophy, the Upanishads and the Puranas;—his close observation of society and its intricate problems;—his delicate appreciation of the most refined ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta

... speak of my exile?" continued Mr. Jefferson. "Shall I not be among friends?" and he looked with affectionate regard toward the three young Frenchmen. "Shall I not be among friends, the truest and noblest that any country or any individual can boast? Your looks bespeak your answer! Friends, I ask you to drink to Monsieur le Marquis de Lafayette and to Messieurs de ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... said Evelyn sweetly, "I have dropped my glove,—perhaps in the summer-house on the terrace. If you will be so good? Mr. Grymes, will you desire Mr. Stagg yonder to shortly visit me at my lodging? I wish to bespeak a play, and would confer with him ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... President Eliot, of whose qualifications all I will say is that we foreign students of social problems vie with his own countrymen in our appreciation of his public work and aims. These two appointments are sufficient proof of the serious importance of the work, and bespeak public influence and support for the Association. I have no doubt that this body would be fully qualified to formulate and initiate the Country Life movement, and act as the central agency for the active promotion of its objects. Its members, who, I am sure, agree ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett

... his men to their ship, as a pilot, as also to announce their arrival, and bespeak the attention of the magistrates at Savannah; and, on the 9th they set sail for the desired region of peace. They entered the river on the 10th, which was reminiscere-Sunday; and "they called to remembrance the former days, in which, after they were illuminated," ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... they told of the desperate cruelty of the savages, their defeat, their conversion, and their subsequent fidelity to the men and the cause they once opposed. I am grateful to Mr. Creswell for putting these facts into permanent shape and bespeak for his volume a cordial reception, a wide circulation, and above all, the abundant ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell

... painful anger flush'd my cheek, My lip indignant smil'd, I cried, "And did he e'er bespeak Thy friendship for ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham

... the heads of the Executive Departments of the Government informs you what a signal calamity has befallen us in the death of the President of the United States, and the prominent part assigned you in those funeral honors which may bespeak a nation's respect to the memory of a departed patriot and statesman, whose virtue and talents as a citizen and soldier had achieved illustrious services, and whose sudden death has disappointed the expectation of still more important benefits ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Harrison • James D. Richardson

... promise to drive over to Pensham? Because, if you did, we may just as well go together. With all those men at the Towers, I shall have to bespeak Tom ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... loosened the other also to-day, in consequence of her fancying Okotook worse, though it was only the annoyance of the blister that made him uneasy; for even in this sequestered corner of the globe dishevelled locks bespeak mourning. It was not, however, with her the mere semblance of grief, for she was really much distressed throughout the day, all our endeavours not availing to make her understand how one pain was to be removed ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... bold, 380 And merit praise from ages yet to come. But I will to my vessel now repair, And to my mariners, whom, absent long, I may perchance have troubled. Weigh thou well My counsel; let not my advice be lost. To whom Telemachus discrete replied. Stranger! thy words bespeak thee much my friend, Who, as a father teaches his own son, Hast taught me, and I never will forget. But, though in haste thy voyage to pursue, 390 Yet stay, that in the bath refreshing first Thy limbs now weary, thou may'st sprightlier seek Thy gallant bark, charged with some noble gift Of finish'd ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... her mother's thoughts,—a tender craving to bespeak the kindness of some woman towards the daughter that might be so soon left motherless. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... arrives, Saturday (the day after to-morrow) at 12 o'clock, and then kindly to help him in showing Oxford to the princeps juventutis. They leave again at 8 o'clock in the evening. The party will of course want some rooms in the best hotel, to rest themselves. So it might be well to bespeak some rooms for the travellers as a pied a terre. The party travel under the name of Colonel Fischer ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... course dinner, of sorts, and a small bottle of alleged claret included, for an absurdly small sum; but a carton of biscuits, a tin of sardines and a can of condensed milk are usually in evidence on the littered tables of the studios, and, together with the odor of stale coffee, bespeak an economy of diet which is incompatible with the good work which ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... showed how much I was in the right. The favourite of the sultan, to whom he had formerly sold his china vase, though her charms were now somewhat faded by time, still retained her power and her taste for magnificence. She commissioned my brother to bespeak for her, at Venice, the most splendid looking-glass that money could purchase. The mirror, after many delays and disappointments, at length arrived at my brother's house. He unpacked it, and sent to let the lady know it was in perfect safety. It was late ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth

... 1640, but should come down, as best it could, to our own day, we were not without apprehensions that the task might prove one of some difficulty. How difficult it would be we had certainly no idea, or the book would never have been begun, and now that it is finished I would bespeak the reader's sympathies, on Mr. Plomer's behalf, that its inevitable shortcomings may be the more generously forgiven. If we look at what has already been written on the subject the difficulties will be more easily appreciated. In England, as ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer

... but of this there is no satisfactory evidence. [41:7] It was simply, perhaps, the marked attention of our Saviour to James and John which awakened the ambition of their mother, and induced her to bespeak their promotion in the kingdom of the Son ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... on board except myself, numbered thirty-one, and a thirty-second for whom I bespeak especial attention. On the eve of our departure, Captain Len Guy was accosted at the angle of the port by an individual whom he recognized as a sailor by his clothes, his walk, ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... have a bill sent me of 100 pounds 12 shillings 0 pence. laid out for the poor King, who ordered me to bespeak for him the best set which I could get of the glass dishes and basons for his dessert. The Regency may perhaps not want them, thinking that they have no occasion for any dessert, and that they can do without it: perhaps so, nous verrons. Old Begum, as they ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... That peck along the road, regard him not. He travels on, and in his face, his step, His gait, is one expression; every limb, His look and bending figure, all bespeak A man who does not move with pain, but moves With thought—He is insensibly subdued To settled quiet: he is one by whom All effort seems forgotten, one to whom Long patience has such mild composure given, That ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth

... in your Book Society wants to bespeak a book, perhaps you could order Recueil des Eloges, par M. Cuvier. They contain the Lives, not merely the Eloges, of all the men of science since 1880, written, and with an excellent introduction. The lives of Priestley and Cavendish are written with so much candour towards the English ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... has slumbered for centuries. The map of the county, the mineralogical survey, the new roads, the opening of lime works, the competition of ploughing, the improving harbours, the building of bridges, are works which bespeak the exertions of no common man."—Letter to Mr. Andrew. Little, ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... 16 feet high formed the framework of these snug huts—for so indeed they deserve to be termed—these were brought together conically at the roof; a stout thatching of dried grass completely excluded both wind and rain, and seemed to bespeak the existence of a climate at times much more severe than a latitude of 16 degrees 6 minutes south, would lead one to anticipate. The remains of small fires, a well greased bark pillow, a head ornament of seabird's feathers, together ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... by banks full thirty or forty feet in height above the present stage. After a hard climb up the steps which are frequently found cut into the clay, to facilitate access to the river, it is with something akin to awe that we look upon these buildings on stilts, for they bespeak, in times of great flood, a rise in the river of between ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... you with me, young man?" said the sexton. "Your youthful features, and your gay dress, bespeak one who stands in need of my ministry neither for himself nor ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... time, when I went to Will Clerk's to dinner. As a bachelor, and keeping a small establishment, he does not do these things often, but they are proportionally pleasant when they come round. He had trusted Sir Adam to bespeak his dinner, who did it con amore; so we had excellent cheer, and the wines were various and capital. As I before hinted, it is not every day that M'Nab[487] mounts on horseback, and so our landlord had a little of that solicitude ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... holding the mules of wealthy Moors, who are arriving in large numbers in response to the report that the household of a great wazeer, recently disgraced, will be offered for sale. One sees portly men of the city wearing the blue cloth selhams that bespeak wealth, country Moors who boast less costly garments, but ride mules of easy pace and heavy price, and one or two high officials of the Dar el Makhzan. All classes of the wealthy are arriving rapidly, for the sale will open in a quarter of ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... ammunition in that way.... The great object is to cut off supplies. For that reason I sent down the Queen of the West and the Indianola. I regret that the loss of the Indianola should have been the cause of your present position." These utterances, which bespeak the relief afforded him at the moment by Farragut's bold achievement, are confirmed by the words written many years later in his History of the Navy. "Farragut in the Hartford, with the Albatross, reached the mouth of the Red River, and Port Hudson was as completely cut ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... will find you and your conjugal yoke-fellow in your good old way. I am impatient to know if the Ailsa[78] fowling be commenced for this season yet, as I want three or four stones of feathers, and I hope you will bespeak them for me. It would be a vain attempt for me to enumerate the various transactions I have been engaged in since I saw you last; but this know—I engaged in a smuggling trade, and no poor man ever experienced better returns, two for one: but as ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... S. Paul deals with the matter. "That ye sorrow not as others which have no hope." There is no injunction here not to sorrow at all; that would be contrary to human nature, and would bespeak callousness rather than resignation. Our Blessed Lord wept at the grave of Lazarus, and in so doing sanctified human grief. The keenest faith, to which the other world is an absolute reality; the fullest hope of the sure and certain resurrection for the dear one; the most disciplined and submissive ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter

... Ast. Then I'll bespeak you one, you will be desperately in love with; Florimel: So soon as the queen heard you were returned, she gave you her ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... doors, and some would fain keep him there, to make a country gentleman of him. His incorrigible preoccupation with humanity, the ruling passion and employment of his life, is beyond the range of their complete sympathy; they like to catch him out of hours, to draw him aside and bespeak his interest, for a few careless minutes, in the trades and pastimes that bulk so largely and so seriously in their own perspective of life. They hardly know what to make of his "unvalued book"; but they know that he was a great man, and to have bought a wool-fell or ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... realize. Such kind spirits are never cast down. Their hearts always light and cheerful—rendered so by their many kind offices,—they can always enjoy their neighbours, rich or poor, high or low, and love them too; and with a flow of spirits which bespeak a heart all right within, they make all glad and happy ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... Those flashing eyes, that colour such as "blended rose" never had, that lithe, rounded figure radiating vitality, bespeak too much ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... festivities, and exchanged the courtesies of gentle and generous spirits. Thus the opposite races became frequently mingled together in peaceful intercourse, or if any rivalry took place, it was in those high courtesies and nobler acts which bespeak the accomplished cavalier. Warriors of opposite creeds became ambitious of transcending each other in magnanimity as well as valor. Indeed, the chivalric virtues were refined upon to a degree sometimes fastidious and constrained; but at other ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... submissively over on his back, with all his legs in the air, whilst Raith, seizing the bone, would make the most absurd and unavailing attempts to bestride the enormous head of his subdued companion, with the most ludicrous affectation of the terrible growling, that might bespeak the loftiest description of dog-indignation. When a dog attacks Bass in the street or road, he runs away rather than quarrel; but when compelled to fight by any perseverance in the attacking party, he throws his enemy down in a moment, and then, without biting ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... rather obscurely, handsome; but his physiognomy had an air of requesting your attention, which it rewarded according to the charm you found in blue eyes of remarkable fixedness, the eyes of a complexion other than his own, and a jaw of the somewhat angular mould which is supposed to bespeak resolution. Isabel said to herself that it bespoke resolution to-night; in spite of which, in half an hour, Caspar Goodwood, who had arrived hopeful as well as resolute, took his way back to his lodging with the feeling of ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... not bespeak the reader's interest in these "trivial fond" relics—these consecrated memorials—of one of the most celebrated poets of Italy. They are preserved with reverential care at Ferrara, the poet's favourite ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various

... I must bespeak the reader's charitable consideration in respect of the first stanza, the insuperable difficulties of which seem to have been purposely contrived in order to warn off trespassers at the very boundary of the alluring domain. I have got over the inhibition—somehow—but David and the Sibyl ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... great value, deposited with thee by a great man of the town and that thou standest in fear of him. But be thou not afraid and still say ever and anon in thy saying, 'My casket was the casket of Such-an-one, and I fear him and dare not bespeak him; but you, O company and all ye who are present, I call you to witness of this for me.' And if there be with thee more than this saying, say it; and the old woman will assuredly come to thee." The draper answered with "To hear is to obey" and going forth from the Deputy's ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... preface is used, one of the three objects to which a public speaker devotes his exordium may be neglected; the historian, that is, has not to bespeak goodwill—only attention and an open mind. The way to secure the reader's attention is to show that the affairs to be narrated are great in themselves, throw light on Destiny, or come home to his ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... Theodore. But Jerome's new presumption, so dissonant from his former meekness, suggested still deeper apprehensions. The Prince even suspected that the Friar depended on some secret support from Frederic, whose arrival, coinciding with the novel appearance of Theodore, seemed to bespeak a correspondence. Still more was he troubled with the resemblance of Theodore to Alfonso's portrait. The latter he knew had unquestionably died without issue. Frederic had consented to bestow Isabella on him. These contradictions agitated his mind ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole

... India, at present, a thousand results, movements and tendencies which, to the thoughtful, watchful, Christian worker, bespeak the rapid coming of the Kingdom of Christ, even though their testimony is not heard through mission statistical tables, and though their activity is found mostly outside the visible pale ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... even the scar of a lancet was upon them," bespeak the prevalence of blood-letting in the East, and the absence of the scar of the lancet on the persons of Daniel and his companions is a testimony to their health of body ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... catastrophe, Tom. You may write by the next mail; unless, what is better still, you come home with us by the same, and speak for yourself. If I am your master then, I'll give you the holiday. Yes, Tom, it was important to me to clear up your countenance, for I want to bespeak your services to-morrow ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in Battersea Park, and, after one of those long silences which bespeak true intimacy between a man and a woman, he had asked her if she would come back to ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... spite of this great love he bore John Thornton, which seemed to bespeak the soft civilizing influence, the strain of the primitive, which the Northland had aroused in him, remained alive and active. Faithfulness and devotion, things born of fire and roof, were his; yet he retained his wildness and wiliness. He was a thing of the ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... to him. Nay, more, as soon as ever your blood goes down the stair in that basin there, the landlord will see it or smell it, and send swiftly to his undertaker and get his third out of that job. For if he waited till the doctor got downstairs, the doctor would be beforehand and bespeak his undertaker, and then he would get the black thirds. Say I sooth, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... love to Hugh. The sentiments expressed in his letters bespeak him a worthy brother, and deserving of my highest esteem. I would have written to him, but I have still some directions to commit to writing concerning my little family, and my hour is at hand; but tell him I will remember him in my last prayers. I charge him not to banish the idea ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... They had never talked of their plans which involved calculation, before him; they were terribly afraid of just one thing with him, and only that one,—of anything most distantly like what Desire Ledwith called "a Megilp bespeak." But now Hazel went up to him as bold as a lion. She took it for granted he was like other people,—"real folks;" that he would do—what ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... 'Alose' was to be boiled. She laughed at the surprise I expressed; and added "qu'on ne peut rien faire dans la cuisine sans le beurre." You ought to know, by the by, that the Alose, something like our mackerel in flavour, is a large and delicious fish; and that we were always anxious to bespeak it at the table-d'hote at Rouen. Extricated from the lake of butter in which it floats, when brought upon table, it forms not only a rich, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... lingered; eminently handsome, his carriage peculiarly graceful, and even dignified, although it was evident, from the slight, and as it were, unfinished roundness of his figure, that he was but in the first stage of youth, yet his discourse and manner were of a kind that would bespeak him noble, even had his appearance been less convincing. According to the custom of the time, which would have deemed the questioning a guest as to his name and family a breach of all the rules of chivalry and ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... bespeak sitting next you on the night,' resumed Mrs. Porter; 'and then, if our dear young friends here, should be at all wrong, you will be able to enlighten me. I shall ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... them, but that I understand I am pitched upon by them, to be married, against my Will, to one I never saw in my Life. It has been my Misfortune, Sir, very innocently, to rejoice in a plentiful Fortune, of which I am Master, to bespeak a fine Chariot, to give Direction for two or three handsome Snuff-Boxes, and as many Suits of fine Cloaths; but before any of these were ready, I heard Reports of my being to be married to two or three different young ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... "I believe that you have some influence with Louise, I am sure that you are one of those who sympathize with the unfortunate. Can't I bespeak ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Felix, stopping in the path, "the difference is that I love you more—more than before!" And then they stood there, talking, in the warm stillness and in front of the closed dark house. "I have been talking to Charlotte—been trying to bespeak her interest with your father. She has a kind of sublime perversity; was ever a woman so bent upon cutting off her ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... late, so late that when he came in, Virginia was the only one of the four who remained at table. She stayed to pour his coffee and to bespeak peace. ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde

... hurriedly away. For a moment the soldier stands uncertain what to do. Then he enters the hallway determined to bespeak the best offices of the host in behalf of his stricken friend. There is a broad stairway some distance back in the hall, and up this he sees the doctor slowly laboring. He longs to go to his assistance, but stands irresolute, fearing ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King

... them pride is antagonistic to humour. A man who is free and easy and talkative, gains in one direction what he loses in another. We love him as a frank, genial fellow, but can never regard him with any great reverence. Laughter seems to bespeak a simple docile nature, such as those who assume to rule the world are not willing to have the credit of possessing. It belongs more to the fool than to the rogue, to those who follow than to those who lead. Eminent men do not intentionally avoid laughter; ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... himself yielded by anticipation. He said, in a short preface, that he had abandoned a plan of translating the whole Iliad on finding that a much abler hand had undertaken the work, and that he only published this specimen to bespeak favour for a translation of the Odyssey. It was, say Pope's apologists, an awkward circumstance that Tickell should publish at the same time as Pope, and that is about all that they can say. It was, we may reply in Stephenson's phrase, very awkward—for Tickell. In all this, in fact, ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... resembles the English and German inseparable prefix "be-", as in English "bemoan", "bewail", "bethink", "bespeak", German "beklagen", "besprechen", ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman

... servant, who had rode on before to bespeak fresh horses, told me, that the domestic of another company had been provided before him, altho' it was not his turn, as he had arrived later at the post. Provoked at this partiality, I resolved to chide the post-master, and accordingly addressed myself to a person who stood at ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... received him. It was evening, toward the end of winter, the shades of twilight had already fallen, and Edward found himself suddenly in a room quite illuminated with wax candles. D'Effernay stood in the middle of the saloon, a tall, thin young man. A proud bearing seemed to bespeak a consciousness of his own merit, or at least of his position. His features were finely formed, but the traces of stormy passion, or of internal discontent, had lined ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... classes—lean, penurious-looking mortals, or jolly fellows who are determined to get possession of, because they want to enjoy, the good things of the wo others, in the fulness of their persons and the robustness of their constitutions, seem to bespeak the reversion of a landed estate, rich acres, fat beeves, a substantial mansion, costly clothing, a chine and curkey, choice wines, and all other good things consonant to the wants and full-fed desires of their bodies. Such men charm fortune by the sleekness ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... my love, so kind bespeak Sweet eye, sweet lip, sweet blushing cheek,— Yet not a heart to save my pain? O Venus, take thy gifts again! Make not so fair to cause our moan, Or make a heart that's ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various

... of the Princess. Meanwhile, Miriam returned forthright to her private apartment, where she found the one-eyed Wazir seated, elbow-propt upon a cushion stuffed with ostrich-down; but he was ashamed to put forth his hand to her or to bespeak her. When she saw him, she appealed to her Lord in heart, saying, "Allahumma-O my God-bring him not to his will of me nor to me defilement decree after purity!" Then she went up to him and made a show of fondness for him and sat down by his side and coaxed him, saying, "O my lord, what is this ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... ourselves also. It is as erroneous a conceit to redress other men's misfortunes upon the common considerations of merciful natures, that it may be one day our own case; for this is a sinister and politic kind of charity, whereby we seem to bespeak the pities of men in the like occasions. And truly I have observed that those professed eleemosynaries, though in a crowd or multitude, do yet direct and place their petitions on a few and selected persons: there is surely a physiognomy ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various



Words linked to "Bespeak" :   tap, invoke, demand, ask out, auspicate, book, point, forecast, appeal, order, tell, lay claim, predict, invite, invite out, reserve, supplicate, call for, mark, augur, presage, bode, desire, ask, apply, take out, indicate, pass, foreshadow, claim, put across



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