Beat

“ To batter and to bruise refer to the results of beating; that is battered which is broken or defaced by repeated blows on the surface (compare synonyms for SHATTER) ; that is bruised which has suffered even one severe contusion. The metaphorical sense of beat, however, so far preponderates that one may be very badly bruised and battered, and yet not be said to be beaten, unless he has got the worst of the beating. To beat a combatant is to disable or dishearten him for further fighting. ”

“ A preliminary movement sufficiently ample to be easily followed by the eye must be made before actually giving the beat upon which the singers or players are to begin the tone, if the attack is to be delivered with precision and confidence. ”

“ Still, God knows, one could scarce look on at such a wooing, and not beat the drum in time, as musicians to a dancer. And it runs in our blood, see you, to watch, and beat the drum. That is our profession ”

“ You know I can beat the drum, if I can not beat the bad men, [Pg 106] who will try to do all they can to hurt us.'"
"Then I said: 'O no! Will; I can not let you go. They will kill you.'
"'Why, who can want to kill a boy like me? Come, dear pa-pa, do let me go; I want to be with you, I love you so much. If you get hurt, I can take care of you, [Pg 107] and then I can beat the drum, or play on a fife. ”

“ It is easy when you are beaten, he thought. I never knew how easy it was. And what beat you, he thought.
"Nothing," he said aloud. ”

“ To guard against surprises, we are all warned to pay especial attention to the beat of the drum; always halting when we hear the long roll beat, and marching at the beat of the long march. We are more on the alert regarding the enemy now. ”

“ Ð To beat up for recruits, to go diligently about in order to get helpers or participators in an enterprise. Beat (?) , n. 1. A stroke; a blow. He, with a careless beat, Struck out the mute creation at a heat. Dryden. 2. A recurring stroke; a throb; a pulsation; as, a beat of the heart; the beat of the pulse. 3. (Mus.) (a) The rise or fall of the hand or foot, marking the divisions of time; a division of the measure so marked. In the rhythm of music the beat is the unit. (b) A transient grace note, struck immediately before the one it is intended to ornament. ”

“ The beat of the pestle used by primitive man to crush grain, the blows of the flail, the rhythm of the quern and the spinning wheel, the rock of the cradle, and in short the entire series of industries where a regular beat or reciprocal motion suggests alternate action have been put forward as the probable origin of the dance, musical and verbal rhythm, and at length of the beat of music. ”

“ ‘Beat upon mine, little heart! beat, beat!
Beat upon mine! you are mine, my sweet!
All mine from your pretty blue eyes to your feet,
⁠My sweet.’
Less profile! ”

“ As he gets near the extremity of his beat, when he does not observe you, you can steal a small advance in the true direction of your own beat, which is directly up the middle of the field, meeting the wind. ”

“ But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me." ”

“ This is a dodging or deceiving your Adversary, making him believe you give back in earnest, and make an offer to Thrust in one place when you really design to do it in another.
Beating.
This is no other than striking the Feeble of your Adversaries Sword with the Edg and Fort of yours, either with your Right-hand only, or the help of your Left, joyned to the Blade, about a foot [Pg 69] from the Hilt; and so you will cause the Beat to have the greater Spring or Force. ”

“ Beat on it with full fury; thunders roll;
And all seems death and darkness. Then the warm
Strong sun bursts through; a swift wind sweeps the whole;
The heart stands free; God's sun has held the storm. ”

“ For what good does it do us to guide a horse and control his speed with the curb, and then find that our own passions, utterly uncurbed, bolt with us? Or to beat many opponents in wrestling or boxing, and then to find that we ourselves are beaten by anger? ”

“ To beat a retreat, to retreat, originally to beat the drum as a signal for retreat; To beat off, to drive back; To beat out, to work out fully, to make gold or silver leaf out of solid metal; To beat the air, to fight to no purpose, or against an imaginary enemy ”

“ Se — à qui aura quelque chose; to scramble for something.
battre, v.n., to beat, to pant, to throb; to be loose (of a horse-shoe) . Le pouls lui bat fort; his pulse beats fast. Le cœur me bat; my heart beats. Le fer de ce cheval bat; the shoe of that horse is loose. — des mains; to applaud. — de l’aile; to flutter. — froid à quelqu’un; to give any one the cold shoulder.
battu, -e, part., beaten, fought.
battue, n.f., (hunt.) battue, beat.
batture, n.f., gold-lacquering ”

“ There is a chorus of yells, shrieks, and howls from the beaters, a sudden waving of crackling grass, the plunge of a heavy body, and in a hand-turn an old boar breaks cover, and, with one savage look about him, heads at a tremendous pace for the Deg. ”

“ After lunch, it is true, the beater wakes up for a little. Then shall you hear William exchanging confidences from one end of the line to the other with Jarge, while the startled pheasant rises too soon and goes back, to the despair of the keeper and the guns. Then, too, are heard the shouts of laughter which greet the appearance of a rabbit, and the air is thick with the sticks that the joyous, beery beaters fling at the scurrying form of their hereditary foe. ”

“ Beat. A verie euen way, but no such friend
Bene. May a man doe it?
Beat. It is a mans office, but not yours
Bene. I doe loue nothing in the world so well as you, is not that strange? Beat. As strange as the thing I know not, it were as possible for me to say, I loued nothing so well as you, but beleeue me not, and yet I lie not, I confesse nothing, nor I deny nothing, I am sorry for my cousin
Bene. By my sword Beatrice thou lou'st me
Beat. Doe not sweare by it and eat it
Bene. I will sweare by it that you loue mee, and I will
make him eat it that sayes I loue not you
Beat. ”

“ The gradual building up of the turmoil at the end of the act, when the excited people pour into the streets and the general fighting begins, is wonderfully worked out in the score, in which the Beating motive plays a prominent and humorously expressive part. ”

“ We cannot marvel at the beating, but simply wonder at its being remarked in those days of many and hard beatings, when scholars, servants, soldiers, and college students were well whipped, and, in Old England, wives also. ”

“ We were dancing, lost in the godbeat and the thrash and the screaming -- TAKE IT BACK! ”

“ And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense?—now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ”

“ But, as I said before, beating is the worst, and therefore the last means to be us'd in the correction of children, and that only in cases of extremity, after all gentle ways have been try'd, and prov'd unsuccessful; which, if well observ'd, there will be very seldom any need of blows. ”

“ I seem to feel her hands at play,
⁠As though they gave me sportive battle.
Yes, heavenly music seems to steal
⁠Where thought of her forever lingers,
And round my heart I always feel
⁠The twining of her dimpled fingers! ”

“ Unconcerned in the battle save to do his bidding, having no longer any care as to the result of the battle, for one thing only is important, that the warrior shall win, and you know he is incapable of defeat—standing thus, cool and awakened, use the hearing you have acquired by pain and by the destruction of pain. Only fragments of the great song come to your ears while yet you are but man. ”

“ A dance is given and a song is sung in which the slain enemy is mourned and his forgiveness is implored: ‘Be not angry’, they say ‘because your head is here with us; had we been less lucky, our heads might have been exposed in your village. ”

“ To joust with the spear at the tournament, to fight with axes at the barriers, to lead the chase, and bring down his stag, all the ladies and the courtiers looking on in real or affected wonder; to figure in the dance or the mummery, to sing and play on musical instruments, to win at tennis or at chess, were so many modes in which his vanity indulged itself. ”

“ Being left to himself, the savage had a dance, all alone, and just as he left off the maiden woke up, rubbed her eyes, got off the bank, and had a dance all alone too—such a dance that the savage looked on in ecstasy all the while, and when it was done, plucked from a neighbouring tree some botanical curiosity, resembling a small pickled cabbage, and offered it to the maiden, who at first wouldn't have it, but on the savage shedding tears relented. ”

“ The battle swallows them, one after the other, and the foe is yet unyielding, and the ever-remorseless trumpet calls for more and more. But not in vain, for some day, and every day, along the line, there is a cry, "They fly! they fly!" ”

“ If set at ease, can thrill with drum-like throbs
That marshal on the spirit to success?—
You may be right. In life’s unending strife,
The wrestler the most fit to win the palm
May be the strong soul’s restlessness, while rest,
Like sweetmeats, all too sweet, when served ere meats,
But surfeits appetite before it acts.
“But look,” he added, starting suddenly;
“The sun has touch’d the earth. ”

“ After the horse-racing came music of drums, trumpets, and hautboys, and then in spite of my brother, the crowd pressed close about me, and many scurrilous things were said and many grinning faces thrust in mine, and thinking of it now, I would that I had them all in open battlefield, for how can a man fight ridicule? Verily it is like duelling with a man of feathers. ”

“ This is the story of a fight. In the first story of this book, I said that Mary and I had seen a remarkable fight one evening at sundown on the slopes of the bare brown foothills west of the campus. It was not a battle of armies—we have seen that, too, in the little world we watch,—but a combat of gladiators, a struggle between two champions born and bred for fighting, and particularly for fighting each other. ”

“ We may believe there are no Battling Burrows, striking the helpless with brutal whip—but do we not ourselves use the whip of unkind words and deeds? So, perhaps, Battling may even carry a message of warning. ”

“ Asking to be forgiven after slamming a door is like touching off a Rodman gun, and then calling out to the fort in front to 'look out' 'take care!' 'do get out of the way.' A first class slam is cumulative long after the noise has ceased—the nerves go on slamming—the valves of the heart flap to and from—the tympanum roils a revelrie to all the shattered senses, the offender slammed at, at once subsides from rage to fear ”

“ It seems to me that we are fighting a duel in the darkness. I cannot parry your blows, and I apparently strike you when I am trying to defend myself. With what do you reproach me, or what do you ask of me? If I am a man of my time and of my class, is it my fault? ”

“ Avoid a fight if you can, of course; but, as Charlie Dickens says in that play of his, Jim the Penman, ‘once in a fight so carry yourself that the enemy shall be sorry for himself.’ Good-bye, my boy, and take care of yourself! ”

“ Thus a terrific crack at the back of the ear might produce so great an elevation of the organ of combativeness as might obtain for the greatest coward a reputation for the greatest courage; and a thundering rap on the centre of the head might raise on the skull of the veriest brute a bump of, and name for, benevolence. ”

“ PROLOGUE TO THE COMEDY OF 'A WORD TO THE WISE,' SPOKEN BY MR HULL. This night presents a play which public rage,
Or right, or wrong, once hooted from the stage;
From zeal or malice now no more we dread,
For English vengeance wars not with the dead.
A generous foe regards with pitying eye
The man whom Fate has laid—where all must lie.
To Wit, reviving from its author's dust,
Be kind, ye judges! or at least be just. ”

“ In a masked dance it is easy to give a death-blow between the shoulders. Two crowds meet and laugh and shout and mingle almost inextricably, and if a shriek of pain should arise, it is not noticed in the din, and when they part, if one should stagger and fall bleeding to the ground, who can tell who has given the blow? ”

“ They celebrate the obsequies of their dead by rude songs and dances to the sound of the drum, in which their motions and postures exhibit in a frightful manner the passions of rage, melancholy, and despair. ”

“ A dance of life, where men ranged on one side and women on the other, advance, retreat, cross, join hands, break into whirling knots of twos and fours, separate, re-form in line, to blend again into a seeming maze of orderly confusion — a whirl of very madness, yet with method in it — the intoxication of movement and sound poured out in time and measure. ”

“ Therefore I say that wrestling, inasmuch as it is a severe trial of strength, temper, and endurance, may be, and ought to be, one of many right and proper ways of rejoicing before God at these feasts. And I say to any man who has [300] strength for it, and can keep his temper, and carries away no vain or proud thoughts if he wins, and no angry or revengeful thoughts if he loses, play by all means. ”