Word: besets
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...When Constantine established Christianity as the Roman Empire's official religion, the faithful needed a new enemy to remain in tension with this world, and they discovered it in themselves. The martyr-saint who had been thrown to the lions was replaced by the ascetic-saint who was beset by private visions of demons. In the "barrenness and calm abstraction of the desert," man could come to grips with his true nature, writes Lacarrière. Life's superfluities dropped away; the moral choices were starkly clear. Ascetics went for years without seeing or talking to another person...
That predictability is now lacking. For one thing, some of the old verities no longer seem so true. The Communist world is not monolithic, and Russia's Khrushchev is beset by economic and political difficulties that would make any Western statesman blanch with dismay (see cover story in THE WORLD). Moreover, in recent months new men have become heads of government in three of the West's four most powerful nations. Konrad Adenauer, Harold Macmillan, and even John Kennedy in his relatively short tenure were known quantities. Their reactions to given challenges could be foretold with considerable accuracy...
...WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE, by Joan Aiken. Children may have to wait until their parents finish reading this sly and delightful melodrama in which ravening wolves are the least of the Victorian villains that beset our two young heroines...
...becomes a sophomore. She may have based her image of herself, as well as the respect of her parents and friends, on an early choice of career. She may have written her Radcliffe application, scholarship forms, and valedictory speech about her lifelong ambition to become a doctor. Then, beset by new interests, she sees the image explode. She often magnifies or even precipitates the change through choosing a field of concentration...
Many problems that beset Hillel are familiar to most Jewish communities in this country; there is the urge to assimilate; the inability to share holidays with the majority, and a great disparity between the attendance on Holy Days and the rest of the year. Yet other difficulties can be attributed to the particular situation in Cambridge. Hillel House, for example, is a 25 minute walk from the houses, far enough to discourage many students from going there regularly. And the university atmosphere hampers participation. Many students do not want to continue religious activity at the expense of trying something...