"Fortress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would be resisted in every village and its attempted enforcement would be a scandal which would ring through the world. For Ireland also he had admonition. He had told them before that Home Rule was an impregnable position. But "no fortress is impregnable unless the garrison is faithful ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... President of the Mercian Archaeological Society, I went all over it very carefully. This was when it was purchased by Captain March. The house had then been done up, so as to be suitable for the bride. The basement is very strong,—almost as strong and as heavy as if it had been intended as a fortress. There are a whole series of rooms deep underground. One of them in particular struck me. The room itself is of considerable size, but the masonry is more than massive. In the middle of the room is a sunk well, built up to floor level and evidently going deep underground. There is no windlass ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... being much broken favours this; and in one part of it is a ravine or valley so romantic and savage, that you would fancy yourself in Tinian or Juan Fernandez. We arrived late in the evening in the Thal Ehrenbreitstein, which lies at the foot of the gigantic hill fortress of that name, which frowns over it and seems as if it threatened to fall and crush it. My friends landed me at the inn Zum weissen Pferd (the White Horse), where there is most excellent accommodation. Just opposite Ehrenbreitstein, ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... associate on equal terms? Why, call them THE GREAT UNWASHED. O felicitous phrase! O salve of the conscience! That is the unpardonable social sin. At the bottom of our social ladder is a dirty shirt; at the top is fixed not laurels, but a tub! The bathroom is the inmost, the strongest fortress of our English snobbery. ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... Scioto, where Portsmouth now stands. An outlying band had had, from before Gist's day, a small town across the Ohio, the site of Springville; and it was here that George Croghan had his stone trading house, which was doubtless, after the manner of the times, a frontier fortress. In the French and Indian war (1758), the Shawanese, tiring of continual conflict, withdrew from their Ohio River settlements to Old (or Upper) Chillicothe, and thus closed the once important fur-trade at the mouth of the Scioto. It was while the Indian town at Portsmouth was still new ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... French forces on the Ohio. The great loss sustained by the enemy at this place facilitated the reduction of Fort Duquesne, against which General Forbes was advancing with great vigilance and considerable force. This fortress the enemy, after a few skirmishes, determined to abandon; and having burnt their houses, and destroyed their works, fell down the Ohio river in boats to their strong-holds erected beyond the Cherokee mountains. No sooner was the British flag erected on Fort Duquesne, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... nine thousand men is their total fighting force, although three or four generations ago they had twenty thousand—and live in hourly terror of extermination by the surrounding Fung, who hold them in hereditary hate as the possessors of the wonderful mountain fortress that ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... laughing, Billy, and a ribald song you sing, While the old men sit and tell us war it is a ghastly thing, When the swift machines are busy and the grim, squat fortress nocks At your bolts as vain as eggs of gulls ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... Dives, an active Royalist, was governor of Sherborne Castle for the King, and had been made a prisoner by Fairfax in August, 1645, when that fortress was taken by storm. He was brother-in-law ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... blazing in the ruddy light of the evening sun, while the other in shade stood out a deep violet against the clear blue of the sky above. On the one side, at the foot of the Sugarloaf Mountain, they had the fortress of Praja; on the other, the Castle of Santa Cruz; and facing them on the highest point in the harbour, the slender signal-tower that announces every ship as it appears at the entrance ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... rocks which may still be seen on the opposite bank, forming the natural arch of a bridge; but time, the waters, and the hand of man have left nothing standing but the ancient mass of granite which formed the pedestal of the now destroyed fortress. ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... passages, some capacious enough to quarter regiments of cavalry, showing holes cut in the projecting corners of rock, through which the hitch-reins of the horses were wont to be passed, and its great magazines, it stands a lasting memorial to the energy of a tyrant. But while this fortress is practically indestructible, an impregnable fortress is a dream incapable of realization. Marcellus and his stout Romans came in through these fortifications, not entirely, it is true, by their own might, but by the aid of traitors, against whom ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... exclamation of surprise, and almost of delight; for he was exceedingly proud and vain of his fortress, and for his own individual profit, the more prisoners he had, the happier he was, and the higher in rank the prisoners happened to be, the prouder he felt. Aramis assumed the expression of countenance he thought the position justified, and said, "Well, dear Athos, forgive me, but I almost suspected ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... be down on him; just as with that other sprig of nobility, Count Egon Plettau, who had actually managed to serve nearly eight years and of that time to spend, first six months, then two and then five years confined in a fortress—always on account of insubordination. Now this incarnate disgrace to the German nobility was nearing his release, and was expected to be back again soon in the battery. Accident would determine whether he would finish his remaining two months before he was put ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... and other instruments of music. The fort was solemnly blessed, and consecrated by the celebration of mass; after which friar Gaston preached a sermon, in which he exhorted his hearers to be thankful to God, who had permitted the inhabitants of the small western kingdom of Portugal to construct a fortress in this distant region, among so many enemies of the Catholic faith. He expressed a hope that this might be the forerunner of many other establishments of a similar nature, to the advancement of the true religion among the heathen, and the glory ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... said that she didn't know him at all on any of those planes where rents and the price of beef are factors. He had come into her life with much the same sort of appeal as the wandering knight of the days of chivalry made to the damsel in the family fortress. Up to his appearing she had thought herself too sophisticated and too old to be caught by this kind of fancy, especially as it was not the first time she had been exposed to it. In the person of Rupert Ashley, however, it presented itself with the ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... comparison of the two sites shows, however, that this statement could hardly have been true at any time. Dinant lies in a narrow space between the Meuse and high land. A lofty rock at one end of the town dominating the river is crowned by a fortress most picturesque in appearance. It is difficult to estimate how many inhabitants there actually were in the place in 1466, but there is no doubt as to their energy and character. As mentioned before, the artisans ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... "self-luminous"; but it was more frequently interpreted as meaning "a very wolf," in allusion to the supposed character of its possessor. Bazra, the name of the citadel of Carthage, was the Punic word for "fortress"; but the Greeks confounded it with byrsa, "a hide," and hence the story of the ox-hides cut into strips by Dido in order to measure the area of the place to be fortified. The old theory that the Irish were Phoenicians had a similar origin. The name Fena, used ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... cold. Gusts of wind from the snow-covered Schneeberg drove along the streets, making each corner a fortress defended by the elements, a battlement to be seized, lost, seized again. Peter Byrne battled valiantly but mechanically. And as he fought he ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... great circle around an immense fortification upon the ground below. They saw no airships in the line of battle, but noticed that many such vessels were flying to and from the front, apparently carrying supplies. The fortress was an immense dome of some glassy, transparent material, partially covered with slag, through which they saw that the central space was occupied by orderly groups of barracks, and that round the circumference were arranged gigantic generators, ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... "Mon Dieu! If the brigadier should hear you! Come with me," he commanded, laying his hand firmly upon my arm. "There are six of us hidden between here and the fortress. It is well that you stumbled upon me first. They must know who you are. It is not safe for you to be ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... little boy," said Richard, in a superior manner. Carloman asked how it was done; and Richard gave an animated description of the snowballing, a fortnight ago, at Rouen, when Osmond and some of the other young men built a snow fortress, and defended it against Richard, Alberic, and the other Squires. Carloman listened with delight, and declared that next time it snowed, they would have a snow castle; and thus, by the time supper was over, the two little boys ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a broad solitary river stands a town, one of the administrative centres of Russia; in the town there is a fortress, in the fortress there is a prison. In the prison the second-class convict Rodion Raskolnikov has been confined for nine months. Almost a year and a half has passed since ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... appeared. Von Vizin, who, in his pleasing "Questions to Catherine" had touched on various subjects connected with court etiquette, and on the miseries of political life, had to content himself with silence. Radishchev was arrested, thrown into a fortress, and then sent to Siberia. They went so far as to accuse Derzhavin, the greatest poet of this time, the celebrated "chanter of Catherine," in his old age, of Jacobinism for having translated into verse one of the psalms of David; besides this, the energetic apostle of learning, Novikov, ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... the old gentleman interested me hugely, and I led the way through the garden to the house, up the tower stairs to the roof, and then standing there, looking across the river at the Palisades looming up like a huge fortress before me, I put the ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... the world. As we drew in through the Golden Gate, another light-house met our eyes, and in the clear moonlight of the unbroken California summer we saw, on the right, a large fortification protecting the narrow entrance, and just before us the little island of Alcatraz confronted us,— one entire fortress. We bore round the point toward the old anchoring-ground of the hide ships, and there, covering the sand-hills and the valleys, stretching from the water's edge to the base of the great hills, and from the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... of some large water mills that stood in the middle of the river,[462-1] and the instant Don Quixote saw them he cried out to Sancho, "Seest thou there, my friend? there stands the city, castle, or fortress, where there is, no doubt, some knight in durance, or ill-used queen, or infanta, or princess, in aid of whom ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... 335 As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough; No longer scowl the turrets tall, The Summer's long siege at last is o'er; When the first poor outcast went in at the door, She entered with him in disguise, 340 And mastered the fortress by surprise; There is no spot she loves so well on ground, She lingers and smiles there the whole year round; The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land Has hall and bower at his command; 345 And there's no poor man in the North Countree But is lord of ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... Jean de Luxembourg, Comte de Ligny. She was shut up in the fortress of Beaulieu, then in that of Beaurevoir, and from there in that of ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... be given in the course of November, and, in my opinion, a very warm reception of your work on the part of the public may be expected. The fortress of Leipzig has been conquered for your name and your cause, and even the "Wohlbekannte" informed me that he had been moved to tears by the "Lohengrin" finale. If things go on in this way, Leipzig will soon "Lohengrinize." If there should be a delay of the performance, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... be informed by your correspondent, James Silvester, Sen., on what authority he grounds his assertion (contained in No. 484.) that it was in the fortress of Corfe Castle that the unfortunate Edward II. was so inhumanly murdered. I have always, considered it an undisputed fact that the scene of this atrocity was at Berkeley Castle, in Gloucestershire. Hume states, that while in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... they might find means of flight. Twenty galley slaves were imprisoned in the castle. At night they occupied the same apartment with Pepe; in the day-time they were set to work in different parts of the fortress. These men were easily persuaded to adopt an ingenious plan of escape devised by Pepe, who, with his friend, was to remain behind, "upon the plea that, as the government attached far more importance to the custody of state prisoners, than to that of common criminals, our company would ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... undergo; the absence of the comforts, and frequently, of the necessaries of life, coupled with an overweening attachment to the enjoyment of forest scenes and forest pastimes, it will perhaps be matter of greater astonishment that they did not more frequently forego the security of a fortress, for the uncertain enjoyment of those comforts and necessaries, and the doubtful gratification of this attachment. Accustomed as they had been "free to come and free to go," they could not brook the restraint under which they were placed; and rather than chafe ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... the glittering Fleur-de-lys Fling out its folds on high From old Dalhousie's* fortress hill, Against the morning sky; And, later, the gleam of an English flag From its cannon-crowned brow,— That flag which, despite the changing years, Floateth proudly ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... later, when all the city was asleep, certain inhabitants of Tondo received an invitation through the medium of soldiers. Authority could not permit people of position and property to sleep in houses so ill guarded. In the fortress of Santiago, and in other government buildings, their sleep would be more tranquil and refreshing. Among these people ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... not yet described the building which, if we were attacked, was to serve as our fortress. It was of considerable size; the lower part of the walls consisting of stout logs, the upper portion being of framework, and boarded. Round three sides was a stout palisade, forming an enclosure, while the remaining side was occupied by stables and other out-buildings. Barns, cow-sheds, ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... disclosing everywhere at their limits a sky-line of picturesque gables, and shut in by walls that often are almost canon-like in narrowness; while the heavy, buttressed doors and the small, high-placed windows speak of a time when every house partook of the nature of the fortress. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... fulness of time is come, we alight at Fort-William-Henry Hotel, and all night long through the sentient woods I hear the booming of Johnson's cannon, the rattle of Dieskau's guns, and that wild war-whoop, more terrible than all. Again old Monro watches from his fortress-walls the steadily approaching foe, and looks in vain for help, save to his own brave heart. I see the light of conquest shining in his foeman's eye, darkened by no shadow of the fate that waits his coming on a bleak Northern hill; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the little colony was indebted for protection from fierce and threatening foes. The one opposite is Pampudding Hill, a smooth, grassy mound, on which the daughter of the great Alfred, Queen Ethelfleda, built a fortress. According to Florence of Worcester, what we now call Bridgnorth was then Brycge. In his time, as in that of Leland, who so well described its position, the Severn ran nearer to the frowning cliffs on which the town is built than ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... the spirit of the thing—it was well got up—there could be really nothing disrespectful meant, since Mr Henry Saint Albans was a party to it (be it known that Henry was an especial favourite), and that he was inclined to humour them, and look upon the school in the light of a fortress about to capitulate. He therefore would receive a flag of ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... as to bring it within the limits of a quarter of an hour. He seeks relief through the lawful channel of rubrical revision, and is only laughed at for his pains. In this busy nineteenth century it is nonsense, he is assured, to spend a dozen years in besieging so obdurate a fortress as the General Convention. The way to secure "shortened services" is to shorten services. This is easy logic, and applicable in more directions than one. Only see how smoothly it runs: If you want hymns that are not in the ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... enough—enough to destroy his happiness at a single blow. And yet he loved Corona even now, and though his mind was made up clearly enough concerning Gouache, he knew that he could not part from the woman he adored. He thought of the grim old fortress at Saracinesca with its lofty towers and impregnable walls, and when he reflected that there was but one possible exit from the huge mass of buildings, he said to himself that Corona would be safe ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... dumb by the other's effrontery, almost frightened by it. If this terrible creature withdrew into a brazen fortress of lies, who could tell how long a siege she might be able to withstand? The girl had been astonished and dismayed in the morning, when the first sally of the attack had failed; but then her strongest forces, her most deadly weapons, had been still in reserve. Now they had been ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... there are two) are situated in the midst of the valley or cup of the mountains. On either side were immense glaciers, or ice-bound rocks, on which the rays of the setting sun reflected the most beautiful prismatic colors. One of these icy peaks was like a fortress of rock; it rose perpendicularly some fifteen or eighteen hundred feet above the level of the lakes, and had the summit covered with ice. Mr. J. Henry, who first discovered the pass, gave this extraordinary ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... doctrine with apostolic zeal guided by the wisdom of the serpent. He was ever ready to comment on events, but before opening his mind fully to a stranger on the subject next to his heart, he usually felt his way, and only when he had grounds for believing that the fortress was not impregnable did he open his batteries. Even among the initiated, few would suspect the role played by this young proselytizer within one of the strongholds of the Conference, so naturally and unobtrusively was the work done. I may ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... righteousness vanish like smoke, or be like fuel for that burning flame. And hence the righteousness that the godly seek to be found in, is called the name of the Lord, a strong tower, a rock, a shield, a fortress, a buckler, a rock of defence, UNTO which they resort, and INTO which they run and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... from every angle of the street, at once a guardian and a menace. It has stood so for a thousand years, for it was a stronghold of the Saxon Kings before William the Conqueror gave it to William de Mohun, and he built his gloomy Norman fortress, with its massive, windowless walls, and squat strong towers, of which nothing now remains save a bowling-green which marks the site ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... water still before us. The captain's remarks when the strands of that cable parted I will leave to the imagination of the reader. Had the accident occurred at a time when the ship was between two big floes, the fortress of the North Pole might still remain uncaptured. It was after midnight before we got under way, and half an hour later we were stopped again ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... the installation of Bethencourt were far from peaceful; skirmishes were of constant occurrence, the natives even destroying the fortress of Richeroque, after burning and pillaging a chapel. Bethencourt was determined to overcome them, and in the end succeeded. He sent for several of his men from Lancerota, and gave orders that the fortress should ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... interval, "Bless me! Lord bless me! What, more still! Death would be a very happy release!" Meanwhile the doctor endured the recital with exemplary patience, noting down in the leaves of his pocketbook what appeared to him the salient points in this fortress of disease to which he had laid siege, and then, drawing forth a minute ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... vanished from the stall; No serf is seen in Hassan's hall; The lonely Spider's thin gray pall[dd] 290 Waves slowly widening o'er the wall; The Bat builds in his Haram bower,[74] And in the fortress of his power The Owl usurps the beacon-tower; The wild-dog howls o'er the fountain's brim, With baffled thirst, and famine, grim; For the stream has shrunk from its marble bed, Where the weeds and the desolate dust are spread. 'Twas sweet of yore to see it play And chase the sultriness ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... fight the valiant bull hippo quitted his watery fortress and charged resolutely at his pursuers. He had broken several of their lances in his jaws, other lances had been hurled, and, falling upon the rocks, they were blunted and would not penetrate. The fight had continued for three hours, and the sun was about to set; accordingly ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... you building? A prison; a mere garden-house of lustful delights; or a temple fortress in which God may dwell reverenced, and you may abide restful? Observe that whilst all men are thus unconsciously and habitually rearing up a permanent abode by their transient actions, every life that is better than a ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of everyone is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... 2.} the forms of winged bulls with human heads, bearing crowns. 3. King Sennacherib on his throne. A sculpture found at Nimroud, dating from the 7th century Before Christ. 4. A king on the hunt. 5. The storming of a fortress. In the foreground are two warriors clad in armor, helmeted and heavily armed with swords and spears. 6.} Vases of glass and alabaster engraved with the word Sargon. 7.} From Nimroud. 8. Vessel ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... was queen of the world, Caesar carried his eagles over the Rhine; Titus sent a part of his army which had conquered Jerusalem to the Rhine; Julian erected a fortress on the Rhine; and Valentinian began the castle-building that was to go ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... mane a green-barked yew Upholds the blue; his fortress green An oak uprears against the storms, Tremendous ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... sulking before Master Lewie's pride could be sufficiently humbled to admit of his asking in a civil tone for the book; but hunger, which has reduced the defenders of many a strong fortress, at last brought even this obstinate young gentleman to terms. The book was handed him, on being properly asked for, and in a very few minutes the lesson was learned, and recited without a mistake. Lewie ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... great stone fortress that was our home came within view, my fears and doubts were quickly dispelled. Joanna, like so many Americans, was thrilled at the aura of venerability and royal custom surrounding the estate. Francois placed her in charge of Madame ...
— My Father, the Cat • Henry Slesar
... the Allied Powers endeavored to take Sebastopol they found that every incision and inroad they made in the fortress during the day was filled up by the enemy during the night; and even now, after the terrible sacrifice of life to break it down, they are not safe, but the enemy may build it up again. But in a moral warfare, no matter ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... tarquin, said Beauman. Art thou determined, after storming the fortress, to murder ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... snapped. "Just remember, Manning, that city was built as a fortress. We'd have to ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... king Eochaid went in person to make a royal progress throughout the realm of Ireland, and he left Etain behind him in his fortress; and "Lady," said he, "deal thou gently with Ailill so long as he is yet alive; and, should he die," said he, "do thou see that his burial mound be heaped for him; and that a standing-stone be set up in memory of him; and let his name be ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... of enemy naval control. The efforts of the French army to extricate itself northward through Palestine were later thwarted partly by the squadron under Commodore Sidney Smith, which captured the siege guns sent to Acre by sea and aided the Turks in the defense of the fortress. In October of 1799 Bonaparte escaped to France in a frigate. French fleets afterwards made various futile efforts to succor the forces left in Egypt, which finally surrendered to an army under Abercromby, just too ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... town is more pleasing so. For if it had no wall or tower, but only the stream that encircles it, it would still be so secure and strong that it would have no fear of the whole world." "God!" said Erec, "what great wealth! Let us go and see the fortress, and we shall take lodging in the town, for I wish to stop here." "Sire," said the other in great distress, "were it not to disappoint you, we should not stop here. In the town there is a dangerous passage." "Dangerous?" ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... spy is loved by an absolutist baroness, and after numberless intrigues during which the hero's life is in danger from friends and enemies, he kills first the leader of the liberals, then the commander of the fortress, "the two heads of the beast," and the lovers flee toward regions of peace. As an appeal for tolerance, La fiera is unexceptionable, and Galds, the radical, has painted the excesses of both sides with perfect impartiality. But as a drama, it is ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... Tory! That makes the thing so amusing;" and then the parasite went on making small personal observations on the surrounding scene, and every now and then telling little tales of great people with whom, it appeared, he was intimate—all concerted fire to gain the very great social fortress he was now besieging. The parasite was so full of himself, and so anxious to display himself to advantage, that with all his practice it was some time before he perceived he did not make all the way ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... ground of prosecution. But if the Supreme Court had rendered a judgment dismissing the prosecution, and given a writ to the marshal directing him to set Worcester at liberty, the officer would have found the prison doors shut in his face. Every prison is a fortress, so built as to prevent rescue from without as well as escape from within. To lay siege to one would be too great an enterprise for the marshal to undertake without military assistance. For this the President ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... secret passage of Nottingham Castle, by which the young King Edward III. and his loyal associates gained access to the fortress and captured the murderous regent and usurper Mortimer, Earl of March, is known to this day as "Mortimer's Hole." It runs up through the perpendicular rock upon which the castle stands, on the south-east side from a place ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... territories comprised the ancestral domains of the house of Nassau which lay in Germany—Dietz, Siegen, Hadamar, and Dillenburg. The grand-duchy of Luxemburg was joined with the Netherlands by a personal union only, and in its capital, as a fortress of the German Confederation, was maintained a Prussian garrison. William dealt with the territory, however, precisely as if it were an integral part of his kingdom, extending to it the constitution of 1815 and administering its affairs through the agency of Dutch officials. At the ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... the fastness of a line of nobles, set away up on a lonely hill, glowering, gloomy, and unpeopled, the refuge, mayhap, of the mountain goat, the abiding-place of bats and other creatures of the night. Moorea's fortress conjured up the vision of it, its wondrous ramparts and unscalable precipices strangely the counterpart of the ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Montmorency's very decided proclivity to gallantry was to be attributed—if we may believe the scandal-loving Tallemant des Reaux—her long confinement, by the Regent Marie de' Medici's consent, within the gloomy fortress of Vincennes, rather than any reason of State for her sharing her husband's imprisonment. In fact, it was believed that the jealous prince procured her incarceration simply to keep her out ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... to La Navidad. On approaching the spot his crew fired a cannon and shouted, but no response came. They landed; but it was to find the fortress a blackened ruin and the whole settlement destroyed. Even the stout-hearted Admiral ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... to the clear air of patient right. Somewhere his strenuous soul unsoundly rang, When closely tested. Let the laurels hang About his tomb, for, with whatever fault, He led with valour cool a fierce assault Upon a frowning fortress, densely manned With strong outnumbering enemies. He planned Far-seen campaigns apparently forlorn; He fronted headlong hate and scourging scorn, Impassively persistent. But the task Of coldly keeping up the Stoic mask O'ertaxed him at the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... long into the uplifted eager face. "It is good to be so loved," he said. "I will trust you. Yet grieve not, whatever comes,—the stars are my fortress, God is my lamp. The bridge to ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... kingdom; but the increase of territory, the multiplication of homes and firesides which the people have an interest in defending, and the augmentation of agricultural resources, constitute a stronger bulwark against foreign invasion than a ship of the line or a fortress ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... sandbanks, and even the war-galleys of Venice and Spain were at a disadvantage when manoeuvring in its treacherous eddies against the Corsair who knew every inch of the coast. Passing westward, a famous medieval fortress, with the remains of a harbour, is seen at Mahd[i]ya, the "Africa" of the chroniclers. Next, Tunis presents the finest harbour on all the Barbary coast; within its Goletta (or "Throat") a vessel is safe from all the winds that blow, and if a canal were cut to join it with the inland lake of Bizerta, ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... conquest has set its seal, till there is a confusion of ownership even in ruins, that only close study and comparison could unravel. High over every fastness, from the plains of Lacedaemon to the straits of Thermopylae, there towers some huge Frankish fortress, once inhabited by a French or Italian marquis, now either abandoned ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... had declared his resolution to keep possession of that fortress till the coming of King Jesus, but when Alured produced the authority of parliament for his delivering the place to Colonel Fairfax, he thought proper ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... A breastwork charged in vain; Eleven men of England Lie stripp'd, and gash'd, and slain. Slain; but of foes that guarded Their rock-built fortress well, Some twenty had been mastered, When the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Rome, the king of kings placed a diadem on the head of his abject vassal Aspacuras. The city of Artogerassa was the only place of Armenia which presumed to resist the efforts of his arms. The treasure deposited in that strong fortress tempted the avarice of Sapor; but the danger of Olympias, the wife or widow of the Armenian king, excited the public compassion, and animated the desperate valor of her subjects and soldiers. Sec. The Persians were surprised and repulsed under the walls of Artogerassa, by a bold and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... battles, sieges, Generals, had been on his lips in his delirious ravings. He had talked of the taking of Charenton, the key to Paris, a stronghold dominating Seine and Marne; of Clanleu, the brave defender of the fortress; of Chatillon, who led the charge—both killed there—Chatillon, the friend of Conde, who wept bitterest tears for a loss that poisoned victory. Read by these lights, the "Grand Cyrus" was a book to be pored over, a book to bend over in the grey winter dusk, reading by the broad ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... territory, had dropped bombs on an ammunition train, had been fired on, and returned to his base "somewhere in Flanders" with the wings of his machine riddled by ninety-eight bullets. Again he and Sorel (who had been at Liege when we were there) went reconnoitring over the great German fortress of Metz, hoping to destroy the Zeppelin sheds. Quickly they were detected, although nearly three thousand feet above the forts. Up came shots from high-angle guns, spattering around them like spray from a fountain; but they persevered, making ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the sand-hills stands the fortress, old and quaint, By the San Francisco friars lifted to their ...
— California, Romantic and Resourceful • John F. Davis
... where the city was to stand, and it occupied the middle of the bay leading toward it. Thus there was water on both sides of it, but the water was deep enough only on one side to allow of the passage of ships of war. Peter now determined to construct a large and strong fortress on the shores of this island, placing it in such a position that the guns could command the channel leading up the bay. It was late in the fall when he planned this work, and the winter came on before he was ready to commence operations. ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... began their wearisome voyage across the great Antarctic Ocean. Fortunately, in January they encountered a large schooner, which six weeks later, in February, landed them at Montevideo. Peters says that Montevideo was at that time—1830—little more than a walled fortress. This scarcely harmonizes with the fact that it was then, as now, the capital of Uruguay; but Peters appears to know what he is talking about. As I have said, at this place Pym and Peters parted, never to meet again. The younger man started for ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... at Pylae. It was not safe in Thebes, until he gave up Boeotia to them and destroyed the Phocians. Yet at Athens, though Philip has deprived you of Amphipolis and the territory round Cardia—nay, is making Euboea a fortress as a check upon us, and is advancing to attack Byzantium—it is safe to speak in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... outside the citadel of Mehemet Ali, Helmar looked up at the frowning wall of the great fortress. Here he was at the place where he had received his inhuman treatment; this was the place where he had been found by his friends and rescued when in dire extremity. Under what different circumstances was he now returning to it. No longer to be ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... grown green again. The arrow-slit and the electric wire that entered it, like a worm uneasy at being unearthed, were distinctly visible now. So also was the clock, not, as he had supposed, a chronometer coeval with the fortress itself, but new and shining, and bearing the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Savior Lay" from Luther, and "Christ Is Risen from the Dead" from the Latin. The three hundredth anniversary of the Reformation brought his adaptation of Kingo's "Like the Golden Sun Ascending" and translations of Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" and "The Bells Ring in the Christmastide." In 1820 he published his now popular "A Babe Is Born at Bethlehem" from an old Latin-Danish text, and 1824 saw his splendid rendering of "The Old Day Song," "With Gladness We Hail the Blessed Day," ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... fortress, their destination, was now exactly above their heads. The last ascent boldly skirted the shoulder of the mountain, and then doubled upward in a series of serpentine coils. Below them the whole of Lake Garda was spread like a map. Mr. Wilder and the Englishman, having paused at the edge of the declivity, ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... effect was chiefly owing to its situation in the lake, a decayed palace rising out of the plain of waters! I have called it a palace, for such feeling it gave me, though having been built as a place of defence, a castle or fortress. We turned again and reascended the hill, and sate a long time in the middle of it looking on the castle, and the huge mountain cove opposite, and William, addressing himself to the ruin, poured out ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... do that which His great heavenly love did always for all men? Every reader will know how easily answerable was the argument. Most readers will also know how hard it is to win by attacking the reason when the heart is the fortress that is in question. She had accepted his guilt, and why tell her of it any further? Did she not pine over his guilt, and weep for it day and night, and pray that he might yet be made white as snow? But guilty as he was, a poor piece of broken vilest clay, without the properties even which ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... part in the enterprise—the conquest of the kingdom of Naples. Montmorency's success, however, fell far short of the reputation he enjoyed for consummate generalship. Not only did he fail to relieve his nephews Coligny and D'Andelot, who had shut themselves up with a handful of men in the fortress of St. Quentin; but he himself (on the tenth of August, 1557) met with a signal defeat in which the flower of the French army was routed, and many of its leaders, including the constable ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... found at the same place, is a dark and excessively hard igneous rock (dolerite). The person represented is one Gudea, the ruler of a small semi-independent principality. On his lap he has a tablet on which is engraved the plan of a fortress, very interesting to the student of military antiquities. The forms of the body are surprisingly well given, even the knuckles of the fingers being indicated. As regards the drapery, it is noteworthy that an attempt has been made to render folds on the right breast and the left arm. The ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... a stronghold you've reared with labor, It often safely protects your neighbor; Though work of woman's and children's hands, Your soul finds strength where that fortress stands, You go hence braver to battle-dangers, Can courage give unto ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... that would result from such continuous mental application; nor did I much care, so long as I accomplished my task. However, as I knew that "possession is nine points of the law," I decided to maintain my advantage by remaining in my literary fortress. And my resolve was further strengthened by certain cherished sentiments expressed by John Stuart Mill in his essay "On Liberty," which I had read and reread with an ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... gardens around it, and the tooth of time has been gnawing at it ever since, but it is magnificent even in its ruins. "Go round about it, tell the towers thereof, and mark well its bulwarks, if you would know what a mighty fortress it must have been when it held out for half a year against Henry III. in 1266, or what a lordly palace when it thrice welcomed Elizabeth to its hospitalities, three ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... betrothed to him, yet before her very eyes he is dancing attendance on a certain enchantress. And although this enchantress has lived in, so to speak, civil marriage with a respectable man, yet she is of an independent character, an unapproachable fortress for everybody, just like a legal wife—for she is virtuous, yes, holy Fathers, she is virtuous. Dmitri Fyodorovitch wants to open this fortress with a golden key, and that's why he is insolent to me ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... writings in the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' He frankly recognises the necessity, and therefore does not discuss the advisability, of a large extension of the franchise. He protests only against the view, which he attributes to Bright, that the new voters are to enter as victors storming the fortress of old oppressors, holding that they should be rather cordially invited to take their place in a stately mansion upheld for eight centuries by their ancestors. When people are once admitted, however, the pretext for admission is of little importance. Fitzjames gradually comes ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the best of water. The country was difficult of access, and artificially made incapable of supporting a host of invaders, but four great roads met near the city. The capital was surrounded with durable ramparts, having gates of defence, and near it was a mountain fortress, under the especial charge of ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... need of the fortifications; hence the few houses and little cultivated land without the limits of the walls; even the cattle are not safe from the attacks of the Indians beyond the boundaries of the plain, on which the fortress stands. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... had been so badly cut up by shot and shell that she was selected to take Captain Bailey north as bearer of dispatches, and landing him at Fortress Monroe, proceeded on to New York to be refitted. This enabled Lieutenant Perkins to make a short visit to Concord, where his father, now become judge of probate of Merrimack County, had removed, and both himself ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... bird of the mountains, far from the homes of men. I seize Wild Ducks and other game birds, hares, rabbits, fawns—yes, and young calves also, if House People make their dwellings near me and bring cattle into my fortress; but if they keep away from me, I ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... little one, worse than a village, and it was inhabited by scarcely any but old people who died with an infrequency that was really annoying. In the hospital and in the prison fortress very few coffins were needed. In fact business was bad. If Yakov Ivanov had been an undertaker in the chief town of the province he would certainly have had a house of his own, and people would have addressed him as Yakov Matveyitch; here in this wretched little ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... rank, Assisi had not been behind in the great struggles for independence.[28] She had been severely chastised, had lost her franchise, and was obliged to submit to Conrad of Suabia, Duke of Spoleto, who from the heights of his fortress kept ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... advance. Sixteen thousand rupees formed a scant war fund with which to attempt the recovery of a throne, but the Shah started on his errand in February 1833. After a successful contest with the Ameers of Scinde, he marched on Candahar, and besieged that fortress. Candahar was in extremity when Dost Mahomed, hurrying from Cabul, relieved it, and joining forces with its defenders, he defeated and routed Shah Soojah, who fled precipitately, leaving behind him his artillery and camp equipage, During the Dost's absence in the south, Runjeet Singh's ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... had possessed themselves of the fastness of a mountain, and waylaid the track of the caravan. The yeomanry of the villages were frightened at their stratagems, and the king's troops alarmed, inasmuch as they had secured an impregnable fortress on the summit of the mountain, and made this ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... hide; once more handfuls of sand were pelted upon his face, and, again repulsed by this blinding attack, he was forced to retire to his deep hole and wash it from his eyes. Six times during the fight the valiant bull hippo quitted his watery fortress, and charged resolutely at his pursuers; he had broken several of their lances in his jaws, other lances had been hurled, and, falling upon the rocks, they were blunted, and would not penetrate. The fight had continued for three hours, and the sun ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... from the western shore, having come far to see the last of the adventurers, and the garrisons of the forts looked like silhouetted maniacs above the fortress mounds. They, too, faded in the distance, and at length the reefs with their white surge, and Pencarrow Light high on the cliffs above the poor rusty remnants of a wreck, were far astern. The leading vessels had lifted ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... manage a lion from this fortress. Unless the fellow found the stage, he could hardly board us, and a plank or two thrown from that, would make a draw-bridge of it at once. Look yonder! there is something moving on the bank, or my eyes are ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... dizzy crenellations, of this complicated structure, keep you in perpetual intercourse with an immense horizon. The great feature of the-place is the obligatory round tower which occupies the northern end of it, and which has now been, completely restored. It is of astounding size, a fortress in itself, and contains, instead of a staircase, a wonderful inclined plane, so wide and gradual that a coach and four may be driven to the top. This colossal cylinder has to-day no visible use; but it corresponds, happily enough, with the great circle of the prospect. The gardens of ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... design of disturbing the peace of the capital and country, all the judicial authorities of the kingdom are hereby ordered to arrest the said Countess wherever she may be discovered. They are to carry her to the nearest fortress, where she is to be kept ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... French fortress on Cape Breton Island, commanding the gulf of the St. Lawrence. Its value as a military stronghold was great, and besides it had long been a fine base for privateers, and was a very present source of peril to the New ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... company left Surat on the 7th of October: these were Richard Mellis, who died afterwards in the carak during our voyage to Europe, John Elmor, who was master of the pinnace Good Hope, and one Robert Fox. We arrived at the strong town and fortress of Daman, where I again saw our pinnace, the Good Hope, which we built at Saldanha Bay, near the Cape of Bona Esperanza. From Daman we went to Chaul, and thence to Goa, where we arrived on the 18th ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... the steam of the hurrying craft was dazzling white in the early sun. Above and beyond the city rose, overpowering, a very different city, somehow, than that her imagination had first drawn. Each of that multitude of vast towers seemed a fortress now, manned by Celt and Hun and, Israelite and Saxon, captained by Titans. And the strife between them was on a scale never known in the world before, a strife with modern arms and modern methods and modern brains, in which there ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... M. de St. Belmont, who defended a feeble fortress against the arms of Louis XIV., was taken prisoner, his wife, the Comtesse de St. Belmont, who was of a most heroic disposition, still remained upon the estates to take care of them. An officer of cavalry having taken up his quarters there without invitation, ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... waters of the Atlantic, although she was originally designed only for smooth inland waters. Before she had passed Sandy Hook she received urgent despatches to hurry to Washington and, after inconceivable hardships in the towering seas of the Atlantic coast, arrived off Fortress Monroe about 9 o'clock in the evening of March 8th, where she heard for the first time of the depredations of the "Merrimac" and witnessed the final destruction of the "Congress" amid lurid flames and the bursting of ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... inasmuch as (so we learn from the reports and information sent to us), having pursued your voyage and route, you discovered the aforesaid islands and settled in one of them, called Cubu; and with your men disembarked there, fought against several towns, and built a fortress for the defense of the said island and its inhabitants: therefore, in consideration of this, and of the services rendered in this expedition, and of the private expenses that you have incurred in making it; and because we believe that it is best for our service, and for the prosperity ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... it, lays a heavy impost upon all clerical property. Upon being resisted, he enforces collection with the armed hand. The sword and the pen, strength and intellect, no longer the exclusive servants or instruments of priestcraft, are both in open revolt. Charles the Bold storms one fortress, Doctor Grandfort, of Groningen, batters another. This learned Frisian, called "the light of the world," friend and compatriot of the great Rudolph Agricola, preaches throughout the provinces, uttering ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... shores of the bay towards Kilfinnan Castle. The approach to it was wild and picturesque. A narrow estuary, having to be crossed by a bridge, almost isolated the castle from the mainland, for the ground on which the old fortress stood was merely joined to it by a rugged and nearly impassable ledge of rocks. The castle itself was of considerable size and strongly built, so that it could well withstand the gales which, from time to time, circled round it. Dermot had but little natural timidity or shyness; yet he ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... who had at length obtained some artillery, answered his fire with vigour, and began to rally to discrown the old pacha's fortress. Feeling that the danger was pressing, Ali redoubled both his prudence and activity. His immense treasures were the real reason of the war waged against him, and these might induce his own soldiers to rebel, in order to become masters of them. He ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the "Tower of London" depicts the Tower as palace, prison and fortress, with many historical associations. The era is the middle of ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... designated to carry the log breastwork, that commenced at the point where the swamp ceases; much the most arduous portion of the expected service, since this was the only accessible approach to the fortress itself. To render their position more secure, the French had placed several pieces of artillery in battery, along the line of this breastwork; while we had not yet a gun in front to cover ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... sacrificed her scruples for his sake; mentally she had already done it, and the physical refusal was perhaps no more than pride which salved her conscience and might ruin his, but it existed firmly like a fortress. She could not surrender it. Her love was not great enough for that; or was it, she asked herself, too great? She could not comfort herself with that illusion, and there came creeping the thought that for some one ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... new to conquest, and although she had met more than one pair of admiring eyes in the course of the past season, and received as many compliments as the vainest girl could wish, few men had had the courage to storm the stern fortress on Ballinger Hill, or to sit more than once in a drawing-room so darkly reminiscent of funeral ceremonies that a fellow's nerves began to ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... cut, and troops kept away, and our own people storming the works, you will yet fail, Gabriel, unless you know every building, every courtyard, wall and passage, every door and window, almost, I might say. For the place is more than a manufacturing plant. It's a fortress, a city in itself, a wonderful, gigantic center to the ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... recollections and associations connected with its early history. Thus a row of houses, which a few years ago bore the not very euphonious name of Castle Ditch, from its having followed a portion of the line of the moat by which the fortress which once stood near it was surrounded, was changed into St George's Crescent, and many others underwent similar transmutations. But if the physical aspect of the place holds out few or no attractions to the antiquary, the moral one of its inhabitants, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... behind this impregnable reserve that Christopher retreated as into a walled fortress. There had been no sentiment in his act, he told himself; he had not even felt the romantic fervour of the sacrifice. A certain staunch justice was all he saw in it, relieved doubtless by a share of his hereditary love of desperate hopes—of the hot—headed clinging to that last shifting foothold ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... Virginia, but not in slavery. The early years of my life were spent partly in the small village of Urbanna, on the banks of the Rappahannock, partly in the city of Norfolk, near the mouth of the James' River, and partly in the fortress of Monroe, on the shores of the Chesapeake. I was eighteen years in Virginia. My father was a white man, my mother a mulattress, so that I am what is generally termed a quadroon. Both parents died when I was quite young, and I was ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... the British square, to be swept away by case-shot and the hail of bullets. This battle, by the way, the Zulus call, not Ulundi or Nodwengu, for it was fought in front of Panda's old kraal of that name, but Ocwecweni, which means—"the fight of the sheet-iron fortress." I suppose they give it this name because the hedge of bayonets, flashing in the sunlight, reminded them of sheet-iron. Or it may be because these proved as impenetrable as would have done walls of iron. At any rate ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... commonplace thing, I know, to say that the American home is the strongest fortress of our civilization. It is one of those things, however, that needs to be said over and over again. Before the church or the state there must be the home. Destroy that, and the whole fabric of our civilization will ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... did not know her, would imagine by the quiet way that Bee has let the subject of Baden-Baden alone for the whole day, that she had quite given up going there, but I know Bee. She has left Jimmie and me to defend the front of the fortress, while she is bringing all her troops up in the rear. Bee does not believe in a charge with plenty of shouting and galloping and noise. Bee's manoeuvres never raise any dust, but on a flank movement, a midnight sortie or an ambush, Bee could ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... patiently the widely-separated districts in which lie scattered and almost hidden the relics that attest the identity of London through the ages of growth and change that have transformed it from the "Hill Fortress" of Lud or the Colonia Augusta of the Romans into the commercial metropolis of the world, with a population, circumference and aggregate of wealth exceeding those of most of the other European capitals combined. Yet one who undertakes this labor with the due amount of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... have you fast in my fortress, And will not let you depart, But put you down into the dungeons, In the ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... unexampled strength, and was long known in Europe as the Puritani quartet. The story of the opera is laid in England, during the war between Charles II. and his Parliament, and the first scene opens in Plymouth, then held by the parliamentary forces. The fortress is commanded by Lord Walton, whose daughter, Elvira, is in love with Lord Arthur Talbot, a young cavalier in the King's service. Her hand had previously been promised to Sir Richard Forth, of the parliamentary army; ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... regard her, no matter what she said, as having been wronged; her innocence, though once taken advantage of by a scoundrel, intact. His love would be reenforced by pity. He'd think of nothing, in the stress of that moment, but the desire to protect her, to provide a fortress for her. ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... sight of some large water mills that stood in the middle of the river, and the instant Don Quixote saw them he cried out, "Seest thou there, my friend? there stands the castle or fortress, where there is, no doubt, some knight in durance, or ill-used queen, or infanta, or princess, in whose aid I am ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... not confine themselves to dancing and music, but by their spirit and wit ruled conversation and talked excellently on Greek and Latin literature; and, when poetry laid siege to a maiden's heart, the beleaguered fortress not seldom surrendered likewise in graceful verses. Rhythms became more and more the fashionable plaything of the big children of both sexes; poetical epistles, joint poetical exercises and competitions among good friends, were of common ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... he occupied an advantageous post on the banks of the river Brunebec: Gustavus was on the opposite side, and he intended to dispute the passage with him. But, through natural cowardice, or a sudden fit of alarm, he quitted his station, like Hector; and flying for safety from one fortress to another, was at last obliged, like Trolle, ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... was in waiting and a most splendid camp was ready for Ptolemaeus and his train. Cleopatra had not yet advanced. The journey was over, and the novelty of the luxurious quarters provided in the frontier fortress soon died away. Cornelia could only possess her soul in patience, and wonder how long it would be before a letter could reach Italy, and the answer return. Where was Drusus? Had aught befallen him in the great battle? Did he think of her? ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... others were invited over, and many went who were not invited. And yet in all this we are told that there is something to create extreme alarm and suspicion; we, who have never fortified any places; we, who have not a greater than Sebastopol at Gibraltar; we, who have not an impregnable fortress at Malta, who have not spent the fortune of a nation almost in the Ionian Islands; we, who are doing nothing at Alderney; we are to take offence at the fortifications of Cherbourg! There are few persons ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... the statement of Governor Letcher, would have seized Fortress Monroe, but that it was firmly ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... course, only end in a divorce; fortunately Schesade had no children of her own. There is a rumour still current among us that beautiful Schesade was observed, some years after this event, when my father carried on war in Persia, and had the good fortune of taking the fortress of Bender Abbas on the Persian Gulf, heading her troops, and taking aim at the ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... of this wonder awakening the jealousy of the beneficent Austrian Government, when exhibited in Milan, the Necromancer had the honour to be seized, and confined for five years in the fortress of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... and the ruins of their castle may still be seen on the island of Loch-an-Eilan, in the northern Highlands. It was never the picturesque castle of song and story, this home of the fighting Shaws, but an austere fortress, probably built in Roman times; and even to-day the crumbling walls which alone are left of it show traces of the relentless assaults upon them. Of these the last and the most successful were made in the seventeenth century by the ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... NORTH,—I am home, you see. Don't reply and tell me that the Tariff Bill surrounds you like a fortress wall. I am going for a walk at five o'clock on Saturday morning, and I expect to meet you somewhere in the forest above the north end of the lake. You can reach it by the path on your side. I shall row there. Do not labour over an excuse, my friend. I know how you hate to ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... document, to acknowledge any authority in this country. And notwithstanding that since your departure they and their soldiers have been supported at our expense, and had just received a full month's pay from the States, they have traitorously and villainously delivered the city and the fortress to the enemy, with a declaration made by Stanley that he did the deed to ease his conscience, and to render to the King of Spain the city which of right was belonging to him. And this is a crime so dishonourable, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... flushed and breathless from the climb. "I wonder if there is anyone else for whom you wave red ribbons from your fortress!" ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... then! Carry the fortress-heavens by that hand; Still be the interpreter of suns to men; And shadow us, O thou ...
— A Father of Women - and other poems • Alice Meynell
... end was approaching. The great blow was at last to be struck. The whole month of December had been wasted in a fruitless siege, and Montgomery determined that, for a variety of imperious reasons, he must attempt to carry the beetling fortress by storm. It was a desperate alternative, but the single gleam of success which attended it was all ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... landscape I have since beheld, no picture of Claude or Salvator, gave me half the impression of living, heartfelt, perfect beauty which fills my mind when I think of that green valley, that sparkling rivulet, that broken fortress of dark antiquity, and that hill with its aged yew and breezy summit, from which I have so often looked over the broad stretch of verdure beneath it, and the country-town, and ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise; This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war; This happy breed of men, this little world; This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happy lands: This ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... to the corner which marked half the distance, and there I stopped. Right in front, where the trail had been and where a ditch had divided off the marsh, a fortress of snow lay now: a seemingly impregnable bulwark, six or seven feet high, with rounded top, fitting descriptions which I had read of the underground bomb-proofs around Belgian strongholds—those forts which ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... interesting part is all that is said of Nehludov's relations with Katusha; and the most interesting the princes, the generals, the aunts, the peasants, the convicts, the warders. The scene in the house of the General in command of the Peter-Paul Fortress, the spiritualist, I read with a throbbing heart—it is so good! And Madame Kortchagin in the easy chair; and the peasant, the husband of Fedosya! The peasant calls his grandmother "an artful one." That's just what Tolstoy's pen is—an artful one. There's no end to the novel, what ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... to the last extremity, sent another and more peremptory summons. But during this time her soldiers were training, the walls and fortifications were undergoing a thorough repair, and the cannon properly served and mounted. The fortress, too, was well stocked, and even abundantly stored with provisions, in spite of their enemies, who kept a strict watch, but failed to detect the source and manner of the supply. She was not without ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... turned our backs upon Messene, with its renowned fortress of Ithome, the sacred Olympia, and the beautiful temple of Phigalia, and began our homeward journey. Passing over a mountain from which we had a wide and beautiful view, we rode through a barren and uninteresting plain to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... Argives set fire to their tents and sailed away while others, hidden within the horse, {73} were waiting with Ulysses in the Trojan place of assembly. For the Trojans themselves had drawn the horse into their fortress, and it stood there while they sat in council round it, and were in three minds as to what they should do. Some were for breaking it up then and there; others would have it dragged to the top of the rock on which the fortress stood, and then thrown down the precipice; ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... prize. But as it is easy to foresee that from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth, as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... almost scornful withdrawal of Milton into the fortress of his absolute personality that no great poet is so uniformly self-conscious as he. We should say of Shakespeare that he had the power of transforming himself into everything; of Milton, that he had that of transforming everything into himself. Dante is individual ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... though they were placed there as trophies of victories won rather than for use. In truth, the old seaman's dwelling, full as it was of many other warlike engines, had no pretensions to the character of a fortress; it had been his fancy to gather within its walls the spoils of many a hard-fought fight to remind him of days gone by, especially when he had sailed out of Plymouth Sound in his stout bark in company with the gallant Lord Howard, Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins, and other brave ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... and Stony Point, guarding the pass called King's Ferry. Gen. Clinton moves upon them with the British army, and Commodore Collier with the British squadron ascends the river; the British storm the fort named the Fort of Lafayette, at Verplank's; the fortress had to surrender, but not until Col. Bigelow showed them the points of his bayonets. It was said of this conflict, that Col. Bigelow ordered his men to draw their charge and approach the enemy with fixed bayonets, while he himself laid aside his sword and took a musket from a sick soldier, ...
— Reminiscences of the Military Life and Sufferings of Col. Timothy Bigelow, Commander of the Fifteenth Regiment of the Massachusetts Line in the Continental Army, during the War of the Revolution • Charles Hersey |
