"Vulnerable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... employed in carrying on the same system of unenterprising defence? what must be the sentiments and feelings of one who remembers the former energy of England, when he is given to understand that these two islands, with their extensive and everywhere vulnerable coast, should be considered as a garrisoned sea-town; what would such a man, what would any man think, if the garrison of so strange a fortress should be such, and so feebly commanded, as never to make a sally; and that, contrary to all which has hitherto been ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... mouth, with half a dozen twelve-pound quick-firers at the Coast-Guard station on the east side to repel torpedo attack, but the War Office had laughed at the idea of an enemy getting within gunshot of the inviolate English shore, and so one of the most vulnerable points on the south coast had been ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... think,' retorted the doctor, 'that everybody is disposed to be hard-hearted to-day, except yourself, Miss Rose. I only hope, for the sake of the rising male sex generally, that you may be found in as vulnerable and soft-hearted a mood by the first eligible young fellow who appeals to your compassion; and I wish I were a young fellow, that I might avail myself, on the spot, of such a favourable opportunity for doing so, as ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... Villena, already sadly reduced; and while the infantry, with desperate and savage fierceness, thrust themselves under the very bellies of the chargers, encountering both the hoofs of the steed and the deadly lance of the rider, in the hope of finding a vulnerable place for the sharp Moorish knife,—the horsemen, avoiding the stern grapple of the Spaniard warriors, harrassed them by the shaft and lance,—now advancing, now retreating, and performing, with incredible rapidity, the evolutions of Oriental cavalry. But the life and soul of his ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... is another matter. So far as style is concerned its merits have not yet been questioned. As a matter of style and diction, Milton is as safe as Virgil. The handling of the story is more vulnerable. The long speeches put in the mouth of the Almighty are never pleasing, and seldom effective. The weak point about argument is that it usually admits of being answered. For Milton to essay to justify the ways of God to man was well and ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... newspaper directs. Yet is the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the senate and the college. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is decorous and prudent, for they are timid, as being very vulnerable themselves. But when to their feminine rage the indignation of the people is added, when the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... his patients simply for the sake of seeing him—she did not care for them at all. She sat in the front window that she might see him drive by, and counted that day lost which brought her no sight of him. This was her one tenderness, her one vulnerable point. ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... lightning speed in the face of this new danger. He stealthily slipped a hand over the revolver in his pocket. There was one vulnerable spot in the great hybrid holding him, and that was the opalescent globe on the creature's head. If he could only smash that globe with one well-directed shot, he might be able to elude the Centaurians for the precious minute necessary to send the projectile ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... vulnerable spot; he was nothing if not a devout Catholic, and his conscience rooted itself in what good Father Beret ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... that, in the gallant age of chivalry, the gentler sex should have been most frequently the subjects of these rude trials and perilous ordeals; and that, too, when assailed in their most delicate and vulnerable part—their honor. ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... with the vain glory of knowing how fondly for his sake she has cherished you! Go, dear Fidel, guard him by night, and follow him by day; serve him with zeal, and love him with fidelity;—oh that his health were invincible as his pride!— there, alone, is he vulnerable—" ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Chickahominy and, with the bridges guarded, it would be difficult for the forces with which we had been contending during the day to get in on our night encampment. At least they could not well take us by surprise. But this made the position all the more vulnerable from the north. It was idle to suppose that Stuart's cavalry was doing nothing. It was as certain as anything could be that his enterprising horsemen were gathering on our track, urging their steeds to the death in an endeavor to stop the audacious ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... are arbitrary acts of mighty despots. They kill, because they choose and can. And we, alas!—we are bribed by the idolatry of power to justify the excesses of power. Let not our maligners—our foes—hear of it, for it is one of our vulnerable points. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... her own views in such matters. She liked money. She liked encouraging the adventurous disposition of her subjects, who were fighting the State's battles at their own risk and cost. She saw in Philip's anger a confession that the West Indies was his vulnerable point; and that if she wished to frighten him into letting her alone, and to keep the Inquisition from burning her sailors, there was the place where Philip would be more sensitive. Probably, too, she thought that Hawkins had done nothing for which he could be justly blamed. He had traded ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... man paced the room for a few moments in strong agitation, for he had been wounded at his most vulnerable point. The thought that his only son would ally himself with those whom he so detested, and whom for years he had sought to punish, almost maddened him. As we have seen before, there was a slumbering volcano in this old man's breast when adequate causes called it into ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... and their secret movements frequently evaded every precaution of watchfulness. The sneaking caique, manned by accomplished emissaries handling muffled oars, was rowed through the anchorage in advance, and for the purpose of finding out the most vulnerable object of attack. Occasionally they selected the wrong ship, and met with a sudden determined resistance from the crew, who were eager for an opportunity of wreaking vengeance on a gang of murderous ruffians who ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... Grecians; these draw off the dead, Those onward march amain, and from the heights Of Pergamus Apollo looking down In anger, to the Trojans called aloud. Turn, turn, ye Trojans! face your Grecian foes. 605 They, like yourselves, are vulnerable flesh, Not adamant or steel. Your direst dread Achilles, son of Thetis radiant-hair'd, Fights not, but sullen in his fleet abides.[18] Such from the citadel was heard the voice 610 Of dread Apollo. But Minerva ranged Meantime, Tritonian progeny of Jove, The Grecians, rousing whom ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... was touched by the letter, moved also in the hope that an arrow from the quiver of truth had found in the doctor a vulnerable spot. He answered that he should be welcome to see the child when he would; and that she should go to him when he pleased. He must promise, however, as the honest man every body knew him to be, not to teach her there was ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... that deter us," he declared. "Britain is the keystone of our enemies. If she falls they all fall. We must attack her where she is vulnerable. We must starve her out. As for America, we have little to fear from her. In the first place, although she may break off diplomatic relations, she will not enter the war if we are careful not to sink her ships. As American ships play a small part in the carrying trade to England, we can thus ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... work myself into a frenzy. I made up my mind to compel attention. A month earlier, shattered glass had enabled me to accomplish a certain sane purpose. Again this day it served me. The opalescent half-globe on the ceiling seemed to be the most vulnerable point for attack. How to reach and smash it was the next question—and soon answered. Taking off my shoes, I threw one with great force at my glass target and succeeded in striking it ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... wrote to Miss More, 'by their numbers form a phalanx not easily impressible, and their habits of life are as armour of proof which renders them not easily vulnerable. Neither the rude club of a boisterous Reformer nor the pointed, delicate weapons of the authoress before me can overthrow ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... the royal army now hastily descended the steep sides of the sierra; and notwithstanding every effort of their officers, they moved in so little order, each man picking his way as he could, that the straggling column presented many a vulnerable point to the enemy; and the descent would not have been accomplished without considerable loss, had Pizarro's cannon been planted on any of the favorable positions which the ground afforded. But that commander, far from attempting to check ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... had departed she sat cowering over the fire without heeding her unfinished cup of tea. The priest's words just quoted had touched her in a vulnerable point. True for his reverence. It wasn't living much longer they'd be over there, and when they came to die it would be a lonesome sort of thing to have a strange priest coming to see them instead of their own Father Taylor, who had been their friend, guide, and adviser for more than forty years! ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... heavens be lit with the lurid flames of worse than fratricidal war! Let the dagger, the bullet, the flames and the pestilence, smite every vulnerable point! Let the desolation of death reign in the Northern homes enriched by plunder of the South! Let the audacious minions of the tyrants in our country be met in silence and darkness, struck down by a power they see not! Remember the ...
— The Oaths, Signs, Ceremonies and Objects of the Ku-Klux-Klan. - A Full Expose. By A Late Member • Anonymous
... said, putting down his cup. He felt himself as helplessly vulnerable as a man who is lunged ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... subject and notwithstanding his conviction that the hypothesis was sound, Darwin was quite aware that it was probably the most vulnerable part of the "Origin". Thus he wrote to H.W. Bates, April 4, 1861: "If I had to cut up myself in a review I would have (worried?) and quizzed sexual selection; therefore, though I am fully convinced that it is largely true, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... his motor car. Standing as he was at the spot from which the balloon had ascended, he now faced a human barricade. With a shout of warning he charged at what seemed to be a vulnerable point in the files of wedged shoulders. The wall resisted. The throng was lost to all but the dimming view of the balloon. Harry swung right and left with his broad shoulders. ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... for the government house, for the church, for the storehouse, while the artisans busied themselves with no loss of time in cutting down trees and clearing spaces for the temporary tents. The matter of a fort had not been broached, yet Smith, whose military knowledge showed him how vulnerable the island was, made no ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that night. I am reckoned fleet of foot, but he outpaced me as much as I outpaced the little professional. ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... supporting the weapon upon one knee, he pointed it straight at the center—that is, directly between those glowing orbs, which remained stationary, as if in waiting for the fatal messenger. It came the next moment. True to its aim, the tiny sphere of lead entered the head of the bear at the most vulnerable point, and the life went out from that huge mass. A rasping growl, a few spasmodic throes, ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... fatality of arrow-wounds of the abdomen is well known, and, according to Bill, the Indians always aim at the umbilicus; when fighting Indians, the Mexicans are accustomed to envelop the abdomen, as the most vulnerable part, in ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... his best to get her to talk to him, but some cloud of timid aloofness on her part seemed to hang between them, and very soon below the copse they came to the one vulnerable part in all the haw-haw's length. She showed him how to take the bricks out and where to place his feet, and pointed out how secluded from any eye the place was. Then, as he climbed down and then up again, and ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... went about killing people basely, I will call it, because he knew himself invulnerable; and yet, invulnerable as he was, he wore the strongest armor in the world; which I humbly apprehend to be a blunder; for a horse-shoe clapped to his vulnerable heel would have been sufficient. On the other hand, with submission to the favorers of the moderns, I assert with Mr. Dryden, that the devil is in truth the hero of Milton's poem; his plan, which ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... was, Mr. Thornton was hard pressed. He felt it acutely in his vulnerable point—his pride in the commercial character which he had established for himself. Architect of his own fortunes, he attributed this to no special merit or qualities of his own, but to the power, which he believed that commerce gave to every brave, honest, and persevering ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... doubt, the purpose of this expedition. An invader menaces these shores, the defence of which has been committed to us. Of the ultimate invincibility of that defence I have no doubt whatever; nevertheless, it may expose here and there a vulnerable point. It is to test the alertness of our neighbours of Looe that we abstract ourselves for a few hours from the comforts of home, the society of the fair, in some instances the embraces of our loved ones, and embark upon an element which, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the far side of that rock he would have to sacrifice either his steadying hold, or his touch on the chest plate where his other hand rested. Would he, then, for an instant be vulnerable? ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... inclination, determined him, after due deliberation, to cut out Mr Escot in the young lady's favour. The practicability of this design he did not trouble himself to investigate; for the havoc he had made in the hearts of some silly girls, who were extremely vulnerable to flattery, and who, not understanding a word he said, considered him a prodigious clever man, had impressed him with an unhesitating idea of his own irresistibility. He had not only the requisites ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... Scotch ballads I knew and love songs of the highlands, hoping to soften her from the decided stand she had taken against me and my intentions. But her heritage of obstinacy was large, and her opposition strong, as several well-directed thrusts which reached me in vulnerable places made me aware, but I smiled as if they were flattering compliments. Several times I mentally framed replies only to smother them, for I was the stranger within her gates, and if she saw fit to offend a guest she was still within ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... seclude themselves and maintain their concealment. To do otherwise is to court a raking artillery outburst. The German aeroplane, detecting the tendency of the trenches describes in the air the location of the vulnerable spot and the precise disposition by flying immediately above the line. Twice the manoeuvre is repeated, the second movement evidently being in the character of a check upon the first observation, and in accordance with instructions, ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... more vulnerable than either Erasmus Darwin or Buffon on the score of unwillingness to assign its full share to mere chance, but I do not for a moment believe his comparative reticence to have been caused by failure to see that the chapter of accidents is a fateful one. He saw that the cunning ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... opinions, and manifested an unbounded confidence in him. All united in demonstrations of respect and reliance, and every one was ready to give him his support. His immediate and incessant attention to the defence of the country, the care he took to visit every vulnerable point, his unremitted vigilance, and the strict discipline enforced, soon convinced all that he was ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... vulnerable point of the artificial integument. I learned this in early boyhood. I was once equipped in a hat of Leghorn straw, having a brim of much wider dimensions than were usual at that time, and sent to school in that portion of my native town which lies nearest to this metropolis. On my way I was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... as a covering for Washington, yet a full survey of all the ground satisfied me that it would be impracticable to hold a line north and east of Richmond that would protect the Fredericksburg Railroad, a long, vulnerable line, which would exhaust much of our strength to guard, and that would have to be protected to supply the army, and would leave open to the enemy all his lines of communication on the south side of the James. My idea, from ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... very conclusion of his paper, Count Solovovo places his finger upon the vulnerable spot: he there points out the only way to solve the difficulty. It is by the accumulation and study of new facts. Discussions as to the historical phenomena might go on for ever and the question still remain unsolved. The only ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... capacity of the existing government for the protection of those from whom it claims allegiance, but to causes that are fugitive and fallacious. If we except perhaps Virginia and Maryland, which are peculiarly vulnerable on their eastern frontiers, no part of the Union ought to feel more anxiety on this subject than New York. Her seacoast is extensive. A very important district of the State is an island. The State itself is penetrated ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... flaws in this story, which is casuistically vulnerable. Let it be: all the same it shows that Tenderness, Pity and Love, were traits which adorned the most sanguinary exploits of the samurai. It was an old maxim among them that "It becometh not the fowler to slay the bird which takes refuge in his bosom." ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... lacking, and the fine skin is exposed uncovered. It is there, always there, in that tiny defect in the bee's armour, that the sting is inserted. Why is this point attacked rather than another? Is it the only point that is vulnerable? Stretch open the articulation of the corselet to the rear of the first pair of legs. There you will see an area of defenceless skin, fully as delicate as that of the throat, but much more extensive. The horny armour of the bee has no larger breach. If the Philanthus were guided solely by ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... love the mother without loving the son—had played, indeed, a father's part to him since Henry Marsham's death. He knew the brilliant, flawed, unstable, attractive fellow through and through. But his knowledge left him still vulnerable. He thought little of Oliver's political capacity; and, for all his affection, had no great admiration for his character. Yet Oliver had power to cause him pain of a kind that no other of his Parliamentary ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... absolved by his genius. The people admired him so greatly that it forgave him. Napoleon is upon the column, there is an end of it, let them leave him there in peace. Let them not resuscitate him through his bad qualities. Let them not compel France to remember too much. This glory of Napoleon is vulnerable. It has a wound; closed, I admit. Do not let them reopen it. Whatever apologists may say and do, it is none the less true that by the Eighteenth of Brumaire Napoleon struck himself a ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... distress must come to this task. The stern, uncompromising militarist will not be moved from his determinations by our horror and hostility. These things will but "brace" him. He has a more vulnerable side. The ultimate lethal weapon for every form of stupidity is ridicule, and against the high silliness of the militarist it is particularly effective. It is the laughter of wholesome men that will finally ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... tactics with adroitness. If he failed now, it would be final. He thought he knew where she might be really vulnerable. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... mart. The old mahout congratulated himself upon the docility of his find. It would stiffen the bidding to announce that she was gentle. He even went so far as to pat her on the shoulder. The steel film did not cover all her nerves, so it would seem; the patted shoulder was vulnerable. She winced, for she read clearly enough what was in the mind ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... grand entertainments and the grand company? there are no grand entertainments where there is no money; no lords and ladies where there are no entertainments—and there lay the poor lodger in the desolate house, groaning on a bed no longer his, smitten by the hand of God in the part where he was most vulnerable. Of what use telling such a man to take comfort, for he had written the "Minstrel" and "Rob Roy,"—telling him to think of his literary fame? Literary fame, indeed! he wanted back his ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... takes on a different and more complex shape when it so touches the enduring conditions of life and livelihood. The citizen who has nothing, or who has no capitalisable source of unearned income, yet has a pecuniary interest in a livelihood to be gained from day to day, and he is yet vulnerable in the pecuniary respect in that his livelihood may with the utmost facility be laid under contribution by various and sundry well-tried contrivances. Indeed, the common man who depends for his livelihood on his daily earnings is in a more immediately ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... be safe against any unsupported naval attack. Modern science has rendered this easy and certain. Hence a naval attack must necessarily be supported by the landing of a military force upon the open coast, to attack the land defenses in reverse; and such defenses are now far more vulnerable to attack in rear ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... acquaintance, but remained latent; and I had always an impression that her energy was too much a force of blood, and therefore never felt the security for her peace which belongs to more purely intellectual natures. She seemed more vulnerable. For the same reason, she remained inscrutable to me; her strength was not my strength,—her powers were a surprise. She passed into new states of great advance, but I understood these no better. It were long to tell her peculiarities. Her childhood was full of presentiments. She ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... those negative sort of victories is always one of intense interest. The movements on each side are most jealously watched, and each side is diligently occupied in strengthening such points as the fight of the preceding day had proved to be the most vulnerable. ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... to meet her again, but at first he was reassured. Never had she been more brilliant and frolicsome than at the breakfast-table that morning. Never had poor McAllister been more at his wits' end to know how to reply to her bewildering sallies of good-natured badinage. Every vulnerable point of Northern character received her delicate satire. Lane himself did not escape her light shafts. He made no defence, but smiled or laughed at every palpable hit. The girl's pallor troubled him, and something in her eyes that suggested suffering. There came a time when he ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... political party effect. Critics, from the time of Swift down to the middle of the century, aimed to demolish enemies, and to make party capital; hence, as a general thing, their articles were not criticisms at all, but attacks. And as even an Achilles was vulnerable in his heel, so most intellectual giants have some weak point for the shafts of malice to penetrate. Yet it is the weaknesses of great men that people ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... and she answered, "Neither; it was from Shakespeare," they joined, in the same happy laugh, and they laughed now and then without saying anything. Neither this nor that made them more glad or less; they were in a trance, vulnerable to nothing but the summons which must come to leave their dream behind, and issue into the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ARMY. The right or left side or end, as distinguished from the front and rear—a vulnerable point. Also, the force composing or covering that side. In fortification, a work constructed ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... to, subtly, cleverly, on his most vulnerable side; he had been bothered and badgered and beset. Two women, clever and hard as nails, had made up their minds to the marriage; the third remained passive, indifferent, but acquiescent. Wiser, firmer, and more experienced men than Clive had surrendered ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... vulnerable spot in the defenses of Havana is the aqueduct of Isabella II, or the Vento. The water is from the Vento Springs, pure and inexhaustable, nine ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... lay before you three considerations, which will prove to you at once that this great moral question is more vital to our two nations than to any other, and that we are peculiarly vulnerable to the ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... a little. Leave it to chance indeed! Had she not caused me to grow stronger and larger by every word she uttered? And had not the conversation revealed to me Mr. Blackthorn's one vulnerable part? I knew well enough that I should be able to dominate his thoughts as I had done hers. Finding me burdensome, she had passed me on to somebody else with additions that vastly increased my working ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... were a dense blank to Sergius. First, there was his injury, more serious than he had imagined, and the fever that had followed it, complicated again by the malaria of the marshes through which he had journeyed in so vulnerable a plight. Then came other weeks of such lassitude that he had neither power nor desire to learn of the world to which he felt himself slowly returning, as did Aeneas from the realms of Pluto. There were times when he ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... eyes were not of marble; his heart was not flint nor his skin steel plate: he was flesh and tender; he was a vulnerable, breathing boy, with highly developed capacities for pain which were now being taxed to their utmost. Once he had loved to run, to leap, to disport himself in the sun, to drink deep of the free air; he had loved life and one or two of his fellowmen. He had borne ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... and the bull leader of the herd fell on his haunches. The bullet had found the vulnerable spot under the fore shoulder, where one should always shoot a musk-ox. To aim at the head is a ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... Sainte- Maure, but amazing it is to me, Darrell Standing, as I recollect and ponder it across the centuries. It is easy, most easy, to kill a strong, live, breathing man with so crude a weapon as a piece of steel. Why, men are like soft-shell crabs, so tender, frail, and vulnerable are they. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... ground, creeping, or even shrunk into his shell, the attack never presents any difficulty. The shell possesses no lid and leaves the hermit's fore-part to a great extent exposed. Here, on the edges of the mantle, contracted by the fear of danger, the Mollusc is vulnerable and incapable of defence. But it also frequently happens that the Snail occupies a raised position, clinging to the tip of a grass-stalk or perhaps to the smooth surface of a stone. This support serves him as a temporary lid; it ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... not, apparently, feel the least magnetic attraction towards Paolo's throat, or any other vulnerable part of the aeronaut's person. Nor did he stamp on the ground, crying upon earth to open and swallow the master of the air. I, too, kept an unmoved front; but then, being English, that might have been pardoned to my national sang-froid. ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... found Orlando awake also, who thereupon rose, and seated himself by the Giant's side, inquiring how it came to pass he was so very strong? "Because," replied the Giant, "I am only vulnerable in the navel." Ferracute spoke in the Spanish language, which Orlando understanding tolerably well, a conversation now followed between them, which Ferracute recommenced by inquiring his name, which Orlando told him. "And what race are ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... West Virginia, in order to reassure non-combatants, severally issued orders that all attempts at slave insurrection should be suppressed. It was a most pointed and significant warning to the leaders of the rebellion how much more vulnerable the peculiar institution was in war than in peace, and that their ill-considered scheme to protect and perpetuate slavery would prove the most potent ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... being frequently unkind. This is just an instance to the contrary. Ellesmere, who is not a bad fellow—at least not so bad as he seems—knows that he can say anything he pleases about my style of writing without much annoying me. I am not very vulnerable on these points; but all the while there is a titillating pleasure to him in being all but impertinent and vexatious to a friend. And he enjoys that. ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... unoffending townspeople, so that they might remove to a place of safety. The attacking force numbered about 5,000 English, 1,000 French, and 750 of the Chinese coolie corps, and it was agreed that the most vulnerable point in the Chinese position was Lin's fort, on the eastern side of the city. When the attack began, on December 28, this fort was captured in half an hour, and the Chinese retired to the northern hills, which they had made their chief position in 1842. The destruction of Lin's fort ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... myself will help to protect him. You sew a tiny cross on Siegfried's doublet, just over the vulnerable spot, that I may be the better ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... little Prince, whose pretty responses to her caresses could not but win her love. Moreover, Pauline's example continued to attract her, and Father Crump was a better controversialist, or perhaps a better judge of character, than Pere Giverlai, and took her on sides where she was more vulnerable, so as to make her begin to feel unsettled, and wonder whether she were not making a vain sacrifice, and holding out after all ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... success; for success was impossible. Yet his lofty character was respected of all and compelled public confidence. Indeed, his character seemed perfect, his bath in Stygian waters complete; not a vulnerable spot remained: totus teres atque rotundus. His soldiers reverenced him and had unbounded confidence in him, for he shared all their privations, and they saw him ever unshaken of fortune. Tender and protecting love he did not inspire: such love is given to weakness, not to strength. ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... find my vulnerable spot! She detests me, and she'd just enjoy prodding me up with pins. No, we must have something less ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... seals to get the skins for our collection. It was another matter with the dogs. With them seal-hunting was far too favourite a sport for the opportunity to be neglected. Against a full-grown seal, however, they could do nothing; its body offered no particularly vulnerable spots, and the thick, tight-fitting skin was too much even for dogs' teeth. The utmost the rascals could accomplish was to annoy and torment the object of their attack. It was quite another matter when the ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... silent prairie; but while this diversion was going on in front, the remainder of the pack started for his hind legs, to hamstring him. Upon this the poor brute turned to the point of attack only to receive a repetition of it in the same vulnerable place by the wolves, who had as quickly turned also and fastened themselves on his heels again. His hind quarters now streamed with blood and he began to show signs of great physical weakness. He did not dare to lie down; that would have been instantly ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... sting of the punches, although dazing him slightly, brought Redmond to his senses, as he realized how vulnerable his momentary loss of temper had rendered him. He now braced himself with dogged determination and, covering up warily, circled his adversary with clever foot-work. Yorke, tearing in again was met with one ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... miserable, silly charge had that behind it which might open up a grave, make its dead to walk, fright folk from their senses, and destroy their peace for ever. Yet he was cool and thinking clearly. He measured up the Abbe in his mind, analysed him, found the vulnerable spot in his nature, the avenue to the one place lighted by a lamp of humanity. He leaned a hand upon the ledge of the chimney where he stood, and said, in a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... struck the pennon fluttering o'er The chariot, and it waved no more. That glorious flag whose every fold Was rich with blazonry and gold, Fell as the sun himself by all The Gods' decree might earthward fall. From wrathful Khara's hand, whose art Well knew each vulnerable part, Four keenly-piercing arrows flew, And blood in Rama's bosom drew, With every limb distained with gore From deadly shafts which rent and tore, From Khara's clanging bowstring shots, The prince's ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... of the world have been fixed, are prosperous and ably administered. Ebrington in Ireland, Auckland in India, and now Poulett Thomson in Canada, have contributed in their different ways to the favourable expose of the Government, nor is there any point on which they are particularly vulnerable, or any grave reproach to which they have rendered themselves obnoxious. But all this will not avail to make them strong, or render their tenure of office secure and permanent. They are not popular, all parties distrust them, none believe that they have ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... fatal gift of attractiveness at Palhallan—her eyes, usually so keen, being what is vulgarly termed "bunged up," and every vulnerable ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... remember you are vulnerable, as well as we," Carolyn remarked in a sorry imitation of her original cocksureness, as she opened the play by leading the ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... remarkable. Eager in the pursuit of pleasure and of love, he had never yet really loved or really enjoyed whole-heartedly. Tortured by aspirations after an Ideal, and abhorring pain both by nature and education, he was vulnerable on every side, accessible to pain ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... rubbing his hands with delight. "Aha!" thought he; "jealous! actually jealous! absurdly jealous! That is a good sign. Who would have thought so proud a man could be jealous of a sailor? I have found out your vulnerable point, my friend. I'll tell Lucy; how she will laugh. David Dodd! Now we know how to manage him, Lucy and I. If he freezes back again, we have but to send for David Dodd and his fiddle." He bustled home, and up into the drawing-room to tell Lucy Mr. Talboys had at ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... keep thee." Spirituality is to be my true defence. All other ramparts are vulnerable. They are the happy hunting-ground of the ravages of time; they fail in the crisis; they are the sure victims of moth and rust. But spirituality keeps me from childhood to age, and its shields are invincible, even in the hour of death. ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... already loved little Nan, and Nan, as most children did, had taken a fancy to her. Annie stood still, and clasped her hands as the dark idea came to her to steal the heart of little Nan from Hester, and so revenge herself on her. By doing this she would touch Hester in her most vulnerable point—she would take from her what she valued most. The temptation came swiftly, and Annie listened to it, and thought how easy it would be to carry it into effect. She knew well that no little child ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... seaboard itself so short in proportion to the empire's bulk, that, as Davies used to say, every inch of it must be important'. Warships could force these breaches, and so threaten the mainland at one of its few vulnerable points. Quay accommodation is no object to such visitors; intricate navigation no deterrent. Even the heaviest battleships could approach within striking distance of the land, while cruisers and military transports could penetrate to the level of Emden itself. ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... After a while I said, "I'd better get out of here. Get help—to end the menace of the other...." What sort of help I did not know. Was the Other vulnerable? ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... The stream, though deep, was narrow; and plunging in, they swam their horses boldly across, amidst a tempest of stones and arrows that rattled thick as hail on their harness, finding occasionally some crevice or vulnerable point,—although the wounds thus received only goaded them to more desperate efforts. The barbarians fell back as the cavaliers made good their landing; but, without allowing the latter time to form, they returned with a spirit which they ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... against each other. The archduke and the czar opposed the Turk; the Muscovite could not endure that Sweden should be aggrandised by this new crown; and Denmark was still more uneasy. Montluc had discovered how every party had its vulnerable point, by which it could be managed. The cards had now got fairly shuffled, and he depended ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... others like it not an epistemological premise but a deliberate subterfuge, an insidious blind to vindicate his attacks upon an organized priesthood. We can recognize now that his opponents oversimplified his intention, that they blackened it to make his villainy at once definitive and vulnerable. At the same time we must admit that he often equated the ideas of repression and clerical authority, even as he coupled those of freedom and the ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... but for Medea. Talos, like all the invulnerable men of legend, had his one weak point. This her magic art enabled her to discover, and, as Paris had wounded Achilles in the heel, Medea killed this vigilant sentinel by striking him in his vulnerable spot. ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... them in hand. They are in such awe of him; they regard him as something almost more than mortal. If they learn that he is vulnerable—who knows what might happen!" ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... to match his courage, the lordship of the glass house might have changed holders in that fight. Had he fixed his unbreakable grip in the head of his foe, just above the beak, he would have conquered in the end. But as it was, he had now a vulnerable point, and at last the octopus found it. His beak closed upon the exposed half of the turtle's head, and slowly, inexorably, sheared it clean off just behind the eyes. The stump shrank instantly back into the shell; and the shell became again the unresisting plaything of the tentacles, which presently, ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... you could,' said Conyngham with the quickness of his race to spy out his neighbour's vulnerable point. 'For the sake of ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... party to shelter. Though the diver was shielded by the impenetrable fickle element that gave Achilles invulnerability, the air-pump above was exposed, and thus the diver might be slain by indirection. There lay Achilles' heel, the exposed vulnerable part ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... number of my friends entertain the same feelings towards me, I can become a perfect philosopher with respect to all the rest,—whatever it may be, or whatever land it may concern. But if my heart be attacked in its most vulnerable part, if you were to love me less, I should feel, in truth, too miserable. But I need not fear this—need I, my dearest love? I was very ill during the first part of my voyage, and I might have enjoyed the pleasure of an ill-natured person, that of knowing that ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... the Ideal involves so much emotion as to render the Idealist vulnerable by human passion, however long and well guarded, still vulnerable,—liable, at last, to a union with Instinct. Passion obscures both Insight and Forecast. All effort to elevate Instinct to Idealism is abortive, the laws of their being not ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... had grown wolfishly thin in his anger. "Look, bottle-baby," he sneered, "you're the only one that's vulnerable in this set-up. There's not a single thing that Demming and I can be held to account for. You have no beefs coming, for that matter. You're getting everything you ever wanted. You've got the best suite in the best ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... minutes of the period slipped by, nay, crawled by, in which Miss Baylis darting from one victim to another bent upon reaching their vulnerable points. Then it came, ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... of the hostage women and children had been killed or maltreated during their absence. They duly gave up the German axes which had been loaned to them, and carried the wood aboard. Kettle arranged its disposition. He had solid defences built up all round the vulnerable boiler and engines. He had a stout breastwork built all round inside the rail of the lower deck, quite stout enough to absorb a bullet even if fired at point-blank range. And he had another breastwork built on the third deck, above the cabins, so that he turned ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... perceive, in these two conversations, lasting perhaps two hours, this slip of a girl, in mere idle curiosity, had touched with her silly chatter the vital, the vulnerable points of Jerry's philosophy of life. Fate had not been fair to me or with him. Less than a year; remained of Jerry's period of probation. In December the boy was to go out into the world. And through an unfortunate accident due to a broken iron, a chaos of half-baked ideas had come ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... which brought about the division of Charlemagne's Empire show plainly that the creation of a central Power was doomed to failure, this third Power being too vulnerable to resist combined attacks from East and West and being far too heterogeneous to maintain its unity. The treaty of Verdun, in 843, divided the Empire between Charlemagne's three grandsons. Charles received France, Louis Germany, and Lotharius, the youngest, the rich ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... conscience. That white suit, I tell you, is a wonderful moral force; the white suit, put on fresh every morning, heavily starched, buttoned up to the chin, is like an armor, ironcladding you against the germ of decay buzzing about you, ceaselessly vigilant for the little vulnerable spot. Miller wore camisas, and then he began to go without shoes. I saw that myself. I was riding through his pueblo on my way to Dent's, and I passed his school. I looked into the open door as my head bobbed by at the height of the stilt-raised floor. He was in his camisa and ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... the task before her will be greatly simplified. Instead of having to send one portion of her Army by way of Natal to effect a junction in the Transvaal, with the other portion working northwards through Kimberley and Mafeking, a campaign which would involve two long and vulnerable lines of communication, she will be able to strike at once through the heart of the Free State and will advance without much difficulty to Johannesburg and Pretoria. The hardest part of her task will be the passage of the ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... three companies, performing their maiden service on picket between wind and water, found themselves confronted by the two brigades of Scurry and Sibley, Cook's regiment of heavy artillery, and Wilson's light battery, with twenty-eight guns, and two armed steamboats, having their vulnerable parts protected by ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... that the remarkable combat took the form of the grizzly pursuing one of the boys, while the other boy was pursuing the grizzly. The position of Fred, however, thus became unfavorable, for he was unable to aim at any vulnerable portion of the creature. He continued firing into his body, but the bullets produced no perceptible effect ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... ball, my boy. It is a great chance if we could hit a vulnerable part, and I don't like ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... pitiable exhibition of insanity. Corona, on the other hand, maintained a proud indifference, scorning to suppose that anything could possibly injure Giovanni in any way, loving him too entirely to admit that he was vulnerable at all, still less that he could possibly have done anything to give colour to the accusation brought against him. Giovanni alone of all the three foresaw that there would be trouble, and dimly guessed how the thing had been done; for he did not fall into his father's error of despising an enemy, ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... his huge jaws with a sound which made the hills ring and ring again; but he failed to get the faithful Terence within the power of his grinders; at the same time, in vain the Squire sought a vulnerable point into which to thrust his trusty sword. The length of the monster's snout prevented him from reaching his eyes, and, as to getting a fair thrust at his ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... any American city. Therefore, it is suggested that if each state in the union would pass and enforce severe and stringent laws against this importation, this terrible traffic would be dealt a blow in its most vulnerable part. Such an enactment might well be worded ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... rats, who worked unseen, and attacked us where we were most vulnerable, being again observed in numbers about the provision store, the commissary caused the provisions to be moved out of one store into another; for, alas! at this period they could be all contained in one. These pernicious vermin were found to be very numerous, and ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... thought the squire. "If the stone-clad fellow should not possess a vulnerable spot somewhere on his body I shall certainly lose ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... be mentioned," he resumed; and, opening a cupboard, he pointed to a row of batteries, with a number of electric bells upon the wall behind. "The more vulnerable spots are connected at night with these bells," he said triumphantly. "Any attempt to scale the barbed wire or to force either gate would set two or more of these ringing. A stray cow raised one false alarm," he added, "and a careless ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... . I was caught by a cold during my visit to Boston. It has not affected my whole frame, but took entire possession of my head, as being the weakest and most vulnerable part. Never did anybody sneeze with such vehemence and frequency; and my poor brain has been in a thick fog; or, rather, it seemed as if my head were stuffed with coarse wool. . . . Sometimes I wanted to wrench it off, and give it a great kick, like ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Netherlanders were ill prepared. The Dutch Republic was a federation of seven sovereign states, lacking a strong executive and torn by rival factions. Moreover, her geographical position was most vulnerable. Pressed by enemies on her land frontiers, she was compelled to maintain an army of 57,000 men in addition to her navy. As the resources of the country were wholly inadequate to support the population, her very life depended on the sea. For the Holland of the 17th century, as for the England of ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... return as Mr. Rochester. In this case, it is evident that the author of "Vanity Fair," whose own pencil makes him grey-haired, has had the best of it, though his children may have had the worst, having, at all events, succeeded in hitting the vulnerable point in the Becky bosom, which it is our firm belief no man born of woman, from her Soho to her Ostend days, had ever so much as grazed. To this ingenious rumour the coincidence of the second edition of Jane Eyre ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... had to examine a witness whose evidence would be somewhat dangerous unless he was thrown off his guard and "rattled." The witness in question—an influential man, whose vulnerable point was said to be his self-esteem—was ushered into the box, a portly overdressed person, beaming with self-assurance. Looking him over for a few minutes without saying a word Sir James opened fire: "Mr. Tompkins, I believe?"—"Yes."—"You are a stockbroker, I believe, are you not?"—"I ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie |
