"Challenging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this work. It was solely the desire to have his mass of evidence sufficiently complete, solely Darwin's great characteristic of never publishing till he had carefully weighed all aspects of his subject for years, solely, in short, his most fastidious scientific conscience that restrained him from challenging the world in 1859 with a book in which the theory of the descent of man was fully set forth. Three years, frequently interrupted by ill-health, were needed for the actual writing of the book:[80] the first edition, which appeared in 1871, was followed ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... challenging stars of deviltry in Bonita's eyes when they met those of Rutherford over the shoulder of Alviro while she danced, but the color was beating warm through her dark skin. The lift of her round, brown throat to an indifferent tilt of the chin was mere pretense. ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... out from notes, it was printed in full by himself for circulation amongst the members, and it is vigorous, picturesque entertaining, and imaginative, as his work always is. But it delivered him into the hands of his more experienced opponents by virtually challenging the society to discard them and enter on a regenerated career under his guidance. It was a heroic issue to force; and it was perhaps the real one; but it could have only one result. The discussion was adjourned to the 14th, and at 9 o'clock on that evening Bernard Shaw replied ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... sleep Arise, and upward leap, Nor let your hearts grow palsied with dismay! Fling out your banner high, Still challenging the sky, While thousand strong arms ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... and looked Kitty squarely in the eyes, and a new, softer look came into her own, subduing what to Kitty was the challenging ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... she professed to dislike and avoid? That this unpleasantly sharp, pushing product of the less dignified side of the law could have any personal attraction for one of Edith Morriston's taste and discrimination was impossible. And yet there the challenging fact remained that confidential relations had been established between the disparate pair. Was it possible that this man could have found out something connecting Edith Morriston with his brother's death? The feasibility ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... per cent of those who get back to the base hospitals will die," he said with a snap of his jaw, as though challenging me to doubt the statement. "That is the wonder of this war—that so many are killed in the fighting and that so few die who get back out of it alive. These modern scientific bullets, these civilized bullets"—he laughed in self-derision at the use of ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... And suspending himself by the arm from the balcony, he allowed himself to drop amidst the crowd, which began to draw back from a house that rained men. Raoul was on the ground as soon as he, both sword in hand. All the musketeers on the Place heard that challenging cry—all turned round at that cry, and recognized D'Artagnan. "To the captain, to the captain!" cried they, in their turn. And the crowd opened before them as though before the prow of a vessel. At that moment D'Artagnan and Menneville found themselves face ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... amended cousin Josiah, with the preliminary insinuation Amelia knew so well. He was, it had been said, in the habit of inventing lies, and challenging other folks to stick to 'em. But Enoch made no reply. He went soberly ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... significance of it, and his heart began pounding and challenging him to play the lover with this woman who was not a spirit from other worlds but a mere woman with lips a cherry could stain. He trembled at the audacity of his thought; but all his soul was singing, ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... countries, not originally Germanic, but conquered by the Germans, England and German Switzerland, of which the genius and the literature were purely and unmixedly German; and this he laid down as a position which nobody would dream of challenging. ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... I can't remember any one but Alan. You will forgive me, I know. But tell me. It was a terrible thing he did to you. Do you forgive him really?" The girl's deep shadowed eyes searched the young man's face, challenging him to speak the truth ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... rail fence she turned her head again to look. To her horror she saw Frank standing there, waving the scarlet jacket wildly to and fro. He was challenging the oncoming bull to make a run at him, actually endeavoring to attract the animal's attention, so as to give Minnie ample ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... to the delight of hearing Fanny read the oddest book I ever heard—a Chinese novel translated into French; a sort of Chinese Truckleborough Hall; politicians and courtiers, with mixture of love and flowers, and court intrigue, and challenging each other to ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... exhibited their patriotic self-denial by the heroism of refusing to carry any fare to the Castle, the residence of the viceroy. The passion became even more powerful than duelling. A Dr. Andrews, of the Castle party, challenging Lambert, a member, at the door of the Commons, on some election squabble, Lambert said, "I shall go first into the house, and vote against that rascal Neville Jones." Andrews repeating the insult, and, as it seems, not allowing time for this patriotic vote, Lambert went in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... reflections again as Mrs. Oldham's voice purled on reciting with infinite detail all the data of one of her Helen-like conquests. Ydo! What bond could exist between the reserved, even haughty Marcia in spite of all her gentleness, and the capricious, wayward, challenging Ydo? A bond sufficiently strong to permit the affectionate familiarity of first names? He had from the beginning believed that Ydo had some interest in the property, although he had never been able satisfactorily to guess the nature of it. But Marcia! The mere possibility of her being ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... conversations held with Lord Kilmarnock, Mr. Foster perceived that the confessions of the penitent were free and ingenuous; that he examined his own heart with a searching and scrupulous care, sternly challenging memory to the aid of conscience. At last, he declared that he should rather prefer the speedy execution of his sentence to a longer life, if he were sure that he should again be entangled by the snares and temptations of the world. This was a few ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... Smiling a reckless and challenging smile, he returned to the cluster of boys in the wide doorway and began to push one and another of them about. They responded hopefully with counter-pushes, and presently there was a tumultuous surging and eddying in that quarter, ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... all would end without harm to the champions, and that the fall of the curtain would extinguish the war. But, in the trials of the later time, there were moments when we seemed to be throwing our last stake; when the trumpets of Europe, leagued against us, seemed to be less challenging us to the field, than preceding us to the tomb; and when the last hope of the wise and good might be, to give the last manifestation of a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... when Godfrey, Captain Henry, and Major Gascoigne were together, the major actually knelt down to Henry, to prevail upon him to give up a mad design of challenging ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... the table the oil lamp sputtered and burned lower. Out in the stable the horse repeated its former challenging whinny. Once again through the partition the listener caught the choking wail of pain, and the muffled sound of ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... sweet and subtile, wild and sleepy, by turns; oftentimes rising to the clouds, oftentimes challenging the heavens. She wears a diadem round her head. And I knew by childish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds, when she heard that sobbing of litanies, or the thundering of organs, and when she beheld the mustering of summer clouds. This sister, the elder, it is that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... cast a challenging eye around the circle of his audience; but no man spoke. Instead, some men grinned sheepishly and were restless on their feet, while Agno's expression advertised sturdy unbelief that there was ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... made by a "strong angel," the Almighty Monarch's herald to the universe, challenging all creatures to the task of opening the seals. His "loud voice" reverberates throughout illimitable space, that all concerned might hear. The challenge is not, "who is able?" but, "who is worthy?"—Who is "worthy," by personal dignity, or distinguished and ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... suggestion in her accent of East Prussia or Western Russia. Her face was permanently reddened by alcohol. The skin was coarse, almost scaly, and her whole person sagged abominably. She wore no corsets, but her green frock was of an artful shade to match her brassy hair. Her hat was new and jaunty and challenging. ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... not intended to relate in detail the progress and incidents of that ghastly contest—a contest without vicissitudes, its alternations only different degrees of despair. Almost at the instant when Captain Coulter's gun blew its challenging cloud twelve answering clouds rolled upward from among the trees about the plantation house, a deep multiple report roared back like a broken echo, and thenceforth to the end the Federal cannoneers fought their hopeless battle in an atmosphere of ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... embarrassing to him as the only man present, when suddenly Pansy's attention was diverted by another arrival. It was a good-looking young woman, overdressed, striking, and self-conscious, who, with an air of one who was in the habit of challenging attention, affectedly seated herself with a male companion at an empty table, and began to pull off an ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... them: but Pacheco refused accepting the present, and declared he would never make peace with him while he continued at enmity with the rajah of Cochin. Next day, the zamorin sent a second message, proudly challenging him for daring to obstruct his passage into the island of Cochin, and offering him battle, declaring his resolution to make him a prisoner, if he were not slain in the battle. To this Pacheco made answer, that he hoped to do ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... eight miles of this house with a laughing, holiday-making rout of twelve natives, who rode madly along the narrow forest trail at full gallop, up and down the hills, through mire and over stones, leaping over the trunks of prostrate trees, and stooping under branches with loud laughter, challenging me to reckless races over difficult ground, and when they found that the wahine haole was not to be thrown from her horse they patted me approvingly, and crowned me with leis of maile. I became acquainted with some of these at Kilauea in the ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... down my mental keyboard under what to me are the most favorable conditions possible—an evening walk through the streets of a great city. Some men can invite their souls only in sylvan solitudes, but the flare of light, the clash of traffic, the kaleidoscopic procession of humanity, with its challenging contrasts shifting and seething on great metropolitan highways, breed in my mind a sense of calm, cool remoteness in which all the glitter and excitement of the spectacle ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... ridden far when he encountered a party of knights of Arthur's court, and would have avoided them, for he knew their habit of challenging to a just every stranger knight whom they met. But it was too late. They had seen his armor, and recognized him as a Cornish knight, and at once resolved to have some sport with him. It happened they had with them Daguenet, King Arthur's fool, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... diligence he afterwards raised himself to the highest eminence. Newton, when at school, stood at the bottom of the lowest form but one. The boy above Newton having kicked him, the dunce showed his pluck by challenging him to a fight, and beat him. Then he set to work with a will, and determined also to vanquish his antagonist as a scholar, which he did, rising to the top of his class. Many of our greatest divines have ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... his hand, and must follow him like a cur. The distance he kept assured me that the similitude had not escaped him. He strode on without deigning a single glance behind, still in cold derision presenting me his broad back and silently challenging me to shoot. And I followed, hating him worse than ever, swearing that the last five minutes should not be forgotten, but charged for royally when the reckoning ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Harry's name for the bull, and when George got mixed up in the herd, the strange bull made his charge and emitted the challenging bellow, the scene was a truly terrific one. George was carried along with the rush, and his only danger now was to escape ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... a moment challenging the necessity of vivisection, though distinguished surgeons have themselves challenged it; I merely contend that science is apt to be cold-hearted, and does not seem always to take into consideration the tortures she inflicts in her search ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Brutus had the right to execute his sons, who conspired for the Tarquins, without any public trial. He preferred the latter. Titus Manlius caused his son to be publicly beheaded for disobeying a military order in challenging an enemy to single combat, slaying him, and bringing back the spoils. He might have cut off his head in private, so far as the law was concerned, for any reason ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... very animated conversation, some of them challenging the proposal of the Emperor to accept the British suggestions, with an outspokenness which would have astonished the outside world, with its notions of Teutonic autocracy. Count Metternich did not like what I suggested, that there should be a conference in Berlin on the subject of the ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... he gave a kind of grim chuckle of derision. "My dear Durward, what do you suppose I'm after?... rape and adultery and Markovitch after us with a pistol? I tell you—" and here he spoke fiercely, as though he were challenging the whole ice-bound world around us—"that I want nothing but her happiness, her safety, her comfort! Do you suppose that I'm such an ass as not to recognise the kind of thing that my loving her would lead to? I tell you I'm after ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... broad, dark eyebrows grew straight and low over brilliant grey eyes, and were nearly reached by thick upward curled black eyelashes. If her mouth was large, it was well-shaped, and if her nose did not possess the classic severity of her brother's, its challenging tilt was not unattractive. To these charms must be added shining masses of dark hair, and a complexion of so vivid a tone, that it seemed sometimes as though a fog of carmine coloured the very atmosphere about her glowing face. She radiated vitality, the richness and abundance of high summer; she ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... red bell-tower and the pump creaked in the cobbled courtyard and the bees hummed in the garden? Bees, cold water shining deep in the well, and the samovar chuckling behind the flower-beds, and fifteen versts away the Austrians challenging the Russian nation!... "You know," Andrey Vassilievitch said to me, "it's ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... rubbed the leather roughly over his face, leaving patches of dirt and grease on the skin. Then he turned and looked Wolf straight in the eyes. "Do you see that, fellow?" the triumphant challenging look seemed to say: "Your comrade must abase himself to the level of the beasts, if we so will ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... point of view with very picturesque abruptness after verse 23. The vaunting king shall tell what he saw, and thereby convict himself of insolent folly in challenging 'any god' to deliver out of his hand. He alone seems to have seen the sight, which he tells to his courtiers. The bonds were gone, and the men walking free in the fire, as if it had been their element. Three went in bound, four walk there at large; and the fourth is 'like a son of the gods,' by ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... debates in her mind his death or hers, finally deciding, however, to become a nun. Her interview with Mordred ends in his resolving to resist Arthur's landing. Unsuccessful in this attempt, and defeated in battle, he spurns all thought of submission, challenging his father to a second conflict, in Cornwall. Arthur, feeling that his sins have found him out, would gladly make peace; but, stung by Mordred's defiance, he follows him into Cornwall. There both armies ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... most ludicrous of all is it to hear old anti-slavery leaders and teachers referring to the past for defense of their present hostility, and challenging us to re-read that history and be ashamed of our present course. But when in the past did Wendell Phillips ever teach that a half loaf is better than no bread, if poisoned, or if it were snatched or stolen from a family of starving orphans? It was not in 1839, nor '49, nor '59, that he ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... variety of aliases to-day, and therein lies an additional danger; for whatever its assumed name or disguise, its essence is always the same, and its very speciousness calls for all our vigilance and {52} determination to fight it. We must not weary of challenging its root-assumption, or of exposing its insidious tendencies; we must not weary of reiterating the truth that God is not identical with the universe, but to be worshipped as the One who is over all; we must insist that His nearness to us and our likeness to Him are not identity ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... martial challenging John the Baptist is the great picture of the next room, No. XIX. Here also are good but not transcendent portraits by Titian, Tintoretto, and Lotto, and the Battle of Lepanto, with heavenly interference, ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... searching for some place of weakness in the barbed barrier that imprisoned them. And one, who, had he not been by circumstance robbed of his birthright, would have been the strong leader of a wild band, stood often with wide nostrils and challenging eye, gazing toward the corrals and buildings as if questioning the right of those who had brought him there from the haunts ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... schoolhouse had a challenging note. It seemed to call to the distant hills, and the echo came back in answer. It was the voice of civilization. "I am here that you may learn of other hills and of other valleys, of men who have dreamed and ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... good portrait of Throstlewing," he remarked explosively, turning his large challenging eyes on Treddleford; "somehow it reminds me very much of Yellowstep, who was supposed to be such a good thing for the Grand Prix in 1903. Curious race that was; I suppose I've seen every race for the ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... lance always bore down her foe. After one of these fights she fell in with the Lady Flordelice, who was herself riding to Arles in the hope of gaining news of her husband, now a prisoner in the hands of the Moors. By her Bradamante sent a message challenging Roger to come forth to meet her ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... knows but how to sort and mix and match, that one be not in discord with another. Could he that had found you such have the heart to abuse these benefactors to whom his little fame was due? then he must be a Thamyris or Eurytus, defying the Muses who gave his gift of song, or challenging Apollo with the bow, forgetful from whom ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... I don't suppose there's a place on the coast that compares with it in interest; I mean variety of effects and natural beauty. If the writers wouldn't exaggerate so, talk about 'the sublimity of the mountains challenging the eternal grandeur ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... when they beard this, thinking it idle lip-courage. Instantly the ground for the battle was agreed on, and a fixed time appointed. But the bystanders were so amazed by the strangeness of Uffe's speaking and challenging, that one can scarce say if they were more astonished at his ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... discovered," she went on with bantering, half challenging frankness, "that I love luxury, too. I never knew how deeply and passionately before—" she paused a moment, looking toward Sea-Gate. "Isn't that the anchorage of the Atlantic ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... home in bewilderment. As he crossed Broadway he loitered insolently, as though challenging the flying squadron of taxicabs to run him down. "What do I care if they hit me?" he inquired, savagely, of his sympathetic and applauding self. Every word she had said he examined, finding double and triple meanings, warning himself not to ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... mineralogy and metallurgy, pushing ahead into new fields of research and discovery, studying by night and experimenting by day. Meanwhile, the rocky peaks around him seemed beckoning him with their talismanic signs, as though silently challenging him to learn the mighty secrets for ages hidden within their breasts, and he promised himself that with the return of lengthening days, he would start forth, a humble learner, to sit at the feet of those great teachers of the centuries. He had occasional letters ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... articulo mortis. These pieces were reprinted throughout the literary and philosophical world, in nearly all languages, everywhere causing sharp and curious speculation, and where readers could be persuaded that they were fables, challenging a reluctant ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... satisfaction to any man who questioned him, either in the House or out of it. Loud cries of order immediately arose on every side. In the midst of the uproar, Lord Molesworth got up, and expressed his wonder at the boldness of Mr. Craggs in challenging the whole House of Commons. He, Lord Molesworth, though somewhat old, past sixty, would answer Mr. Craggs whatever he had to say in the House, and he trusted there were plenty of young men beside him, who would not be afraid to look Mr. Craggs ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... friend to whom I submitted the proposition that it did harm rather than good to encourage a child of this kind to attempt the impossible answered, "Nothing is impossible," and he said it as if he more than half believed it. Here we have the ambitious maxim challenging truth itself. It is certainly not impossible that Mozart wrote a difficult concerto at the age of five; nor is it impossible that, in precocious children of a different type, worry from failure to accomplish the desired may cause profound despair ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... as the only religion. That is my guardian's religion. It is the religion, she says, of all free souls. And my father thought so, too." It was again the assurance of a wisdom, not her own, yet possessed by her, a wisdom that she did not dream of anybody challenging. Was it not Tante's? ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... just been rowed, and the Utah and Florida crews had tied. As the Utah was sailing immediately after the race, there was no time in which to row off the tie. So it was decided that the names of both ships should be engraved on the cup, and that the Florida crew should defend the title against a challenging crew from the ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... over it. Thirty years later, in a suit to recover taxes paid to the State, the Supreme Court called the retrocession "a violation of the Constitution" but held that since Congress had recognized the transfer as a settled fact, a resident of the county was estopped from challenging it.[1343] ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... of nods; whenever Alderman Dunstable praised or blamed she nodded twice or thrice, according to the requirements of his emphasis. And she seemed always to keep one eye on Ann Veronica's dress. Mrs. Goopes disconcerted the Alderman a little by abruptly challenging the roguish-looking young man in the orange tie (who, it seemed, was the assistant editor of New Ideas) upon a critique of Nietzsche and Tolstoy that had appeared in his paper, in which doubts had been cast upon the perfect sincerity of the latter. Everybody seemed greatly concerned ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... fell heavily, and when they were spoken, there was a silence in the library. Major Edward broke it. "You are determined, and I waste no breath in challenging the inevitable. So be it! The child will come home ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... the paper records news of vitality, of heroism, of martyrdom, of stinging injustice in connection with everyday life,—if the doings within the movement are vital and challenging ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the - Woman's Movement • Agnes E. Ryan
... prescience, and the agitation accompanying it, she looked up quickly to find Carteret watching her; whereupon, mutely, instinctively, her eyes besought him to ask no questions, make no comment. For an appreciable space he kept her in suspense, his glance holding and challenging hers in close observation. Then as though, not without a measure of struggle, granting her request, he smiled at her, and, turning his attention to the contents of his plate, quietly went on with the business of luncheon. Damaris meanwhile, conscience-stricken—she ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... warblings, those plaintive challenging tones, those enchanting trills, which no one has ever written down, he could imitate so faithfully, so naturally, that he ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Miss Quentin for allowing me such unique opportunities of playing knight errant," replied Max, smiling. "Such chances are rare in this twentieth century of ours, and Miss Quentin always kindly arranges so that I run no serious risks—to life and limb, at least," he added, his mocking eyes challenging Diana's. ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... and harder, and when I had nearly made the rounds, I had had enough of it, and, simply giving the countersign to the challenging sentinel, undertook to pass ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... and its estuary, the Dornoch Firth; and the second part of the name still happens to survive in the place-name of Backies in Dunrobin Glen and elsewhere in Cat where the Norse settled. About the year 890,[8] after challenging Malbrigde of the Buck-tooth to a fight with forty a side, to which he himself perfidiously brought eighty men, Sigurd outflanked and defeated his adversary, and cut off his head and suspended it from ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... the claimants, the infinite perspective opens out. The scale of the symphony is incalculably prolonged. The more imperative ideals now begin to speak with an altogether new objectivity and significance, and to utter the penetrating, shattering, {213} tragically challenging note of appeal. They ring out like the call of Victor Hugo's alpine eagle, "qui parle au precipice et que le gouffre entend," and the strenuous mood awakens at the sound. It saith among the trumpets, ha, ha! it smelleth ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... to Henry VI. The occasion was celebrated by festivals, of which a tournament was the principal feature, and here the Burgundian squire, piqued at some disparaging remarks of the French knights, rode into the lists and declared his purpose to hold them against all comers, challenging the best knight there to unhorse him ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... the more practical, for I do not bring you this talk, challenging your criticism or inviting your praise of it as a literary production, but with the purpose of helping some one live as I would wish to live if I had my life to ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... and stand for a moment after they had disappeared, gazing up at the moon and fumbling in the pockets of his coat. He drew out a cigar-case and leisurely selected a cigar, and with much apparent content lighted it, and then, with his head, thrown back and his chest expanded, as though he were challenging the world, he strolled across the street and disappeared among the shadows ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... Wordsworth, no discriminating praise from any modern critic had stirred the ashes of her name. I made it my business to insist in many places on the talent of Ardelia. I gave her, for the first time, a chance of challenging public taste, by presenting to readers of Mr. Ward's English Poets many pages of extracts from her writings; and I hope it is not indiscreet to say that, when the third volume of that compilation appeared, Mr. Matthew Arnold told me that its greatest revelation to himself had been ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... once far-seeing and resolute, capable of great resolves and prompt action. Of such a Government there is, however, no immediate prospect. The present Cabinet has given its testimonials: a challenge sent to the Boers by a Government that did not know it was challenging anyone, that did not know the adversary's strength, nor his determination to fight; and a war begun in military ignorance displayed by the Cabinet, and carried on by half measures until the popular determination compelled three-quarter measures. ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson
... a quick challenging glance at her admittedly aristocratic sister-in-law, but Alexina had lifted the lower white of her eyes just above their soft black fringe and looked more innocent than any new born lamb. As she ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... alone, the solid phalanx of the Liberals, replying to their ebullitions of pride and confidence in their own strain, and answering on the spot and with brilliant presence of mind their sarcastic and malicious attacks, yes even challenging them with witty impromptus, and hurting his opponents to the core? Yes, he is the same man, and occasionally he can be as witty and bitter as he used to be. But since his great victories he has shown the more serious demeanor of a statesman. He is calmly objective and conciliatory, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... And flashes of flame, that play round his crest, Bespeak the fierce lightning that glows in his breast. But a vision of wonder breaks now on his sight; The blue vault of heaven is gushing with light, And, facing the tyrant, a form from the sky Returns the fierce glance of his challenging eye. A moment they pause,—two princes of might,— The Demon of Darkness,—an Angel of Light! Each gazes on each,—no barrier between— And the quivering rocks shrink aghast from the scene! The sword of the angel waves free in the air; Death looks to his quiver,—no ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... had given no public proof at all of their truth. Such a man was not likely to be unwilling that his verses should be seen: and in particular such poems as the epitaph on Lady Winchester, whose death aroused much public interest, or the Ode on the Nativity, plainly challenging the greatest of his predecessors by its high theme and noble art, are almost sure to have got about ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... this have I got by heart; it is connected with a battle on the plain of Rigo, which Hunyadi lost:—"The next day, which was Friday, as the two armies were drawn up in battle array, a Magyar hero riding forth, galloped up and down, challenging the Turks to single combat. Then came out to meet him the son of a renowned bashaw of Asia; rushing upon each other, both broke their lances, but the Magyar hero and his horse rolled over upon the ground, for the Turks had always the ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... eagerly Rose, challenging to strife of hands and feet The mightiest hero there; but marvelling They marked his mighty thews, and no man dared Confront him. Chilling dread had palsied all Their courage: from their hearts they feared him, lest His hands invincible ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... hear and see not strips of cloth alone, I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry, I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty! I hear the drums beat and the trumpets blowing, I myself move abroad swift-rising flying then, I use the wings of the land-bird and use the wings of the sea-bird, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... Saxham doggedly, "compared with what I had lost. And as it is the privilege of the Christian to blame either the Almighty or the devil for whatever ills are brought on him by his own blind, reckless challenging of the Inevitable—termed Fate and Destiny by classical Paganism,—so I found myself at odds with One I had been taught to call ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... is made for challenging the qualifications of the applicant or entering upon any trial or investigation of his qualifications, either by witnesses or any ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... honours of the evening went to Lola read in the next issue of the Californian that "the applause was all sham, the paid enthusiasm of a hired house." This was more than flesh and blood could stand. At any rate, it was more than Lola could stand; and she sent the editor a fierce letter, challenging him to a duel. "I must request," was its last passage, "that this affair of honour be arranged by your seconds as soon as possible, as my time is quite as valuable as your own: MARIE DE LANDSFELD-HULL ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... undue contempt for the British soldier, a contingent, newly arrived from the Waikato, occupied a dilapidated pa at Mahoe-tahi on the road from New Plymouth to Waitara. Their chief, Tai Porutu, sent a laconic letter challenging the troops to come and fight. "Make haste; don't prolong it! Make haste!" ran the epistle. Promptly he was taken at his word. Two columns marched on Mahoe-tahi from New Plymouth and Waitara respectively. Though the ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... not for a moment seek to conceal that I know this Institution has been objected to. As an open fact challenging the freest discussion and inquiry, and seeking no sort of shelter or favour but what it can win, it has nothing, I apprehend, but itself, to urge against objection. No institution conceived in perfect honesty and good faith has a right to object to being questioned to any extent, and any institution ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... a ban-dog as himself. His cry from a window, of 'How now, Tearum, what's the matter, sir? down, d—n ye, down!' produced no abatement of Tearum's vociferation, which in part prevented his master from hearing the sounds of alarm which his ferocious vigilance was in the act of challenging. But the mate of the two-legged Cerberus was gifted with sharper ears than her husband. She also was now at the window. 'B—t ye, gae down and let loose the dog,' she said; 'they're sporting the door of the custom-house, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... man under the standard of Sir Walter Manny, remarked a French gentleman, called Eustace de Ribaumont, who exerted himself with singular vigor and bravery; and he was seized with a desire of trying a single combat with him. He stepped forth from his troop and challenging Ribaumont by name, (for he was known to him,) began a sharp and dangerous encounter. He was twice beaten to the ground by the valor of the Frenchman: he twice recovered himself: blows were redoubled with equal force on both sides: the victory was long undecided; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... Paolo Uccello, the varied works of Fabriano, Antonello da Messina, the Lippi, Botticelli, Ghirlandajo, the Bellini, and their contemporaries, culminated in the inimitable painting of the Cinquecento—in works still unsurpassed, ever challenging artists of later centuries to the task of ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... foot of the hill he halted and from his throat issued a challenging roar that made the very crags surrounding the moor tremble. The rocks flung back the ...
— Hellhounds of the Cosmos • Clifford Donald Simak
... insecure enough, anyway, but they felt it ought to be left in readiness for a flight that might have no second to waste. Now, with eyes sharply challenging the shadows, they stole along ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Everybody in the vicinity was weeping or sternly frowning. In the pauses of the first verse could be heard the rattle of horses' bits, or a whistle of a tug on the river. The refrain, signalled by a proud challenging toss of Gueymard's head, leapt up like a tropical tempest, formidable, overpowering. Sophia, who had had no warning of the emotion gathering within her, sobbed violently. At the close of the hymn Gueymard's carriage was assaulted by worshippers. All ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... fool, what a burden I am like to prove!" she said, readjusting the cap, and, ere he could answer, had passed on, as if challenging him to a test ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... was improved: she wore a fresh and extremely becoming morning dress, which set off her fine figure to advantage; and before Malcolm had tasted his coffee or looked at his letters she was challenging him gaily to a ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... plaintiff's ground of action by denying the allegations of the plaintiff and challenging him to trial. This plea is called the general issue. He may admit the plaintiff's allegations but plead other facts "to avoid their effect." This is called the plea of confession and avoidance. These pleas are on the merits of the case, and are called pleas in bar. There are other ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... at the Caudine forks by the Samnite foe, did Lucius Papirius Cursor take the yoke from the Roman neck and place it upon the proud Samnites, by traversing the heights of Samnium? or was it by pressing and besieging Luceria, and challenging the victorious enemy? A short time ago, what was it that gave victory to Caius Lutatius but expedition? for on the day after he caught sight of the enemy he surprised and overpowered the fleet, loaded with provisions, and encumbered of itself by its own implements ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... off a good resolution; besides, you offend Heaven much less in challenging your adversary immediately after the offence than in doing it when you have had time to reflect. In a moment of irritation, which is but a venial offence, you agree to fight; and if you afterwards fulfil your agreement, it is only to avoid committing a far greater sin, that of breaking your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... live jest about the same's ever," said Grant as they began eating, speaking with a grim, almost challenging inflection. ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... it was all like a dream. I woke to discover a paper on the desk before me; a paper bristling with questions, each of them challenging me to get into the school if I could. Then I remember dashing my pen into the ink and ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... thoughts, like eagles, fly through space. Behind my back, under the protection of my authority, under the shadow of the laws I have created, men live and labour and rejoice. Do you hear this divine harmony of life? Do you hear the war cry that men hurl into the face of the future, challenging it to strife?" ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... in an old stove, and where a table was placed conveniently. Ma Drury was about, sniffling with her cold, but cooking and serving her guests sourly, slamming down the enamelled ware in front of them and challenging them with a look to find fault anywhere. She reported that in some mysterious way, for which God be thanked, there were no dead men in her house this morning. Bert Stone was alive and showed signs of continuing to live, a thing to marvel at. And the man whom Buck Thornton had winged, beyond displaying ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory |
