"Spartan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a bed, as formerly, but he wanted feathers and yielding mattresses, and goblets heavier than his sword, for he was now ashamed to drink out of earthenware; and he required marble houses, though it is recorded in ancient histories that a Spartan soldier was severely punished for venturing to appear under a roof at ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... principle of the State, the heroes of the French Revolution rather perceived in social defects the source of political abuses. Thus Robespierre saw in great poverty and great riches only an obstacle to pure democracy. Consequently, he desired to establish a general Spartan frugality. ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... spirits of Leonidas and his men, and his wife, Gorgo, was not a woman to be faint-hearted or hold him back. Long before, when she was a very little girl, a word of hers had saved her father from listening to a traitorous message from the King of Persia; and every Spartan lady was bred up to be able to say to those she best loved that they must come home from battle "with the shield or on it"—either carrying it victoriously or borne ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of that week, and through New Year's Day, Lloyd managed to keep her resolution bravely. Even when the time came for the girls to go back to school without her, she went through the farewells like a little Spartan, driving down to the station with tearful Betty, who grieved over Lloyd's disappointment as if it had ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... tears; she asked no mercy, for she was aware that, whatever might be her fate, she was alike prejudged and pre-condemned; but she resigned herself passively into the hands of her persecutors, with a Spartan firmness which she maintained to the last hour of ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Spartan courage fled? And why, proud Athens! above thine head Is the Mussulman crescent gleaming? Have thine ancient memories no avail? And art thou not fired at the legend tale Which reminds thee how the whole world grew pale, And recoiled from thy ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... and of close-impending disgrace was the wolf which this Spartan stockbroker concealed beneath his waistcoat day after day, while the dull common, joyless course of his existence went on; and his shallow wife smiled at him from the opposite side of his hearth, more interested in a new stitch for her crotchet or berlin-wool work ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... as excellent mathematician and conavigator with Captain Cook, William Wales. All his systems were adapted to fit them for the rough element which they were destined to encounter. Frequent and severe punishments which were expected to be borne with more than Spartan fortitude, came to be considered less as inflictions of disgrace than as trials of obstinate endurance. To make his boys hardy, and to give them early sailor-habits, seemed to be his only aim; to this everything was subordinate. Moral ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... it, 'cuteness, of their equivocating replies. Sometimes (the garcon[53]) the little boy of the family is despatched by his mother to the landlord's neighbouring bog or turf rick, to bring home, in their phraseology, in ours to steal, a few turf; if, upon this expedition, the little Spartan be detected, he is tolerably certain of being whipped by his mother, or some of his friends, upon his return home. "Ah, ye little brat! and what made ye tell the gentleman when he met ye, ye rogue, that ye were going to the rick? And what business ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... citizens the eldest who are passing from the ranks of the "Horsemen," in each year five; and these are bound during that year in which they pass out from the "Horsemen," to allow themselves to be sent without ceasing to various places by the Spartan State. ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... an answer to this. They will argue it is well that life should be Spartan and hard, because of the discipline and its strengthening effects on the character. But the good effects of this sort of discipline will be mixed with sad wreckage. And only creatures incapable of disciplining themselves could thus ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... person's house, but insisted on elegant austerity in his own home, whereas Doria loved elegant austerity everywhere. So they had a pure Jacobean entrance hall, a Louis XV drawing-room, an Empire bedroom, and as far as I could judge by the barrenness of the apartment, a Spartan study for Adrian. ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... with an amount of stoicism that would have done credit to a Spartan father. There was no fuss, no scene. On the contrary, an atmosphere ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... midmost waves fume to the sky; And ancient Peneus smokes: Ismenos swift; Caicus, Teuthrantean; and the flood Of Phocis, Erymanthus: Xanthus too, Doom'd to be fir'd again: Lycormas brown; Maeander's sportive oft recircling waves; Mygdonian Melas; and the Spartan flood, Eurotas; with Euphrates burn: and burn, Orontes; and the rapid Thermodoon; Ganges; and Phasis; and the Ister swift. Alpheus boils; the banks of Spercheus burn; And Tagus' golden sands the flames dissolve. Stream-loving swans, whose song melodious ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... had lacked penetration to divine. But the error serves the purpose of my argument; for I am sure, at least, that the heart of young Scotland will be always touched more nearly by paucity of number and Spartan poverty ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... first coat, and thou wilt have little reason to be proud of dress or the adorning of thy body. Seek rather the enduring ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, the beauty and the purity of the altar of God's temple, rather than the decoration of its outward walls. For, as the Spartan monarch said of old to his daughter, when he restrained her from wearing the rich dresses of Sicily, 'Thou wilt seem more lovely to me without them,' so shalt thou seem, in thy lowliness and humility, more lovely in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... was widely played and was printed in the Drama League series of plays (1906). His other best-known work here is the present play, and The Price of Coal (1909), a picturing of the hard life of miners' wives and their Spartan firmness in expectation of fatal accidents. He has produced and published a number of other plays, among them those listed in the bibliography. Mr. Brighouse represents in this volume the work of the English Repertory ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... the property of the twelve gentlemen, whom the decree of the Spanish tribunal had convicted of rebellion, afford interesting proofs of the Spartan simplicity which existed in the colony. Thus the furniture of the bed-room of Madam Villere, who was the wife of one of the most distinguished citizens of Louisiana, and the grand-daughter of De Lachaise, who came to ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... generation like ours, in which senseless luxury, the result of wealth which has increased faster than the power of rightly using it, has attained such enormous proportions, and is threatening, in commercial communities especially, to drown all noble aspirations, and Spartan simplicity, and Christian self-devotion, in its muddy flood. Surely never was Gideon's test more wanted for the army of the Lord of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... As to the Spartan women, Aristotle says that they ruled their husbands and owned two-fifths of the land. Surely, had they not approved of infanticide for some very strong reasons of their own, they ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... enough to appease his hunger and reach Grove Lane by the suitable hour. He went out to the little coffee-shop which was his resort in Spartan moods, ate with considerable appetite, and walked over Westminster Bridge to the Camberwell tram. To kill time on the journey he bought ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... end when Carthage and Macedon were overthrown. National danger and the necessity for national effort being removed, self-devotion failed, egotism broke loose, and began to revel in the pillage and oppression of a conquered world. The Roman character was corrupted, as the Spartan character was corrupted when Sparta, from being a camp in the midst of hostile Helots, became a dominant power and sent out governors to subject states; though the corruption in the case of Sparta was far more rapid, because Spartan excellence was more exclusively military, more ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... indeed, in much resembled that of the Spartan in Greece. He had forced a settlement with scanty numbers in the midst of a subjugated and sullen population, surrounded by jealous and formidable foes. Hence sobriety was a condition of his being, and the policy of the chief lent a willing ear to the lessons ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stage in which Beth at length began to meditate on Spartan remedies. The situation was not to be endured. No word had come from Searle. The world might have swallowed him up. She was sick of him—sick of his ways of neglect. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... fair Oenone, Weeping ever, weeping low, On the holy mount of Ida, Where the pine and cypress grow. In the self-same hour Cassandra Shrieked her prophecy of woe, And into the Spartan dwelling Did ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... in church service—these auxiliaries influence them so strongly in their sense of the beautiful that they think, "Surely I love God. Why, of course I love God." But to love God involves something practical. It means something more than mere profession. It means rugged self-denial, Spartan heroism, perhaps the loss of an "arm" or the "plucking out of an eye." Base must have been the soul which was not attracted by One who "spake as never man spake"; low-minded the man who did not see in Him imperishable beauty and refinement of soul; but ah! discipleship means far more than that. ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... it's going to play hob with my book.—No time like the present. I'll go back with you to-day, Morty, and put my things together.—It 's been the best time of my life!" he sighed, already beginning to dramatize himself as the self-denying Spartan. ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... humor. In the Mil. (411 ff.) Philocomasium needs only to change clothing to appear in the role of her own hypothetical twin sister, and in 874 ff. and 1216 ff. the meretrix plays matrona. Sagaristio and the daughter of the leno impersonate Persians (Per. 549 ff.), Collabiscus becomes a Spartan (Poen. 578 ff.), Simia as Harpax gets Ballio's money (Ps. 905 ff.), the sycophant is garbed as messenger (Trin. 843 ff.), Phronesium elaborately pretends to be a mother (Truc. 499 ff.). A swindle is almost invariably the object in ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... adopted what they considered to be the best teaching of each sect. The Eclectics were very similar to, if not identical with, the Episynthetics, founded by a pupil of Athenaeus, by name, Agathinus. He was a Spartan by birth. He is frequently quoted by Galen, but none ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... mother who kept no record of her daily effort to lead her children in the path of righteousness and noble service: "Mrs. Adams's influence on her children was strong, inspiring, vital. Something of the Spartan mother's spirit breathed in her. She taught her sons and daughter to be brave and patient, in spite of danger and privation. She made them feel no terror at the thought of death or hardships suffered for one's country. She read and talked to them of the ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... eighth. He has evidently a sympathy with the soldier, as well as with the poet, and he is no mean master of the art, or at least of the theory, of war (compare Laws; Republic), though inclining rather to the Spartan than to the Athenian practice of it (Laws). Of a supreme or master science which was to be the 'coping-stone' of the rest, few traces appear in the Laws. He seems to have lost faith in it, or perhaps to have realized that the time ...
— Laws • Plato
... inconvenience, the idea of forsaking their homes and husbands was too ridiculous. The notion of living in tents on potted beef and adamantine biscuits was shuddered at. The whole project was voted a wild-cat scheme (and Mr. Rhodes agreed). After the spartan bravery they had displayed for two months, the ladies regarded this new and wanton strain on their loyalty as inhuman. Their protest was loud and dignified; and when the women are concerned in a public protest the men are—oh, so mere! And the men in khaki were ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... showing in this tone, "is the house of the Akitcita, our soldiers and policemen, the men between twenty and forty, the warriors of the first rank, who live here in common, and into whose house women and children may not enter. I have read in the books at your schools how the Spartan young men lived together as soldiers in a common house, eating rough food and doing the severest duty, and the whole world has long applauded. The Sioux, who never heard of the Spartans, have been doing the same far back into the shadowy time. We, too, are ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... who was styled the son of Neptune, founded the city 656 years before the Christian aera. His followers were drawn from Argos and Megara. Byzantium was afterwards rebuild and fortified by the Spartan general Pausanias. See Scaliger Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 81. Ducange, Constantinopolis, l. i part i. cap 15, 16. With regard to the wars of the Byzantines against Philip, the Gauls, and the kings ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Notwithstanding all the Spartan rigor and severity to which he was subjected in his youth, for the purpose of dispelling exaggerated pride of birth and station, he feels assured that the rights and privileges which he enjoys above his fellow-men are of Divine ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... "I believe you could! You are an angel, a Spartan, and a sport. Your nature is simply an extravagant profusion of the highest human attributes. And the worst of it is, you look it. You are too beautiful—in a superior, overtopping way. ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... bone. When I did not notice him he would plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that bud of a tail, and looking up, with his head a little to the one side. His master I occasionally saw; he used to call me "Maister John," but was laconic as any Spartan. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... see the various articles of furniture ticketed with their prices. A luxurious bed, with satin hangings and Indian carved posts, standing ostentatiously in a corner, kept up this resemblance, for in a curtained recess stood a worn camp bedstead, Rushbrook's real couch, Spartan in ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... successfully launched to notice the change; but it was noticed by others, and especially by Howard. Often he watched Stafford moving moodily about his father's crowded rooms, with the impassive face which men wear when they have some secret trouble or anxiety which they conceal as the Spartan boy concealed the fox which was gnawing at his vitals; or Howard came upon him in the corner of a half-darkened smoking-room, with an expired cigar in his lips, and his eyes fixed on a ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... pursue the same path with Metastasio, he naturally fell into the opposite extreme: I might not unaptly call him a Metastasio reversed. If the muse of the latter he a love-sick nymph, Alfieri's muse is an Amazon. He gave her a Spartan education; he aimed at being the Cato of the theatre; but he forgot that, though the tragic poet may himself he a stoic, tragic poetry itself, if it would move and agitate us, must never be stoical. His language is so barren of imagery, that his characters seem altogether devoid ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... I faint; and my limbs fail me.—O daughter, touch thy mother, stretch forth thy hand—give it me—leave me not childless—I am lost, my friends. Would that I might see the Spartan Helen, the sister of the twin sons of Jove, thus, for through her bright eyes that most vile woman destroyed the ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... hundred years. I will not weary you with futile minor divisions of time; here are three coins (Plate VII.) roughly, but decisively, characteristic of the three ages. The first is an early coin of Tarentum. The city was founded as you know, by the Spartan Phalanthus, late in the eighth century. I believe the head is meant for that of Apollo Archegetes, it may however be Taras, the son of Poseidon; it is no matter to us at present whom it is meant for, but the fact that we cannot know, is itself of the greatest ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... if my life were the sacrifice to it, my friends might think they did a popular act in putting my family at least beyond the reach of necessity, which I myself began to despair of doing. And though I disclaim all pretense to that Spartan or Roman patriotism which loved the public so well that it was always ready to become a voluntary sacrifice to the public good, I do solemnly declare I have that love ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... I think, rather hard on men to be sent straight from the comfort and warmth of a hospital or convalescent camp to a place as Spartan as this. Instead of having a bed to sleep on, the unfortunate "detail" found himself condemned to the floor boards of a bell tent, with a very meagre allowance of well-worn blankets. In cold weather ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... curtain over the scene of the Spartan mother—we hope you belong to that nearly extinct class—which is to follow. Let us suppose all differences settled, the habit ostensibly given up, and your darling, grown more honest or more artful,—the result is the same to your blissful ignorance,—studiously ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... the old gray buccaneer, lighting a Spartan cigar. "We're penned up; whoever has us cornered may now come round and knock us on the head ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Spartan simplicity. Eunice, however, carried her point in regard to the salad; for Abel, after tasting and finding it very palatable, decided that oil and vinegar might be classed in the catalogue of True Food. Indeed, his long abstinence from ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... excess, since the training of the children of that sex, hardly yielded to that of the male in laboriousness and fatigue. Be this confessed to be an extreme: but then it was in some measure compensated by its being universally allowed, that the Spartan women owed to it that beauty in which they excelled the rest of the Grecian women, who were themselves held, in that point, preferable to the rest of the world. Hellen was a Spartan. Yet the legislator of that people, did not so much as consider this advantage ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... mail of Masistius, who commanded the cavalry at Plataea, and a scimitar said to have belonged to Mardonius. Masistius we know was killed by the Athenian cavalry; but as Mardonius fought against the Lacedaemonians and was killed by a Spartan, they could not have got it at first hand; nor is it likely that the Lacedaemonians would have allowed the Athenians to carry off such a trophy. And about the olive they have nothing else to tell but that the goddess used it as ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... blest! My griefs are fled! Fled like a dream! Methinks I tread in air!— Surprising happiness! unlook'd for joy! Never let love despair! The prize is mine!— Be smooth, ye seas! and, ye propitious winds, Blow from Epirus to the Spartan coast! ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... further way to check expenditure. Athalie had dismissed their servant as soon as she had lost her position at Wahlbaum and Grossman's. Table expenses were reduced to Spartan limits, much to the disgust of them all. No clothes were bought, no luxuries, no trifles. They did their own marketing, their own cooking, their own housework and laundry. And had it not been that the apartment entailed no outlay for light, heat, and rent, they ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... prospect but that the citizens would have to defend themselves as best they could. Benjamin Clifford took command of the volunteers, and Captain William Anderson organized a small body of sharpshooters called the Spartan Band. As cannon were badly needed, the brethren got two hollow steamboat shafts, cut them in two, plugged up one end, and thus made some cannon. They had no cannon balls, but they used scraps of iron and ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson
... Shelley lived like a Spartan; a hunk of bread and a jug of water, dashed perhaps with milk, served him as a dinner. His income was spent on the poor, on struggling men of genius, and on necessitous friends. Now as the world goes, this is simply ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... mingled feelings, but most of all because it was the 'thing to do,' the then accepted form of human action. When once the predominant type was determined, the copying propensity of man did the rest. The tradition ascribing Spartan legislation to Lycurgus was literally untrue, but its spirit was quite true. In the origin of states strong and eager individuals got hold of small knots of men, and made for them a fashion which they were ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... and ask Pasqualino whether Saru told him anything before he died, and Pasqualino, concealing the pistol in his bosom as the Spartan boy ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... said Adrian, seeing how the communications of Hippias were received, "that when our Nemesis takes lodgings in the stomach, it's best to act the Spartan, smile hard, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Ralph and Evelyn found the new owner of Vandon, when they rode over together to call, a day or two after the school-feast. Poor Dare was sitting on the low ivy-covered wall of the topmost terrace, a prey to the deepest dejection. If he had lived in Spartan days, when it was possible to conceal gnawing foxes under wearing apparel, he would have made no use of the advantages of Grecian dress for such a purpose. Captivated by Evelyn's gentleness and sympathetic ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... controversy and part of Eric's persistent but fruitless campaign against the studiedly Spartan attitude ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... nearer to a perfect democracy than any other government which has yet been known in the world. Judging of them also by their fruits, they were of the highest order of republics. Sparta could scarcely be any other than a republic, when a Spartan matron could say to her son just marching to battle, "Return ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... a repetition of your father's platitudes—I've heard them often enough. I don't know much about the war, but all I've heard has set me against it. But never mind! And now, good-bye, my Spartan sweetheart." ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... The Spartan boy was taught that he must become very strong and self-reliant. His schoolroom was very plain and bare. He was never allowed to go home to visit. He had to wear, in both summer and winter, the same plain, loose clothing. He slept out of doors in the summer-time, ...
— A Child's Story Garden • Compiled by Elizabeth Heber
... not betray any open signs of anger against the Athenians at what they heard. The embassy, it seems, was prompted not by a desire to obstruct, but to guide the counsels of their government: besides, Spartan feeling was at that time very friendly towards Athens on account of the patriotism which she had displayed in the struggle with the Mede. Still the defeat of their wishes could not but cause them secret annoyance. The envoys of each state departed ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... the good. But this understanding made no difference to her woman's regard, unless it were to strengthen it to a sort of gentle worship such as woman is always ready to yield to strength. It required no effort upon her part to picture this man in the heroic mould of a Spartan warrior. ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... fooled her husband as these women have so often fooled his soldiers; and that the rough-and-ready justice of the camp should be her reward. Had Othello any knowledge or experience in such matters to fall back on, he might anchor to that, and become definitely either the trusting husband or the Spartan judge. But as it is, he is whirled back and forth in a maelstrom of agonized doubt, until compass, bearings, and wisdom lost, he ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.—My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.—I shall ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... in my description, let those who read my story remember that such courteous dignity, however natural, I am bound to believe, it is to them, was to me an utterly new excellence in human nature. All my mother's Spartan nobleness of manner seemed unexpectedly combined with all my little sister's ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... of Barker consisted of Stacy's lifting that young gentleman bodily from his bunk and standing him upright in the open doorway. But Barker was accustomed to this Spartan process, and after a moment's balancing with closed lids like an unwrapped mummy, he sat down in the doorway and began to dress. He at first demurred to their departure except all together—it was so unfraternal; but eventually he allowed himself to be persuaded out of it and into his clothes. ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... prefaces her death. Those who remember her in her youth and beauty, before disease rather than time had altered the pale heroic face, and bowed the slight, stately figure, may well perceive some strange analogy between soul and body in the Spartan firmness which enabled her to pen that ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... Spartan valor that has made Thermopylae a name forever, serves to show the conclusion of our ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the Rebel army, and set up their triumphant standard at Atlanta—then exit Southern Confederacy. But their dead were so piled in their path at Ringgold Gap that they could not pass them. The Spartans gained a name at Thermopylae, in which Leonidas and the whole Spartan army were slain while defending the pass. Cleburne's division gained a name at Ringgold Gap, in which they not only slew the victorious army, but captured five thousand prisoners besides. That brilliant victory of Cleburne's made ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... "Yes!" answered the Spartan mothers with one voice, while the other sisters danced round them, and Kate patted ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the philosopher, who alleges for proof an Olympic quoit, on which was preserved the inscription of Lycurgus's name. But others who, with Eratosthenes and Apollodorus, compute the time by the succession of the Spartan kings, place him much earlier than the first Olympiad. Timaeus, however, supposes that, as there were two Lycurguses in Sparta at different times, the actions of both are ascribed to one, on account of his particular renown; and that the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... thy claims are justly great: Thy milder virtues could my muse relate, To thee alone, unrivall'd, would belong The feeble efforts of my lengthen'd song. Well canst thou boast, to lead in senates fit, A Spartan firmness with Athenian wit: Though yet in embryo these perfections shine, Lycus! thy father's fame will soon be thine. Where learning nurtures the superior mind, What may we hope from genius thus refin'd! When ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... bred out of the Spartan kinde, So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung With eares that sweepe away the morning dew, Crooke kneed, and dew-lapt, like Thessalian Buls, Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bels, Each ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... in Nineteen Hundred Two, he bore the blow like a Spartan. Fifty-eight years had they journeyed together. She was a woman of great good sense, and a very handsome woman, even in her old age. Her husband had always depended on her, telling her his plans and thus clarifying them in his own mind. They were ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... in AEgypt Spartan Dame Two Harlequins Thomson's Sophonisba Roman Actor Three Hours after Marriage Alexis's Paradise Usurper Love in a Forest Lottery Sultaness Edwin Mad Lovers Wedding Bays's Opera Female Fop Female Parson Fall of Saguntum Henry V. Penelope Non-Juror Rival Modes Philotas Footman ...
— The Annual Catalogue (1737) - Or, A New and Compleat List of All The New Books, New - Editions of Books, Pamphlets, &c. • J. Worrall
... to be mannish—driven to that extremity by the super-femininity of Henrietta Bryne-Stivers; pretending to be frivolous, to shock rigid Mrs. Pemberton; pretending to be a blue-stocking with a passion for the solid and heavy in literature; pretending to be a Spartan who must rise at dawn and, after a plunge in ice-cold mountain water, climb, with only big Don, the Newfoundland, for company, up to the sluice-box; there to pretend she was an esthete to whom the sunrise, while she communed alone with nature, revealed things invisible ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... me in cold blood for Featherbrain. Since then I've been a blighted being—hiding, like the Spartan chap in the story, the fox that preys on my vitals, and going through life with the hollow mockery of a ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... may destroy their own political freedom.(481) The Achean league, which under the leadership of Aratos, the "enemy of tyrants," had come into existence, promising so much hope, beheld itself later, and mainly through fear of the contagious effects of Spartan socialism under Cleomenes, compelled to unite with the Macedonians, that is, to give themselves up entirely. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... prepare them for the right use of leisure in future years, and though burdened with little knowledge, possessed of an educated sense of beauty, and an ingrained love of what is noble and hatred of all that is the reverse. He would be more cultivated and human than the best type of young Spartan, more physically vigorous and reverential, though less intellectually developed, than the best type of young Athenian—a nascent soldier and servant of the state, not, like most young Athenians of ability, ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... the third day the pass of Thermopyae was forced, thanks to the treachery of a Greek and the contemptible policy of the Spartan government which steadily refused the plea of Leonidas for reenforcements. With Thermopyae taken there was no further reason for the Greek fleet to try to hold the straits north of Euboea, and during ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... his body, Spartan-like, to all the fatigues and exposures of war. He indulged in no luxury of tents or carriages, and ate the flesh of horses and wild beasts, which he roasted himself, over the coals. In his campaigns the ground was his ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... hour when the Puritan baby opened his eyes in bleak New England he had a Spartan struggle for life. In summer-time he fared comparatively well, but in winter the ill-heated houses of the colonists gave to him a most chilling and benumbing welcome. Within the great open fireplace, when fairly scorched in the face by the glowing flames of the roaring wood fire, ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Lycurgus their lawgiver was so addicted to elegant learning, as to have been the first that brought out of Ionia the scattered works of Homer, and sent the poet Thales from Crete to prepare and mollify the Spartan surliness with his smooth songs and odes, the better to plant among them law and civility, it is to be wondered how museless and unbookish they were, minding nought but the feats of war. There needed no licensing of books among them, for they disliked all ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... a death struggle with coiling serpents; then the loud, clear, triumphant notes, 'Give me liberty,' electrified the assembly. It was not a prayer, but a stern demand, which would submit to no refusal or delay. The sound of his voice, as he spoke these memorable words, was like that of a Spartan paean on the field of Plataea; and, as each syllable of the word 'liberty' echoed through the building, his fetters were shivered; his arms were hurled apart; and the links of his chains were scattered to the winds. When he spoke the word 'liberty' with an emphasis never ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... post dabble into our letters? Whatever agreement you make with Murray, if satisfactory to you, must be so to me. There need be no scruple, because, though I used sometimes to buffoon to myself, loving a quibble as well as the barbarian himself (Shakspeare, to wit)—'that, like a Spartan, I would sell my life as dearly as possible'—it never was my intention to turn it to personal, pecuniary account, but to bequeath it to a friend—yourself—in the event of survivorship. I anticipated that period, because ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... and lightly for a woman of her size, but was inclined to snuggle up too close, to permit undistracted guidance to her partner. It was almost impossible to avoid collisions with other couples, unless one possessed a Spartan mind and an iron will. In spite of himself, Keith became increasingly aware of her breast pressing against his chest; her smooth arm against his shoulder; the occasional passing contact of her, scarcely veiled from the sense of touch by the thin flame-coloured silk; the perfume she affected; the ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... as if it were a peculiarly distasteful medicine in the solid—the girl tidied the room. It was the only really well-furnished room in the cottage; Nell's little chamber in the roof was as plain as Marguerite's in "Faust," and Dick's was Spartan in its Character; but a Wolfer—Mrs. Lorton was a distant, a very distant connection by a remote marriage of the noble family of that name—cannot live without a certain amount of luxury, and, as there was not enough to go round, Mrs. Lorton ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... in my Head; Latin I write, and Greek I— read."] We have also his own authority (in Tom Jones) for supposing that he occasionally, if not frequently, sacrificed "with true Spartan devotion" at the "birchen Altar," of which a representation is to be found in Mr. Maxwell Lyte's history of the College. And it may fairly be inferred that he took part in the different sports and pastimes of the day, such as Conquering Lobs, Steal baggage, Chuck, Starecaps, ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... same time take to thy house another wife in addition to this one, to bear thee children." When they spoke to him after this manner, Anaxandrides consented, having two wives, a thing which was not by any means after the Spartan fashion. ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... that such a rite was worked at Quiyough-cohanock, Strachey adds that Sir George Percy (who was with Smith) "was at, and observed" a similar mystery at Kecoughtan. It is plain that the rite was not a sacrifice, but a Bora, or initiation, and the parallel of the Spartan flogging of boys, with the retreat of the boys and their instructors, is very close, and, of course, unnoted by classical scholars except Mr. Frazer. Strachey ends with the critical remark that we shall not know all the certainty ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... leaped with a lighter heart from the window, intending to slip through the hands of the gendarmes. Tall and well proportioned as an ancient gladiator, and muscular as a Spartan, he walked for a quarter of an hour without knowing where to direct his steps, actuated by the sole idea of getting away from the spot where if he lingered he knew that he would surely be taken. Having passed through the Rue Mont Blanc, guided by the instinct which leads thieves ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... develop the faculty of lying to a high point of efficiency, and no one who knows him will contend that he is inferior to the European in this respect. The natural education of the Natives include the art of lying as the education of Spartan boys included the practice of larceny. Lying, we know, develops the memory, for a good memory is essential to successful lying. Some of the ruses and stratagems thought out by Natives fleeing from the king's wrath or the witch doctor's ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... was the "saint's" study—a den with a soft Eastern carpet, a big writing-table, a high porcelain stove of chocolate and white, and silk-upholstered settees. From this den a door opened into the "holy" man's sleeping-room, an apartment of spartan plainness save for its big stove, a replica of ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... The Spartan plan of allowing husband and wife to meet only by stealth shows an acute understanding of human nature and has much to recommend it, if the object in view is to prolong the period of passion. But we are not now dealing with passion, but with the ordinary affection between people who ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... o'er days more blest? Must we but blush?—Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... Lexington summoned them to common counsels, by the side of Warren, a man who lived to serve his country at home and abroad, and to die in the second place in the government. There, too, is the inflexible, the upright, the Spartan character, Robert Treat Paine. He also lived to serve his country through the struggle, and then withdrew from her councils, only that he might give his labors and his life to his native state, in another relation. These names, fellow-citizens, ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... army has never been so nearly reached as by that of Sparta. The Spartan spent his life in the barrack and the mess-room; his amusements were the exercises of the parade ground. For many generations a Spartan force had never been defeated in a pitched battle. We have had, in modern times, some instances of ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... warriors and the courage of despair—fought side by side with the Indian braves in the effort to arrest Rutherford's progress and compass his defeat. More than forty frontiersmen fell beneath the deadly shots of this truly Spartan band before the final ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... lips, but her hands are steady, and the touch is exceedingly gentle as she binds up the ugly red mark which he has inflicted on himself with what she is disposed to term Spartan-like courage. ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... He groaned, and tears flowed down the face that had taken the place of his own. Yet his consciousness remained. What shall he do? Go home to seek the palace, or lie hid in the woods? The latter he was afraid, the former he was ashamed, to do. While he hesitated the dogs saw him. First Melampus, a Spartan dog, gave the signal with his bark, then Pamphagus, Dorceus, Lelaps, Theron, Nape, Tigris, and all the rest, rushed after him swifter than the wind. Over rocks and cliffs, through mountain gorges that seemed impracticable, he fled, and they followed. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... firing at random on the furious savages, who howled for their blood. The Iroquois fought like incarnate demons, and every stone they flung with unerring precision shattered a white man's skull. Like the Spartan three hundred, this brave French band determined not to be taken alive, so the living supplied the places of their fallen comrades until only five or six men remained. But the Indians at last effected ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... pitiless sun beat upon them unmercifully. Philip's lips were cracked, his tongue was swollen, and the burning dust almost choked him. He began to see less clearly, and visions of things he knew to be unreal came to him. With Spartan courage and indomitable will, he never faltered, but went on. Mirages came and went, and he could not know whether he saw true or not. Then here and there he thought he began to see tufts of curly mesquite grass, and in the distance surely there were cacti. He knew that if he could hold out a little ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... admire what Lycurgus the Spartan did? A young citizen had put out his eye, and been handed over to him by the people to be punished at his own discretion. Lycurgus abstained from all vengeance, but on the contrary instructed and made a good man of him. Producing him ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... can have. I have a family I love as much as any man in this court loves his family. But I can remember the blessing I received from an aged mother's lips as I left her the last time. She, speaking as the Spartan mother did, said—'Go, my boy, return either with your shield or upon it.' This reconciles me—this gives me heart. I submit to my doom; and I hope that God will forgive me my past sins. I hope also, that inasmuch as He has for seven hundred ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... Mr. Genuine Bacon-Fat, appointed by me in my last will I give and bequeath: thirty measures of acorns; and to my mother, Mrs. Old-Timer Sow, appointed by me in my last will, I give and bequeath: forty measures of Spartan wheat; and to my sister, Cry-Baby, appointed by me in my last will, whose wedding, alas! I cannot attend, I give and bequeath: thirty measures of barley; and of my nobler parts and property I give and bequeath, to the cobbler: my bristles; ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... on their arrival searching for an attic in some bleak tenement in a noisy street. Here they were to live almost entirely on the baskets of home produce sent through the carriers at intervals by their thrifty parents. It was and is a Spartan discipline, and it turns out men who have shown their grit and independence in all lands where the British flag ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... times her eyes turned to the broad entrance across the sidewalk. She had telephoned to her father earlier in the afternoon; and he had promised faithfully to be ready at four o'clock for a spin up the drive behind Spartan. At three minutes past four the pucker made its first appearance; and now, several minutes later, it was quite distressing. Never before had he kept her waiting like this. She was conscious of the fact that at least a hundred men had stared at her in the longest ten minutes she had ever known. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... out of the Spartan kind, So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-knee'd and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls; Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tuneable Was ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... remember her. I have talked over these things with her many a time; and where I would fain be, she would fain be also. She sent me out with my virgin honor, as the Spartan mother did her boy with the shield, saying, 'Come back either with this, or upon this;' and one or the other I must do, if I would meet her either in this life or in the next. But in the meanwhile do not mistake ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... afraid, but she had learned in the Spartan household of her ancestors, to be more afraid of fear than of anything else, so she pulled a blanket over her head and shouldered a musket, and, after the elder Letitia had unbarred and unbolted the door, they all stepped out into the night, armed ...
— The Green Door • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... comfortable, nowhere pressing tightly or unequally. The word enceinte, by which a pregnant woman is designated, meant, originally, without a cincture,—that is, unbound. The Roman matrons, so soon as they conceived, were obliged to remove their girdles. Lycurgus caused the enactment of the Spartan law, that pregnant women should wear large dresses, so as not to prejudice the free development of the precious charges of which nature had rendered them the momentary depositaries. Stays or corsets may be used, in a proper manner, ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... "Jupiter, Minerva, and all the celestial and infernal deities!" The force of the cracker was now somewhat spent. "Ye boys of Britain, that bear not one mark of manhood about you! Would Leonidas have fastened a squib to the robe of the Spartan mother? Would Cimber have so unworthily used Portia, the wife of Brutus? Would Corbulo thus have interrupted the heroic fortitude of Arria, the ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... Spartan thieves are not the only heroic sufferers who smile and make no moan, clasping close the hidden fangs ravening ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... members of the old noble and gentle "army nobility"—were careful to shun this vice. These officers, whose families had often served the king as soldiers for four or five generations, held fast to a Spartan simplicity of life, and to the old Prussian independence of material comforts, and with them were all those who regarded their vocation as something loftier than an amusement. Otherwise, a most unsoldierlike luxury was spreading unhindered ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... this best and meekest woman bore With such serenity her husband's woes, Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore, Who saw their spouses killed, and nobly chose Never to say a word about them more— Calmly she heard each calumny that rose, And saw his agonies with such sublimity, That all ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... I DAS, the celebrated Spartan leader who, with three hundred men, perished in the effort to resist the Persian hosts, at the mountain pass of Thermopylae, ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... house or as watchmen against fire and the depredations of cattle. The Coromantees of the Gold Coast stand salient in all accounts as hardy and stalwart of mind and body. Long calls them haughty, ferocious and stubborn; Edwards relates examples of their Spartan fortitude; and it was generally agreed that they were frequently instigators of slave conspiracies and insurrections. Yet their spirit of loyalty made them the most highly prized of servants by those who could call it forth. ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... there[44], With mirror of gold, Decking her face so fair, Girl-like; and hear, and stare, And turn death-cold: Never, ah, never more The hearth of her home to see, Nor sand of the Spartan shore, Nor tombs where her fathers be, Nor Athena's bronzen Dwelling, Nor the towers of Pitane For her face was a dark desire Upon Greece, and shame like fire, And her dead are welling, welling, From red Simois ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... Spartan lady. She cured me of it by rapping my knuckles with the handle of a silver-plated knife. My, how it hurt! I feel it yet! I wonder that they were not enlarged ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... Kultur without belying itself. On the contrary, so highly developed a Kultur nation as the German Empire puts itself in a position where it is almost impossible to acquire any considerable degree of culture. Culture is the enemy of such a state—it must remain in the Spartan or Macedonian stage. Rome began to decline as soon as Hellenistic culture got the ascendency over the old Latin Kultur. Kultur, in short, galvanizes; culture liberates. A survey of modern Germany hardly warrants a desire ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... without gratefully acknowledging the respect we entertain for those who have defended our cause with more than Spartan courage. It is the opinion of your committee, that they are to be respected as our countrymen, our brethren, and our fellow citizens—not to say they are to be applauded as men, whose great acts are based upon the acclamation of their fellow men; but rather let us hold up ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... awake the Spartan fife, And call in solemn sounds to life, The youths, whose locks divinely spreading, Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue, At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding, 5 Applauding Freedom loved of old to view? What new Alcaeus,[21] fancy-blest, Shall sing the sword, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... scouts to ascertain what the Greeks were doing in their camp, the report was that some of them were engaged in gymnastics and warlike exercises, while others were merely sitting and combing their long hair. If the hypothesis already suggested is correct, the Spartan youths so engaged were perhaps not merely adorning themselves for death, but, as they thought, obtaining their full strength for battle. "The custom of keeping the hair unshorn during a dangerous expedition appears to ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... not begin there. A like adventure chanced often at the parsonage, and, at nine years of age, I reigned king absolute over a nursery full of her Majesty's subjects who called me brother, and quailed before my nod like Helots before the crest of a Spartan. But, as I say, all that is neither here nor there in ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... suddenly uneasy, as if some intuition warned it of treachery, and tried valiantly to escape from his grasp, and never did Spartan boy with wolf concealed beneath his tunic suffer more tortures than Morrow with the wretched little ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... meant the breaking of a life-time's traditions. The departure was depressing and unsettling; the weather was—as it always is during January in Glebeshire—at its worst, and the Jampot, feeling it all very deeply, maintained a terrible Spartan composure, which was meant to show indifference and a sense of injustice. She had to the very last believed it incredible that she should really go. She had been in the old Orange Street house for eight years, and had intended ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... more responsive to such cries since the war. That might have been foreseen by any one at all familiar with the psychopathology of reform. A cigarette addict who, in a spartan moment, swears off smoking, is familiar enough with the inner gnaw that robs him of his sleep and roils his dinner for days and days. His body, long habituated to the tobacco, had dutifully taken on the business of manufacturing ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... were in harmony with the rooms and furniture, consisting only of the strict necessities, cooked with a Spartan disregard for such sybarite foibles as seasoning or dressing. I believe there was a substantial meal somewhere in the early morning hours, but I never succeeded in getting down in time to inspect it. By successful bribery, I induced one of ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... battling with her mother-love. She knew what this quest of the Cave of Gold might mean—hardships, dangers, even death for those she loved. But she was of pioneer stock, had often seen her dearest go forth to face the dangers of the unknown wilderness; and, at last, with something of Spartan-like fortitude, she ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... its final reveille,— This dawning morn must be the last Our fated band shall ever see. To life, but not to hope, farewell; Yon trumpet's clang and cannon's peal, And storming shout and clash of steel Is ours,—but not our country's knell. Welcome the Spartan's death! 'Tis no despairing strife— We fall, we die—but our expiring breath Is ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... to the wall, shut his eyes, and closed his mind with a Spartan effort. His breathing came heavily, regularly, like one who slept or one who is running. Over that sound he caught at length another light rustling, and then the faint creak as she crossed the crazy floor. He made his face ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... amidst the stars of midnight. A more bloody apparition never emerged from the sulphureous canopy of war. Having perfect contempt for all enervating pleasures, with an iron frame and the abstemious habits of a Spartan, he rushed through a career which has excited the wonder of the world. He joined the Austrian party; struck down Denmark at a blow; penetrated Russia in mid-winter, driving the Russian troops before him as dogs scatter ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... brushing the dust from his clothes. There was a rapidly developing lump over one eye, but his expression remained unchanged. Josephine approached him with happy gurgles. Her heart was filled with womanly sympathy, but her soul remained undaunted. She was of the Spartan stuff that sends sons to the war, and holds a reception for them if they return—from victory—on their shields. She cooed in conscious imitation of Fraulein's best manner. "Now, ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... with him about himself, and enthusiastic admirers of his genius commonly met with a rather cold reception. He repelled everything in the shape of a compliment. Dr. Edward Emerson says somewhere that his father was used to eat whatever was set before him with Spartan-like indifference. This mistake may have arisen from the good quality of Mrs. Emerson's housekeeping, and the excellent fare which she provided for her husband and his friends. Emerson wished to bear the hardships of life without complaining, but he ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... written, in his Classic and Historic Portraits, that the ancient Spartan paid as much attention to the rearing of men as the cattle dealers in modern England do to the breeding of cattle. They took charge of firmness and looseness of men's flesh; and regulated the degree of fatness to which it was lawful, in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... something about the Macaulay-flowers of literature?—There was a dead silence.—I said calmly, I shall henceforth consider any interruption by a pun as a hint to change my boarding-house. Do not plead my example. If I have used any such, it has been only as a Spartan father would show up a drunken helot. We have done ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... seldom used. People who said "Daddy dear," or "Jim dear," were under suspicion. "They fight like cats and dogs when no one else is around" was the universal comment on a family whose members were very free of their terms of affection. We were a Spartan lot. We did not believe in letting our wives and children know that they were an important part of ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... or, to speak more accurately, a first step towards an offence? You must either accept this theory with all its consequences, or absolve illicit passion. French society hitherto has chosen the third and middle course of looking on and laughing when offences come, apparently upon the Spartan principle of condoning the theft and punishing clumsiness. And this system, it may be, is a very wise one. 'Tis a most appalling punishment to have all your neighbors pointing the finger of scorn at you, a punishment that a woman feels ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac |
