"Forlorn hope" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... later, she was ready for the trip to New York City. The clock in the office marked the hour as one. A toddied individual in a great buffalo coat waited for her outside, hiccoughing and bandying jest with the half-frozen men who had spent the night with him in the forlorn hope of finding ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... while what value there could be in observations taken in a ship launched (as ours then was) like a missile among flying seas. The forenoon dragged on in a grinding monotony of peril; every spoke of the wheel a rash, but an obliged experiment—rash as a forlorn hope, needful as the leap that lands a fireman from a burning staircase. Noon was made; the captain dined on his day's work, and I on watching him; and our place was entered on the chart with a meticulous precision which seemed to me half pitiful and half absurd, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... games by a point, she must have known before her silver laugh became so hollow, and her pleasant smile so evidently theatrical and lip-deep; before what once was chanceful became desperate, and she fell back into the ranks of the forlorn hope—of the "Lost Children!" ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... "Rather a forlorn hope that," replied Francis Jackson. "He has named his ship for the king that rules over us all, trampling on freedom of petition, freedom of debate, and even ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... compose it, with fluid ideas that never have an outlined existence until they have found their phrases and the improvisation is complete, is it to be wondered at that the art of style is eternally elusive, and that the attempt to reduce it to rule is the forlorn hope of academic infatuation? ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... As a forlorn hope of escape, the bride was asked to make a declaration that she was free from all precontracts, which she did without the least hesitation, and there was nothing to be done but for Henry "to put his head into the yoke," and to make an insignificant political ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... clerk a dollar and turned away. Rankin was a forlorn hope, but he and Rose walked out to a little house in the ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... of theology. Had Galileo stood alone, his devotion to science might have withdrawn him from so hopeless a contest; but he was spurred on by the violence of a party. The Lyncaean Academy never scrupled to summon him from his researches. They placed him in the forlorn hope of their combat, and he at last fell a victim to the rashness ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... make Mary hear without actually opening the door; but it was a forlorn hope. Mary was generally afflicted with deep deafness if one particularly wanted her hearing to be acute. She was now. Audrey called again and ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... forever 'n' ever; I'm awful sorry!" Then, feeling that the magnitude of this sacrifice atoned for everything, he went to watch for Van,—the forlorn hope ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... brave English!" Conspicuous in bravery even among those brave English was Cutts. In that bulldog courage which flinches from no danger, however terrible, he was unrivalled. There was no difficulty in finding hardy volunteers, German, Dutch and British, to go on a forlorn hope; but Cutts was the only man who appeared to consider such an expedition as a party of pleasure. He was so much at his ease in the hottest fire of the French batteries that his soldiers gave him the honourable ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the 'Mayflower' of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future State, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... this, that we should when free be able to enter with more energy upon pursuits already adopted by the people of other countries. Our leaders have erected no nobler standard than theirs, and we who, as a race, are the forlorn hope of idealism in Europe, sink day by day into apathy and forget what a past was ours and what a destiny awaits us if we will but rise responsive to it. Though so old in tradition this Ireland of ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... make talk about something—about the match—and get that girl quietly home. I bag the back seat and Adrien. It is hard on me, I know, but fifteen minutes more of Patsy and I shall be counting my tootsies and prattling nursery rhymes. Here they come," he breathed. "Now, 'a little forlorn hope, deadly breach act, if you love me, Hardy.' Play ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... but not the 'Constitution of Man.' The 'Phrenology' is very clever, and amusing; but I do not think it logical or satisfactory. I forget whether 'slowness of the pulse' is mentioned in it as a symptom of the poetical aestus. I am afraid, if it be a symptom, I dare not take my place even in the 'forlorn hope of poets' in this age so forlorn as to its poetry; for my pulse is in a continual flutter and my feet not half cold enough for a pedestal—so I must make my honours over to poor papa straightway. He has been shivering and shuddering through the cold ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... January 18, put forth a declaration of principles regarding submarine attacks and inquired whether the governments of the allies would subscribe to such an agreement. This was one of the president's "forlorn hope" movements to try and bring about an agreement among the belligerents which would bring the submarine campaign within the restrictions of international law. Could such an agreement have been effected, it would have been ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... principality of Nepal, as a kind of basis for his operations against the English. He had four hundred excellent rifles with flint locks and screwed barrels made at Monghyr (Munger) on the Ganges, so as to fit into small boxes. These boxes were sent up on the backs of four hundred brave volunteers for this forlorn hope. Gregory had got a passport for the boxes as rare merchandise for the palace of the prince at Kathmandu, in whose presence alone they were to be opened. On reaching the palace at night, these volunteers were to open their boxes, screw up the barrels, destroy all the inmates, and possess themselves ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... lightly. We could hold our aerial fortress for a week—a month—ay, far longer, and against hundreds. We could not be assailed. With our rifles to guard the cliff, no storming-party could approach—no forlorn hope could scale our battlements! ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... to render my position more comfortable, ending in a forlorn hope that intense and continued sitting might, by some undefined process of evaporation, cure the evil. This suggested a speculation, half pleasing and half painful, as to what would be my mother's feelings could she be aware ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... either the British or the Canadian Government should avail itself. Session after session the Bill was proposed, scarcely debated, and set aside. At last, in 1854, after the negotiations had dragged on wearily for more than six years, Lord Elgin himself was sent to Washington in the hope—'a forlorn hope,' as it seemed to those who sent him—of bringing the matter to a successful issue. It was his first essay in diplomacy, but made under circumstances unusually favourable. He was personally popular ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... do; but no further fierce fighting had taken place, for the French General, after securing every exit by the aid of his reinforcements, felt satisfied that he had only to wait for either surrender or the dash out by a forlorn hope, ready to ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... virulence are men of as little morality as reflection. I have demonstrated that one of them, he who wrote the Pursuits of Literature, could not construe a Greek sentence or scan a verse; and I have fallen on the very Index from which he drew out his forlorn hope on the parade. This is incomparably the most impudent fellow I have met with in the course of my reading, which has lain, you know, in a province where impudence is ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... spontaneity and local in its intensity. Province after province rose in arms, except the north and centre, where 80,000 French troops held the patriots in check. In the van of the movement was the rugged little province of Asturias, long ago the forlorn hope of the Christians in their desperate conflicts with the Moors. Intrenched behind their mountains and proud of their ancient fame, the Asturians ventured on the sublime folly of declaring war against the ruler of the West and the lord of 900,000 warriors. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... one along each side of the neck, detaching two companies of North Carolina troops to move in between the two columns and make a false attack. The rest of the force consisted of New Englanders, Pennsylvanians, and Virginians. Each attacking column was divided into three parts, a forlorn hope of twenty men leading, which was followed by an advance guard of one hundred and twenty, and then by the main body. At the time commanding officers still carried spontoons, and other old-time weapons, and Wayne, who himself led the right column, directed its movements spear in hand. ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... Lucan, the beloved of damsels and dames, was the hero of this period. A handsome, large-limbed, brawny soldier, towering over the tallest of his dragoons, and true as the steel he wore, he was a fitting leader of a forlorn hope. Originally, one of the "Gentlemen of the Guard" under the Merrie Monarch, his defence of Limerick was a military achievement worthy of the ambition of any general; nor were his Williamite opponents slow to cordially appreciate his valour. But he was fated to die, "on a far, foreign field." ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... knees in the Church of St. Lazare that Vincent resolved on the action that was at best only a forlorn hope, but still worth trying. With his usual prompt energy, the old man of seventy-three mounted his horse and, accompanied only by his secretary, du Courneau, set out for St. Germain. The Seine was in flood and the water breast-deep on the bridge over which they had to ride. Du Corneau [sic] avowed ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... his head. Yet he added, with the instinct of a business man ready to nurse a forlorn hope, "There would be no harm in trying. I don't believe, though, that you have the ghost ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... lead and dropped it over the side of the ship, in the almost forlorn hope that possibly she might lie over some hole on the bottom. The soundings proved to be, as indeed he expected, but a ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... on. Throughout the years since the failure of this Quixotic experiment, I occasionally find one of these sewer spades in a Hull-House storeroom, too truncated to be used for its original purpose and too prosaic to serve the purpose for which it was bought. I can only look at it in the forlorn hope that it may foreshadow that piping time when the weapons of warfare shall be turned into the implements of ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... going to get him!" declared Tom even though he realized, as he said it, that it with almost a forlorn hope. ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... dejectedly in the corner, wiping her eyes on her apron. "You might go ast Mis' Wiggs," she suggested as a forlorn hope. ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... to run and make an escape, it would be of an ill savour in the country. If he were now to flee because there was a warrant out for him, would not the weak and newly-converted brethren be afraid to stand when great words only were spoken to them. God had, in His mercy, chosen him to go on the forlorn hope; to be the first to be opposed for the gospel; what a discouragement it must be to the whole body if he were to fly. No, he would never by any cowardliness of his give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme the ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... 170,000 German troops to land at Portland, and through Maine invade Canada, our neutrality would be lost. The neutrality of Greece was lost, but Constantine would not see that. He hoped, although 170,000 fighting men are not easy to hide, that the Kaiser also would not see it. It was a very forlorn hope. The Allies also cherished a hope. It was that Constantine not only would look the other way while they slipped across his country, but would cast off all pretense of neutrality and join them. So, as far as was possible, ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... not be discouraged at his apparent little influence, even though every sally of every young life may seem like a forlorn hope. No man can see the whole of ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... his handsome head high; it was proudly set on a firm, graceful neck, and covered with clusters of dark hair. He would have looked in his place near the throne of a queen, or, on the back of a war horse, leading a forlorn hope; but no one could understand his being prisoner in a dock. Mr. Kent looked at him, wondering with what he was charged. Surely, with that noble face and gentlemanly bearing, he had never been guilty of a common assault. Magistrate as he was, Mr. Kent listened ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... about anything that could possibly make him fit for command. He picked out the best officers with a sure eye: generals and colonels, like Carleton; captains; like Delaune, a man made for the campaigns in Canada, who, as we shall see later, led the 'Forlorn Hope' up the Heights of Abraham. Wolfe had also noted in a third member of the great Howe family a born leader of light infantry for Quebec. Wolfe was very strong on light infantry, and trained them to make sudden dashes ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... Facardines, the isle of Lanciers, and Harp Island, which I take to be the same that I afterwards named Lagoon, Thrum Cap, and Bow Island. About twenty leagues farther to the west he discovered four other islands; afterwards fell in with Maitea, Otaheite, isles of Navigators, and Forlorn Hope, which to him were new discoveries. He then passed through between the Hebrides, discovered the Shoal of Diana, and some others, the land of Cape Deliverance, several islands more to the north, passed the north of New Ireland, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... of war was held; and it was determined, in the first place, to endeavor to force the position by direct attack. Some men of approved courage were chosen to lead the forlorn hope; a number of marksmen, with arrows and firearms, were placed in the valley to keep up a fire upon any who might show themselves on the path, while above, several hundreds of men were sent up, with crowbars, to loosen and ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... spring as he dared risk a travelling party, namely, on the 10th of March, 1853, he sent what they all called a forlorn hope across to the Bay of Mercy, to find any traces of the "Investigator"; for they scarcely ventured to hope that she was still there. This start was earlier by thirty-five days than the early parties had started on the ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... files along the street of St. Roques towards the Saut de Matelots, where the first barrier had been constructed, and a battery of two twelve pounders erected. In imitation of Montgomery, he too led the forlorn hope in person, and was followed by Captain Lamb with his company of artillery, and a field piece mounted on a sled. Close in the rear of the artillery was the main body, in front of which was Morgan's company of riflemen, commanded by himself. The path along which the troops were ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... moderated very suddenly, as spring gales do in the Mediterranean, just when the captain was making up his mind to let go both anchors and make a desperate attempt to save his vessel by riding out the storm—a forlorn hope with such ground tackle as he had in his chain lockers. And then he had stood out, and had sailed away, one danger more behind him in his hard life, and one less ahead. He had sailed away—whither? No one could tell. Those little vessels, built ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... the seconds slipped by, and the silence remained unbroken, a shred of forlorn hope came back to her. Each moment meant more assured safety to her husband—he, at least, was getting away unscathed and unsuspected. And that ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... Detricand here added the last touch to his resolution, nerved him to follow his strong impulse to set all upon one hazard. A month ago he had told Guida that he loved her; to-day there should be a still more daring venture. A thing not captured by a forlorn hope seemed not worth having. The girl had seized his emotions from the first moment, and had held them. To him she was the most original creature he had ever met, the most natural, the most humorous of temper, the most sincere. She had no duplicity, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... grop'd about, To find th' inchanted hero out, And try'd with haste to lift him up; But found his forlorn hope, his crup, 1560 Unserviceable with kicks and blows, Receiv'd from harden'd-hearted foes. He thought to drag him by the heels, Like Gresham carts, with legs for wheels; But fear, that soonest cures ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... to Newman for orders, for he was now in command of our forlorn hope. But he had his arm about the lady's shoulders, and was speaking urgently into her ear. My thought was of a place to hide. I ran towards the cabin alleyway. I had no intention of going out on that dangerous deck, my object was to see if the inner ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... We call it courage in a soldier merely to face death—say to lead a forlorn hope—although he has a chance of life and a certainty of "glory." But the suicide does more than face death; he incurs it, and with a certainty, not of glory, but of reproach. If that is not courage we must ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... the heroic post, the forlorn hope, the last stand of the battle-line," the Fisheries enthusiast replied. "All the nations of the world were deliberately allowing all the fur seals to be killed off. Uncle Sam stopped it. It's not too late yet. The Japanese seal-pirates must be exterminated ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... laborers passed through the gallery and broke down the timber barrier, the silt forming a wall sufficiently thick to resist the pressure of the water for the time being, and allow of the retreat of the Forlorn Hope—if the latter had ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... accomplished—surely you may return with all practical results of your labors in your hands. Were that not a wiser thing? Does not your duty lie toward the east, and not further toward the west? There is a limit beyond which not even a forlorn hope is asked to go when it assails a citadel. Not every general is dishonored, though he does not complete the campaign laid out for him. Expeditions have failed, and will fail, with honor. Leaders of men have failed, will fail, with honor. I do not call ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... moved fast across the surface of the water and disappeared in the direction of Aphrodite but Grant knew that its place would be taken within a few minutes by another. And if Grant had had any forlorn hope that he might be able to slip through The Pass, he gave it up, for he knew now that his movements were reported hourly and that his possession of the fabulous stones was undoubtedly known to Relegar, ...
— The Wealth of Echindul • Noel Miller Loomis
... The captain began to let himself hope that the forlorn hope of Yeager had brought safety to his friends. Surely by this time he must either have won or ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... of Elfland faintly blowing, and instead of a window which can show him nothing but a sodden plot planted with wearied-looking shrubs, he has the key of that magic casement which opens on perilous seas in fairylands forlorn. He will never do anything great in the world, he will never lead a forlorn hope, or marry the Princess, or see far lands; he will never be anything but a poor, shabby clerk, but he is of such stuff as dreams are made of, and God has given to him ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... in 1894 he was listened to not so much with interest as with pity. His last speech in the House was delivered in the debate on Uganda in June 1894, and was a painful failure. He was, in fact, dying of general paralysis. A journey round the world was undertaken as a forlorn hope. Lord Randolph started in the autumn of 1894, accompanied by his wife, but the malady made so much progress that he was brought back in haste from Cairo. He reached England shortly before Christmas and died in London on the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... attuned one's nerves to the leading of a forlorn hope, and a gnat gets into one's eye, or a little cinder grit, and there it sticks; and there is no question of leading any forlorn hope, after all, and never will be; all that was in the imagination only: it is always gnats and cinder grits, ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... their head, had joined the Commons. It was a step which they were legally authorised and competent to take, and the Revolution now had a majority not only of individual votes, but of orders. It was a forlorn hope, therefore, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... own. He then crawled forward, having made up his mind to try and cut the anchor free, and to get the rope to tie round the boat and hold on the children. His determination was fortified by his anxiety; but it was a forlorn hope, for it meant lowering himself right into the water, and he knew well enough that he could not swim a yard. Then it was done, and he was once more clinging to the keel with the rope in his hand. It was not difficult to get a bight round the boat, and soon ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... in the forlorn hope of a bear, I have now spent more than fourteen days in pursuit of black bear, and I have only seen one. Every one said to me in spring, "Oh, go to the Lolab, it's full of bear," I went, and was informed that it was a late season ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... man, troop by troop, they came nearer to the hedges of stone behind which an inveterate foe with grim joy saw a soldier fall to his soft-nosed bullet; while far down behind these men of a forlorn hope there was hurrying up artillery which would presently throw its lyddite and its shrapnel on the top of the hill up where hundreds of Boers held, as they thought, an impregnable position. At last with rushes which cost them almost as dearly in proportion as the rush ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... extraction, though born in Scotland. His grandfather was a trooper in Monk's army, and one of the party of dismounted dragoons which formed the forlorn hope at the storming of Dundee in 1651. Stephen Butler (called from his talents in reading and expounding, Scripture Stephen, and Bible Butler) was a stanch Independent, and received in its fullest comprehension the promise ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... (sadly). Oh, it's too late, I'm afraid. If we had only had this talk before you had seen her! I meant to talk to you frankly and if I found out you didn't love Eileen—there was always the forlorn hope that you might—I was going to tell you not to see her, for her sake—not to let her face the truth. For I am sure she continued to hope in spite of everything, and always would—to the end—if she didn't see you. I was going to implore you to stay away, to write her letters ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... the Jews as this crowd by you and me. The world will not go back on itself—rather will Christianity transform itself and take the credit. We are such a handful of outsiders. Judaism—old or new—is a forlorn hope." ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... fitness by giving him a trial. But, if he is a failure, and we learn nothing by experience, the next incumbent may be a hundred-fold worse. Furthermore, in many places, selection by trial is an impossibility, as in marriage, in the presidency of a bank, or in a general to lead a forlorn hope. There must be ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... that I never seemed to find time to cram my mechanics and chemistry, of which latter I could never see any possible benefit. How a knowledge of what acid will turn blue litmus-paper red is going to help an officer to find fodder for his troop horses, or inspire him to lead a forlorn hope, was then, and still is, beyond my ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... stubborn pride and unshrinking resolution; accompany me through this, to me, miserable world! You must not desert me! Your friendship I think I can count on, though I should date my letters from a marching regiment. Early in life, and all my life I reckoned on a recruiting drum as my forlorn hope. Seriously though, life at present presents me with but a melancholy path: but—my limb will soon be sound, and I shall ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... with Miss Henley's letter) was placed on the watch—and the event which had been regarded as little better than a forlorn hope, proved to be the event that really took place. Lord Harry was a ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... must worship good for its own value and beauty, without any reference whatever to victory or failure in space and time. "Whatever we are intended to do," he said, "we are not intended to succeed." That the stars in their courses fight against virtue, that humanity is in its nature a forlorn hope, this was the very spirit that through the whole of Stevenson's work sounded a trumpet to all the brave. The story of Henry Durie is dark enough, but could anyone stand beside the grave of that sodden monomaniac and not respect him? It ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... "It really is a forlorn hope, I fear, Mr. Lamotte. I don't know what to reply to Mr. Belknap, but I think he is wasting his time, and I my money; and, if you will communicate with him, as he failed to name his address in his note to me, we will ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... composing our forlorn hope were deliberating whether they should proceed any further, when all at once a circle of smoke enveloped the giant of stone, and a dozen balls came whistling around d'Artagnan and ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... skill were these theories presented, and with desperate energy these able attorneys led the forlorn hope against the strong fortress of conviction which seemed to enclose their unfortunate client. The audience, the judges and the jury were profoundly impressed, but they ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... "the forlorn hope of the world;" they are fellows that bid defiance to terror, and maintain a constant war with the elements; who, by the magic of their art, trade in the very confines of death, and are always posted within shot, as ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... his comrades were fully conscious that it was a forlorn hope. They had been driven out of the valley once by superior numbers and equipment, directed by a leader of great skill and energy, but now they had come back to risk everything in a daring venture. The ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... relieved of his anxiety and be rid for the moment of the sight of the awful catastrophe of the fire. Warrenton and Stuteley rushed in together, at his command, to try to save the two remaining foresters; but it was a very forlorn hope. Warrenton in his just revenge had pushed things to their extreme limits: Master Ford and all his band had paid the utmost penalty of their failure to overcome this ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... husband's permission for this trip, Polly? I presume you have written Richard Burton of your new French friend?" Aunt Patricia demanded as a last forlorn hope. ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... which he impressed his contemporaries. If by this brief sketch the writer can revive among the readers of another generation a tithe of the interest that Douglass created for himself when he led the forlorn hope of his race for freedom and opportunity, his ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... Okubo, had been induced to adopt Christianity, and was to be made ruler of the country if [321] the plot proved successful. But still Iyeyasu waited. By 1614 Christianity had scarcely even an Okubo to lead the forlorn hope. The daimyo converted in the sixteenth century were dead or dispossessed or in banishment; the great Christian generals had been executed; the few remaining converts of importance had been placed under surveillance, and were ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... fell the crushing burden of the old waiting, watching, listening spell. After all, it was not to end just now. His chance still persisted—looked a little brighter—led him on, perhaps, to forlorn hope. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... temples marks no improvement in our risks," said I. "We will sally out as if we were off to a tea-party. When my father led the forlorn hope at the storming of Wuerstenhausenstaffenberg, he wore a lace collar, and he was a man who understood these matters. And I may say that I wish he was here. He would be ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... fist at us; but before our companions came up he had disappeared. It took some time before the seamen who volunteered to go managed to climb up the slippery rock to the mouth of the cavern. When once two or three had gained a footing, they let down ropes, by which the rest easily got up. The forlorn hope, as the first party might be called, then dashed into the cavern, expecting, perhaps, to meet with a hot fire of musketry. Not a sound, however, was heard; no one appeared; on they boldly went. The smugglers might have had still more deadly ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... bitterly. "He loved the woman. It was not her fault. I doubt that she knew it, and she could not help it. But it cost him his life, for it made him attempt to carry a forlorn hope. And she never even knew. It is suicide to ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... man saw the dangling sleeve, his last chance of salvation. Frantically he clutched at it. Ah! he has missed it. No, as he was going down for the third time he threw out his arm once more. It was a forlorn hope, but it was successful. He caught hold of the coat with both his hands and raised himself. He found a creek in which he placed his foot, and with Frank's manly help, was soon extricated from ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... him that there was the chime of silver bells in her laughter. "Oh, my dear, must every victory of my life end in a forlorn hope!" ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... lawyer; and, of course, in the Middle West, that involved politics. He lived now in Lincoln, Neb., in a Republican district, but he was a Democrat. There was a landslide in 1890. The whole country went Democratic, and many a forlorn hope leader in some hide-bound Republican district was swept into Congress, Bryan among them. He made a great speech on the tariff, which won him instantly a national reputation; but Lincoln had recovered ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... joke; well, I'll think o' that. And so they expect Buonaparty to choose this very part of the coast for his landing, hey? And that the yeomanry be to stand in front as the forlorn hope?' ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... food, when one of them sat down on a hill-side in pretty nearly absolute despair, while the other man went down into a ravine hoping to find a puddle of water in the rocky bottom somewhere, though it was almost a forlorn hope. All at once he called out to his partner on the hill—"John, come down here and get some of this gold. There is a lot of it." To this poor John Galler only replied:—"No, I won't come. I don't want any gold, but ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... the grand-stand. His eyes ran heedlessly over scores of pretty faces, until finally they rested upon the group around Miss Braxton. Then carefully buttoning up his coat and straightening out his tall figure, as a brave man might who was about to lead a forlorn hope or receive his opponent's fire, he bore down upon them. Miss Braxton welcomed him cordially, and introduced him to the gentlemen about her. She straightway became so gracious to him that he aroused an amazing amount of suspicion and dislike in the ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... now there was a warrant out for me, I might by so doing make them afraid to stand, when great words only should be spoken to them. Besides I thought, that seeing God of His mercy should choose me to go upon the forlorn hope in this country; that is, to be the first, that should be opposed, for the gospel; if I should fly, it might be a discouragement to the whole body that might follow after. And further, I thought the world thereby would take occasion at my cowardliness, to have blasphemed the gospel, ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... in the present temper of the House a frontal attack upon Imperial Preference was a forlorn hope the Free Traders sought to destroy it by an enfilading fire. But their ingenious attempt, in the alleged interest of the consumer, to extend to China tea the same reduction as to the product of India and Ceylon was easily defeated. Mr. CHAMBERLAIN ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... forgot his bickering with General Smyth and sent him urgent word to hasten to the rescue. Winfield Scott, then a lieutenant colonel, came forward as a volunteer and took command of young Captain Wool's forlorn hope. Gradually more men trickled up the heights until the ground was defended by three hundred and fifty regulars and ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... from anxiety, had not slept all night, mounted her bicycle and rode out into the fresh and brilliant sunlight on a forlorn hope. An idea had come to her as an inspiration which, though unlikely, was not an impossibility. In the search for the missing ones, every road in the District was being scoured without success. Since the rain had obliterated all tracks there had been nothing to guide any one in the ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... crusaders fell in battle with the natives of the countries through which they marched, and thousands more perished miserably of hunger and exposure. Those that crossed the Bosporus were surprised by the Turks, and almost all were slaughtered. Thus perished the forlorn hope of the First Crusade. ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... the amount of money pledged—well, it would not have frightened even one of those little ones, that are scared out of their wits at the thought of an over-paid, over-fed, proud, luxurious and domineering priesthood. As for the missionary chosen to go on this forlorn hope—to explore this Africa of spiritual darkness, it was Hobson's choice; it was this or none. Except myself, there was no man to be thought of that would or could go on this errand, and so there was no contest over the choice ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... Carr's keen old eyes flickered between the two men and the girl. "My daughter. Mr. Thompson is the latest leader of the forlorn hope at Lone ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Finding myself reduced to the last stages of life, for no one would give me food, I went to a pool of water in a ravine amongst the hills, and for the last fortnight have been living there on water and the gums of trees. Seeing I was about to die, as a forlorn hope I ventured in this direction, without knowing whither I was going, or where I should come to; but God, you see, has brought me ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Port Olry I found that the Father had gone to visit a colleague, as his duties did not take up much of his time. His post at Port Olry was rather a forlorn hope, as the natives showed no inclination to become converts, especially not in connection with the poor Roman Catholic mission, which could not offer them any external advantages, like the rich and powerful Presbyterian mission. All the priests lived in ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... an eft," he said to himself, as course followed course, and, while bandying compliments with her, he watched and listened. "As soon set a harlequin to lead a forlorn hope. Well it's to be trusted her husband's some use for her—that's more than I have anyhow, so the sooner we see her off the premises the better. Suppose I shall have to fall back on Ormiston. Bit of a rake, I expect, though in looks he is so curiously ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... deed, that desperate dash to rejoin the division, though accomplished at a terrible cost. Miles, leading the forlorn hope, was soon to pay the price of his daring. They were all but through when he fell, shot ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... on the English judicial system is that no court of appeal exists to which a sentence might be referred for review, so that the most unjust and unequal sentences are constantly passed from which there is no appeal but in the forlorn hope—rather, entire hopelessness—of a petition to the Home Secretary. I have often seen a man who had been sentenced to five years for murder working by the side of another whose sentence was twenty years for some crime against property. Such contrasts, of course, excite great discontent, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... alike vain. Neither ambition nor pleasure could hold out any allurements to Ivy. Maternal authority was at length hinted at, only hinted at, and the spoiled child declared that she had not had her own will and way for sixteen years to give up quietly in her seventeenth. One last resort, one forlorn hope,—one expedient, which had never failed to overcome her childish stubbornness: "Would she grieve her parents so much as to oppose this their darling wish?" And Ivy burst into tears, and begged to know if she should show her love to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... an unusually glorious Fourth. He was magnificently befuddled, and for the first time in three months he was the regnant intoxicated ideal of what a gentleman and a soldier should be. He was a man among men, equal to any emergency, capable of leading a forlorn hope, or entering the lists for a lady's hand. He had forgotten, if he had ever known, the object of this meeting; but when he heard his name loudly called, he understood at once; he recalled the fact that he had something eloquent ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... swept round the island, and the gigantic fleet was seen no more. The uncanny completeness and abrupt silence that swallowed this prodigy touched a nerve that has never ceased to vibrate. The hope of England dates from that hopeless hour, for there is no real hope that has not once been a forlorn hope. The breaking of that vast naval net remained like a sign that the small thing which escaped would survive the greatness. And yet there is truly a sense in which we may never be so small or ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... The forlorn hope had failed; he was limping back to Ruth wounded and broken. He had sent her a wireless message. She would be at the dock to meet him. How could he face her? Fate had been against him, it was true, ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... Molyneaux, who served with gallantry in the 7th Ohio Infantry. Captain Mervin Clark, the fearless "boy officer" of the same regiment, who braved death on every occasion, and fell, colors in hand, when leading a forlorn hope over a rebel work at Franklin. Lieutenant Colonel Frank Lynch, of the 27th Ohio Infantry. Lieutenant Colonel G. S. Mygatt, of the 41st Ohio Infantry, who died of disease contracted in serving his country. Major J. H. Williston, of the same ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... conceals. We should love virtue; but it is well to know that this is simply and solely a convenient expedient invented by men in order to live comfortably together. What we call morality is merely a desperate enterprise, a forlorn hope, on the part of our fellow creatures to reverse the order of the universe, which is strife and murder, the blind interplay of hostile forces. She destroys herself, and the more I think of things, the ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... bearing slanders to induce his removal before he took Vicksburg; in Chattanooga, when the soldiers were stealing the corn of the starving mules to satisfy their own hunger; at Nashville, when he was ordered to the 'forlorn hope' to command the army of the Potomac, so often defeated—and yet I never saw him more troubled than since he has been in Washington, and has been compelled to read himself a 'sneak and deceiver,' based on reports of four of the cabinet, and apparently with your ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... ensued, plunged into the very midst of the melee, and, with a dauntless courage, that won the plaudits of the world, held aloft the banner of freedom in the Halls of Congress, when other hearts quailed and fell back! He led "the forlorn hope" to the assault of the bulwarks of slavery, when the most sanguine believed his almost superhuman labors would be all in vain. In these contests a spirit blazed out from his noble soul which electrified the nation with admiration. In his ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... Lindsay saw the situation, and came riding up with several officers, with whom he held a sort of council of war. Before they had arrived at a decision, the waves had come over the beach and dashed right up to where the soldiers were standing. "It's no use," said General Lindsey, "this review is a forlorn hope—I must dismiss the parade." He then gave the whole of the Volunteers orders to dismiss until three o'clock in the afternoon. The men dispersed in various directions, and just as they had got pretty nearly cleared away, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... questions at the same time, I blundered. The first was a poser and might have elicited some interesting revelation of feminine mental process. In forlorn hope I ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... impressed on her mental vision by the strength of despair? The Austrian soldiers at the frontier could not detain them, though without passports, for even they would not prevent a dying child from being conveyed on a forlorn hope. Such grief could scarcely be rendered more or less acute by circumstances. They arrived at their inn in a gondola, but only for Clara to die in her ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... Polish hymn?" he asked, abruptly. He was not a good story-teller perhaps. And while slowly cutting his beef across and across, in a forlorn hope that it might, perchance, not give him dyspepsia this time, he recited in ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... indeed a forlorn hope! What chance has an aspiring young doctor against the son of ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... the Adelantado left Fort Conception, than a conspiracy was formed among the natives to surprise it. Guarionex was at the head of this conspiracy, moved by the instigations of Roldan, who had promised him protection and assistance, and led on by the forlorn hope, in this distracted state of the Spanish forces, of relieving his paternal domains from the intolerable domination of usurping strangers. Holding secret communications with his tributary caciques, it was concerted that they should all ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... Lichfield, in which he had a share, he was made Colonel of Dragoons, and accompanied the Queen with his regiment to the royal head-quarters at Oxford. The year after we find him at the siege of Gloucester, then at the first battle of Newbury leading the forlorn hope with Sir George Lisle, afterwards marching with Sir Charles Lucas into the associate counties, and present at the royalist rout at Newport. That he was esteemed a valiant and skilful officer is apparent from the circumstance, that in 1645 he was appointed general ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... in the forlorn hope of attracting his attention. "Cinders!" Then, with a sudden spurt of animation, "Cinders darling, just come ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Helena, which I hope will accompany this safe, and one from Lynn, and the one before spoken of from me, to Canton. But we all hope that these letters may be waste paper. I don't know why I have foreborne writing so long; but it is such a forlorn hope to send a scrap of paper straggling over wide oceans. And yet I know when you come home, I shall have you sitting before me at our fireside just as if you had never been away. In such an instant does the return of a person dissipate ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... others followed. I considered myself as good a man as Lamb any day (it was only my own opinion), and I wasn't going to be outdone by him now. So I volunteered. And one or two others who considered themselves as good as I volunteered too, until the forlorn hope numbered a dozen. ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... sacrifice of horrors speaks eloquently of a forlorn hope! Sweep the walls with light, Kennedy; all those filthy things are nocturnal and they will retreat ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... spread over the whole earth, and that they would live to see the day when the New Jerusalem should come down from the clouds of heaven. But now that they had become so few in number, and could not help seeing that theirs was a forlorn hope, it was as if something within them had snapped. They moved slowly and with dragging steps. Now and then a sigh would escape them, but they seemed to have nothing to say to each other. For this had been a matter of supreme earnest with them. ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... summer examining every creek and bay, marking the soundings, taking the bearings of the possible harbours, and risking his life, as every hour he was obliged to risk it in such a service, in thus leading, as it were, the forlorn hope in the conquest of the New World. How dangerous it was we shall presently see. It was towards the end ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... party. His flushed face and glazed, bloodshot eyes told of sleeplessness and drink. He and his two comrades had spent the night before among the mountains. They were unkempt and weather-stained. But no heroes, returning from a forlorn hope, could have had a warmer ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... servitor, "Only give me your signal! I must make no mistake! There's no time to think in such cases!" He bent his head, while his mistress, in a low voice gave her last orders. Jules saluted, as if he were the leader of a forlorn hope. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... known to each other. No matter how interested you may be in a chat with a friend, you will see her bearing down upon you, bringing in tow the one human being you have carefully avoided for years. Escape seems impossible, but as a forlorn hope you fling yourself into conversation with your nearest neighbor, trying by your absorbed manner to ward off the calamity. In vain! With a tap on your elbow your smiling hostess introduces you and, having spoiled ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... danger, peril, insecurity, jeopardy, risk, hazard, venture, precariousness, slipperiness; instability &c 149; defenselessness &c adj., exposure &c (liability) 177; vulnerability; vulnerable point, heel of Achilles^; forlorn hope &c (hopelessness) 859. [Dangerous course] leap in the dark &c (rashness) 863; road to ruin, faciles descensus Averni [Lat.] [Vergil], hairbreadth escape. cause for alarm; source of danger &c 667. rock ahead [Approach of danger], breakers ahead; storm brewing; clouds in the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... he sat thus, Ruth made all haste back to Lupton House to tell of the failure that had attended her. There was nothing left her now but to embark upon the forlorn hope of following Richard to Taunton, to offer her evidence of how the incriminating letter had come to be locked in the drawer in which the constable had discovered it. Diana met her with a face as white as her own and infinitely more startled. She had just ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... one could lose a hat, simply by looking over the edge of the shaft." Then, as if in proof of the forlorn hope which he himself did not believe; "Harry 's a strong man. Certainly he would know how to swim. And in any event he should have been able to have kept afloat for at least a few minutes. Rodaine says that ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... it is a forlorn hope, Alice?" she said. "Am I but flattering myself that I am not quite passee yet? Oh, it is a heavy handicap, I know, for a woman of my age to try to cut out a brilliant young girl, and one who is beautiful; and, as you have told me, he never, as far as you know, flirted with a girl. ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... could be done." She tore off her glove, and with slim, nervous fingers wrote hurriedly. The sleek clerk supplied her with an envelope, and as she placed her message in it and handed it to him she felt it was a forlorn hope. There was only one other way of outwitting the detectives. Should Grell give any address in his message, she must reach him early in the morning before the police could act. A couple of questions elicited the fact that the ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... Lieutenant Perry, had been in communication with the enemy. When challenged, this officer made an excuse which Gordon accepted, saying, "I shall pass over your fault this time, on condition that, in order to show your loyalty, you undertake to lead the next forlorn hope." But Gordon forgot his decision, and was leading the forlorn hope himself, when suddenly an officer next to him was struck down. That officer was Lieutenant Perry, who fell into the arms of his commander. Many of Gordon's officers were brave men, but not a few of them exhibited the white ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... interrupted only by little ripples of laughter, half shy, half silly, and altogether horrible to hear. I hung back, divided between the impulse to tear myself away and the fearful fascination of listening—between the urgent need to find and warn my friends, and the forlorn hope to extract from her something that might save them. The toil of the climb had bathed me in sweat, and yet ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Well! It is a forlorn hope at the best, and not much the forlorner for being delayed till dark. I should like to know how you speed; though, mind! I expect nothing! When are you likely to have seen these dread ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... her husband lived. If she was not changed, I ought to be able to find her somewhere within this great Babylon of ours. Wisdom told me to set the police upon her track, but pride bade me try every other means first. So with the feverish energy of one leading a forlorn hope, I began to pace the streets if haply I might see her face shine upon me from the crowd of passers by; a foolish fancy, unproductive of result! I not only failed to see her, but ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... advancing through Persia towards the Holy Land, and to these, in the forlorn hope of checking their course, he sent as ambassadors a body of Franciscan friars composed of Father Ascelin and three companions. It was in the year 1246 that these papal envoys set out, armed with full powers from the head of the Church, but sadly deficient in the worldly wisdom necessary ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... men together, whom he led to Venice; whence, not without much haggling and the surrender of all the Hungarian claims upon Zara, about two-thirds of them were conveyed to Acre. But the whole expedition was a forlorn hope. The Christian kingdom of Palestine was by this time reduced to a strip of coast about 440 sq. m. in extent, and after a drawn battle with the Turks on the Jordan (November 10), and fruitless assaults ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... forward to his goal undaunted by whatever difficulties stood in the way. He was an idealist rather than a dreamer, one who had set up a standard in his life and, right or wrong, would live his life true to that standard. He was a man to trust, even though he might not inspire love, a leader for a forlorn hope, a personality which brought confidence to all who came in touch with it. His eyes, kindly but penetrating, were fixed upon the lad to whom he was a hero. He was the ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... down by the sunny edge of the great plantation. The sun was now rising well into the sky, climbing directly upward as if on this midsummer day he were leading a forlorn hope to scale the zenith of heaven. He shone on the russet tassels of the larches, and the deep sienna boles of the Scotch firs. The clouds, which rolled fleecy and white in piles and crenulated bastions of cumulus, lighted the eyes of the man and maid as they went onward upon the crisping ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... at dawn, he went out with eighty men to an outpost that had been an abandoned farm. It was rather a forlorn hope. They had one machine gun. At nine o'clock the enemy opened fire on them and followed it by an attack. The major in charge went down early. At two Cecil was standing in the loft of the farmhouse, firing with a revolver ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... itself, too, there are many varieties. The courage of the soldier and the courage of the martyr are not the same, and it by no means follows that either would possess that of the other. Not a few men who are capable of leading a forlorn hope, and who never shrink from the bayonet and the cannon, have shown themselves incapable of bearing the burden of responsibility, enduring long-continued suspense, taking decisions which might expose them to censure or unpopularity. The active courage that encounters ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... was an ideal leader of men. Many a forlorn hope he had led and brought to success through sheer self-confidence and belief in his star. But whether the failure of his mad marriage had disturbed his faith in his own persistent luck, or whether Ahmara's influence made for degeneration, in any case, a blight seemed to have fallen on the ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... his way betwixt heaven and earth, now courting popularity, now calling servility to his aid, and with a large estate, the "saints," and the population of Yorkshire to swell his influence, never venturing on the forlorn hope, or doing any thing more than "hitting the house between wind and water." Yet he is probably a cleverer man than ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... a cheerful view of a forlorn hope. Clark grasped the hand extended by Beverley and they looked ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... the pursuit of happiness the objective of love. Happiness for human beings is a forlorn hope. Because of conflicts within himself and between himself and others, man is doomed to be unhappy most of the time. He is always having to deal with the inevitable conflicts and accidents of life that give him a sense of vulnerability, both as an individual ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... confession of others before him. At the outbreak of the war his reputation was exclusively that of an engineer, in which branch of the military service of the United States he had, with a short exception, passed his career. He was early sent to Western Virginia on a forlorn hope against Rosecrans, where he had no success; for success was impossible. Yet his lofty character was respected of all and compelled public confidence. Indeed, his character seemed perfect, his bath in Stygian waters complete; not a vulnerable ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... Jack walked away to hide his quivering lip. To examine the islands again was a forlorn hope because already it seemed certain that nothing alive moved on any of them. The brig passed them closer than before as she made a long reach before turning out to sea. It was the intention to sail in to engage Blackbeard very early the next morning and meanwhile ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... three parts. A "forlorn hope" of twenty men was to be the first to rush headlong into the hand to hand fight. Then followed an advance guard of one hundred and fifty men, who, with axes in hand and muskets slung, were to cut away the timbers. Last of all came ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... be seven days yet before I could get news. I waited,—waited calmly and composedly. Mon Dieu! they talk of heroism in leading a forlorn hope,—Cesar Prevost was a hero for those eight days. I do not think about ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... city so solitary, so inaccessible, and so remote should have played so great a part in the history of Europe. It is to answer this question that I have set myself to write this book, which is rather an essay in memoriam of her greatness, her beauty, and her forlorn hope, than a history properly so called of Ravenna. But if we are to come to any real understanding of what she stood for, of what she meant to us once upon a time, we must first of all decide for ourselves what ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... the other day an old letter from Henley that told me of the circumstances in which he wrote that poem. 'I was a patient,' he writes, 'in the old infirmary of Edinburgh. I had heard vaguely of Lister, and went there as a sort of forlorn hope on the chance of saving my foot. The great surgeon received me, as he did and does everybody, with the greatest kindness, and for twenty months I lay in one or other ward of the old place under his care. It was a desperate business, but he saved ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie
... King should have his Lord Treasurer, of standing and of honour sufficient to ensure sound administration and compel respect. Commissioners, as Clarendon discerned clearly, would be bad servants and dangerous masters. Clarendon might be fighting a forlorn hope against the growing forces of officialdom; but his dislike was honest, and his discernment ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... into a very whirlwind of gaiety, and his eyes sparkled with appreciation. He did not notice then that his captain's uniform was stained and threadbare enough to make him a most disreputable figure in a drawing-room, however gallant he might appear at the head of a forlorn hope. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Tom, but we have exhausted every possibility. Mr. Damon is trying a forlorn hope now, but, even if ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... struck her as powerful and determined. With his magazine, he had the air of charging, sublimely, at the head of the forlorn hope of literature. ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... destruction, he stood braced, rigid upon his feet, his head up, his hand, the great bony hand that once had held the whole Pit in its grip, flung high in the air, in a gesture of defiance, while his voice like the clangour of bugles sounding to the charge of the forlorn hope, rang out again and again, over the ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... Clifton Hot Well: this may be due, in part, to the exaggerated estimate that was formed of the virtue of the water, and to the blamable practice which prevailed of sending patients here at their last gasp as a forlorn hope. Of too many it might be said as in these lines from the epitaph on his wife by the poet Mason in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores, This night we shall attack the English camp: Be the 'forlorn hope' yours—you'll lead it, sir, And lead it too with credit, I've no doubt. As every man must certainly be killed (For you are twenty 'gainst two thousand men), It is not likely that you will return. But what of that? you'll have the ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... you alive again. Nor would he ever have done so, but for the fortunate circumstance of the arrival of my squadron here on this particular day. This being so, it occurs to me that Captain Drake would not be at all likely to risk a long stay at Sam-riek in the very forlorn hope of your returning, but would get away from the place as quickly as possible. I should not be at all surprised if his vessel were to be found in Chemulpo harbour within the next few days. In any case, if you really wish to communicate with him you can write him ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood |
