"Impregnable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... if my voice had not been choked with shame, Perhaps I had confess'd the frightful truth. Hippolytus can feel, but not for me! Aricia has his heart, his plighted troth. Ye gods, when, deaf to all my sighs and tears, He arm'd his eye with scorn, his brow with threats, I deem'd his heart, impregnable to love, Was fortified 'gainst all my sex alike. And yet another has prevail'd to tame His pride, another has secured his favour. Perhaps he has a heart easily melted; I am the only one he cannot bear! And shall I charge myself ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... by saying he had slipped. Later he went out and walked on to the bridge. In the brilliant sunshine spires were glistening against the pearly background of the hills; the town had a clean, joyous air. Swithin glanced at the Citadel and thought, 'Looks a strong place! Shouldn't wonder if it were impregnable!' And this for some occult reason gave him pleasure. It occurred to him suddenly to go and look for the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... they could float on their shields; and after death in battle a soldier was carried to his grave on his buckler. As they stood facing the Saxons they locked their shields together so as to form a barrier well-nigh impregnable against the arrows. ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... he reached Saint X our young "man of affairs" believed his conscience soundly converted to his adventure; and, as he drove toward the house, a final survey of his defenses and justifications satisfied him that they were impregnable. Nevertheless, as he descended from the station hack and entered the grounds of the place that in his heart of heart was all that the word "home" can contain, he felt strangely like a traitor and a sneak. He kept his manner of composed ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... changing irregularly, like the wind, now this way now that, is hurried along like a torrent rolling headlong down a steep mountain, so that no quiet is given to vessels there day or night. But not only did so perilous a station receive his ships, but the town was strong and impregnable, covered on one side by the sea, and very well fortified on the other towards the land, secured by a strong garrison, and above all, by the fidelity of the praefects and principal men, which was wavering and unsettled at Oreum. Though the business had been rashly undertaken, the Roman still ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... rebellious world, lying sunk in DOZENEDNESS, for nothing short of a Scots word will paint this Scotsman's feelings. And when he entered into his own house in Randolph Crescent (south side), and shut the door behind him, his heart swelled with security. Here, at least, was a citadel impregnable by right-hand defections or left-hand extremes. Here was a family where prayers came at the same hour, where the Sabbath literature was unimpeachably selected, where the guest who should have leaned to any false opinion was instantly set down, and ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... amazement at the palisade and ditch ("MEIN GOTT, who would have expected this!" he was heard murmuring); dashes, like a fire-flood, against ditch and palisade; tears at the pales himself, which prove impregnable to his cannon and him. He storms and rages forward, again and again, now here, now there; but is met everywhere by steady deadly musketry; and has to retire, fruitless, about daybreak, himself wounded, and leaving his eight cannons, and four ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... we are thrilled and delighted; and when this conviction is borne upon us and driven home by the evidences, and the truth of spirit ministry has been realized, nothing can destroy it. The spiritualist stands upon firm ground—the impregnable rock of ascertained fact. He knows that intercourse between the two worlds is real, continuous; therefore he is proof against all speculations, denunciations, and adverse theories. Dogmatic condemnations, 'bogey' cries, ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... high of heart As any Chief that ever stood Triumphant in the fields of blood; 100 From post to post, and deed to deed, Fast spurring on his reeking steed, Where sallying ranks the trench assail, And make the foremost Moslem quail; Or where the battery, guarded well, Remains as yet impregnable, Alighting cheerly to inspire The soldier slackening in his fire; The first and freshest of the host Which Stamboul's Sultan there can boast, 110 To guide the follower o'er the field, To point the tube, the lance to wield, Or ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... spectacle, and to a citizen of a threatened country a disquieting one. Nine high-sided battle-ships of ten-gun type—nine floating forts, each one, unopposed, able to reduce to smoking ruin a city out of sight of its gunners; each one impregnable to the shell fire of any fortification in the world, and to the impact of the heaviest torpedo yet constructed—they came silently along in line-ahead formation, like Indians on a trail. There were no compromises in this ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... hundred thousand veterans ready for combat. It was remarked, on a former occasion, that the want of this pretext had saved the liberties of one nation in Europe. Being rendered by her insular situation and her maritime resources impregnable to the armies of her neighbors, the rulers of Great Britain have never been able, by real or artificial dangers, to cheat the public into an extensive peace establishment. The distance of the United States ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... evening broke off the conflict, and the two sides separated to snatch a brief repose, the emperor, after due reflection, resolved to change his plans. Although many reasons of great urgency pressed him to force on the destruction of Phoenice, as of a fortress which would prove an impregnable barrier to the inroads of the enemy, yet the lateness of the season was an objection to persevering any longer. He determined, therefore, while he preserved his position, to carry on the siege for the future by slight skirmishes, thinking that the Persians would ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... powder. Generations of domestic service under ladies of Gallic blood had brought many of them to a supreme pitch of excellence as housekeepers. In many cases money had been inherited; in other cases it had been saved up. That Latin feminine ability to hold an awkward position with impregnable serenity, and, like the yellow Mississippi, to give back no reflection from the overhanging sky, emphasized this superior fitness. That bright, womanly business ability that comes of the same blood added again to their excellence. Not to be home itself, nothing could be more like ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... stir much earlier. This only shows the enormous difficulties of measuring accurately the steps of a transition state. The mind, in such a strain of buffeting, is never in one stay. The old seems impregnable, yet it has been undermined; the new is indignantly and honestly repelled, and yet leaves behind it its never-to-be-forgotten and unaccountable spell. The story, as he tells it, goes on, how, in the ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... females perished ages since, upon that cruel and terrible journey across the muddy plains that fringed the half-dried seas, when the green hordes scourged us across the world to this our last hiding-place—our impregnable fortress of Lothar. ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... lived in the tumult long and kept my wits; but we heard of an employe who, when some tooth or nail in the enormous monster smote him, could not bear to stop away long enough to complete his cure, because he was unable to bear the "awful stillness" of the hospital. Persons of impregnable nerve-power let us deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth, showing us the dragon's brood, and his terrible wife whose business it is not only to print the newspaper, but to cut its sheets, and eventually to lay them like eggs, at the rate of thousands a minute: a most appalling ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... however, have been left unguarded. In some trading convention, some congress of nations, England made the great mistake of restoring to France the Island of Bourbon, surrendering one of the keys to the impregnable position she held. Other reasons have prevented the acquisition of Madagascar, and it is not yet too late to render this mistake fatal to her supremacy. It is true that in case of war, her armed steamers may start with the assurance of a secure coaling ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... another reference to "our age," left her, and next attacked Celeste Fishblate, having long ago discovered Nattie to be impregnable to the process known as "pumping," a fact that had augmented her ever-increasing dislike ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... so that their tops turned outwards, forming an almost impenetrable obstacle, while, immediately in front of the log wall, the ground was covered with heavy boughs, overlapping and interlaced, their points being sharpened. This position was, in fact, absolutely impregnable against an ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... assuming the immediate command of the invading force. He was subsequently ordered to the seat of the war; and after a series of operations, admitted to be the most brilliant in point of science known to modern warfare, he won what were supposed to be impregnable, the castle and the town of Vera Cruz. This triumph was announced on the 29th of March. The siege occupied fifteen days, and was attended with little loss on the side of the Americans. On the 17th of April, Scott, advancing upon Mexico, issued an order for the attack of Cerro Gordo—in ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... all means Of Service, Courtship, Presents, that might win her To be at his devotion: but in vain; Her Maiden Fort, impregnable held out, Until he promis'd Marriage; and before These Witnesses a solemn Contract pass'd To ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... overhangs Tumbling Run on the south side, a heavy line of earthworks had been constructed when Early retreated to this point in August, and these were now being strengthened so as to make them almost impregnable; in fact, so secure did Early consider himself that, for convenience, his ammunition chests were taken from the caissons and placed behind the breastworks. Wharton, now in command of Breckenridge's division—its late commander having gone to southwest Virginia—held ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... quite half-way round. No signs either of another opening in the reef. Fine island to annex, Sir John. It's a regular fortification, a natural stronghold with an impregnable wall round it, and a full mile-wide moat inside. A fort at the point commanding the entrance ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... to the detective he gladly consented to the plan, declaring that he would willingly spend the time just to watch such an unheard-of instrument work. After another hour of fruitless discussion Prescott took his leave, saying that he would mount an impregnable guard ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... inherited and coute que coute determined to persist in the belief that there was a personal God—"a Maker, voiceless, formless, within our own soul." To Emerson he writes in 1836, "My belief in a special Providence grows yearly stronger, unsubduable, impregnable"; and later, "Some strange belief in a special Providence was always in me at intervals." Thus, while asserting that "all manner of pulpits are as good as broken and abolished," he clings to the old ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... art. But art and nature had combined to fortify that renowned citadel which, from the summit of a lofty rock, looks down on a boundless expanse of cornfields, woods and meadows, watered by two fine rivers. The people of the city and of the surrounding region were proud of their impregnable castle. Their boast was that never, in all the wars which had devastated the Netherlands, had skill or valour been able to penetrate those walls. The neighbouring fastnesses, famed throughout the world for their strength, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is but little affected by any particular champion. Thus the general effect necessarily was as of men each securely intrenched in his own fastness, and, though they might make sallies for a little engagement in the open, each could retreat to a position of impregnable security, which could be assaulted only by long siege ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... times this sea-girt fortress was almost impregnable. Two ancient cannon lying at its gate show that the conqueror of Agincourt thundered against it in vain. Its weak point was want of water: it had none but the rain-water collected in a great cistern. In these days it could not hold out an hour ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... earned at the store. Mrs. Somers had heard nothing from her husband; but the destruction of the Gosport Navy Yard, and the seizure of several northern vessels in the harbor of Norfolk, left her little to hope for in that direction. Suddenly an impregnable wall seemed to rise up between the North and the South, and she not only feared that Captain Somers had lost all his worldly possessions, but that he would hardly be able to escape himself from the fiery furnace of secession ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... impressively calm and reasonable in his explanation of the misrepresentation, and of his strong grounds for assuming his rights, with his persuasion that his wife would readily join the English church—a consideration that he knew would greatly smooth the way for her. Indeed, his own position was impregnable: nobody could blame him for taking his own wife to himself, and he was so sure of her charms, that he troubled himself very little about the impression she might make on his kindred. If they loved her, it was all right; if not, he could take her back to his own castle, and win fame ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... desert island and a mutineer And dead Magellan's gallows. Sirs, my life Was hardly safe with him. Why, he resolved To storm the Castle of St. Vincent, sirs, A castle on a cliff, grinning with guns, Well known impregnable! The Spaniards fear Drake; but to see him land below it and bid Surrender, sirs, the strongest fort of Spain Without a blow, they laughed! And straightway he, With all the fury of Satan, turned that cliff ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... believe, is the first application of the celestial portent to this particular comparison. Yet Milton's "imperial ensign" waves defiant behind his impregnable lines, and even Campbell flaunts his "meteor flag" in Waller's face. Gray's bard might be sent to the lock-up, but even ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... However, in this case, the way of removal did not seem clear for a long time. Harry was undoubtedly fond of Maria. That did not trouble Ida in the least, although she recognized the fact. She was not a woman who was capable of jealousy, because her own love and admiration for herself made her impregnable. She loved herself so much more than Harry could possibly love her that his feeling for Maria did not ruffle her in the least. It was due to no jealousy that she wished Maria removed, at least for ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the lightning, the night, heavy with clouds, swept down again, and it seemed to Henry that it was darker than ever. He longed for the dawn. With the daylight disclosing the enemy, and helping their own aim, their log fortress would be impregnable. Elsewhere the battle seemed to be dying. The shots came in irregular clusters, and the war whoop was heard only at intervals. Directly in front of them the silence was absolute and Henry's rapid mind divined the reason for ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... justly deprive the least of those women of any protection of those rights which he claims for himself? No, sir, the natural, or what we call civil right, and its political defense, go together. This was the impregnable logic of the Revolution. Lord Gower sneered in Parliament at the American Colonists a century ago, as Mr. Robert Lowe sneers at the English Reformers to-day: "Let the Americans talk about their natural and divine rights.... I am for enforcing ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... compelled to make a fatiguing and circuitous march to the west through the sandy March. Magdeburg, although garrisoned with twenty-two thousand Prussians, defended by eight hundred pieces of artillery and almost impregnable fortifications, capitulated on the 11th of November to Ney, on his appearance beneath the walls with merely ten thousand men and a light field-battery. Kleist, in exculpation of his conduct, alleged his expectation ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... to induce a blood-clot? 'Beautiful.' Evil-smelling recesses walled up with painted wood. Birthplaces of mice. Impregnable hot-beds of vermin. And who wants ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... setting in, and the infant cause of it here setting up a cry, Susan escaped under pretext of putting Humfrey to bed in the next room, and carried off both the little ones. The conversation then fell upon the voyage, and the captain described the impregnable aspect of the castle of Dumbarton, which was held for Queen Mary by her faithful partisan, Lord Flemyng. On this, Cuthbert Langston asked whether he had heard any tidings of the imprisoned Queen, and he answered ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... superficial theories of man as a machine pure and simple which would make him the most complicated of mechanisms, a marvel of intricate parts, but would deprive him of his essence as self-conscious unique in the universe. Man, thinking man, at any rate, dreads to lose the cherished impregnable conviction that he is something apart, inherently, and therefore infinitely different from every other phenomenon in the ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... means of defence to fight behind, if the enemy forced their way in past the first entry, and with these and a larger and stronger barrier at the top of the slope by the first turn, it was considered by the Doctor that with ordinary bravery the place would be impregnable. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... slowly. LeNoir opened with a swift and savage reach for Macdonald's neck, but failed to break the guard and danced out again, Macdonald still pressing on him. Again and again LeNoir rushed, but the guard was impregnable, and steadily Macdonald advanced. That steady, relentless advance began to tell on the Frenchman's nerves. The sweat gathered in big drops on his forehead and ran down his face. He prepared for a supreme effort. Swiftly retreating, he lured Macdonald to a ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... forthwith. A month or so later, Phips was blundering pilotless into the St. Lawrence, with two thousand Massachusetts men on thirty-four vessels. Their coming had been prepared for, and when they demanded the surrender of the impregnable fortress, with a garrison more numerous than themselves, they were answered with jeers; and it is painful to add that they turned round and set out for home again without striking a blow. A storm completed their discomfiture; and when Phips ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... The elements incessantly lay siege to these fortresses and take advantage of every flaw or unguarded point, so that what stands has been seven times, yea, seventy times seven times tested, and hence gives the impression of impregnable strength. The angles and curves, the terraces and foundations, seem to be the work of some master engineer, with only here ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... their attempts were in vain; the gallant, brave, and kind-hearted people of Wiltshire surrounded me with an impenetrable phalanx; they formed an irresistible bulwark with their persons, which proved an impregnable barrier against all the assaults of the constables, bullies, and blackguards, that were urged on by the Mayor and his myrmidons—a "matchless crew." I was hoisted upon the shoulders of those who stood in the centre of this brave phalanx, and had a perfect ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... at first. That is an impregnable place of refuge. Then I have the sea, and a vessel to pass over into England, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... war-like bow kill a Cock-sparrow? Bring out the Lady, she can quel this mutiny: And with her powerfull looks strike awe into them: She can destroy, and build again the City, Your Goddesses have mighty gifts: shew 'em her fair brests, The impregnable Bulworks of proud Love, and let 'em Begin their battery there: she will laugh at 'em; They are not above a hundred thousand, Sir. A mist, a mist, that when her Eyes break out, Her powerfull radiant eyes, and shake their flashes, Will flye ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... country, intrenched in power, and otherwise high in influence and station, civil and military, are renouncing their allegiance to the flag they have sworn to support, it is an inexpressible source of consolation and pride to us to know that the general in chief of the army remains like an impregnable fortress at the post of duty and glory, and that he will continue to the last to uphold that flag, and defend it, if necessary, with his sword, even if his ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... far into the mountains. The backwoodsmen of Tennessee and Kentucky, the Carolinas, and western Virginia were aroused; and under their superb partisan leaders—Shelby, Sevier, Cleaveland, McDowell, Campbell, and Williams—gave chase to Ferguson, who took refuge upon what he deemed an impregnable position on the top of King's Mountain. On the 7th of October the backwoodsmen stormed the mountain, Ferguson was shot through the heart, 400 of his men were killed and wounded, and all the rest, 700 in number, surrendered at discretion. The Americans lost 28 killed and 60 wounded. ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... that he approached the window. He was setting a simple trap, into which many a man and woman had fallen. Any one of moderately strong character can control face and eyes when the need of such discipline is urgent, but howsoever impregnable the mask, the strain of wearing it is felt, and relief shows itself in an unguarded moment. At the farther end of the room there was a mirror above the fireplace, and as he turned his back on Fenley, by ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... the war, we could have rendered this position impregnable in one night, but at this time we did not do it, and it may be it is well we did not. From about the 1st of April we were conscious that the rebel cavalry in our front was getting bolder and more saucy; and on Friday, the 4th ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... and the banished Cavaliers felt an emotion of national pride, when they saw a brigade of their countrymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned by friends, drive before it in headlong rout the finest infantry of Spain, and force a passage into a counterscarp which had just been pronounced impregnable by the ablest of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... men of all love for their country, and to remove from their minds all duty with regard to the state, endeavor to propagate an opinion, that the people, in forming their commonwealth, have by no means parted with their power over it. This is an impregnable citadel, to which these gentlemen retreat, whenever they are pushed by the battery of laws and usages and positive conventions. Indeed, it is such, and of so great force, that all they have done in defending their outworks is so much time and labor thrown away. Discuss any of their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... his hearers not to trust too implicitly to that hitherto unconquerable valour and resource which had so far rendered Britain impregnable to her enemies. These were not the days of personal valour. They were the days of warfare by machinery, of wholesale destruction by means which men had never before been called upon to face, and which annihilated from a distance ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... occupied the vast region of Berar. The Guicowar, which is, being interpreted, the Herdsman, founded that dynasty which still reigns in Guzerat. The houses of Scindia and Holkar waxed great in Malwa. One adventurous captain made his nest on the impregnable rock of Gooti. Another became the lord of the thousand villages which are scattered among ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... they had won from the Germans nearly twenty-four square miles of territory. Considering the extent to which every fraction of a mile was fortified and defended, and the thoroughness of the German preparations to make the district impregnable, the Allied gains were important. As a British officer said at the time, it was like digging badgers out of holes—with the proviso that every badger had machine guns and rifles at the hole's mouth, while the approach ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... and frank-hearted Infidel, expresses the same sentiment. As long as a German Protestant divine keeps himself stiff and stedfast to the Augsburg Confession, to the full Creed of Melancthon, he is impregnable, and may bid defiance to sceptic and philosopher. But let him quit the citadel, and the ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... would have been non-intervention in this case. The danger of the Russian power was a phantom [Footnote: 'There never has been a great State whose power for external aggression has been more overrated than Russia. She may be impregnable within her own boundaries, BUT SHE IS NEARLY POWERLESS FOR ANY PURPOSE OF OFFENCE.'—Lord Palmerston, in the House of Commons, 1853.]; the necessity of permanently upholding the Mahometan rule in Europe is an absurdity. Our love for civilization, when we subject the Greeks and Christians ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... told or imagined. They laboured at the work three hundred years; and when they had wrought it to end, they went to King Sheddad and acquainted him therewith. Then said he, 'Depart and make thereto an impregnable citadel, rising high into the air, and round it a thousand pavilions, each builded on a thousand columns of chrysolite and ruby and vaulted with gold, that in each pavilion may dwell a Vizier.' So they returned and did this in other twenty years; after which ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... immediate place of safety seemed to be the Inner Sanctuary of Nagaya, . . it was untouched by the flames, and its Titanic pillars of brass and bronze suggested, in their very massiveness, a nearly impregnable harbor of refuge. The King had fled thither, and now stood, like a statue of undaunted gloomy amazement, beside Lysia, who on her part appeared literally frozen with terror. Her large, startled ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... followers of the blind, obtuse to every argument, impregnable to incontrovertible facts, who have cast in their lot with the avowed enemies of England. They have their day—every dog has it—but their day is far spent, and their night is at hand. For England will never again submit to Romish rule. Nor will Ireland ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... its faithful ministers the defence of innocence is even more imperative than the conviction of guilt. The law is a Gibraltar, fortified and armed by the consummate wisdom of successive civilizations, as an impregnable refuge for innocence; and here, within its protecting bulwarks, as in the house of a friend, you are called on to plead your defence. You have heard the charges of the prosecution; listened to the testimony of the witnesses; and having taken your cause into your own hands, you must now stand ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... was also her instructor in this philosophy, and the principles he instilled into her mind were such as tended to seduce her. Finding her cold and impregnable on the side of her passions, and firmly attached to her husband and her duty, he attacked her by sophisms, endeavoring to prove that the list of duties she thought so sacred, was but a sort of catechism, fit only for children. That the kind of infidelity ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... found, and filled to overflowing, the soul of one amiable little child who had a kind of genius for tranquillity, and on his first coming hither had led Gaston to what he held to be the [43] choicest, pleasantest places, as being impregnable by noise. In his small stock of knowledge, he knew, like all around him, that he was going to die, and took kindly to the thought of a small grave in the little green close, as to a natural sleeping-place, in which he would be at home beforehand. Descending from the tower, ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... the first floor. The massive stone walls here were unadorned with ivy, nor were there any of those elaborate decorations in stonework which might have afforded a hold for the foot of the climber. The bare stone wall frowned down upon Thomas Milsom, impregnable as the walls ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... which to joust against overwhelming odds on an apparently hopeless quest. This weapon was a space-suit—nothing more—yet so brilliantly and daringly did he wield its unique advantages that he penetrated seemingly impregnable barriers and achieved alone what another man would have required the ray-batteries ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... work." The nearer I came thereto the more I wondered at the height, strength, splendour, grandeur, and beauty of its every part, how skilful the work was, and how apt the materials. Its base was an enormous rock wondrously fashioned, and of strength impregnable; upon it were living stones, laid and joined in such perfect order that no stone could possibly appear finer elsewhere than in its own place. One part of the church projected in the form of a wonderfully handsome ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... cities, and distant from the splendid court, frequented the lonely mountains, and the unambitious fields; nor went but rarely among the throngs of Ilium. Yet, not having a breast either churlish, or impregnable to love, he espies Hesperie, the daughter of Cebrenus,[61] on the banks of her sire, who has been often sought by him throughout all the woods, drying her locks, thrown over her shoulders, in the sun. The Nymph, {thus} seen, takes to flight, just as the frightened ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... to myself. Then I put her through a cross-examination, but Kaatje was a stupid woman although a good and faithful servant, and all her terrible experiences had not sharpened her intelligence. Indeed, when I pressed her she grew utterly confused, began to cry, thereby taking refuge in the last impregnable female fortification, and snivelled out that she could not bear to talk of her dear mistress any more. So I gave it up, and two minutes later she was literally snoring, ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... entered the inclosure made by the Major, they were surprised at the state of defense in which he had put it. His hedge of thorns upon rocks piled up was impregnable, and the wagons were in the center, drawn up in a square; the entrance would only admit one person at a time, and was protected by ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... others, which contrasted strongly his tender respect to the King; "hear the Saxons, but not in these walls. Let no man from the foe see our strength or our weakness. We are still mighty and impregnable, while our dwelling is in the realm of the Unknown. Let the King, and his officers of state, and his chieftains of battle, descend to the pass. And behind, at the distance, let the spearmen range from cliff to cliff, as a ladder of steel; ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Confederate forces, Early's division was ahead at Hamilton's Crossing, intrenched in an almost impregnable position. On Wednesday, April 29, the rest of Jackson's corps was moved up from below, where Doubleday's and Morrow's demonstrations had until ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... to any milkmaid, the caprice of Nature that made you the most wondrous piece of beauty the age hath seen. [Elizabeth's raised fists, on the point of striking him, fall to her side]. That is what hath brought all men to your feet, and founded your throne on the impregnable rock of your proud heart, a stony island in a sea of desire. There, madam, is some wholesome blunt honest speaking for you. Now ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... revolution which was taking place in the art of war. The introduction of gunpowder ruined feudalism. The mounted and heavily-armed knight gave way to the meaner footman. Fortresses which had been impregnable against the attacks of the Middle Ages crumbled before the new artillery. Although gunpowder had been in use as early as Crecy, it was not till the accession of the House of Lancaster that it was really brought into effective employment ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... it go up like the brawny trunks of heroes; the sweet flesh of men and women is molded about its bulwarks, strong, impregnable; the faces of little children laugh out from every corner stone; the terrible spans and arches of it are the joined hands of comrades; and up in the heights and spaces are inscribed the numberless musings of all the dreamers of the world. It is yet ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... was very great. The English people, alarmed and incensed, never forgot it. Never before had one of their ships of war been conquered by a vessel of greatly inferior force. Their coasts, deemed impregnable, were again invaded by the man whom they called, in the blindness of their rage, pirate and renegade. Professor Houghton, a serious-minded historian, writing of Jones said: "His moral character can be summed up in one word—detestable." English comment on Paul Jones may be summed up truthfully ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... town, our troops were closely besieged—besieged so closely that the Boers thought there was no possible chance of relief. 'Ladysmith will never be relieved,' said a Boer to one of our chaplains. 'No troops in the world will ever be able to get through Colenso to Ladysmith. It is absolutely impregnable.' But they did, and one hardly knows which to admire most the dogged persistence of General Buller and his men or the heroic defence, the patient, confident waiting of ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... by no means the case with the inhabitants of New Zealand, in whose carriage and conversation there was as much modest reserve and decorum with respect to actions, which yet in their opinion were not criminal, as are to be found among the politest people in Europe. The women were not impregnable; but the terms and manner of compliance were as decent as those in marriage among us, and according to their notions, the agreement was as innocent. When any of our people made an overture to any of their young women, he was given to understand that the consent of her ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Credit, which must be supported by every Tradesman. These Possessions in Fame are dearer than Life to these Characters of Men, or rather are the Life of those Characters. Glory, while the Hero pursues great and noble Enterprizes, is impregnable; and all the Assailants of his Renown do but shew their Pain and Impatience of its Brightness, without throwing the least Shade upon it. If the Foundation of an high Name be Virtue and Service, all that is offered against it is but Rumour, which ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... vision of the tragedy of life. But in the light of this revelation, with his unfettered contemplation, he builds, like Bertram Russell, a "shining citadel in the very centre of the enemy's country, on the very summit of his highest mountain; from its impregnable watch-towers, his camps and arsenals, his columns and forts, are all revealed; within its walls, the free life continues while the legions of Death and Pain and Despair and all the servile captains of tyrant ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... boat we skirted the coast. It was impregnable except in three places: our own beach, that near the seal rookery, and on the south side of the island. We landed at each one of these places. But returning close to the coast we happened upon a cave mouth more or less guarded by an ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... account of their being at Edinburgh to the number of five thousand. This sounds great, to have walked through a kingdom, and taken possession of the capital! But this capital is an open town; and the castle impregnable, and in our possession. There never was so extraordinary a sort of rebellion! One can't tell what assurances of support they may have from the Jacobites in England, or from the French; but nothing of either sort has yet appeared—and if there does not, never was so desperate ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... get beyond our range and then bring the fight back by some other means. Shooting fast I heard Doloria give several quick gasps of excitement as I knocked up the ash dust close to them, and although, their number was not reduced we gained a feeling of greater security to find the fort more impregnable than I had prophesied. ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... It meant, of course, that she was beaten; that her first fight for the big thing had been in vain. There would be no use, for the present, in renewing the struggle. He'd taken the one ground that was impregnable. So long as he could go on honestly interpreting every plea of hers for a share in the hard part of his life as well as in the soft part of it, for a way of life that would make them something more than lovers—as wholly subjective to herself, the ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... more crossed the Kiso (1564) at the head of a large army, and after many days of severe fighting, captured the castle of Inaba-yama, which had been strongly fortified by Yoshitatsu, and was deemed impregnable. Nobunaga established his headquarters at this castle, changing its name to Gifu, and thus extending his dominion over the province of Mino as well as Owari. He had now to consider whether he would push on at once into the province of Omi, which alone lay between him and Kyoto, or ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the True Master is the straight line. Pythagoras, Plato and Christ created angles by running vertical lines through the ecclesiastical and hypocritical conventionalities of their day. The new angles and curves thus produced by the bold philosophy of the humble Nazarene have confronted with impregnable firmness during the intervening ages ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... ravaged the Roman Empire of the East almost without opposition. Only the impregnable walls of Constantinople resisted the destruction. A few years later the savage horde appeared upon the Rhine, and in enormous numbers penetrated Gaul. No people had yet understood them, none had even checked their career. The white races ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... streams, mud-pools, and paddy-fields. The military hospitals were full; the Spaniards were as far off extinguishing the Katipunan as the rebels were from being able to subvert Spanish sovereignty. The rebels held only two impregnable places, namely Angat and San Mateo, but whilst they carried on an interminable guerilla warfare they as carefully avoided a pitched battle. The Gov.-General, then, had resort to another edict, dated July ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... unusual, his position as Arbuthnot's superior officer, locally present, was impregnable. He nevertheless kept his temper under provocation, and the dignified restraint of his reply is notable; indeed, the only significant feature of this incident, from the biographical point of view. "No offence to ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... appreciate him in England? And, if the gentle virtue of an inward excellence availed so little, could he expect more from the hard ways of skill and force? The terrible land of his exile loomed before him a frigid, an impregnable mass. Doubtless he had made some slight impression: it was true that he had gained the respect of his fellow workers, that his probity, his industry, his exactitude, had been recognised, that he was a highly influential, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... plurality of offices showered on Buckingham rendered him still more odious to the people:[239] had he not been created lord high admiral and general, he had never risked his character amidst the opposing elements, or before impregnable forts. But something more than his own towering spirit, or the temerity of vanity, must be alleged for his assumption of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... misfortune,' he said, 'a fight between Italians; but it proved to me what can be done with this family when united. The Neapolitan soldiers, when their cartridges were exhausted, threw stones at us in desperation.' How then, with much superior numbers and a seemingly impregnable position, did they end in ignominious flight? The answer may be found in the reply given to Bixio, bravest of the brave, who yet feared, at one hotly-contested point, that retreat was inevitable. 'Here,' retorted the chief,'we die.' Men who really mean to conquer ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... from what cause) were animated with equal fury; several of the principal officers of Niger, who despaired of, or who disdained, a pardon, had thrown themselves into this last refuge: the fortifications were esteemed impregnable, and, in the defence of the place, a celebrated engineer displayed all the mechanic powers known to the ancients. [54] Byzantium, at length, surrendered to famine. The magistrates and soldiers were put to the sword, the walls demolished, the privileges ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... body, held the spacehound motionless between his legs. At short range, he seared off the imprisoning tentacles, knowing that it would take far more than a heat-bolt to damage the well-nigh impregnable creature. He swooped the dog up under his good arm and fled from the madly-pursuing spheres, thanking nameless deities that the gravity here permitted such herculean feats. The spheres rolled faster, he soon found, than he could jump; so long as he was above ...
— The Beast of Space • F.E. Hardart
... taken position on Fisher's Hill, considered the Gibraltar of the Valley, and according to Sheridan, almost impregnable to a direct assault. Two days were occupied in bringing up troops and making dispositions for the attack. The Second Connecticut reached its assigned position on the 21st near midnight, and found itself "on the very top of a hill fully as high as Fisher's ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... rose, beat back their Christian guards, and opened the gates to the last of their race of kings. The garrison alone, to which the Spaniards retreated, resisted Boabdil's arms; and, defended by, impregnable walls, promised an ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his victorious soldiers should not pillage or insult the inhabitants, he was well aware of the supreme value of his conquest. The taking of Exeter was practically the taking of all western England. So he determined to make his position impregnable, and to this end set about the building of a castle on the Red Mount. The task was not a hard one: the Norman engineers had little need to display their peculiar ingenuity. Nature had done much, and to her work Briton, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw
... The hall empties. The streets are alive. People hurry, saunter, stand laughing. Street cars, store fronts, mean houses, shadows and a friendly moon. These are part of the system. Three hours ago they seemed a powerful, impregnable symbol. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... section of the salient. The taking of this plateau would naturally be the first step in capturing Vigneulles. But the Germans had converted Les Eparges into what had the appearance of being an impregnable fort, when they took it on September 21, 1914. Their trenches lined the slopes, and everything had been made secure for a possible siege. The French in February and March, 1915, however, had taken the village of Les Eparges and a portion of the steep side on the northwest. But of necessity ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... impregnable surrounds The Town wherein I dwell; No man may scale it and it has Two gates ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... hand, and went red with rage up to the roots of his fair hair. What he thought of Evans' incursion was written so plainly on his face, that Christian, in that impregnable corner of her mind where dwelt her sense of humour, felt a ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Nobody knew what was going to happen next. All the loyalistcivilians were under arms. The large mill of the Kaffrarian Steam Flour Company had been converted into a fort which was, in case of necessity, impregnable to rifle-fire. The rebels in the field had declared the New Republic practically established, with temporary capital at Reitz. Just before we saddled up to track them the news came of De Wet's capture on the Malopi River, near Mafeking. The news put everyone in fresher spirits. The charm around ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... place where either could be passed by infantry or wagons. The little ferries which had been made in a few eddies of the rivers were destroyed in the first campaign, and the post at the Gauley became nearly impregnable in front, and could only be turned by long ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... impression. He knew well how slippery was the path before him, and how slight was the hold he had upon the wayward humours of the King. His friends might urge that he might, by becoming First Minister, secure his position and render himself impregnable against attack. He knew better the virulence of his foes, and could only hope to disarm it by conforming to those constitutional principles which his conscience told him were the only hope of an issue from the present entanglements. He soothed, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... only recently acquired by their crusading ancestors. The height and strength of its powerful walls enabled it to be of the greatest service to the soldiers of that day. They saw that it was virtually impregnable for any artillery with which they were familiar. In fact, in the wars of the Incas and those which followed Pizarro's entry into Cuzco, Sacsahuaman was repeatedly ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... less retains her social position and is not forced to make an avocation of selling herself because henceforth no other career is possible to her. When Cook came to New Zealand his men found that the women were not impregnable, "but the terms and manner of compliance were as decent as those in marriage among us," and according "to their notions the agreement was as innocent." The consent of the woman's friends was necessary, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Yankees attempted to re-form their broken lines on Missionary Ridge. We advanced to attack them, but they soon fell back to Chattanooga. We knew they were in an impregnable position. We had built those breastworks and forts, and knew whereof we spoke. We stopped on Missionary Ridge, and gnashed our teeth at Chattanooga. I do not know what our generals thought; I do not know what the ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... we live And bear the glare? Now rosily smiles the earth, And bold young couriers climb the slope of heaven, With gaudy flags aflare. The towered clouds, Lofty, impregnable, are captured now— Their turrets flame with banners. Who abides Under the smooth wide rim of the worn world That the high heavens should hail him like a king— Even like a lover? If it be the Truth, Ah, shall our souls wake with the triumph, Lord? ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... a viper like Casorans satisfied me in every way. Evidently the place was not taken; impregnable, that was ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... strangely. Did she know him, this other self? In the swift apprehension of life's depths which came through her heightened mood she perceived that ultimate division lying between all human beings, that impregnable fortress of the individual soul.... It was all over. He looked tenderly at her. Her lips trembled with a serious smile,—yes, they would ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... until rank after rank had sunk helpless at the impregnable line of defense. They were not killed—at least, not many—but the shock was so paralyzing that those who had experienced its effects made no further attempts to cross the barrier. Many lay for a time helpless upon ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... said to have been three hundred and fifty feet high, and so broad that six chariots could go abreast upon them. The city was so strongly fortified, both by nature and art, as to be thought impregnable. ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers |
