"Onset" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good fortune to encounter an honest doctor, because he also said if it were my wish he could send me around for numerous tests but most likely these would not reveal anything either. More than likely, all that was wrong was that I was approaching 40; with the onset of middle age I would naturally have more aches and pains. 'Take some aspirin and get used to it,' was his ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... He fired. The ball passed through the body of the regent, and thence, descending as it went, killed a horse on the other side of him. Murray fell. There was a universal outcry of surprise and fear. They made an onset upon the house from which the shot had been fired. The door was strongly barricaded. Before they could get the means to force an entrance, Hamilton was on his horse and far away. The regent was carried to his ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... on Savonarala's entrance, soon crashed before the vehement onset of the powerful multitude, which struck down on the instant every obstacle it met: the whole convent was quickly flooded with people, and Savonarola, with his two confederates, Domenico Bonvicini and Silvestro ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sap would bleed for many a day to come, and which would leave scars visible till the day of their burning. Each stem was wrenched at the root, where it moved like a bone in its socket, and at every onset of the gale convulsive sounds came from the branches, as if pain were felt. In a neighbouring brake a finch was trying to sing; but the wind blew under his feathers till they stood on end, twisted round his little tail, and made him give up ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... own little True Blue, mates!" he shouted. "Whatever we do, don't let the Crapauds have him. Huzza for our Billy! Huzza for little True Blue!" and he and his old shipmates, making a fresh and still more desperate onset against the enemy, cut them down right and left, and drove them back with prodigious slaughter, some on board the frigate and some into the water, where many sank to rise no more. Just then, either from accident or design, the frigate on that side sheered off; but the Frenchmen who had attacked ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... attack with great fury in the afternoon, on all sides except the northeast, where the invaders were hemmed in by swamps. There seems to have been no cause for their retreat, except the danger of an overwhelming onset by the savages, which must have been foreseen from the start. But the army, as it was called, was wholly without discipline; during the night not even a sentry had been posted; and now their fear became ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... rapidly did they pursue their career, so that there appeared every prospect of our becoming the first, instead of the last, among the company. But when the enemy saw such a determined troop advancing to oppose them, they hurried off without awaiting our onset, and left us masters of the field. So we returned in triumph to our old course; when suddenly a wild boar, with its hopeful family, rushed across our path. Away we all went in chase of the poor animals. Count Wratislaw succeeded in cutting down ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... King, "be ye ready speedily, for an onset on the traitor Fleming. The cause of my ward is my own cause. Soon shall the trumpet be sounded, the ban and arriere ban of the realm be called forth, and Arnulf, in the flames of his cities, and the blood of his vassals, ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... once fully established. Even the treatment which Pasteur developed and which is here carried out cannot avail to save the victim in whom the active symptoms of the malady are actually present. But, fortunately, the disease is peculiarly slow in its onset, sometimes not manifesting itself for weeks or months after the inoculation; and this delay, which formerly was to the patient a period of fearful doubt and anxiety, now suffices, happily, for the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... you have such a home feeling about the place," said Mrs. Bogardus, avoiding the onset of words. "Well, good-evening, Cerissa. Thank you for your trouble. I will see about it ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... was likewise well contented with her victory, though it had cost her a black eye, which Partridge had given her at the first onset. Between these two, therefore, a league was struck, and those hands which had been the instruments of war became now the mediators ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... scar of siege or battle challenges the wandering eye, Never breach of warlike onset holds the ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... sounded the onset; but the two parties approached each other more slowly than at first, as men who knew and respected each other's valour. Henry Wynd, in his impatience to begin the contest, advanced before the Clan Chattan and signed to Eachin to come on. Norman, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... self-devotion was chaunted by Deborah under her palm-tree, 'The people willingly offered themselves.' Hence came courage, devotion, victory. With their lives in their hands they flung themselves on the foe, and nothing could stand against the onset of men who recked not of themselves. There is one grand thing even about the devilry of war—the transcendent self-abnegation with which, however poor and unworthy may be the cause, a man casts himself ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... contact, that one leaf may infect its neighbors, and that birds, flies, rabbits, and other ground game may carry the disease from one plant to another and from one crop to another. This is insufficient to account for the sudden onset and the wide extent of potato "epidemics," which usually attack whole districts at "one fell swoop." Some of those best qualified to judge believe that the spores are carried through the air, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... two-footed wolves were plenty, and as dangerous. The hangers-on of the army—beggars, feagues, and footpads—hovered, like the cowardly beasts of prey they were, about the outskirts of the city. Did a leaf rustle, we started; did a shambling shape in the gloom whine for alms, we made ready for onset. Gilles produced from some place of concealment—his jerkin, or his leggings, or somewhere—a brace of pistols, and we walked with finger on trigger, taking care, whenever a rustle in the grass, a shadow in the bushes, seemed to follow us, to talk loud and cheerfully of common things, the ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... upon the victory-flushed Huns to whom this unconventional kind of fierce onset came as a complete and disconcerting surprise. They fought like demons, with utterly reckless bravery. They paid the price, alas! in heavy losses, but for what they paid they took ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... Duke of Brunswick could have withstood the impetuous onset of the ill-clad, half-starved, but unconquerable peasants now following the French tricolour in its progress through Holland, who shall say? The exploits of Pichegru and his levies border on the miraculous until we remember ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... them open, fire and sword to bring Upon the harvests, not through fields unharmed To pass his legions — this was Caesar's joy; In peaceful guise to march, this was his shame. Italia's cities, doubtful in their choice, Though to the earliest onset of the war About to yield, strengthened their walls with mounds And deepest trench encircling: massive stones And bolts of war to hurl upon the foe They place upon the turrets. Magnus most The people's favour held, yet faith with fear Fought in their breasts. As when, with strident blast, A southern ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... and made at me a second time. I knew that if he once touched me I was gone. His horns were set, and his eyes glared with a terrible earnestness. I rushed towards the body of the buffalo that lay near, hoping that this might assist me in avoiding the onset. It did so, for, as he dashed forward over it, he became entangled among the limbs, and again charged without striking me. He turned, however, as quick as thought, and again rushed bellowing upon me. There was a tree near at hand. I had noticed it before, but I could not tell ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... scabbard, and with a fearful imprecation, such as no German tongue could echo, charged weaponless and at full speed their mimic caricatures whom fate had thrown in their way. The shock was so irresistible, that the poor Croats could make no use of their sabers against the furious onset of their unarmed foe: they were beaten down from their saddles with the fist, and dragged off their horses by their dolmanys; those who could save themselves fled. The Hussars disdained to pursue them; ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... love at the sight; and, like two enraged bears coming down from the mountains, they fell upon the bandits with such fury that many of them were slain, while the remainder, unwilling to await their onset, fled to a hiding-place which was known ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... prophecy this was as regards Prussia and Spain, those two countries were to learn by bitter experience; and remote Russia herself, though she escaped the last humiliation, saw in the gigantic hosts whose onset a few years later shook her to her centre, the armed subjects of the many smaller states, in whose subjugation she had acquiesced during the period of the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Promises took effect; and they all revolted from the General. The King now daring not to trust the Revolted, to make tryal of their Truth and Fidelity, put them in the forefront of his Battel, and commanded them to give the first Onset. The King at that time might have Twenty or Thirty thousand Men in the Field. Who taking their opportunity, set upon the Portugueze Army, and gave them such a total overthrow, that as they report in that Countrey not one of them escaped. The ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... with snow and ice. A stout block-house filled with sharpshooters guarded this rude bridge, which was raised some five feet from the ground. Within the palisaded fortress perhaps not less than 2000 warriors, with many women and children, awaited the onset of the white men, for here had Canonchet gathered together nearly the whole of his available force. This was a military mistake. It was cooping up his men for slaughter. They would have been much safer if scattered about in the wilderness, and could have ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... God our Lord, this fight lasted but a little while, and the Greeks turned their backs. They were discomfited at the first onset, and our people pursued them for a full great league. There they won plenty of horses and stallions, and palfreys, and mules, and tents and pavilions, and such spoil as is usual in such case. So they returned to the host, where they were right ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... occasion. So fluent and melodious was his elocution that his cause naturally begat sympathy. No one had time to deliberate on his rapid words or canvass his sweeping and accumulated statements. The dashing nature of the onset, the assurance, almost insolence of his tone; the serious character of the accusations, confounded ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... freedom the Prussians found it needful to reorganize their social system from top to bottom, for this social system had descended from Frederic William, the Great Elector of Brandenburg (1640-1688), and from Frederic the Great (1740-1786), and was effete and incapable of meeting the French onset, which amounted, in substance, to a quickened competition. Accordingly, the new Prussian constitution, conceived by Stein, put the community upon a relatively democratic and highly developed educational basis. By the Emancipating Edict of 1807, the peasantry ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... fact is, I cannot keep my resentments, though violent enough in their onset. Besides, now that all the world are at Murray on my account, I neither can nor ought to leave him; unless, as I really thought, it were better for him that ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... slaveholders with whom they associate, and thereby leading to a dissolution of the compact, dare not expose the flagrant enormities of the system of slavery, nor denounce the crime of holding human beings in bondage. They dare not lead to the onset against the forces of tyranny; and if they shrink from the conflict, how shall the victory be won? I do not mean to aver, that, in their sermons, or addresses, or private conversations, they never allude to the subject of slavery; ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... hour our men lay in the trenches, amidst pain which amounted to torture, incessantly firing, or again, at the word of command, ready to rush forward to meet the onset of ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... earth can cheer like Englishmen, who do so rally one another's blood and spirit when they cheer in earnest, that the stir is like the rush of their whole history, with all its standards waving at once, from Saxon Alfred's downwards. Mr Baptist had been in a manner whirled away before the onset, and was taking his breath in quite a scared condition when Clennam beckoned him to follow up-stairs, and return the books and ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... forbidding them to fight, reminding them that Christ told them when they were struck to offer the other cheek instead of giving a blow in return, doing everything in his power to still the storm, but all in vain. Toyatte stood outside one of the big blockhouses with his men about him, awaiting the onset of the Takus. Mr. Young tried hard to get him away to a place of safety, reminding him that he belonged to his church and no longer had any right to ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... perforce must feel For all his human brethren—O my God! It weighs upon the heart, that he must think What uproar and what strife may now be stirring This way or that way o'er these silent hills— 35 Invasion, and the thunder and the shout, And all the crash of onset; fear and rage, And undetermined conflict—even now, Even now, perchance, and in his native isle: Carnage and groans beneath this blessed sun! 40 We have offended, Oh! my countrymen! We have offended very grievously, And been most tyrannous. From east to west A groan of accusation ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... body may be most curiously marked. Wounds of various characters—contused, lacerated, and punctured—may be produced. There may be burns, vesications, and ecchymoses; arborescent markings are not uncommon. The hair may be singed or burnt and the clothing damaged. Rigor mortis is very rapid in its onset and transient. Post mortem there are no characteristic signs, but the blood may be dark in colour and fluid. The presence or absence of a storm ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... other, but with altered feelings on my part. I had faced him hopelessly with an empty gun for more than a quarter of an hour, which seemed a century. I now had a charge in my gun, which I knew if reserved till he was within a foot of the muzzle would certainly floor him, and I awaited his onset with comparative carelessness, still keeping my eyes opposed to ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... observable among the soldiery, with whom it was my misfortune to be now placed, that the Colonel's retiring damped their spirits....Thus proceeding, enfiladed by an animated but lessened fire, we came to the first barrier, where Arnold had been wounded at the onset. This contest had lasted but a few minutes, and had been somewhat severe, but the energy of our men prevailed. The embrasures were entered when the enemy were discharging their guns. The guard, consisting of thirty persons, were either taken ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... tasted sweets of property begat Desire of more; and industry in some To improve and cultivate their just demesne, Made others covet what they saw so fair. Thus wars began on earth. These fought for spoil, And those in self-defence. Savage at first The onset, and irregular. At length One eminent above the rest, for strength, For stratagem, or courage, or for all, Was chosen leader. Him they served in war, And him in peace for sake of warlike deeds Reverenced no less. Who could with him compare? Or who so worthy to control ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... colleges, when suddenly Donovan broke loose from his supporters, and rushing with a shout on the advanced guard of the town, drove them back in confusion for some yards. The only thing to do was to back him up; so the rear-guard, shouting "Gown! gown!" charged after him. The effect of the onset was like that of Blount at Flodden, when he saw Marmion's banner go down,—a wide space was cleared for a moment, the town driven back on the pavements, and up the middle of the street, and the rescued Donovan caught, set on his legs, and dragged away again some paces ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Eastern war is undecided, for the second Manassas and awful Antietam balance each other. Maxime Valois feels the issue is lost. When the shock of battle has been tried at Corinth, where lion-like Rosecrans conquers, when the glow of the onset fades away, his heart sinks. He knows that the iron-jointed men of the West are the peers of any ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... and in a few minutes the signal to charge was given, and Reno retreated pell mell before the onset of the Sioux. ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... hands. Worse went at it hammer and tongs; not that he raised his voice, or used unbecoming expressions, but his views were so subversive and so original, that the others were forthwith reduced to silence. At the first onset he brushed aside all the nonsense about Norwegian women, and that sort of thing, and went on boldly to consider the position of woman generally with regard to man. The magistrate asked him superciliously if he meant them to understand that ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... murder of his pals in the first onset. He had heard some one say, "Let's get out of here; we are in the German line!" Then all had been silence on the ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... be fought was a plain, which was the kind of ground most favorable for the operations of that species of force, Cyrus felt some solicitude in respect to the impression which might be made by it on his army. Nothing is more terrible than the onset of a squadron of horse when charging an enemy upon the field of battle. They come in vast bodies, sometimes consisting of many thousands, with the speed of the wind, the men flourishing their sabers and rending the air with the most unearthly cries, those in advance ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... evacuants. Derivatives, in the form of mustard-poultices, or more active blisters, are attended with good results. Stimulants have proved of the greatest service; and the late Prof. Tessona, of Turin, strongly recommended, from the very onset of the disease, the administration of strong doses of quinine. Maffei, of Ferrara, states that he has obtained great benefit from the employment of ferruginous tonics and manganese in the very acute stage of the malady, supported by alcoholic stimulants. Recently, the advantages resulting ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... invasion. From the ground, In freedom's darkest hour, there seemed to spring Unconquerable walls for her defence; Not trembling, like those battlements of stone That fell when Joshua's horns were blown; But firm and stark the living rampart rose, To meet the onset of imperious foes With a long line of brave, unyielding men. This was thy fortress, well-defended land, And on these walls, the patient, building hand Of Princeton laboured with the force of ten. ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... distinctions of that sort seemed to distract, scarce gave himself or me breathing time from the last encounter, but, as if he had tasked himself to prove that the appearances of his vigour were no signs hung out in vain, in a few minutes he was in a condition for renewing the onset; to which, preluding with a storm of kisses, he drove the same course as before, with unbated fervour; and thus, in repeated engagements, kept me constantly in exercise, till dawn of morning, in all which ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... catch the cry And back its echoes shake; And shouting peals of laughter, The trumpet rushes after, And cries, Wild Spirit, awake! Amidst them flute tones fly, Like arrows keen and numberless; And with bloodhound yell Pipes the onset swell; And violins and violoncellos, Creeking, clattering, Shrieking and shattering; And horns whence thunder bellows; To leave the victim slumberless, And drag forth prisoned madness, And cruelly murder all quiet and innocent gladness. What will be the end of this commotion? Where ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... he turned my eyes met his. He appeared to me as a man who, with all his self-control, was compelling himself to meet the onset ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... At first onset Tanno had yelled explanations; but almost with his first yell he rolled out of his litter, snatched a spare pole from a relief, and with it laid about him; Murmex did the like. The two of them, one on the right ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... action spreads in the bronchial tubes. The disease usually manifests itself at first in the form of a catarrh, or common cold; but the accompanying feverishness and general constitutional disturbance proclaim the attack to be something more severe, and symptoms denoting the onset of bronchitis soon present themselves. A short, painful, dry cough, accompanied with rapid and wheezing respiration, a feeling of rawness and pain in the throat and behind the breast bone, and of oppression or tightness throughout the chest, mark the early stages of the disease. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... is signally honorable to Major General Harrison, by whose military talents it was prepared; to Colonel Johnson and his mounted volunteers, whose impetuous onset gave a decisive blow to the ranks of the enemy, and to the spirit of the volunteer militia, equally brave and patriotic, who bore an interesting part in the scene; more especially to the chief magistrate of Kentucky, at the head of them, whose heroism ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... defeating all the manoeuvres of the foes, and breaking their arms, killed on the banks of the lake more than a hundred, commencing with the foremost. And then witnessing his prowess and strength, and the force of his skill, and also the might of his arms; and unable to bear (the onset), those prime heroes all of a sudden fled ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Tavannes, however, they met a serried line of horse where they looked for an open field; and the Walloon cavalry found themselves compelled to set their lances in threatening position to ward off the dangerous onset of their retreating allies. Another charge, made by a squadron of the Walloon lancers themselves, was bravely met by Baron Biron. His example was imitated by the Duke of Montpensier farther down the field. Although the one leader was twice wounded, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... will linger not another instant at arm's-length from these dim terrors, which grow more obscurely formidable the longer I delay to grapple with them. Now for the onset, and, lo! with little damage save a dash of rain in the face and breast, a splash of mud high up the pantaloons and the left boot full of ice-cold water, behold me at the corner of the street. The lamp throws down a circle of red light around me, and twinkling ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on principle at the onset.—Bulwer-Lytton. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... place the eggs of both the wild and tame duck under the same hen, for in this case "the young wild ducks die off, leaving their more hardy brethren in undisturbed possession of their foster-mother's care. The difference of habit at the onset in the newly-hatched ducklings almost entails such a result to a certainty." The wild ducklings were from the first quite tame towards those who took care of them as long as they wore the same clothes, and likewise to the dogs ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... Everywhere treason ripens; what shall I do? Wait, that the rebels may deliver me In bonds to the Otrepiev? Had I not better Forestall the stormy onset of the flood, Myself to—ah! But to forswear mine oath! Dishonour to deserve from age to age! The trust of my young sovereign to requite With horrible betrayal! 'Tis a light thing For a disgraced exile to meditate Sedition and conspiracy; ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... And dropping bitter tears against a brow Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white And colorless, and like the wither'd moon Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls— That made his forehead like a rising sun High from the dais-throne—were parch'd with dust; Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. So like a shatter'd column lay the King; ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... Andronicus, for thy Fauours done, To vs in our Election this day, I giue thee thankes in part of thy Deserts, And will with Deeds requite thy gentlenesse: And for an Onset Titus to aduance Thy Name, and Honorable Familie, Lauinia will I make my Empresse, Romes Royall Mistris, Mistris of my hart And in the Sacred Pathan her espouse: Tell me Andronicus doth this motion please thee? Tit. It doth my worthy Lord, and in this match, I hold me Highly ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... thy advice this night I'll put in practice. Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver, 90 Let us into the city presently To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in music. I have a sonnet that will serve the turn To give the onset to ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... occasional earthquakes, hurricanes along Atlantic coast; frequent flooding of lowlands at onset of rainy ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Symptoms.—The onset is sudden with sneezing, and difficulty in breathing through the nose. In a few hours, or it may be not for a day or two, a mucous, watery, nasal discharge appears. There are redness and slight swelling of the nose and upper lip, caused by the discharge. There is no fever as a general rule except ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... little ones to some rock-girt valley, to the caverns of which they had taken the precaution of removing their corn and oil, and even their baking ovens; and there, though perhaps they did not muster more than a thousand fighting men in all, they waited, with calm confidence in God, the onset of their foes. In these encounters, sustained by Heaven, they performed prodigies of valour. The combined armies of France and Piedmont recoiled from their shock. Their invaders were almost invariably ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... shepherds, mounted upon their stilts, much amused the ladies of the court, who took delight in making them race, or in throwing money upon the ground and seeing several of them go for it at once, the result being a scramble and a skillful and cunning onset, often accompanied ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... before the invention of gunpowder, and all battles were hand to hand. On the first day the result was doubtful, and Tarik rode through the Arab ranks, calling on them to fight for their religion and their safety. As the onset began, Tarik rode furiously at a Spanish chief whom he took for the king, and struck him down. For a moment it was believed to be the king whom he had killed, and from that moment new energy was given ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... weeks, the male bluebird had to clear his premises of these intruders. It occupied much of his time and not a little of mine, as I sat with a book in a summer-house near by, laughing at his pretty fury and spiteful onset. On two occasions the wren rushed under the chair in which I sat, and a streak of blue lightning almost flashed in my very face. One day, just as I had passed the tree in which the cavity was located, I heard the wren ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... once more, with tomahawk and scalping-knife, upon their defenceless homes. Already, indeed, had the emissaries of Great Britain taken measures to this end. The savage was already shaking off his apathy, scenting the carnage from afar, and making ready for the onset. The assurance, that such was the case, was doing the work of numerous arguments among the timid and the exposed. Such were the suggestions, appealing equally to their fears and gratitude, which the leading loyalists addressed ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... arose between the North Wind and the Sun as to which was the stronger of the two. Seeing a Traveler on his way, they agreed to try which could the sooner get his cloak off him. The North Wind began, and sent a furious blast, which, at the onset, nearly tore the cloak from its fastenings; but the Traveler, seizing the garment with a firm grip, held it round his body so tightly that Boreas spent his ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... conflict. Again they advanced in silence and without impediment. Their gallant leader, however, looked on this change with the most gloomy apprehensions; for he conjectured that the Moors were about to renew that system of defence which had been so destructive at the first onset. His suspicions were well grounded. Incontinently another ominous shout rent the air, and the tremendous fragments again rolled down, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... may be sufficiently confirmed by the names that the places thereabout yet retain, and the graves and the monuments of those that fell the battle. Both armies being in sight, there was a long pause and doubt on each side which should give the first onset; at last Theseus, having sacrificed to Fear, in obedience to the command of an oracle he had received, gave them battle, in which action a great number of the Amazons were slain. At length, after four months, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... but two days and return to him in haste; and she answered, "Hearing and obedience." Then rising up she went forth and he with her and farewelled her. Now his words had sunken deep into her heart and she feared for her children; but it availeth not to fortify herself by any device against the onset of Destiny. So she set out and fared on diligently three days, till she came to the river and pitched her tents on its bank. Then she crossed the stream, with some of her counsellors, pages and suite and, going up to the city and the palace, went in to Queen Nur al-Huda, with whom she found ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... would be apparent. In reality not only some but much was visible. It caught her attention, and luckily caught. I attempted to speak, and stammered. A false step as it would have been most fatal so was it more probable at the moment of onset than afterward, when the heated imagination should have collected, arranged, and begun to pour ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... us!' But Roland, with Oliver at his side, swept a clear space with Durendal, and none might come near him; the Archbishop kept his enemies at bay with his lance. Four times the Franks endured the shock of the onset, but at the fifth they were borne down by numbers, and now only ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... The sight of blood seemed to send them all mad together; the Tinjar people turned as one man and tore furiously down the hill to seize their weapons, while the Baram men ran to their huts and in a few seconds were prancing madly to and fro on the crest of the hill, thirsting for the onset of the bloody battle that now seemed a matter of a few seconds only. At the same time the Dayaks were swarming out of the bazaar seeking something to kill, like the typical Englishman, though not knowing which side to take. The Resident hastened after the Tinjars, threw himself ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... the diminishing downpour of sleet. He was wondering if by any chance Stampa might be mistaken. Bower stood somewhat apart, seemingly engaged in the same engrossing task. The wind was not quite so fierce as during its first onset. It blew in gusts. No longer screaming in a shrill and sustained ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... of violence. Like generous Poland, Italy was shattered, partitioned by strangers, and treated for centuries as a res nullius. The firm resolve of the Bohemian people to revive the glorious kingdom which has so valiantly stemmed the onset of the Germans is the same resolve which moved our ancestors and our fathers to conspiracy and revolt, that Italy might become a united state. The impetuous and vigorous character of the Southern Slavs and the Rumanians of Transylvania already has led to the making of heroes ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... Slorkey. With the yell of demons, his fierce followers advanced to the onset, firing their blank cartridges ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... as she had opened her eyes, Alec and Curly hurried off to get out their boat. They met the miller in an awful rage; for the sudden onset of twice the quantity of water on his overshot wheel, had set his machinery off as if it had been bewitched, and one old stone, which had lost its iron girdle, had flown in pieces, to the frightful danger of ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... Onset—This is a busy and thriving summer resort located in a beautiful spot on upper Buzzards Bay. It attracts many thousands of people during the summer months, who come to spend a few weeks, days, or the season there. It is a cottage colony supplemented ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... battles of July 2d and 3d, which he described in two letters, written each time after merciful night came down upon the field of slaughter. He saw the charges and defeats, the counter-charges and the continued carnage, and the final cavalry onset made by the rebels. He was often under fire. An impression that lasted all his life, and to which he often referred, was the result of that great movement of Pickett's division across the field, after the long bombardment of the Federal forces by the Confederate artillery. Retiring ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... to do for some moments. I thought of setting myself in an attitude of defence, and involuntarily had turned my gun which was now empty—intending to use it as a club. But I saw at once, that the slight blow I could deliver would not stop the onset of such a strong fierce animal, and that he would butt me over, and gore me, to ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... Unfortunately it is not possible to trace the connection between the particular animal responsible for the disease in a human being, since the period required for the development of the disease is so great that the possible time of onset is forgotten and the cause of the disease entirely ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... thundering down his mountain-road Was stopp'd, and could not breathe beneath the load Of the dead bodies. 'Twas a day of shame For them whom precept and the pedantry Of cold mechanic battle do enslave. Oh! for a single hour of that Dundee Who on that day the word of onset gave! Like conquest would the Men of England see; And her Foes find ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... coming to the point at once—and his premises (so anxious is he to proceed on sure and ample grounds) overlay and block up his conclusion, so that you cannot arrive at it, or not till the first fury and shock of the onset is over. The ball, from the too great width of the calibre from which it is sent, and from striking against such a number of hard, projecting points, is almost spent before it reaches its destination. He keeps a ledger or a ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... series of maneuvers. 11. The direct and the indirect lead on to each other in turn. It is like moving in a circle - you never come to an end. Who can exhaust the possibilities of their combination? 12. The onset of troops is like the rush of a torrent which will even roll stones along in its course. 13. The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... ship, the sailing being set for early afternoon. Before it seemed possible they had left the train and were being conveyed by motor to the pier. It was at the first whiff of salt-water fragrance that Georgiana felt a sudden onset of dread of the sailing of the great ship. And when she caught sight of the four black funnels rising above the mass of smaller smokestacks and masts and spars which lifted beyond the dingy buildings of the pier, she experienced ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... struggle continued, for Lygon was fighting with the desperation of one who makes his last awful onset ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... inform'd the Earl of Lancaster. Lan. And it sufficeth. Now, my lords, know this, That Gaveston is secretly arriv'd, And here in Tynmouth frolics with the king. Let us with these our followers scale the walls, And suddenly surprise them unawares. Y. Mor. I'll give the onset. War. And I'll follow thee. Y. Mor. This tatter'd ensign of my ancestors, Which swept the desert shore of that Dead Sea Whereof we got the name of Mortimer, Will I advance upon this castle ['s] walls— Drums, strike alarum, raise them from their sport, And ring ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... The duration of an attack varies. In most cases it does not last longer than forty-eight hours. On the other hand, attacks lasting as long as a week are by no means unknown. Within a short time of the onset the urine may be found to contain acetone bodies, the breath may smell distinctly of acetone, and the child may become torpid and drowsy or agitated and restless. At times there may be exaggerated ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... practically dealing with the Rebel States as if they were at once in and out of the Union. Among the most striking figures in the House were Butler and Cox, whose contests were greatly relished. They were well matched, and alternately carried off the prize of victory. Butler, in the first onset, achieved a decided triumph in his reply to a very personal assault by Cox. "As to the vituperation of the member from New York," said he, "he will hear my answer to him by every boy that whistles ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... of onset of the liberalising forces at the beginning of this century tended to provoke reaction. The alarm with which the defection of so considerable a portion of the Puritan Church was viewed gave coherence to the opposition. There were those who devoutly held that the ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... unwilling to go. However, he made some of the men go out with him, and upon the open plain they met with North Wind, who at once challenged the champion to do battle. The two rushed upon one another with great fury, and in the first onset Star Boy broke the bow of North Wind; but in the second, Star Boy was overthrown and lay as ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... every movement. For this service they had no equals. In the woods they could steal upon an enemy unawares, or lie in wait for his approach. In the field they were of little use. Much of the terror they inspired came from the suddenness of their onset, their hideous looks and unearthly war-cries, and their cruel practice of ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... cast down your eyelids? Once, like you, I too was young; From the first is life a struggle, and fresh youth its Berserk-gang. Hardly pressed and tried it must be, that its onset triumph not; I have proved you and forgiven. I ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... that we may go, as we have agreed, to see Poulaho at Tongataboo." Maccaackavow then got up and said: "You will not sleep on shore? then Mattie" (which directly signifies we will kill you) and he left me. The onset was now preparing; everyone as I have described before kept knocking stones together, and Eefow quitted me. All but two or three things were in the boat, when I took Nageete by the hand, and we walked down the beach, everyone in a silent kind ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... said, and he charged him to take arms and equip himself for the campaign, enjoining him not to gainsay Dandan in aught he should do. Moreover, he ordered him to pick out of his army ten thousand horsemen, armed cap-a-pie and inured to onset and stress of war. Accordingly, Sharrkan arose on the instant, and chose out a myriad of horsemen, after which he entered his palace and mustered his host and distributed largesse to them, saying, "Ye have delay of three days." They kissed the earth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... unto the Chylde Wynde—"Strong art thou in battle, son of my brother; the mighty bend before thy spear, and thy javelins pierce through the shields of our enemies. As an eagle descendeth on its prey, so rusheth my kinsman to the onset. But thou hast no nation to serve thee—no throne to offer for my daughter's hand. Whoso calleth himself her husband, shall for that title exchange the name of king, and become tributary unto me—even as my sword, before which thrones shake ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... "Belike thou sayest sooth. Knightly he standeth there as for the onset—he and his warriors with him. We will go down ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... shows the young anticipating, in their play, the struggles, enjoyments, co-operations, defeats, emergencies, etc., of their after lives, and by learning to cope with all these situations, so preparing themselves for the serious onset of adult responsibilities. On this theory each play becomes a beautiful case of adaptation to nature. The kitten plays with the ball as the old cat handles the mouse; the little dogs wrestle together, and so learn to fight with teeth and claws; the deer run from one another, ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... friendship. All the same, ever since she had left him at the doors of the Hotel Metropole, a certain constraint had crept into their intercourse. Wyndham was not easily deceived, and he rightly interpreted her abrupt dismissal of him as a final effort to assert herself before the onset of the inevitable. Even if he at times suspected her of playing a part, she had chosen the right part to play, and he respected her for it. He himself was leading a curious double life. He was working hard at his novel, which promised to surpass everything that he had yet ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... by machinery, will be re-issued to the world in the shape of paper. The Salvation Army consumes no less than thirty tons of paper every week. Here, therefore, would be one customer for as much paper as the new mill would be able to turn out at the onset; paper on which we could print the glad tidings of great joy, and tell the poor of all nations the news of salvation for earth and Heaven, full, present, and free to all ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... dared to resist the onset of the brute, to fight against it, to wound it, was feeling the full fury of the monster's rage. The gleaming lights of the doomed ship were waving lines that swept to and fro in the grip of those monstrous arms. The boat beneath Thorpe's feet ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... tell, you know, the onset of such a complication as this; for when one finds the victim of malaria hazy and stupid after his fever has abated; and, more especially, if he develops wandering tendencies, leaving his stretcher at night to choose another bed in the ward, often to the protesting consternation of its present ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... the onslaught. Leaping into his chariot he led the Trojans on. Nine captains of the Greeks he slew in the first onset. Now their ranks would have been broken, and the Greeks would have fled back to their ships if Odysseus had not been on that wing of the battle with Diomedes, the great horseman. Odysseus cried out, "Come hither, Diomedes, or verily Hector ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... battle-axe. In their great pride and self-will they always sought to press in the advance and take the post of danger, trying to outvie our Spanish chivalry. They did not rush on fiercely to the fight, nor make a brilliant onset like the Moorish and Spanish troops, but they went into the fight deliberately and persisted obstinately and were slow to find out when they were beaten. Withal, they were much esteemed, yet little liked, by our soldiery, who considered them ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... snorting and shrinking of horses. One of the animals turned and tried to bolt, and his rider, struggling to control him, added to the confusion. The fog shut them in with each other; and Armitage and Claiborne, having flung back their own horses at the onset, had an instant's glimpse of Chauvenet trying to swing his horse into the road; of Zmai half-turning, as his horse reared, to listen for the foe behind; and of Durand's impassive white face as he steadied his horse with his left hand and ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... number of the champions was Shakespeare, who, in spite of the proverb that "they who drink beer will think beer," was as true to his ale as Falstaff to his sack. The chivalry of Stratford was staggered at the first onset, and sounded a retreat while they had yet the legs to carry them off the field. They had scarcely marched a mile when, their legs failing them, they were forced to lie down under a crab tree, where they passed the night. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... by another Greece after the lapse of more than two thousand years, would have caused an Ancient Greek surprise. In the middle of the fifth century B.C., Ancient Greek civilization seemed triumphantly vigorous and secure. A generation before, it had flung back the onset of a political power which combined all the momentum of all the other contemporary civilizations in the world; and the victory had proved not merely the superiority of Greek arms—the Spartan spearman and the Athenian galley—but the superior vitality of Greek politics—the ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... through the battle; after him Idomeneus, and Meriones, the armour-bearer of Idomeneus, equal to man-slaughtering Mars. But who in his mind could recount the names of the others as many as afterwards aroused the battle of the Greeks? But the Trojans, in close array, first made the onset, and ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... me now, Hereward, for here approaches the thick of the onset. Now, display the utmost courage that thou canst summon up, for believe me thy credit and name also depend ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... rifles and rushed in fury upon the foe, still rending the air with their wild war-cry of "Remember the Alamo!" The Mexicans were utterly unprepared for this furious hand-to-hand assault, and quickly broke before the violent onset. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the obligations which he had formerly received from Anne, the poet appears to aim at something of the same sort from George. Of the poem the intention seems to have been, to show that he had the same extravagant strain of praise for a king as for a queen. To discover, at the very onset of a foreigner's reign, that the gods bless his new subjects in such a king is something more than praise. Neither was this deemed one of his excusable pieces. We do not find ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... the bellowing onset of base war, Their latest wearer wendeth! With wild zest. Fulfilled of windy resonance, the rest Of the bard-mob must hotly joust and jar To win the wreath that he beyond the bar Bare not away athwart ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various
... pillows, which were in a very uncomfortable condition, sat down behind the curtain; and, knowing that it would please Lady Emily, began to sing, in what the French call a veiled voice, The Land o' the Leal. Now the air of this lovely song is the same as that of Scots wha hae; but it is the pibroch of onset changed into the coronach of repose, singing of the land beyond the battle, of the entering in of those who have fought the good fight, and fallen in the field. It is the silence after the thunder. Before she had finished, Lady Emily was fast asleep. A sweet peaceful half smile ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... stream. These facts being ascertained from prisoners and deserters, Caesar sent the cavalry in front and ordered the legions to follow immediately. The soldiers advanced with such impetuosity, although up to their necks in the water, that the Britons could not withstand the onset and fled. A couple of miles below, at Hampton, Garrick lived in a mansion fronted by a rotunda with a Grecian portico. We pass Hampton Court and Bushey Park, which revive memories of Wolsey, Cromwell, and William III., and then on the opposite bank see the two charming ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... [lacuna] was persuaded on the part of Masinissa [lacuna] to the Carthaginians [lacuna] warlike [lacuna] was believed, and, therefore, Scipio, sending forward some horsemen on the advice of Masinissa [lacuna] laid an ambush in a suitable spot where they were destined [lacuna] making an onset to simulate flight. Against [lacuna] those wishing to pursue them. This also took place. The Carthaginians attacked them, and when after a little by agreement they turned, followed after at full speed while Masinissa with his accompanying cavalry lagged behind and got in the rear of the pursuers, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... he redoubled his efforts to crush his opponent, as he had expected to do at the first onset. "Keep cool, and have both eyes open," had been the oft-repeated admonition of Richard's distinguished instructor in the sublime art of self-defence, and he carefully observed the instruction. After a few more plunges ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... my hardest angle against him, at the same time alarming the whole household by my cries for aid. I believe, at the moment of my onset, the Stranger had sunk below our Plane, and really found difficulty in rising. In any case he remained motionless, while I, hearing, as I thought, the sound of some help approaching, pressed against him with redoubled vigour, and continued to ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... when she grasps the fickle Pow'r of Fortune, and is to raise the Man she stoops to wed, Lovers must sue on more submissive Terms; no Task's too hard when Heav'n's the Reward. I have a Lover too, no blust'ring Red-Coat, that thinks at the first Onset he must plunder, bullies his Mistresses, and beats his Men; but when two Armies meet in Line of Battle, your finest ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... maid to the king's notice. Here were two lines of battle, each surrounded by skirmishing detachments. She was subtle in the extreme, and arranged warily these side issues, which had more of death and utter destruction in them than an open onset. ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... his eager onset plies, Now here, now there, she darts her kindling eyes; What love hath yet to teach, fear teaches now, The furtive glances and ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... Harrison, the hero of Tippecanoe, was placed in command of the Western army in the fall of 1812; but a succession of mishaps overtook his expedition into the Northwest. He not only failed to reach Detroit, but lost most of his available troops by disease, desertion, and the onset of ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... old Knight, "may I never taste claret again, if that is not the very tune with which the prick-eared villains began their onset at Wiggan Lane, where they trowled us down like so many ninepins! Faith, neighbours, to say truth, and shame the devil, I did not like the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Welcome the Grand Conspiracy of Kings, The High Legitimates, the Holy Band, Who, bolder' even than He of Sparta's land, Against whole millions, panting to be free, Would guard the pass of right line tyranny. Instead of him, the Athenian bard whose blade Had stood the onset which his pen portrayed, Welcome . . . . . . . . . And, 'stead of ARISTIDES—woe the day Such ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... sea for the sake of forcing an action before they could establish contact with their army. Accordingly he sought out his enemy and met him (in the year 241 B.C.) off the island of AEgusa, near Lilybaeum. Almost at the first onset the Romans won an overwhelming victory, capturing seventy and sinking fifty of ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... the maid's quarters. In vain the firemen, who were now cutting holes in the floor to insert the hose, tried to intercept her. Bent upon serving her fellow-servants, she disappeared through the blinding smoke Crawling flat upon her face up the stairs to avoid the onset of the fumes, the girl reached the glass door that imprisoned the terrified creatures, burst it through with one powerful blow, and forced them out upon the fire escape, where now, too, the firemen's ladders were seen manned by the helmeted brigade. All bruised and bleeding from the ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... were full of meaning: "These barbarians," he said, "have nothing barbarous in their military arrangements." He was at first victorious; for his own talents were superior to those of the captains who were opposed to him; and the Romans were not prepared for the onset of the elephants of the East, which were then for the first time seen in Italy—moving mountains, with long snakes for hands. But the victories of the Epirotes were fiercely disputed, dearly purchased, and altogether unprofitable. ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... onset the slender cane Barnabas wielded broke short off, and he was borne staggering back, the centre of a panting, close-locked, desperate fray. But in that narrow space his assailants were hampered by their very numbers, and here was small room for bludgeon-play,—and ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... enormous lance, eighteen feet in length. When this heavy phalanx was set in array, the weapons carried by the soldiers in the first five ranks presented a bristling thicket of lance-points, which no onset, however determined, could penetrate. The business of the phalanx was to keep the front of the foe engaged, while horsemen rode into the enemy's flanks. This reliance on masses of cavalry to win a victory was something new in warfare. Another novel feature consisted in ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... their victory.27 The fate of the day was now decided. Yet still the infantry made a brave stand, keeping Pizarro's horse at bay with their bristling array of pikes. But their numbers were thinned by the arquebusiers; and, thrown into disorder, they could no longer resist the onset of the horse, who broke into their column, and soon scattered and drove them off the ground. The pursuit was neither long nor bloody; for darkness came on, and Pizarro bade his trumpets sound, to call his men ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... his bed and I my room. By this I at least escaped the first onset of local curiosity, for the villagers naturally made of Camille's restoration a nine-days' wonder. But towards evening Madame Barbiere brought a message from him that he would like to see Monsieur alone, if Monsieur would condescend ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... with such alacrity and such inconceivable violence, that the stricken enemy did not await the onset. They incontinently sloped at an angle of forty-five degrees with mother earth, and scooted towards the river, into which they all plunged without ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... fields about Glitter with brass, and from beneath, a sound Goes forth from feet of stalwart soldiery, And mountain walls, smote by the shouting, send The voices onward to the stars of heaven, And hither and thither darts the cavalry, And of a sudden down the midmost fields Charges with onset stout enough to rock The solid earth: and yet some post there is Up the high mountains, viewed from which they seem To stand—a gleam ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... the standards were raised and the asses on both sides (their trumpeters) had brayed, the engagement commenced. The Sunite left at once broke without awaiting the onset of the Horse-vultures, and we pursued, slaying them. On the other hand, their right had the better of our left, the Sky-gnats pressing on right up to our infantry. When these joined in, however, they turned and fled, chiefly owing to the moral effect of our success on the other flank. The ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... husband Gualter de Maunt. This earle assembling an armie, came forth to giue battell to the enimies, appointing the Englishmen contrarie to their manner to fight on horssebacke, but being readie (on the two & twentith of October) to giue the onset in a place not past two miles from Hereford, he with his Frenchmen and Normans fled, and so the rest were discomfited, whome the aduersaries pursued, and slue to the [Sidenote: The Welshmen obteine ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (8 of 8) - The Eight Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... battle. The left wing, commanded by the Earls of Northampton and Arundel, occupied the stronger position, being protected on their left by the little river Maye. The young Prince was in the position of the greatest danger; and as he and his companions stood in their ranks, watching the onset of the battle with parted lips, and breath that came and went with excitement, they began to see that upon them and their men the brunt ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... aware of emotion. The feel of his overcoat-collar upturned against the chin was friendly to him amid that onset of the pathos of the human world. He climbed back to the promenade. Always at the bottom of his mind, the foundation of all the shifting structures in his mind, was the consciousness of his exact geographical relation to Preston Street. He walked westwards along ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Fred helped vigorously. His spirits had risen, and he heartily enjoyed a good slip in the moist earth under the hedgerow, which soiled his perfect summer trousers. Was it his successful onset which had elated him, or the satisfaction of helping Mary's father? Something more. The accidents of the morning had helped his frustrated imagination to shape an employment for himself which had several attractions. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... strides the stealthy plotter stalks I must be quick too with my counterplot. To wait his onset passively, for him Is sure success, for me ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... into mad gallop, now sitting erect, the next moment lying hidden behind the plunging animals, constantly screaming their shrill war-cries, their guns brandished in air, they swept onward, seeking to crush that thin line in one terrible onset. But they reckoned wrong. The soldiers waited their coming. The short, brown-barrelled carbines gleamed at the level in the sunlight, and then belched forth their message of flame into the very faces of those reckless horsemen. It was not in flesh and blood to bear ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... perused the countenance of the First and Eleventh Corps, exhausted and bleeding with the previous day's losing battle, and the countenance of the Second, Third, and Twelfth Corps, getting into position to meet the next onset, which everybody knew was immediately impending, you would have said that it was a sombre community—that Army of the Potomac—with a good deal of grimness in the face of it; with a notable lack of the playful element, and no fiddling or other fine ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... so gay as she had done earlier in the day, with all her snowy plumage spread before the favouring breeze; but, she was all the better prepared to battle with the elements, and now steadily and sturdily awaited their onset. ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... district round about is intersected by a network of winding streams, and abounds in rocky gorges, where a few determined men could successfully hold their ground against the onset of a much more numerous body of troops. The caves afford, as we know, almost impregnable refuges: David had often hidden himself in them in the days when he fled before Saul, and now his soldiers profited by the knowledge he possessed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... The knees of the once swift runner shook like a reed in the wind. The heart of the once fearless warrior had become softer than woman's. The blood of his enemies no more reddened his tomahawk; his shout of onset was heard no more among the hills of the Iroquois. He became a prey to the cunning hatred of the strangers, whose anger was kindled against him because he was the son of the Great Spirit. And they mixed the poisonous juices of herbs with the strong waters they gave him, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... made an attempt to carry the redoubt by assault, but at the first onset every man that mounted the parapet was cut down, by the troops within, who had formed on the opposite side, not being prepared with bayonets ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... secular tutelary, who also made an anachronistic onset, with his repartees and his retorts, before there was anything to fire at, takes what I give by way of subsequent provocation with a good humor which would make a convert of me if he could afford .01659265 ... of a grain of logic. He instantly sent me his photograph ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... speech 240 Upon our native country's sacred ground. A patriot of the world, how could I glide Into communion with her sylvan shades, Erewhile my tuneful haunt? It pleased me more To abide in the great City, [P] where I found 245 The general air still busy with the stir Of that first memorable onset made By a strong levy of humanity Upon the traffickers in Negro blood; [Q] Effort which, though defeated, had recalled 250 To notice old forgotten principles, And through the nation spread a novel ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... and the Huron had discharged their rifles together at the savages, as they came pouring forward; then drawing their knives, they awaited the onset. The logs, loosely thrown together, could not long resist the efforts to dislodge them, and, in a few minutes, came tumbling to the ground. The first bronzed skull that appeared above them was shattered like an egg-shell, by the stock of the ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis |
