"Subaltern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whom he owed most at this juncture was Aymar de Chastes. Though Champlain had served the king faithfully, his youth and birth prevented him from doing more than belongs to the duty of a subaltern. But De Chastes, as governor of Dieppe, at a time when the League seemed everywhere triumphant, gave Henry aid which proved to be the means of raising him from the dust. It was a critical event for Champlain that early in 1603 De Chastes had determined to ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... I had known from my school-days, Frederick Thistlethwayte, coming into a huge fortune when a subaltern in a marching regiment, had impulsively married a certain Miss Laura Bell. In her early days, when she made her first appearance in London and in Paris, Laura Bell's extraordinary beauty was as much admired by painters as by men of the world. Amongst her ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... to his nation, in time of need, but fighting service should not be exacted if some one else could perform it better than he where he is expert in some other needed field. The recent action of England in sending to the front as subaltern officers, who were speedily killed, many highly trained technicians and young scientists and medical men who would have been much more valuable at home in connection with war measures, is an example of this mistake. Carrying the idea farther, one sees that in many nations there are certain races ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... had arrived from the Punjab and urged immediate attack on the city. Nicholson was the greatest man the mutiny produced. Tall, magnetic, dominating, he enforced his will upon every one. Even Lord Roberts, who was then a young subaltern and not easily impressed by rank or achievement, records that he never spoke to Nicholson without feeling the man's enormous will power and energy. Finally, on September thirteenth, the British guns having made breaches in the city walls, ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... fraternal shout, "Vive la Ligne!" elicited from the lips of many of the soldiers the answering cry of "Vive la Reforme!" In vain was it that Marshal Bugeaud, the veteran of a hundred battles, menaced and blasphemed. In vain did his old protege and subaltern, but now bitter foe, General Lamoriciere, dashing from one end of the line to the other on his white horse, entreat and persuade with his eloquent tongue. The people insisted—the National Guard fraternized—the ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... ball. For the greater part of the evening he stood near the door with his eye fixed on Miss Priest, apparently rather in sorrow than in anger. His gaze seemed but to stimulate her to more vivacious flirtation; and she "carried on above a bit," as a cynical subaltern remarked, with the gallant major to whom she had been penultimately engaged. Toward the close of the evening Captain Hambleton relinquished his post of observation, seemed to accept the situation, and was observed at supper-time ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... me a courteous invitation to serve on his staff. Of course I accepted,—you know how it irked me to remain at home,—but I gave him at the same time a statement of my reason for quitting the Virginia service,—that I could not consent to be outranked by every subaltern who held ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... two parties; the lovers of the French Monarchy, and those who desired its overthrow. He sided openly with the latter. "Had I been a general," said Napoleon in the evening of his life, "I might have adhered to the king: being a subaltern, I joined ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... a subaltern, who had called on Fernandez to carry a report to headquarters, set off alone in the direction of the city. When half a mile on his way a man suddenly confronted him and asked him for a light. He promptly offered his cigar. Puffing fiercely the stranger created a glow, and in the shadow ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... received an order to quit Madrid, where his restless nullity had lost itself in a maze of intrigues. Authorised in a manner to form her ministry, she nominated the President Amelot as Ambassador for Spain, a diplomatist although very high minded, yet of somewhat subaltern ability, one of the lights of that magistracy from which Louis XIV. loved to recruit the staff of his government, and whence Madame des Ursins herself sprung on her mother's side. The Marshal de Tesse was appointed to the command of the army, and Orry, a pupil of Colbert and a distinguished ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... courage and conduct; and, on his return to England about a twelvemonth since, had obtained the command of a cavalry regiment. Passionately fond of his profession, he entered into its minutest duties with a zeal not exceeded by the youngest and poorest subaltern in the army. ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... find it hard work to do that, Marshall, even in India. Of course, the pay and allowances make it easy for even a subaltern to live on his income there, but when it comes to laying by much, that is a difficult matter. However, so long as the actual campaign lasts, the necessary expenses will be very small. We shall live principally on our ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... he picked up his work quickly, and in the course of a few weeks was physically much better for his training. At the end of three months he was nearly two inches taller, and more than three inches bigger around the chest than at the time he joined. He began to enjoy his work, too. The young subaltern whose duty it was to train the company had more than once singled him out as a capable fellow, and as the cold winter days passed away and spring began to advance Tom could undergo a twenty- or thirty-mile march without weariness. He was well fed, well ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... subaltern of the cantonment main-guard at Bangalore one day in the month of June, 182-. Tattoo had just beaten; and I was sitting in the guard-room with my friend Frederick Gahagan, the senior Lieutenant in the regiment to which I belonged, and manager of the amateur theatre ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the priest was correct, for the young Gorman was wasteful and extravagant from disposition, and his quarter's allowance disappeared almost when it came. His money out, he fell back at once to the penurious habits of the poorest subaltern about him, and lived on his florin-and-half per diem till his resources came round again. He hoped—of course he hoped—that this momentary fit of temper would not extend ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... hand, entered the chamber. Some of the deputies shrieked and fled, while others, more calm, reminded him that armed men were forbidden to enter the hall, and ordered him to retire. He refused, and sent his subaltern to the king for orders. But Louis still held to his strange policy of non-resistance. Even the terrible scenes of the morning, and the deliberate attack of an armed mob upon his palace, had failed to eradicate his unwillingness to authorize his own Guards to fight in his behalf, or ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... deep. We were halted behind one in the last great fight, awaiting the order to advance, when a battery came up at full gallop. We all made sure they must be pulled up the nullah. They never pulled bridle. 'Leading gun, right turn!' sang out the subaltern; and down they went sideways into the nullah. Then, 'Left turn;' up the other bank, one gun after another, the horses scrambling like cats up and down places that my men had to use their hands to scramble up, and away on ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... at the order of his superior. Then he escorted them up the side to the deck, which was marvelously neat and attractive. Some half a dozen sailors lounged here and there and these stared as wonderingly at the invasion of strangers as the subaltern had done. But their guide did not pause longer than to see that they had all reached the deck safely, when he led ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... celebrated controversy with Charles Kingsley, which led to the writing of the Apologia. The controversy was not a very fruitful one, chiefly because Kingsley could no more understand the nature of Newman's intelligence than a subaltern in a line regiment can understand a Brahmin of Benares. Kingsley was a stout Protestant, whose hatred of Popery was, at bottom, simply ethical—an honest, instinctive horror of the practices of priestcraft and the habits of superstition; and it was only ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... think I'll wait here—just a moment," says the colonel, and, marvelling not a little, the subaltern ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... have such good reason to consider McConachan the man guilty of his uncle's death, it becomes my duty to put aside my private feelings and to confess to you that I am unable to look upon Mark McConachan as entirely above suspicion. When he was a subaltern in the regiment I have the honour to command, he was a source of grave worry and ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... Otis Yeere At the Pit's Mouth A Wayside Comedy The Hill of Illusion A Second-rate Woman Only a Subaltern In the Matter of a Private The Enlightenments of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... his squadron, and the next minute a subaltern and twenty men detached themselves from the column, and, at a brisk trot, began retracing their steps along the road. Upon arriving in sight of the house to which they were proceeding, they leaped their horses over ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... years. He became completely saturated with the river its terms, its memories, its influence remained a definite factor in his personality to the end of his days. Moreover, it was his first period of great triumph. Where before he had been a subaltern not always even a wage-earner—now all in a moment he had been transformed into a high chief. The fullest ambition of his childhood had been realized—more than realized, for in that day he had never dreamed of a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... I caught sight of the subaltern of my troop at some little distance from me. His name was Tomassov. That multitude of resurrected bodies with glassy eyes was seething round his horse as if blind, growling crazily. He was sitting erect in his saddle, not looking down at them ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... run!" exclaimed Lieutenant Brown of the Grenadiers, who supported him. "Who run?" demanded the General like one roused from sleep. "The enemy, sir," responded the subaltern. "Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned Wolfe, with an earnestness that detained the spirit in his almost lifeless body; "tell him to march Webb's regiment down to the St. Charles to cut off their ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the rose, but I have lived with her," responded Forrester, sententiously. "That's the principle of the thing. When a subaltern arrives laden with gold, the barrack-yard is a perfect garden of Bendemeer ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... in a recent despatch tells us how a British subaltern saw, from a wood, an unsuspecting German soldier patrolling the road. Not caring to shoot his man in cold blood, he gave him a ferocious kick from behind, at which the startled German ran away with a yell. This subaltern certainly ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... the prodigal. Yet he contrived to be out when the dog-cart conveying the said prodigal, and Mr. Decies of the 101st Lancers—a friend of Guy Quayle, home on leave from India, whence he brought news of his fellow-subaltern—actually drove up to the door. When, pushed thereto by an accusing conscience, he did at last come in, Lord Fallowfeild easily persuaded himself that there really was not time before dinner for the momentous conversation. Moreover, being very full of the milk ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... transport dump a platoon met me led by a Subaltern of no mean dimensions. He was conversing with certain ones, seemingly officer's servants, who were drawing a hand-cart. He grew suddenly excited, then spoke to a Senior Officer, turned, left his platoon and ran back at the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... window, their voices drowned by the din of rain on the veranda roof, each of whom nodded to him. He chose, however, a solitary chair, for, though subalterns do not believe it, a colonel has exactly that diffidence about approaching senior civilians which a subaltern ought to feel. ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... from their first leave—were the most encumbered, self-possessed, and asserting; those of the second year, so to say, usually got a corner-seat and looked out of window; while here and there a senior officer, or a subaltern with a senior's face, selected a place, arranged his few possessions, and got out a paper, not in the Oxford manner, as if he owned the place, but in the Cambridge, as if he didn't care a ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... him was a young Gunner subaltern, with most of his right leg shot away, and they talked spasmodically, in the intervals of trying to read ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... like a bird out of the snare of the fowler, might a little incline them to remember the condition of those, who were but last week their equals, probably their companions or their friends, and possibly, as reasonable expectants. There is a known story of Colonel Tidcomb, who, while he continued a subaltern officer, was every day complaining against the pride, oppression, and hard treatment of colonels toward their officers; yet in a very few minutes after he had received his commission for a regiment, walking with a friend on the Mall, he confessed that the spirit of colonelship, was coming fast ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... thought the Colonel was too old a man for climbing trees. He recommended that a subaltern, a Second Lieutenant whom nobody would miss much if he fell, should be sent up the tree. The suggestion, as the Adjutant might have guessed, made the Colonel more determined ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... at Montreal, La Barre embarked his little army at La Chine, crossed Lake St. Louis, and began the ascent of the upper St. Lawrence, In one of the three companies of regulars which formed a part of the force was a young subaltern, the Baron la Hontan, who has left a lively account of the expedition. Some of the men were in flat boats, and some were in birch canoes. Of the latter was La Hontan, whose craft was paddled by three Canadians. Several ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... a 105-cm. battery, a young Major von Markel in command, a most charming fellow. I spent all to-day in the advanced observing position with a young subaltern called Grabel, also a nice young fellow. I was in position at 6 a.m., and, as apparently is common here, mist hides everything from view until the sun attains a certain strength. Our battery was supporting the attack on the north side of the river, ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... area of the patriot ambuscade when a single shot by Col. Shelby gave the signal for attack. The Whig riflemen, with sure and steady aim, opened a destructive fire which was kept up for an hour, during which time Col. Innis was wounded; all the British officers except a subaltern were killed or wounded. The Tory Captain, Hawsey, and Major Fraser, of the British regulars, with sixty-three privates were killed, and one hundred and sixty made prisoners. The American loss was only ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... nearly eight hundred, including the subaltern officers. These recruits, or the majority of them at least, were recruits in name only; they had seen service in many a hard campaign of the Rebellion. Some, of course, were beardless youths just out of their teens, full of that martial ardour which induced so many young men of the ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... Musqueteers lasted, he had come constantly to her dressing-room, and afterwards she promised to find other pleasant reading; but after such excitement, it was not easy to find anything that did not appear dry. As the daughter of a Peninsular man, she thought nothing so charming as the Subaltern, and Gilbert seemed to enjoy it; but by the time he had heard all her oral traditions of the war by way of notes, his attendance began to slacken; he stayed out later, and always brought excuses—Mr. Salsted had kept him, he had been with a fellow, or his pony had lost ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is killed! Well, no one would have laid down his life more gladly in such a cause. Twenty years ago the merest chance saved him from the massacre at Isandhlwana, and Death promoted him in an afternoon from subaltern to senior captain. Thenceforward his rise was rapid. He commanded the First Division of the Tirah Expeditionary Force among the mountains with prudent skill. His brigades had no misfortunes: his rearguards came safely into camp. In the spring of 1898, when the army lay around ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... your old modest qualms, Pathfinder, and will do you no credit with the girl. Women distrust men who distrust themselves, and take to men who distrust nothing. Modesty is a capital thing in a recruit, I grant you; or in a young subaltern who has just joined, for it prevents his railing at the non-commissioned officers before he knows what to rail at; I'm not sure it is out of place in a commissary or a parson, but it's the devil and all when it ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... Clementine. "The difference in the lives you lead comes from your tastes and from necessity; from your likings, not your positions. As far as one can judge from merely seeing a man once, and also from what you tell me, there are times when the subaltern might ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... has told me—I hope it is not indiscreet to mention it—that the first thing you did, on joining your regiment in India as a young subaltern, was to gather all the European children in cantonments together and march them through the place, playing 'The Girl I Left ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the broken colony passed out of the station on their journey south; while a subaltern, turning over the books on the bookstall, was whistling to himself 'The Ten ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... talking to the commandant of one of the great French army supply depots one morning. He was a man of forty; a colonel in the regular French army. An erect, sturdy-looking man with white hair and mustache, and who wore the single star of a subaltern on his sleeve, came up, saluted, delivered a message, and ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... Washington. In the beginning of January, 1778, it was reported to Burr that Lord Stirling had made some remarks respecting the manner in which the colonel had contributed to arrange the rank of his (Burr's) subaltern officers. Lord Stirling at this time commanded the division. It will be recollected that, a few weeks previous, Colonel Burr had proposed to the commander-in-chief an enterprise against Staten Island, which was rejected; but, immediately after, it was unsuccessfully attempted ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... which we have to deal is a certain nervousness in the subaltern branches of the corps; as the hour of some design draws near, these chicken-souled conspirators appear to suffer some revulsion of intent; and frequently despatch to the authorities, not indeed specific denunciations, but vague anonymous warnings. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sharing between them Violet's knick-knacks, her wraps, her scarf, her fan, her parasol, her cushion. His last chapter would probably be in a ball-room, husband and lover standing by the door watching the Marchioness swinging round the room on the arm of a young subaltern. 'Other women are younger than she, Kilcarney, but who is as graceful? Have you ever seen a woman hold herself like Violet?' One of the daughters (for there have been children by this second, or shall we say by this third, marriage) comes up breathless after the dance. 'Darling Uncle Hughie, won't ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... no other in the world, was ended at last, however, and they puffed past Lake Nakuro to the village station. Here their trip was ended, their baggage was rolled off, and they were taken in charge by a young subaltern, Lieutenant Smithers, together with the Boer merchant, Piet Andrus. The latter offered them the hospitality of his trading store, which ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... effect, the mother of ever-new mischiefs, which renders well-doing or improvement impossible, and drives bad everywhere continually into worse. The work being what we see, a stupid subaltern will do as well as a gifted one; the essential point is, that he be a quiet one, and do not bother me who have the driving of him. Nay, for this latter object, is not a certain height of intelligence even dangerous? I want no mettled Arab ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... and Portuguese take the field. Count La Lippe is sent over to command them. Brigadier Burgoyne surprizes [sic] Valenca d'Alcantara in Spain, and destroys one of their best regiments there. A sejeant [sic] and six men only engage a Spanish subaltern with twenty-five dragoons, unbroken, kill six of their men, and bring in the rest prisoners, with every horse of the party. Soon after Brigadier Burgoyne and Colonel Lee surprize the Spanish camp at Villa Vehla; and the Spaniards ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... rapid succession of feats of arms. At the station itself the "Tommys" buzzed about like bees, and the officers were having tea or dinner, or both combined, in the refreshment-room. One overheard scraps of conversation, from a subaltern to his superior officer: "A capital bag to-day, sir. Forty Mausers and ten thousand rounds of ammunition." Then someone else remarked that a railway-train from the South passed yesterday, riddled with bullets, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... midnight hours, When star-shells droop through the shattered trees, Steal they back to their ancient bowers, Beau Brocade and his Belle Marquise? Greatly loving and greatly daring— Fancy, perhaps, but the fancy grips, For a junior subaltern woke up swearing That a gracious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... I had done both long ere now). Well, then, here's to your good health! for you must know, I have set a nipperkin of toddy by me, just by way of spell, to keep away the meikle horned deil, or any of his subaltern imps who may be on ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... one or other of the rival parties, Mehemet Ali contented himself with fanning the flame of their rivalry. The rank of Albanian captain, which gave him the air of a subaltern, greatly facilitated the part he intended to play. He worked quietly and with unending perseverance. Flattering the ambitions of some, feeding the resentment of others, winning the weak-minded with soft words, overcoming the strong by his own strength; presiding over all the revolutions ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... great Confidence. I could transcribe more Passages which mention Dr Lee as "a worthy Character," the unwarrantable Lengths to which the Animosities of interrested Men have been carried against him, & the Inveteracy of many Subaltern & collateral Characters but I think I have given enough to satisfy ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... independent mind, wedded to a character of so much strength, singleness, and purity, pursued its own path of self-improvement for more than half a century, part gymnosophist, part backwoodsman; and thus did it come twice, though in a subaltern attitude, into ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... brought the subaltern commanding the Greek outposts. He was a Spartan of less sluggish wits than many of his breed, and presently believed Glaucon when he declared he had reason ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... nearest comrade, who with a few more had halted at a subaltern's command to wait in cover for a shot or two at their pursuing foe. "Are we ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... and he, her only child, was partly dependent upon her. But his mother had died not long after Nelly's father, and her little income had come to her son. So now what with Nelly's small portion, and his mother's two hundred and fifty a year in addition to his pay, the young subaltern thought himself almost rich—in comparison with so many others. His father, who had died while he was still at school, had been a master at Harrow, and he had been brought up in a refined home, with high standards and ideals. A scholarship at Oxford at one of the smaller colleges, a creditable ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... contains names of many persons who should set better examples to the humbler classes of the community; for the unfortunate results of this too fatal propensity to parents and society have been severely felt. Among many instances on record, a very interesting one is related of a young Subaltern in a regiment of cavalry, who, by successive losses, was reduced to such a state of distress, as to form the desperate resolution of trying the road. In a moment of agony, he accidentally met with an opportunity which ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... of being a function had become a possession; the king master instead of being chief. This misplaced principle displaced everything. The people became a nation, the king a crowned magistrate. Feudality, subaltern royalty, assumed the rank of actual property. The clergy, which had had institutions and inviolable property, was now only a body paid by the state for a sacred service. It was from this only one step to receiving a voluntary salary for an individual service. The magistracy ceased to be hereditary. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... perfect prince was De La Motte, a subaltern in the 29th Punjabis, ever the leader of the dangerous patrols along the native bush paths that give themselves so readily to ambush. Shot through the spine and paralysed below the waist his life was only a question of months. But if he had little time to live, he had determined to ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... Royal man, in conversing with a commoner, is not supposed to forget. In fact, he forgot that he was Royal, or that she was not, and his voice grew unsteady, his tone eager, as if he had been some poor subaltern with the girl ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... the attorney of the United States, made application to Lewis, one of the district judges of the state, who was serving as a subaltern officer, in the Orleans rifle company, and whose conduct during the invasion, had received Jackson's particular commendation. Believing that his duty as a military man, did not diminish his obligation, as a judge, to protect his fellow-citizens from illegal arrest, Lewis, without ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... he visited the quartermaster-general of his division, received the report of his chief of staff, and gave necessary orders. It was at this place, and never at the General's own dwelling, that the captains or subaltern officers presented themselves when they had occasion ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... personal appearance. His protuberant stomach was always supported in a bandage suspended from his neck, yet in spite of this enormous impediment, he was personally active on the battle-field, and performed more service, not only as a commander but as a subaltern, than many ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... civil war by which the nation had formerly been convulsed, became anxious to temporize. Negotiations were accordingly commenced between the adverse factions; and it was ultimately agreed that the keys of the city should be restored to the mayor from whom they had been taken, and some subaltern officers displaced by the Duke reinstated in their functions, and that so soon as this arrangement had been completed a new election should take place, by which M. de Rohan was to be at liberty to substitute others more agreeable to himself. This absurd ceremony was ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... almost as rational to wait the growth of an oak, as to wait the signing of your commission; but it shall be done in my own way. I have means which can make the tardy quick, and open the eyes of the blind. You shall be a subaltern in the Guards, unless you are in too much haste to be a general, and get yourself shot by some Parisian cobbler in the purloined uniform of a rifleman. But, let me tell you one fact, and I might indorse this piece ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... (decrease) 36, (contract) 195; hide its diminished head, retire into the shade, yield the palm, play second fiddle, be upstaged, take a back seat. Adj. inferior, smaller; small &c 32; minor, less, lesser, deficient, minus, lower, subordinate, secondary; secondrate &c (imperfect) 651; sub, subaltern; thrown into the shade; weighed in the balance and found wanting; not fit to hold a candle to, can't hold a candle to. least, smallest &c (little) (small) &c 193; lowest. diminished &c (decreased) 36; reduced &c (contracted) 195; unimportant &c 643. Adv. less; under the mark, below the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the door of the room opposite also opened, and the Rev. Hugh Finlay found himself added to their group. They all made the best of the unexpected encounter. It was rather an elaborate best, very polite and entirely grave, except in the instance of Dr Drummond, who met his subaltern with a smile in which cordiality struggled in vain to ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... continued this gentleman, "that I should assist in procuring Mr Arnott such a renovation? Is there no subaltern part I can perform to facilitate the project? for I will either hide or seek with any boy in the parish; and for a Q in the corner, there is ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... anxious to prolong their existence, armed and united themselves with those who wished to preserve the raft; among this number were some subaltern officers and many passengers. The rebels drew their sabres, and those who had none armed themselves with knives. They advanced in a determined manner upon us; we stood on our defence; the attack commenced. Animated by despair, one of them aimed a stroke at ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... pass my days one by one, watching for the post, for the newspapers, enduring the mother's grief—and my own. And whenever I wait for the letters, I recall a little episode of the War told me by a wounded subaltern at an evacuated point. He had sustained a slight head wound, and I am certain he was not normal, but was suffering from shell-shock. Dark-eyed, swarthy, he was lying on a stretcher and wearing a white bandage. I offered him tea, but he would not take ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... humbly, "General Vandeleur and his brother have had the incredible presumption to accuse you of theft. The famous diamond, they declare, is in your hands. A word from you in denial will most amply satisfy the Prefect; nay, I go farther: if your Highness would so far honour a subaltern as to declare his ignorance of the matter even to myself, I should ask permission to retire upon ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... listening to her. He sent for her continually to his presence—he delighted in her conversation, so new, so natural, so spirited—he settled a pension upon her at that time, of unprecedented amount, in the case of a subaltern officer; and by his desire, because the year 1625 was a year of jubilee, she departed in a few months from Madrid to Rome. She went through Barcelona; there and everywhere welcomed as the lady whom the King delighted to honor. She travelled to Rome, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Greek Pontiff, and on the left are the standards of two recent chiefs (Luther and Calvin), who, shaking off a yoke that had become tyrannical, had raised altar against altar in their reform, and wrested half of Europe from the Pope. Behind these are the subaltern sects, subdivided from the principal divisions. The Nestorians, Eutychians, Jacobites, Iconoclasts, Anabaptists, Presbyterians, Wickliffites, Osiandrians, Manicheans, Pietists, Adamites, the Contemplatives, the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... evinced the correctness of Marion's judgment. The young lieutenant became remarkably polite, and also attentive to duty. In short, no subaltern behaved better. And this very happy change in his manners, was soon succeeded by as pleasing a change in the sentiments of all around him. The officers of the regiment grew fond of him — Marion spoke of him with pleasure, as an excellent soldier — and he of Marion, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... you will be sorry that you are not going with it, but I can assure you that this business will be vastly more useful to you in your profession, than anything you would be likely to meet with as a cavalry subaltern in Spain." ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... my father-in-law, had married his Molly, when he was a subaltern of a foot regiment, and had a purse scarce better filled than my own. They had had their ups and downs of fortune. I think (though my wife will never confess to this point) they had married, as people could do in their ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... forehead, and I could not discern his face ; but I was instantly certain he was not Bonaparte, on finding the whole commotion produced by the rifling crew above mentioned, which, though it might be guided, probably, by some subaltern officer, who might have the captive in charge, had left the field of battle at a moment when none other could be spared, as all the attendant throng were evidently amongst the refuse of the ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... us this time," declared little Robey, the youngest subaltern, to whom the nights were a torment unspeakable. He had been within an ace of heat apoplexy more than once, and his nerves were stretched ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... only let me first bury my prince." Medoro pronounced these words with an air so sweet and tender that a heart of stone would have been moved by them. Zerbino was so to the bottom of his soul. He was on the point of uttering words of mercy, when a cruel subaltern, forgetting all respect to his commander, plunged his lance into the breast of the young Moor. Zerbino, enraged at his brutality, turned upon the wretch to take vengeance, but he saved ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... they should be declared insolvent by the tribunals. It appears to me that money would then be lent with more confidence, and borrowed with greater circumspection. Another advantage which would accrue from such a regulation, would be, that the subaltern orders of men, who imitate the customs and the prejudices of the higher class of citizens, would soon be apprehensive of incurring the same disgrace; and that fidelity in engagements would become one of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... the soldier another; what delights the business man leaves the politician cold. But however much each section of society abuses the ambitions or the morals of the other, all worship equally at the same shrine. No man really wants to spend his whole life as a reporter, a clerk, a subaltern, a private Member, or a curate. Downing Street is as attractive as the oak-leaves of the field-marshal; York and Canterbury as pleasant as a dominance in Lombard Street or ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... the early morning of life in the army, it appeared, with no particular expectations. He and Captain Winstanley had been brother-officers. But the fell sergeant Death had promoted Patrick Hay to his elder brother's heritage, and he had surrendered a subaltern's place in a line regiment to become Viscount Mallow, and the owner of a fine stretch of fertile hill and valley in County Cork. He had set up at once as the model landlord, eager for his tenantry's welfare, full of advanced ideas, a violent politician, liberal to the verge of radicalism. If the ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... and I were friends before either of you were born," he said simply. "I was a cornet in his old regiment. Little Lady Mary played at the knee of the poor young subaltern." ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... hand, if Scius is a smart soldier he will gradually gain recognition as such. He may become the head man in his mess of ten; or be made an orderly, to carry the watchword round to the messes; or he may be chosen by the centurion as his subaltern. As he gains maturity and steadiness, and wins confidence, he may be elected to bear the of his company, in which case a bear's skin will be thrown over his shoulders, and the top of his helmet will be concealed beneath the head of that beast, worn as a hood. Being ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... few Whigs whom for some special reasons of his own he treats like Tories. On the other hand, when he finds himself reluctantly forced to acknowledge even the greatest enormity of the Whigs—corruption—treason—murder he finds much gentler terms for the facts; selects a scapegoat, some subaltern villain, or some one whom history has already gibbeted, "to bear upon him all their iniquities," and that painful sacrifice once made, he avoids with tender care a recurrence to so disagreeable ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Haddan and a fellow-subaltern attempted to leave the Castle grounds by way of the private gate in the western wall, only to be driven back by careful watchers on the outside. A second attempt was made at two o'clock. This time they went through the crypt into the secret underground passage. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... sunset, while I was waiting in the office of the Secretary of War, for the comparatively insignificant sum of money to be provided for my expenses to England, Mr. Davis greeted me as Major. I replied: "I might ask, Mr. President, in what regiment," having in mind the well known anecdote of the subaltern who, on handing the Emperor Napoleon his chapeau which had fallen, was thanked under the title of captain. Mr. Davis then explained the principle he had laid down for himself in appointing officers who had been in the U. S. ...
— The Supplies for the Confederate Army - How they were obtained in Europe and how paid for. • Caleb Huse
... ranks, and he could not withstand their pleadings. When all was settled, Dawson went to the Commandant's quarters to be introduced to his second-in-command, and surprised there that officer endeavouring to squeeze his rather middle-aged figure within the buttoned limits of a subaltern's tunic. Since the senior officers of Marines never go to sea, the Commandant's own official uniform was the field-service khaki of a Staff officer. "It is all right," explained he, laughing. "I have ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... pang of genuine compassion. All his affection for the regiment—that body of men which he held in his hand to launch forward and draw back, who ministered to his pride and commanded all his thoughts—seemed centred for a moment on the person of the most promising subaltern. He cleared his throat in a threatening manner, and frowned terribly. "You must understand," he began, "that I don't care a rap for the life of a single man in the regiment. I would send the eight hundred and forty-three of you men and horses galloping into the ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... being zigzagged frowardly down to water. The Royal Irish Fusiliers had loosened their belts, but not their sturdy bearing. Under their horses' bellies lay the diminished 18th Hussars. Presently came up a subaltern of the regiment, who had been on leave and returned just too late to rejoin before the line was cut. They had put him in command of the advanced troop of the Lancers, and how he cursed the infantry ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... given us a good hunt and means to make a kill. He's rather a selfish beast and a bit too sure of himself; but he runs the pack well and knows how to get the best out of life. No Woolwich and sweating as a snubbed subaltern for him! He stopped at home, saw his tenants farmed well, and shot his game. That's my ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... in the year 1849, at the expiration of the Punjaub campaign, under Lord Gough, where I had been actively engaged as a subaltern officer in the (so-called) fighting brigade of General Sir Colin Campbell's division of the army, adding my mite to the four successive victorious actions—Ramnugger, Sadoolapore, Chillianwallah, and ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... generally harsher than the colonel. In certain families where madam has not much more education than her maid, the relations between them are those of the convict and his warder. And woe everywhere to him who falls into the hands of a subaltern drunk ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... tracks of land were offered them as the rewards of their services. Orders were given to the governors on the continent, to grant, without fee or reward, five thousand acres to every field officer who had served in America, three thousand to every captain, two thousand to every subaltern, two hundred to every non-commissioned officer, and fifty to every private man; free of quit-rents for ten years, but subject, at the expiration of that term, to the same moderate quit-rents as the ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... its unnamed heroes. The common soldier enters the stormed fortress and, falling in the breach which his valor has made, sleeps in a nameless grave. The subaltern whose surname is scarcely heard beyond the roll-call on parade, bears the colors of his company where the fight is hottest. And the corporal who heads his file in the final charge, is forgotten in the "earthquake shout" of the victory ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... men entered this kitchen: they were the cook, or coquus, and his subaltern, the slave of the slave, focarius. The meal is ready, and now come other slaves assigned to the table,—the tricliniarches, or foreman of all the rest; the lectisterniator, who makes the beds; the ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... said the officer, laughing, as he and his subaltern rose, bade their charge good-night, ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... Letter have come for you by that Steamer; for I wrote one duly, and posted it in good time myself: I will hope therefore it was but some delay of some subaltern official, such as I am told occasionally chances, and that you got the Letter after all in a day or two. It would give you notice, more or less, up to its date, of all the points you had inquired about there is now little to be added; except concerning ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Mulda by Prince Henri, May 13th;" Prince of Zweibruck had angrily abdicated a year before; and a Prince von Stollberg is now Generalissimo of Reich and Allies: but it is no kind of matter),—some Stollberg, with Serbelloni, Haddick, Maguire and such like in subaltern places. Cunctator Daun, in spite of his late sleepy ways, is to be Head-man again: this surely is a cheering circumstance to Friedrich; Loudon, not Daun, being the only man he ever got ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the subaltern, as his senior smoothed the gloves and placed them carefully in his left hand, closing his fingers ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... calling for volunteers from Territorial battalions to fill gaps in the Persian Gulf—one subaltern, one sergeant, and thirty men from each battalion. So far they have asked the Devons, Cornwalls, Dorsets, Somersets and East Surreys, but not the Hampshires. So I suppose they are going to reserve us for feeding ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... all about it, and has been caring for you all this time. I do not mean Andy Curtin. He is nothing but a subaltern; but the dear Lord, our Father in Heaven, who never forgets us, though he often afflicts us. He sent me to you now, that you might know he loves you. It was he who made me love you and care to help you. All the love and care that come to you are a ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... my uncle Edward, when he discovered that it still continued. He swore and he stormed; he locked Mary into her chamber, and vowed that he would withdraw the allowance he made me, if ever I ventured near her. His daughter, he said, should never marry a hopeless, penniless subaltern; and Mary declared she would not marry without his consent. What had I to do?—to despair and to leave her. As for my poor uncle Jacob, he had no counsel to give me, and, indeed, no spirit left: his little church was turned into a stable, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sides. Colonel Laurie said, "Follow me, I will lead you!" rushed out, and fell gallantly, shot dead at the head of his men. Is there a finer death? For myself, I escaped with my guns last night, and here I am resting after a desperate 9 days. But I lost my favourite subaltern and nearly every friend I had in the Division. I am still very lame, and this time ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... the old Major, eyeing his eighteen-year-old subaltern son with a shrewd affectionate glance, "a little well-placed courtesy goes a long way. For instance, if a Sergeant should call you 'Sir,' never forget to say 'Sir' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... been twenty years old, and was, for a girl of her age, exuberantly fat; yet as her skin and complexion were not coarse, many thought her handsome; but she promised to be as large as her mother, and certainly was not at all suited for a wife to a subaltern of a marching regiment. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... the Arctic story is told, scarcely can fail to be impressed by the pertinacity with which men, after one experience in the polar regions, return again and again to the quest for adventure and honors in the ice-bound zone. The subaltern on the expedition of to-day, has no sooner returned than he sets about organizing a new expedition, of which he may be commander. The commander goes into the ice time and again until, perhaps, the time comes when he does ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... weakness at once to fear Fouche and to think him necessary. Fouche, whose talents at this trade are too well known to need my approbation, soon discovered this secret institution, and the names of all the subaltern agents employed by the chief agents. It is difficult to form an idea of the nonsense, absurdity, and falsehood contained in the bulletins drawn up by the noble and ignoble agents of the police. I do not mean to enter into details on this nauseating ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... an accident that happened to the Discovery off the coast of Owhyhee; and the second, to the fogs we met with at the entrance of Awatska Bay. A stronger proof cannot be given of the skill and vigilance of our subaltern officers, to whom this share of merit almost ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... of Christian's captains was a stout old Marylander, of Welsh blood, named Evan Shelby; and Shelby's son Isaac,[11] a stalwart, stern-visaged young man, who afterwards played a very prominent part on the border, was a subaltern in his company, in which Robertson likewise served as a sergeant. Although without experience of drill, it may be doubted if a braver or physically finer set of men were ever got together on ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... camp. Here the juice was extracted by a rude press, and put in bottles until it fermented and became worse in odor than sulphureted hydrogen. At reveille roll-call every morning this fermented liquor was dealt out to the company, and as it was my duty, in my capacity of subaltern, to attend these roll-calls and see that the men took their ration of pulque, I always began the duty by drinking a cup of the repulsive stuff myself. Though hard to swallow, its well-known specific qualities in the prevention and cure of scurvy ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... commanding—and that harmony which is so necessary to efficiency may become impaired. Independently of these considerations, there is the fact that this condition is abnormal and highly irregular. The men and subaltern officers will recognize it to be so, and it may become more difficult to maintain the requisite subordination and respect for rank. It is a great deal better than to follow this practice—to adopt ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... massacred, and burned it from the face of the earth. A certain fortress was founded at that time, in Ottocar's presence; and in honor of him they named it King's Fortress, "Koenigsberg." Among King Ottocar's esquires, or subaltern junior officials, on this occasion, is one Rudolf, heir of a poor Swiss lordship and gray hill castle, called Hapsburg, rather in reduced circumstances, whom Ottocar likes for his prudent, hardy ways; ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... his senior officer again, Wally chattered away like a magpie, asking questions, telling Irish fishing-stories, and other stories of adventures in Ireland, hazarding wild opinions about the war, and generally manifesting a cheerful disregard of the fact that the tired man opposite him was not a subaltern as irresponsible as himself. Somehow, the weariness died out of Major Hunt's eyes. He began to joke in his turn, and to tell queer yarns of the trenches: and presently, indeed, the whole party seemed to be infected by the same spirit, so that the old walls of the Cheshire Cheese ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... of its having so serious an import. Yet, what was the secret of her manifest agitation? A sudden inspiration flashed across his mind; a smile came upon his lips. She was in love! The enemy's line contained some sighing Strephon of a young subaltern with whom she was in communication, and for whom she had undertaken this quest. The flower was their language of correspondence, no doubt. It explained also the young girl's animosity against the younger officers,—his adversaries; against himself,—their ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... chevaleresque legions of the enemy, in all its superior numbers, ranged in order of battle on the rising ground. The sun at mid-day flashed its brilliant radiance over their military casques and arms. The cannonade then became general; the Duke of Wellington exposed himself like a subaltern; his personal venture in the strife excited anxiety; it was in vain that the officers of his staff urged him to be less conspicuous, that the fate of the battle hung upon his life: it was evident that he had determined to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... of keeping them out of mischief. As he drew near, he heard firing, and the first sight which greeted him was a negro shot down. The village was in possession of a small company of soldiers, without even a subaltern to control them. Without pretence of a trial, they were shooting the people one by one, as they were pointed out to them by a petty constable. On their march, these very soldiers had been ordered to fire upon every one who ran away, and they fired at every bush at random, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... official papers, &c., without a guard, and on the flank nearest the enemy, was just what might have been anticipated:—in attempting to pass the British post of Malden the whole detachment was attacked and captured, "by a subaltern and six men, in a ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... made free of expense and upon the following scale: A field-officer received 5,000 acres; a captain, 3,000; a subaltern, 2,000; and a private soldier, 200 acres. A survey was accordingly made, commencing near Lake St. Francis, then the highest French settlement, and extended along the shores of the St. Lawrence up to Lake Ontario, and ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson |
