"Vantage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wall, not only her eyes, but her whole face, radiating an uplifted peace. So angelic and majestic did she seem that Mathilde, looking up at her, would hardly have been surprised if she had floated out into space from her vantage-ground on the staircase. ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... obscure before, and, it may be, cast its rays far into the yet unexplored darkness beyond; or which, summing up into itself all the acquisitions in a particular direction of the past, shall furnish a mighty vantage- ground from which to advance to new conquests in those realms of mind or of nature, not as yet subdued to the intellect and ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... Chambeze— Glaring defiance with their fiery eyes— Two tawny lions—rival monarchs—meet And fright the forest with their horrid roar; But ere they close in bloody combat crouch And wait and watch for vantage in attack; So on their bannered hills the opposing hosts, Eager to grapple in the tug of death, Waited and watched for vantage in the fight. Noon came. The fire of pickets died away. All eyes were turned ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... philosophers who thought that the moon was an inhabited world, and very early the romancers took up the theme. Lucian, the Voltaire of the second century of our era, mercilessly scourged the pretenders of the earth from an imaginary point of vantage on the moon, which enabled him to peer down into their secrets. Lucian's description of the appearance of the earth from the moon shows how clearly defined in his day had become the conception of our globe as only an ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... noticed that at the spot where the path, having serpentined down the little hillside, rejoined the main footway there was a bench so placed that its occupant would have a view along several avenues at once. Since it was obviously a vantage point for such strategy as his, he had taken the first steps down toward it when a little gray figure emerged from behind a group of blue Norway spruces. She went dejectedly to the bench, sitting down at an ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... the elaborate, old-world, decorous preparations made by Jenks under the eye of his mistress, and with delight she had learned that, while she could not—nor indeed did she wish to—attend the New Year's reception herself, she was to be allowed a seat of vantage above stairs where part, and the most interesting part, of the reception hall ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... distance. After the great event, rills begin to flow from the pincushion towards the railroad; the rills swell into rivers; the rivers soon unite into a lake. The lake floats Mr. Goodchild into Doncaster, past the Itinerant personage in black, by the way-side telling him from the vantage ground of a legibly printed placard on a pole that for all these things the Lord will bring him to judgment. No turtle and venison ordinary this evening; that is all over. No Betting at the rooms; nothing ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... fisherman, wanted to get its prey to dry land, although itself lived mostly in the water. Here, we said, is being enacted a little tragedy, that would have escaped any but sharp eyes. The snake, which was itself small, had the fish by the throat, the hold of vantage among all creatures, and clung to it with great tenacity. The snake knew that its best tactics was to get upon dry land as soon as possible. It could not swallow its victim alive, and it could not strangle ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... them? Right my Gallic friend! 'Tis my duty, sad but binding. Free the Wolf—to what good end? Loose the Snake—what vantage finding? Faction flusters, Cant appeals In the name of sham-humanity. Right, not wrath, my bosom steels; Softness ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... extinguished, I set my door ajar, moved my bed out from the wall to catch whatever breeze might stir, "composed myself for the night," as it used to be written, and lay looking out upon the quiet garden where a thin white haze was rising. If, in taking this coign of vantage, I had any subtler purpose than to seek a draught against the warmth of the night, it did not fail of its reward, for just as I had begun to drowse, the gallery steps creaked as if beneath some immoderate weight, and the noble form of Keredec ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... that the value of neutral participation will come in. Whatever ambitions the neutral powers may have of their own, it may be said generally that they are keenly interested in preventing the settlement from degenerating into a deal in points of vantage for any further aggressions in any direction. Both the United States of America and China are traditionally and incurably pacific powers, professing and practicing an unaggressive policy, and the chief outstanding minor ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... were keeping up their own peculiar fun. At every point of vantage, on a hill, or behind a stump, or up a leafy tree, one of these marksmen was concealed, and would try his globe-sight rifle on any convenient mark, in the way of a man, which offered on the opposite line. Any fellow ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... an outbreak of that insolence of advice so often shown to the young from no vantage-ground but that of age and faithlessness, reminding one of the 'jigging fool' who interfered between Brutus and Cassius on the sole ground that he had seen more years than they. As if ever a fiddler that did not look up ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... the door to the room opened and Lucien Travail entered. He sat down before the center table and carefully, systematically began going through the contents of the table drawer. Startled, Sutter watched from his strange vantage point. Travail had not noticed that the television set was turned on, and the high-backed davenport apparently hid the cone of blue light from ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... to be seen himself, the boy sprang up a neighbouring tree as lightly as a squirrel, and from that vantage ground he saw that his brother Julian was approaching, and that the monk had stepped out to greet the lad. He heard the sound of the nasal tones, so different from the ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Bishop left the vantage ground of any pretence to scientific discussion, and descended to tasteless personalities. Here was the opportunity for an equally personal retort, which would show an audience, for the most part neither of a mind nor ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... Even as President, with the most fascinating possible vantage point, there were times when I was so busy helping to manage progress and lead change that I didn't always show the joy that was in my heart But the biggest thing that has happened in the world in my life, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the possession of Little Round Top was as desperate a conflict as was ever waged on any field. Again and again the gray regiments hurled themselves into the very jaws of death to gain the coveted vantage ground, and again and again the blue lines, torn, battered and well-nigh crushed to earth, re-formed and hurled back the assault. Dash and daring were met by courage and firmness, and at nightfall, though the Confederates had gained some ground, their ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... intellectualist. Speculation was the breath of life to him. He had metaphysical genius. He tended to transform in this direction everything which he touched. Religion is thought. He criticised the rationalist movement from the height of vantage which idealism had reached. But as pure intellectualist he would put most rationalists to shame. We owe to this temperament his zeal for an interpretation of the universe 'all in one piece.' Its highest quality would be its abstract truth. ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... suddenly sprang up like the dragon's teeth among us, That Ireland was never known to be so rich as it is now; by which, as I apprehend, they can only mean themselves, for they have skipped over the channel from the vantage ground of a dunghill upon no other merit, either visible or divineable, than that of not having been ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... attention an ant which was making a laborious spiral ascent of his cane. Not until it had gained a vantage point on the bone ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... all the facts in the case became known, he was as impassive as ever. Even Mr. Whitney was wholly at a loss to account for the change in the bearing of the secretary. He was no longer the employee, but carried himself with a proud independence, as though conscious of some mysterious vantage-ground. ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... direction from which the cabin was accessible, though here the grade was possible for a buckboard. To the south the plateau ended in a drop that angled sharply down, almost a cliff in places, and from this point of vantage the eye carried ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... manner: the first brigade of his own division, under Brigadier Hicks, immediately supported by Brigadier Godby's brigade, which had constituted the garrison of Loodiana, gallantly stormed the village of Aliwal, and from this new vantage-ground opened a deadly fire upon the right of the enemy's left, and his left centre. Sir Harry then ordered his whole line to advance, which was gallantly achieved, the 31st (or Young Buffs) European regiment distinguishing itself, although the native regiments showed a noble ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... voted, and returned. This was demonstrated by the fact that there were but 2,905 legal voters in the Territory at the time, while 5,427 votes were cast for the pro-slavery candidates alone. These early successes gave the pro-slavery party and government in Kansas great vantage in the subsequent congressional contest. The first Legislature convened at Pawnee, July 2, 1855, enacted the slave laws of Missouri, and ordered that for two years all state officers should be appointed by legislative authority, and no ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... honest man and the thief, and exposed to equally hard hitting from both. Rome was poor and dirty and a den of thieves, murderers, and all malefactors, dominated alternately by a family of half-converted Jews, who terrorized the city from strong points of vantage, and then, on other days, by the mob that followed Arnold of Brescia when he appeared in the city, and who would have torn down stone walls with their bare hands at his merest words, as they would have faced the barons' steel with naked breast. ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... taken aback, stared uncertainly. He had been lured from his vantage ground of force to that of argument; how he scarcely knew. It had certainly been ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... not less closely attached to nature, although in a different manner. Taken existentially it is a part of sense; taken ideally it is the form or value which nature acquires when viewed from the vantage-ground of any interest. Individual objects are recognisable for a time not because the flux is materially arrested but because it somewhere circulates in a fashion which awakens an interest and brings different parts of the surrounding process ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... to-day; polished and furbished up, labelled and ticketed—edited, with notes, in short, like an old book. The process is a mistake—the early editions had more sanctity. The modern buildings (of the Sacred Heart), on which you look down from these points of vantage, are in the vulgar taste which sets its so mechanical stamp on all new Catholic work; but there was nevertheless a great sweetness in the scene. The afternoon was lovely, and it was flushing to a close. ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... the tapping, there came, instead, the sound of someone or something, scrambling on to the window-sill,—as if some creature, unable to reach the window from the ground, was endeavouring to gain the vantage of the sill. Some ungainly creature, unskilled in surmounting such an obstacle as a perpendicular brick wall. There was the noise of what seemed to be the scratching of claws, as if it experienced considerable difficulty in obtaining a hold on the unyielding surface. What kind ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... taught her, shattered her trust in the holy ministry, and perhaps imperilled her salvation. He breathed a sigh of relief when he thought of it,—he had not betrayed himself, he had not fallen in her esteem, he still stood on that sacred vantage-ground where his power over her was so great, and where at least he possessed her confidence and veneration. There was still time for recollection, for self-control, for a vehement struggle which should set all right again: but, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... that American soldiers are kept mostly between decks while transports are in the danger zone, the decks fore and aft were crowded with men of the Ninety-ninth. Those who stood nearest to the rails felt that they had the best vantage points from which to see what was going on. It was with eager interest, not fear, that the soldiers took in all that was visible of the fleet's progress and the work of the destroyers to protect the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... college I felt quite resentful because I'd been robbed of the normal kind of childhood that the other girls had had; but now, I don't feel that way in the least. I regard it as a very unusual adventure. It gives me a sort of vantage point from which to stand aside and look at life. Emerging full grown, I get a perspective on the world, that other people who have been brought up in the ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... sir, I've no doubt," replied Malachi, "by the Snake. The rascal is determined to have the vantage of us. We have one prisoner, and ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... from pounding. In a minute she was righted and they got her to the little beach where they had tried to land. Here they pulled her out and, partially unloading, repaired her temporarily as well as they could. This done they towed up to a point of vantage and made a fresh start and cleared the rapid with no further incident. Meanwhile the Canonita had come in to where we were lying, and both boats were held ready to rescue the men of the other. After about three-quarters of an hour the unfortunate came down, ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... steps to the train that soon would be whirling him under the Hudson river, along the Jersey meadows, and down to the cool shore. He passed through the string of coaches until he came to one where he found a seat behind a certain man. Into this vantage point the colonel, looking more the part than ever, slumped himself and ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... Once again, the hands of her wristwatch pointed to 4:30 and the white-clad receptionist said briskly, "Doctor will see you now." Once again, from some remote vantage point, Lucilla watched herself brush past Dr. Andrews and cross to the familiar couch, heard herself say, "It's getting worse," watched herself move through a flickering montage of scenes from childhood to womanhood, ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant
... his hand on the starter gave his aunt a swift, reassuring smile; and Julia Cloud from the safe vantage of the back seat leaned ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... impossible, it needs but a little thought to prove. Progress in human affairs is more often a pull than a push, a surging forward of the exceptional man, and the lifting of his duller brethren slowly and painfully to his vantage-ground. Thus it was no accident that gave birth to universities centuries before the common schools, that made fair Harvard the first flower of our wilderness. So in the South: the mass of the freedmen at the end of the war lacked the intelligence ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... believes himself, that he already knows the answer to a number of questions in the realms of physical nature and of philosophy. He writes in so forcible and positive and determined a fashion, from the vantage ground of scientific knowledge, that he exerts an undue influence on the uncultured among his readers, and causes them to fancy that only benighted fools or credulous dupes can really disagree with the historical criticisms, the speculative ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... Algonquin. Then he stood up on the carriage seat, his face red, his eyes blazing, and called Captain Jimmie an old blind mole and an ostrich and everything else in the world foolish and unthinking. Captain Jimmie shouted back with a right good Highland spirit, from his vantage point on the deck and all the Old Boys cheered joyously, declaring this was the one thing needful to make them feel absolutely ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... same title as any other of its members—by representing the same number of citizens, the same numerical fraction of the national will—their presence could give umbrage to nobody, while they would be in the position of highest vantage, both for making their opinions and councils heard on all important subjects, and for taking an active part in public business. Their abilities would probably draw to them more than their numerical share of the actual administration of government; as the Athenians did not confide responsible public ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... theoretical writers of history who arrange events not in a natural, but in a systematic order. But in secret history we are more busied in observing what passes than in being told of it. We are transformed into the contemporaries of the writers, while we are standing on the "vantage ground" of their posterity; and thus what to them appeared ambiguous, to us has become unquestionable; what was secret to them has been confided to us. They mark the beginnings, and we the ends. From the fulness of their accounts we recover much which had been lost to us in the general views of history, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... primitive life prevent us from considering the possibility of any other course. Either of these alternatives allows us to consider the examples of hostile inter-grouping as sufficient to supply us with the vantage ground for observation of man in his earliest stages of existence. Perhaps each of them may contain somewhat of the truth. But whatever may be considered as the true cause of the pygmy level of culture, there is an ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... impossible to land. Directly the engine stopped he would change the angle of the elevating plane, so that the aeroplane would naturally fall into its gliding angle. The craft would at once settle itself into a forward and slightly downward glide; and the airman, from his point of vantage, would be able to see the extent of the forest. We will assume that the aeroplane is gliding in a northerly direction, and that the country is almost as unfavourable for landing there as over the forest itself. In ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... post of vantage he could see his father in the distance still in chase of the giraffe; but though he looked in various directions, ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... that tremendous throng turned at once in the direction of the stranger's voice. And before the immense audience knew what was happening, five hundred German soldiers, armed with pistols and repeating rifles, had sprung to life, alert and formidable, at vantage-points all over the Garden. Two hundred, with weapons ready, guarded the platform and the Committee of Public Safety. And, in little groups of threes and fives, back to back, around the iron columns that rose through the galleries, stood three hundred more with flashing ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... us. The braves that had fallen in the strife strewed the island's edges. Their blood lay dark on the sandy shoals of the stream and stained to duller brown the trampled grasses. Daylight brought the renewal of the treacherous sharpshooting. The enemy closed in about us and from their points of vantage their deadly arrows and bullets were hurled upon our low wall of defence. And so the unequal struggle continued. Ours was henceforth an ambush fight. The redskins did not attack us in open charge again, and we durst not go out to meet them. And so the thing became a game of endurance ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... like silent shadows, peering here and there for a sight of the two figures who had come up a little while before them, with evil intentions in their hearts they had no doubt. Even now there might be flashing across the dark sea, from some hidden vantage point on the ship, a light signal that would mean the launching ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... the invariable reply. When the first limb was reached he seated himself, and had an opportunity to view the surroundings from a far better vantage point. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... skittles," he thought to himself. "We shall see, my man. In the mean time I wish I knew your shield." So saying he forded the brook, stayed, called out again, "Whose shield is that, Galors?" and again got no reply. "Black dog!" cried he in a rage, "take your vantage and expect no more." Whereupon he set his horse at the hill and rode up with his ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... old buck in each herd. He himself is not watchful, but his does are, and the herd gallops off with great leaps at the first scent of danger, the does leading and their lord and master bringing up the rear. If by dint of careful and patient stalking you get to some point of vantage, say 100 yards from the big buck, it is worth while to shoot. Even if the bullet finds its mark the quarry may gallop 50 yards before it drops. Good heads vary from 20" to ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... a dozen guests, and things moved rapidly. Audrey's dinners were always hilarious. And Audrey herself, Clayton perceived from his place of vantage, was flirting almost riotously with the man on her left. She had two high spots of color in her cheeks, and Clayton fancied—or was that in retrospect, too?—that her gayety was rather forced. Once he caught her ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... troops from that coast. Disgusted by the conduct of his allies, the Czar Paul withdrew his troops from any active share in the operations by land, thenceforth concentrating his efforts on the acquisition of Corsica, Malta, and posts of vantage in the Adriatic. These designs, which were well known to the British Government, served to hamper our naval strength in those seas, and to fetter the action of the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... pursue him, but Wallace checked the motion. "Let us not hunt the lion till he stand at bay!" cried he. "He will retire far enough from the Scottish borders, without our leaving this vantage ground to ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... that looked as if it still hung upon the edge of chaos: wild, fertile, massive, barren, luxuriant, crouching on the ragged line of the Pacific. From his point of vantage he saw long ranges of stupendous mountains, some but masses of scowling crags, some green with forests of mammoth trees projecting their gaunt rigid arms above a carpet of violets; indolent valleys and swirling rivers; snow on the black peaks of the ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... the porch of the temple at Li-chiang and from its vantage point could watch the festivities going on about us. The feasting continued until after dark and at daylight the kettles were again steaming to prepare ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... hypothesis, but that guidon can lead on to victory only when the facts themselves support it. Once planted victoriously on the conquered ramparts the hypothesis becomes a theory—a generalization of science—marking a fresh coign of vantage, which can never be successfully assailed unless by a new host of antagonistic facts. Such generalizations, with the events leading directly up to them, have chiefly ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... vantage ground, and followed close with such invectives as women only know how to hurl against whomsoever ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... laundry tubs and will hold your breath—as though a doctor's thermometer were in your mouth, you with a cold in the head—it's likely that you will see a Persian climb from the pit, shake the ashes off him, and make for the vantage of the woodpile, where—the window being barred—he will sigh his soul for ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... but we afterwards learned that it was a poor specimen, and that there were much finer ones in existence, while the Parson's Pulpit was described as "a place for the gods, where a man, with a knowledge of nature and a lover of the same, might find it vantage ground to speak or lecture on the wonders of ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... had somehow come about in the arrangement of the landscape. It was not that my point of vantage gave me a different view, but that an alteration had apparently been effected in the relation of the tent to the willows, and of the willows to the tent. Surely the bushes now crowded much closer—unnecessarily, unpleasantly ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... crevices of silence. One might have supposed that the booming bass, the eager chattering soprano, the tenor with its thin crust of upper layers, and the throaty fillings of the alto, could have left no vantage points for an obligato. Yet it was Hamilton Gregory's voice that bound all together in divine unity. As one listened, it was the inspired truth as uttered by Hamilton Gregory that brought the message home to conscience. As if one had never before been told that ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... such vantage-ground in society and in life as a mother,—a sensible, amiable, brilliant, and commanding woman. Under the shelter of such a mother's wing, the neophyte is safe. This mother will attract to herself the wittiest and the wisest. The young girl can see society in its best phases, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... search of beauty was a brilliant success, and from many points of vantage did we spy upon the vast expanse of golden grain and fresh green meadows in which cattle were grazing, or ruminating in the shade of friendly elms. Here gush clear springs, whose courses may be traced by tall waving ferns and creeping vines that weave their spell of green. Swift tumbling ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... house; but—a woman comes! Ah!" The shoulders gave nine 'rahs and a tiger. "What a difference! All is light and gay; ever'ting smile w'en you smile. You have 'eart, beauty, grace. My 'eart comes back to me w'en I feel your 'eart. So!" He laid his hand upon his vest pocket. From this vantage point he suddenly snatched at the school-teacher's own hand, "Ah! Mees Adams, if I could only tell you how ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... From his vantage point he saw what he had not seen before—the amazing size of the construction project. This was no piffling little Gizeh pyramid, no simple tomb for a king. Its base was measured in kilometers instead of yards, and its top was going to be proportionally high, apparently. It hardly seemed ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... those that are the meanest and most unpromising are the best, as they leave the greatest scope for the unbounded stores of thought and fancy in the writer's own mind. Poetry had with them "neither buttress nor coigne of vantage to make its pendant bed and procreant cradle." It was not "born so high: its aiery buildeth in the cedar's top, and dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun." It grew like a mushroom out of the ground; or was hidden in it like a truffle, which it required a particular sagacity ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... shore garments for the women, which were worn only through the streets, and laid by again as soon as they entered the forest. Silent, modest, dejected, the gentle savages used to vanish into the woods by paths known to their kinsfolk centuries ago—paths which run, wherever possible, along the vantage-ground of the topmost chines and ridges of the hills. The smoke of their fires rose out of lonely glens, as they collected the fruit of trees known only to themselves. In a few weeks their wild harvest was over; they came back through San Fernando; made, almost in silence, their little purchases ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... girls rolling two doll buggies fairly flew down the street and one little boy quickly climbed to the top of the dividing fence. From this safe vantage point he shouted to Billy, who was holding the nozzle of the hose out of which poured a ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... race that has won liberty and made it a birthright lets it slip away through hands of weakness or deeds of folly, and if the self-made man of to-day loses the vantage ground of his life work with his fleeting breath, the careers of nations would be brief, the story of liberty would be a nurse's tale, and the careers of individuals would be vanity of vanities. The prepotent blood that made an empire of an insignificant island and ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... been in the world of affairs, he wondered where were these choked avenues, these struggling masses, these competitors for every inch of vantage. Then he gradually discovered ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... my naked sword: 'Come down the road I came,' I cried. 'But ye must come one by one, and as ye come, ye die upon this steel.' Some cursed at that, but others wailed. For I had them all at deadly vantage. And doubtless, with my smoke-grimed face and fiendish rage, I looked a demon. And now there was a steady roar inside the mill. The flame was going up it as furnace up its chimney. The mill caught fire. Fire glimmered through it. Tongues of flame darted through each ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Harding gathered vegetables for her to see. When they reached the strawberry bed Mickey knelt and with her own fingers Peaches pulled a berry and ate it, then laughed, exclaimed, and cried in delight. She picked a flower, and from the safe vantage of the garden viewed the cows and horses afar; and the fields and sheep were explained to her. Mickey carried her across the road, Mary brought a comfort, and for a whole hour the child lay under a big tree with pink and ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... He was not a cat with paw upon the prey. He was only an angler, and had but hooked his fish. He had not landed it yet. He felt how slender was the thread of committal by which he held Julia. August had her heart. He had only a word. The slender vantage that he had, he meant to use adroitly, craftily. And he knew that the first thing was to close this interview without losing any ground. The longer she remained bound, the better for him. And with his craft against the country girl's simplicity it would have fared ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... and had listened to his palaver, and noticed his feckless way of going about things, were not surprised at the misfortune that had struck Buckley. Mrs. B. had then taken a small villa, near Sydney, where, in course of time, her son and daughter took positions of vantage, such as their circumstances allowed; each being prepared to stake his or her gentility (an objectionable word, but it has no synonym; and nasty things have nasty names) against any amount of filth that could ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Judge Moran's door, but to my vigorous knocking there was no response. The shades were drawn at the windows, the house silent, and yet I felt convinced the old partisan was within, watching from some point of vantage. Yet if I believed this, the same silence and refusal to respond also served to convince me that Miss Hardy was no longer there. She was a vastly different type, and would exhibit interest even in the coming of the enemy. Ay! and she would have seen ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... only my own but my family's dependence on M'Swat—sank into oblivion. I merely recognized that she was one human being and I another. Should I have been deferential to her by reason of her age and maternity, then from the vantage which this gave her, she should have been lenient to me on account of my chit-ship and ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... Charleston, in 1860, by rendering the election of the Republican candidate certain, shows that they wished an occasion for revolt; and the course of President Buchanan, who refused to take the commonest precautions for the public safety, gave them a vantage-ground which they speedily occupied, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... to ride down to the high bench that overlooked the home end of the racecourse. He calculated that there were a thousand Indians and whites congregated at that point, which was the best vantage-ground to see the finish of a race. And the occasion of his arrival, for all the gaiety, was one of dignity and importance. If Bostil reveled in anything it was in an hour like this. His liberality made this event a ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... dealings in stocks, for instance, are called in question. If they can be proved to be rightly described by the phrase "GAMBLING in Stocks," the battle is half-won. For the proscription of the worst kind of gambling has given a vantage ground from which to attack the principle of gambling wherever found. And this, we say, is ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... to Schott at Mayence, and did not refrain from reproaching him bitterly for his behaviour to me. I now decided to leave Mariafeld for Stuttgart to await the result of these efforts, and to prosecute them from a nearer vantage-ground. But I was also, as will be seen, moved to carry out this change by ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... shores and died among the willows, until the screaming birds, startled from the edges of the river, had settled into quiet, she stood so, fainting in her Gethsemane. She alone of all the post had remained away from the great gate where was gathered the populace at the nearest vantage point. ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... o'clock and midnight he drifts in and out of the lobby, up and down Randolph Street and takes up his position at various points of vantage where crowds pass, where women pass. I've watched him. No one ever talks to him. There are no salutations. He is unknown and worse. For the women, the rouged and ornamental ones, know him a bit too well. They know the carefully counted nickels in his ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... and swords with blood were gilt; But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun, And all but the after-carnage done. Shriller shrieks now mingling come From within the plundered dome: Hark to the haste of flying feet, That splash in the blood of the slippery street; But here and there, where 'vantage ground Against the foe may still be found, Desperate groups of twelve or ten Make a pause, and turn again— With banded backs against the wall Fiercely stand, or ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... the men at the braces in mournful monotone. Bang went the wet sail against the mast, and the second mate from his vantage point watched her slowly come up to wind. Slowly—slowly—the towering seas came pouring aboard—she took it in by the deck-house by ton loads, and the men all hung on to the nearest thing handy for dear life. Slowly, slowly her nose came up to the wind. ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... indeed, But, flinging (so to speak) life's gates too wide, Making a clear house of it too suddenly, The first conceit that entered might inscribe Whatever it was minded on the wall 90 So plainly at that vantage, as it were, (First come, first served) that nothing subsequent Attaineth to erase those fancy-scrawls The just-returned and new-established soul Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart That henceforth she will read or these or none. And ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... easy traveller took stock of his immediate surroundings, which had interested him only as a foothold and vantage-point for the panorama that he had been breathing in. Here, of all conceivable places, he was in danger of becoming eavesdropper to a conversation which was evidently very personal. Rounding the escarpment at his elbow he saw, on a shelf of decaying ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... From this place of vantage I have watched our beach for some time, but as our services are not likely to be much needed here I must return to our Ambulance which lies to the east of the rock, and we must follow our Brigade (86) shortly.... Back and seated here again. The van of ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... William H. Robertson for the same place; and, although it did not at once result so disastrously to Weed as Robertson's appointment did to Conkling twenty years later, it gave the editor's adversaries vantage ground, which so seriously crippled the Weed machine, that, in the succeeding November, George Opdyke, a personal enemy of Thurlow Weed,[741] was nominated and elected mayor of New ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... them, swarms of savages began to pour into the valley in the rear of the troops, about a half a mile west of them. They soon massed in great numbers, and rapidly closed every avenue of escape, riding in bands and giving vent to the most horrid war-whoops and unearthly yells as they saw their vantage. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... knees on the timbers, which formed his supports. A moment to take breath, and press his torn and bleeding fingers to his lips; then, reaching down, he gave a hand to his companion and dragged him to the same place of vantage. ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... a smile, "I rather feel that you are above me. For what vantage-ground is so high as youth? Perhaps I may become jealous of you. It is well that she should learn to like one who is to be henceforth her guardian and protector. Yet how can she like me as she ought, if her heart is to be full ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... poiloi. When a "dark" bird is victorious, and the crowd wins, an enthusiastic yell goes up. But just as in a public lottery, fortune is seldom with the great majority. As the bell rings, the spectators press close around the bamboo pit, or climb to points of vantage in adjacent scaffolding. A line is drawn in the damp earth, and on one side all the money wagered on the favorite is arranged, which must be balanced by the coin placed by opposing betters on the other side. There is a ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... know him when he comes Not by any din of drums, Nor the vantage of his airs; Neither by his crown, Nor by his gown, Nor by anything he wears. He shall only well-known be By the holy harmony That his coming makes ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... not in temples made with hands." In the twenty-five years which have passed since that time the good Bishop has passed to his eternal reward, but the mighty structure which is a monument to his visitations among the rich towers over the city from its vantage-point on Morningside Heights. It is called the Cathedral of St. John the Divine; and knowing what I know about the men who contributed its funds, and about the general functions of the churches of the Metropolis ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... vantage point and went quietly back to the kitchen, donning his infra-scope once more. In some of these old houses there was a back steps, leading to the ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... the Lord Of this fair mansion, master of my servants, Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now, This house, these servants, and this same myself, Are yours, my Lord, I give them with this ring; Which when you part from, lose, or give away, Let it presage the ruin of your love, And be my vantage ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... and hundreds of eyes were watching the ships that carried their husbands and sons and lovers out into the pale summer haze that hung over the coast of France; while a few sharp-eyed old mariners on points of vantage muttered to one another that in the haze there was a patch of white specks to be seen which betokened the presence of some ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... any effort of his own, gradually approaching the face of the rock. At last he could kick it; and so he helped himself, pendulum fashion, until finally he got a hand on a rocky point, and so could rest his weight on the rough surface. To him even this vantage-ground seemed as if it were actual safety, so much better was it than swinging helpless like a fly on a cord. When his weight was taken from the rope those above at first thought that he had fallen to the foot of the cliff; but now he gave the signal of three short jerks, and they saw that ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... the basket was lost from view I crept on, and in turn entered the evil-smelling hallway. I stepped cautiously, and standing beneath a gaslight protected by a wire frame, I congratulated myself upon having reached that point of vantage as silently as ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... into the wilderness of Hawaiian literature we have covered but a small part of the field; we have reached no definite boundaries; followed no stream to its fountain head; gained no high point of vantage, from which to survey the whole. It was indeed outside the purpose of this book to make a delimitation of the whole field of Hawaiian literature and to mark out its relations to the formulated thoughts of ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... a corner and disappeared did Fairchild leave his point of vantage. Then, with a new enthusiasm, a greater desire than ever to win out in the fight which had brought him to Ohadi, he hurried to the courthouse and the various technicalities which must be coped with before he could really call the Blue ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... can be very sentimental, morbid, and tragical. They can stare at life's deep mysteries and shudder or scoff, sigh or rejoice, according to their moral conditions. They can even grow cold with dread, as did Gregory, realizing that he had "lost his vantage- ground," his good start in the endless career. "She is steering across unknown seas to a peaceful, happy shore. I am drifting on those same mysterious waters I know not whither," he thought. But a few minutes after entering the cheerfully lighted ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... stopped, and, taking fresh courage from her vantage of distance, asked him if there ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... before you left, I said That correspondence was my rock ahead, Lest, when you found that ne'er an answer came To all your letters, you should call it shame. But where's my vantage if you won't agree To go by law, because the law's with me? Nay more, you say I'm faithless to my vow In sending you no verses. ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... Prichard was entrenched in a stronghold of total ignorance of literary matters, and his position, that mere differences of words ought not to tell upon a healthy mind, was difficult to shake, especially as he had the coign of vantage. He had only to remain inanimate, and what could a (presumably) widow lady with one small daughter do against him? So at the end of the first seven years, what had been Saratoga ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... is let in being pure country,—exactly what you have reduced into words; but I am feeling that which I cannot express. The reading your lines about it fixed me for a time a monument in Harrow Church,—do you know it?—with its fine long spire, white as washed marble, to be seen, by vantage of its high site, as far ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... I finde the matter more credibly set forth: which saith thus. That king Richard slewe the brother of this Limpoldus, playing with him at Chesse in the French Kings Court: and Limpoldus taking his vantage, was more cruel against him and deliuered him (as is sayde) to the Emperour. In whose custodie he was deteined during the time aboue mentioned, a yeere and 3. moneths. During which time of the kings endurance, the French king in the meane ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... two! But I could not hold this position against Miko that long! Sooner or later he would find a place from where he could sweep this bowl beyond possibility of our hiding. I saw him running now, well beyond my range, to ferret out another point of vantage. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... he looks," Rose pronounced from her vantage-point of seniority. "He's just got a way with him that fools people. Cass says girls are always crazy about him, and that he never cares for any of them more than ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... entered the court room and were shown to the seats that Captain Forsythe had taken particular pains to reserve for them. The case, evidently an interesting one to judge from the number of people present, was in progress as they quietly settled down in their chairs at the back. From the vantage point of a slight eminence they found themselves afforded an excellent and unimpaired view of his lordship, the jury, prisoner, witness and barristers. Presumably the case had reached an acute stage, for even the judge appeared slightly mindful of what was going on, and ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... my state of mind, for he stole away silently, leaving me rather penitent and ashamed, and, as I presently discovered on looking out of the window, resumed his vigil on the doorstep. From this coign of vantage he returned after a time to take away the tea-things; and thereafter, though it was now dark as well as foggy, I could hear him softly flitting up and down the stairs with a gloomy stealthiness that at length reduced me to a condition as ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... given up keeping ducks . . . "because they were such untidy birds". . . and the house had not been in use for some years, save as an abode of correction for setting hens. Although scrupulously whitewashed it had become somewhat shaky, and Anne felt rather dubious as she scrambled up from the vantage point of a keg placed on ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery |
