"Impregnable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spectacle, and to a citizen of a threatened country a disquieting one. Nine high-sided battle-ships of ten-gun type—nine floating forts, each one, unopposed, able to reduce to smoking ruin a city out of sight of its gunners; each one impregnable to the shell fire of any fortification in the world, and to the impact of the heaviest torpedo yet constructed—they came silently along in line-ahead formation, like Indians on a trail. There were no compromises in this fleet. ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... strength of his Countrey.] He hath no Artificial Forts or Castles, but Nature hath supplied the want of them. For his whole Countrey of Cande Uda, standing upon such high Hills, and those so difficult to pass, is all an Impregnable Fort: and so is more especially Digligy-neur his present Palace. These Places have been already described at large; and therefore I omit speaking ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... crossed the frontier, there was no thought of resistance; but orders were despatched for the whole force to concentrate at Pirna, a strongly fortified camp among the defiles of the mountains separating Saxony from Bohemia. The position was almost an impregnable one, and they ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... invaders. The relative position of the combatants must always be the same, while the combat lasts. The South has nothing to win, the North nothing to lose; the North nothing to offer, the South nothing to covet. Nor is this all: the North, as in an impregnable fortress, defies the attack of the South. Immense trackless solitudes; no cities, no tillage, no roads; deserts, forests, marshes; bleak table-lands, snowy mountains; unlocated, flitting, receding populations; no capitals, or marts, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... fail. Therefore it was that the Umpondwana had built stone schanzes or fortifications about the mouth of the river which gushed from the mountain between the thumb and finger like ridges on the eastern slope, although it lay below their impregnable walls of rock, seeing that to this river they must look for their ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... spiritual lives on the quiet moments of the Mass and the strange glorious mystery of penance, while the great Division which captured the beaches of Cape Helles had been brought to a standstill by the impregnable hill of Achi Baba, and uncounted troopships like our own were pouring through the Mediterranean to ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... the tumult long and kept my wits; but we heard of an employe who, when some tooth or nail in the enormous monster smote him, could not bear to stop away long enough to complete his cure, because he was unable to bear the "awful stillness" of the hospital. Persons of impregnable nerve-power let us deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth, showing us the dragon's brood, and his terrible wife whose business it is not only to print the newspaper, but to cut its sheets, and eventually to lay them like eggs, at the rate of thousands a minute: a most appalling ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... his cavalry completed the dismay and disorder; the Syrian crowds fell back on each other; many thousands were stifled or slaughtered in the entrance of the great street; the Mongols entered with the fugitives; and after a short defence the impregnable citadel of Aleppo was surrendered by cowardice or treachery. Among the suppliants and captives, Timur distinguished the doctors of the law, whom he invited to the dangerous honor of a personal conference. The Mongol Prince ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Mr. Parkinson of my approach, and he is watching for my coming - as tenderly as though I were a returning prodigal and he charged with my welcoming home. Close under the frowning battlements of Dieppe Castle - a once wellnigh impregnable fortress that was some time in possession of the English - romantically nestles Mr. Parldnson's studio, and that genial gentleman promptly proposes accompanying me some distance into the country. On our way through Dieppe I notice blue-bloused peasants guiding small flocks of goats through ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... voice shall never deny the bounties of my God! His hand hath placed my fathers in a fertile land, rich in the good things of the world, fortunate in position, sea-girt and impregnable. Happy is he who can find justification ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... would be admirable means of defence to fight behind, if the enemy forced their way in past the first entry, and with these and a larger and stronger barrier at the top of the slope by the first turn, it was considered by the Doctor that with ordinary bravery the place would be impregnable. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... What is it that is presented to my vision? I see not merely men to meet in combat but inaccessible mountains: on one side are ravines and precipices; on the other impenetrable forests in the heart of which are marshes, and in proximity to streams are impregnable intrenchments; everywhere are lofty fortresses and forests of felled trees lying across roads which are frightful; and there arises Merci, with his worthy Bavarians inflated by the large measure of success ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... city, belonging to Bala Khan, a Pathan who sometimes styles himself as a rajah. He has a body of fierce fighting men; and he lives unmolested for two reasons: looting would not be worth while and his position is isolated and almost impregnable. Now, if I am right, we shall find shelter there, for he was an old friend of my father's and I might call him a friend of mine, since I ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... before, the Gold and Green had crushed the strong team from "old Ham" to the tune of 20 to 0; Thor's magnificent ground-gaining, in which he smashed through the supposedly impregnable defense of the enemy, was a surprise to his comrades and a shock to Hamilton. Time and again, on the fourth down, the ball was given to Thorwald, and the blond Colossus, with several of old Ham's players clinging ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... tough, enduring, hale, sound, robust, hardy, durable, puissant; powerful, mighty, invincible, impregnable, irresistible, fortified; virile, athletic, muscular, brawny, vigorous, stout, strapping, lusty, sturdy, sinewy, stalwart, thewy, able-bodied; violent, forcible, impetuous, vehement; potent, cogent, influential, urgent, convincing, conclusive; ardent, eager, zealous, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... character. In contrast with this we shall presently see that the assertion of a future life which is not materially conditioned, though unsupported by any item of experience whatever, may nevertheless be an impregnable assertion. But first I would conclude the foregoing criticism by ruling out altogether the sense in which our authors use the expression "Unseen Universe." Scientific inference, however remote, is connected by such ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... famous Leah," said he; "she is a Jewess, and impregnable. She has resisted the attacks of the best strategists in Turin. Her father's a famous horse-dealer; you can go and see her easily enough, but there's nothing to be ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... safes. A doorway in the rear wall led into the yard behind the building. It was closed by a heavy door covered with sheet iron and fastened by several bolts and a thick, strong bar. There were no windows in the rear wall. From that side the bank appeared almost impregnable to silent assault. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he found them already in position [instructas] to dispute his passage behind a chevaux de frise of sharpened stakes, more of which, he was told, were concealed by the water. If the Britons had shown their wonted resolution this position must have been impregnable. But Caswallon's men were disheartened and shaken by the slaughter on the Kentish Downs and the desertion of their allies. Caesar rightly calculated that a bold demonstration would complete their demoralization. So it proved. The sight of the Roman cavalry plunging ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... own troubles and difficulties: each soul must pass through its deep waters, every heart must encounter sorrow and grief. But none need be overwhelmed in the great conflicts of life, for one who has learned the great secret of his identity with the Universal life and Power, dwells in an impregnable city, built upon and into the Rock of Truth, against which the storms of life ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... insects, began to pursue them all over the room, buzzing and humming as loudly as they did. The chase lasted a long time; but at last the poor cockchafers weary of carrying on the war, and mistaking the peruke of M. de Maupeou for an impregnable fortress, flew to take refuge there. What did Zamor do, but run to the chancellor, snatch off his wig, and carry it in triumph to a corner of the room with its colony of cockchafers, leaving us all to admire the bald head of the chief magistrate. I could willingly have enjoyed a hearty ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Count Herbert paced up and down the long room, reviewing with clouded brow the events of the past few hours, beginning with the glorious freedom of the open hillside in the early dawn and ending with these impregnable stone walls that now environed him. He was a man slow to anger, but resentment once aroused, burned in his heart with a steady fervour that was unquenchable. He stopped at last in his aimless pacing, ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... of Z. Snow and Company, he had seen, not the ruled page of the day book, but the parental countenance of the Honorable Fletcher Fosdick. And, to his mind's eye, that countenance was as rugged and stern as the rock-bound coast upon which the Pilgrims landed, and about as unyielding and impregnable as the door of the office safe. So, when his grandfather called him, he descended from the tall desk stool and crossed the threshold of the inner room, a trifle pale, a little shaky at the knees, but with the set chin and erect head of one who, facing almost hopeless odds, intends ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... in maturity, whether it be in the animal or in the intellectual world. Reflection is the mother of wisdom, and wisdom the parent of success. I propose that we retire to a discreet distance from this impregnable position, and there hold a convocation, or council, to deliberate on what manner we may sit down regularly before the place; or, perhaps, by postponing the siege to another season, gain the aid of auxiliaries from the inhabited countries, and ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... west, and three from north to south, connected with the main land by a neck of flat sandy ground only a few feet high. The town itself is surrounded by precipitous rocks, which really make it a natural fortress impregnable against attack. All that I urge against conquest in general is inapplicable here, and I say let England guard such spots. As long as she does she is mistress of the sea. Her influence at such points is always for good. The thirty thousand natives of Aden, for instance, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it all a mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood is—by the cord; and all obedient to one volition, as the smallest insect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to you ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... hearts are great," and so he assailed the third city and place of arms which Spain then possessed in the West Indies. The entrance of the harbour was protected by two strong castles, judged as "almost impregnable," while Morgan had no artillery of any avail against fortresses. Morgan had the luck to capture a Spanish soldier, whom he compelled to parley with the garrison of the castle. This he stormed and blew up, massacring ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... his unfitness for a great command, and who was soon to prove it. He led the army after Lee, found him entrenched on the heights back of Fredericksburg, and hurled division after division against an impregnable position, until twelve thousand men lay dead and wounded on the field. Burnside, half-crazed with anguish at his fatal mistake, offered his resignation, which was ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... statesmen. He was a master of the feelings and could sway the multitude before him as one man. "His style of argument was by vivid picture, apt comparison, and forcible illustration, rather than by close reasoning like Webster's, or impregnable logic like that of ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... her first lover, was also her instructor in this philosophy, and the principles he instilled into her mind were such as tended to seduce her. Finding her cold and impregnable on the side of her passions, and firmly attached to her husband and her duty, he attacked her by sophisms, endeavoring to prove that the list of duties she thought so sacred, was but a sort of catechism, fit only for children. That the kind of infidelity she thought so terrible, was, in itself, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... impregnable steel barrier between them, it is hard to say which would have triumphed in the end, the ponderous weight and fury of Last Bull, or the ripping prongs and swift wrath of the moose. The buffalo charged down the knoll at a thundering gallop; but just ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... what was being done in the prison, the inspector's severity, the cruelty of the convoy officer when he refused places on the carts to those who asked for them, and paid no attention to the fact that there was a woman in travail in the train. All these people were evidently invulnerable and impregnable to the simplest feelings of compassion only because they held offices. "As officials they were impermeable to the feelings of humanity, as this paved ground is impermeable to the rain." Thus thought Nekhludoff as he looked at the railway embankment paved with stones of different ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... she God only knew where. That powerful roadster, the sort of clothes she wore, the general air of well-being which he had begun to recognize as a characteristic of people whose social and financial position is impregnable—these things served to intensify the gulf between them which their radical differences of outlook had originally opened. No, Sophie Carr's presence in San Francisco could not possibly make any difference to him. He ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... is the dominion of the mind over the body, that for a time can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel, so that the weak become ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... in name," answered Wilkin Flammock, "and Damian, though a brave youth, hath not his uncle's ascendency of character, and authority. His men also complain that they are harassed with the duty of watching for protection of a castle, in itself impregnable, and sufficiently garrisoned, and that they lose all opportunity of honourable enterprise, as they call it— that is, of fight and spoil—in this inactive and inglorious manner of life. They say that Damian the beardless was a man, but that ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... by the French troops, and an embargo was laid on Dutch vessels by Great Britain. These vigorous measures disconcerted all the calculations of the Dutch monarch and of his partizans. At the beginning of this year Antwerp, supposed to have been impregnable, surrendered to Marshal Gerard. This event, together with the embargo laid on Dutch vessels, produced the convention of the 21st of May, by which the Belgian question was settled. This convention provided, "That ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... people. She was thus a true martyr or witness to the frightful consequences of intemperance, to the saving, doubtless, of many who but for her martyrdom would have taken to drinking. She was one of a forlorn hope whose failure to take a certain position went to the proving it to be impregnable and therefore to the abandonment of all attempt to take it. This was almost as great a gain to mankind as the actual taking of ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... actress after an affair and railroaded her off the Earth. Another had a habit of taking bribes to advance favorite sons in civil and military service. And so on. The Republic could not suffer at their hands; the Republic and the dynasty were impregnable. You simply spied on everybody—including the spies—and ordered summary executions often enough to show that you meant it, and kept the public ignorant: deaf-dumb-blind ignorant. The spy system was simplicity itself; you had only to let things get as tangled and confused as possible until nobody ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... smiled upon his master. "In the language of the range, 'come alive,' Mr. Boyle," she told him. "Say how-de-do and be nice about it, or I'll see that your coffee is muddy and your bread burned and your steak absolutely impregnable; because I'm here to stay, mind you. Mama Joy and I have possession of your kitchen, ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... disappeared completely in 1608 when Champlain founded Quebec. "What had become of these people?" writes Mr. Frey, in his pamphlet "The Mohawks." "An overwhelming force of wandering Algonquins had destroyed their towns. To what new land had they gone? I think we shall find them seated in the impregnable strongholds among the hills and in the dense forests of ...
— Hochelagans and Mohawks • W. D. Lighthall
... ablest officers in the French service, with fifteen thousand choice troops, and every requisite for a vigorous defence. On the other hand, Vendome, at the head of an hundred thousand men, lay in an impregnable camp between Ghent and Bruges, ready to interrupt or raise the siege; and his position there extremely hampered Marlborough in bringing forward the requisite equipage for so great an undertaking, as it interrupted the whole water navigation of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... of Montauban.] Afraid of these warriors, yet wishing to bind them to him by indissoluble ties, Iwo gave Renaud his daughter Clarissa in marriage, and helped him build an impregnable fortress at Montauban. This stronghold was scarcely finished when Charlemagne came up with a great army to besiege it; but at the end of a year of fruitless attempts, the emperor reluctantly withdrew, leaving Montauban still in the ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... out into the Sea, with large Harbours between them. That called Valetta, in honour of the Grand Master who so gallantly defended the place against the Turks, is extremely well Fortified, and also defended by a Castle, held to be impregnable. The City contains about Two Thousand Houses, well built with white Stone, and Flat-roofed, surrounded by Rails and Balusters. On t'other side of the Harbour is another City, formerly called Il Borgo, or ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... fortress. The vast pile, reared of stone, was situated thirty-six miles from Moscow, and was encompassed with deep ditches, and massive ramparts bristling with cannon. The monks were in possession of the whole country for a space of twelve miles around this almost impregnable citadel. From this safe retreat Sophia opened communications with the rebel chief. She succeeded in alluring him to come half way to meet her in conference. A powerful band of soldiers, placed in ambush, seized him. He was immediately beheaded, with ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... the second battle of Manassas. Eleven thousand prisoners had been taken at Harper's Ferry and Lee had gone on into Maryland on the flank of Washington. Recruits were coming into the Confederacy by the thousands. Bragg had fifty-five thousand men and an impregnable stronghold in front of Buell, who had but few men more—not enough to count ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... Grosvenor's lordly square— That last impregnable redoubt, Where, guarded with Patrician care, Primeval Error still holds out— Where never gleam of gas must dare 'Gainst ancient Darkness to revolt, Nor smooth Macadam hope to spare The dowagers one single jolt;— Where, far too stately and sublime To profit by the lights of time, Let Intellect ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... lady, that our abode in this castle is nothing profitable, and may turn out to our disadvantage. For who knows but that your enemy the giant hath learned by spies or other secret means how I intend to come and destroy him, and he may by now have fortified himself in some impregnable castle or fortress, against the strength of which even the force of mine invincible arm will be of little use. Therefore, dear lady, let us by our diligence hinder his plans, and let us depart to the place where fortune ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... succeeded in maintaining the trust committed to their forefathers, and constituting as they do a community intensely loyal to the British connection, believe that they present a case for the unimpaired maintenance of that connection which is impregnable on the grounds of racial sentiment, inherent justice, social well-being, and the continued security of the United Kingdom and of the Empire. They cannot believe that their British fellow-citizens will, at this crisis, turn a deaf ear to this claim. Three or four decades after the Ulster ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... listen to. Occupy all the heights up there to the north, from Saint-Menges to Fleigneux, with your army looking down on and commanding Sedan, able at any time to move on Vrigne-aux-Bois, mistress of Saint-Albert's pass—and there we are; our positions are impregnable, the Mezieres road ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... streets very narrow. The buildings, too, are commonplace; and the monument to Wolfe and Montcalm is a very insignificant affair. In fact, Quebec can boast of little else than the magnificent views it commands from the ramparts, and the impregnable strength of its fortifications. Some of the suburban villas, however, are very beautiful; and although I saw them in winter, yet I could form some idea of the enchanting places they must ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... naturalists, the question comes up again whole and entire? When by dint of confusions and sophisms such theorists imagine that they have extinguished the intelligence which radiates from nature, that intelligence again confronts them in man, and there, as in an impregnable fortress, sets all attacks at defiance. Mark then where lies the real problem. Whether the eternal God formed the body of the first man directly from the dust of the earth; or whether, in the slow series of ages, He formed the body of the first man of the ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... last of the Lotharian females perished ages since, upon that cruel and terrible journey across the muddy plains that fringed the half-dried seas, when the green hordes scourged us across the world to this our last hiding-place—our impregnable ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... intimately as I knew St. John, I could never glean from him a single secret of a state nature, until, indeed, at a later period, I leagued myself to a portion of his public schemes. Accordingly I found him, at the present moment, perfectly impregnable to my inquiries; and it was not till I knew Montreuil's companion was that celebrated intriguant, the Abbe Gaultier, that I ascertained the exact nature of the priest's business with St. John, and the exact motive ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to do the work and make plans for fortifications that should be impregnable. He looked the ground over thoroughly, traveling on horseback, and his two servants followed him up in a cart drawn by a bull, which Leonardo calmly explains ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... personal was to fall back again on the Eternal; between the soul and God, he had learned in his deepest agony, there is room for nothing more impregnable than the illusion of self. As Roger Adams—as a mere separate existence, he was a failure. The things which he had desired in life he had not possessed; the things which he had possessed he had ceased very soon, in any vital sense, to desire. Of his life's work, so big at ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... into the sea, they could float on their shields; and after death in battle a soldier was carried to his grave on his buckler. As they stood facing the Saxons they locked their shields together so as to form a barrier well-nigh impregnable against the arrows. ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... be that you have captivated Joshua!" she exclaimed, in a tone that implied the carrying of a stronghold hitherto thought impregnable. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the school; and, as we presumed, the regulations for the treatment of the scholars. The oldest boy had never seen its inside. Attempts, dictated by insatiable curiosity, had often been made to open it; but it was deemed impregnable. It was guarded by three immense locks, and each key was in the possession of different persons. The wood appeared to be nearly half a foot thick, and every corner was plaited with iron. All eyes were instinctively directed to this mysterious chest. Could ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... temples and homes, great canoes, and wooden gods. Finally Porter attained the fort that had stopped him during the first fight, and found it a magnificent piece of construction, of great basaltic slabs, impregnable from the beach side. He saw that if he had tried that entrance to the valley again, he would have failed as before. Only heavy artillery could have conquered that ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... instructions, and he built the house on an island in the Bay of Islands on a site selected by Mr. Symons, who afterwards stated that the island was a very small one, but he believed that the house would be impregnable, and able to withstand the attacks of any force that the country at that time could bring against it.* (* This house was one of the first, if not the very first house, to be built in New Zealand. We do not hear even of a single ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... tone whenever he had occasion to mention Mr. Addington was a study in scornful expression. He himself had once memorialised the Prime Minister for a couple of nineteen-pounders which, with the two on the Old Fort, would have made our harbour impregnable. "Addington! It's hard on you, I know," he went on sympathetically, "to keep a discovery like this to yourself. But ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the other hand, was almost impregnable. A diligent scrutiny at last dragged the dark fact to the light of day, that he had actually sat on Peel's election committee at the time of catholic emancipation in 1829, and had voted for him against ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Some few have survived and become royal palaces or noblemen's mansions. Such are Windsor, Warwick, Raby, Alnwick, and Arundel, but the fate of most of them is very similar. The old fortress aimed at being impregnable in the days of bows and arrows; but the progress of guns and artillery somewhat changed the ideas with regard to their security. In the struggle between Yorkists and Lancastrians many a noble owner lost his castle and his head. Edward IV thinned ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... measures as to remain unknown to British and Portuguese alike. Even those employed upon the works knew of nothing save the section upon which they happened to be engaged, and had no conception of the stupendous and impregnable whole that was preparing. ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... the radical question of right and wrong, or they surrender the chief advantage of their position. What Spinoza says of laws is equally true of party platforms,—that those are strong which appeal to reason, but those are impregnable which compel the assent both of reason and the common affections ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... God is for the truth and right, and, if you are standing for the truth and right, the Almighty Power is backing you up, the ground you stand on impregnable, because of that position. You do not expect God to work miracles, you do not expect him to do anything; but simply the sense that you are in his presence, that you are on his side, re- enforces you more than a thousand men could ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... thousand five hundred Prussian troops at the fortress. This is one of the strongest military posts in Europe. Its fortifications have been the labor of long years; and the works here, united with those across the river, are deemed impregnable. I believe Ehrenbreitstein is called the Gibraltar of Germany. It mounts four hundred cannon, and the magazines will contain provisions for eight thousand men for ten years. The former Electoral Palace is now the Government House, and presents a very noble appearance from the river. It is ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... immense hall was crowded with nobles and their women, as though some important function was in progress. There was not a guard in sight without the palace, due, I presume, to the fact that the city and palace walls were considered impregnable, and so I ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... work." The nearer I came thereto the more I wondered at the height, strength, splendour, grandeur, and beauty of its every part, how skilful the work was, and how apt the materials. Its base was an enormous rock wondrously fashioned, and of strength impregnable; upon it were living stones, laid and joined in such perfect order that no stone could possibly appear finer elsewhere than in its own place. One part of the church projected in the form of a wonderfully handsome cross, and the Angel saw me looking at it, and said, "Dost thou recognise that ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... detective he gladly consented to the plan, declaring that he would willingly spend the time just to watch such an unheard-of instrument work. After another hour of fruitless discussion Prescott took his leave, saying that he would mount an impregnable ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... wood like that enchanted grove In which with fiends Rinaldo strove, Where every silent tree possessed A spirit prisoned in its breast, Which the first stroke of coming strife Would startle into hideous life: So dense, so still, the Austrians stood, A living wall, a human wood! Impregnable their front appears, All horrent with projected spears, Whose polished points before them shine, From flank to flank, one brilliant line, Bright as the breakers' splendors run Along ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... more ruinous than the other famous castles of Touraine and requires as much imagination to make it whole and habitable as some of the ruins along the Rhine. Of the Chateau of St. George, built by the Plantagenet Kings to protect the one vulnerable point in a position almost impregnable in its day, nothing is left but parts of the lower wall. So ruinous, indeed, is this chateau, that one is almost ready to accept Pantagruel's derivation of the name of Chinon, or Caino, from Cain, the son of Adam ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... of which effective voting will aid—that I seem so absorbed in the one reform. My opinions on other matters I give for what they are worth—for discussion, for acceptance or rejection. My opinions on equitable representation I hold absolutely, subject to criticism of methods but impregnable ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... that was in league with it, and kept telling her that things were not all right with her; that she ought not to be afraid, yet had good reason for being afraid; that she knew of no essential safety. There must be some refuge, some impregnable hiding-place, for the thing was a necessity, and she ought to know of it! There must be a human condition of never being afraid, of knowing nothing to be afraid of! She wondered whether, if she were quite ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... this request another; namely, that the causes of the defeat should be investigated. In his official report [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. ii. p. 665] he attributed it to a panic amongst the troops holding the apparently impregnable heights of Missionary Ridge, and he characterized the conduct as shameful. "The position was one," he said, "which ought to have been held by a line of skirmishers against any assaulting column." He declared that our troops ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the strangest thing. He had a comforting sense of tall reeds on either side, and an impregnable rampart, Siss, between him and any danger. Snail-eater was close behind and there was no danger there. He was prepared to shove behind and send Siss to death or victory. That was his place as second man. He saw the butt of the spear Siss carried leap away from him, and suddenly a dull ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... assistance elsewhere in turning the siege into an investment. On November 21 they captured Rahova, on the Danube, which greatly facilitated operations against the doomed fortress and aided to make the works of the allies impregnable. In the closing incidents of the investment of Plevna the Roumanians took little or no part in consequence of the position which they occupied. On the morning of December 10, Osman Pasha made his ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... was instantly taken up and the next day (12th) found us up against infantry again at Fisher's Hill, between Cedar Creek and Strasburg, a position impregnable against direct assault. For three days we remained face to face with Early's infantry, constantly so close as to draw their fire and keep them ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... her, to the Dukes of Dorset and Devonshire and Lord Lovelace (among a hundred other titled gallants), who were ready to shed their last drop of blood in defence of her fair fame; though each sought in vain to besmirch it in his own person. But her virtue was reputed to be "as impregnable as the rock of Gibraltar." Dr Doran describes her as "that Diana of the stage, before whom Congreve and Lord Lovelace, at the head of a troop of bodkined fops, worshipped in vain"; although, with all her unassailable propriety, she did not escape outspoken ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... like a bunch of ostrich feathers, bending its majestic form here and there over the verdant and luxuriant undergrowth, the mahogany tree, the stout lignumvit, the banana, the fragrant and beautiful orange and lemon, and the long, impregnable hedge of the dagger aloe, all go to show us that we are in the sunny ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... Huguenot soldier was the first to mount the breach. The army of William III., though eight thousand fewer in number, followed Saint-Ruth and his Irish army to the field of Aughrim. His host was there drawn up in an almost impregnable position—along the heights of Kilcommeden, with the Castle of Aughrim on his left wing, a deep bog on his right, and another bog of about two miles extending along the front, and apparently completely protecting the Irish encampment. Nevertheless, the English and Huguenot army under ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... greater town than Albany when you arrive at Quebec. You will see a noble city, on a noble site, an impregnable fortress, guarded by the most valiant troops in the world. For its like you would have to cross the sea to ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... property obtained by theft is converted into a sacred vested institution; the men who commit the theft or their hirelings sit in high places, and pass laws surrounding the proceeds of that theft with impregnable fortifications of statutes; should any poor devil, goaded on by the exasperations of poverty, venture to help himself to even the tiniest part of that property, the severest penalty, enacted by those same plunderers, ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... "you know my reasons. The Countess's domains lie between the frontiers of Burgundy and Flanders—her castle is almost impregnable—her rights over neighbouring estates are such as, if well supported, cannot but give much annoyance to Burgundy, were the lady but wedded to one who should ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Above the island of Orleans the channel narrowed, and there were the lovely green heights of what was to be Point Levis, more attractive, he thought, than these frowning cliffs. The angle between the St. Charles and St. Lawrence gave an impregnable site for a fortress, and Champlain was a born soldier with a quick eye to seize on ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... big guns that will drop shells vertically and destroy these works the way the German 42's destroyed their predecessors. It was very interesting to see and hard to realise that up to three months ago this sort of thing was considered practically impregnable. ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... her late conduct had, she feared, given her reputation; and, as she had a wonderful presence of mind, she conceived the person of the unfortunate beau to be luckily thrown in her way to restore her lady's opinion of her impregnable chastity. At that instant, therefore, when he offered to leap from the bed, she caught fast hold of his shirt, at the same time roaring out, "O thou villain! who hast attacked my chastity, and, I believe, ruined me in my sleep; I ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... steamers in the ice. Make them safe against the spring break-up. But first transfer all their cargoes to one big cache. You can defend it better, and make the cache impregnable. Send a messenger down to Fort Burr, asking Mr. Carter for three of his men. He doesn't need them. Nothing much is doing at Circle City. Stop in on the way down and take half of Mr. Burdwell's men. You'll need them. ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... impregnable resolution, Fran could be despondent to the bluest degree; and though competent at the clash, she often found herself purpling on the eve of the crisis. The moment had come to test her fighting qualities, yet ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... setting in, and the infant cause of it here setting up a cry, Susan escaped under pretext of putting Humfrey to bed in the next room, and carried off both the little ones. The conversation then fell upon the voyage, and the captain described the impregnable aspect of the castle of Dumbarton, which was held for Queen Mary by her faithful partisan, Lord Flemyng. On this, Cuthbert Langston asked whether he had heard any tidings of the imprisoned Queen, and he answered that it was reported at Leith that she had well-nigh ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and human laws. He suspects Boris also of setting Natacha's wits awry. We really have to consider that when they are married they will read everything they have a mind to. My husband has much more real respect for Michael Korsakoff because of his impregnable character and his granite conscience. More than once he has said, 'Here is the aide I should have had in the worst days of Moscow. He would have spared me much of the individual pain.' I can understand ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... cum Sanctis. May my lot be with those Evangelical saints from whom I first learned that, in the supreme work of salvation, no human being and no created thing can interpose between the soul and the Creator. Happy is the man whose religious life has been built on the impregnable rock ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... Brabancons, whom he had retained in his service. Philip, now secure of his prey, pushed his conquests with vigour and success against the dismayed Normans. Falaise was first besieged; and Lupicaire, who commanded in this impregnable fortress, after surrendering the place, enlisted himself with his troops in the service of Philip, and carried on hostilities against his ancient master. Caen, Coutance, Seez, Evreux, Baieux, soon fell into the hands of the French monarch, and ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... using France, than trusting France; Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas, Which he hath given for fence impregnable, And with their helps only defend ourselves; In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies. 755 SHAKS.: 3 Henry ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... reputation it now enjoys, which will continue a bright and shining star in the constellation until time shall be no more, when it will be perpetuated in the glorious light of eternity. Amid the wrecks of institutions and powerful interests that were a short time since thought to be impregnable against all assaults, the Independent Order of Odd-Fellows still maintains its vantage ground, and bears its banners proudly up. With its doors thrown so widely open to applicants for admission, composed as it is ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... were attacked by the Russians, they withdrew within the walls of the large fortress which is called "The Green Hill." They numbered about 45,000 in all—men, women and children—and they believed that the fortress was impregnable. The Russian general, Skobeleff, had a mine carried under the wall. Inside the fortress the Turkomans heard the soldiers working underground with picks and crowbars, but did not understand what was intended. They supposed that ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... welcome. There are tears in the bachelor's eyes as they meet the blue orbs so fondly fastened upon him, for his thoughts are upon the gentle and confiding embrace that was once his. Woe unto you, Mrs. Kinalden! If there were a single impregnable spot in the good man's bosom, that tear would ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... private locality, as though his conscience smote him or his fear sought to prevent discovery. His legal friend, however, driven from the mere outwork of facts, had taken refuge in the citadel of law; he was equal to the occasion. Alas! Alderson knew the way into this impregnable retreat. ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... the political boss of the city at that time, apparently entrenched, with an organization that seemed impregnable. I knew him as a big, bullnecked fellow, taciturn to the point of surliness, owing his influence to his ability to "deliver the goods" in the shape of graft of all sorts, the archenemy of Carton, a type of politician ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... drawbridge was let down by them within: "If thou a Christian be," quoth he, "thou mayest Till Phoebus shine again, here take thine inn, The County of Cosenza, three days past, This castle from the Turks did nobly win." The prince beheld the piece, which site and art Impregnable had made ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... to escape the necessity of concerning itself with personality and particular circumstances in questions of truth and error, Intellectualism appeals to Logic, which it conceives as a purely formal science and its impregnable citadel. This appeal, however, rests on a number of questionable assumptions, and most ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... your secret cells, Whose silent gloom your tale of horrors tells. Saw ye how Cranmer dared—yet fear'd to die, Trembling 'mid hopes of immortality? He stood alone;—a brighter band appears Unaw'd by threats—impregnable to fears; Who suffer'd glad the sacred truth to spread, In mild obedience to its fountain-head. And when at length our popish James would see Cold superstition bend th' unhallow'd knee, The mystic tapers on our altars burn, And clouds of incense shade the fragrant ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... the attack upon that proud Jericho (more impregnable because of the obstinacy of its inhabitants, than by the wall of its inaccessible mountains) by ordering that it be assaulted at the same time by several parts by different soldiers of so holy a militia with the bugles of the divine word. One began the conquest by the side of Bolinao, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... they are subject to temptations which a prudent man like myself may perhaps do well to avoid." But though he spoke with an assured tone, he was shaken, and almost regretted that he did not accept the aid which was offered to him. It is astonishing how strong a man may be to those around him,—how impregnable may be his exterior, while within he feels himself to be as weak as water, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... believe, the ashes of Peter and Paul. Rome has ever discouraged family worship, and taught men to pray in churches. Why? To increase the power of the Church and the priesthood. A country covered with households in which family worship is kept is like a country covered with fortresses;—it is impregnable. Every house is a citadel, and every family is a little army. Or mark yonder female who kneels before the perforated brazen lattice of yonder confessional-box. She is whispering her sins into the ear of a shaven priest, who receives them into his own black heart. It is but a reeking ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... of the war, we could have rendered this position impregnable in one night, but at this time we did not do it, and it may be it is well we did not. From about the 1st of April we were conscious that the rebel cavalry in our front was getting bolder and more saucy; and on Friday, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... should immediately conclude that this was a pledge or illustration of the abrogation of the gloomy penalty of sin, the deliverance of souls from the subterranean prison, and their admission to the presence of God beyond the sky? We deem this an impregnable position. Every relevant text that we consider in its light additionally fortifies it by the striking manner in which such a conception fits, fills, and explains the words. To justify these interpretations, and to sustain ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... The impulse had then been an abnormal one. In an instant I perceived the truth. My pulse upon examination was ten beats above the usual, and my reflexes were increased. I called upon my higher and saner self, the real G. E. C., seated serene and impregnable behind all mere molecular disturbance. I summoned him, I say, to watch the foolish mental tricks which the poison would play. I found that I was indeed the master. I could recognize and control a disordered mind. It was a remarkable exhibition ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... met with no better success. The fact became obvious then that to artillery fire the Mercutians were impregnable. For several days no further military operations were attempted, with the exception of an occasional shell futilely ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... means Of Service, Courtship, Presents, that might win her To be at his devotion: but in vain; Her Maiden Fort, impregnable held out, Until he promis'd Marriage; and before These Witnesses a solemn Contract pass'd To ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... predecessors, and they had so frequently resided there, even after the building of Persepolis, that it had continued to be regarded as the real capital of the empire by other nations, whereas the Persian sovereigns themselves had sought to make it rather an impregnable retreat than a luxurious residence. Artaxerxes built there an apadana on a vaster scale than ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... tell you. As I was preparing to go to meet you, the commander of the English squadron, apprised of the matter, I know not how, dropped upon me brusquely and warned me that I was about to fall into a trap; that Cadiz being impregnable, they despaired of seizing me, but that at the Cortadura I should be arrested by you; that the Emperor wished to make of the Duke d'Orleans a second volume of the Duke d'Enghien, and that you would have me shot immediately. There, really," ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... occasion I remember, the enemy's artillery having made a gap in the square, the lancers were evidently waiting to avail themselves of it, to rush among us, when Colonel Staples at once observing their intention, with the utmost promptness filled up the gap, and thus again completed our impregnable steel wall; but in this act he fell mortally wounded. The cavalry seeing this, made no attempt to carry out their original intentions, and observing that we had entirely regained our square, confined themselves to hovering round us. I must not forget to ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... under an escort of dragoons, to the fortress of Nantes. From this place he almost miraculously escaped to his own territory of Retz, where he was regarded as sovereign, and where he was surrounded by retainers who, in impregnable castles, would fight to the death for their lord. These scenes took place early in ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... little town, leading its club life, singing its romantic songs (each his own) and, for want of real game, organizing curious cap-hunts. Then, war having come and the dark times, Tarascon became known by its heroic defence, its torpedoed esplanade, the club and the Cafe de la Comedie, both made impregnable; all the inhabitants enrolled in guerilla companies, their breasts braided with death's head and cross-bones, all beards grown, and such a display of battle-axes, boarding cutlasses, and American revolvers that the unfortunate inhabitants ended by ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... that the cliff dwellers were driven from their strongholds and dispersed by force is pure fiction, nor is there any evidence to support such a theory. That they had enemies no one doubts, but, being in possession of an impregnable position where one man could successfully withstand a thousand, to surrender would have been base cowardice, and weakness was not a ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... in possession of Tarentum, Pyrrhus now crossed over into Sicily. He remained there upward of two years. At first he met with brilliant success, and deprived the Carthaginians of a great part of the island. Subsequently, however, he received a severe repulse in an attempt which he made upon the impregnable town of Lilybaeum. The fickle Greeks now began to form cabals and plots against him. This led to retaliation on his part, and he soon became as anxious to abandon the island as he had been before to leave Italy. Accordingly, when his Italian allies again begged him to come to their assistance, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... up her work, and rose to go with a slightly abashed air, though her small brown eyes were still blanks of impregnable defence. "Well, I dunno what I've said to stir you both so," she remarked again. "If I've said anythin' that riled you, I'm sorry, I'm sure. As I said before, folks must do as they are a mind to with their ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... was told from Heaven that the fort was almost impregnable in the daytime. "Send against it at once," he advised the King, "a ship full of prisoners condemned to death, and promise them their lives if they capture the fort, for they, having nothing to lose, are the only men ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a conquered town was doomed to the most reckless destruction, all that was in the church,—the most delicate paintings, and the most costly gold and silver images and utensils—were as safe as if they were surrounded by impregnable castle walls. ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... of Suwarrow, there was none more wonderful than the conquest of Ismail. It had stood out against two sieges, and was considered almost impregnable. The Empress, provoked at its not having yielded, gave an absolute order that it should be taken. Potemkin, who was then at the head of the Russian army, dreaded Catharine's displeasure should she be disappointed the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... dismal experiment indifferently termed "making the best of both worlds," and "serving God and Mammon "—in view of all these things, I cannot think it is anything worse than a locally-seated and curable ignorance which makes men eager to subvert a human equality, self-evident as human variety, and impregnable as any mathematical axiom. And this special brand of ignorance is even more rampant amongst those educated asses who can read Kikero in the original than amongst uneducated asses who know not the law, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... vessels, military or commercial. Sweaborg was bombarded, and a large portion of the fortifications destroyed, and many of their defenders slain. Cronstadt was approached as in the previous year; but was pronounced to be impregnable to the means at the disposal of the allies, vast as they were. The want of gun-boats and vessels of light draught was the chief ingredient in the elements of discomfiture which affected the allies. Throughout the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... was hard for us to make this climb, if we stumbled as we walked, what had it been for them? Our breath came hard and fast—how had it been with them? Yet they had done it! They had stormed the ridge the Huns had proudly called impregnable. They had taken, in a swift rush, that nothing could stay, a position the Kaiser's generals had assured him would never be lost—could never ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... ardour was in nowise damped by the incessant rain that fell, and converted the surrounding country into a wide morass, nor by the snow that followed, which gave the Drakenberg Mountains an additionally impregnable aspect and rendered them at once ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... march'd on, Until quite thro' the town th' had gone; At further end of which there stands 1130 An ancient castle, that commands Th' adjacent parts: in all the fabrick You shall not see one stone nor a brick; But all of wood; by pow'rful spell Of magic made impregnable. 1135 There's neither iron-bar nor gate, Portcullis, chain, nor bolt, nor grate, And yet men durance there abide, In dungeon scarce three inches wide; With roof so low, that under it 1140 They never stand, but lie or ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... bit; and we're quite half-way round. No signs either of another opening in the reef. Fine island to annex, Sir John. It's a regular fortification, a natural stronghold with an impregnable wall round it, and a full mile-wide moat inside. A fort at the point commanding the ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... Impregnable I held myself, secure Against intrusion. Who can measure Man? How should I guess his mortal will outran Defeat so far that danger could allure For its own sake? — that he would all endure, All sacrifice, all suffer, rather than Forego ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... sisters. Soldiers would go from New York by the post-road to Philipsburgh, and then embark at the little landing, to proceed up the Hudson, on the way to be scalped by the red allies of the French or mowed down by Montcalm's gunners before impregnable Ticonderoga. Many were the comings and goings of the scarlet coat and green. The Indian, too, was still sufficiently plentiful to contribute much to the environing picturesqueness. But, most of all, in those days, the mansion got its character from the festivities devised by its own ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... all, confident before Fate. She trembled strangely. Did she know him, this other self? In the swift apprehension of life's depths which came through her heightened mood she perceived that ultimate division lying between all human beings, that impregnable fortress of the individual soul.... It was all over. He looked tenderly at her. Her lips trembled with a serious smile,—yes, they would ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... tremendous lines of fortifications, and then fell back to communicate with Lee. That night a council of war was held, and it was agreed that an attack upon the front of the enemy's position was absolutely impossible. Hooker himself was so positive that his position was impregnable that he issued a general order of congratulation to his troops, saying that "the enemy must now ingloriously fly or give us battle on our own ground, where certain ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... on Isle St Joseph was in the nature of a strong fort. Its walls were of stone and cement, fourteen feet high and loopholed. At each corner there was a protecting bastion, and the entire structure was surrounded by a deep moat. It was practically impregnable against Indian attack, for it could not be undermined, set on fire, or taken by assault. A handful of men could hold it ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... instructs him, thus: "Your neighbour's wife You must not take, his chattles, nor his life; Break these decrees, for damage you must pay; These you must reverence, and the rest—you may." Law was design'd to keep a state in peace; To punish robbery, that wrong might cease; To be impregnable: a constant fort, To which the weak and injured might resort: But these perverted minds its force employ, Not to protect mankind, but to annoy; And long as ammunition can be found, Its lightning flashes and its thunders sound. Or Law with lawyers ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... females of the family, a guard, as your Lordships know, rendered doubly and trebly secure by the manners of the country, which make everything that is in the hands of women sacred. It is said that nothing is proof against gold,—that the strongest tower will not be impregnable, if Jupiter makes love in a golden shower. This Jupiter commences making love; but he does not come to the ladies with gold for their persons, he comes to their persons for their gold. This impetuous lover, Mr. Hastings, who is not to be stayed from the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... that if Great Britain continues to maintain her present policy of Free Trade—as I trust will be the case—her means of defence should, within the limits of human foresight, be such as to render her empire impregnable; and, further, that should that policy unfortunately be reversed, it will be a wise precaution that those means of defence should, if possible, be still further strengthened. But I also entertain an equally strong opinion that an imperial nation should seek to fortify its position and to provide ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... love have long been at loggerheads, the story may end badly. Still, what love passages there are shall be left intact. There shall be no trickery. There shall be no running breathless, flushed, eager-eyed, to the very gateway of Love's garden, only to bump one's nose against that baffling, impregnable, stone-wall phrase of "let us draw a veil, dear reader." This is the story of the love of a man for a woman, a mother for her son, and a boy for a girl. And ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... were impregnable. He mustn't doubt that. She would rather seek a moist death in the waves than.... and so forth. Although she made this solemn proclamation over the dessert, the consequence of it all was an intimate visit to Niebeldingk's dwelling ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... conscience put in pawn To win a world; see the obedient sphere By bravery's simple gravitation drawn! Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, And by the Present's lips repeated still? In our own single manhood to be bold, Fortressed in conscience and impregnable.' ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... out and walked on to the bridge. In the brilliant sunshine spires were glistening against the pearly background of the hills; the town had a clean, joyous air. Swithin glanced at the Citadel and thought, 'Looks a strong place! Shouldn't wonder if it were impregnable!' And this for some occult reason gave him pleasure. It occurred to him suddenly to go and look for ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... road you may put me on, I want to know where it comes out. My text declares it: "The redeemed of the Lord come to Zion." You know what Zion was. That was the King's palace. It was a mountain fastness. It was impregnable. And so heaven is the fastness of the universe. No howitzer has long enough range to shell those towers. Let all the batteries of earth and hell blaze away; they can not break in those gates. Gibraltar was taken, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... post to post, and deed to deed, Fast spurring on his reeking steed, Where sallying ranks the trench assail, And make the foremost Moslem quail; Or where the battery, guarded well, Remains as yet impregnable, Alighting cheerly to inspire The soldier slackening in his fire; The first and freshest of the host Which Stamboul's Sultan there can boast, 110 To guide the follower o'er the field, To point the tube, the lance to wield, Or whirl around the bickering blade;— Was Alp, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... slightly. Behind the staring, manlike visitor there was a glimpse of enormous, crocodile jaws and huge, amethyst eyes. Instantly the head and arms receded, leaving an empty-seeming, lifeless shell. An impregnable fortress of spines, the thing drifted slowly away through the twisted ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various |
