"Impregnable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... material 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
... walked on to the bridge. In the brilliant sunshine spires were glistening against the pearly background of the hills; the town had a clean, joyous air. Swithin glanced at the Citadel and thought, 'Looks a strong place! Shouldn't wonder if it were impregnable!' And this for some occult reason gave him pleasure. It occurred to him suddenly to go and look for the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the American Fur Company's Factory, a short distance below the mouth of the River St Peters. Fort Snelling is about a mile from the factory, and is situated on a steep promontory, in a commanding position; it is built of stone, and may be considered as impregnable to any attempt which the Indians might make, provided that it has a sufficient garrison. Behind it is a splendid prairie, running back ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... True Master is the straight line. Pythagoras, Plato and Christ created angles by running vertical lines through the ecclesiastical and hypocritical conventionalities of their day. The new angles and curves thus produced by the bold philosophy of the humble Nazarene have confronted with impregnable firmness during the intervening ages the ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... of his young lieutenant to Caracas to receive the homage of the people. The soldiers and followers of Girardot asked Bolivar the privilege of being sent to avenge the young colonel. Monteverde had established himself in a place which he considered impregnable. The insurgents attacked with all their might, and the enemy was routed. Monteverde had to withdraw to Puerto Cabello, where he was deposed by his subordinates and Salomon was elected to take his place. His successor accepted the exchange of prisoners, ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... be remembered as occupying two thirds of the sacred area on Mount Moriah, was originally a castle built by the Macedonians. Afterwards, John Hyrcanus erected the castle into a fortress for the defence of the Temple, and in his day it was considered impregnable to assault; but when Herod came with his bolder genius, he strengthened its walls and extended them, leaving a vast pile which included every appurtenance necessary for the stronghold he intended it to be forever; such as offices, barracks, armories, magazines, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... no ousting him. Wallenstein followed suit and for eleven weeks the enemies eyed one another from their "lagers," neither willing to risk an attack. In the end Gustav Adolf tried, but even his Finns could not take the impregnable heights the enemy held. At last he went away with colors flying and bands playing, right under the enemy's walls, in the hope of tempting him out. But he ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... would be for all that is noble, patriotic and pure in public life! Who should fear the result who desires the public welfare? From the stand-point of better principles applied to the direction of public affairs and the best individuals in office, the argument seems impregnable. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... practically impregnable against assault, although exposed to artillery fire, and to distant musketry. It was for this reason that the defenders of the stairs had not taken to it at once. They felt confident in their ability to defend the stair all day, and to inflict heavy loss upon the enemy; whereas, by climbing up ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... Xenophon and the officers meantime considered the possibility of taking the citadel, for if so, their safety was assured; but if otherwise, it would be very difficult to get away. As the result of their deliberations they agreed that the place was impregnable. Then they began making preparations for the retreat. Each set of men proceeded to pull down the palisading which faced themselves; further, they sent away all who were useless or who had enough to do to carry their burdens, with the mass of the heavy infantry accompanying them; ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... 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 ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... without pay, the armies march without provisions, and it makes tradesmen keep open shop without stock. The force of credit is not to be described by words; it is an impregnable fortification, either for a nation, or for a single man in business; and he that has credit is invulnerable, whether he has money or no; nay, it will make money, and, which is yet more, it will make money without an intrinsic, without the materia medica (as the doctors have it); it adds a ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... terror to rush over her like a flood, and sent her flying along the street to her one haven. As she ran she had felt a touching faith in the security of her room, if she could reach it. Out there, in the open street, it had seemed impregnable, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... by occasional assaults which, being made with less spirit than the earlier ones, were easily repulsed. The blockade was not more successful. Haco had provided ample stores for the small garrison which he had considered sufficient to protect the promontory of Lihou, naturally almost impregnable; and the force defending the Vale, camped chiefly on Lancresse Common, was only nominally blockaded. The sallies, made from time to time, were ordered more with a view of keeping up the martial spirit of the men than with that of ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... The dew lay heavy on the laurel leaves of the thickets, and the breeze was perfumed with the penetrant fragrance of many blossoms. The day was thrilling with the matins of the birds. The balsamic air was a wine of life. The rugged mountain peaks seemed to stand as an impregnable barrier against the confusions and evils of the larger world. But the man and the girl recked nought of these things as they went forward, with cautious steps and watchful eyes. They knew that the tranquil scene masked wickedness close by them, ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... the sulphur spring that bubbles out of quicksand in a little cavern deep in the hillside—a cavern made almost impregnable by smell. In the old days the determined bather had to shin down a pole through a funnel, and take his curative bath in the rocky oubliette of the spring. Now the Government has arranged things better. It has carved a dark tunnel to the pool, and carried the water ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... one mile off the shore of Vera Cruz, stands the grim old fortress of San Juan d'Ulloa, a most conspicuous object with its blackened and crumbling walls. It has often been declared to be impregnable, and yet, curious to say, it has never been attacked by a foe without being compelled to surrender. Here Cortez landed on Mexican soil, April 21, 1519. He disembarked on a Friday, a day which the Romish church has set apart for the adoration of the cross; he therefore called the place ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... blind drunk, she neither said so nor gave any show or sign of interest in children. It is doubtful if she could have made it clear to any one what it was she wanted, or indeed what there was to want—a lonely, lovely woman, thirty now, retrenched behind some impregnable inhibition born and ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... is said, the Tzar, by way of exercise, used to be in the habit, every morning, of trundling a wheel-barrow. Mr. Evelyn probably alludes to this in the following passage, wherein he asks, "Is there, under the heavens, a more glorious and refreshing object, of the kind, than an impregnable hedge, of about four hundred feet in length, nine feet high, and five in diameter, which I can still show in my ruined garden at Saye's Court (thanks to the Tzar of Muscovy), at any time of the year, glittering with its armed and variegated leaves; the taller standards, at orderly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... place of confidence; the bosom is only for those who have a right to closest intimacy. It is the place of love, near the heart. It is the place of safety, for he is in the clasp of the everlasting arms, and none can snatch him out of the impregnable shelter. It was the darkest night the world ever saw that John lay on the bosom of Jesus. That is the place of comfort for all sorrowing believers, and there is abundance of room for them all on that breast. John leaned on Jesus' breast,—weakness ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... the autumn of 1881 in the Rocky Mountains, and the mounted head of which grins upon the wall overhead, a grisly trophy indeed. The impression of enormous strength, massive yet elastic, ponderous yet alert, impregnable for defence as irresistible in attack; a strength which knows no obstacles, and which never meets its match,—this impression is as fully conveyed in these figures, which are not over a foot in height, as if the animal ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... that secret wealth of valour and patience in humanity which makes real and redeems the revelation of its secret vileness in The Ring and the Book. It almost looks at first sight as if Browning had for a moment surrendered the whole of his impregnable philosophical position and admitted the strange heresy that a human story can be sordid. But this view of the poem is, of course, a mistake. It was written in something which, for want of a more exact word, ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... eagerly acquisitive, also intelligently conservative and constructive; an element of order and crystalline edification, which is to consummate itself one day, in the aisles of Amiens; and things generally insuperable and impregnable, if the inhabitants of them had been as sound-hearted as their builders, for ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... suddenly as do those of a ten-cent panorama, when a midnight storm at sea or a volcanic eruption is about to be rolled in view: I went down ad imis—'down to the bottom of the sea—the earth with her bars was around me forever.' Blank horror and anguish seized me. Hope fled to its impregnable corner of my heart, till the calamity was overpast. A hushed agony was upon me, as before I had known its boundless bliss. And thus variously I fared through all that second night of sleeplessness. They ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... knowledge that he could not break down his enemy's guard. Surprise, chagrin, amusement, or something like it, seemed blended in his look. He could not make out how he was caught and checked in every effort, meeting, it seemed, a barrier of iron impregnable in rest. His quick brain grasped the lesson in an instant. If his skill were not the greater, the victory would not be his, for his endurance was the less. He was younger, and his frame was not so closely knit; pleasure had taken its tithe from him; perhaps a good cause goes for something. Even ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... of the monarchy at home, and the development of the various industries of the nation, since in these industries are both power and wealth. Commerce was encouraged, and she girt her island around with those "wooden walls" which have proved England's impregnable defence against every subsequent combination of tyrants and conquerors. The East India Company was formed, and the fisheries of Newfoundland established. It was under Elizabeth's auspices that Frobisher penetrated to the Polar Sea, that Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... 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 ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... last we came to the foot of the steep, emerged from the forest, turned northward, and then saw before us, a little to the right, the sleeping town of Clochonne. At the further end of that, on an eminence commanding the river, stood the chateau, looking inaccessible and impregnable. ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... witches had filled him with a false confidence, and he remembered the sayings of the spirits, that none of woman born was to hurt him, and that he was never to be vanquished till Birnam wood should come to Dunsinane, which he thought could never be. So he shut himself up in his castle, whose impregnable strength was such as defied a siege: here he sullenly waited the approach of Malcolm. When, upon a day, there came a messenger to him, pale and shaking with fear, almost unable to report that which he had seen; ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... 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 for a ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... we know where we stand: our conscience approves the punishment even while our pity calls out against it. And when the blow falls, it shakes away none of our belief in the advantages of virtuous conduct. It leaves the good old impregnable position, "Be virtuous and you will be happy," stronger than ever. But the terror of these hypnotic stories resembles that of a child in a dark room. For artistic reasons too obvious to need pointing out, the hypnotizer in these stories is always the villain of the piece. For the same or ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and courageous woman's second vitality is stronger and more enduring than her first. Not only has her body, assisted by modern science, settled down into an ordered routine that is impregnable to anything but accident, but her mind is delivered from the hopes and fears of the early sex impulses which so often sicken the cleverest of the younger women both in body and mind, filling the body with lassitude ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... 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 ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... it, they perceived that, in many instances, art had only availed itself of the natural advantages of the position, and that the towers and turrets were carved out of the living rock which formed the impregnable bulwarks ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... mountaineer. Half dead with dread, she heard them discussing their plans; they spoke quite freely in the presence of the well-beaten grooms, who were led to expect death before many hours. It was the design of the bandits to make their way to the almost impregnable fastnesses in the hills of Dawsbergen, the wild principality to the south. There they could hold her against all hope of rescue, until an immense sum of money was paid over in ransom by ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... in 1562, at which time it was seized by the Huguenots; and considerations of this nature most probably prevailed with the citizens, when they declined the offer made by Francis Ist, who proposed at a public meeting to enlarge the tower into an impregnable citadel. In the hands of the Protestants, the fortress, such as it was, proved sufficient to resist the whole army of Charles IXth, during several days.—Rouen was stoutly defended by the reformed, well aware of the sanguinary dispositions of the bigotted monarch. ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... wind, and went back to the window, to watch him down the drive. His back looked poor and mean. It emphasized the pettiness of her victory. Even at that moment, she realized that it was the poorer part of her which had resented attack on a citadel which should be impregnable as time itself. Just then Enoch stepped into the kitchen behind her, and his voice jarred upon her ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... strength which we hold on different points of it, the facility this gave us of attacking him, on the same day, on all his points, from the extremity of the lakes to the neighborhood of Quebec, and the perfect indifference with which this last place, impregnable as it is, might be left in the hands of the enemy to fall of itself; whether, I say, he could see and prepare vigorously for all this, or merely wrapped himself in the cloak of cold defence, I am uninformed. I clearly think with you on the competence of Monroe to embrace ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... adorned he magnificently repaired and adorned them]. He also took care of the foundations of the cloisters in the temple, and repaired the walls that were fallen down, and built very great towers, and such as were almost impregnable; and if any thing else in his kingdom had been neglected, he took great care of it. He also made an expedition against the Ammonites, and overcame them in battle, and ordered them to pay tribute, a hundred talents, and ten thousand cori of wheat, and as many of barley, every year, and so ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... of falling into the enemy's hands forced them to throw themselves 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
... ourselves of preconceived opinion, and come to the question with minds that are truly candid? Whoever shrinks from this is a liar to his own self, and as such, the worst and most dangerous of liars. He is as one who sits in an impregnable citadel and trembles in a time of peace—so great a coward as not even to feel safe when he is in his own keeping. How loose of soul if he knows that his own keeping is worthless, how aspen-hearted if he fears lest others should ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... all his efforts to carry that fort fruitless, and the British army receiving fresh acquisitions of strength, all seemed to conspire to render the case of General Brown hopeless; who, now perceiving the situation in which he was placed—the forts in his front to him completely impregnable, and an army in his rear in full flow of spirits, and every day gathering new strength (though by no means equal to his as regarded numbers), a Canadian Militia, and unexpectedly to him, fervent beyond a parallel in the cause of their King and country—began now to think of a safe ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... then had only thought of pleasure, of wine, women, and song, the "sweet meat which cost him the sour sauce ye have heard," on the approach of danger, had fled on board the ships he had prepared to "certain impregnable isles in the ocean," and if these impregnable islands may be identified with Zipangu or Japan, the conquerors pursued him even here. There is nothing more interesting in Polo's book than his story of the Mongol failure in the Eastern islands, fifteen hundred miles from the ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... of the way in which changing conditions are altering political questions, let the reader take his atlas and consider the case of that impregnable fastness, that great naval station, that Key to the Mediterranean, Gibraltar. British boys are brought up on Gibraltar and the Gibraltar idea. To the British imagination Gibraltar is almost as sacred a national symbol as the lions in Trafalgar Square. Now, in his atlas the reader will almost certainly ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... instructed them," he said. "Come and you shall see how impregnable is our position. The red ones have resented our ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... is the first application of the celestial portent to this particular comparison. Yet Milton's "imperial ensign" waves defiant behind his impregnable lines, and even Campbell flaunts his "meteor flag" in Waller's face. Gray's bard might be sent to the lock-up, but even he ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Africa, LXXXVI. He opens the campaign, LXXXVII. The reception of Metellus in Rome. The successes and plans of Marius. The applications of Bocchus, LXXXVIII. Marius marches against Capsa, and takes it, LXXXIX-XCI. He gains possession of a fortress which the Numidians thought impregnable, XCII.-XCIV. The arrival of Sylla in the camp. His character, XCV. His arts to obtain the favor of Marius and the soldiers, XCVI. Jugurtha and Bocchus attack Marius, and are vigorously opposed, XCVII., XCVIII. Marius surprises them in the night, and routs them with great slaughter, XCIX. Marius ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... capture of the fort of Nativity, one of the strongest places on the Biobio, which was constructed on the top of a high and steep mountain, well furnished with troops and artillery, and both from its natural and artificial strength was deemed impregnable. Putapichion came unexpectedly against this place, and soon scaling the difficult ascent, got possession of the ditch, set fire to the palisades and houses of the place with fire arrows, and very nearly succeeded ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... me, but all their attempts were in vain; the gallant, brave, and kind-hearted people of Wiltshire surrounded me with an impenetrable phalanx; they formed an irresistible bulwark with their persons, which proved an impregnable barrier against all the assaults of the constables, bullies, and blackguards, that were urged on by the Mayor and his myrmidons—a "matchless crew." I was hoisted upon the shoulders of those who ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... and outrageous sky seemed to be assuaged; but it intermitted its wrath only to increase its strength; soon the sounding squadrons of the air returned to their attack, and renewed their ravages with redoubled fury; and the stately dome rocked amidst the wheeling clouds. The impregnable clouds tottered on its basis, and threatened to overwhelm those whom it was intended to protect, the vessel was almost rent in pieces, and scarcely secure; where then was a place of safety? Sleep affrighted flew, diversion was turned into horror; all was uproar ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp
... telephone over its bed. In Germany there is not, at all events as yet, sufficient distinction between the classes to make the struggle for position the life and death affair it is in England. Beyond the landed aristocracy, whose boundaries are impregnable, grade hardly counts. Frau Professor and Frau Candlestickmaker meet at the Weekly Kaffee-Klatsch and exchange scandal on terms of mutual equality. The livery-stable keeper and the doctor hobnob together at their ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... fight, our adventurers had not taken into account the impregnable position of their antagonist. Soon, however, did they discover the advantages in his favor, with their own proportionate drawbacks. To neutralize these was the question that now occupied them. If something was not done ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... that what they could do and did do would be helpful to the other ranks and ranges, and would be solidaire with the rest of the nation. Such a nation would be sane and prosperous in time of peace, and absolutely safe and impregnable in the ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... resumed: "You have carried Edward from his camp, and severed him from his troops; you have placed him in the midst of your own followers; you have led him, chafing and resentful all the way, to this impregnable keep; and you now pause, amazed by the grandeur of your captive,—a man who leads to his home a tiger, a spider who has entangled a ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the prisoners upon the portals opening into Bank Buildings and Sweeting's Kents; but the former having been shattered sometime since on a similar occasion, and subsequently very strongly repaired, it was found impregnable, at least to any immediate exertion of force, and being neither furnished with a park of artillery, nor with the battering ram of the ancients, the little army faced to the right about, enfiladed the area, and took up a new position, in due order ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... shrines Kneel to adore? Good, easy dupes! What win we From faith and pious awe? to touch with prayers The tenants of yon azure realms on high, Were hard as with an arrow's point to pierce The silvery moon. Hid is the womb of time, Impregnable to mortal glance, and deaf The adamantine walls of heaven rebound The voice of anguish:—Oh, 'tis one, whate'er The flight of birds—the aspect of the stars! The book of nature is a maze—a dream The sage's art—and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... turned off the acetylene and oxygen. The last bolt had been severed. A gentle push of the hand, and he swung the once impregnable door on its delicately poised hinges as easily as if he had merely said, "Open Sesame." The robbers' cave yawned ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... was ruffled by spiteful gusts. Wycherley could find no color anywhere save in this glowing, tiny and exquisite woman; and everywhere was a gigantic peace, vexed only when high overhead a sea-fowl jeered at these modish persons, as he flapped toward an impregnable nest. ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... the American Consul we obtained a special permit to visit the fortifications, particularly of that portion which forms the lofty and impregnable citadel. It is difficult to decide in this most remarkable fortress whether nature or art has done the most to render it what it seems absolutely to be, impregnable,—the strongest citadel in the world. The improvements in modern gunnery have lately ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... by the opponents of the men who were in office. Among these opponents was Pitt, that formidable man before whom all trembled. Gout had disabled him, but who could tell when he might get sufficient respite to return and deal havoc? Yet in spite of all that was said, the ministry seemed impregnable. Grenville was very able, always of a stubborn temper, and in this especial case convinced to the point of intensity that the right lay with him; moreover, he was complete master in Parliament, where his ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... Senegal, and is only two leagues distant from the new bar formed by the inundation of 1812. Its situation in a military point of view, is pretty advantageous, and if art added something to nature, there is no doubt, but this town might be rendered almost impregnable; but in its present state, it can hardly be considered as any thing more than an open town, which four hundred resolute men, well commanded, might easily carry. At the mouth of the river is a bar, which is its strongest bulwark. It may ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... to pump on the handle vigorously. The almost impregnable door seemed slowly to bulge. Still there was no sign of life from within. Had the ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... left Colenso at 5.30 a.m. with the 73rd Field Battery for Ladysmith. We were much interested on the Grobler's Hill road to see the Boer trenches and shelters, which were simply marvellous and made the place impregnable. The trenches were blasted out of solid rocks, some 6 feet, and some 6 to 8 feet thick, of solid rock and boulder; these were all sandbagged, fitted with shelters with burrowed-out holes, and were extended for a front of half a mile facing Colenso. On the other side of the road, slightly higher ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... consequences. We wished to save the honour of the knights—that was all; for no one who has seen Malta can imagine that an island surrounded with such formidable and perfect fortifications would have surrendered in two days to a fleet which was pursued by an enemy. The impregnable fortress of Malta is so secure against a 'coup de main' that General Caffarelli, after examining its fortifications, said to the General-in-Chief, in my presence, "Upon my word, General, it is luck: there is some one in the town to open the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... powerful, and was only attended on by great numbers of young damsels, who used to carry him about the castle in a small light chariot. Confiding in the strength of this castle, which he believed impregnable, Dor rebelled against Umcan, to whom he was tributary. But seven of his courtiers or attendants, in whom he placed confidence, made him prisoner one day while hunting, and delivered him to Umcan, who dressed him in mean clothes, and set him under a strong guard to tend his cattle. At the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... the port of St. Petersburg, at the mouth of the Neva; a strongly fortified place, and the greatest naval station in the country; it is absolutely impregnable. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the valley is only about three and a half miles wide. All along the precipitous bluff which overhangs Tumbling Run on the south side, a heavy line of earthworks had been constructed when Early retreated to this point in August, and these were now being strengthened so as to make them almost impregnable; in fact, so secure did Early consider himself that, for convenience, his ammunition chests were taken from the caissons and placed behind the breastworks. Wharton, now in command of Breckenridge's division—its late ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... power, driven by the concentration of gravitational lines, impregnable to all known forces, containing within her hull the secrets of many strange devices, ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... "declares that the Dardanelles are impregnable and that the city is perfectly quiet, but the Sultan and half of his harem have ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... will be foiled. The enemy will succeed in penetrating the impregnable fortress; each foe has his special tactics, contrived with appalling skill. See, an egg is inserted by means of a probe beside the torpid larva; or else, in the absence of such an implement, an infinitesimal grub, an atom, ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... drawn from the adjacent country, for the use of the continental army, furnished great inducements to Sir Henry Clinton to direct his enterprises particularly against that state. He also hoped to draw General Washington from his impregnable position on the North River into the low country, and thus obtain an opportunity of striking at some part of his army, or of seizing the posts, which were the great object of the campaign. With these views, he planned an expedition against Connecticut, the command ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... that he had saved the State. The Senate might adopt such resolutions as might seem good to them without alarm for the consequences. The conspiracy was disarmed. He had made enemies among the bad citizens; but he had deserved and he had won the gratitude of the good, and he stood secure behind the impregnable ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... wounds, which 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 will swear a rape ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... political and military combinations enabled William the Silent to overcome the most powerful and unscrupulous monarch of his age. The same hereditary audacity and fertility of genius placed the destiny of Europe in the hands of William's great-grandson, and enabled him to mould into an impregnable barrier the various elements of opposition to the overshadowing monarchy of Louis XIV. As the schemes of the Inquisition and the unparalleled tyranny of Philip, in one century, led to the establishment of the Republic of the United Provinces, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... presence in the parlor mamma in the nursery and papa at the "office"—poor, overworked papa!—give themselves precious little trouble,—this prate of ball-room opportunity is singularly and engagingly idiotic. The worthy people who hold such language may justly boast themselves superior to reason and impregnable to light. The only effective reply to these creatures would be a cuffing, the well meant objections of another class merit the refutation of distinct characterization. It is the old talk of devotees about sin, of topers concerning water, temperance men of gin, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... experience of the most reassuring character. You must know that I held a high official position in the religious world—I will mention no details—and I found at an early age, I am glad to say, the imperative necessity of forming absolutely impregnable convictions. I went to work in the most business-like way. I devoted some years to hard reading and solid thought, and I found that the sect to which I belonged was lacking in certain definite notes of divine ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Constantius had declared his intention of deciding the quarrel in the fields of Cibalis, a name that would animate his troops by the remembrance of the victory, which, on the same auspicious ground, had been obtained by the arms of his father Constantine. Yet by the impregnable fortifications with which the emperor encompassed his camp, he appeared to decline, rather than to invite, a general engagement. It was the object of Magnentius to tempt or to compel his adversary to relinquish this advantageous position; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... they displayed in seizing on the strong and commanding points of communication within the country, as we see at this day, from the sites of their old Castles, many of which must have been, before the invention of gunpowder, all but impregnable. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... out, and that night at midnight Sprague's Brigade of the Fourth Division of the Sixteenth Corps had gained the Gap. The enemy appeared the next morning. This opened the way through Snake Creek Gap, planting us in the rear of Johnston's Army, and forcing him to abandon his impregnable ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... conflict not yet solved. The bombardment of the Queen City still continued, though with little hope of its surrender. But the shelling went on, as though this murderous rain of death were but a merry pastime, on those summer days. The fort was now deemed impregnable; and yet the hope of its surrender was one that could not die in the hearts of the beleaguerers. Day after day, they assaulted and reassaulted, and day by day ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... despised heresy of a few earnest persons, without political weight enough to carry the election of a parish constable; and their cardinal principle was disunion, because they were convinced that within the Union the position of slavery was impregnable. In spite of the proverb, great effects do not follow from small causes,—that is, disproportionately small,—but from adequate causes acting under certain required conditions. To contrast the size of the oak ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the vast region of Berar. The Guicowar, which is, being interpreted, the Herdsman, founded that dynasty which still reigns in Guzerat. The houses of Scindia and Holkar waxed great in Malwa. One adventurous captain made his nest on the impregnable rock of Gooti. Another became the lord of the thousand villages which are scattered among ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... which they have landed at Port Said and Ismalia, whence a steady advance has been going on ever since. Arabi has summoned all his forces together, and mobilized them in the direction of Tel-el-Kebir, at which place he means to make a big stand. The position he has taken up is supposed to be impregnable, and success is anticipated by all his people. Personally, I am assured he must fail; there is too much lack of discipline, too much rivalry and disaffection in his ranks for him to stand against the well-drilled and splendidly-armed ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... Chateau there is another and even more striking view. It is the one that appears in Turner's picture just mentioned, and gives one some idea of the magnificent position that Richard Coeur de Lion chose, when in 1197 he decided to build an impregnable fortress on this bend of the Seine. It was soon after his return from captivity which followed the disastrous crusade that Richard commenced to show Philippe Auguste that he was determined to hold his French ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... hand, Lee was on the alert with his army of 78,000 men, well and compactly posted in a commanding and almost impregnable position along the wooded heights which overlooked Fredericksburg and the valley of the Rappahannock from the south. Burnside had 113,000 men of all arms, well supplied and thoroughly organized, commanded by the ablest generals ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... standing silent, of pushing passed Peter, or of speaking. If she had done the first, or the second, her position was absolutely impregnable. But a woman's instinct is to seek defence or attack in words rather than actions. So she said: "You had no right, and you were very rude." She did not look ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... state, and grinning at his pomp; Allowing him a breath, a little scene To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin[1] Bores through his castle wall, and—farewell, King!" [Footnote 1: In Hamlet's famous soliloquy the pin is ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... again; did Classical Scholarships, and much else: everywhere a clear-headed, methodically distinct, concise kind of man. A high style of breeding about him, too; had powers of pleasing, and used them: a man beautifully lucent in society, gentle yet impregnable there; keeping himself unspotted from the world and its discrepancies,—really with considerable prudence, first ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... it was allowed to fall into decay. The instructions to the "shyriffe" were no doubt necessary; for although L60 would probably go a great way in the time of Bishop Gundulph, the modern aesthetic builder would do very little indeed for that sum, towards the erection of such an impregnable fortress as Rochester Castle, the walls of which vary from eight to thirteen feet in thickness, whatever his progenitor may ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... been assaulted with success. These were when the position had been but recently occupied and the fortifications were very slight. After several days' occupation, as at the points attacked by Thomas and McPherson, the lines became impregnable. Frequent efforts were made, and by none more earnestly than by General Sherman, to press the troops to a vigorous assault of the enemy's position under the favorable circumstances above referred to. But the general feeling of the army, including not only privates, but officers of nearly ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... confident in themselves, and their trust in their leader was renewed. The fight, two days before, had shown them that the guns of the white men were terrible on the plain; and that it was, after all, wise to await them in the position which had been made impregnable, and against which the foe would hurl themselves in vain; then they were to pour out, and ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... eliminated at a bound the purely mechanical difficulties which had fettered him. Hector, Achilles, Agamemnon, Ulysses—Jerry was each of these in turn, lacking only the opportunity to vanquish heroic foes or capture impregnable cities. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... Square, when she came back late from a meeting or a concert, leaning against the garden-railings, their backs to the lovely nocturnal mystery of groves and moonlit lawns, and their faces turned to the line of rich men's houses which mounted out of the night like a tall, impregnable fortress. Some were grey-haired. Such traffic was perilous as it was ugly, for somehow there were babies who were born blind because of it! That was the sum of her knowledge. What followed the grave kisses shown in pictures, what secret Romeo shared with Juliet, she did ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Conquest, if they had not seized it before; for the great castle Marisco, built upon the extreme verge of the cliffs, commanding the bay and the landing-place, and overlooking in a wide sweep all the southern coast of the island, was already built in the eleventh century. From this impregnable fortress, with its massive walls nine feet in thickness, its squat, strong Norman turrets, its encircling fosse, and the perpendicular cliffs by which its seaward wall was made unscalable, Sir Jordan de Marisco used to sally ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... ancient and impregnable theory that all brides are beautiful, was there ever a woman who looked her best in the uniform of approaching servitude? In any case, Ellaphine's best was not good, and she was at her worst in her ill-fitting white gown, with the veil askew. Her graceless carriage was not improved by ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... in the matters for which we get the praise, that we have not regretted them, and are not ashamed at them, and would not rather have said and done differently. For our own inward judgement, testifying the contrary and not admitting the praise, is above passion, and impregnable and proof against the flatterer. But I know not how it is that most people in misfortune cannot bear exhortation, but are captivated more by condolence and sympathy, and when they have done something wrong and acted amiss, he that by censure and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... man, with bright penetrating eyes, and a delightful suspicion of an Irish brogue, a man with hands horny from the plough and a brain that belongs only to the rulers of men. He represented a political party that had its stronghold in Glenoro and its impregnable fortress in the Oa; so he took his place upon the platform ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... whose footsteps had been listened to with such inquietude! What is man, that knowledge is so sparingly conferred upon him! that his heart should be wrung with distress, and his frame be exanimated with fear, though his safety be encompassed with impregnable walls! What are the bounds of human imbecility! He that warned me of the presence of my foe refused the intimation by which so many racking fears would ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... herself indispensable; or rather, her attempt to do so had been thwarted by an influence stronger than any she could exert. That influence, in its last analysis, was simply the power of money: Bertha Dorset's social credit was based on an impregnable bank-account. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... Rhind lecturers on Archaeology, who, by careful measurements and by the extensive knowledge which he has brought to bear on the subject, has quite established the fact. One sees that from the east side of the hill the position is by nature impregnable against attack; while on the south, west, and north sides, it is the triumph of the antiquarian's research and skill to re-build for us in imagination a series of fortified lines and enclosures, the original sites of which time has not altogether obliterated. The fortress was known ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... old invincibility of English prowess could not have anticipated the unbroken series of glories which were to reward their efforts. For four years Lord Wellington had contended against all the most renowned marshals of the Empire,[172] driving them back from impregnable lines of defence, defeating them in pitched battles, storming their strongest fortresses, without ever giving them room to boast of even the most momentary advantage obtained over himself; and he was now on the eve of achieving still more brilliant and decisive ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... and in case of an explosion or other accident the safety of the living-rooms might be assured by means of the iron door. The only way of opening it would have been to employ dynamite, the lock being impregnable; and as the grounds for suspicion against Mr. Wildred were not yet strong enough to resort to such violent means, there was nothing to do but wait. He was wired for to ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... violating both divine 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 how that would please the general, but how such ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... wise and mysterious therns of Barsoom, that ancient cult which for countless ages has been credited with holding the secret of life and death in their impregnable fastnesses upon the hither slopes of the Mountains of Otz, are as ignorant as we. I have proved it, though I near lost my life in the doing of it; but you shall read it all in the notes I have been making during the last three months that I ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... moreover, that my mind is too restless, and my heart too deeply grieved, to enjoy the peace and quiet of country life. I must remain in the noise and turmoil of the world, and see what will become of poor Prussia. I intend going to Kolberg; the fortress is strong and impregnable; it will be an insurmountable bulwark against the enemy, and I have several intimate friends at the fortress. I will stay with them till I am ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... mind. It is, moreover, a state perfectly compatible with extreme intellectual subtlety and a capacity for devising hypotheses which only require the hardihood engendered by strong conviction, or by callous mendacity, to render them impregnable. The logical feebleness of science is not sufficiently borne in mind. It keeps down the weed of superstition, not by logic but by, slowly rendering the mental soil unfit for its cultivation. When science appeals to uniform ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... treasures from us; sorrow or sickness may canker them, turn them to ashes in the mouth. They are not ours; we hold them upon sufferance. But the treasures of the intellect, the gift of being upon nodding terms with truth, these are treasures that are our impregnable own. Nothing can filch them, nothing canker them: they are our own—imperishable, inexhaustible; never wanting when called upon; balm to heal the blows of adversity, specific against all things malign. Cultivate the perception of beauty, the knowledge of truth; learn to distinguish between ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... appear at first sight that the net result of these operations was negative, and that the poor fellows who had given their lives here had died in vain. But this was not so. Rafat was destined to become famous. It was fortified on an almost impregnable scale, thousands of pounds were spent, and a couple of million sand-bags were worked into its defences. A veritable fortress was established which overlooked much of the enemy positions. More than once was this fortress attacked by the Turks, but in vain. It ultimately formed ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... 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 ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... meanest capacity that there was room for improvement in this department of the Grand National Trunk Railway. In performing this last operation Sam locked all the semaphores, and so rendered his part of the line absolutely impregnable. There was so much vigorous action and whistling here, and such puffing and backing and pushing on the part of the engines, that a superficial observer might have supposed there was a great deal of movement and confusion to no purpose, but we need scarcely ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... legislation, which was to have been postponed for another session, was now hurried forward; and long before the German Revolution and the conclusion of the Peace, England was secure in the possession of that permanent organization of home defence which, humanly speaking, has made these shores positively impregnable, by converting Great Britain, the metropolis and centre of the Empire, into a nation in arms. There is no need for me to enlarge now upon the other benefits, the mental, moral, and physical advancement which this legislation has given us. Our doctors and schoolmasters and clergymen ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... General Scott from assuming the immediate command of the invading force. He was subsequently ordered to the seat of the war; and after a series of operations, admitted to be the most brilliant in point of science known to modern warfare, he won what were supposed to be impregnable, the castle and the town of Vera Cruz. This triumph was announced on the 29th of March. The siege occupied fifteen days, and was attended with little loss on the side of the Americans. On the 17th of April, ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... with the rifle. As there was no moat, there was a certain danger from an attack with fire unless water was stored within; and it was of course necessary to guard carefully against surprise. But to open assault they were practically impregnable, and they therefore offered a sure haven of refuge to the settlers in case of an Indian inroad. In time of peace, the inhabitants moved out, to live in their isolated log-cabins and till the stump-dotted clearings. Trails led through the dark forests from one station to another, as well as to ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... counsels and in what excels Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair And utter dissolution, as the scope Of all his aim, after some dire revenge. First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled With armed watch, that render all access Impregnable: oft on the bordering Deep Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing Scout far and wide into the realm of Night, Scorning surprise. Or, could we break our way By force, and at our heels all Hell ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... accessions from headquarters, and girding themselves for a desperate struggle. General Cos, fully appreciating the importance of the post he held, made active preparation for its defense, never doubting, however, that the strong fortifications of the Alamo would prove impregnable to assailants so feeble numerically. Under the direction of the cautious Spaniard, the town already assumed a beleaguered aspect, and in addition to the watchman stationed on the observatory of the fortress, ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... in power during most of the war period and in 1815 their position was seemingly impregnable. During the years covered by the ministry of Lord Liverpool (1812-1827), however, their hold was gradually relaxed. They sought to secure for themselves the support of the masses and talked much of the aristocratic exclusiveness of the Whigs, yet they ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... in the treaty of Amiens, that both England and France should evacuate Egypt, and that England should surrender Malta to its ancient rulers. Malta, impregnable in its fortifications, commanded the Mediterranean, and was the key of Egypt. Napoleon had therefore, while he professed a willingness to relinquish all claim to the island himself, insisted upon it, as an essential point, that England should do the same. The question upon which the treaty ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... surrender of London, York, Winchester, and other principal towns. Having lost all his strong holds, he consulted his magicians as to how he was to secure himself from this terrible foe. They advised him to build an impregnable tower, and pointed out the situation where it was to be erected. But so unfortunately did their advice succeed, that all the work that his engineers did in the building one day, the earth swallowed, so that no vestige was to be found on the next. The magicians ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... as a rule, without extraordinary reason, in that land, rouse themselves out of their winter sleep for the mere whine of a wolf. They are impregnable where they are, and know it. The extraordinary reason, however, was present. The white wolf was sniffing at it now—the bear's blood-trail to the windfall. Bruin had been roused once before that day—by beaters. He had then been driven forward, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... into the crack of a rock to escape from his pursuers. But the venomous population of Rattlesnake Ledge had a Gibraltar for their fortress that might have defied the siege-train dragged to the walls of Sebastopol. In its deep embrasures and its impregnable casemates they reared their families, they met in love or wrath, they twined together in family knots, they hissed defiance in hostile clans, they fed, slept, hybernated, and in due time died in peace. Many a foray had the town's-people made, and many a stuffed skin ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... and the smoke of burning villages, to gain peace and plenty at Moscow. But when, on September the 14th, the conqueror entered that city with his vanguard, solitude reigned almost unbroken. A few fanatics, clinging to the tradition that the Kremlin was impregnable, idly sought to defend it; but troops, officials, nobles, merchants, and the great mass of the people were gone, and the military stores had been burnt or removed. Rostopchin, the governor, had released the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Urartu raiders, who had long been encroaching on Mesopotamia, and even on Syria, were driven back across the Nairi lands and penned into their central fastnesses of Van; by the ease, too, with which Babylonia was humbled and occupied again, and the Phoenician ports and the city of Damascus, impregnable theretofore, were taken and held to tribute—she began to dream of world empire, the first society in history to conceive this unattainable ideal. Certain influences and events, however, would defer awhile any attempt to realize the ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not prepared to see Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn round, and stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder step by step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him impregnable in his little Quebec. I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for this. Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any mere tricks ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... to English pride to hold possession of such a stronghold on the French shore; but now every thing seemed to go against Mary. Calais was defended by a citadel nearly as large as the town itself, and was deemed impregnable. In addition to this, an enormous English force was concentrated there. The French general, however, contrived, partly by stratagem, and partly by overpowering numbers of troops, and ships, and batteries of cannon, to get possession of the whole. The English nation were ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... seen. It appeared the monks had either deserted their dwelling or fortified it by fastening with boards the windows and doors. The latter was the case. The besiegers with all sorts of sticks, stones and bludgeons began at once to bombard the building that stood dark and seemingly impregnable. Buckingham stood some distance from them, as if indeed he were of different mould and could not mingle with their steaming, smoking, foul-smelling bodies, that reeked of gin and poor tobacco. He waited only for an entrance to ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... "Tommy Paine stayed just long enough to introduce gunpowder. That was the end of those impregnable castles up on ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... wisdom of dwelling together in closely built villages, making a long journey to their fields or vineyards every day. In times past, Gemosac had been a walled town, dominated, as usual, by the almost impregnable castle. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... a close the building was far advanced, and the bulwarks were sufficiently high and massive to render this residence impregnable. In short, when it wanted but three days to summer the only part that remained to be finished was the gateway. Then sat the gods on their seats of justice and entered into consultation, inquiring of one another who among them could have advised ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... is a decaying one, and that our Lord has ceased to supply its ministers with the Spirit of Grace and the powers of healing? But this is where you are mistaken! The Church—the Roman Church—remains as it always was and always will be; impregnable!—the source of inspiration, the seat of miracle, the only clue and road to everlasting life! And as for its power—" here he closed his hand and dropped it on the table with a silent force which was strangely expressive, "its power is immeasurable! It reaches out in every direction—it grasps—it ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... been the master of Praeneste, that rich and inaccessible strong-hold, by a nocturnal escalade! That I myself have already made impossible—the magistrates are warned, the free burghers armed, and the castle garrisoned by true men, and impregnable. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... strengthened to an enormous extent; the outlying forts which, when the siege began, could have been carried without much difficulty by a resolute attack, had now been rendered practically impregnable, their approaches had been thickly mined, obstacles of all sorts erected round them, and the casements, barracks, and magazines protected by coverings of trunks of trees and so great a depth of earth as to be able ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... 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 a ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... sent on shore to carry out the Governor's 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 ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... perfect at last by her perfect love. Alone, she had always had courage. Even in her most listless hours she had never been a craven. But now she felt the completeness of a nature clothed in armour that rendered it impregnable. It was a strange thing that man should have the power to put the finishing touch to God's work, that religion should stoop to be a handmaid to faith in a human being, but she did not think it strange. Everything in life seemed to her to be in perfect accord ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... acme of despair. A sensation of relief and lulling repose would be more reasonably expected, especially after so stormy a career as that of Louis. The change from restless and capricious Paris to dewy shades and luxurious halls in the heart of changeless and impregnable England ought, on common principles, to have promoted the content and prolonged the life of the old king. Possibly it did, but if so, the French had not many months' escape from a second Orleans regency, for the exile's experience of Claremont was brief. We may wander ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... Prussian environment; like Brieg, like Glogau, strictly blockaded; our posts thereabouts, among the Mountains, thought to be impregnable. Nevertheless, what new thing is this? Here are swarms of loose Hussar-Pandour people, wild Austrian Irregulars, who come pouring out of Glatz Country; disturbing the Prussian posts towards that quarter; and do not let us want for Small ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... his look. It was nearly dawn. At the right was the sheer wall of a mesa as smooth and impregnable to her eyes as a wall of glass. Moving toward them, silent as ghosts in the veil-like dawn, and cutting them from the mesa, was a group ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the possession of the Geraldines. Vast labour had been recently expended on its fortifications, for which the king's subjects had been forced to pay. It was defended by the ordnance from Dublin, and held by a small but adequate garrison. It was thought to be impregnable, and in the earlier stages of the science of gunnery it might possibly have defied the ordinary methods of attack. Nay, with a retrospective confidence in the strength of its defences, the Irish historians have been unable to believe that it could have ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... vociferated the savage. "You threaten largely, my good governor; but your threats are harmless as those of a weak besieging army before an impregnable fortress. It is for the strongest, however, to propose his terms.—If I restore this girl to life, will you pledge yourself ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... of it go up like the brawny trunks of heroes; the sweet flesh of men and women is molded about its bulwarks, strong, impregnable; the faces of little children laugh out from every corner stone; the terrible spans and arches of it are the joined hands of comrades; and up in the heights and spaces are inscribed the numberless musings of all the dreamers of the world. It is yet building—building ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... regarded as specially providential was the defeat of Tarte in Beauharnois. If he had been elected it might have been necessary for Laurier to do something for him, but now that he had fallen upon the glacis of the impregnable fortress he had elected to assail, who were they to repine over the doings of fate? "The Moor has done his work; the Moor can go!" Moreover, had he not been for long an inveterate Bleu? Had he ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... Beauregard evacuated Corinth and drew back to Tupelo; Halleck did not follow; and so 35,000 Confederates were now set free to strengthen Vicksburg. Thus defended and supported Vicksburg was obviously impregnable to any attack by the combined forces of Farragut and Williams. On the 28th of June, Van Dorn arrived and took command of ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... 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 Borough, but now named Citta Vittoriosa, alluding to ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... about fifteen miles up the Sarawak river and, when Sir JAMES first arrived, was a wretched native town, with palm leaf huts and a population, including a few Chinese and Klings (natives of India), of some two thousand. Kuching now possesses a well built "Istana," or Palace of the Raja, a Fort, impregnable to natives, a substantial Gaol, Court House, Government Offices, Public Market and Church, and is the headquarters of the Bishop of Singapore and Sarawak, who is the head of the Protestant Mission in the country. There is a well built brick Chinese ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... to the Persian monarch, places were to be found—such as the little state of Temnos, or Aegae, and others, capable of administering their affairs, unsubjected to the king of Persia. "But," he added, "if you want a strong impregnable position, I cannot conceive what better you can find than Sestos. Why, it would need a combined naval and military force to invest that port." By these and such like arguments he rescued them from ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... had it on my lips to cry out, 'He is in there alone, working himself up to the point of suicide!' But I could not utter it. I could no more say it than I could have smitten her in the face. She was impregnable behind; that barrier of manners which she upheld so skillfully. She continued to look at me for some seconds and to smile—so gently, so mildly. I ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... they had not been long besieged before they capitulated, and surrendered themselves, together with the cities and islands which they had conquered and fortified, and which by their works as well as situation were almost impregnable. Thus the war was finished, and whole force of the pirates destroyed, within three months ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... Tsushima the territorial object was completely isolated by sea, and the position of Japan in Korea was rendered as impregnable as that of Wellington at Torres Vedras. All that remained was to proceed to the third stage and demonstrate to Russia that the acceptance of the situation that had been set up was more to her advantage than the further attempt to break it down. This the final advance to Mukden accomplished, and ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... 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 ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... nobly ambitious of reputation throughout the earth; she desires to be called good as well as great; to be regarded not only as powerful, but also as beneficent. She is creating an army; she is forging cannon, and preparing to build impregnable ships of war. But all these will fail to satisfy her pride, unless she can cleanse herself from that corruption by which her political democracy has debased itself. A politician should be a man worthy of all honor, in that he loves his country; and not one worthy of ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... neighbours, and killed his baby and carried off his wife. Kit wandered about half crazy, and the people came flocking about me, and asked me to lead them against the Doones. I resolved on a night-assault, and divided the men into two parties. The Doone-gate was, I knew, impregnable, and it was there that the train- bands had failed. I pretended to attack it, but led my best fighters up the waterfall. The earliest notice the Doones had of our presence was the blazing of the logwood house where ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... and curves and brute practicality, for while the ceilings were high and open, and the walls wide, they were rendered homely by their plain surfaces and the absence of small triflings, conditions that were necessitated because of its identity: an impregnable fortress containing a highly organized and self-sufficient governmental society, each citizen having a particular duty for the common good, and each kept from an unfarcical personal identity by the ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... looking into the matter, but I did not do so. Where the original deed may be, I don't know even now. It may be among some of my father's papers, which are stored in New York. But the record of the transfers I found in Ostable; and that is sufficient. My claim may not be quite as impregnable as I gave my late client to understand, but it will be hard to upset. I am the only possible claimant and I have transferred my claim to Mrs. Barnes. The land belongs to her now; ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln |
