"Vantage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... victories, and bade them not fear to face the despised Saxons once again, and they rallied. But it was noon before he could lead them to attack us, and by that time he learned that Odda had halted above the town, and need not be feared. But by that time also every post of vantage along the hills was in our hands, and if Edington height was to be held by Danes again, it must be won by hard fighting. That is a thing that no Dane shrinks from, and now for Guthrum there was nought else to be done, for he was surrounded, ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... personality which the poetic gift is engaged in exploiting; the excitement of our literary or artistic sense is always less than the excitement of our sense of life and of real things. We get in him a fixed point of view, a new vantage-ground of personality from which to survey life. It is less what he brings, and more what he is, than with other poets. To take him by fragments, picking out poetic tidbits here and there, rejecting all the rest, were like valuing a walk through the fields ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... well as power. It will lead us all to try with Milton "to behold the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of study," and to feel with Bacon that "no pleasure is comparable is the standing upon the vantage ground ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... stone building, with battlements, turrets, small windows, a moat, a drawbridge, and a portcullis, the lower portion of which showed in the head of the archway that gave access to the interior of the building. The drawbridge was lowered, and, from his coign of vantage, Mildmay saw the professor boldly cross it and walk up to the gate, through which, after a brief parley with ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... to sit in the classroom, and copy out a passage from "Lycidas" in their best handwriting. It was trying, certainly, particularly as the other girls were playing a tennis handicap, and they could hear the soft thud of balls, and the cries of "'Vantage!" or "Game!" It was possible to see a few heads bobbing over the wall, but they could not gather how the tournament was progressing, nor which ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... officer of the day. He came out of the quarters looking rather blank, for he had learned that his pass admitted our party to the lines, but not to the stockade, which we might approach, at a certain point of vantage and look over into, but not penetrate. We resigned ourselves, as we must, and made what we could of the nearest prison barrack, whose door overflowed and whose windows swarmed with swarthy captives. Here they were, at such close quarters that their black, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Etzel and Kriemhild offered heavy bribes to any who would slay Hagen. Several attempts were made, but without avail; and the terrible conflict continued till nightfall, when a truce was called. From his place of vantage in the hall Giselher reproached his sister with her treachery, and Kriemhild offered to spare her brothers if they would consent to give up Hagen. But this offer they contemptuously refused, holding death preferable to such dishonour. Kriemhild, in her bitter hate, set the hall on ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... had been brought, and where they would spend about a week, holding the front and supporting line trenches, until relieved by a new command, ran up and over a little wooded hill. From this vantage point, which had more than once been stormed in vain by the Germans, could be seen the country beyond No Man's Land—a portion of France held by the enemy. And in the brief glimpse the Motor Boys had of it, smoke-covered and stabbed with flashes of fire here and ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... were the words, and stern and high, That marked the foemen's feudal hate; For question fierce and proud reply, Gave signal soon of dire debate. Their very coursers seem'd to know, That each was other's mortal foe, And snorted fire, when wheel'd around, To give each knight his vantage ground. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... From the vantage point of a huge pair of sheer-legs Barry reconnoitered. He saw the last muddy toiler crawl from beneath the keel and scramble ashore. It was getting rapidly dusk as the sun dipped, and a lone figure high up on deck went around placing lanterns ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... to speak the word to others which may wound, even lightly, with any wound but the really "faithful" one of a loving caution or reproof in Christ. No one is to be so independent in one aspect as the Christian man, and particularly the Christian Minister. Few men have so strong a vantage-ground for independence as the Clergyman of the English national Church. But it is the sort of independence which carries also the deepest obligation, the strongest sort of noblesse oblige. It is "for their sakes." And so the same man is bound to be also the ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... any book by Turgenev; for although be took the deepest interest in the struggles of his unfortunate country, he was, from the beginning to the end of his career, simply a supreme artist. He saw life clearly in its various manifestations, and described it as he saw it, from the calm and lonely vantage-ground of genius. Naturally he was both claimed and despised by both parties. Here are some examples from contemporary ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... quite as much to be dreaded—you are indeed a gentleman, but one seeking to make fun of him, and possibly able to do so. At any rate, your knowledge of Rommany is a most alarming coin of vantage. Certainly, reader, you know that a regular London streeter, say a cabman, would rather go to jail than be beaten in a chaffing match. I nearly drove a hansom into sheer convulsions one night, about the time this chapter happened, by a very light puzzler indeed. ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... from the road, darted into an open gateway, and from behind the safe vantage of the fence barked at ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... Philippa was not in a mood to be observant, or to wonder how long the other had waited for her arrival. Nor did Isabella Vernon say a word to betray the fact that she had spent the whole of the previous day in precisely her present position, having carefully chosen a point of vantage from which any one coming along the road from Bessacre could not by any means fail ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... said. 'But it is your only wisdom that you know your friends.' And suddenly, in the vantage of the deep window, she caught up his hand and kissed it with a sort of passion. 'Now go,' she ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... jumped on to her left shoulder. "Tootsy Wootsy," she called once more, and a black cat scrambled up to the crown of the poke bonnet. And one by one they were summoned by some endearing diminutive, until the nine cats had taken possession of every possible coign of vantage which was offered by the old lady's capacious person. There they sat, waving their tails to and fro, evidently very pleased by their mistress's little attentions. Mrs. Mee was not very popular in the neighborhood, ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... jump to conclusions but slipped back from his watch-post and ran in a long semi-circle about the herd, but having made out that there was no cowpuncher nearby, he came back to his original place of vantage ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... may seem, in religion the Negro's emotions constitute his strongest as well as his weakest point. The fact that he is largely developed in the emotional side of his nature would, other things being equal, give him a vantage ground in matters of religion. His defect is not that he is emotional, but that he is excessively so. Like other races in their childhood, he is a bundle of feelings. He does not think after God, he does not will after God, ...
— The Defects of the Negro Church - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 10 • Orishatukeh Faduma
... inglorious valley; plough-shares going Where tall trees rear'd their tops; and fresh trees growing In antique pastures. Cities lose their site. Old things wax new. O what a rare delight To him, who from this vantage can survey At once stern Afric, and soft Asia, With Europe's cultured plains; and in their turns Their scatter'd tribes: those whom the hot Crab burns, The tawny Ethiops; Orient Indians; Getulians; ever-wandering Scythians; Swift Tartar hordes; Cilicians rapacious, And Parthians with back-bended ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... their vantage-ground on the hill, and came down into the chestnut wood, singing the sixty-eighth Psalm—"Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered." The following is the song itself, in the words of Marot. When the Huguenots sang it, each soldier became a ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... half-stern, half-fearful glance at the forbidding child in her path, she turned about and went away, pausing, however, in the vantage-point of the road and calling back in an indignant voice, which trembled slightly, "You needn't think you're goin' to send folks home this way many times, Jerome Edwards!" Then, with one last baffled glance at the pale, strange little figure in the Edwards door, she went home, debating grimly with ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... impossible longer to "look" at him, what shall she do! Tell her woe to the world, seek a soporific, repudiate the scheme of things, or from the vantage point of her failure turn to the untried relations of her life, ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... thought, had somehow come about in the arrangement of the landscape. It was not that my point of vantage gave me a different view, but that an alteration had apparently been effected in the relation of the tent to the willows, and of the willows to the tent. Surely the bushes now crowded much closer—unnecessarily, unpleasantly close. ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... Wouldst have me leave undone what I begin? [To Count Pama] My father took the cross, sir: so did I: As he would die at his post, so will I die: He is a warrior: ask him, should I leave This my safe fort, and well-proved vantage-ground, To roam on this ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... spurs, and yet keeps to a ridge between the folds of the ravine which it discloses on each side, with here and there a contadino cutting rock on the steep hillsides, or a sportsman wandering with his dog; or often at twilight, from some coign of vantage, you may see the goats trooping home across the distant sands by the sea. It debouches through great limestone quarries on the main road. There, seen from below, Taormina comes out—a cape, a town, and a hill. It is, in fact, a long, steep, broken ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... never be forgotten that the Canyon is so diversified that each point and each trail has its own distinctive charms, and he is wise, in the Canyon study, who sees it from as many points of vantage ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... of the Burches' visit on Rebecca is not easily described. Nevertheless, as she looked back upon it from the vantage ground of after years, she felt that the moment when Mr. Burch asked her to "lead in prayer" marked ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... lacking well-defined water-courses. The unending mesquite with its first spring foliage resembled a limitless peach-orchard sown by some careless and unbelievably prodigal hand. Out of these false acres occasional knolls and low stony hills lifted themselves so that one came, now and then, to vantage-points where the eye leaped for great distances across imperceptible valleys to horizons so far away that the scattered tree-clumps were blended into an unbroken carpet of green. To the woman these outlooks were unutterably ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... likewise, we met a great many merry-makers, but with freer space for their gambols than in the streets. We soon found ourselves the targets for a cannonade with oranges, (most of them in a decayed condition,) which went humming past our ears from the vantage-ground of neighboring hillocks, sometimes hitting our sacred persons with an inelastic thump. This was one of the privileged freedoms of the time, and was nowise to be resented, except by returning the salute. Many ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... strained with anxiety, was watching the hill beyond; the white, descending road, that should give sight of him. There was a carriage. It was running. It had just come into sight. Yes, it was he. Ursula turned towards the bride and the people, and, from her place of vantage, gave an inarticulate cry. She wanted to warn them that he was coming. But her cry was inarticulate and inaudible, and she flushed deeply, between her desire ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... ways, America stands in a place of unique vantage by reason of the magnitude and variety of her national resources, and the vigor and ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson
... watched the coyote who had veered away from him and was now questing aimlessly through the stunted sage. Peg turned toward him again and the jack bounced away toward the ridge, stopping again as Peg swung away. From his point of vantage Breed could see the cunning Cripp keeping even with the jack, following closely its every move and peering at it through the scattered sage that topped the ridge. Peg, apparently unconscious that there was ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... my man. What should I do? Should I leave him and go to Craig? If I did, might he not pick us both off, from a safe vantage point, ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... America stand face to face with a tremendous task. It is a challenge to their faith, their devotion, their zeal. The accomplishment of it will mean not only the ascendancy of Christianity in the homeland, but also the gaining of a position of vantage for world-wide ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... well-versed in elephant-charges, approaching the front of Nakula's chariot, caused it to be dragged by the elephant he rode. But Nakula, little daunted at this, leaped out of his chariot, and securing a point of vantage, stood shield and sword in hand, immovable as a hill. Thereupon Suratha, wishing to slay Nakula at once, urged towards him his huge and infuriate elephant with trunk upraised. But when the beast came near, Nakula with his sword severed from ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... we saw that there wasn't. The coaches were full of tourist traffic. It was mounted on the box seats very high up, where it looked conspicuously happy, and sounded a little hysterical; and it was packed, tight and warm and anticipant into every available seat. From its point of vantage, secured by waiting at the hotel for it, the tourist traffic looked down upon the Wick family on the pavement, in irritating compassion. As momma said, if we hadn't taken our tickets it was enough to have sent us to ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... moved slowly backward into the room. But as he reluctantly left his point of vantage and began to descend, stepping lightly from branch to branch of the accommodating wistaria, he saw the shadowy outline of her figure once more as she stretched out a hand and closed the lattice window, drawing ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... polished and furbished up, labelled and ticketed—edited, with notes, in short, like an old book. The process is a mistake—the early editions had more sanctity. The modern buildings (of the Sacred Heart), on which you look down from these points of vantage, are in the vulgar taste which sets its so mechanical stamp on all new Catholic work; but there was nevertheless a great sweetness in the scene. The afternoon was lovely, and it was flushing to a close. The large garden stretched beneath us, blooming with fruit and and wine and ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... of telescope-tubes, worms for stills, bodies and coils for boilers, vacuum-pans, wort-refrigerators and various bent and contorted forms which evince the excellence of the material and of the methods. This is hardly enough, however, to justify the occupation of the position of vantage, and the trumpery collection of ropes, lines, nets, rods and hooks which is intended for a fishing exhibit only emphasizes the decision, acquiesced in by the public, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... thigh and gaping flank had sore Weakened the vigour of the Moorish king: Rogero had address; had mickle lore; Was greatly practised in the wrestlers' ring: He marked his vantage, nor from strife forbore; And, where he saw the blood most freely spring, And where most wounded was the warrior, prest The paynim with his feet, his ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... some radical reinforcement to conventional instrumentalities to aid us in our warfare with human ills? Is it desirable to find some new vantage ground, and some more effective weapons? There can be but one answer. While surgery has been making rapid strides toward the position of an exact science, confidence in materia medica is on the wane. The surgeon is only a marvellously skilful mechanic who adjusts the parts, and then ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... great palace of Deiphobus sank down in the fire and the house of Ucalegon that was hard by, blazed forth, till the sea by Sigeuem shone with the light. Then, scarce knowing what he sought, he girded on his armor, thinking perchance that he might yet win some place of vantage or at the least might avenge himself on the enemy or find honor in his death. But as he passed from out of his house there met him Panthus, the priest of Apollo that was on the citadel, who cried to him, "O AEneas, the glory is departed from Troy and the Greeks have the mastery in ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... the old crow took the message from Billy, he delivered it to Nannie early one morning when she had just awakened from a sound sleep on the top of a straw stack. It was her usual resting place, for from this vantage point she could get a view of all the country roundabout as the stack stood on the top of a high hill. Here she spent most of her time night and day when Billy was away, looking for him to return. From here she could ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... a smile, "I rather feel that you are above me. For what vantage-ground is so high as youth? Perhaps I may become jealous of you. It is well that she should learn to like one who is to be henceforth her guardian and protector. Yet how can she like me as she ought, if her heart is to be ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... A. Picton, in his Memorials of Liverpool, relates an amusing incident connected with the opening of the railway at that town. "On the opening of the railway," he remarks, "of course, every point and 'coin of vantage' from whence the procession could be best seen was eagerly availed of. A tolerably high chimney had recently been built upon the railway ground, affording a sufficient platform on the scaffolding at the top for the ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... point of vantage in the second story of the Jaffry Building, the candidate and his manager could see that each ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... in the neighborhood after such a daring act was decidedly perilous, Sahwah sprang up into the branches of a great old willow tree that leaned invitingly near, drew herself up out of his reach and from her safe vantage point made triumphant grimaces down at him. Kaiser Bill, baffled, dashed his head against the tree several times in fury, then rushed into ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... the shore garments for the women, which were worn only through the streets, and laid by again as soon as they entered the forest. Silent, modest, dejected, the gentle savages used to vanish into the woods by paths known to their kinsfolk centuries ago—paths which run, wherever possible, along the vantage-ground of the topmost chines and ridges of the hills. The smoke of their fires rose out of lonely glens, as they collected the fruit of trees known only to themselves. In a few weeks their wild harvest was over; they came ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... panacea for unbelief is a larger view. We have to take in the future, in order to see the rounding out of God's great plan. 'An edifice may be hideous if seen from the rear, and incomplete. But wait till it is finished, and then view it from some vantage ground in the front, and its noble proportions and beauty are appreciated. So it is with the divine plan. We see but a part of it now, and the lower part. But bye and bye it ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... round, they did not exchange word or look with each other. Schilsky frowned sulkily, and his loose-knitted body seemed to hang together more loosely than usual, while as for Louise—Maurice staring hard from his point of vantage could not have believed it possible for her face to change in this way. She looked suddenly older, and very tired; and ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... discovery of the different refrangibility of rays of light. His treatise on Optics and his Principia, in which he brought to light the new theory of the universe, place him at the head of modern philosophers—on a high vantage ground, to which none have been elevated, of his age, with the exception of Leibnitz and Galileo. But his greatest glory was his modesty, and the splendid tribute he rendered to the truths of Christianity, whose importance and sublime beauty he was ever most proud to acknowledge ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... and marched for Miranda but, although Ney covered the movement with admirable skill, disputing every ridge and post of vantage, the British pressed forward so hotly that Massena was obliged to destroy all his baggage and ammunition. Ney rashly remained on the east side of the river Cerra, in front of the village of Foz d'Aronce and, being attacked suddenly, was driven across the river with ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... propositions to abrogate it would be, in my judgment, most ill advised. The paramount influence we have there acquired, once relinquished, could only with difficulty be regained, and a valuable ground of vantage for ourselves might be converted into a stronghold for our commercial competitors. I earnestly recommend that the existing treaty stipulations be extended for a further term of seven years. A recently signed treaty to this end is now before ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... carriage seat, his face red, his eyes blazing, and called Captain Jimmie an old blind mole and an ostrich and everything else in the world foolish and unthinking. Captain Jimmie shouted back with a right good Highland spirit, from his vantage point on the deck and all the Old Boys cheered joyously, declaring this was the one thing needful to make ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... pounding. In a minute she was righted and they got her to the little beach where they had tried to land. Here they pulled her out and, partially unloading, repaired her temporarily as well as they could. This done they towed up to a point of vantage and made a fresh start and cleared the rapid with no further incident. Meanwhile the Canonita had come in to where we were lying, and both boats were held ready to rescue the men of the other. After ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... gazed upon this scene of horror she perceived an officer, mounted upon a noble charger and followed by several horsemen, take a position upon a hillock not far from the spot where she and her companions were concealed. From this point of vantage the officer, who was evidently a general, could perceive ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... was at work, yet no sound came from that quarter save the steady pounding of the Union artillery. Now Weitzel believed that, by pursuing his advance in what might be called skirmishing order and working his way gradually forward from the vantage-ground of Fort Babcock, he might gain, without great addition to his losses, already heavy, a foothold on the high ground held by the Confederate left; yet of the character of the defences of this part of the line Weitzel knew but little, and of the nature of the ground behind these defences ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... Mars-like, military expression—a thing which, as we know, never fails to please the feminine eye. Certain of the ladies even took to bickering over him, and, on perceiving that he spent most of his time standing near the door, some of their number hastened to occupy chairs nearer to his post of vantage. In fact, when a certain dame chanced to have the good fortune to anticipate a hated rival in the race there very nearly ensued a most lamentable scene—which, to many of those who had been desirous of doing exactly the same ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Burial of Atala, painted in 1808, is, however, a work of charm in composition and sentiment; and though in color it is dry and uninteresting, is not unworthy of the popularity which it has enjoyed from the vantage ground of the Louvre for more than four-score years. Girodet died in Paris, December 9, 1824, after having received all the official honors which France can award ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... landed nose and knees on the timbers, which formed his supports. A moment to take breath, and press his torn and bleeding fingers to his lips; then, reaching down, he gave a hand to his companion and dragged him to the same place of vantage. ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... this knot-hole for some little time. He took a careful observation of the garden, and from his point of vantage he could easily see the little house which was apparently the dwelling of the gardener, as well as the mansard roof of the main building. There was considerable distance between the two houses. The detective decided that it might interest him to know something more about this garden, this ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... presently seen advancing towards the camp. This was situate in a valley. At the back of the camp was a very high and steep hill, which, had time been given, could have been occupied and held against overwhelming forces. Unfortunately, however, no steps had been taken to occupy this point of vantage, or in any way to strengthen the camp. Had the force been pitched in Salisbury Plain, it could not have acted as ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... casts of mind there is no aspect of nature so enchanting or romantic as that which is presented, on a fine summer day from the vantage ground of a ridge or shoulder high up on the mountains of one of ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... grieving," / said then Siegfried; "But calm thy troubled spirit / and hearken to my rede: Let me for thee acquire / honor and vantage too, And bid thou now assemble / for ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... that, not so much the nucleus of the conversion as the secure vantage from which it marched outward, was the triangle of Kent. We can believe that the civilisation of Kent was something quite separate from the rest of the south-eastern portion of England, and that the many customary survivals which are, to this ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... to the top of the cliff and clambered up, emerging in a jungle-like thicket of brush. Picking his way with the greatest caution, yet scratching his naked skin most painfully, he made his way for a few yards through the brush to a point of vantage from which ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... above all, from the Church of St. Louis to the Church of Notre-Dame: one vast suspended-billow of Life,—with spray scattered even to the chimney-pots! For on chimney-tops too, as over the roofs, and up thitherwards on every lamp-iron, sign-post, breakneck coign of vantage, sits patriotic Courage; and every window bursts with patriotic Beauty: for the Deputies are gathering at St. Louis Church; to march in procession to Notre-Dame, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, By his loved masonry that the heaven's breath Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze. Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle: Where they most breed and haunt, I have ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... has been growing wilder. Thickset hedges have yielded to dykes of stone, and there is every sign that I am approaching the rugged region of the coast. At each point of vantage I can see a Cross, often a relic of the early Christians, stumpy and corroded. Then I come on a slab of gray stone upstanding about fifteen feet. Like a sentinel on that solitary plain it overwhelms me with a sense ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... primitive life prevent us from considering the possibility of any other course. Either of these alternatives allows us to consider the examples of hostile inter-grouping as sufficient to supply us with the vantage ground for observation of man in his earliest stages of existence. Perhaps each of them may contain somewhat of the truth. But whatever may be considered as the true cause of the pygmy level of culture, there is an underlying factor which must count most strongly in its determination, ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... clumps joined together, and came on chatting in one body of some thirty men. Would they examine the kraal, or would they pass on? My heart beat. The little hill we were on would, unluckily, be certain to prove an attraction for them, because it was an excellent vantage ground whence to scan the horizon to the south, and to signal back to the main body to the north. The kraal was also a suitable place to off-saddle for a few minutes while the main body came up to ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... thy office fairly. Turn thee back, And tell thy king,—I do not seek him now; But could be willing to march on to Calais Without impeachment:[19] for, to say the sooth (Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much Unto an enemy of craft and vantage), My people are with sickness much enfeebled; My numbers lessen'd; and those few I have, Almost no better than so many French; Who, when they were in health, I tell thee, herald, I thought, upon one pair of English legs, Did march three Frenchmen.—Forgive ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... molluscs on a leaf, Which from our vantage here we scan afar, Is one manoeuvred by the famous Mack To countercheck Napoleon, still believed To be intent on England from Boulogne, And heedless of such rallies in his rear. Mack's enterprise is now to cross Bavaria— Beneath us stretched ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... Lying almost entirely among mountains, the line presented unusual opportunities for survey from dominating heights, and there were many places where, at leisure and in virtual safety, one could watch the Austrian intrenchments from close range. Fast cars took you up to these vantage-points, and a number of staff-officers, speaking perfect English and knowing every detail of the front and its history, raised these visits from the level of sight-seeing excursions to opportunities for learning a great deal that was ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... very forlorn, feminine Monte Cristo indeed, as she scanned the world from her vantage-point, and yet there was a look of quiet satisfaction and achievement in her incongruously dark eyes which told of a momentous ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... the tall trees swaying when the blast is sounding shrill, And the whirlwind reels in fury down the gorges to the hill? How they toss their mighty branches, struggling with the temper's shock; How they keep their place of vantage, cleaving firmly to the rock? Even so the Scottish warriors held their own against the river. 85 Though the water flashed around them, not an eye was seen to quiver; Though the shot flew sharp and deadly, ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... the steady gray eyes looked across at her with grave sweetness. She would have been glad enough to be able to turn from the short range of vision between them; but the stars and river afforded her good vantage-ground, and on ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... the camp?" I asked, wriggling forward until my head was close beside his, and then it was not necessary he should make reply, for we had from this place of vantage a fairly good view of the red-skinned portion of ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... post of vantage he could see his father in the distance still in chase of the giraffe; but though he looked in various directions, ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... are of no avail here. Vollied musketry has little chance against backwoods sharpshooters occupying every vantage ground that their knowledge of the country enabled them to do. The day was wearing on. Noon found them a disorganized mass, flying through Lexington streets, the scene of their ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... smoking chimneys, in the hope that she might step forth. Then came more mild weather when he would spend long hours outside the stable, in his corner in the corral, there to renew his silent vigil over nature and the house from this vantage. Thus he filled his days, and found them not so long as formerly in his babyhood, when each hour was fraught with so many little things that demanded ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... concentrated drop of happiness or misery. We look behind us and see that our whole past has led up to that infinitesimal fraction of time which is the consummation of the past in the present, the end of the old and the beginning of the new. We look forward from the vantage ground of the present, and the world of a new revelation lies ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the mouldings above the doors bracketed shelves thrust out, upon which rows of volumes perched, like penguins on a ledge of rock. In fact, books flocked there as martlets did to Macbeth's castle; there was "no jutty frieze or coigne of vantage" but a book had made it his "pendent bed,"—and it appeared "his procreant cradle" too; for the children, in calling the great folios "papa-books" and "mamma-books," seemed instinctively to have hit upon the only way of accounting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... gray blue distances, and the far off segments of horizon, here were the tree crowded grass, the close windings of the long glen of the burn, heavily overshadowed, and full of mystery and covert, but leading at last to the widest vantage of outlook—the wild heathery hill down which it drew its sharp furrow; while, in front of the house, beyond hidden river, and plane of treetops, and far sunk shore with its dune and its bored crag and its tortuous caves, lay the great sea, a pouting under lip, met by the thin, reposeful—shall ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... distance from the ship's gangway, he suddenly spied the man in the gray suit, who had climbed upon one of the freight-piles, whence he was scanning the crowd. The man likewise recognized Emerson, and pointed him out, crying something unintelligible in the tumult, then leaped down from his vantage-point. The next instant Boyd saw him approaching, followed by several others. He endeavored to hustle Clyde to the big doors ahead of the oncomers, but being intercepted, backed against the shed wall barely in time to ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... said the other and graver personage; "thou canst not even let the elements escape thy gibes. I marvel how far we are from our cousin Ireland's at Lydiate. My fears mislead me, or we have missed our way. This flat bosom of desolation hath no vantage-ground whence we may discern our path; and we have been winding about this interminable lake ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... I—to speak my mind in this matter of the popish "lecture pieuse." However, I did manage somehow to curb and rein in; and though always, as soon as Rosine came to light the lamps, I shot from the room quickly, yet also I did it quietly; seizing that vantage moment given by the little bustle before the dead silence, and vanishing whilst the ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... those that are the meanest and most unpromising are the best, as they leave the greatest scope for the unbounded stores of thought and fancy in the writer's own mind. Poetry had with them "neither buttress nor coigne of vantage to make its pendant bed and procreant cradle." It was not "born so high: its aiery buildeth in the cedar's top, and dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun." It grew like a mushroom out of the ground; or was hidden ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... foes and sorrows which often pressed sore upon us were no breach of His faithful promises, but either His loving chastisement for our faithlessness, or His loving discipline meant to perfect our characters. We read the past best from the vantage-ground of the Temple. From its height we understand the lie of the land. Communion with God explains much which is else inexplicable. Solomon's judgment of Israel's checkered history will be our judgment of our own when we stand ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a few miles ahead was adapted for ambuscades. The valley was comparatively narrow and afforded more than one vantage point for covering a traveler. It was wholly a matter, Laramie felt, of bluffing it through. And beyond keeping a brisk pace with his horse, he could do nothing to protect himself. "You're a fool for luck, Jim," he remembered Hawk's saying once to him, "but you'll get ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... Jack's building loomed up before him—the back windows as unlighted as those in front. Luck so far, at least, was with him! He turned and looked about him, and, his eyes growing accustomed to the darkness, he could just make out Makoff's place, bordering the end of the yard—nor, from this new vantage point, could he discover, any more than before, a single sign of ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... parade we had a direct and unbroken view of the localities I have endeavoured to describe, and holding this vantage-ground, we should be enabled to act as circumstances ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... what has been said may haply enlist further interest in these silent, faithful, but somewhat neglected friends of ours, who, "courted by all the winds that hold them play," look down from their "coigne of vantage" upon the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... then, at the real point of dispute between the philosopher and the poet. They claim the same vantage-point from which to overlook human life. One would think they might peacefully share the same pinnacle, but as a matter of fact they are continuously jostling one another. In vain one tries to quiet their contentiousness. Turning to the most deeply Platonic poets of our ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... to restrain her curiosity, rose and peered over her mother's shoulder. From that vantage point she ejaculated, "Oh, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... his son had returned next door, and so far as we could observe from our vantage-point, preparations were being made for the body's removal. As the crowd below, driven away by the policemen one minute, only to collect again in another, swayed and grumbled in a continual expectation that was ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... of beauty was a brilliant success, and from many points of vantage did we spy upon the vast expanse of golden grain and fresh green meadows in which cattle were grazing, or ruminating in the shade of friendly elms. Here gush clear springs, whose courses may be traced by tall waving ferns and creeping vines that ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... the window with a scarce perceptible but most wicked smile at her friend Miss Lansing; and the group scattered. Only I remained to think it over and ask myself, could I let go my vantage ground? could I make up my mind to do for ever without the smile and regard of that portion of the world which little St. Clair represented? It is ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Alkmaar, whereby the Duke of York agreed to withdraw all his troops from that coast. Disgusted by the conduct of his allies, the Czar Paul withdrew his troops from any active share in the operations by land, thenceforth concentrating his efforts on the acquisition of Corsica, Malta, and posts of vantage in the Adriatic. These designs, which were well known to the British Government, served to hamper our naval strength in those seas, and to fetter the action of the Austrian ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... in a stunning green automobile!" I exclaimed. From my vantage point on the steps I could look down on him, and there came over me a great longing to run my fingers gently through that crisp blond hair, and to bring his head down close against my breast for one exquisite moment. So—"Landladies and oitermobiles!" I laughed. "Never! Don't you know ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... been able to place Lockhart on the right footing in the right quarter, leaving the improvement of his place of vantage to himself ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... he confusedly accepted the aid that fell upon him, without considering how firmly it must seem to fix the Boffins in their accession to the fortune. When he saw them, and knew them, and even from his vantage-ground of inspection could find no flaw in them, he asked himself, 'And shall I come to life to dispossess such people as these?' There was no good to set against the putting of them to that hard proof. He had heard from ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... afterwards learned that it was a poor specimen, and that there were much finer ones in existence, while the Parson's Pulpit was described as "a place for the gods, where a man, with a knowledge of nature and a lover of the same, might find it vantage ground to speak or lecture on the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... place of honour on the box-seat; and Lady Kirkbank was hoisted up after her. Mr. and Mrs. Mostyn followed; and then Don Gomez took his seat by Lady Kirkbank's side and behind Lesbia, a vantage point from which he could talk to her as much as he liked. Mr. Smithson seated himself a minute afterwards, and drove off by King Street and Leicester Square and on to Piccadilly, steering cleverly through ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... out from the wagon, and held up his hand as a token of peace, but to this they made no response, but continued their cautious forward movement, creeping from one vantage point to the next, and the wagon was then turned so that its rear end was toward the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... after the others had gone to bed, and continued to sit with his back to a stanchion dreamily gazing at the starry sky. Chris was in a fever for Amos to sleep, which his good friend soon did. Then a gray mouse scuttered along the wainscot of the ship's passageways until it reached a good vantage point from which to see the young sailor on deck. Chris had chosen well; a mouse is used to ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... stood on a knoll behind the house from which vantage the race track some quarter of a mile away might be seen. With good field glasses one might stand in the second story of the tower and see the horses running on the track. Then, if there was a sending radio set in the tower, the reports of races ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... of it, place credit for originality frankly where it belongs, teach no creeds they do not profoundly believe, or topics in which they are not interested, and withhold nothing from those who want the truth, they could from this vantage with more effect bring students to feel that the laziness that, while outwardly conforming, does no real inner work; that getting a diploma, as a professor lately said, an average student could do, on one hour's study a day; living beyond one's ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... low enough. We must not contend against love, or deny the substantial existence of other people. I know not what would happen to us. We have social strengths. Our affection toward others creates a sort of vantage or purchase which nothing will supply. I can do that by another which I cannot do alone. I can say to you what I cannot first say to myself. Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds. Each man ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... her; but Celeste was now positive that he had had nothing to do with it. He did not impress her as a man who would abduct a woman, hold her prisoner for five days, and then liberate her without coming near her to press his vantage, rightly or wrongly. He was too strong a personage. He was here in Bellaggio, and attached to that could be ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... literature (how heavy it generally is!), newspapers, needlework or a piano. Few people indeed had such a concentrated interest in one subject. She was sitting in an arm-chair, with folded hands, looking out of the window. It was a point of vantage, whence she could see Nigel arrive more quickly than ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson |
