"Vulnerable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... naval duel. The tide of victory flowed now this way, and now that. Jones kept his ship at close quarters with the enemy, and stood on the quarter-deck urging on his gunners, now pointing out some vulnerable spot, now applauding a good shot, at one time cheering, and at another swearing, watching every movement of his foe, and giving quick but wise orders to his helmsman, his whole mind concentrated ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the remaining bullets in his own pistol, waiting for a chance to use them against some vulnerable spot in the machine, but he saw none. There was a bare chance that if he could gain the machine's back he might find some crevice through which he could send a telling shot. Cramming the pistol into his belt, he watched his chance, then used the debris of the wrecked apparatus ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells
... the trigger, and the bull leader of the herd fell on his haunches. The bullet had found the vulnerable spot under the fore shoulder, where one should always shoot a musk-ox. To aim at the head is ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... ones, and this was where the Bill was most vulnerable on its merits; for self-government without the control of taxation and expenditure is at best an ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... terrific storm, quite alarming to people living in such a vulnerable abode. Even when the weather is fair the house shakes as though it would fall if any one comes upstairs rapidly, and the slight iron roof is entirely open at the eaves to catch any wind that blows. ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... there had not been a woman, after all. That had been a mistake. A bad mistake, for it had killed his wife. But a lucky mistake for them! For it had delivered into their hands the secret of an actual and even more vulnerable place to attack. ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... it would end but in his son's good—an end, indeed, he seldom thought of attaining; but there was something in the idea of a son, an heir, and one so prepossessing in appearance as Alan of Buchan, that touched his pride, the only point on which his flinty heart was vulnerable. ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... himself—except quite at the wrong moment. And there was this Billy Prothero. BILLY! Like a goat or something. People called William don't get their Christian name insisted upon unless they are vulnerable somewhere. Any form of William stamps a weakness, Willie, Willy, Will, Billy, Bill; it's a fearful handle for one's friends. At any rate Poff had escaped that. ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... had much about him, in character, of that unassuming and quiet austerity which, while enjoying the poignancy of its own jokes, has no heel of Achilles in itself, and absolutely refuses to be laughed at. I could find, indeed, but one vulnerable point, and that, lying in a personal peculiarity, arising, perhaps, from constitutional disease, would have been spared by any antagonist less at his wit's end than myself;—my rival had a weakness in the faucal or guttural organs, which precluded him from raising his voice at any time above ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... you full credit for the excellence of your intention," rejoined my friend; "but if Jack's life had depended on those two shots from your double-barrel, he would have been but a dead man now. There is only one vulnerable spot in the front of an elephant's head; that is, exactly in the centre of the forehead. The spot is not bigger than a saucer, and the bone is comparatively thin there. If you cannot make sure of hitting that, you simply face certain death. I would not have tried it ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... no earthly efforts can deprive me of, and that is, that neither ambition nor interested motives have influenced my conduct. The arrows of malevolence, therefore, however barbed and well pointed, never can reach the most vulnerable part of me; though, whilst I am up as a mark, they will be continually aimed. The publications in Freneau's and Bache's papers are outrages on common decency, and they progress in that style in proportion as their pieces are treated ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... all, however divine the King, Emperor or Kaiser may consider himself, he is but a vulnerable human being—and no accident of birth should give even a small number of people on this earth into the ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... simply half a minute powerless. He received a shrewd cut across the head, and lay for a couple of hours senseless in the wine-shop of one Battista—one of the many all over Lombardy who had pledged their allegiance to the Great Cat, thinking him scarcely vulnerable. He read the letter, dizzy with pain, and with the frankness proper to inflated spirits after loss of blood, he owned to himself that it was not worth much as a prize. It was worth the attempt to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the Abbaye aux Bois," she says, "had either read the story of the beggar, or her instinct had persuaded her that vanity and pride are the surest vulnerable points by which to attack and subject the human heart. From the first to the last of all the orators, writers, artists, or celebrities of no matter what species, that were invited to Mme. Recamier's house, all heard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... my dear Professor, every one of your attacks upon England has gone wide. In pure fact they have not touched the spot, which the real critics of England know to be a very vulnerable spot. We have a real critic of England in Mr. Bernard Shaw, whose name you parade but apparently cannot spell; for in the paper to which I have referred he is called Mr. Bernhard Shaw. Perhaps you think he and Bernhardi are the same man. But if you quoted Mr. Bernard ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... agents of the Greek emperor, anxious to recover his lost sway in Italy, to revolt against the Sicilian government,—many of whom in so doing marched to the relief of Beneventum,—Scitinius was soon obliged to raise the siege of that city, and turn his arms against some more vulnerable point. To this end, he passed direct into the Campagna, and there set fire to the towns of Ciparano, Barbuco, and Todi; after which, he made his retreat, demolishing by the way the walls of Aquino, and driving a crowd of monks ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... the poem is another matter. So far as style is concerned its merits have not yet been questioned. As a matter of style and diction, Milton is as safe as Virgil. The handling of the story is more vulnerable. The long speeches put in the mouth of the Almighty are never pleasing, and seldom effective. The weak point about argument is that it usually admits of being answered. For Milton to essay to justify the ways of God to man was well and pious enough, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... at the preceding election. It is also a presidential election year and neither of the great parties is willing to take one unnecessary step which in its judgment may tend to add to the number of its adversaries or to its vulnerable points in some particular section of the country. All of the 435 members of the House and one-third of the Senators come up for re-election in November of this year—they, too, are shy and sensitive. Some legislation, notably child labor after it had been endorsed by the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... Asia were already included within the Persian dominions. It was plain that if any future progress were to be made in extending the empire, the regions of Europe and Africa must be the theatre of it. Egypt seemed the most accessible and vulnerable point beyond the confines of Asia; and thus, though Cyrus himself, being advanced somewhat in years, and interested, moreover, in other projects, was not prepared to undertake an enterprise into Africa himself, he ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... punches, although dazing him slightly, brought Redmond to his senses, as he realized how vulnerable his momentary loss of temper had rendered him. He now braced himself with dogged determination and, covering up warily, circled his adversary with clever foot-work. Yorke, tearing in again was met with one of the crudest jabs he had ever ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... the spot which True still faced, when the reeds were moved aside, and the oddest-looking monster I ever set eyes on came slowly forth, and for a moment looked about him. True actually turned tail, and fell back on us for support. He would have faced a lion, but the creature before him had not a vulnerable part on which he could lay hold. It meantime, regardless of him or us, made its way towards the water. It was as grotesque and unlike what we fancy a reality as those creatures which the wild imaginations of the painters of bygone days delighted in producing. ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... special value of illustrating the reciprocal needs and offices of the army and the navy, than which no lesson is more valuable to a nation situated as ours is. Protected from any serious attempt at invasion by our isolated position, and by our vast intrinsic strength, we are nevertheless vulnerable in an extensive seaboard, greater, relatively to our population and wealth—great as they are—than that of any other state. Upon this, moreover, rests an immense coasting trade, the importance of which to our internal commercial system is now scarcely ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... its aspects, and even unnatural and inhuman, drew a cordon around the Christians, and separated them from the sensualities of ordinary life. It was a reproof as well as a protest. It attacked Epicureanism in its most vulnerable point. "How hardly shall they who have riches enter into the kingdom of God?" Hence the voluntary poverty, the giving away of inherited wealth to the poor, the extreme simplicity of living, and even retirement from the habitations of men, which ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... blood,—an accession which is apt to steel the heart of the officer thus experimented on, and so render him deaf to the cries of innocence in distress. PUNCHINELLO suggests, then, that the policeman's shield should be a shield. Let it be made sufficiently large to cover the most vulnerable portion of the person, as shown in the annexed design. If made of gong-metal, so much the better, as the wearer could then ring out signals upon it with his locust far more effectively than by the present ridiculous mode of beating up rowdydow upon the flag-stones. Although our gallant Municipal ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... purpose, they dismounted, and with their naked swords fell upon each other with such fury that both were slain on the spot. The political and social disorganization that prevailed at this period was aggravated by the vulnerable condition of the monarchy, then recently transferred to a new line. Princes of the blood royal were for a long time engaged, brother against brother, in fierce family feuds. Ayuthia suffered gravely from these unnatural contentions, but even more from the universal license and riot that reigned ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for man must ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... on the other hand, I suppose the chief bar to the action of imagination, and stop to all greatness in this present age of ours, is its mean and shallow love of jest and jeer, so that if there be in any good and lofty work a flaw or failing, or undipped vulnerable part where sarcasm may stick or stay, it is caught at, and pointed at, and buzzed about, and fixed upon, and stung into, as a recent wound is by flies, and nothing is ever taken seriously nor as it was meant, but always, if it may be, turned the ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... extraordinary veniality, the other elements in the situation remained as before. I could see nothing for me to do but to resume the tactics I had employed previous to the meeting with Rogers. My friends' interests had to be protected, and to do that war must be waged until a vulnerable spot in Rogers' armor had been found. But it was some days before I could screw my enthusiasm back to fighting-pitch. In the mean time Rogers did nothing. He, too, was waiting for ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... could not attain to. For me the man was the central figure; if I had attention to spare it was on him that I bestowed it; groping disgustfully after his hidden springs of action, noting the evidences of great gifts squandered and prostituted; questioning where he was most vulnerable; whom he feared most, us or his colleagues; whether he was open to remorse or shame; or whether he meditated further crime. The girl was incidental. After the first shock of surprise I had soon enough ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... discontented warriors, marching back. They had had their night's journey in vain. Instead of finding the Americans off their guard and an easy prey, they had found them wide awake, and ready to give them the hottest kind of a reception. After manoeuvring about their lines for a vulnerable point, and finding none, the doughty British warriors turned on their track and marched disconsolately homeward, having had ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... words of the spirit, how none of woman born should hurt him; and smiling confidently he said to Macduff, "Thou losest thy labour, Macduff. As easily thou mayest impress the air with thy sword, as make me vulnerable. I bear a charmed life, which must not yield to one ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... surmise, no doubt, the purpose of this expedition. An invader menaces these shores, the defence of which has been committed to us. Of the ultimate invincibility of that defence I have no doubt whatever; nevertheless, it may expose here and there a vulnerable point. It is to test the alertness of our neighbours of Looe that we abstract ourselves for a few hours from the comforts of home, the society of the fair, in some instances the embraces of our loved ones, and embark upon an element which, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... short advance from the loosely-knit school eleven, a long punt with the wind and then a quick, business-like line-up of the blue team and another rush at the vulnerable end. ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... rascality have added to your plausibility. I almost believe you—but not quite. You seem to be extremely vulnerable to feminine blandishments. There's Sally, the milkmaid. Remember that I saw you kiss her with rather more than brotherly warmth. Still, I suppose you'd earned some ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... (Prunus Armeniaca). Without value for the fleshy part of the drupe, but with a nut like that of the apricot, highly prized for its kernel. The tree is hardy and thrifty, but rather vulnerable to a variety of blights belonging ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... hard, when you can plunge over head and ears in Irish claret, and not have even your heel vulnerable by the gout, that such a Pythagorean as I am should yet be subject to it! It is not two years since I had it last, and here am I with My foot again upon cushions. But I will not complain; the pain is trifling, and does ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... my knowledge of the world, and the honorable manner in which I treat my pupils. Sir Robert Somerset and your lady mother were amply satisfied with the account which his lordship gave of my character; but with all this, in one point every man is vulnerable. No scholar can forget ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... ladies or to Bishops. But no man had in larger measure that evil courage which braves and even courts disgust and hatred. No decencies restrained him: his spite was implacable: his skill in finding out the vulnerable parts of strong minds was consummate. All his great contemporaries felt his sting in their turns. Once it inflicted a wound which deranged even the stern composure of William, and constrained him to utter ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... face now was all eloquence. A divine wrath almost made his eyes blaze as he prepared to hurl himself at the silent, yet quivering instrument. His huge hands hovered over the keyboard ready to fall and destroy. His eyes ran over the keys as if searching for the vulnerable, for the vital spot. Back and forth his eyes ran, and his outstretched fingers kept pace with them in the air. But those fingers could find no resting-place. Still the piano remained silent. And then came the inevitable reaction. ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... when properly attacked, proved herself quite vulnerable. She was anxious to please the Mainwarings who she hoped would take up their abode with her, for naughty Primrose had by no means divulged her real plans. Accordingly, Poppy was allowed to get her dinner beforehand, and a very ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... had no success; for success was impossible. Yet his lofty character was respected of all and compelled public confidence. Indeed, his character seemed perfect, his bath in Stygian waters complete; not a vulnerable spot remained: totus teres atque rotundus. His soldiers reverenced him and had unbounded confidence in him, for he shared all their privations, and they saw him ever unshaken of fortune. Tender and protecting love he did not ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... intangible in this confession of definite weakness. To be adored by any man merely adds to her glory, but the instant she concedes him an inch, the Beauty throws down her halo, the whole affair becomes mundane and vulnerable. Harriet might have envied Isabelle once, now she saw her frail, forty, her woman's pride weakened by admitted passion, and was sorry for her. She had had all men at her feet, now she must feel herself fortunate if ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... in the eye, or send a bullet up his nose. Them's the vulnerable parts of him," cried Joe Davis, with a laugh, as Butts went down the snow-steps and got ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... to frighten me. But what about your ideals? What is the nature of the difference between yours and mine, which makes yours so much less vulnerable than mine?" ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... occasions and Peggy's heart almost stood still, realizing the peril to which the children had exposed themselves. Without doubt their immunity was due to their very audacity. Apparently the boar had not connected these fearless mites with human beings whom he knew to be vulnerable, but had fancied them sportive elves, against whom his tusks would be powerless. Peggy registered a vow not to let Dorothy out of her sight again ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... destroy all Europe; that to destroy that enemy, by some means or other, the force opposed to it should be made to bear some analogy and resemblance to the force and spirit which that system exerts; that war ought to be made against it, in its vulnerable parts. These are my inferences. In one word, with this republic nothing independent can co-exist The errors of Louis XVI. were more pardonable to prudence, than any of those of the same kind into which ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... valiantly, and several with bows discharged their missiles with fatal effect, sweeping away the Arabs one by one and apparently striking terror into the hearts of the others. Arabs are not so vulnerable by arrows as other people on account of their voluminous robes, which savage weapons seldom penetrate, it being only head, legs and hands that arrows can reach. Nevertheless so full were the quivers of our sable escort, that the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... are capable of being flattered." Say, susceptible to flattery. "Capable of being refuted." Vulnerable to refutation. Unlike capacity, capability is not passive, but active. We are capable of doing, not of having something done ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... roads there is a limit to their utility. Behind an army they are excellent; in front of an army their value is still problematical. Even down in Calvinia, where Burghers were scarce and main roads fair, they rarely carried a message as safely and as quickly as a mounted Kaffir. They are vulnerable all round from other causes than the hazards of war. Machine vulnerable, man vulnerable, and in a country like this, where the roads are not masked by hedgerows, they furnish a kind of 'running-deer' to every Burgher ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... something else that was impossible, too. He'd said there was a Mekinese cruiser on the sea-floor of Kandar, where it could blast all the local fleet—which was ready to fight but vulnerable to a single fusion-bomb. If such a thing happened, the impending disaster would be worse than intolerable. To Bors it would mean dying without a chance to strike even the most futile of ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the monastery de la Cruz. Here Maximilian established himself in a friar's lonely cell. On the north a small river skirted the town, on the south, where nothing intervened between the grassy plain and the wooded Alameda, the besiegers found the most vulnerable flank. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... to a female ear is the first declaration of an attachment, especially when urged by youth and merit!—it assails her heart in the most vulnerable part, and if it be not fortified unusually well, seldom fails of success. Happily for Julia, the image of Antonio presented itself to save her from infidelity to her old ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... could undergo. To afford perfect protection to his line supplying the army from its base at Louisville, as against these raiding bands, if infantry was to be employed, Rosecrans's entire force was needed, posted by brigades at the vulnerable points. To make an advance and thus lengthen his lines, simply increased the present difficulties. Without making the necessary preparation to protect his line of supplies, Rosecrans would hamper his forward movement and retard and cripple ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... discussion the criticisms of several of the most prominent people who have expressed opposition to the sex-education movement. I think that all the important lines of arguments against the movement are represented in the extracts that I have quoted. We have seen that all of the criticisms have decidedly vulnerable points. Most of them refer to the discarded sex-hygiene of ten years ago; but some of them prove that the authors are quite ignorant of the sex problems that must be ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... Ferrier's affections were deep and silent. He had not found it possible to love the mother without loving the son—had played, indeed, a father's part to him since Henry Marsham's death. He knew the brilliant, flawed, unstable, attractive fellow through and through. But his knowledge left him still vulnerable. He thought little of Oliver's political capacity; and, for all his affection, had no great admiration for his character. Yet Oliver had power to cause him pain of a kind that no other of his ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the moving softness of her look, thrilled a vulnerable fibre in Rosedale. It was her exquisite inaccessibleness, the sense of distance she could convey without a hint of disdain, that made it most difficult for him to ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... the French and English Protestants together. They agreed to engage in further raiding of Spaniards, share and share alike by nationalities, though Drake had now only thirty-one men against Tetu's seventy. Nombre de Dios, they decided, was not vulnerable, as all the available Spanish forces were concentrated there for its defence, and so they planned to seize a Spanish train of gold and jewels just far enough inland to give them time to get away with the plunder before the garrison ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... matter and diction. I re-examined the question in its various aspects, and more thoroughly than I had been able to do before, giving special attention to the speeches of Southern members in both Houses, and carefully noting their vulnerable points. I overhauled the question of "Northern aggression" pretty thoroughly, and endeavored to expose the absurdity of that complaint, while crowding into my task such facts and arguments as would help educate the people in right thinking. I had my task ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... armed with the most deadly weapons, and their secret movements frequently evaded every precaution of watchfulness. The sneaking caique, manned by accomplished emissaries handling muffled oars, was rowed through the anchorage in advance, and for the purpose of finding out the most vulnerable object of attack. Occasionally they selected the wrong ship, and met with a sudden determined resistance from the crew, who were eager for an opportunity of wreaking vengeance on a gang of murderous ruffians who kept the men of the whole mercantile fleet in these waters ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... me not a little. Leave it to chance indeed! Had she not caused me to grow stronger and larger by every word she uttered? And had not the conversation revealed to me Mr. Blackthorn's one vulnerable part? I knew well enough that I should be able to dominate his thoughts as I had done hers. Finding me burdensome, she had passed me on to somebody else with additions that vastly increased my working powers, and then she talked of leaving it ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... It was urged by the deputies of the Eastern States, that a representation of two-fifths would be of little utility, and that their entire representation would be unequal and burthensome. That in a time of war, slaves rendered a country more vulnerable, while its defence devolved upon its free inhabitants. On the other hand, we insisted, that in time of peace they contributed by their labor to the general wealth as well as other members of the community. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... England hardened by war and tremendously superior in military resources. It was not all madness, however, for the vast empire of Canada lay exposed to invasion, and in this quarter the enemy was singularly vulnerable. Henry Clay spoke for most of his countrymen beyond the boundaries of New England when he announced to Congress: "The conquest of Canada is in your power. I trust that I shall not be deemed presumptuous when I state that I verily believe that the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... Victorias and Shelleys. A great mass of them, when their prejudices are challenged, have no other impulse than to call the challenger names, and, when the crowd seems to be on their side, to maltreat him personally or hand him over to the law, if he is vulnerable to it. Therefore I cannot say that I have any certainty that the marriage question will be dealt with decently and tolerantly. But dealt with it will be, decently or indecently; for the present state of things in England is too strained and mischievous to last. Europe ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... whirling what appeared to be a wholly insignificant hammer. His comrades were scattered about the grinding mass making ineffective efforts to heave a butt or top clear of the others with their handspikes, but there was clearly only one vulnerable point of attack, and that was the one Nasmyth and Gordon were hewing at. Wheeler, who felt the tension, watched them, clutching hard upon an unlighted pipe. He was aware that if the mass of timber, which grew rapidly larger, once wedged itself fast, ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... not follow into particulars the subsequent intercourse of our schoolmaster with the civilized young lady. All that concerns us is the result of Miss Bangle's benevolent designs upon his heart. She tried most sincerely to find its vulnerable spot, meaning no doubt to put Mr. Homer on his guard for the future; and she was unfeignedly surprised to discover that her best efforts were of no avail. She concluded he must have taken a counter-poison, and she was ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... her own views in such matters. She liked money. She liked encouraging the adventurous disposition of her subjects, who were fighting the State's battles at their own risk and cost. She saw in Philip's anger a confession that the West Indies was his vulnerable point; and that if she wished to frighten him into letting her alone, and to keep the Inquisition from burning her sailors, there was the place where Philip would be more sensitive. Probably, too, she thought that Hawkins had done nothing for which he could be justly blamed. He had traded ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... the badge of a special constable. The duties of a special constable were chiefly not to understand what was going on in the military sphere, and to do what he was told in the way of watching and warding conceivably vulnerable points. He had also to be available in the event of civil disorder. Mr. Britling was provided with a truncheon and sent out to guard various culverts, bridges, and fords in the hilly country to the north-westward ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... she been more brilliant and frolicsome than at the breakfast-table that morning. Never had poor McAllister been more at his wits' end to know how to reply to her bewildering sallies of good-natured badinage. Every vulnerable point of Northern character received her delicate satire. Lane himself did not escape her light shafts. He made no defence, but smiled or laughed at every palpable hit. The girl's pallor troubled him, and something in her eyes that suggested suffering. There came a time when he could scarcely ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... of property, more perhaps than anything else. The wrongs connected with wealth are the most vulnerable point of our civilization. Unless we can make that crooked place straight, all our charities and ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... fire, aiming for the monster's vulnerable neck. But it was well protected behind its shoulders and the spaceman only succeeded in drawing the beast's ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... pretty, and then, as one by one the perfect details unfolded themselves to a closer criticism, beautiful. He was never disappointed, and even the most carping and envious of Marut's female contingent had failed to find her vulnerable point. So they had turned with more success to her character, and proceeded there with their work of destruction. Her beauty ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... seems to me vulnerable at both ends—unlike Achilles. "Plot is by no means character." Strictly speaking, it is not. It appears to me, however, that plot approaches nearer to being character than character does to being plot. Plot necessitates action, and it is impossible to describe ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of the doctrines offering to the lower classes, by way of helping them to bear their wretched misery, the ideal of happiness here below, lending a false semblance of religion to the desire for material well-being. George Sand had one vulnerable point, and that was her generosity. By making her believe that she was working for the outcasts of humanity, she could be led anywhere, and ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... were, however, peculiarly vulnerable to invading hosts of later comers. There were no natural protecting barriers like the narrow Nile valley or the Kong mountains or the forests below Lake Chad. Once the pathways to the valley were open and for hundreds of years the ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... arranged chequerwise and in depth. This arrangement was intended to break up the enemy's attack formation, to stop parts of it and to allow other parts to advance, but to advance only in such places as would make them most vulnerable to counter-attack. This principle applied also down to the company and even the platoon. It is easily seen that a good deal of organisation was demanded from the battalion commander, while the smallest unit commander, perhaps ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... and "breach" them of prisoners and disarm all other Germans, lest they fire into the backs of those who carried the charge farther on to the final stage of the objective. What awaited them they would know only when they climbed over the parapet and became silhouettes of vulnerable flesh in the open. Yes, one had the system in the large and the small, by the army, the corps, the division, the brigade, the battalion, and the man, the individual infantryman who was to suffer that hazard of marching in the open ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Schiller is writing to Goethe concerning plans for the Xenien, December 29, 1795.[46] The abundance of material for the Xenien project is commented upon with enthusiastic anticipation, and in a list of vulnerable possibilities we read: "Thmmel, Gschen als sein Stallmeister—" acollocation of names easily attributable, in consideration of the underlying satiric purpose, to the general nature of their work, without in any way implying the dependence of one author on ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... if she did, he expected some extraordinary outburst, some pitiable exhibition of insanity. Corona, on the other hand, maintained a proud indifference, scorning to suppose that anything could possibly injure Giovanni in any way, loving him too entirely to admit that he was vulnerable at all, still less that he could possibly have done anything to give colour to the accusation brought against him. Giovanni alone of all the three foresaw that there would be trouble, and dimly guessed how the thing had been done; for he did not fall into his father's error of despising ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... world, it is true, has mistaken it for an argument, and has been cowed by it accordingly; but the mistake is a simple one, and can be readily accounted for. The dogmatism of denial was formerly a sort of crude rebellion, inconsistent with itself, and vulnerable in a thousand places. Nature, as then known, was, to all who could weigh the wonder of it, a thing inexplicable without some supernatural agency. Indeed, marks of such an agency seemed to meet men everywhere. But now all this has changed. Step by step science has ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... the paper bags would have been vastly enough for contrast. She walked—one is inclined to dwell upon her steps and face the risk of being unintelligible—in a wide-sleeved gown of peach-coloured silk, rather frayed at the seams; a trifle spent in vulnerable places, surmounted by an extravagant collar and a Paris hat. The dress was of artistic intention inexpensively carried out, the hat had an accomplished chic; it had fallen to her in the wreck and ruin of a too ambitious draper of Coolgardie. ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... assiduous visits to the poor, and attendance on the charity-schools, and regular loud devotions at church, Mr. Dacre remained obdurate and wedded to celibacy. It might be that he disapproved of the marriage of the clergy, but I think he was at one time vulnerable on that point. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... "The animal is vulnerable only in the stomach and between the thighs. Dick's ball hasn't even marked him; but should the ground strike me as favorable, we shall halt at the northern end of the lake, where Kennedy will find himself in the midst of a whole ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... calculating, brazen leer. Hidden in the folds of her dress or in the coil of her hair is a stiletto—she can find it in an instant—and as she looks at you out of those impudent eyes, she is mentally searching out your most vulnerable spot. In this woman's face there is an entire absence of wonder, curiosity, modesty or passion. All that we call the eternally ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... few were the places in which through my possessions I was vulnerable—I fancied the warning might point to Lilith, but I soon dismissed the idea. I could make no inquiries, for it had been left an hour before my return from a stroll by an unknown messenger. I could think of nothing besides but the register, and if this was what my correspondent aimed at, I had less ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... could,' said Conyngham with the quickness of his race to spy out his neighbour's vulnerable point. 'For the sake of ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... supposed, of getting a drink to quench his thirst, when he was struck in the throat by a bolt, or headless arrow, shot from a cross-bow by a boy who was hiding in a bur-tree or elder bush. The boy-archer must have been a good shot to hit a warrior clothed from head to foot in armour in the only vulnerable point exposed, but in those days boys were trained to shoot with bows and arrows from the early age of six years, their weapons, being increased in size and strength as they grew older; their education was not considered complete until they could use that ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Sect. 152. The vulnerable point in Spinoza's argument can thus be expressed: that which is important is questionable, and that which is unquestionable is of doubtful importance. Have I indeed a clear and distinct idea of an absolutely infinite being? The answer turns upon the meaning ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... game illustrative of the King's Bishop's opening is correctly begun. Each party plays his King's Bishop thus, because it attacks the most vulnerable point of the adverse position, ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... it was a different story. Ken realized he was watching a great team. They reminded him of Dale's varsity, though they did not play that fiendish right-field-hitting game. Ken had a numbness come over him at the idea of facing this Place team. It soon passed, for they had their vulnerable places. It was not so much that they hit hard on speed and curves, for they got them where they wanted them. Keene flied out on high fast balls over the inside corner; Starke bit on low drops; Martin was weak on a slow ball; MacNeff, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... delightful as standing upon one's head in a swing, before a lady that ought to have your best attention;—however, for all Lark's protestations, we saw some one-sided smiles, as much as to say, his vulnerable part, like that of Achilles, lay in the heels—an insinuation Lark could well afford to allow, for he does not live to dance, alone, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... presented themselves, and, at once, taking a shape cognizable by public opinion, either in his actions or his words, either in the hasty letter of the moment, or the poem for all time, laid open such a range of vulnerable points before his judges, as no one individual perhaps ever ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... so, he exposed his flank to the young hunters, who could not have been given a better opportunity to bring him down, for the throwing forward of the foreleg, opened his most vulnerable part to the bullet. ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... thought the squire. "If the stone-clad fellow should not possess a vulnerable spot somewhere on his body I ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... vein of poetry in Daniel which made him a coward—which made him so vulnerable. During the autumn he reveled in the tints of the landscape which his sitting-room windows commanded. There were many maples and oaks. Day by day the roofs of the houses in the village became more evident, as the maples shed their crimson and gold ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... justice. A very naughty little girl, if she managed to be funny, might hope to escape; whereas an equally naughty little girl, who was not funny, paid the full penalty of her crime. Fortunately, however, the school at large had not discovered this vulnerable spot in the ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... the crawling of my skin as I looked upon the methodical obliteration of men's work. I can see the tendrils splaying out over the sidewalks, choking the roadways, climbing walls, finding vulnerable chinks in masonry, bunching themselves inside apertures and bursting out, carrying with them fragments of their momentary prison as they pursued their ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... a bullet in the shoulder-bone of an elephant, and caused the agonized creature to lean for support against a tree, I proceeded to brew some coffee. Having refreshed myself, taking observations of the elephant's spasms and writhings between the sips, I resolved to make experiments on vulnerable points, and, approaching very near, I fired several bullets at different parts of his enormous skull. He only acknowledged the shots by a salaam-like movement of his trunk, with the point of which he gently touched ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... not surrounded by four walls, but merely filled a breach in one of the four, which nipped it (as it were) at either end. The back entrance was approachable enough, but barred or watched, I might be very sure. It is ever the vulnerable points which are most securely guarded, and it was my one comfort that the difficult way must also be the safe way, if only the difficulty could be overcome. How to overcome it was the problem. I followed the wall right round ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... tightly around the body of Jenkins, he sagged down and pressed the tips of his forefingers into two vulnerable parts of the thick neck, where certain important nerves approach the surface—parts as vulnerable as the heel of Achilles. Still clinging, he mercilessly continued the pressure, while Jenkins swayed back and forth, and finally fell backward to ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... sickness was more mental than physical. My idea is that, taking one hundred ordinarily healthful young soldiers from a regiment in active service, and putting them into Andersonville, by the end of the third month at least thirty-three of those weakest and most vulnerable to disease would have succumbed to the exposure, the pollution of ground and air, and the insufficiency of the ration of coarse corn meal. After this the mortality would be somewhat less, say at the end of six months fifty of them would ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... between them. Each understood the other's intention. The Indian fired, his ball entering just above the buck's breast and ploughing slantingly upward through the throat. With a snort of terror the buck swerved to one side and might have gotten away had not Enoch's shot found a more vulnerable spot behind the foreleg. The heart of the great deer was punctured, and it fell in the agony ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... of childlike confidence, and his heart thrilled. His inner consciousness, however, warned him that a deeper motive than his desire to save Dorothy actuated him—he must shield the mother from the danger that had threatened the one vulnerable point in her armor of indifference, the love and respect ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... world's range of thought. Society, mistily conscious of the sympathy that lightens in any habitual name, seems to have become aware, by one of those wonderful processes of chary instinct which serve the great, vulnerable, timid organism in lieu of a brain, that to accept of the pickpocket his names for the mysteries of his trade is to accept also a new moral stand-point and outlook on the question of property. For this reason, and by no special masonic precautions of his own, the pickpocket is allowed to keep ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... uselessness of it, for this age," she exclaimed. "I think clergymen don't understand the harm it is doing in concentrating the attention on such a vulnerable and non-essential point. Those of us who are striving to reorganize our beliefs and make them tenable, do not bother our heads about miracles. They may be true, or may not, or some of them may be. We are beginning to see that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... will perceive, in these two conversations, lasting perhaps two hours, this slip of a girl, in mere idle curiosity, had touched with her silly chatter the vital, the vulnerable points of Jerry's philosophy of life. Fate had not been fair to me or with him. Less than a year; remained of Jerry's period of probation. In December the boy was to go out into the world. And through an ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... I landed on his back I struck the alligator with all my force with my tomahawk, on what I considered the most vulnerable part of his head. So powerful was my stroke, that I found to my dismay that I could not get the weapon out of his head again. While I was in this extraordinary situation—standing on the back of an enormous alligator, and tugging at my tomahawk, embedded in its ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... presentiment at times haunted the mind of the missionary. He believed this hunter who could resort to such diabolical means to revenge himself, would seek to inflict further injury upon him, and he instinctively looked upon his boy as the vulnerable point where the blow would be likely to fall. For over a year, while Teddy was absent, Richter had taken the boy with him, when making his daily visits to the village, and made it a point never to lose sight of him. During these ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... gains Home Rule, as I believe she will, her position in the Empire will imperatively demand that she shall be strong as well as free. She becomes not only a vulnerable point in the Empire, as the Asian Nations evolve their own ambitions and rivalries, but also a possession to be battled for. Mr. Laing once said: "India is the milch-cow of England," a Kamadhenu, in fact, a cow of plenty; and if ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... lax policy inaugurated by Mr. Benjamin, and continued by every succeeding Secretary of War, enables the enemy to obtain information of all our troubles and all our vulnerable points. The United States can get recruits under the conviction that there will be little or ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... along with the party whom the whites of the South acknowledged as antagonistic to their welfare and interest. This roused the ire of all his old army associates, and many of his former friends now began to hurl poisoned and fiery shafts at the old "War Horse" of the South, and no place so vulnerable as his army record. This, of course, was resented by him, and a deadly feud of long standing sprang up between Generals Longstreet, Mahone, and a few others, who joined him on the one side, and the whole army of "Codfederate ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... attempt the lesser approaches to Tyrol from the west, by the Val di Sole and the Valtelline, and from the east from Belluno and Pieve. The Brenner railway, with its twenty-two tunnels and sixty large bridges, is peculiarly vulnerable. With many cities and good railways behind them, and a popular welcome in front, the Italian troops, on the other hand, will face the hill roads, now generally free ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... between the Kurus and Pandus there was a great struggle between Bhagadatta and Arjuna. In this fight, Bhagadatta being invincible, and Arjuna vulnerable, the latter called Krishna to his aid, who, receiving the charge of Bhagadatta on his breast, blunted the force of the weapons.[7] In like manner, Satish Chandra having received these attacks on his face, peace ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... before you three considerations, which will prove to you at once that this great moral question is more vital to our two nations than to any other, and that we are peculiarly vulnerable to the ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... vulnerable spot! She detests me, and she'd just enjoy prodding me up with pins. No, we must have something less painful ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... useful spirit is wont to lead those who are inspired by it to shoot beyond the mark, and after pointing out the errors of others, to commit fresh mistakes of their own. In the skilful criticism of M. Renan's work on the Apostles, in No. 29 of the "Fortnightly Review" there is now and then a vulnerable spot through which a controversial shaft may ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... but so are conical bullets. Harry took a steady aim at what he had been taught to consider the most vulnerable part get-at- able, and pulled. Crack! Smack! He heard the ball tell as plainly as if it were on an iron target. But the absurd crocodile acted as all the others he had shot at had done: he rolled over into the water and disappeared, and the other ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... herd has entered the first enclosure, strong barricades are erected across the entrance; and as there is no ditch at this point, the hunters take advantage of the remarkable dread which the animal has of fire, to scare them from this most vulnerable part of the fortification. Fires are gradually lit all round the first enclosure, so that the only way of escape which is left is by ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... as the air we drew into our lungs. And suddenly this danger, this breath of our life, had taken this material form. It was material and expected, and yet it had the effect of an evil spectre, inasmuch as one did not know where and how it was vulnerable, what precisely it would do, how ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... observing their agonies he enjoyed "that contented mind which is a perpetual feast." Now that he was a man, he delighted in torturing human beings after the same methods applied mentally, whenever he could find a vulnerable part through which to thrust ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... showman, who had a place assigned him as underwarden. Then came a batch of young damsels, all in white, being chimney-sweepers' daughters; and after them a flourish of trumpets—that is, cow-horns—a squadron of costermongers' donkey-lads mounted, with their pocket-handkerchiefs floating from the vulnerable point ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... environed. There was no plan she could devise—no scheme adopt, unattended with peril. She must act alone—with promptitude and secrecy. To win her son over was her chief desire, and that, at all hazards, she was resolved to do. But how? She knew of only one point on which he was vulnerable—his love for Eleanor Mowbray. By raising doubts in his mind, and placing fresh difficulties in his path, she might compel him to acquiesce in her machinations, as a necessary means of accomplishing his own object. This she hoped to effect. Still there was a depth of resolution ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Niagara and Detroit Rivers, neither of which offered any real obstacles to the passage of a determined and well-managed army in the absence of strong fortifications, or a superior defensive force, at every vulnerable point along the Canadian banks. Queenston was to be a base of operations for a large force, which would overrun the whole province and eventually co-operate with troops which could come up from Lake Champlain ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... in his home city as unobtrusively as he had left it and he held the polished shield of his urbane reserve over any vulnerable points which ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... I knew that he feared I might seek to do him an injury, particularly after my inspired speech and gesture upon the terrace. Also, I felt that he would, if possible, anticipate my attempt and strike first. I was willing; for I thought myself in possession of his vulnerable point—never dreaming that he ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... I also realized that Germany held Constantinople and the Dardanelles—the gateway to the East. And the trend of German foreign policy and German strategy convinced me that it was in the Near East that the menace to our Empire lay. There was our most vulnerable part; while Germany held that gateway, the glamour of the East, with its possibilities of victories like those of Alexander, and an empire like that one which was the great Napoleon's early dream, would always be a great temptation to German strategists. I therefore always used to assert ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... effect, but to intercept actinic rays. It is eight or ten inches wide, is shaped to button close up under your collar, and extends halfway down your back. In addition it is well to wear a silk handkerchief around the neck; as the spine and back of the head seem to be the most vulnerable to ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... superadded to that of preconceived inclination, determined him, after due deliberation, to cut out Mr Escot in the young lady's favour. The practicability of this design he did not trouble himself to investigate; for the havoc he had made in the hearts of some silly girls, who were extremely vulnerable to flattery, and who, not understanding a word he said, considered him a prodigious clever man, had impressed him with an unhesitating idea of his own irresistibility. He had not only the requisites already specified for fascinating female vanity, ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... Lord Macaulay, has declared to be not less decidedly the first of biographers, than Homer is the first of heroic poets, Shakspeare the first of dramatists, or Demosthenes the first of orators. The result was favourable to Boswell, although the vulnerable points of his character were still more glaringly displayed. The appeal about to be hazarded on behalf of Mrs. Piozzi, will involve little or no risk of this kind. Her ill-wishers made the most ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... only too glad to wear woollen gloves and pin a bandanna handkerchief around my neck, besides buttoning up my coat collar. Even then I shivered. But would you believe it? The mosquitoes were as lively and active as if a balmy breeze were blowing from Arcady, puncturing me wherever they could find a vulnerable spot, and even thrusting their sabres through my thick woollen gloves into the flesh. They must be extremely hardy insects, for I am sure such arctic weather would send the mosquitoes of our lower altitudes into their winter hiding-places. People who think there are ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... merely for the purpose of remarking, that with a sensibility vulnerable at so many points as his was, and acted upon by an imagination so long practised in self-tormenting, it is only wonderful that, thinking constantly, as his letters prove him to have been, of distant friends, and receiving from few or none equal proofs of thoughtfulness ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... arguments, probably one raises an insurrection against him that may never be crushed; for in the fields of logic one can skirmish, perhaps, as well as he. Had he confined himself to dogmatism, he would have intrenched his position in darkness, and have hidden his own vulnerable points. But coming down to base reasons he lets in light, and one sees where to plant the blows. Now, the worshipful reason of modern France for disturbing the old received spelling is that Jean Hordal, a descendant of La Pucelle's brother, spelled ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... of the distances to important points from which the enemy must advance. Next, dig ditches (trenches) so that your groups (supports or reserves) may pass from one point to another without danger. Now take steps to protect your most vital and vulnerable points, your flanks. Have them so strong, if practicable, that the enemy will leave them alone. Assign to each group of men a section of the ground to defend. Having done these important things, then go about those things that ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... totally depraved you have properly made his religion a Cain-like flight from the face of his Maker and his kindred by your doctrine of predestination. Father Hecker deemed it plainly unwise to forego the advantages of attacking such vulnerable points as the Protestant errors of total depravity and predestination for the sake of dwelling on the Biblical and historical credentials of Church authority. He knew, indeed, that extravagant individualism is to this day a fundamental Protestant error, but the waning power of its doctrinal assertion ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... skirmish line can take care of its front, but its flanks are especially vulnerable to modern firearms. The moral effect of flanking fire is as great as the physical effect. Hence, combat patrols to give warning or covering detachments to give security are indispensable on exposed flanks. This is equally true in attack or ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... whimpered and scolded, like some infirm old man tormented by boys. His game after we led him forth was to keep himself as much as possible in the shape of a ball, but with two sticks and a cord we finally threw him over on his back and exposed his quill-less and vulnerable under side, when he fairly surrendered and seemed to say, "Now you may do with me as you like." Then we laughed in his ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... invading force could most conveniently land.[328] There is, therefore, a strong probability that Charles V., who had undertaken to execute the papal sentence in the course of the summer, was looking for the most vulnerable point at which to strike; and, not venturing to invade England, was encouraging an Irish rebellion, with a view to following up his success if the commencement ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... She whirled round to have a look at him, exclaiming to make time, "Oh, she is the most wonderful creature who ever lived." But he had forgotten his embarrassment now, and was standing with bent head, thinking intently, and on his face there was the dazzled and vulnerable look of a man who is truly in love. Well, if that were so, why could it not be pure and easy joy for them both, as it was for other sons and mothers when there were happy marriage afoot? Why must their life, even in such parts of it as escaped ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... become food necessary to its ardency. In fine, to battle with the superstitious notions of man, is to combat the passions he usually indulges for the marvellous; it is to assail him on that side where he is least vulnerable; to force him in that position where he unites all his strength—where he keeps the most vigilant guard. In despite of reason, those persons who have a lively imagination, are perpetually re-conducted ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... that rifle; but I hadn't looked for further ammunition, and I thought that fifteen would finish the rhino, somehow; so, when the boys above shinned down and joined me, I neglected to ask them to hunt for more, but just peppered away when I thought I saw a good chance, but never hit the one vulnerable spot. ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... there was no doubt, no reason for doubt. There was but one question: might there be still other enchantments, unknown to Merlin, which could render Sir Sagramor's veil transparent to me, and make his enchanted mail vulnerable to my weapons? This was the one thing to be decided in the lists. Until then the world ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... me, and like Dallisa, she might prove vulnerable. It might be another trap, but I'd take the chance. At least I could get hints about Evarin. And I needed information. I wasn't used to this kind of intrigue any more. The smell of danger was foreign to me now, and ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... his chin still sunk on his chest, but with his arms swinging like the spokes of a wheel. His opponent struck back heavily, violently, but each move of his arm seemed only to open up some vulnerable spot. Blows beat upon his chin, upon his nose, his eyes; blows jabbed him in the ribs, drove his breath from his stomach, ground his teeth together, cut the flesh from his cheeks. He sank to his knees, with his ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... so vulnerable as when one he really loved called him by his Christian name. He drew an arm across the shoulders of McGuffey and Scraggs, while Neils Halvorsen stood by, his yellow fangs flashing with ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... at all remember the peculiar bitterness and violence, with which Mr. Scott had assailed Lord Byron, at a crisis when both his heart and fame were most vulnerable, will, if I am not mistaken, feel a thrill of pleasurable admiration, in reading these sentences, such as they were penned by Lord Byron, for his own expressions can alone convey any adequate notion of the proud, generous pleasure ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... plains was his in all its varying moods, but there was an unchanging love for his kind under it all. However, like all such men, he hated to be surprised into a betrayal of these innermost feelings, and this is what had happened. Somers had found the vulnerable point in his armor of reserve, but, like the sensible man he was, he ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... broken by the Peasants' Revolt, which swept like a hurricane over South Germany. Hostility to religion was not one of its moving causes, but the monks were vulnerable, and had always been considered fair game, especially by local nobles whom in the plenitude of their power they had not troubled to conciliate. The peasants of the Rhine valley had not forgotten the burning of Limburg, near Spires, by William of Hesse in 1504. The abbey church had scarcely ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... One of the few vulnerable points in these hills was the Raha Pass and incredibly difficult it was even to approach. The joys of trekking over the sandy desert we knew, the desert in the rainy season we knew, but they were as nothing compared with the rocky desert ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... entertainments where there is no money; no lords and ladies where there are no entertainments—and there lay the poor lodger in the desolate house, groaning on a bed no longer his, smitten by the hand of God in the part where he was most vulnerable. Of what use telling such a man to take comfort, for he had written the "Minstrel" and "Rob Roy,"—telling him to think of his literary fame? Literary fame, indeed! he wanted back his ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... as his bomb shell exploded without apparent effect. Was there no vulnerable spot in her armor of iron self-control? After a ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln |
