"Foothold" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... its grim, rocky sides giving it the look of a mediaeval castle. A steep path wound up the hillside, crossed in many places by the roots of trees growing along the slope, which were both a help in gaining a foothold and a fruitful source of mishap if you happened to be in too much ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... her out? Who would ever have suspected that there had been in her life any foothold for tragedy? The secrecy with which she had been struck down, the ease of the murderer's coming and going safely, roused their resentment. They sympathized with themselves as well ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... Cleopatra's head to leeward, and began carefully to dismount. But the wind ballooned the back of my coat and the right branch of my other garment, and I went three yards through the air, like a bird shot on the wing. Recovering foothold, I fought my way to Bunyip, and relieved him of his pack. Then, with Cleopatra's rein over my arm, I sat down on the ground to see it out. At this low elevation, the air was thick with skipping crumbs of hard dirt, which rattled on my skull like hail; in fact, everything not ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... were revenged upon him, for they had filled him with the superstitions of their wicked faith, and because of these the gods and their high priest must sink into a common ruin. Were it not for these unsubstantial terrors that haunted him, the Spaniards had never won a foothold in Tenoctitlan, and the Aztecs would have remained free for many a year to come. But Providence willed it otherwise, and this dead and disgraced monarch ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... woman was made for living and dying in one ancestral home, she was that woman. Yet she stood on the border of civilization, without a foothold to call her own. If ever woman was made for one knightly love which would set her in high places, she was that woman. Yet here she stood, her very name lost, no man so humble as ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... quagmire. It was less than a foot wide at first, but widened toward the left, and seedling trees had formed a growth which appeared to merge into the densely wooded hill beyond. He pushed his way along this insecure foothold until the trees began to thin as if there were an open space beyond. Then directly in front of him sounded the unmistakable snarl ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... encountering them; he dreaded far more falling into the hands of the Arabs. He expected every moment to reach the shore, when one of his feet stuck fast in the mud. He endeavoured to obtain a firmer foothold by pressing down the reeds so that he might stand upon them, but this caused considerable delay, and in his efforts he was nearly falling on his face into the water. At length he succeeded in drawing out his foot, and once more he struggled on. The noise made by the bending reeds had prevented ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... in few words told a long and vital story, that of the steps by which Russia gained its strong foothold in Asia, and extended its boundaries from the Ural Mountains and Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean and the boundaries of China, Persia, and India, all of which may yet become part of the vast Russian empire, if what some consider the secret purpose ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... German commanders continued to send their men against the British there, who were subjected to a murderous cross-fire, the hill forming a salient. As a result of their persistence the German troops managed to get a foothold on the southern part of the hill by 6 p. m. In the meantime a battalion of Highlanders and the Duke of Wellington's regiment had been sent to reenforce the Bedfords and the West Kents. The Highlanders made a desperate charge, using bayonets and hand grenades on the Germans who had ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... was a wall at the foot of the garden, covered with fragrant jessamine and myrtle. If she could only get over that wall, thought Sylvia, she would be safe. She ran swiftly forward and began to scramble up, grasping the sturdy vines, and finding a foothold on some bit of rough brick. She reached the top just as she heard Miss Rosalie's servant calling ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis
... mail steamer. Repairing and building had been at once begun; an odd, rambling wing, thrown out eastward, slanting off at a wholly unarchitectural angle from the main house, and climbing the terraced rock where it found best space and foothold, already made the quaint structure look more like a great two-story Chinese puzzle than ever, and covered in space for an ample, airy, sunny work-saloon above a range of smaller rooms calculated for ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... swings on his mental balance, so that it is still a debated question among academic critics whether his madness was feigned or real, so here Shakespeare shows us how Macbeth loses his foothold on reality and falls into ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... boldly. His foot sank in something soft He did not seem to notice it. Another step and his foot sank again in the reeking muck. Suddenly he seemed to realize. He threw himself back and obtained a foothold. He stood trembling. He turned and tried another direction. Again he sank. Again he drew back. His knees tottered and he feared to move. Suddenly a ring of metal pressed against his head from behind. In a state ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... gives without necessity of return; it is the soul's devotion, not the heart's impulse. But you are not content with loving me, you claim mine in return, and so far as I have lost or you have gained a firmer foothold since last we met, so far you can compel my lower nature to answer yours. We have loved before, and unhappy was our fate. Once more we meet, and your cry is ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... modified, as it was on its introduction into Ohio, it has spread rapidly through the country and at present forty-four states and territories celebrate Arbor Day. Its every way healthful and desirable features have so generally commended it also that it has gained a foothold abroad and has begun to be observed in England, Scotland, France, and even in far-off South Africa. It has become preeminently a school day and a school festival. In many cases school teachers and ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... men on the mizzen-top yard of the Hermione that night, determined to escape the threatened flogging. They made a desperate spring to get over their comrades crowding into the ratlines, missed their foothold, fell on the quarter-deck beside their furious captain, and were instantly killed. The captain's epitaph on the unfortunate sailors was, "Throw ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... firmly-knitted tribe. It was in Canaan, however, that the shepherd people hailing from Arabia showed the first signs of approaching disintegration. Various tribal groups, like Moab and Ammon, consolidated themselves. They took permanent foothold in the land, and submitted with more or less readiness to the influences exerted by the indigenous peoples. The guardianship of the sublime traditions of the tribe remained with one group alone, the "sons of Jacob" or the "sons of Israel," so named from ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... Spain had lost her foothold on the American continent, and she still held her West Indian empire. She misgoverned the islands as she had misgoverned the continent; and in the islands, as once upon the continent, her own children became her deadliest foes. But ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... that day, an inaccessible cliff stared the travelers in the face. Its mighty crags bathed their feet in a deep pool, and up, up, for hundreds of feet, ran a smooth wall of rock in which no one might find a foothold. ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... year had passed since then; the strong Greek knew every corner of the house of the Agnus Dei, and every foothold under Arisa's windows, from the water to the stone sill, by which he could help himself a little as he went up hand over hand by the knotted silk rope that would have cut to the bone any hands but his. She kept it hidden in a cushioned footstool in her inner room. ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... the English fleet on Lake Erie, and had written to the Secretary of the Navy with Caesar-like conciseness: "We have met the enemy, and they are ours!" By land, too, the British had been met and beaten back at every point, till now they were without a foothold on the disputed ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... obstinately sought to prolong their life, growing weaker and more useless day by day, destined to a slow agony until the time shall come when the new development of society will leave them neither foothold ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... corporal, dragging him to solid foothold, cast a look up as a shell burst high overhead, and his face showed white with passion in the glare of it. 'Can't any one tell them there's no sense ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... prostrate man, who was vainly striving to find foothold below the edge of the shelf, let go with one hand and quick as thought flung it over the speaker so that he got hold tightly by the tunic, growling fiercely ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... gained the meagre capital chiefly from domestic and personal service occupations, Negroes have entered and maintained a foothold in a number of lines of business unrelated to these previous occupations. One of the most important findings is that Negroes form few partnerships and that those formed are rarely of more than two ...
— The Negro at Work in New York City - A Study in Economic Progress • George Edmund Haynes
... and the mournful sound of the pines whose loftier branches were stirring in the still air. Grasping the heavy bars I tried to climb the gate, but, as there were no projections on which it was possible to get a foothold, I found this an exhausting and difficult task. I climbed repeatedly several feet above the earth, only to lose my foothold and slide down again. Finally, by exerting all my strength, I succeeded in supporting myself with the edge of my boot upon a crossbar about half way ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... sharply at the figures that rose from the water. Many of the men fell back, hit, but, in turn, a large number managed to gain a foothold on the ledge. ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... appearance, owing to the alternate action of summer sun and winter frost. As the slopes approach the valley they become clothed with a garb of wild vegetation, which bursts forth from every fissure, and finds a foothold on every projecting rock: the base of the mountain is hidden in a tangled mass of glowing green, which the moist yet sunny Spring calls forth in abundance whenever the slopes are not too steep to retain ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... had lost Calais, Dunkirk was the only important foothold England had on continental soil; therefore it was almost as dear to the English people as the city of London itself. Because of its importance, it was greatly coveted by the French king, who shortly before the time of our journey to Dover had ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... opponent of the Platform on the order of Brown and Conrad. In 1852, in his inaugural address as professor of theology at the Illinois State University in Springfield, he had declared that we must take a firm foothold in the Augsburg Confession as a whole without binding the consciences of men to its unessential individual determinations; and that the doctrine of the symbols on the Sacraments belongs to the points concerning which they had agreed to ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... assault, by the land side, and so easily provisioned and garrisoned by sea, was looked upon as the most dangerous neighbor. From its walls, the legions of the North might, at any moment, swoop down upon the unprotected country around it and establish a foothold, from which it would be hard to dislodge them, as at Newport's News. Its propinquity to Norfolk, together with the vast preponderance of the United States in naval power, made an attack upon that place the most reasonable supposition. The State of Virginia ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... and excellent shipping facilities. In Canada and Australia our cotton goods are popular but the tariff duties are in favor of Great Britain. In the Dutch East Indies there is at present a good opportunity for getting a foothold in the white goods trade. Argentina has lately been our best market for cotton goods, and as the imports of cotton products into that country amounted to $65,000,000 in 1916, this trade is worth the intensive efforts which are now being made to ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous
... long, out-reaching, and spreading over the mountain slope for many feet; the upper limbs are irregularly disposed, not whorled; they strike downward from the start (so that it is almost impossible to climb one of the trees for want of foothold), then curving outward to the outline of the tree, they are terminated by short, hairy branchlets that decline gracefully, and are decorated with pendant cones which are glaucous purple until maturity, then leather brown, with ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... the train rolled into a small station, near the top of the range. There was a flare of yellow torches under the cars as the trainmen searched every possible foothold, while Jim stood a short distance back so that he could see on either side of the train if a short, dark figure should dart forth to seek escape in the wilds of the mountains; but their quarry was not flushed into the open, even by the flare and ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... no longer that immutable faith in the genius of the "master" Proudhon, which Tolain seems to have preserved intact. According to Bakounine "Proudhon, in spite of all his efforts to get a foothold upon the firm ground of reality, remained an idealist and metaphysician. His starting point is the abstract side of law; it is from this that he starts in order to arrive at economic facts, while Marx, on the ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... blood could not stand this. I let out a groan and sprang down the cliff. It was madness, and at the third step all foothold slipped from under me; but my clutch was tight on a fistful of creepers, and their tendrils were tough as a ship's rope. So down I went, now touching earth, now fending off from the rock with my feet, now missing hold and sprawling into a mass of leaves and roots, among which I clutched ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... necessary at frequent intervals, for the men were very weak. At last the sail floated upwards under the boat, and by a great effort the castaways succeeded in spreading it taut, so that the boat was half supported by it. Then, all pushing from one side, gaining such a foothold as the sail afforded them, they succeeded, after many straining efforts, in righting her. Slowly and painfully they baled her out, and then lay for many hours too inert ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... Pool and the Rock Pool; it is a circular, deep, black hole, in which the waters collect before dashing and roaring down between the great gray boulders; and to fish it you must get out on certain knife-like ledges that seem to offer anything but a secure foothold. However, Miss Honnor did not think twice about it; and, indeed, as she made her way out on those narrow slips of rock, Lionel perceived that her boots, which were laced in front like men's boots, if they were small ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... years ago confined for the most part to the arid region beyond the Nueces, is spreading eastward, and the clumps of it which begin to skirt the original copses here may be supposed to owe their first foothold to the ant. This humble promoter of forestry is duly appreciated, if only as a viand, by his neighbors. Full-grown, and still more in the larval stage, he is esteemed by them as both a toothsome and a beaksome bit. He—or, more numerously, she, if we insist on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... could notice it. That hill isn't wuth much as it stands. It's too steep to plow, and only a goat could find a foothold on it to graze. So if you moving picture folks level it for me I may be able to raise some crops on it. Shoot as much as you like. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... expected, the further end of the wall was broken gradually away, forming an easy descent. Down this they climbed, feeling their way with their feet, and not letting go of one mass of ruin till they had found a foothold on a lower. Thus they at length had the satisfaction of standing on the firm ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... calling attention to Allen as the 'wickedest man in New York' and in a short time he was the most notorious character in the country. The aim of the article in question was evidently to shame John Allen into a change of life, and thus to obtain a foothold among his vile neighbors and companions in sin. The stroke was a bold one, but it utterly failed in its purpose to soften John's heart. The result, however, was that thousands of religious persons—clergymen and others—thronged his house daily, either from ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... beckon to Eleanor and then urged Noddy along the foothold cleft from the cliff. Above, the rock-wall rose to the mountain-top; beneath, Polly could not gauge the depth—it was too dreadful and was now blurred by fine ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... of our sinfulness. What absurdity it seems for a man about whom these two things are true, that, as I said, he began with a borrowed capital, and has only incurred greater debts in his transactions, there should be any foothold left in his own estimation on which he can stand and claim to be anything but the pauper that he is. Oh! brethren, of all the hallucinations that we put upon ourselves in trying to believe that things are ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... All picked their way with anxious care. The traitorous rocks rolled from beneath the little man's feet and roared thunderously below him, lesser stone loosened by the men above him, hit him on the back. He gained seemingly firm foothold, and, turning halfway about, swore redly at his companions for dolts and careless fools. The pudgy man sat, puffing and perspiring, high in the rear of the procession. The fumes and smoke from four pine-knots were in his blood. Cinders and sparks lay thick ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... to pieces, and she was too substantial to go to pieces of her own account. The nearest island was little more than a barren rock. A few birds wheeled about over it, or sat perched upon its rugged points, but with that exception I doubt if it furnished a foothold ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... up the traffic in slaves; and the agent returned discouraged. Winn soon died, and Bacon returned to the United States. In November, Dr. Eli Ayres was sent over as agent, and the U.S. schooner Alligator, commanded by Lieutenant Stockton, was ordered to the coast to assist in obtaining a foothold for the colony. Cape Montserado was again visited; and the address and firmness of Lieutenant Stockton accomplished the purchase of a valuable ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson
... pretty and amusing. I don't know whether it's deep in them, for I doubt their depth; but I know it's in their joints. The first spring of a Frenchman comes of vanity. That you can't say of the English. Peace to all! but I abhor cosmopolitanism. No man has a firm foothold who pretends to it. None despises the English in reality. Don't be misled, Miss Halkett. We're solid: that is the main point. The world feels our power, and has confidence in our good faith. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... first a breathless scramble through underbrush. When they reached the big boulders, Ottenburg went first because he had the longer leg-reach, and gave Thea a hand when the step was quite beyond her, swinging her up until she could get a foothold. At last they reached a little platform among the rocks, with only a hundred feet of jagged, sloping wall between them and ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... now be neglected in France. We do not recollect to have met with him even in the "Causeries" of Ste. Beuve, who has ransacked the French Temple of Fame from garret to cellar for feuilleton materials; yet the "Legataire" kept a foothold on the stage for a hundred and twenty years. But the Temple of Fame is overcrowded. Every day some worthy fellow is turned out to make room for a new-comer. Our libraries are not large enough to hold the mob of authors who press in. What ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... "Have I made you very angry, Mr. Malcourt?" She waded out a step or two toward the surf, facing it. The rollers breaking just beyond made her foothold precarious; twice she nearly lost her balance; the third time he caught her hand to steady her and held it as they faced ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... drifted some way down the lagoon, and a rustle told Norah that they were near one of the reedy islands dotted here and there in the shallows. There was very little foothold on them, but they made excellent nesting places for the ducks that came to the station each year. The boat grounded its nose in the soft mud, and Norah jumped up to push it off. Planting the blade of the oar among the reeds, she leant her weight ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Admiral Dewey did not make any promises he could not fulfill to Aguinaldo; did not assume to speak for the President or the army of the United States, but gave guns and ammunition to the insurgents, who aided him in maintaining a foothold on the shore. The insurgents did not win Dewey's victory, but aided to improve it. Without the aid of the American army Manila might have been destroyed, but could not have been captured intact. General Merritt settled the question of the status ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... position, this was a place of temporary safety, for it was three feet wide, and having a good head, I had no fear of falling over. But on looking up my heart sank within me, for the bare cliff offered no foothold whatever. I do not believe that a monkey could have climbed it. To descend the precipice was equally impossible, for it was like a wall. My only hope, therefore, lay in the ledge on which I stood, and which, I observed, ran along to the right and turned ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... of personal interest does not come into the case at all. He thinks simply of the good of evolution as a whole. This gives him a definite foothold and the clear criterion, and removes from him altogether the pain of indecision and hesitation. The Will of the Deity is man's evolution; whatever therefore helps on that evolution must be good; whatever stands in the way of it and delays it, that thing must be wrong, even though it may ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... belief gains a foothold," Stanton said, "it is very difficult to wipe it out, even among human beings. Among Nipes, it would be well-nigh impossible. Once a code of ritual and of social behavior had been ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the ancient highway over which the caravans between China and India have passed for thirty centuries. It winds in and out of gorges and defiles and at several points the engineers have had to cut a foothold for it on the edges of tremendous precipices. It doubles on itself repeatedly, describes the letter S and the letter Z and the figure 8, and zigzags about so recklessly that the engineer puts his locomotive first at one ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... and the Carolinas were mostly English of the better class, who had been landed proprietors with considerable retinues of servants. As soon as these original colonists secured a firm foothold, large estates were developed on which the manners and customs of old England were followed as closely as possible. Each plantation became a self-supporting community, since nearly all the actual necessities were ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... separated him from the next floating log. Turner beckoned him on. It was difficult to make the foreman hear above the noise of the water and the continual grinding of the logs, but Rafe yelled some warning and pointed toward the timber now almost upon Turner's foothold. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... most determined to keep out the missionary. And there were other difficulties in the way. A presbytery had been formed as others joined us, and all matters had to be decided by that body. Two stations that had been opened, where a foothold could first be gained, required all, and more than all, the force we then had. So for six years the door to Changte remained fast closed. But during all those years Mr. Goforth never once lost sight of God's promise to him, nor failed to ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... his slippers and gripping the curb for support, lowered himself into the pit. A rush of cold air like a breath from an open grave enveloped him. Finding foothold in the crevices of the green damp stones, digging his fingers into slimy crannies, panting, slipping, bruising his flesh without feeling the hurt, this frail hypochondriac went to the aid of the child who somehow had ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... cultivation, Idaho was a competitor at the World's Fair with the best of her sisters in the quality of her field products. The exhibit in the Palace of Agriculture was impartially chosen and fairly represented all parts of the State where agricultural interests have a foothold. In the exhibit were 47 varieties of wheat, 41 varieties of oats, 32 varieties of flax—the only specimen of white flaxseed known to exist, from the farm of Alonzo McWillis, of Rosetta, who received a gold medal for ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... remember, too, thrashing out with considerable force, ridding myself of my would-be preserver. I caught on by the rear platform, and after flying helplessly for an instant like a ribbon in the wind as the train increased its speed, I got a foothold and climbed up ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... plan, and there was much talking. Among the best speakers of the city was the orator De-mos'the-nes, a very clear-sighted man, who suspected Philip's designs. He therefore warmly advised the Athenians to do all they could to oppose the Macedonian king, so as to prevent his ever getting a foothold in Greece. Indeed, he spoke so eloquently and severely against Philip, and told the people so plainly that the king was already plotting to harm them, that violent speeches directed against any one have ever since been called "Philippics," like ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... found, to his horror, when half-way up, that he must keep on, for he had left no resting-places for his feet at safe and reachable distances—who, therefore, climbed on and on, cutting handhold and foothold in the limestone until he reached the top, in a fainting state, his knife-blade worn to a stump. Here, too, in another tunnel of the cavern, flows Lost River, that all must return to, at some time, if they drink ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... deck, but in the forepart of the vessel there was nothing but loose planks on which the sailors could step. When a storm was raging or a battle was being fought, the loose planks did not, as you may imagine, offer a very firm foothold. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... with an act of aggression at Corea's expense, by seizing the important harbor of Fushan. Having thus secured a foothold on the mainland and a gateway into the kingdom, Fashiba hastened to invade Corea at the head of a large army. The capital was sacked and the tombs of Lipan's ancestors desecrated, while he himself fled to the Chinese court to implore the assistance of Wanleh. An ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... fairness, in small particulars, he will find his character gone—whispered away, before he knows it. Such an one may not indeed be irrecoverably lost; but it will be years before he will be able to regain a firm foothold. There is no profession, in which moral character is so soon fixed, as in that of the law; there is none in which it is subjected to severer scrutiny by the public. It is well, that it is so. The things we hold dearest on earth,—our fortunes, reputations, ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... pleasure-seekers found themselves clinging to a little rocky islet which would scarcely afford them foothold; and all night they remained there drenched with ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... accepted the inevitable without meditating revenge, revenge of a roundabout character, such as would insure his physical safety. The man could not play fair; there was nothing either in his heart or in his mind upon which square play could find foothold. There was nothing loyal or generous or worthy in the man. There is something admirable in a great rascal; but a sordid one is a pitiful thing. Craig entered the smoke-room and ordered a peg. At luncheon he saw them ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... was a mediocre and timid creature," he said, "faithless, ungenerous, too weak to remain steady against the assault of so great a fortune as that which ruined him incontinently; allowing himself to be borne away by it as by a torrent, without any foothold, unable to set bounds to his ambition, incapable of arresting it, and not knowing what he was about, like a man on the top of a tower, whose head goes round and who has no longer any power of discernment. He would fain ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... these regions. It is partly the resentment of an inferior race, I suppose. Then, too, when we stole Panama we made the Colombians sore, and all Central America besides, for they realized that once we Yankees got a foothold here we'd hang on and not only dominate this country but all the neighboring republics as well. That's just what we're beginning to do; that's why the Cortlandts are here. The stage is clearing for a big political ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... America, while the English considered that their claim to its rule was pre-eminent. The French had established a line of military fortified posts from Canada to the southern part of the Mississippi, and they were fast securing a foothold in the beautiful valley of ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... towering obelisks that stood on either side the open cedar doors, folk hung upon its steps like hiving bees; the vast square without and all the streets that led to it were black with them. Here, it is true, they could see nothing, still they fought for the merest foothold, and some of those who fell never rose again. At the head of the hall were set two thrones, the greater and the richer throne for Abi the Prince, the lesser throne for Neter-Tua the Queen. He had arranged ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... once became a source of serious anxiety. While planning the expedition, it had seemed so important to get the men a foothold in Florida that I was willing to risk everything for it. But this important post once in our possession, it began to show some analogies to the proverbial elephant in the lottery. To hold it permanently with nine hundred men was not, perhaps, impossible, with ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the man clambered out of the window very coolly, going backward, as if he were about to descend a ladder; but, when his face was on the point of disappearing below the sill, as he hung by his hands alone, having no foothold whatever, he said quietly, "If I shout, Caius Crispus, haul me up instantly. I shall not do so, if there be any path below. But if I whistle, be sure that all is ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... of Rome. While Carthage had been advancing from the south Rome had been pressing forward from the east along the shores of the Mediterranean, and had planted herself firmly at Marseilles, a port which gave her a foothold in Gaul, and formed a base whence she could act in Spain. In order to check the rising power of the Carthaginians there she had entered into a firm alliance with the Saguntines, whose country occupied what is now the district ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... was about a foot deep, and even then the rapid incline of the ground sent the shallow water swirling along at such a pace that it made a horse's foothold on the sliding pebbles precarious. Now it was four feet deep at least, and to cross at present was as impossible as it had been half an hour before. But as I watched it became more and more evident that the stream had received its last impetus, and the very ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... lovely when set off by a brilliant sky and glittering blue water. Blood-red cliffs lead north and south, and the green of grass and plants, broken by masses of wild-flowers of all tints, here scattered thinly, there in clumps, overlaps and creeps down the face of the rock wherever there is foothold. Between Teignmouth and Dawlish an 'island-rock' of the warmest red runs out into the sea, and through an arch in it the rippling water may be seen beyond. Looking down at Teignmouth from the hill on the opposite side, the town seems to run ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... his was that firm, persevering temperament which ensures success to the lawyer. He had therefore risen steadily, and was already making an income of twelve or fifteen hundred a year, while his younger and erratic friend had but gained a precarious foothold in the profession by dint of a few brilliant speeches, which covered a very superficial acquaintance with ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... at her door. Disdain of her own weakness and contempt of him were eloquent in every movement of the lissom figure. 'Twas easy to be seen that the man was working on her fears for him, in order to obtain another foothold with her. I ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... advertises the fact that he has gone hunting or fishing for a day or a week, as it is thought to be not quite the thing for a lawyer to be away from his office for such a purpose. Golf has gained no foothold except in the larger towns, and even there the existence of the country club is often precarious. Few males except college youths will be seen on the tennis court, if indeed there be one even in a town of five thousand people. Professional ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... was a structure strong but singularly light and airy of effect, poised on the brink of the mountain, above a slant so steep as to be precipitous indeed, terminating in a sheer vertical descent, after affording such foothold as the supporting timbers required. A great landscape it overlooked of wooded range and valley in autumnal tints and burnished sunset glow, but this made only scant impression on the minds of both, looking out with preoccupied, unseeing eyes. The balustrade around the four sides formed ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... vessel he could scrape together, and approached the bay on October 24 with twenty-five sail-of-the-line and 7,000 men; but it was too late. He could only retreat to New York, where he remained in the sole British foothold north of Charleston ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... from the straits; and that they would cause from there so great anxiety and danger to India, that they would oblige its citizens to spend on its defense a greater sum than is now spent on the conservation of the Filipinas. And now, when the Dutch have been unable to gain a foothold in any of the islands because the arms of your Majesty sustain that country with the same reputation as in Flandes, the enemy maintain themselves by aggressive measures against the Spaniards—usually ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... dangling in slush and water without finding bottom. The sled would often sink so that the dogs could not pull it out, light as was the load, and when we would gather round to help them, we could only get an occasional foothold, perhaps by kneeling in a hummock, or holding on with one hand while we pulled with the other. Even the dogs could not pull to any advantage. Some would be floundering in the slush and water, while others were scrambling over the broken ice, and yet under all ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... Against his own judgment, he had resigned the seal, in order that the King's business might prosper, and that the bitterness of his enemies might be assuaged. When he had been persuaded to resign, he had found that his resignation was to be a new ground of triumph for his enemies, and that it was a foothold for a new attack. By the threat of prosecution they strove to drive him to fly, and when he refused to yield to their threats, they contrived to make the King the agent in their knavish schemes, and procured from him the peremptory message which ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... Kai Lung. "Let Shan Tien give the feast and the time of acquiescence will have passed. . . . The foothold of to-morrow looms insecure, yet a very pressing message must ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... wall was eight feet high, and so built that on all the expanse of its smoothed surface there was no foothold, no projection for fingers to cling to. But Brent was in that frame of mind which makes light of obstacles: he drew back into the lane, ran, gathered himself for an upward spring at the coping of the wall, leapt, grasped ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... "it's just as Nell says. We're on the outside—we haven't got a foothold. There's something ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... meet him with open arms, into which he could fall, with his childlike confidence, and be carried up the ladder. Here, apparently, one did not talk about the heroic deeds which elsewhere gave a man foothold; here such things merely aroused scornful laughter. He tried it again and again, always with something new, but the answer was always the same—"Farmer!" His whole little person was overflowing with good-will, and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... no time to hesitate. The Pawnee had caught the signals from the other side of the stream, and hurried forward to intercept the enemy making his way in that direction. He advanced far enough from the spreading base of the tree to render his foothold firm, when he braced himself with drawn knife, to receive the youth. He had flung his blanket and rifle aside, before stepping on the trunk, so as not to be hindered in ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... however, he seems to have become composed. Stinson and Ray went to their fate alternately swearing and whining. Some of the ruffians faced death boldly. More than one himself jumped from the ladder or kicked from under him the box which was the only foothold between him and eternity. Boone Helm was as hardened as any of them. This man was a cannibal and murderer. He seems to have had no better nature whatever. His last words as he sprang off were "Hurrah for Jeff Davis! Let her rip!" Another man remarked calmly that he cared no more ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... said Mr. North, "we are afraid that slave-holding may get a foothold in Massachusetts; so we have to challenge every one who comes here with a slave, to show proof that he or she is not holding the servant to ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... rose to her feet, grasping cautiously at the slippery rock, and searched about her. There was another ledge close at hand, corresponding to the one on which she stood; she crept forward and transferred herself, with an infinitude of tremors, from this to that; there was a foothold just beyond; she gained it. Up and down and all along there were other projections, just enough for a hand, a foot: a wet and terrible pathway; to follow it might be death, to neglect it certainly was. What had she danced for all her days, if it had not made her sure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... to themselves the old holy places of the country, neither did they feel any difficulty in instituting new ones. In Gilgal and Shiloh, in the fixed camps where, in the first instance, they had found a permanent foothold in Palestine proper, there forthwith arose important centres of worship; so likewise in other places of political importance, even in such as only temporarily come into prominence, as Ophrah, Ramah, and Nob near Gibeah. And, apart from the greater cities with ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... the farms, rooted as their own beeches, reflected back upon Nature the same immovable calm. They did not disturb themselves about me, because my role in society was so evident, respectable, and satisfactory, that I offered no foothold for either curiosity or scandal. I had been sent by Providence and the Faculty of Medicine to cure their not too frequent rheumatisms and catarrhs; I acquitted myself not ill of my business,—they asked no more,—and neither offered nor expected personal ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... still fighting for foothold and finding it against the leg of the table, "That you, Larpent? How long have ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... the Jesuits and monks of all orders and colours, began by degrees to return to Nines; without any display, it is true, rather in a surreptitious manner, preferring darkness to daylight; but however this may be, in the course of three or four years they had all regained foothold in the town; only now they were in the position in which the Protestants had been formerly, they were without churches, as their enemies were in possession of all the places of worship. It also happened that a Jesuit high ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... disease has obtained a foothold in the body its course, like one of Napoleon's campaigns, is short, sharp, and decisive. Beginning typically with a vigorous chill, sometimes so suddenly as to wake the patient out of a sound sleep, followed by a stabbing pain in the side, cough, high fever, rapid respiration, the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... for some attack from the pirates, otherwise the Yankee would certainly have been lost. As it was, the surprise was so overwhelming that the pirates, who had been concealed in the large whaleboat that had come alongside, were not only able to gain a foothold upon the deck, but for a time it seemed as though they would drive the crew of the brig ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... need to tell. As soon as that rumor leaked out it was a cinch where you'd stand. And a hundred others are crowding on to the same foothold along with you." ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... assistants, Marx Leva and John Ohly, discuss the proposal with the Secretary of the Array to impress on him the need for secrecy until all arrangements were completed. More important, he hoped to turn Royall's experiment back on the Army itself, using it to gain a foothold for integration in the largest service. Leva and Ohly suggested to Royall that instead of activating a special unit he select a Regular Army regiment—Leva recommended one from the 82d Airborne Division to which a number of black combat units were already attached—as ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... the shed at the side of the church, and scrambled up to the little window. Mr. Dudley followed, and, with Nathan's help, gained the same precarious foothold. "Look in, Sir," said Nathan, not venturing a glance himself. Mr. Dudley looked, and had not Nathan's arm been about his body he would have lost his hold, in sheer amazement. The building was crowded, as he had never known it before; and crowded with people whom his eye, versed ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... were wicked in her sight. She would allow all home indulgences to her daughter, each under some separate plea,—constrained to do so by excessive love; but she did so always in fear and trembling, lest she was giving some foothold to Satan. All of which Robert Bolton understood better even than did his father when he gave the above advice in reference ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... living. Still another step was taken when manual training and domestic science were brought into our city schools, because these studies emphasize the fact that the schools must do something to train workers. And finally we have at present the idea gaining a strong foothold that the schools must train the child to fill its place in the world of men; to see all the relations of life; to be fitted to live in human society. This idea really embraces all of the other ideas. It implies that the schools shall not only teach ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... vanish. The philosopher is obliged to abandon intuition, once he has received from it the impetus, and to rely on himself to carry on the movement by pushing the concepts one after another. But he soon feels he has lost foothold; he must come into touch with intuition again; he must undo most of what he has done. In short, dialectic is what ensures the agreement of our thought with itself. But by dialectic—which is only a relaxation of intuition—many different agreements are possible, while ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... exquisite Alpine world, to those passionate moments of religious trust which are man's eternal defiance to the iron silences about him. Originally, as we know, he had shrunk from the thought of change in her corresponding to his own; now that his own foothold was strengthening, his longing for a new union was overpowering that old dread. The proselytising instinct may be never quite morally defensible, even as between husband and wife. Nevertheless, in all ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... French fought for foothold in Florida and were routed by the Spaniards has just been related. So early as 1504, and possibly much earlier, before Cabot or Columbus, French sailors were familiar with the fisheries of Newfoundland. To the Isle of Cape Breton they gave its name in remembrance of their own Brittany. ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the one, now the other uppermost, both too intent for any noise beyond a low growl, a whimpered cry, or a snarl of hate—followed by a quicker scrambling of claws, as each, worrying and pushing and dragging, struggled for foothold on the pavement! The spotted leopardess was larger than the white, and I was anxious for my friend; but I soon saw that, though neither stronger nor more active, the white leopardess had the greater endurance. Not once did ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... everything to Milady—how, instead of going to London, he had chartered the little vessel; how he had returned; how he had scaled the wall by fastening cramps in the interstices of the stones, as he ascended, to give him foothold; and how, when he had reached the bars, he fastened his ladder. Milady ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Moreover, there was still that about him, notwithstanding his words, that made her afraid to yield a single inch of ground lest by some hidden means he should sweep her altogether from her precarious foothold. Even in the silence, she felt that he was doing battle with her, and she did not dare to ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... played an ominous part in the destruction of the Brambanam temples, for the interlacing roots, like a network of branching veins, make their devious way through crevice and cranny, splitting and uplifting the strongest slab, wherein one tiny crack suffices for the string-like fibres to gain foothold. Masks and arabesques, fruit and flowers, fabulous monsters and sacred emblems, encrust the grey balustrades and bas-reliefs of the noble stairways. Roof and column teem with richest ornament, for Hindu art had reached ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... on their side. After driving the Americans from Canada, they next determined to make themselves masters of Lake Champlain, recover the forts they had lost, and so gain a foothold for striking a blow ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... and villas—nearly all of them weatherboard—of people who like to have a foothold a few thousand feet in the air when summer's shroud of damp enwraps ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... Had it not been for him the people of Jamestown would probably have lost all heart and gone back to England. He insisted on their staying, and so, through him, the English got their first real foothold in America. But this was not all; he wrote two books on Virginia, describing the soil, the trees, the animals, and the Indians. He also made some excellent maps of Virginia and of New England. These books and maps taught the English people many things about this country, and helped those who ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery |
