"Forlorn hope" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his comrades were fully conscious that it was a forlorn hope. They had been driven out of the valley once by superior numbers and equipment, directed by a leader of great skill and energy, but now they had come back to risk everything in a daring venture. The Union ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... seemed to Ann Mary that she could not. Lucy was her only cousin. She loved Lucy dearly, and she was lonesome for another little girl; nobody knew how she had counted upon seeing her cousin. Ann Mary herself had a forlorn hope that Lucy still might come, even if Uncle Edward was always so particular about sending word, and no word had been received. On Thanksgiving morning she kept running to the window and looking down the road. But when the stage from the village came, it passed right by the house ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... accomplished. General Banks issued an order on the 15th of June, congratulating the troops for their behavior and close investment of the stronghold, and calling for 1,000 Volunteers from the forces to form a storming column or "a forlorn hope." Soon more than the required number were on hand, and formed into two Battalions, to be commanded by General Birge. It did not become necessary to make this assault. General Gardner hearing of the fall of Vicksburg, capitulated ...
— History of the 159th Regiment, N.Y.S.V. • Edward Duffy
... be necessary, however, to call the roll of all the able and popular gentlemen who are contending in the forlorn hope against disheartening odds; and as for the ladies who have honored our literature by their contributions, it will perhaps be well to adopt regarding them a course analogous to that which Napoleon is ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... gone in a final attempt to bolster up the tottering fortunes of the Cortez Home Railway. His disappointment was keen, yet O'Neil from the beginning had met his attacks with such uniform success that new failure did not really surprise him; it had been a forlorn hope at best. Strangely enough, he had begun to lose something of his assurance of late. Although he maintained his outward appearance of confidence with all his old skill, within himself he felt a ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... he stopped to consider the forlorn hope of his last resolution. "About me, there is no such great matter," he thought; "but if I was to kill Dukie, who would ever hear the last of it? And what a good horse he have been, to be sure! But if ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... always courageous. We call it courage in a soldier merely to face death—say to lead a forlorn hope—although he has a chance of life and a certainty of "glory." But the suicide does more than face death; he incurs it, and with a certainty, not of glory, but of reproach. If that is not courage we must ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... on," inspired the defeated army with a portion of their own cheerfulness. Others vehemently shouted victory without any reason whatever. At that instant Maurice ordered a last charge by those few cavalry squadrons, while the enemy was faltering under the play of the artillery. It was a forlorn hope, yet such was the shifting fortune of that memorable day that the charge decided the battle. The whole line of the enemy broke, the conquered became the victors, the fugitives quickly rallying and shouting victory almost before they ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... visionary, extravagant; but he will do and suffer things which it is for her interest that somebody should do and suffer, yet from which calm and sober-minded men would shrink. She accordingly enlists him in her service, assigns to him some forlorn hope, in which intrepidity and impetuosity are more wanted than judgment and self-command, and sends him forth with her ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... his head. Yet he added, with the instinct of a business man ready to nurse a forlorn hope, "There would be no harm in trying. I don't believe, though, that you have ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... and busy unpacking those very weighty parcels. Boys who had changed into uniform with the others and gone down to the gate, though not really expecting any one as they were from out back and had no city friends, but still feeling lonesome, and, perhaps, having a forlorn hope that there might be some one, had helped rather bewildered girls, carrying their baskets and finding the man they wanted—these boys now looked longingly around at these groups, hoping some one would invite ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... sat, chin in hand, thoughtfully regarding his visitor. Major Churchill, erect, rigid, grey, and arid, stared before him as though indeed he saw only snowy plains, fallen men, and a forlorn hope. At last he spoke in a dry and difficult voice. "You persevere in your intention of returning to Richmond and to your house on Shockoe ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... hospitality if any two people in her drawing-room are not made known to each other. No matter how interested you may be in a chat with a friend, you will see her bearing down upon you, bringing in tow the one human being you have carefully avoided for years. Escape seems impossible, but as a forlorn hope you fling yourself into conversation with your nearest neighbor, trying by your absorbed manner to ward off the calamity. In vain! With a tap on your elbow your smiling hostess introduces you and, having spoiled your afternoon, flits off in ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... was to be called a "forlorn hope," looked fragile beside his comrades of the eleven. Although tall and wiry he was like a greyhound in a company of mastiffs. His father, looking down at him from so great a height that he could not read his face, muttered to himself while he dug his nails ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... the seconds slipped by, and the silence remained unbroken, a shred of forlorn hope came back to her. Each moment meant more assured safety to her husband—he, at least, was getting away unscathed and unsuspected. And that left ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... at him, as with face red with British blood he waves his sword and shouts to his legions. Now you may see him fighting in that cannon's glare, and the next moment he is away off yonder, leading the forlorn hope up that steep cliff. Is it not a magnificent sight, to see that strange soldier and that noble black horse dashing, like a meteor, down the long ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... something—about the match—and get that girl quietly home. I bag the back seat and Adrien. It is hard on me, I know, but fifteen minutes more of Patsy and I shall be counting my tootsies and prattling nursery rhymes. Here they come," he breathed. "Now, 'a little forlorn hope, deadly breach act, if you love me, ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... batteries, in the deadly fire-hail; wriggling invincible from under his horse, at Closterkamp of the Netherlands, though tethered with 'crushed stirrup-iron and nineteen wounds;' tough, minatory, standing at bay, as forlorn hope, on the skirts of Poland; intriguing, battling in cabinet and field; roaming far out, obscure, as King's spial, or sitting sealed up, enchanted in Bastille; fencing, pamphleteering, scheming and struggling from the very birth of him, (Dumouriez, Memoires, i. 28, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... right; and one hundred volunteers under Major Stewart, composed the van of the left. At half past eleven the two columns moved to the assault, the van of each with unloaded muskets, and fixed bayonets. They were each preceded by a forlorn hope of twenty men, the one commanded by Lieutenant Gibbon, and the other by Lieutenant Knox. They reached the marsh undiscovered; and, at twenty minutes after twelve, commenced ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... to the hotel, trying to adjust himself to this new phase of the question. Once more he had been called upon to lead the charge of the forlorn hope. He had not the same thrill of zealous loyalty as before. He was a little hurt because the Governor had made the affairs of his heart of so small importance. An old man's austerity could not understand, perhaps, but nevertheless Harlan felt that he was entitled to some consideration. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... for he soon found that he was leading a forlorn hope. As morning after morning the men assembled in the dark meeting-room behind a saloon, and sat about in their overcoats complaining and whining, quoting their wives and relatives, more and more they grew disconsolate and discouraged. There were murmurs ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... companions came up he had disappeared. It took some time before the seamen who volunteered to go managed to climb up the slippery rock to the mouth of the cavern. When once two or three had gained a footing, they let down ropes, by which the rest easily got up. The forlorn hope, as the first party might be called, then dashed into the cavern, expecting, perhaps, to meet with a hot fire of musketry. Not a sound, however, was heard; no one appeared; on they boldly went. The smugglers might have had still more deadly intentions, and, it was ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... in front, his jockey had been instructed to come right away and do the best he could. It was a forlorn hope, such tactics were more likely to succeed than others because they would not ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... the Great Western Railway. For many years it had returned two Conservative members, Messrs. Nield and Goddard. It was looked upon as an impregnable Tory stronghold, and the fight was little better than a forlorn hope. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... up altogether. I used to gamble, but I never do that now, and never shall again. What I mean is this,—that I hold myself in readiness to risk everything at any moment, in order to gain any object that may serve my turn. I am always ready to lead a forlorn hope. That's what I mean by tossing up every day for ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Selfishness is the dross and alloy that gives the unsound ring to many an act that has been called glorious. And, on the other hand, it is not only the valor, which meets a thousand enemies upon the battlefield, or scales the walls in a forlorn hope, that is of true gold. It may be, but often it is a mere greed of fame, fear of shame, or lust of plunder. No, it is the spirit that gives itself for others—the temper that for the sake of religion, of country, of duty, of kindred, nay, of pity even to ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been performed by men who had entered into the marriage relationship. Such examples of heroic Christian effort as are seen in the lives of St. Bernard, of Francis Xavier, and many others, are scarcely ever to be found except in the single state. The forlorn hope in battle, as well as in the cause of Christianity, must consist of men who have no domestic relationships to divide their devotion, who will leave no wife nor children to mourn over ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... strife, The forlorn hope He had led, How He opened the gates of life, And rescued from Death the dead; And with Him we saw a bright host, Our comrades gone on before, The right wing of our army Upon ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... the duke, applying to me, "M. Marston, you have been later on the spot than any of us. What can you tell of this M. Dumourier, who, I see from my letters, is appointed to the forlorn hope of France—the command of the broken armies of Lafayette ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... peer and choking sailor, gave them no hope; there was a whole tragedy in the breasts of all those doomed ones—a tragedy keen and subtle as that enacted when a Kaiser dies. You may not think so, but I know. Forlorn hope of civilization, they met the onset of the sea and quitted themselves like men; and, when the proud sun rose at last, the hurrying, plundering, throbbing, straining world of men went on as usual; the lovers spoke sweet words; the strong man rejoiced exceedingly ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... kindly attention, consummate skill, and unwearying labour. Its associations were certainly unhappy, and had, I am sure, a depressing effect upon at least the physically disordered patients. It may be that as the Bicetre is a sort of forlorn hope of hospitals, where the more desperate or inexplicable cases only are admitted, it naturally acquires a sombre and ominous character; but in no establishment of a similar kind (and I have seen many) did I meet ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... "we're a most worshipful company of broken deadbeats, fed on credit, and out on a forlorn hope; but it seems to me that the storekeeper who supplied us with provisions is the craziest ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... building fifteen minutes later, nursing a wild but forlorn hope that James Bansemer meant no evil, after all. Without hesitation she told him plainly that she came to learn the precise nature of his attitude toward herself and the girl. Bansemer's resentment appeared too real to have been simulated. He was almost ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... now, and she sobbed hysterically. It seemed that she was making an appeal to someone in whom she had only a forlorn hope. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... swallow up the rest. Its approach was regarded by the Queen with ominous reluctance. At length, however, the moment for the meeting of the States General at Versailles arrived. Necker was once more in favour, and a sort of forlorn hope of better times dawned upon the perplexed monarch, in his ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... have asked that question so directly; but he had lost reckoning of everything but these poor devils' dreadful need of doctoring, and he was like a man roused out of a dream. If a holy war had been proclaimed already, then he was engaged on a forlorn hope. But ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... are many varieties. The courage of the soldier and the courage of the martyr are not the same, and it by no means follows that either would possess that of the other. Not a few men who are capable of leading a forlorn hope, and who never shrink from the bayonet and the cannon, have shown themselves incapable of bearing the burden of responsibility, enduring long-continued suspense, taking decisions which might expose them to censure or unpopularity. The active courage that encounters and delights in danger ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... around your temples marks no improvement in our risks," said I. "We will sally out as if we were off to a tea-party. When my father led the forlorn hope at the storming of Wuerstenhausenstaffenberg, he wore a lace collar, and he was a man who understood these matters. And I may say that I wish he was here. He would be a ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... forlorn hope of the Bourbons was now in a considerable army posted between Fontainebleau and Paris. Meanwhile the two armies approached each other at Melun; that of the King was commanded by Marshal Macdonald. On the 20th his troops ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... ill savour in the country. If he were now to flee because there was a warrant out for him, would not the weak and newly-converted brethren be afraid to stand when great words only were spoken to them. God had, in His mercy, chosen him to go on the forlorn hope; to be the first to be opposed for the gospel; what a discouragement it must be to the whole body if he were to fly. No, he would never by any cowardliness of his give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme the gospel." So back to the house he came with his mind made up. He had come to hold the meeting, ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... the summer examining every creek and bay, marking the soundings, taking the bearings of the possible harbours, and risking his life, as every hour he was obliged to risk it in such a service, in thus leading, as it were, the forlorn hope in the conquest of the New World. How dangerous it was we shall presently see. It was ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... what you did," he grunted. As a forlorn hope, Quirl explained the situation. Strom smiled ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl
... in the corner, wiping her eyes on her apron. "You might go ast Mis' Wiggs," she suggested as a forlorn hope. ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... Georgians, and Humphrey, with his Mississippians, were to lead the forlorn hope in the assault on Fort Sanders, supported by Bryan's (Georgia) Brigade and one regiment of Mississippians. Kershaw stood to the right of the fort and Anderson, of Jenkins' Division, on the left, supported by ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... "The forlorn hope of the Tory and Orange press went still further. They boldly disputed Ireland's right to the title of Catholic. So, although, ten years and twenty years before, these same journals furiously opposed the admission of religious denominations into the statistics ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... showed adroitness, with great knowledge of human nature; and more winning and captivating manners than those of Mr. C. when called forth, were never possessed by mortal! In conformity with this almost forlorn hope, Mr. Coleridge explained to the American captain the history of the ruin; read to him some of the half defaced Latin and Italian inscriptions, and concluded with extolling General Washington, and predicting the stability of the Union. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... sorrowful replies. And now there came a remembrance that he had often spoken of the far west as a wide and promising field for labour; that some time he should like to go there and build up a church. He might have gone there now. So, with this forlorn hope, she started westward; spending the summer journeying, stopping over the Sabbath at straggling villages, and visiting different churches. Wearied out at length, she recalled the fact that an uncle had removed, with his family, to the ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the 'Mayflower' of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future State, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... sad news and Jack walked away to hide his quivering lip. To examine the islands again was a forlorn hope because already it seemed certain that nothing alive moved on any of them. The brig passed them closer than before as she made a long reach before turning out to sea. It was the intention to sail in to engage Blackbeard very early the ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... from one another, some of the other captains might be more in evidence. But in every exploit to be called an exploit; in every single enterprise of danger; when any new position was to be taken up, or any forlorn hope was to be led, there, in the very van of labour and of danger, was sure to be seen Captain Credence with his blood-red colours in his own hand. You understand your Bunyan by this time, my brethren? Captain ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... would be seven days yet before I could get news. I waited,—waited calmly and composedly. Mon Dieu! they talk of heroism in leading a forlorn hope,—Cesar Prevost was a hero for those eight days. I do not think ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... covered by good epaulements; the troops were brought forward, in easy support, concealed by the shape of the ground; and to the minute, viz., 10 a.m. of May 22d, the troops sprang to the assault. A small party, that might be called a forlorn hope, provided with plank to cross the ditch, advanced at a run, up to the very ditch; the lines of infantry sprang from cover, and advanced rapidly in line of battle. I took a position within two hundred yards ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... with him, he went down through the fireplace before daylight on Sunday morning, and, bidding Johnson to keep a vigilant watch for intruders and McDonald to fan air into him, he entered the tunnel and began the forlorn hope. From this time forward he never once turned over the chisel ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... there could be in observations taken in a ship launched (as ours then was) like a missile among flying seas. The forenoon dragged on in a grinding monotony of peril; every spoke of the wheel a rash, but an obliged experiment—rash as a forlorn hope, needful as the leap that lands a fireman from a burning staircase. Noon was made; the captain dined on his day's work, and I on watching him; and our place was entered on the chart with a meticulous precision which seemed to me half ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... too apt to be delusive in this region of wet and fog, and a heavy rain, with thick mist, came up in the afternoon. That night, for the first time, the Hassler missed her anchorage, and lay off the shore near an island, which afforded some protection from the wind. A forlorn hope was detailed to the shore, where a large fire was kept burning all night, that the vessel might not lose her bearings and drift away. In the morning all was right again, and she kept on her course ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... of a party in the forlorn hope, and was commanded on what seemed almost a desperate service, to dispossess the French of the church-yard at Ramillies, where a considerable number of them were posted to remarkable advantage. They succeeded much better ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... them now and again with what they called his bumptiousness. Perhaps he did assume a little as he led the procession, for he forgot at times that he was a peaceable servant of the sanctuary, and fancied, as he marched mace in hand to the music of the organ, that he was a daring officer leading a forlorn hope. That very afternoon he had had a heated discussion in the vestry with Mr Milligan, the bass, on a question of gardening, and the singer, who still smarted under the clerk's overbearing tongue, was glad to emphasise his adversary's defeat by paying ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... restoration of religion and monarchy! Thus the life of M. de Chateaubriand had been a constant and a perpetual combat between his enterprises and his inclinations, his situation and his nature. He was ambitious, as the leader of a party, and independent, as a volunteer of the forlorn hope; captivated by everything great, and sensitive even to suffering in the most trifling matters, careless beyond measure of the common interests of life, but passionately absorbed, on the stage of the world, in his own person and reputation, and more annoyed by the slightest check ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... battle with the natives of the countries through which they marched, and thousands more perished miserably of hunger and exposure. Those that crossed the Bosporus were surprised by the Turks, and almost all were slaughtered. Thus perished the forlorn hope of ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... her courage from insensitiveness. Her whole life was dedicated to the cause of her country, and the personal elements had been sacrificed to this object beyond herself: the forlorn hope which has already claimed so many of the noblest and bravest spirits ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... marrying me to pay your debts," he declared. "You could not have built a more forlorn hope. I should not pay your debts if I did marry you. I will give you five thousand pounds for your lie ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... productions whose originality is of a less ambiguous nature, has been experienced by some of these laborious authors, who have sacrificed their lives and fortunes to their beloved studies. The enthusiasm of literature has often been that of heroism, and many have not shrunk from the forlorn hope. ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... Union left, and strike a Stonewall Jackson blow. Its march will be covered by the friendly woods. The keen-eyed adjutants are already warning the captains of every detail of the attack. Calm and unmoved, the gaunt centurions of the thinned host accepted the honorable charges of the forlorn hope. Valois' powder-seasoned fragment of the army was a "corps d'elite." Peyton wondered, as he watched his suffering colonel, if either would see another ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... holds Father's unpaid note. He is not a dishonest man; in fact, he rather prides himself on having made all his money honestly. He will exact every penny of the debt. The first thing to do is to have another thorough search for the lost note—although I am afraid that it is a forlorn hope." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... are not engaged in a forlorn hope. They have faith. Wherever they work there they expect results, not only in the saving of individual souls, but in regenerating whole races of men. A Christian woman, missionary to the poor whites among the mountains of East {159} Tennessee, under the inspiration of her great faith, writes home ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various
... some knowing machine which was to give them a monopoly of its products. They claimed more for each other than was reasonable,—so much occasionally that their pretensions became ridiculous. One was tempted to ask: "What forlorn hope have you led? What immortal book have you written? What great discovery have you made? What heroic task of any kind have you performed?" There was too much talk about earnestness and too little real work done. Aspiration too frequently got as far ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... most temporary topic, as if his eternal salvation depended upon it. He had not merely, as the French say, the courage of his opinions, but his opinions became principles, and gave him that gallantry of fanaticism which made him always ready to head a forlorn hope,—the more ready, perhaps, that it was a forlorn hope. This is not the humor of a statesman,—no, unless he holds a position like that of Pitt, and can charge a whole people with his own enthusiasm, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... Wasn't it natural? Do you want to be hunted over Fernando Noronha at daybreak? But he would have seen the uselessness of trying to slip the cruiser before the launch had gone a cable's length. Now, here is a scheme that strikes me as workable. At any rate, it offers a forlorn hope. There is a sharp bend in the creek just where the tidal water ends. I fancy the launch will float a little higher up, but we must risk it. We will take her in, unship the mast, tie a few boughs and vines on the funnel, and not twenty search-lights ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... swayed this way or that in accordance, so it seemed, with the will of the front rank. A tremor there was repeated instantly at the rear. When a detachment made a bid for liberty it was in response to a common impulse. When a single individual started on a forlorn hope the others seemed to watch our hostile demonstrations as it leaped—flashing silvery lights from its scales—to prove the unworthiness of weirs and beds, and we, of the ranks of Tuscany, cheered if its deed of derring do was neatly ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... it now that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks, and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... trees seemed as the most familiar objects of her daily life; for had they not been impressed on her mental vision by the strength of despair? The Austrian soldiers at the frontier could not detain them, though without passports, for even they would not prevent a dying child from being conveyed on a forlorn hope. Such grief could scarcely be rendered more or less acute by circumstances. They arrived at their inn in a gondola, but only for Clara to die in her ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... urging on the garrison to resist to the death the handful of aggressors—the indomitable courage of Miller did not allow him to remain in the forts he had already taken till nightfall, when he would have been comparatively safe by attacking in the dark. Choosing out of his small band a forlorn hope of sixty men, he perilled his own safety, upon which so much depended, by leading them in person; every gun and musket of the enemy being concentrated on a particular angle of the path which he must needs pass. As the ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... churches. I was sent there by the missionary society to hold the place until they got a good price for it. I gathered the trustees around me—a splendid band of devout men, mostly young men—and I did not need to tell them that it was a forlorn hope. They already ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... not to be learned in ten easy lessons. It was not a language which eavesdroppers were likely to know as a matter of course. But it was a language by which computations could be asked for, so that a very forlorn hope might be attempted with the ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... added, in the forlorn hope of justifying my moral ineptitude to myself, "If you take my advice, ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... all. He had the end we all are wishing for. He died with his boots on, and fighting pluckily for a forlorn hope. We can't mourn ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... followers, we can hardly believe Hegel indispensable. The causes of war are too general, too old and too fundamental to be greatly added to or detracted from as yet by philosophy. Philosophy is the hope of the world, it may be, and by no means a forlorn hope, but it is not yet one of the great powers. When philosophy is a mere endorsement by reason of some motive that has arisen in the practical life, or is a literary expression of views about life, it may give ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... mean, of course," said Durland. "But it's a forlorn hope. There's a limit to human endurance. Even regular troops would call what Bean's brigade did before sunset a hard day's work. Just think of it—they were in motion before daybreak this morning, ready for their dash across the line. Then they marched several miles toward Hardport, ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... them in their camp at the edge of the clearing, and with a torrent of unreasoning curses ordered the dogs harnessed and the outfit got under way for Lac du Mort, they knew their cause was at best a forlorn hope. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... she turns out a finished work. Mrs. Agar's eyes actually lighted up. Seymour Michael saw; but he knew that he had no case. Nevertheless, in view of the Squire's advanced age (a fact of which he had made sure), he attempted to carry through a forlorn hope. ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... was not great, and the reef of rocks not only formed a shelter, but produced a kind of eddy, which made the passage of the boat somewhat less perilous; but all the same it was a forlorn hope, and many of the fishermen said to themselves that the next time that they saw Will Marion and Josh it would be beaten and bruised by wave and rock, and cast up ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... scouts spread in organised network around, not a shipload of foodstuff could reach the country. They know that; they can calculate how many days of independence and starvation they could endure, and they will make no attempt to bring about such a certain fiasco. Brave men fight for a forlorn hope, but the bravest do not fight for an issue they know ...
— When William Came • Saki
... what I had done, and resented the ingratitude of your race; for it was the horse, not the man, who led that forlorn hope, and I did think I should have a rosette at least, when others got stars and bars for far less dangerous deeds. Never mind, my master knew the truth, and thanked me for my help by keeping me always ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... that last dotage of S. Mark's decrepitude is more recoverable by our fancy than the heroism of Pisani in the fourteenth century. From his prison in blockaded Venice the great admiral was sent forth on a forlorn hope, and blocked victorious Doria here with boats on which the nobles of the Golden Book had spent their fortunes. Pietro Doria boasted that with his own hands he would bridle the bronze horses of S. Mark. But now he found ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... instead of them proclaims the true cry, that Breitmann is sound upon the goose, about which he tells a story. Then it is reported that the German cannot win, and that, as he is a soldier, he has been sent into the political field only to lead the forlorn hope and get beaten. In answer to this, Twine starts the report that Smith has sold the fight to Breitmann, a notion which the Americans ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... grip the wheel so tightly," said Jack, and I became aware that I had been clinging to it as if it were a forlorn hope. "A light touch is best, you know; it's rather like steering a boat. A very slight movement does it, and in half an hour it has got to be automatic. Of course, always start on the lowest, that is, the first speed, and ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... allowed it: Scipio did not obtain half the resources which had formerly been placed at the command of Regulus, and he got that very corps which for years had been subjected by the senate to intentional degradation. The African army was, in the view of the majority of the senate, a forlorn hope of disrated companies and volunteers, the loss of whom in any event the state had no ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... noble heart. And this opera! Are they fools?—they must see through it. It will never,—it can't possibly be reckoned on to appear. I knew that the signorina was heart and soul with us; but who could guess that her object was to sacrifice herself in the front rank,—to lead a forlorn hope! I tell you it's like a Pagan rite. You are positively slaying a victim. I beg you all to look at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this entirely obscure way he had reached the age of forty; was with the small body of Reformers who were standing siege in St Andrew's Castle,—when one day in their chapel, the Preacher after finishing his exhortation to these fighters in the forlorn hope, said suddenly, That there ought to be other speakers, that all men who had a priest's heart and gift in them ought now to speak;—which gifts and heart one of their own number, John Knox the name of him, had: Had he not? said the Preacher, appealing to all the audience: ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... fearing, like disappointments in any relations into which he might enter with Greece. Therefore, though he readily consented to work for the Hellenic revolutionists, as he had worked for the Chilians and Brazilians, he did so with something of a forlorn hope, with a fear—which in the end was fully justified—that thereby his own troubles might only be augmented, and that his philanthropic plans might in great measure be frustrated. Coming newly to England, where the real state of affairs in Greece, the selfishness of the leaders, the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... prepare the fort for their reception. Goaded to desperation by these taunts, and by Duquesne, who harangued them to the onset, they often rushed up to the fort, as if they purposed to storm it. Dropping dead under the cool and deliberate aim of the besieged, the remainder of the forlorn hope, raising a yell of fury and despair, fell back. Other infuriated bands took their place; and these scenes were often repeated, invariably with the same success, until both parties were incapable of taking aim on ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... The Round-Table was merely an interrogation covering a forlorn hope. It failed because you remained loyal ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... soldier's overcoat, with cape and hood, which Mr. Green had brought in case of emergency. The cold had become intense. We had not wasted words at any time, and on remounting, preserved as profound a silence as if we were on a forlorn hope, even the ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... value in my hands. In hopeless cases, where all treatment fails, as will sometimes happen, or in patients in whom the paralytic stage is already far advanced, if other measures are unsuccessful, morphia is left as a forlorn hope, which will at least ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... struggle went forward; a forlorn hope of saints led the way up the breach, and paved with their bodies a broad road into the new era; and the nation the meanwhile was unconsciously waiting till the works of the enemy were won, and they could ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... she could make Mary hear without actually opening the door; but it was a forlorn hope. Mary was generally afflicted with deep deafness if one particularly wanted her hearing to be acute. She was now. Audrey called again and again ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... that this fishing expedition took place in the autumn of 1859, not a year before Dr. Bagby was called to the post of editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, taking the place of the poet, John R. Thompson, who was sent to England to lead the forlorn hope of a magazine to represent the Southern cause in London. A banquet was given at Zetelle's restaurant as a farewell to Mr. Thompson ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... him; he was my only relative. That he might live near me was the last forlorn hope of my life. Before you condemn me, remember how few people exist in this world for me to love. I have no friends. I was so cold, so dreary! There was nothing left to me but your child and this one brother. How could I part with either of them? That ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... feet in length, was whirled round and round with dizzy rapidity. The violence of the down-pull at the vortex broke her in the middle. All on board fled aft, to the highest deck, an elevation peculiar to barges. There remained the forlorn hope that the men in the skiff might approach the sinking wreck. This they did. They pulled alongside the half-hull, and with great difficulty and risk succeeded in taking the girls aboard. Three of the four boat-hands on the barge at the time of the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... Bones; "I've finished with you, dear old fellow; as an officer an' a gentleman you've treated me rottenly—you have, indeed. Give me an order—I'll obey it. Tell me to lead a forlorn hope or go to bed at ten—I'll carry out instructions accordin' to military law, but outside of duty you're a jolly old rotter. I'm hurt, Ham, doocidly hurt. ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... many a forlorn hope by taking up the task that weaker hands had laid down. Here, however, was a situation without precedent in a life that was a rebuke to convention. To succeed to an organised and going post these perilous war ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... is over-keenness. On our first Sunday in camp our company commander stood us to attention and asked for three volunteers—for some unnamed forlorn hope. The whole company advanced two paces. He took the first three in the first platoon and handed them over to a sergeant. They were marched off on their perilous mission with nine men from other companies. The dauntless twelve. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... have exhausted every possibility. Mr. Damon is trying a forlorn hope now, but, even ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... into his own office. The late Mr. LeCord had left her to face the world with a comfortable fortune and three daughters, of whom the youngest was now married and the oldest was a forlorn hope. To place the second was now her purpose, and the best bargain on the market was young Grant. Caroline, she was sure, would make a very acceptable wife, and the young lady herself confessed a belief that she could love even ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... letter. It contained a vivid description of the taking of a certain small battery, which was pouring death and destruction on the little British company, who had gone as a forlorn hope to silence its fire. They were picked volunteers and they were led by Boris Ragnor. He had made a breach in its defences and carried his men over the cannon to victory. At the last moment he was shot in the throat and received a deadly wound in the side, as he tore from the hands of the Ensign ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... for what they call decorum? Let us like Micah, say, "WE WILL," too. How hard it is to win the heathen over to leave their false gods! And shall we not walk for ever and ever in Jehovah's name? Why should not Satan and all who help him regard efforts to make apostates as a forlorn hope? O for a strong grip of God! Do some of our readers feel their weakness, and tremble lest they should go back to the assemblies of the heathen? Let us remind them of the promise—"I will strengthen them in the Lord, and they shall ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... When Morone set out, he told the Venetian envoy in Rome that he was going on a forlorn hope. 'L'illmo Morone, quando parti per il Concilio, mi disse che andava a cura disperata e che nulla speserat della religione Cattolica.' Soranzo, op. cit. p. 82. The Jesuit Canisius, by his influence with Ferdinand, secured the success ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... experiment, though disastrous in its effects upon herself, was pregnant with instruction to other people. She was thus a true martyr or witness to the frightful consequences of intemperance, to the saving, doubtless, of many who but for her martyrdom would have taken to drinking. She was one of a forlorn hope whose failure to take a certain position went to the proving it to be impregnable and therefore to the abandonment of all attempt to take it. This was almost as great a gain to mankind as the actual taking of the position would ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... the King's forlorn hope of foot, in number about 1,000, entered Lostwithiel after a smart skirmish with the rebel rearguard at the bridge; and not long after, the rebel reserve of foot, perceiving their comrades giving ground and being themselves galled by two or three pieces ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... involved more or less personally in the crime committed there. Might it not be simply as his accessory after the fact? If only I could believe this! If my knowledge of him and of her would allow me to hug this forlorn hope, and behold, in this shock to her brain, and in her look and attitude on leaving the club-house, only a sister's horror at ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... the point, considering that the question was one of honour, like that of leading a forlorn hope; but, on my saying that I had planned the enterprise and thereby was entitled by right to be the first to venture down, quite apart from the fact of my supplying the rope, he yielded gracefully. Thereupon, without any more fuss, I got over the ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... The citizens voted at once to send the aid asked for. But who should be the leader? There were danger and difficulty in the enterprise, with little hope for profit, and none of the Corinthian generals or politicians seemed eager to lead this forlorn hope. The archons called out their names one by one, but each in succession declined. The archons had come nearly to their wits' end whom to choose, when from an unknown voice in the assembly came the name "Timoleon." The archons seized eagerly ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... so strong in deed as I was in word? Also I feared that if I should run now there was a warrant out for me, I might by so doing make them afraid to stand, when great words only should be spoken to them. Besides I thought, that seeing God of His mercy should choose me to go upon the forlorn hope in this country; that is, to be the first, that should be opposed, for the gospel; if I should fly, it might be a discouragement to the whole body that might follow after. And further, I thought the world thereby would take occasion at my cowardliness, to ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... possession of most of their cargoes of sheep, oxen, wine and other booty. The defence was brilliantly conducted throughout, and Valdory relates that when three hundred musketeers were requested for a forlorn hope, no less than two thousand men thronged to the officers' houses demanding weapons to join in the sally. "Rouvel" was very busy all the time in the town belfry, and rang furiously by night or day whenever the scouts gave notice that the enemy were likely to attack. Directly his notes were heard, ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... first place, was the mountain unoccupied? The mountain without the Austrians was in itself difficult enough to conquer! Lannes was despatched like a forlorn hope with a whole division. He crossed the peak of the Saint-Bernard without baggage or artillery, and took possession of Chatillon. The Austrians had left no troops in Piedmont, except the cavalry in barracks and a few posts of observation. There were no obstacles to contend with except ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Granada there came to Spain a glory and renown that made her the envy of all the nations of Europe. During the year before an Italian mariner, Christopher Columbus by name, after long haunting the camp and court of Ferdinand and Isabella, had been sent out with a meagre expedition in the forlorn hope of discovering new lands beyond the seas. In March, 1493, extraordinary tidings spread through the kingdom and reached the ears of the monarchs at their court in Barcelona. The tidings were that the poor and despised mariner had returned to Palos with wonderful tales of the discovery of ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... its grand spontaneity and local in its intensity. Province after province rose in arms, except the north and centre, where 80,000 French troops held the patriots in check. In the van of the movement was the rugged little province of Asturias, long ago the forlorn hope of the Christians in their desperate conflicts with the Moors. Intrenched behind their mountains and proud of their ancient fame, the Asturians ventured on the sublime folly of declaring war against the ruler of the West and the lord of 900,000 warriors. Swiftly Galicia and Leon ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... "A forlorn hope, perhaps, set to garrison this by-corner of the world, but not forgotten by the Commander-in-chief, remember that, maid Priscilla," said the captain kindly and cheerily. "There in the Low Countries ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... tree to rest for this was June and pretty warm. I was now alone in a big territory, thinly settled, and thought of my father's home, the well set table, all happy and well fed at any rate, and here was my venture, a sort of forlorn hope. Prospects were surely very gloomy for me here away out west in Wisconsin Territory, without a relative, friend or acquaintance to call upon, and very small means to travel two hundred and fifty miles of lonely ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... unless I think I can go to good purpose I will not go at all." Sir Francis Hincks says: "All Sir Charles Metcalfe's correspondence prior to his departure from England is indicative of a feeling that he was going on a forlorn hope expedition," and Hincks adds that such language can be explained only on the assumption that he was sent out for the purpose of overthrowing responsible government. It is certainly established by the Peel correspondence that the British government strongly ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... disturbances. My 'Warburg' was procured directly from the inventor, not from the common chemist, who makes the little phialful for 9d. and sells it for 4s. 6d. Some years ago a distinguished medical friend persuaded Dr. Warburg, once of Vienna, now of London, to reveal his secret, in the forlorn hope of a liberal remuneration by the Home Government. Needless to say the reward is to come. I first learnt to appreciate this specific at Zanzibar in 1856, where Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton used it successfully in the most dangerous remittents and marsh-fevers. Cases of the febrifuge were sent out to ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... riding up with several officers, with whom he held a sort of council of war. Before they had arrived at a decision, the waves had come over the beach and dashed right up to where the soldiers were standing. "It's no use," said General Lindsey, "this review is a forlorn hope—I must dismiss the parade." He then gave the whole of the Volunteers orders to dismiss until three o'clock in the afternoon. The men dispersed in various directions, and just as they had got pretty nearly cleared away, up rode the Duke of ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End |
