"Fortress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... decree in Parliament urging the king to banish from his presence and his councils Cardinal Mazarin. This measure threw the court into consternation. The cardinal was apprehensive of arrest. Some of his friends urged him to retire immediately to a fortress. Others proposed to garrison the Palais Royal and its neighborhood with an ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... the thing so amusing;" and then the parasite went on making small personal observations on the surrounding scene, and every now and then telling little tales of great people with whom, it appeared, he was intimate—all concerted fire to gain the very great social fortress he was now besieging. The parasite was so full of himself, and so anxious to display himself to advantage, that with all his practice it was some time before he perceived he did not make all the way he could wish ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... then made straight for the one and only gateway to the fortress, and, reaching it as day broke, almost surprised the place, but the walls were quickly manned and defended. Foiled for a moment, the leader of the Saktawats threw himself from his elephant, and, placing himself before the great spikes with ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... entered very early the following day, and on that day he did not wish to go further. This city of Bilcas[45] is placed on a high mountain and is a large town and the head of a province. It has a beautiful and fine fortress; there are many well built houses of stone, and it is half-way by road from Xauxa to Cuzco. And on the next day the Governor encamped on the other side of the river, four leagues from Bilcas, and although the day's march was short, it was nevertheless toilsome ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho
... prisoners accused of great political crimes were usually taken in, and which is called the Traitors' Gate. There was another entrance, also, from the river, by which a more honorable admission to the fortress might be attained. The Tower was not solely a prison. It was often a place of retreat for kings and queens from any sudden danger, and was frequently occupied by them as a somewhat permanent residence. There were a great number of structures within the walls, in some of which royal apartments ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... above, to the top of the turtle's shell. It was a night as soft as silk; the water smooth, in long, faint, olive swells; a half-moon in the sky. There were lights across at Old Point, lights on the battery at the Rip Raps, lights in the frightened shipping, huddled under the guns of Fortress Monroe, lights along either shore. There were lanterns in the rigging of the Minnesota where she lay upon the sand bar, and lanterns on the Saint Lawrence and the Roanoke. As we looked a small moving light, as low as possible to the water, appeared between ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... remain here. The logs of this blockhouse are still green, and it will not be easy to set them on fire; and I can make good the place, bating a burning, ag'in a tribe. The Iroquois nation cannot dislodge me from this fortress, so long as we can keep the flames off it. The Sergeant is now 'camped on some island, and will not come in until morning. If we hold the block, we can give him timely warning, by firing rifles, for instance; and should he determine ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... deserted. Soon several disaffected nobles joined him in Exeter. Churchill soon followed, the first general officer that ever in England abandoned his colors. The Earl of Bath, who commanded at Plymouth, placed himself, in a few days, at the prince's disposal, with the fortress which he was intrusted to guard. His army swelled in numbers and importance. Devonshire raised the standard of rebellion at Chatsworth. London was in a ferment. James was with his army at Salisbury, but gave the order to retreat, not daring to face the greatest ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... honour, was carried to a vice. He was perfectly conscious of its excess, but he cherished it as a virtue. Pride had served to console him in sorrow, and therefore it was a friend; it had supported him when disgusted with fraud, or in resistance to violence, and therefore it was a champion and a fortress. It was a pride of a peculiar sort: it attached itself to no one point in especial,—not to talent, knowledge, mental gifts, still less to the vulgar commonplaces of birth and fortune; it rather resulted ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... true friends, the elector's purpose was carried out, and Luther was effectually hidden from friends and foes. Upon his homeward journey, he was seized, separated from his attendants, and hurriedly conveyed through the forest to the castle of Wartburg, an isolated mountain fortress. Both his seizure and his concealment were so involved in mystery that even Frederick himself for a long time knew not whither he had been conducted. This ignorance was not without design; so long as the elector knew nothing of Luther's whereabouts, he could reveal nothing. He satisfied ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... Collonel, because you have beat the French you must conquer all the Ladies; there are Women that dare resist you boldly, will exact your Courage beyond attacking a Fortress, and maintain a ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... distress, which to a certain extent at least tell their own tale, and betray to the observer that all can scarcely be right. Now Nancy Gallaher saw this, and having drawn the established conclusion that there must in some way be a lover in the case, she sat down in form before the fortress of Alley Mahon's secret, with a firm determination to make herself mistress of it, if the feat were at all practicable. In Alley, however, she had an able general to compete with—a general who resolved, on the other hand, to make ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... know it's against the law," Vincent said, "and it's against the law my talking to you here, Tony; but you see it's done. The difficulty is how to do it. All vessels are searched before they start, and an officer goes down with them past Fortress Monroe to see that they take no one on board. Still it is possible. Of course there is risk in the matter; but there is risk in everything. I will think it over. Do not lose heart. Dan will be back directly with enough food to last you for some days. If I were ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... Napoleon was in fact close at hand. After a short moment of hesitation, two companies of sappers which had been dispatched to cut down a bridge, joined their former commander. A battalion of infantry soon followed their example. Finally, upon the very glacis of the fortress, in presence of the numerous population which crowned the ramparts, the fifth regiment of the line to a man assumed the tricolour cockade, substituted for the white flag the eagle,—witness of twenty battles,—which it had preserved, ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... city in Andalusia which the Moors loved most and held longest. They fought hard to keep it, and when they finally surrendered it to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 they wept bitterly, for it seemed to them they had lost a Paradise. The great fortress-palace of the Moors in Granada is called the Alhambra, which means "red castle." About a hundred years ago an American author, Washington Irving, went to live in the Alhambra. He found the romantic castle very much as the Moors ...
— Getting to know Spain • Dee Day
... Edward triumphed at one and the same time: it was by their advice, struck with the advantage of its situation, and with the sums paid for their ransom, that by degrees this castle stretched to such magnificence, as to appear no longer a fortress, but a town of proper extent, and inexpugnable to any human force. This particular part of the castle was built at the sole expense of the King of Scotland, except one tower, which, from its having been erected by the Bishop of Winchester, Prelate ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... period of quiet. There, frowning in front of them, was the Boers' natural fortress of Magersfontein, rendered impregnable by a wonderful series of trenches, at the extent and perfection of which they could only guess. They knew that there must be at least one desperate attempt to take them, if not more. But three great battles in one week had exhausted ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... Cerizet. In order to prevent all communication with the upper floors, Cerizet had exacted that the door of that room which opened on the common landing should be walled up. The place had thus become a fortress. The bedroom above had a cheap carpet bought for twenty francs, an iron bedstead, a bureau, three chairs, and an iron safe, made by a good workman, which Cerizet had bought at a bargain. He shaved before a glass on the chimney-piece; he ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... Sihagiri, a place difficult of access to men, and having cleared it on all sides, he surrounded it with a rampart. He built three habitations, accessible only by flights of steps, and ornamented with figures of lions (siho), whence the fortress takes its name, Siha-giri, "the Lion Rock." Hither he carried the treasures of his father, and here he built a palace, "equal in beauty to the celestial mansion." He erected temples to Buddha, and monasteries ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... Antiquitat. xviii. 1, 2. Tillemont, Ruine des Juifs, p. 742 The sons of Judas were crucified in the time of Claudius. His grandson Eleazar, after Jerusalem was taken, defended a strong fortress with 960 of his most desperate followers. When the battering ram had made a breach, they turned their swords against their wives their children, and at length against their own breasts. They dies to the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... succeeded, the besiegers remaining in possession of the outer defences of the castle, and the besieged retiring for the time within the walls of the fortress. ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... cup of wine, asked the way to the Chateau, which was situate, I learned, no more than a third of a mile away. I went thither on foot by way of an avenue of trees leading up to a drawbridge and gateway. The former was down, but the gates were closed, and all the formalities of a fortress in time of war were observed on my admission, though the garrison appeared to consist only of two or three serving-men and as many foresters. I had leisure after sending in my name to observe that the house was old and partly ruinous, but of great strength, covered ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... of June 1775 Gen. Schuyler was commissioned by Congress to invade Canada through the lakes—to take possession of Ticonderoga and Crown Point; and if practicable to proceed to St. Johns and besiege that fortress. Should he succeed in getting possession of these posts on the lakes, the way would be open to proceed on to Montreal and from thence to Quebec, ...
— An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut • Abner Stocking
... reunion hereafter is spontaneously adopted by humanity. We therefore esteem it divinely ordered or true. Without that soothing and sustaining trust, the unrelieved, intolerable wretchedness in many cases would burst through the fortress of the mind, hurl reason from its throne, and tear the royal affections and their attendants in the trampled dust of madness. Many a rarely gifted soul, unknown in his nameless privacy of life, has been so conjoined with a worthy peer, through precious bonds of unutterable sympathy, that, rather ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... beginning a day full of the anticipation of a pleasant excitement. He has, perhaps, been waiting anxiously for fine weather, to try conclusions with some huge giant not yet scaled. He moves out with something of the feeling with which a soldier goes to the assault of a fortress, but without the same probability of coming home in fragments; the danger is trifling enough to be merely exhilatory, and to give a pleasant tension to the nerves; his muscles feel firm and springy, and his stomach—no small advantage to the enjoyment ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... her courage returning as she found herself thus strangely installed within the fortress she feared to attack. She stumbled occasionally, and was sharply set upon her feet, in the matter of figures, by her eager hearer. At last she came to ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... of Cadmus nor St. George, those names Of great renown, survives them, but their fames; Time was so sharp set as to make no bones Of theirs nor of their monumental stones, But Shonke one serpent kills, t'other defies, And in this wall as in a fortress lyes." ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... English authority, from a safe distance in Southern France. He made, however, no effort to assert himself or retrieve his fortunes; and the English captains in the name of their baby King took possession of one fortress after another, till, in 1429, Orleans was the only French city of rank still barring their way from Charles ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... college friend, high in office, he had ascertained that an expedition for Holland had been resolved on; and that it was to take place without delay. The French army had passed the frontier, and taken the strong fortress of Breda. Williamstadt was bombarded, and must fall in a few days if not relieved. With its fall, the Seven Provinces would be thrown open. In this emergency, aid had been ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... from roving; and when Omund heard he was back, he set to and built a vast ship, whence, as from a fortress, he could rain his missiles on the enemy. To manage this ship he enlisted Homod and Thole the rowers, the soils of Atyl the Skanian, one of whom was instructed to act as steersman, while the other was to command at the prow. Ring lacked neither ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... possession of the prisoners, but to harm no one unless in case of resistance. The mob shouted assent, for Bobadilla was already the idol of the multitude. About the hour of vespers he set out, at the head of this motley army, to storm a fortress destitute of a garrison, and formidable only in name, being calculated to withstand only a naked and slightly-armed people. The accounts of this transaction have something in them bordering on the ludicrous, and give it the air of absurd rhodomontade. Bobadilla assailed the portal with great ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... boom of the first cannon trained on the island fortress deserves all the rhetoric it has inspired. Who was immediately responsible for that firing which was destiny? Ultimate responsibility is not upon any person. War had to be. If Sumter had not been the starting-point, some other would have been found. Nevertheless ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... death; not like a madman, but like a man who still hopes that he may live. Ottilie shall be the prize for which I fight. Ottilie shall be behind the ranks of the enemy; in every intrenchment, in every beleaguered fortress, I shall hope to find her, and to win her. I will do wonders, with the wish to survive them; with the hope to gain Ottilie, not to lose her.' These feelings have led me on; they have stood by me through all dangers; and now I find myself like ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... my eye lights upon the crowd of Russian peasants at work on the Neva under my windows. With pick and shovel they are letting the rays of the April sun into the great ice barrier which binds together the modern quays and the old granite fortress where lie the bones of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and by day he hid himself whereas he might and fared on all his night at hazard; and thus he did some days, till he came to an inhabited land and seeing folk there, accosted them and acquainted them with his case, giving them to know that he had been imprisoned in the fortress and that they had cast him down, but God the Most High had delivered him and brought ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... ruthless religious ferocity. Spain, again, was a land which had stored up, during long centuries, nearly the whole of its accumulated possessions in every art, sacred and secular, of fabulous value, within the walls of its great fortress-like cathedrals; Napoleon's soldiers over-ran the land, and brought with them rapine and destruction; so that in many a shrine, as at Montserrat, we still can see how in a few days they turned a Paradise ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... disorder of the assayer's office, perched among boxes. A single candle lighted us. It could scarce be called a house-warming; for there was, of course, no fire, and with the two open doors and the open window gaping on the night, like breaches in a fortress, it began to grow rapidly chill. Talk ceased; nobody moved but the unhappy Chuchu, still in quest of sofa-cushions, who tumbled complainingly among the trunks. It required a certain happiness of disposition ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... extent of territory Austria was the principal gainer, her share being of sufficient importance to receive a new name as the kingdom of Galicia; the share of Prussia being West Prussia and Pomerania, with the exception of Dantzic and the fortress of Thorn; while Russia took Polish Livonia and the rich provinces to the east of the Dwina. But the spoilers were not long contented with their acquisitions. In 1791 intrigues among the Polish nobles, probably fomented by the Czarina herself, gave her a pretence for interfering in their affairs; ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... passed, and hushed the murmurs not intended for his ear. Passing through the Zacatin (the street which traversed the Great Bazaar), the reputed enchanter ascended a narrow and winding street, and arrived at last before the walls that encircled the palace and fortress of the Alhambra. ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book I. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... o'clock he met the Masher not far from the old fortress, which was known in the neighbourhood by the name of Mortepierre, and he examined the ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... for strange and desperate deeds; killing, as a mere boy, a lion and a bear, overthrowing the Philistine giant with a sling and a stone, captain of a band of outlaws in the wilderness, fighting battles upon battles; and at last a king, storming the mountain fortress of Jerusalem, and setting up upon Mount Zion, which shall never be removed, the Throne of David. A strange man, and born into a strange time. You all know the first part of David's history—how Samuel secretly anoints David king over Israel, and how the Spirit of the ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... more open part of the wood, and had glimpses of the rude fortress from between the trees. It was a mere breastwork, as we have said, of logs and branches, with blankets, buffalo robes, and the leathern covers of lodges, extended round the top as a screen. The movements of the leaders, as they groped their ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... from Helicon, since the poets so often invoke them upon every foolish occasion. Be present then awhile, and assist me, you daughters of Jupiter, while I make it out that there is no way to that so much famed wisdom, nor access to that fortress as they call it of happiness, but under the banner of Folly. And first 'tis agreed of all hands that our passions belong to Folly; inasmuch as we judge a wise man from a fool by this, that the ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... most ancient watering-places on the Continent. It was a Roman military station, and upon the Heidenberg—a neighboring eminence—are seen the traces of a Roman fortress. The remains of Roman baths and a temple have also been found there, and its waters are mentioned by Pliny. At a later period the Carlovingian monarchs established at Wiesbaden an imperial residence. The city lies under ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... the contribution box and to let the subscription paper go by us to the next door. The common duties of life and the good offices society asks of us may be left to take care of themselves while we contemplate the infinite. There is no safer fortress for indolence than "the Everlasting No." The chimney-corner is the true arena for this class of philosophers, and the pipe and mug furnish their all-sufficient panoply. Emerson undoubtedly met with some of them among his disciples. His wise counsel did not always find listeners in ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... referred to some rude and remote age which had aimed at nothing more than availing itself of the local advantages and the materials furnished by nature on the spot for the purpose of constructing a secure and imposing fortress; without any further regard to the rules or pedantries of architecture. Attached to the main building, which ascended to the height of five stories—and yet did not seem disproportionately high from the extent of its range, were several smaller ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... the weak; and there was nothing weak about Miss Olive, she was a fighting woman, and she would fight him to the death, giving him not an inch of odds. He felt that she was fighting there all day long, in her cottage fortress; her resistance was in the air he breathed, and Verena came out to him sometimes quite limp and pale ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing; Our helper He, amid the flood Of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe Doth seek to work us woe; His craft and power are great, And, armed with cruel hate, On earth is ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... keeping his fortifications from falling into the hands of the enemy already made, he set about fulfilling them. He examined the magazine and had everything in readiness. Then he ordered all his troops to report to the general commanding the nearest fortress, placed a fuse to the magazine, lighted it, and ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... through the thick growth of trees, his hands and feet were cold, his heart beat hard. "I'm acting like a girl," he thought, indignantly, straightened himself, and marched on to the front door, as if it were the postern of a fortress. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... city, and the pillars and cornices of the noble structures towering above it. As the vessel was about passing the Seven Towers, now a ruin with a most melancholy history, but in that day a well-garrisoned fortress, he conversed with the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... commanded to be burned, and impaled alive on stakes stuck in the ground. One lord however, perhaps the chief and king of that country, managed to free himself, and with twenty or thirty or forty other men, he escaped to the great temple, which was like a fortress and was called Quu, where they defended themselves during a great part of the day. 7. But the Spaniards, from whom nothing is safe, especially among these people destitute of weapons, set fire to the temple and burned them, they crying out: "wretched men! what have we done unto ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... had been burnt brown every summer, and every winter had grown green again. The arrow-slit and the electric wire that entered it, like a worm uneasy at being unearthed, were distinctly visible now. So also was the clock, not, as he had supposed, a chronometer coeval with the fortress itself, but new and shining, and bearing the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... under General Grant, in vastly superior force, was pressing Vicksburg very hard, and had now completely invested that fortress. ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... generally believed that the document proceeded from the coterie to which he belonged. From that moment he was carefully watched, till one night he was unexpectedly roused from his sleep by a gendarme and conveyed to the fortress. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... the captain made no reply, but grated his teeth, in a way that showed the fortress of his mouth was not to be assailed without a resolute resistance; and the experienced physician ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... over by the church of San Francesco al Prato, just where the Via San Prospero debouches into that green place. Like all Tuscan palaces it was more fortress than house, a dark square box of masonry with a machicollated lid; and separate from it, but appurtenant, had a most grim tower with a slit or two halfway up for all its windows. Here, under the great escutcheon of the Vergiolesi, Cino delivered his missive. The porter took ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... gloomy time, like a feverish, painful dream," prefaced the furious deeds of the 14th of July. Every day witnessed some new outbreak. July was a month of insurrections and murders. The Bastille was assailed by rioters. News came to the King that the ancient fortress had fallen. "Sire," announced the Duke of Orleans to the sleepy Monarch in his bedchamber, ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... on Sveaborg, which place was bombarded by the combined fleets, I venture to think most successfully, and I believe, had we had a force to land, we could have taken possession of that large and important fortress. ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... of sulking before Master Lewie's pride could be sufficiently humbled to admit of his asking in a civil tone for the book; but hunger, which has reduced the defenders of many a strong fortress, at last brought even this obstinate young gentleman to terms. The book was handed him, on being properly asked for, and in a very few minutes the lesson was learned, and recited without a mistake. Lewie evidently expected a vast amount of commendation ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... the sky leaving trails like shooting stars, and now, as he turned to look back, rockets blue and red flared above the horizon from the Fort of Issy, and the Fortress of the North ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... Our Savior Lay" from Luther, and "Christ Is Risen from the Dead" from the Latin. The three hundredth anniversary of the Reformation brought his adaptation of Kingo's "Like the Golden Sun Ascending" and translations of Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" and "The Bells Ring in the Christmastide." In 1820 he published his now popular "A Babe Is Born at Bethlehem" from an old Latin-Danish text, and 1824 saw his splendid rendering of "The Old Day Song," "With Gladness We Hail the Blessed Day," and his original "On Its Rock the Church of ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... not afraid,' he exclaimed, 'of their cannons and their forts; for among the many to whom I have taught the arts of magic (el arte de brujeria) there are fifteen chosen ones, marvelous experts, who by their mystic power will enter the fortress, slay the sentinels, and throw open the gates to our warriors. I shall take the leaves of the sacred tree, and folding them into trumpets, I shall call to the four winds of heaven, and a multitude of fighting men will hasten ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... fortress, and their guns Are shattering its walls; My army plays the cowards' part, and runs, Pierced by a thousand balls; They call for my surrender. I reply, ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... out of the fortified towns beyond the walls—wonderful works of masonry, intact today, like those of Provins, and even here on this hill) that a nation which did not want war should have left unfinished the protection of such a costly fortress? ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... locked and guarded, and all communication between city and palace cut off. Such a proof of unkingly panic, in a crisis wrought by the King himself, astonished him less a few minutes later, when, the keys having been brought and the door opened, he entered the courtyard of the fortress. ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... became audible, like that of the roaring of distant waters. It grew louder and louder; till, from the parapet surrounding the enclosure, the great avenues which led to it might be seen dark with the masses of warriors, who came rolling on in a confused tide towards the fortress. At the same time, the terraces and flat roofs in the neighbourhood were thronged with combatants brandishing their missiles, who seemed to have risen up as if by magic. It was a spectacle to appall ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... glittering Fleur-de-lys Fling out its folds on high From old Dalhousie's* fortress hill, Against the morning sky; And, later, the gleam of an English flag From its cannon-crowned brow,— That flag which, despite the changing years, Floateth proudly ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... hundred miles from the borders of Kent to the Hampshire Downs, extending northward almost to the Thames and leaving only a thin strip of coast which now bears the name of Sussex between its southern edge and the sea. This coast was guarded by a fortress which occupied the spot now called Pevensey, the future landing-place of the Norman Conqueror; and the fall of this fortress of Anderida in 491 established the kingdom of the South-Saxons. "AElle and Cissa beset Anderida," so ran the pitiless record of the conquerors, "and slew all that were ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... description of building which man ever framed for war or for luxury—is here; all having only the common character,—RUIN. The feudal rampart, the yawning fosse, the rude tower, the splendid arch, the strength of a fortress, the magnificence of a palace,—all united, strike upon the soul like the history of a fallen empire in all ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and began to build an elaborate fortress on the nursery floor. The baby lay on his back on a rug by the fire and contemplated his woollen shoe which he slowly dragged off and disdainfully flung away. Then, crowing to himself, he watched his father and the world ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... as it is easy to foresee, that from different causes, and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed; it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... shore of the Northern Sea, where the summer sun never sets, there stood long ago a grim bleak fortress, called the Tower of the North-West Wind. Before it stretched the sea, which thundered ceaselessly at its base, like a wolf that gnaws at the root of some noble oak. On either side of it glittered the blue fiord, dotted with numberless islets, throwing ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... crossed the bridge with a slow, suspicious motion, I withdrew, and hastily rejoined my little party, which was preparing to garrison our fortress in warlike array, but with considerable trepidation, which my presence served in a measure ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... now numbered 2,500 men, with seventeen guns. He encountered the enemy, and scattered them several times. They reached the thickly settled town where each house was a fortress, and with valor equal to anything on record, fought their way to the Residency, where they were rapturously received by ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... low islands which crowd the head of the Gulf; and though this is an inland sea without saltness or tides, it is closed by ice in winter. Seventeen miles to the west is the island of Cronstadt, a great fortress, with naval dockyards and arsenals for the imperial fleet, and with a spacious harbor for ships of commerce. The navigable entrance channel up the Bay of Cronstadt to the mouth of the Neva lies under the south side of Cronstadt, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... defensive war helped to make it stronger. In front of it was the usual system of barbed wire, stretched on iron supports, over a width of fifty yards. Behind the wire was the system of the First Enemy Main Line, from which many communication-trenches ran to the central fortress of the salient, known as the Kern Redoubt, and to the Support or Guard Line. This First Main Line, even now, after countless bombardments and nine months of neglect, is a great and deep trench of immense strength. It is from twelve to fifteen ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing
... our purpose to warrant their quotation here, as the record of the place is so woven into the lives of its bishops, that the brief summary of the ecclesiastics who held the see includes all we need of the history of the city. In this kingdom within a kingdom, a cathedral surrounded by a fortress, its inhabitants were naturally split into factions; the soldiers and the clergy failed to agree, and in spite of the document quoted below, there is little doubt that political rather than climatic reasons led to the removal of the cathedral. Whether, as some writers think, it ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... born in that rugged fortress, whose embattled walls are washed by the majestic Bay of Chesapeake. My father held a captain's commission in the army, and was stationed for many years at this magnificent, insulated bulwark. My father, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... considerable power and brilliant orchestral treatment. Perhaps the finest sections are Vltava (Moldau), celebrating the beauties of Bohemia's sacred river, and Vy[vs]ehrad, a realistic description of the national fortress at Prague.[327] The Quartet in E minor, noted for its freedom and intimacy of style, has become a classic. Whenever it was performed Smetana wished the sub-title "Aus Meinem Leben" to be printed on the program; for, ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... son a brief sketch of his two years' imprisonment. It had not been as bad as it might, for the kindly Othman Pacha had used what interest he possessed to get his friend shut up in a fortress instead of the usual horrible Turkish jail. Still it had been bad enough, and the worst of it, the deep anxiety ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... much will be said in our text, reigned 570-526 B. C. His name, in the hieroglyphic signs, was Aahmes or young moon but the name by which he was commonly called was Sa-Nit "Son of Neith." His name, and pictures of him are to be found on stones in the fortress of Cairo, on a relief in Florence, a statue in the Vatican, on sarcophagi in Stockholm and London, a statue in the Villa Albani and on a little temple of red granite at Leyden. A beautiful bust of gray-wacke in our possession ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sort of half joke but when he found himself rebound, after the trial, and cast with his companions into a solid wooden building with a strong door and no window, which had been erected as a sort of fortress in which to put the women and children in case of attack by the savages, and there provided with maize and water for food and straw for bed, he began to realise the fact that he had indeed fallen into the hands of resolute men and under the power ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... the door of that room when she entered, thinking of it defiantly as her fortress which must be defended. But when weeks grew into months and the enemy never attacked the fortress her vigilance relaxed. She forgot to ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... one did he thus fortify it; but the town is more pleasing so. For if it had no wall or tower, but only the stream that encircles it, it would still be so secure and strong that it would have no fear of the whole world." "God!" said Erec, "what great wealth! Let us go and see the fortress, and we shall take lodging in the town, for I wish to stop here." "Sire," said the other in great distress, "were it not to disappoint you, we should not stop here. In the town there is a dangerous ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... yet the last, to fire a "shot heard round the world." It was not the distance it travelled, but the message it carried which has marked it out above all other human events. It was the character of that message which, claimed the attention of him we this day honor, in the far-off fortress of the now famous Metz; it was because it roused in the listener a sympathetic response that it was destined to link forever the events of Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights, in our Commonwealth, ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... ordered to commence operations as soon as he can. Gillmore is ordered to report at Fortress Monroe by the 18th inst., or as soon thereafter as practicable. Sigel is concentrating now. None will move from their places of rendezvous until I direct, except Banks. I want to be ready to move by the 25th inst., if possible; but all I can now ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... over the hills to the west. About midday I topped a ridge, and beheld the Sound of Sleat shining beneath me. There were other things in the landscape. In the valley on the right a long goods train was crawling on the Mallaig railway. And across the strip of sea, like some fortress of the old gods, rose the dark bastions and turrets of the hills ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... it within the limits of a quarter of an hour. He seeks relief through the lawful channel of rubrical revision, and is only laughed at for his pains. In this busy nineteenth century it is nonsense, he is assured, to spend a dozen years in besieging so obdurate a fortress as the General Convention. The way to secure "shortened services" is to shorten services. This is easy logic, and applicable in more directions than one. Only see how smoothly it runs: If you want hymns that are not in the Hymnal, print them. If ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... remained on the boat that night, debarked the next morning, and in the course of that day (the 28th) took the cars on what was then known as the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad, and went to Murfreesboro, about thirty miles southeast of Nashville. Here we went into camp inside of Fortress Rosecrans, a strong and extensive earthwork built under the direction of Gen. Rosecrans soon after the battle of Murfreesboro, in ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... shares this passion for bright pebbles and empty snail-shells, is the Bower-bird of the insect world; but she is a more practical collector, knows how to combine the useful and the ornamental and employs her finds in the construction of her nest, which is both a fortress and a museum. When she finds nodules of translucent quartz, she rejects everything else: the building will be all the prettier for them. When she comes across a little white shell, she hastens to beautify her dome with it; should fortune ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... last? How long before the Austrian effort will have spent itself?" are the questions that are being asked here as the second week of this great battle is drawing to a close. For, unlike Verdun, it is not a fortress that is being assaulted, but a great drive, carried on by siege methods. Not converging on a single center, but radiating, like sticks of a fan, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... uneasiness on Daisy's account. The deceitful Moors having drawn back from the confederacy, after being hired by the negroes, greatly dispirited the insurgents, who, instead of finding Daisy with a few friends concealed in the strong fortress of Gedingooma, had found him at a town near Joka, in the open country, surrounded by so numerous an army that every attempt to attack him was at once given up; and the confederates only thought of enriching themselves by the plunder of the small towns in the neighbourhood. They accordingly ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... wooing sped, No fortress might resist His billets-doux of lisping lead, The bayonets in his fist,— With kisses from his cannons' mouth He made his passion known Till Vicksburg, vestal of the South, Unbound her ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... officer, and so in marching order, with the lanterns swinging in front and the manacled veterans in the midst, with steady tramp we took ourselves out of the dustheaps and turned backward to the fortress of Bicetre. ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... Wood area, to the right of the two attacks described, the Germans had converted a large mine crater into a fortress of formidable strength, for from this position they could sweep the entire wood with machine guns so placed that the British were powerless to reach them. The "tanks" were of great efficiency in reducing ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... containing many rooms, and rising to the height of two hundred feet. With the exception of the tower, the building was very irregular, and gave the impression of having been erected at different periods. It combined the characteristics of a feudal castle and a fortress. It was old and gray, but by no means a ruin, yet it had a gloomy and forbidding appearance. The ladies looked at each other and hesitated, they did not speak for a few moments; the same idea possessed the mind of each. They thought ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... heat. A mantelpiece had been contrived so as to turn on a swivel and form an opening into a suffocating recess. When the Duchesse and her companions were found their hands were scorched and part of their clothes burnt. She was taken to the fortress of Nantes, and thence transferred to the Castle of Blaze, where she suffered a term of imprisonment. She had acted entirely on her own responsibility, her wild enterprise having being disapproved alike by her father-in-law, Charles X., and her brother ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... difficulty, such as it was, being considerably increased by my own confounded "amour propre," that would not leave me satisfied with obtaining my liberty, if I could not insist upon coming off scathless also. In fact, I was not content to evacuate the fortress, if I were not to march out with all the honours of war. This feeling I neither attempt to palliate nor defend, I merely chronicle it as, are too many of these confessions, a matter of truth, yet not the less a subject ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... for things that are absolutely essential. Neither you, nor Abbe Varesco, nor I, reflected that it will be a bad thing, that the opera will be a failure, in fact, if neither of the principal women appears on the scene until the last minute, but both are kept promenading on the bastion of the fortress. I credit the audience with patience enough for one act, but it would never endure the second. ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... parties, Giron resolved to make a night attack upon the camp of the royalists, confiding in the prediction of some wise old woman, that he was to gain the victory at that place. For this purpose he marched out from his natural fortress at the head of eight hundred foot, six hundred of whom were musqueteers, and the rest pikemen, with only about thirty horse. His negro soldiers, who were about two hundred and fifty in number, joined ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... thus making an oblong corral of the wagons, into which, through a gap, the work oxen were to be driven every night after they had fed. The tents and fires were to be outside of the corral unless in case of an Indian alarm, when the corral would represent a fortress. ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... under the eyes of the French army) the extreme penalty of the law is rarely carried out. The government is satisfied with quietly suppressing people, by shutting them up in a fortress for life. The state prisons are of two sorts, healthy and unhealthy. In the establishment coming within the second category, perpetual seclusion is certain not to ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... as the strength or weakness of a fortress is always measured by the estimate and counterpoise of the forces that attack it —for a man might reasonably enough despise two culverins, that would be a madman to abide a battery of thirty pieces of cannon—where ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the name of Verga[3]. Continuing along the coast, they fell in with another cape, which, in the opinion of all the seamen, was the highest they had ever seen, having a sharp conical height in the middle like a diamond, yet entirely covered with beautiful green trees. After the name of the fortress of Sagres, which was built by the deceased Don Henry on Cape St Vincent, the Portuguese named this point Cape Sagres of Guinea. According to the account of the Sailors, the inhabitants of this coast are idolaters, worshipping wooden images in the shape of men, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... it must be a fortress, as well as a factory: but, at Henry's particular request, he withheld the precise reason. "I'm not to be rattened," said he. "I mean to stop that little game. I'm Ben Bolt, that's bad ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... devil, my good man!" said the clerk, as he entered; "there would not be more formalities in opening the gates of a fortress!" ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... dungeon to poor Rosier's apprehensive mind. It seemed to him of evil omen that the young lady he wished to marry, and whose fastidious father he doubted of his ability to conciliate, should be immured in a kind of domestic fortress, a pile which bore a stern old Roman name, which smelt of historic deeds, of crime and craft and violence, which was mentioned in "Murray" and visited by tourists who looked, on a vague survey, disappointed and depressed, and which had frescoes by Caravaggio in the piano nobile and a row of mutilated ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James |
