"Herculean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and laity men of eminent endowments have arisen who, in ecclesiastical councils, and through the press, have defended evangelical Christianity with a spirit worthy of their Huguenot ancestors. Their task has been herculean. At every point of the horizon infidelity has appeared, and sought to gain a hearing in Paris. Romanism has crippled the advance of truth among the masses. The priesthood enjoy the favor of the government. ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... prisoner stood erect, Carpenter saw that he was a man of herculean proportions and over six feet three or four inches in height. His arms and naked chest were cut, bleeding and bruised, and a bamboo gag was in his mouth; but what at once attracted the captain's attention and sympathy was the ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... gifted man, who has long filled a distinguished place in the service of his sovereign and the eyes of the world, in whose hands the task of regenerating Sardinia, herculean as it may appear, would be not only a labour of love, but facile comparatively with any others on which it may devolve. I speak of General the Count Alberto di Marmora, known to all Europe by his Topographical Survey, and his able work, the Voyage en ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... minute! It was Herculean toil. The men who fitted the rails were cursed the most frequently, because they took time, a few seconds, when there ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... and neighborhoods; it has broken up and scattered Christian churches; it has severed every benevolent society of the land; it has destroyed parties; it broke up the good old Whig party, and more recently sapped the strength and vigor from the Herculean Democracy. It now threatens the dissolution of the Union. Let us crush the head of the monster forever. Let us do it by restricting and defining its limits in ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... to me very forcibly at that moment that to harbour Miss Howard and Alfred Inglethorp under the same roof, and keep the peace between them, was likely to prove a Herculean task, and I did not envy John. I could see by the expression of his face that he fully appreciated the difficulty of the position. For the moment, he sought refuge in retreat, and left ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... Rhytius him obey'd; nor these were all, But others from her hundred cities Crete 795 Sent forth, all whom Idomeneus the brave Commanded, with Meriones in arms Dread as the God of battles blood-imbrued. Nine ships Tlepolemus, Herculean-born, For courage famed and for superior size, 800 Fill'd with his haughty Rhodians. They, in tribes Divided, dwelt distinct. Jelyssus these, Those Lindus, and the rest the shining soil Of white Camirus occupied. Him bore To Hercules, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... the blaze, his feet spread apart, and his hands deep in his pockets, stood the owner of the ranche—Swanson. Cast in a Herculean mold, he stood over six feet tall, his broad shoulders surmounted by a neck like a bull, and his red, cunning face, almost hid from sight by the thick, bushy ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... the prime of life, of florid complexion, rugged habit, short stubbly hair—thick and bristling, that stood close and even on his round, heavy head from a little way above the beetling brows well down upon the bull-like neck which joined but hardly separated the massive head and herculean trunk. This hair, now almost white, had been a yellowish red, a hue which still showed in the eyebrows and in the stiff beard which was allowed to grow beneath the angle of his massive jaw, the rest of his face being clean shaven. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... of crushing a flea on his arm," the sailors of his village used to boast when trying to emphasize the hardness of his biceps. His body lacked fat, and under his swarthy skin bulged great, rigid and protruding muscles—an Herculean texture from which had been eliminated every element incapable of producing strength. Labarta found in him a great resemblance to the marine divinities. He was Neptune before his head had silvered, or Poseidon as the primitive Greek poets had seen ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Dr. Johnson looked steadily at them for a little while; and then, as one would separate two little boys, who were foolishly hurting each other, he ran up to them, and cuffed their heads till he drove them asunder[884]. But few men have his intrepidity, Herculean strength, or presence of mind. Most thieves or robbers would be afraid to encounter ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... known as the Free School, those schools at that time invaluable for colored youth, had not graded studies, systematized, and with such accessories for a fruitful development of the youthful mind as now exist. The teacher of the school, Mr. Kennedy, was an Irishman by birth, and herculean in proportions; erudite and severely positive in enunciation. The motto "Spare the rod and spoil the child" had no place in his curriculum. Alike with the tutors of the deaf and the blind, he was earnest in the belief that learning could be impressively imparted through the sense ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... aufmerksam durchgelesen it [read it through wide awake] und gepruft [and carefully examined it]; nay, he has done all this in company with the translator. 'Oh ye Athenians! how hard do I labor to earn your applause!' And, as the result of such herculean labors, a second time he makes himself surety for its precision; 'er burgt also dafur wie fur seine eigne arbeit' [he guarantees it accordingly as he would his own workmanship]. Were it not for this unlimited certificate, I should have ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... The herculean figure of the headsman arose slowly and tremulously, and while his hand with furtive anxiety sought the hand of the little girl, he asked the stranger in a scarcely audible voice what he required ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... able to defy all the storms of life. What struck strangers most, perhaps, was his dark-red complexion, which gave him the appearance of an Indian chieftain, while his white beard and hair brought the crimson color still more prominently out. In spite of his herculean frame and his strange complexion, his face bore the expression of almost child-like goodness. But the first glance at his eyes proved that the gentle smile on his lips was not to be taken alone. There were flashes in his gray eyes ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... hearth, and a herculean policeman undertook the ascent. In breathless silence the crowd below waited, and, after a few seconds of intense suspense, two helpless legs appeared on the hob. Bit by bit, the rest of the body followed, until, at length, the whole figure of Hartnoll, black, ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... McIntosh, who had lost both his eyes and his right leg while with the Gallipoli Expeditionary Force. I have stated that there are eighty-two signs in Grade II Braille; but Braille shorthand contains six hundred and eighty word and letter signs that have to be committed to memory. A herculean task was before me, but by dogged effort on my part and patience on the part of my instructor, I succeeded so well that in a few weeks I was able to take shorthand notes as speedily as the average sighted stenographer. Meanwhile, ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... under his direct supervision. To busy himself with the smallest details is a distinctive characteristic of the man. Systematic methods, combined with an extraordinary mind, enable him to accomplish his herculean task. In the eastern horizon Li-Hung-Chang shines as the brilliant star of morning that tells of the coming of a ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... National War Work Council of the Y. M. C. A. at New York, was asked to take part in the creation of the machinery necessary for the gigantic piece of work that the organization had been called upon by the President of the United States to do. It was a herculean task; practically impossible with any large degree of efficiency in view of the almost insurmountable obstacles to be contended with. But step by step the imperfect machinery was set up, and it began to function in the home camps. Then the overseas work was introduced by the first troops going to ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... in a barge with the sophomore decorating committee, who wanted a good chance to congratulate and condole with one another over their Herculean labors and ultimate triumph of the day before. The Rich sisters had decided to spend the holiday with an aunt who lived twenty miles down the river; Eleanor had promised early in the fall to go out with a party of horseback riders; and Helen, whose pocketbook ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... soon dressed in these diving suits, as were Captain Nemo and one of his companions—a herculean type who must have been prodigiously strong. All that remained was to encase one's head in its metal sphere. But before proceeding with this operation, I asked the captain for permission to examine the rifles ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... you going?" shouted the man with the lion's mane, pushing back those at the head of the crowd with his herculean arms. ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... present press so heavily on all, but particularly on the working-classes! But while Sir Robert Peel was remodelling the Corn-Laws, and creating a new source of direct revenue, he also undertook another task—a herculean task, one utterly hopeless, and beyond the reach or even conception of any but a Minister conscious of occupying an impregnable position in the confidence of the country: we allude to his reconstruction of our entire commercial system, as represented by his new Tariff. What ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... And place them all in order, rank on rank? Language is weak to tell the heart's deep, wrongs. We think, and muse, and in our endless thought We strive to grasp, with all the mind's vast strength, The undefinable extent of spirit grief, And fail to accomplish the herculean task. ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... of vast learning in textual and philological criticism. Here, however, a new sort of critique was applied to a problem which had but just now been revealed in all its length and breadth. The establishing of the principles of this historical criticism—the so-called Higher Criticism—was the herculean task of the generation following Strauss. To the development of that science another Tuebingen professor, Baur, made permanent contribution. With Strauss himself, sadder than the ruin of his career, was the tragedy of ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... always the pursuit of knowledge. The celestial fruits, the golden apples of the Hesperides, are ever guarded by a hundred-headed dragon which never sleeps, so that it is an Herculean ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... Carl and Krantz, by herculean exertions, dragged her through the mob; she was taken to a small room over the great hall, and laid there until the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... Sorber, I am," said the man. "Sorber, of Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie. And my errand here is to git hold of a chap that's run away from me and my partner. I hear he's in Milton, and I come over from our winter quarters, out o' which we're going to git instanter, ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... absolute confirmation of the prophecies of his opponents. He had, I believe, almost if not altogether, made up his mind that further assistance was impossible. But he looked once again, and appreciated the herculean efforts that his friends George Stephen and Donald Smith were making to avert the ruin of the great enterprise, apparently tottering to its fall. He realized what such a fall would mean to his country, to his party, and to himself; and, summoning all his courage, ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... his property, and, with it, remove to the New Hampshire Grant's, at that time the Eldorado most in vogue among those seeking new countries. Here, having purchased one of the best tracts of land in the place, he commenced the slow and laborious process of clearing up a new farm. And this Herculean task, which may well be considered the work of a man's life, he had, after years of incessant toil and privation, nearly succeeded in accomplishing, and begun to catch glimpses of easier and brighter days; when he was taken away by disease, leaving his property ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... at the folly and frivolousness of his mother's household, but any attempt at change more favorable appeared to him so herculean, that he made scarcely an effort in its behalf. He was conscious that therein lay neglect of duty; they might owe to him what he owed to Mary Selby. Often when he thought of her he bowed his head reverently, and said: I have ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... no, that living spectre Is not my gallant friend. I seek in vain The full cheek's healthful glow, the eye of fire, The martial mein, proud gait, and limbs Herculean! Oh! is that deathlike ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... me: 'I start —to-morrow—next week,' and by making me wait for letters; in short, by throwing me into rages which I alone know! This has brought a frightful disorder into my affairs, for instead of getting my liberty February 15, I have before me a month of herculean labor, and on my brain I must inscribe this which will be contradicted by my heart: 'Think no longer of your star, nor of Dresden, nor of travel; stay at your chain and work miserably! . . . Dear Countess, I decidedly advise you to leave Dresden at once. There are princesses ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... mends; But this is not the best:—look, pr'ythee, Charmian, How this Herculean Roman does become The carriage of ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... they had received as to the colonel's temper and intention. A number of them rushed forward to execute a summary vengeance; and the foremost amongst these, a mechanic of Klosterheim, distinguished for his herculean strength, with one blow stretched Von Aremberg on the ground. A savage yell announced the dreadful fate which impended over the fallen officer. And, spite of the generous exertions made for his protection by Maximilian and his brother students, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... effective blow. They did what they could, however, by hurling their empty pistols into our faces over the heads of their comrades, and I was busily engaged in defending myself from the attack of a herculean negro when one of these heavy missiles struck me, the hammer taking me fairly in the centre of the forehead and so nearly stunning me that for a moment I all but lost consciousness and was completely thrown off my guard. The next second a ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... like a halo on both sides of his cheeks. An infinite mildness and clearness looked out from his dreamy eyes, and a smile of infinite kindness played about his mouth, but so full of sorrow and resignation that it filled one's heart with sadness and his eyes with tears. His tall herculean form was bent and shrunken; age had broken it, but could not take away that noble and dignified expression which distinguished that old man and involuntarily impelled every one to reverence and a sort of adoration. To his friends and admirers this old man seemed a super-terrestrial ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... very quickly; and Simon, who had gone to his bed, distinguished the sound of a kiss and some words that his mother said very softly. Then he suddenly found himself lifted up by the hands of his friend, who, holding him at the length of his herculean ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... restless sea, chugging, hissing with shouts of vengeance hurtling from their decks, First ploughed the flag-ship El Toro, next El Teuera, and last the "battleship" El Manuel, sitting almost on her stern, plugging along doggedly in a Herculean effort to be first in at the death of ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... vainly struggling 'gainst an unrelenting fate. What will be the end, I know not! what will be the doom of Camus? Shall I die disowned, dishonoured? Shall I live, and yet be famous? Backs as strong as oxen have we, legs Herculean and bare, Legs that in the ring with Titan wrestler might to wrestle dare. Arms we have long, straight, and sinewy, Shoulders broad, necks thick and strong, Necks that to the earth-supporting Atlas might full well belong. "But our strength un-scientific strives in ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... however, thought over it, and then decided that Charles must give up smoking. She had discussed the matter with her favourite sister, and that was the only thing the girls could think of. Charles's face fell. He suggested some more Herculean labour, some sacrifice more worthy to lay at Mivanway's feet. But Mivanway had spoken. She might think of some other task, but the smoking prohibition would, in any case, remain. She dismissed the subject with a pretty hauteur that ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... his own hand; now, mounted on horseback, he rode down the line where the dry grass was to be torn up by the roots and soaked with water; now, on foot, he directed the scanty jet from the pipes or, with Herculean strength, flung back into the flames a beam which had fallen beyond the limits he had set. His shrill voice sounded, as his huge height towered, above all others; every eye was fixed on his black face and flashing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... promised performers: La Belle Marie, the famous little toe dancer in her attractive transformations; the Brothers Zincatello, Risley experts at the Hippodrome; Julian Jokes, "in his inimitable Hebrew monologue"; the Seven Sebastians, the world's most marvelous Herculean acrobatic performers; Mlle. Joujou, the popular singing comedienne, Prima Donna and Star, direct from her unusual and most distinguished triumph at the Palace Theater, London; and a dozen more of the younger and more popular people of the stage, all adorned, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... Fingal pervades most of Ossian's poems he is seldom introduced in propria persona. Even when attention is directed to him the poet merely and meagerly sketches the herculean outline, and leaves our ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... and anxious, facing privation here in Richmond with the knowledge that things were going badly at home, sitting long hours in Congress, in the Hall of Delegates, in courts or offices, struggling there with Herculean difficulties, rising to go out and listen to telegrams or to read bulletins. Sons, brothers, kinsmen, and friends ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... manner in which he engages him in conversation and arrests his attention. Nobody, they say, has yet been able to reclaim him, and the prince will deserve to be immortalized in an epic should he accomplish such an Herculean task. I am much afraid, however, that the tables may be turned, and the guide be led away by the pupil, of which, in fact, there ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... monster was determined. Exerting the whole force of his herculean frame, he seized his scarce-resisting victim as he lay, and, lifting him up like a child, flung his own twin-brother head foremost into ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... became aware, as the year advanced towards the sere and yellow leaf, that in opposing her wayward will in single combat against a simple little association in the public mind she was undertaking a somewhat herculean task. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... of bringing about this desired result was certainly within view, and the British army was straining every nerve to avail itself of a unique opportunity. To the humble subaltern, who was but a microscopic atom of that huge British army, this herculean effort partook rather of the nature of burlesque than of serious war. But it was nothing to the burlesque which was shortly to be enacted ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... horsemen, attendants of the Frankish Count who was next to perform the homage, with their lord at their head, set off at full gallop from the right flank of the French squadrons, and arriving before the throne, which was yet empty, they at once halted. The rider at the head of the band was a strong herculean figure, with a decided and stern countenance, though extremely handsome, looking out from thick black curls. His head was surmounted with a barret cap, while his hands, limbs, and feet were covered with garments of chamois leather, over which he in general wore the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to the rickshaws, for they were run by Zulus and charged by the hour. You would climb in, the shafts would go up in the air, until you thought you were going to be tipped out at the back, and a herculean Zulu, decorated with horns and red and white stripes so that he might look like the devil, whom he, in reality, outdevilled, would rest himself on the body of the rick and trot along at a rate of six or seven ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... littleness of the human intellect; for though they often degenerate into incredible absurdities, those who have examined the works of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus have confessed their admiration of the Herculean texture of brain which they exhausted ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... conjugation of verbs, that, instead of finding yourself involved in obscurities and deep intricacies, you will scarcely find an obstruction to impede your progress."—Ib., p. 133. "The supposed Herculean task of learning to conjugate verbs, will be transformed into a few hours of pleasant pastime."—Ib., p. 142. "By examining carefully the conjugation of the verb through this mood, you will find it very easy."—Ib., p. 147. "By pursuing the following ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... as the children put it, to "get even with" the man or woman whose speech offends us. The apostle showed marvelous knowledge of the weakness of sinful mortals when he affirmed that the tongue was an unruly member, for it is easier to perform a herculean feat, to strain physical strength and muscle to the utmost, than to bite back the sharp retort, or repress the acrid reply. And there is such a hopelessness in the sentence once uttered! It is gone from us forever. We may regret it and show our repentance in speech and action, but we cannot ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... to be the oldest of the sisterhood, holds the book close to her eyes, as if from dimness of sight, which fact, contradicted as it is by a frame of obviously Herculean strength, gives a ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... failed in his herculean effort against England. He continued in small ways to annoy and to irritate Elizabeth. He tried— without result—to incite the Catholics of Ireland against the queen. He exhausted his arsenals and his treasures in despairing attempts to equip a second and even a third Armada. But he ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... richness of effect over the whole building, or even to increase the richness towards the top; but this is done so skillfully that no fine work is wasted; and when the spectator ascends to the higher points of the building, which he thought were of the most consummate delicacy, he finds them Herculean in strength and rough-hewn in style, the really delicate work being all put at the base. The general treatment of Romanesque work is to increase the number of arches at the top, which at once enriches and lightens the mass, and to put the finest sculpture of ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... as I have already informed the reader, had been endowed by nature with great corporeal strength; indeed, I have been assured that, at the period of his prime, his figure had denoted the possession of almost Herculean powers. The strongest forms, however, do not always endure the longest, the very excess of the noble and generous juices which they contain being the cause of their premature decay. But, be that as it may, the health of my father, some few years after his retirement from the service ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... present to the craft an encyclopedia of jurisprudence, in which every question that can possibly arise, in the transactions of a Lodge, is decided with an especial reference to its particular circumstances. Were the accomplishment of such an herculean task possible, except after years of intense and unremitting labor, the unwieldy size of the book produced, and the heterogeneous nature of its contents, so far from inviting, would rather tend to distract attention, and the object of communicating a knowledge ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... can see the long hole—puka o Maui—which the demi-god's spear made through the lava beyond the cavern; sufficient evidence of the Herculean strength with which the weapon was driven. Small wonder Kuna so feared a meeting with this outraged son of the goddess he had sought ...
— Legends of Wailuku • Charlotte Hapai
... he got the other hand also through the crack. This effected, he hauled and pushed himself up with his whole force, careless of what might happen to his head. The top of it came bang against the stone, and lifted it so far that he got head and neck through. The thing was done! With one more Herculean lift of his body and the stone together, like a man rising from the dead, he rose from the crypt ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... replaced it, desiring the marine officer to dismiss the guard. I had now an opportunity, as he paced to and fro with the first lieutenant, to examine his appearance. He was a tall, very large-boned, gaunt man, with an enormous breadth of shoulders, displaying Herculean strength (and this we found he eminently possessed). His face was of a size corresponding to his large frame; his features were harsh, his eye piercing, but his nose, although bold, was handsome, and his capacious mouth was furnished ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... closely resembled a grain of corn in shape, size, and appearance. The spectacle of these small insects carrying off these bodies in their powerful jaws impressed one forcibly with the idea that, relatively to its size, an ant is an herculean insect. ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... cursing, two more men came from obscurity with fish dangling from birch twigs. The pudgy man made an obviously herculean struggle and a meal was prepared. As he was drinking his cup of coffee, he suddenly spilled it and swore. The little man ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... torrid zone, with a number of open huts, and a crowd of good-humoured islanders assembled beneath, to greet, in their fashion, the lovely evening, which is fast approaching. Before one of the huts a circle is formed, and in the centre sit two herculean and half-naked natives, beating time most vigorously on small drums. Five similar colossi are seated before them, moving the upper parts of their bodies in the most horrible and violent manner, and more especially the arms, hands, and fingers; the latter they ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... disagreement. Of the latter the principal ones upon which Hooker's formal apologists rely, are the destruction of the Eleventh Corps through Howard's alleged carelessness, and the failure of Sedgwick to perform the herculean task assigned to him in coming to Hooker's support. Allowing, for the moment, that Howard and Sedgwick were entirely at fault, and eliminating these two questions entirely from the issue, let us see what Hooker himself did, bearing in mind that he has officially acknowledged that he knew, ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... man endowed with herculean strength who is compelled by circumstances to follow a sedentary occupation, some minute exquisite work of the hands, for example, or to engage in study and mental labor demanding quite other powers, and just those which he has not got,—compelled, that is, ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... in the very prime of life, a man of a great length of body, with a deep Herculean torso and limbs that advertised a giant strength. His hawk-nosed face ending in a black forked beard was of a swarthiness accentuated to exaggeration by the snowy white turban wound about his brow. His eyes, by contrast, were ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... of Gascoigne's verses spoken by the Herculean porter, as mentioned in the text. The original may be found in the republication of the Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth, by the same author, in the History of Kenilworth ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... after labours herculean, I come to learn something of your Susan Meynell,—more, I come to learn of her marriage. But I will begin at the beginning of things. The labours, the time, the efforts, the courage, the patience, the—I will say it without to blush—the genius which this enterprise ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... the day fixed, and on the determined fourth of July, immediately as my visitors had closed the doors upon me, I disencumbered myself of my irons, took my knife, and began my Herculean labour on the door. The first of the double doors that opened inwards was conquered in less than an hour; the other was a very different task. The lock was soon cut round, but it opened outwards; there was therefore no other means left but to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... spear into the hero's vulnerable back. The blame is to be laid on the tusk of a wild boar. Gunther, being a fool, is remorseful about his oath of blood-brotherhood and about his sister's bereavement, without having the strength of mind to prevent the murder. The three burst into a herculean trio, similar in conception to that of the three conspirators in Un Ballo in Maschera; and the act concludes with a joyous strain heralding the appearance of Siegfried's wedding procession, with strewing of flowers, sacrificing to the ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... the brain that dares to think! Give me the mind that grasps with herculean power the rocks that crush the treasures of intellectual growth, and tears them from their foundation! Give me the mind that dares to step from the fallen stones, that leaps from rock to rock past the dark rift torn in the superstitions of ages past, and that, standing on the farthest ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... brow was ample and deeply furrowed. His eye, large and black, was bold and open like that of a war-horse, and his jaws shut together with the firmness of iron. He was dressed in a suit of Attakapas cottonade, and his shirt unbuttoned and thrown back from the throat and bosom, sailor-wise, showed a herculean breast; hard and grizzled. There was no fierceness or defiance in his look, no harsh ungentleness, no symptom of his unlawful life or violent temper; but rather a peaceful and peaceable fearlessness. Across the ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... the shoulders of four herculean men, appeared at last between the pillars and shone in the auroral light, a long gasp of passion ran through the waiting crowd, and a quiver of joy passed like a breath of wind over all their faces. And ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... remotest bounds, Heathen or faithful;—from thy hundred mouths, That feed the Caspian with Riphean snows, Huge Volga! from famed Hypanis, which once Cradled the Hun; from all the countless realms Between Imaus and that utmost strand Where columns of Herculean rock confront The blown Atlantic; Roman, Goth, and Hun, And Scythian strength of chivalry, that tread The cold Codanian shore, or what far lands Inhospitable drink Cimmerian floods, Franks, Saxons, Suevic, and Sarmartian chiefs, And who from green Armorica ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... point, a drover's boy, a thick-set youth of herculean strength, came forth from the group in which he had been standing unnoticed, and held up toward the window a goose all plucked and impaled on a stout iron spit, decorated with bunches ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... finished his herculean labor in concocting this extraordinary playbill, he leaned back in his chair and read and reread it over and over again, to assure himself it was all right. Then with the consciousness that he had done his duty, he lay down to rest for a few hours to recuperate before he again ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... maintained, the unsuccessful were received at the Rock, as if they had returned from a victory. The garrison beheld with admiration the wonderful efforts which were made to meet a still more formidable foe. Every day marked the progress of the Herculean labours in preparation for that event; the exertions, zeal, and intrepidity of Sir James's officers and crews increased in proportion to the multiplied force of the enemy, which, to men of any other cast, would ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... Unobserved, they received, and made their own preparations for utilising, the legacy of the mid-Victorian novel—moral thesis, plot, underplot, set characters, descriptive machinery, landscape colouring, copious phraseology, Herculean proportions, and the rest of the cumbrous and grandiose paraphernalia of Chuzzlewit, Pendennis, and Middlemarch. But they received the legacy in a totally different spirit. Mark Rutherford, after a very brief experiment, put all these elaborate properties and ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... resumed their Herculean efforts till the water came, and then they got into the wagon, and we drove into the blackberries once more, where we arrived just in season to escape a thunder—shower, and pile merrily into one of several coaches waiting to convey passengers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... such neither could doubt. The guide, gifted with herculean strength, had tried to move the stone on discovering how it lay. With his feet firmly planted in the projections below, and his shoulder to the rock above, he had given a heave that would have lifted a loaded ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... altered at all in the year and a quarter, and with his herculean shoulders and powerful head, his fair hair, blushed into a great tuft above his forehead, only just beginning to turn gray, he was still the very type and picture of ripe manhood ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... the Duke had not been difficult, but this letter seemed to be an Herculean task. It was made infinitely more difficult by the fact that Lady Cantrip had not seemed to think that this marriage was impossible. "Young people when they have set their minds upon it do so generally prevail at last!" These had been her words, and they ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... and the Herculean nature of their task became more and more apparent they fell to grumbling, and to quarrelling among themselves, so that to the other dangers were now added ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of these things moved" the Negro. Undismayed he bowed to his herculean task with a complacency and courage worthy of any race or age of the world's history. The small encouragement that came to him from the conscientious minority of white men and women was as refreshing as the cool ocean breeze at even-tide to the feverish ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... five feet tall. His legs were merely blocks, fully as great in diameter as they were in length, supporting a torso of Herculean dimensions. His arms were as large as a strong man's thigh and hung almost to the floor. His astounding shoulders, fully a yard across, merged into and supported an enormous head. The being possessed recognizable nose, ears, and mouth; ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... fatherland she left a son of the same mettle as herself, Giovanni Medici, the last of the great condottieri of the country, who became famous as leader of the Black Bands. There is a seated figure in marble of this captain, of herculean strength, with the neck of a centaur, near the church ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... generally, all bills relating to the treasury department, and to the finances of the government. It was soon manifest that, in view of the war, and the enormous sums required to conduct it, the task of the committee would be a Herculean one, and that the labor required would fall chiefly on Mr. Fessenden, the chairman of the committee, and, I may with due modesty add, myself. My former position in the House of Representatives, as chairman of the committee of ways and means, and my personal association with ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... electric shock, the man jumped up, and, throwing one single glance at the sailor, he gave a yell and leaped right in the midst of the vagabonds, and with herculean power he knocked down all who were near ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... of this year I enjoyed another lecturing tour with him through Canada and the West. The lecture bureau that arranged his tours must have counted on his herculean strength, for frequently he had to travel twenty-four hours at a stretch to keep his engagements. Occasionally he was paid in cash at the end of the lecture an amount fixed by the lecture bureau. I have seen him with perhaps $2,000 in bills and gold stuffed ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... flesh, and in its warmth of color. He gazed upon it long and fixedly, estimated the prodigious labor that had been bestowed upon it, and, not being able to find any recompense sufficiently great for this Herculean effort, he passed his arm round the painter's neck and embraced him. The surintendant, by this action, had utterly ruined a suit of clothes worth a thousand pistoles, but he had satisfied, more than satisfied, Lebrun. It was a happy moment for the artist; it was an unhappy ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and seeking personal leisure after many years of hard work. He instructed his agent to keep his income from growing into more capital by rendering wise assistance to all worthy charities and individuals, and this, as you may suppose, the Major found a herculean task. Often he denounced Uncle John for refusing to advise him, claiming that the millionaire had selfishly thrust the burden of his wealth on the Major's broad shoulders. While there was an element of ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... both of Nepaulese men and manners, in their native country, and we looked with no little interest upon the first specimens we had seen of the Newar race—the aborigines of Nepaul. Short and compact, the full development of their muscle bore evidence to their almost Herculean strength. Their flat noses, high cheek-bones, small eyes, and copper-coloured complexion are unequivocal signs of a Mongolian origin, whilst the calves of their legs, which I never saw equalled in size, indicate the mountainous character of ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... book." It is intended, however, that the Science of Society shall be, at some time in the future, completed, and in such form as shall give to the world the fruits of Professor Sumner's intellectual power, clarity of vision, and truly herculean industry. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... lips a little figure scrambled up the ladder, a blanket in her arms. Polly had seen all and had not waited for orders. Gym work back in Annapolis stood in good stead at that moment. Shelby flung the blanket about Tzaritza's sizzling fur, smothered out the flame, then by some herculean mustering of strength, caught the huge dog in his arms and crawled step by step down the ladder from which Polly had quickly scrambled. A dozen hands lent aid and poor burned Tzaritza was carried to the stables, Peggy and Polly close beside her. Others ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... chiefly constituted the importance of Pix in the eyes of the community were the Herculean porters under his command. When these men rolled mighty casks about, and lifted hundred weights like pounds, they seemed to the new apprentice like the giants of fairy lore. Some of them belonged to ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... peer. The ambitious drudge preferr'd, postilion rides, Advanced again, the chair benighted guides; Here doom'd, if Nature strung his sinewy frame, The slave, perhaps, of some insatiate dame; But if, exempted from the Herculean toil, A fairer field awaits him, rich with spoil, There shall he shine, with mingling honours bright, His master's pathic, pimp, and parasite; 80 Then strut a captain, if his wish be war, And grasp, in hope, a truncheon and ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... to the welfare of the citizens, it will be readily seen how women engaged in reforms, public charities, social enterprises, are hampered and trammeled in their progress without the ballot. Women have beheld their plans frustrated, their Herculean labor undone, their lives wasted, for want of legislative power through the citizen's emblem ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... who, half sceptic, half afraid of wrong, Shall walk our streets, and mark the passing throng; The brawny oaf in mould herculean cast, The pigmy statesman trembling in his blast, The cumb'rous citizen of portly paunch, Unwont to soar beyond the smoaking haunch; The meagre bard behind the moving tun, His shadow seeming lengthen'd ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... movement, and his exertions to defeat its object became, considering the loss of blood he had sustained from his wounds, almost Herculean. He now stood on the extreme verge of the precipice, where he paused for a moment as if utterly exhausted with his previous efforts. De Courcy was now within a few feet of his unhappy friend, who still struggled ineffectually to ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Landor held firm, and of his beloved Chaucer he said: "I will have no hand in breaking his dun, but rich-painted glass, to put in thinner (if clearer) panes." A great deal of correspondence ensued in connection with this Herculean labor, most of which is of less interest to the general reader than it might well be ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting |
