"Heroic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vie, With ether vested, and a purple sky; The blissful seats of happy souls below. Stars of their own, and their own suns, they know; Their airy limbs in sports they exercise, And on the green contend the wrestler's prize. Some in heroic verse divinely sing; Others in artful measures led the ring. The Thracian bard, surrounded by the rest, There stands conspicuous in his flowing vest; His flying fingers, and harmonious quill, Strikes sev'n distinguish'd notes, and sev'n at once they ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... rich and circumstantial as that of men of the greatest eminence who have lived in modern times. Granted that the imagination which for centuries followed with eager interest the lives of these heroes, beheld as gigantic what was not so, as romantic and heroic what was neither one nor the other, still the great fact remains, that it was beside and in connection with the mounds and cairns that this history was elaborated, and elaborated concerning them and concerning the heroes ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... badly healed wound, from water on the chest, degeneration of the heart, and gout in the limbs, dropsical, enfeebled, broken down into an old man before his time, Alexander still confronted disease and death with as heroic a front as he had ever manifested in the field to embattled Hollanders and Englishmen, or to the still more formidable array of learned pedants and diplomatists in the hall of negotiation. This ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... this part of the story is impossible, because Hjalti is represented as killing a dead monster, and Hrolf, although he perceives the deception that has been practiced, nevertheless gives the swindler the heroic name Hjalti.[73] Panzer is also inclined to make much of Hjalti's asking for, and receiving, the king's sword, as he mentions the matter twice. Once he says, "Warum er des Knigs Schwert verlangt, gibt die Saga nicht an, er 'ttet' damit ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... Nine heroic Kuru chieftains, bravest warriors and the best, Leagued they came to grapple Arjun and on faithful ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... by brave and crafty Bohemond, Prince of Tarentum. In the host of Crusaders from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, England, and even far-off Ireland, were many renowned princes, prelates, and nobles: Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, the Pope's legate; Robert, Duke of Normandy, the heroic and reckless son of William the Conqueror; Count Robert of Paris, wild and ferocious; the gallant Count of Flanders; Stephen of Blois, Count of Chartres; and the pure and ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... III. as our heroic type of Franchise. And yet I have but a minute ago spoken of him as 'failing' in quite your modern manner. I must correct my expression:—he had no intent of failing when he borrowed; and did not spend his money on himself. Nevertheless, ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... types. No creative artist ever repeated himself more brazenly or more successfully than Balzac. His miser, his vicious delightful actress, his vicious delightful duchess, his young man-about-town, his virtuous young man, his heroic weeping virgin, his angelic wife and mother, his poor relation, and his faithful stupid servant—each is continually popping up with a new name in the Human Comedy. A similar phenomenon, as Frank Harris has proved, is to be observed in Shakspere. ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... down on the sofa. The breaking-up of her short hour of happiness had been too sudden, too abrupt, and too cruelly brought about for a fondly doting, although heroic woman. There was an evident malignity in the words and manner of the one-eyed messenger, an appearance as if he knew more than others, which awed and confused both Philip and herself. Amine wept not, but she covered her face with her ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... Gunter, King of Burgundy, was probably a real personage of the troubled times with which his name is associated—a period distinguished as much for heroic characters as for tragic events. Gunther represents the best type of kinghood of his age; a man swayed by his affections rather than by ambition, who scrupled at misdeeds, yet yielded to the mastering passions of love; one whose instincts were loyalty ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... ball in Canton's possession again the relentless pound, pound, pound against Trumbull's line began anew. Despite heroic attempts of Trumbull linesmen to stop the advance, the heavier Canton line pushed and shoved and forced its way through, making a path for the seemingly tireless Drake who had been nicknamed "Mud Scow" by an ingenious Canton ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... will win anybody, and that is exactly the kind of service that the boys of the American army, your boys, are getting all over France from big, heroic, unprejudiced, fatherly, brotherly men, who are willing to die for their boys as well as to live for them and with them down where the shells are thickest ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... against Dionysius was nothing equal with that against Caesar. For none that was familiarly conversant with Dionysius but scorned him for his life of idle amusement with wine, women, and dice; whereas it required an heroic soul and a truly intrepid and unquailing spirit so much as to entertain the thought of crushing Caesar so formidable for his ability, his power, and his fortune, whose very name disturbed the slumbers of the Parthian and Indian ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the general impression. And indeed except these unconquerable spirits, Marion and Sumter, with a few others of the same heroic stamp, who kept the field, Carolina was no better ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... '97, the year of Camperdown and Cape St. Vincent. It seemed it was a tradition in the family to wind up with a belated girl. In 1804, at the age of sixty, Gilbert met an end that might be called heroic. He was due home from market any time from eight at night till five in the morning, and in any condition from the quarrelsome to the speechless, for he maintained to that age the goodly customs of the Scots farmer. It was known on this occasion that he had a good bit of money to bring home; ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... however, their advance had been checked, and now, before going any farther, let me explain that this is known now as the Third Battle of Ypres, and the history is familiar to all. It was here that the 1st Division of Canadians made their heroic stand in 1915, just one year previous. But to come back to our present plight. We were at a loss to know what to do, for we had no means of knowing how far the Germans had penetrated our lines; but we knew that if their first wave of reinforcements ever came up, they would ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... and throwing off the stays which restrained it, merely exposes its deformities without remedying them; so that there is nothing for the old generation but to remain in stays. Mrs. Caldwell, with all her deformities, was just as heroic as she knew how to be. She lived for her children to the extent of denying herself the bare necessaries of life for them; and bore poverty and obscurity of a galling kind without a murmur. She scarcely ever ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... general by the graphic account of your splendid appearance and astounding performance of the arduous character of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, induces Mr. W.C. Macready to make you an offer of engagement for the performance of Shakspere's heroic functionary in the forthcoming revival of Richard the Third, which is about to be produced under his classic management at the Theatre Royal Drury-lane, Mr. W.C. Macready offers to replace the breeches if ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the first period his battle with Ahriman would begin, armed himself, and created for his aid the whole shining host of heaven,—sun, moon, and stars,—mighty beings of light, wholly submissive to him. First he created "the heroic runner, who never dies, the sun," and made him king and ruler of the material world. From Albordj he sets out on his course, he circles the earth in the highest spheres of heaven, and at evening returns. Then he created the moon, which "has its own ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... 8th Regiment was one of these colored units which henceforth will be referred to whenever the heroic deeds of this war are mentioned. The Prussian guards gave them a name which tells us of the respect and fear they inspired. They were "The Black Devils." The guards were seasoned veterans who had participated in the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... outrage and depredation. A few instances have occurred of such depredations upon our merchant vessels by privateers or pirates wearing the Grecian flag, but without real authority from the Greek or any other Government. The heroic struggles of the Greeks themselves, in which our warmest sympathies as free men and Christians have been engaged, have continued to be maintained with vicissitudes ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams
... force, led by its heroic generals, rushed forward, crossed the river and joined in the charge. The two thousand Southern cavalry were driven off by a fire that no horsemen could withstand. The division of Breckinridge, although fighting with furious courage, was gradually driven back, and the day closed with the ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... seafaring man. Next, came an ominous, creepy sensation. Agatha had committed bigamy. He remembered Enoch Arden, read aloud to the class by the teacher in the old schoolhouse, and began to think of himself as a hero. He would do the heroic. By George, he would. He would sneak away and get the first train for ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... unfortunate traveller who happens to offend one, and leave nothing of him but his bones and the indigestible portions of his clothing. And over all he cast the glamour of his fancy, as if it had been the red light of the prairie sunsets; in it he appeared transfigured, a half-mythical personage, heroic, if not indeed divine. The whole of it had appeared word for word in the pages of ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... that brought to the eyes of the sympathetic girl the sting of tears as well as bubbling laughter to her lips. And in it all she found something almost heroic as well ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... and naval authorities, considering what is best for our own security, we are free to decide how much should be kept here and how much should be sent abroad to our friends who by their determined and heroic resistance are giving us time in which to make ready our ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... fixed on vacancy, and his lips would move as if unconsciously, and form the fatal words of inquiry which never received an answer. Sometimes he took Alice for Ellen, and kneeling at her feet he, would implore her pardon, and curse and upbraid himself as her murderer and destroyer. With heroic patience, but with a sickening heart and a shuddering frame she listened to these ravings, and met his wild and involuntary confessions with a silent appeal to Heaven for mercy for him, ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... and he knew his excellent parent always liked to finish the tale of her own wedding-day when she began it—as she often did. So he listened again to the story of the wedding, which was celebrated in the severest thunderstorm experienced in these islands since the days of Queen Elizabeth, by a heroic clergyman who was suffering from pleuro-pneumonia, which made his voice inaudible till a miraculous chance produced one of Squilby's cough lozenges (which are not to be had now for love or money), and cured him ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... from nature" at the very moment when Scott was wedding nature with romance. How generously and wisely he admired her is familiar, and it may, to some, seem curious that he never deliberately set himself to a picture of ordinary life, free from the intrusion of the unusual, of the heroic. Once, looking down at the village which lies on the Tweed, opposite Melrose, he remarked that under its roofs tragedies and tales were doubtless being lived. 'I undertake to say there is some real romance at ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... be done at school. The term-end examinations were due, and Miss Mitchell, who had been rather disappointed with Christmas results, was urging everybody to make heroic efforts. Mavis and Merle had missed much on account of the mumps, and when they attempted some revision they were absolutely appalled at the amount that had to be made up. They did their most creditable best, and toiled over text-books till heads ached. On the evening before the first examination ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... brave and strong, Maryland, my Maryland! Drum forth to balance right and wrong, Maryland, my Maryland! Drum to thy old heroic song, When forth to fight went Freedom's throng. And bore the spangled flag ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... civilization. There were three families besides that of Boone, and numbered in all twenty-six men, four women, and four or five boys and girls of various ages. Daniel Boone was the happy leader of this heroic little band. ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... course; the Varuna, however, was no longer in ignorance. Finding that the height of the Moore's forecastle out of water and the position of the bow gun would not let it be depressed enough to fire with effect, Kennon resorted to the old-time heroic treatment for such defects; loading the gun with percussion shell he fired it through the bows of his own ship, and used the hole thus made for a port. The next shot raked the Varuna's deck, killing three and ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... Master's return to Judea. "The Jews will kill him; he will go back to certain death," he said. But Thomas would not forsake Jesus, though he was going straight to martyrdom. "Let us also go, that we may die with him." Thus, mingled with his fear, was a noble and heroic love for Jesus. The hopelessness of Thomas as he thought of Jesus going to Bethany makes his devotion and his cleaving to him all the braver and nobler. He was sure it was a walk to death, but he ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... Paladin, breaking in with an air of disdain; "the way you people talk, a person would think there's something heroic about standing up and facing down that poor remnant of a man. Why, it's nothing! There's small glory to be got in facing him down, I should say. Why, I wouldn't want any better fun than to face down a hundred like him. If he was to come along here ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... salaried officials were at a loss to know what to do, and proposed to resign. But the headman brought the prisoners together before the whole body of officials. He spoke of the sufferings of the troops in Manchuria and the heroic deaths among them. (It was the time of the Russian war.) 'Lest your offences should come to be known by our soldiers and discourage them,' said the headman, 'I cannot but overlook your conduct.' It is thought that gambling practically ceased from ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... that the idea of God is immanent in human nature invalidated by the fact "that many millions in the most cultivated nations, and among them the most eminent and lucid thinkers, have not the consciousness of a personal God; those millions of whom the heroic ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... drew near the creek he began to look about him. He at once recognized the surroundings and made a heroic effort to control himself. When we swung into the clearing there was nothing in his appearance to denote the terrible ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... smile she replied, "No, no. On the contrary, my husband has asked me to tell you that he is very sorry not to be able to thank you personally for your heroic behaviour. He hopes to be able to do so later on. He has been ordered to go to Lahore in great haste and for an indefinite period. There was not time for him to see you, in ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... said, annoyed not only at my own clumsiness but at the absence of anything of Anne's old heroic spirit. "For his sake, at least, you must keep your head. Why, my dear woman, one look at your face, grown as desperate as it sometimes appears now, would ruin Julian with the whole world. Even I, knowing the whole story, would find it hard to forgive him if you should fail to continue ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... of almost hopeless struggle, lifted the yoke of Spanish misrule from New Granada and proclaimed the Republic of Colombia. Cartagena was the first city of Colombia to declare its independence from Spain. And in the great war which followed the "Heroic City" passed through terrible vicissitudes, emerging from it still further depleted and sunken, a shell of massive walls and battered defenses, with desolated homes and empty streets echoing the tread of the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... poet, would that thou hadst some chanson or courtly compliment to chase the cloud which hovers on the brow of our much-loved daughter of Austria! Your popularity, sir," continued the Grand Duke, dropping his mock heroic vein and speaking in a much lower tone, "your popularity, sir, among the ladies of the Court, cannot be increased by any panegyric of mine; nor am I insensible, believe me, to the assiduity and skill with which you have complied with my wishes in ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... night of June 22nd the defenders of St. Elmo, having now lost all hope of being supported, made ready for death. Into them La Valette had breathed his own heroic spirit, and none among them counselled or dreamed of surrender. The Order to which they had given their allegiance now demanded of them the last sacrifice which it was in their power to make, and this was offered in the manner most fitting to its tenets. ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... taught his son one other great thing; that was America. America was Samuel's country, the land where his fathers had died. It was a land set apart from all others, for the working out of a high and wonderful destiny. It was the land of Liberty. For this whole armies of heroic men had poured out their heart's blood; and their dream was embodied in institutions which were almost as sacred as the Book itself. Samuel learned hymns which dealt with these things, and he heard great speeches about them; every ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... Saint Gaudens was right in his contention that the proper place for his equestrian statue of General Sherman was on the Riverside Drive by Grant's Tomb, without that gilded bronze figure of heroic size and the Winged Victory leading before, the Plaza would not be quite the Plaza. Obscured as it is in these days by the vast scaffolding, there is no true son of Manhattan who passes the corner on his way up the Avenue, or enters Central Park, who does ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... was that encouraged him, Captain Anthony stuck to Flora de Barral in a manner which in a timid man might have been called heroic if it had not been so simple. Whether policy, diplomacy, simplicity, or just inspiration, he kept up his talk, rather deliberate, with very few pauses. Then suddenly ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... Zeus is called in "Phaedros" [Greek: philios], the maker of friendships. Plato, in propounding this doctrine, drew thereby the most radical conclusion of the new, apparently male, but at heart hermaphroditic ideal of civilisation, conceived in the heroic epoch and elaborated and brought to perfection by the Greek of classical times. This ideal was the victory of the spiritual principle over promiscuous sexuality and irresponsible propagation and, quite in the true Hellenic spirit, ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... proceed, less than a brief seven seeming insufficient, and more, superfluous; again, so mystical a number has a staid propriety, and a due double climax of rise and fall. Now, as to our adjective "classical:" Why not, in heroic drama, have something a-kin to the old Greek chorus, with its running comment upon motives and moralities, somewhat as the mighty-master has set forth in his truly patriotic 'Henry the Fifth?'—However, taking other grounds, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... and a large stately portrait of Captain Coram, and others, all excellent in proportion as they come near to ordinary life, and are wrought out through its forms. All English painters resemble Hogarth in this respect. They cannot paint anything high, heroic, and ideal, and their attempts in that direction are wearisome to look at; but they sometimes produce good effects by means of awkward figures in ill-made coats and small-clothes, and hard, coarse-complexioned faces, such as they might see anywhere in the street. ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... man who employed a spade to uproot a rock. It wants blasting. Your married clergy and merchandized aristocracy are coils: they are the ivy about your social tree: you would resemble Laocoon in the throes, if one could imagine you anything of a heroic figure. Forward.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... can be different evil habits about one same object; for instance, intemperance and insensibility about matters of concupiscence: and in like manner there can be several good habits; for instance, human virtue and heroic or godlike virtue, as the Philosopher clearly states (Ethic. vii, 1). Therefore, habits are not divided into good ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... appointed, and Genet entered the city, amid the acclamations of an excited populace, with all the pomp of a conqueror. "Addresses were made to him," says Mr. Irving, "expressing devoted attachment to the French republic, and abjuring all neutrality in regard to its heroic struggle. 'The cause of France is the cause of America,' cried the enthusiasts; 'it is time to distinguish its friends from its foes.' Genet looked around him. The tri-colored cockade figured in the hats of the shouting multitude; tri-colored ribbons fluttered ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... year 1016, after the weak and wicked reign of the besotted Ethelred, justly surnamed the Unready, who to his cowardice in paying tribute added the cruelty of a wholesale massacre on St. Brice's Eve—since called the Danish St. Bartholomew—the heroic Edmund Ironsides could not stay the storm, but was content to divide the kingdom with Knud (Canute) the Great. Literary efforts were at an end. For twenty-two years the Danish kings sat upon the throne of all England; ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... old favorites in the field of what is known as historical fiction, there are none which appeal to a larger number of Americans than Horseshoe Robinson, and this because it is the only story which depicts with fidelity to the facts the heroic efforts of the colonists in South Carolina to defend their homes against the brutal oppression of the British under such leaders as Cornwallis ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... a prince, heroic from misfortunes, and descended from a line of kings, whose race seemed to be doomed like the Atridae of old—would you know how he was employed, when the envoy who came to him through danger and difficulty beheld him for the first time? The young king, in a ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 2d of May, 1808, is one of the great days in the annals of Spain. Out of loyalty to the royal family, an insurrection of the populace of Madrid took place, which was put down by the French only after the most desperate and heroic ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... only the success of a moment. The handful of heroic men who had reached the Federal guns could not hope to hold them. They ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... Dick in his ardor, as he saw the Southern line yielding. But the victory was not yet achieved. Crittenden, who was really Zollicoffer's superior in the command, displayed the most heroic courage throughout the battle. He brought up fresh troops to help his weakened center. He reformed his lines and was about to restore the battle, but Thomas, silent and ever watchful, now rushed in a brigade of Tennessee mountaineers, and as they struck with all ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... prosy, treated with fancy it becomes ridiculous. Vergil saw the one possible avenue to epic greatness. He went back into the legendary past where imagination could have free play, linked together the great heroic sagas of Greece with the scanty materials presented by the prehistoric legends of Rome, and kindled the whole work to life by his rich historical imagination and his sense of the grandeur of the Rome that was to be. His unerring choice of subject and his brilliant ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... Wilfer. ''Twere unjust to visit upon Mr and Mrs Boffin, a calamity which was doubtless a dispensation.' These words were rendered the more effective by a serenely heroic ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... The heroic deeds of Highlanders, both in these islands and elsewhere, have been told in verse and prose, and not more often, nor more loudly, than they deserve. But we must remember, now and then, that there have been heroes ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... heroic prose, And ridicules beyond a hundred foes: 110 One from all Grub-street will my fame defend, And, more abusive, calls himself my friend. This prints my letters, that expects a bribe, And others roar ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... to supply them. However, boarding was such a terrible threat, that Eleanor, dismayed at the idea of leaving that little room, waiting at the top of the house, with its ducks and shepherdesses; and thinking, too, of a whole tableful of people who would talk to Maurice! made heroic efforts to help Hannah, her mind fumbling over recipes and ingredients, as her hands fumbled over dishes and oven doors and dampers. She only succeeded in burning her wrist badly, and making the deaf Hannah say she didn't want a lady ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... to Jamaica, where I had planned to go, instead of engaging that mock-heroic odyssey—there, among palm trees, in an eternal spring, there would have been no need that she ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... professional critics,—how can it be worth our while to waste our imaginations, our sympathies, and our time upon such a one as Ralph, the heir of the Newton property? The writer, acknowledging the force of these objections, and confessing that his young heroes of romance are but seldom heroic, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... springs in some degree from dulness. We require higher tasks, because we do not recognise the height of those we have. Trying to be kind and honest seems an affair too simple and too inconsequential for gentlemen of our heroic mould; we had rather set ourselves to something bold, arduous, and conclusive; we had rather found a schism or suppress a heresy, cut off a hand or mortify an appetite. But the task before us, which is to ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... endurance prepares men for new emergencies. We have little enough reason to be sure that in the discussions awaiting us we shall do as well as our predecessors in theirs. Remembering their endurance of mental pain, their ardour in mental labour, the heroic temper and the high sincerity of controversialists on either side, we may well speak of our fathers in such words of modesty and self-judgment as Drayton used when he sang the victors of Agincourt. The ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... One of these was Sister Juana de Jesus, a native of the village of Binangonan de Lampon, [142] an oblate nun of our order, who elevated herself with the steps of a giant, even to the greatest and most complete purification of her spirit, by her abstraction from worldly affairs, by her heroic practice of all the virtues, by her fervent daily communion, and by the most lofty contemplation and the most clear vision that God vouchsafed her of the mysteries of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... the hand with which he was signalling to the sommelier. This flushed and garrulous Nelson moved her more poignantly than a more heroic figure. "No more champagne, please, Nelson. Besides," she suddenly added, ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... is assuredly a great, a very great work. Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers. He has no second. He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not worth ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... this notable spectacle of our public death, its forms and symptoms; and, seeing I could not hinder it, am content to be destined to assist in it, and thereby to instruct myself." I shall not suggest a consolation of that sort to most people; the greater part of mankind does not possess the heroic and eager curiosity of Empedocles and the elder Pliny, the two intrepid men who went straight to the volcanoes and the disturbances of nature to examine them at close quarters, at the risk of destruction and death. But ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... decorated this young sergeant with the order of Vladimir—one of the rarest decorations in all Russia. I am told that not over six living men possess it to-day. It was a beautiful thing for the Tzar thus to recognize this heroic deed. ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... take a good deal to convince Davis or any of these station men that there was anything heroic in their lives," he said. "As for Captain Eri, I have known him only a month or two, but I don't know of anyone to whom I would rather go ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... men, with no refuge but at the end of the journey, carrying relief and cheer to 275 distressed citizens of our country, all make another glorious page in the history of American seamen. They reflect by their heroic and gallant struggles the highest credit upon themselves and the Government which they faithfully served. I commend this heroic crew to the grateful consideration of ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... he spoke like a disappointed man. "Had there been sufficient water the ship might have been scuttled, and the launch would have floated off the deck; but as it is, we should lose the vessel without a sufficient object. It would appear heroic were you and I to contrive to get on the reef, and to proceed to the shore with a view to make terms with the Arabs; but there could be no real use in it, as the treachery of their character is too well established to look for any ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... the devotion of a sister of Charity, and the execution of the brothers Fauchet, over M. d'Arlincourt's Ipsiboe, Lewis' Anaconda, or the escape of La Valette, or the presence of mind of a lady friend who put burglars to flight by imitating a man's voice. Everything was heroic, extraordinary, strange, wonderful, and divine. She would work herself into a state of excitement, indignation, or depression; she soared to heaven, and sank again, gazed at the sky, or looked to earth; her eyes were always filled ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... the state of Europe generally, dwelling on the ominous combination of Roman Catholic interests everywhere, and the perils to the Protestant Cause from the disputes among the Protestant Powers, and especially from the hostility of the Danes and the Dutch to the heroic King of Sweden, who had "adventured his all against the Popish Interest In Poland." It declared the vital concern of Great Britain in all this, if only because an invasion of Great Britain in behalf of the Stuarts was a settled part of the Anti-Protestant programme. "You have accounted ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... previously, and Mabruki and Gardner, Nassick boys hired in 1866. We shall see that the new comers by degrees became accustomed to the hardships of travel, and shared with the old servants all the danger of the last heroic march home. Nor must we forget that it was to the intelligence and superior education of Jacob Wainwright (whom we now meet with for the first time) that we were indebted for the earliest account of the eventful eighteen months during which he ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... will influence the whole future course of human events, or a novel that will alter dynasties and change social systems; or he decides to become a powerful political leader, or the silver-tongued orator of the times. Thwarted youth may aspire to become the world's greatest rebel, or the most heroic victim of despotic authority. Even in rebellion youth aspires to conquer the heights, though it be through the depths. A boy finds consolation in planning to become the world's greatest hero or martyr when he is thwarted in becoming an epoch-making ...
— Women As Sex Vendors - or, Why Women Are Conservative (Being a View of the Economic - Status of Woman) • R. B. Tobias
... extracting, very quietly, a little subjective joy from the state of his heart. He would let the flower bloom for a day before plucking it up by the roots. Upon this latter course he was perfectly resolved, and in view of such an heroic resolution the subjective interlude appeared no more than his just privilege. The project of leaving Blanquais-les-Galets at nine o'clock in the morning dropped lightly from his mind, making no noise as it fell; but another took its place, which had an air of ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... thinking? Of some fair home set upon the downs across the sea, of some heroic English mother who had kept her tears until he was gone? Her image rose in dumb entreaty, invoked by the lad before me. What a picture was he in his spotless shirt with the ruffles, his handsome boyish face all that was good ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... talk turned on furniture for the cottage Gwendolen was not roused to show even a languid interest. She thought that she had done as much as could be expected of her this morning, and indeed felt at an heroic pitch in keeping to herself the struggle that was going on within her. The recoil of her mind from the only definite prospect allowed her, was stronger than even she had imagined beforehand. The idea of presenting herself before Mrs. Mompert in the first ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... take this farewell just as it was offered. "Does truth sound bitter, as one at first believes?" Somewhat puzzling to her, it may be, that very philosophical reflection! . . . This has been called a noble, tender, an heroic, song of loss. For me there lurks a smile in it. I do not say that the smile makes the dismissal explicable; rather I a little wonder how she could have sent him away. But is it certain that she will not call him back, as she called the ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... at self-government. But it was a play that at times approached dangerously near to the tragic. The passions of this Latin offshoot were strong, if their minds were dull and lethargic, and when aroused were capable of the most despicable, as well as the most grandly heroic deeds. And in the present instance, when the fleeting sense of the absurd passed, Jose knew that he was facing a crisis. Something told him that resistance now would be useless. True, Rosendo might have opposed arrest ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... sharp alternation of mood, tempestuous and tender, of Florestan and Eusebius. The lyric phase yields to the former heroic fantasy and then returns in soothing solace into a prevailing motive that harks back to the second of the beginning movement. The fantasy, ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... a professed student. Douglas Hyde, though always at work, had not yet brought the fruits of his researches to light; Miss Eleanor Hull had not collected into a handy volume the materials of "The Cuchullin Saga"; Kuno Meyer we did not know; Standish O'Grady, though he had published his "Heroic Period," had not yet begun popularising the bardic tales in such volumes as "Finn and his Companions." No one was reading anything about Ireland but political matter. I think one may fairly claim some respect from this ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... delivering, of interludes for dancing and gallantry—in a word all the approved features of the High Toby. Nothing, you will guess, that threatened to overstrain our intelligence, but enough for the moderate excitation of those sympathies which we always concede to heroic villainy. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... of more heroic stuff. The spirit of adventure had not died within him. His faith is full of the finest romance. "Come," said Jesus and immediately I see Peter drop his oar and begin to climb down out of the boat to go ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... not of their own, and are to feed, tend, protect the flock, and take care of its increase for Him, with sole reference to His will, and His honor and glory. The Catholic Church proffers to all every assistance necessary for the attainment of the most heroic sanctity, but she forces no man to accept that assistance. Catholics believe the doctrines of the Church, because they believe the Catholic Church the Church of God—they believe that Jesus Christ commissioned ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... to us how a man, by sincerity itself, becomes heroic; it is the grand gift he has. We find in him a good, honest, intellectual talent, no transcendent one;—a narrow, inconsiderable man, as compared with Luther; but in heartfelt instinctive adherence to truth, in sincerity ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... little vessel declined to simplify the course of this history by going to the bottom with Mildred and Arthur, as the imaginative reader may have perhaps expected. She did not even get into a terrific storm, in order to give Arthur the opportunity of performing heroic feats, and the writer of this history the chance of displaying a profound knowledge of the names of ropes and spars. On the contrary, she glided on upon a sea so still that even Miss Terry was persuaded to arouse herself from her torpor, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... brightly and the temperature was mild. Nevertheless, it was an uncomfortable day for those who were poor sailors. Although there did not seem, to the casual observer, to be much of a sea running, the ship rolled atrociously. Those who had made heroic resolutions on the subject were sitting in silent misery in their deck-chairs, which had been lashed to firm stanchions. Few were walking the clean bright deck, because walking that morning was a gymnastic feat. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... in the country a year and a half before. Skiddles, then a puppy, was at the time in a most undignified and undesirable position, stuck in a drain tile, and unable either to advance or to retreat. Mr. Carter had shoved him forward, after a heroic struggle, whereupon Skiddles had licked his hand. Something in the little dog's eye, or his action, had induced the rich philanthropist to bargain for him and buy him at a cost of half a dollar. Thereafter Skiddles became his ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... to engage the batteries, the "Pawnee," had been separated from the fleet by a gale a few nights before, and had not yet arrived. Sadly the sailors gave up the attempt, and, beating up and down outside the harbor bar, awaited the inevitable end of the unequal conflict. When, finally, after a heroic resistance of several days, Major Anderson and his little band, worn with constant vigilance and labor, destitute of provisions, and exposed to a constant hail of iron missiles from without and a raging fire within, agreed to capitulate, the United States steamship "Baltic," of the Fort Sumter ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... that I was! I was practically acting as if I could meet all that would happen to all eternity in a cool, well-bred, masterful way. Poor untrained, untaught Ida Mayhew said she had 'found a Friend pledged to take care of her,' and he has taken care of her. He has made her life true, noble, heroic, beneficent. I was content to take care of myself, and this is the result. God might well turn away in disgust from any prayer of mine now, but may I be accursed if I do not become a Christian man, if by any means ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... merely the vivid dream that he had been promised, he himself takes part in the living drama, playing the noble role of an exceptionally white man. In the course of it he exchanges pledges of eternal love with Aloney the heroine. Finally, in a spasm of heroic self-sacrifice, he takes poison with the alleged purpose of saving the heroine's life. We never quite gather how his suicide should serve this end, but then the whole atmosphere is charged with that obscurity which is the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... But—you are worth it!" The wind whipped her grey hair about her face and the gingham apron that shrouded her from head to foot was cut on lines of economy, not of grace; yet, somehow, just then Susan made an imposing figure. She was one of the women—courageous, unquailing, patient, heroic—who had made victory possible. In her, they all saluted the symbol for which their dearest had fought. Something of this was in the doctor's mind as he ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... repeated below; everything was speckless, polished, smelling of its own purity. Well, it was a good thing poor Molly could interest herself in these matters, and her resolve not to brood over her troubles—if it was genuine, and not only a heroic pose—both noble and wise. So Deb reflected; and such was the calmness of the emotional atmosphere, the cheering effect of tea and rest and sisterly companionship, the discursiveness of the talk, that she soon found herself telling Mary the secret that ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... historical book of the Old Testament gives greater evidence of veracity; none excels it in human interest. The pathetic tale of the return of this people from their long exile, of the rebuilding of their city and their temple, and of the heroic and self-denying labors of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, the governors, and Haggai and Zechariah, the prophets, and Ezra the scribe, with all their coadjutors, is full of significance to all those who trace in the history of the people of Israel, more clearly than anywhere else, the ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... or manor-house where the contemplative Prigourdin gentleman was born, and where he wrote his 'Essays' in a tower, of which he has left a detailed description. Then there was another lure: the battle-field of Castillon, a few miles farther south, where the heroic Talbot was slain, and where the cannon that fired the fatal stone announced the end of the feudal ages. We may travel over the whole world of literature without going beyond our house and garden. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... fourteen to seventeen went to the music of that monstrous resonating futility, the cheering, the anxieties, the songs and the waving of flags, the wrongs of generous Buller and the glorious heroism of De Wet—who ALWAYS got away; that was the great point about the heroic De Wet—and it never occurred to us that the total population we fought against was less than half the number of those who lived cramped ignoble lives within the ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... armistice of a few hours to bury our dead, the stench having become so offensive to both parties that it could be no longer endured. Details were sent from every company to perform the last office to the heroic dead. This having been done, and a headboard erected with the name of each upon it, to mark the spot where rests the sleeping brave, the armistice was concluded. Soon after the armistice our brigade, now under command of Colonel Dillworth, began a trench with the intention ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... gentleman!" he repeated, in a tone of suppressed rage; "a gentleman! That word is in everybody's mouth, nowadays. Pray, what do you understand by a gentleman, Mons. Fortunat? No doubt, you mean a heroic idiot who passed through life with a lofty mien, clad in all the virtues, as stoical as Job, and as resigned as a martyr—a sort of moral Don Quixote, preaching the austerest virtue, and practising it? But, unfortunately, nobility of soul ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... which covered his swarthy face was not so much one of goodwill as embarrassment. He stood in the center of the room so that by no possible chance could he touch any article of furniture. Joe was no coward. He had performed heroic parts when mobs of miners and the militia, during the big strikes, met in conflict. But the thought of sitting down on chairs upholstered in satin of dainty colors made the cold chills run ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... still in a heroic attitude, with one arm stretched out to receive the weapon and his eye following every movement of a maniac obligingly personated by the cuspidor between the windows, when Lynde entered. Mr. Dodge's arm slowly descended to his side, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and heroic resistance, which betrayed great nobleness of character and rare disinterestedness, Louis, urged by the physician, finally yielded, and signed his name to the papers ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... art as their fathers had made it in the sixteenth for arms. Without going into the complications of the political history of the Netherlands at this period, it is important nevertheless to remember that while the Flemish provinces remained Catholic under Spain, the northern states, after heroic struggles, formed themselves into a Republic; so that while it is difficult to draw a hard and fast line between what was Dutch and what was Flemish in estimating the influence of one particular painter upon another, there is no question at all as to vital difference between ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... are bad for children, or that trees are dangerous in gardens, or that many more people ought to wear spectacles. It is asking too much of human nature to expect them not to cherish such scraps of originality in a hard, dull, and often heroic trade. But the inevitable result of it, as exercised by the individual Saleebys, would be that each man would have his favourite kind of idiot. Each doctor would be mad on his own madman. One would have his eye on devotional curates; ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... the heroic life of this son of the tea merchant, who lived in Blantyre, a village in the county of Lanark. Born on the 13th of March, 1813, David Livingstone, the second of six children, became, by force of study, both a theologian and doctor. After making his novitiate in the "London ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... soldiers for the Civil War in '61, devotes some space to the recruiting and enlistment in Sycamore Ridge. The chapter bears the heading "The Large White Plumes," and in his "introductory remarks" the biographer says, "To him who looks back to those golden days of heroic deeds only the lines of Keats will paint the picture in ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... an infant of such heroic calibre. Twice again he refilled the tumbler, each time to the brim, and watched it disappear down my throat. By this time my exploits were attracting attention. Middle-aged Italian labourers, ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... fell, "Will you play your engine upon me?" But not a drop of water was sent at her, and she deposited all her offerings, and went away unharmed. I suppose a Frenchman would sooner have been shot than have done any thing to quench the enthusiasm of this heroic woman. ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen
... between his account of his symptoms and the real symptoms of disease; ask questions the reverse of the patient's statements, or take them for granted, and he will often be found to contradict himself; have all dressings and bandages removed; suggest, in the hearing of the patient, some heroic methods of treatment—the actual cautery, or severe surgical operation, for example; finally, chloroform will be found of great use in the ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... his hand. He doesn't wear silk stockings, and he really ought to be supplied with a new Adjective to help him to express his opinions; but, for all that, he is a great man. If you call him "the heroic defender of the national honor" one day, and "a brutal and licentious soldiery" the next, you naturally bewilder him, and he looks upon you with suspicion. There is nobody to speak for Thomas except people who have theories to work off on him; and nobody understands Thomas ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... Soto to me as by no means so bad a man as I had supposed him to have been. And I think that the candid reader will admit that there was much, in his heroic but melancholy career, which calls for charitable construction ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... humiliate Mackenzie had the effect which such treatment always produces in communities where the inhabitants have been indoctrinated with ideas of fair play and equal rights. It made a popular hero of one who, if the truth must be told, had very little of the heroic in his composition. Had the Government been wise enough in their own interests to let him have his say in the Assembly, he would soon have found his proper level, and would have ceased to carry any weight there.[152] He would undoubtedly have raised a good deal of temporary excitement by unearthing ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... itself as to the relation in which it may stand to its fellows. In short, in Sophocles, the constitution of tragedy is monarchical, but such as it existed in elder Greece, limited by laws, and therefore the more venerable,—all the parts adapting and submitting themselves to the majesty of the heroic sceptre:—in Aristophanes, comedy, on the contrary, is poetry in its most democratic form, and it is a fundamental principle with it, rather to risk all the confusion of anarchy, than to destroy the independence and privileges of its individual constituents,—place, verse, characters, ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... man of distinction," wrote a Scottish prisoner in the Marshalsea to his friend in the North, "behaved himself better than the Earl of Derwentwater. He kept himself most with the Scots, abundantly exposing himself."[200] But all this was in vain, if we dare to call any manifestations of heroic devotion in vain. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... the course of the march soon call forth his noble qualities, and before the end of the campaign he qualifies for a commission. His subsequent career is a series of brilliant successes. He takes part in the storming of the Dargai heights, is more than once captured by the enemy, and by a heroic sacrifice wins ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... the error, which is committed twice, occurs in the same poem, the XVIth Heroic, or The Epistle of Helen to Paris, and under the same circumstance of pressure,—the want of a word that began with a vowel,—because a word beginning with a consonant could not, of course, follow the last foot of a dactyle ending with a consonant;—therefore ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... 'Asked by thee, I shall tell thee all about the heroic-kings in Puru's line, all equal unto Indra in prowess, possessing great affluence and commanding the respect ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... imagination is vivid enough, we can see those great ancestors who did not hesitate under similar circumstances. "We must; forward!" We feel that we are enrolled in an army of gallant men; the whole race, in its most heroic representatives, is urging us on. There is a social and even a historical element beneath moral ideas. Besides, language, a social product, is also a social force. The pious mind goes farther still; duty is personified as a being—the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... The heroic discovery of America, at the close of the fifteenth century after Christ, has compelled the generous and just admiration of the world; but the grandeur of human enterprise and achievement in the discovery of the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... no credit, neither to me nor to you, my daughters; but for this noble Englishman, what shall we say? Give thanks to God for a great heart. He comes—not for country, not for fame, not for money, but to help the weak and the oppressed. Let us drink, then, to him; let us drink again and again to heroic Forsyte!" In the midst of the dead silence, Swithin caught the look of suppliant mockery in Rozsi's eyes. He glanced at the Hungarian. Was he laughing at him? But Boleskey, after drinking up his wine, had sunk ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... when Athenian institutions began to decay. It is personal discomfort and the trials and harassments of life that drive men to the ever serene, pure regions of humor for balm and healing. Fun and comedy men have at all times understood—the history of Samson contains the germs of a mock-heroic poem—while it was impossible for humor, genuine humor, to find appreciation in the ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... greeting [applause]; and to the Germans who were present, where they could not have been spared in the great trials of our feeble nation in its struggles against the greatest power in the world, and who are here, by the descendants of those heroic Germans, to join in this feast of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... Clauser kindly placed at my disposal. My remembrance of His Lordship the Bishop, and of the Reverend Fathers and the Brothers of the Mission will ever be one of affectionate personal regard, and of admiration of the spirit of heroic self-sacrifice which impels them to submit cheerfully to the grave and constant hardships and dangers to which their labour ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... eye to see that it was a point of especial difficulty and importance. Some of the men of that regiment who fell that day were my own college comrades. I was glad to know from his lips that the commander thought their work heroic. ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer |
