"Heroism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ever in need of repair; the sallies were continuous and determined. The "bed" was not made for those knightly fish to lie ignobly upon. A single fish would slip down-stream, and, gathering speed and effort, leap with the glitter of heroism in its eyes. One such George caught in his arms. Another slipped through my fingers and struck me on the shoulders, and I bore the mark of the assault for a week. George's brow was bleeding. Indeed, all his blood was up. His "heroic rage" ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... have risked my life a score of times to serve you. This morning I saved you from something worse than death, and surely I deserve a little consideration at your hands. Will you not think again? Since heroism is your fetish, can you find nothing heroic in my labours, ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... but a small force to wrest from Spain this most valuable possession. But though the growing feebleness of Spain presaged the time when her hold upon America would be loosened, the standard of individual heroism was not lowered, and the achievements of Portola and of Anza rank with those of De Soto and Coronado. The California explorer did not, it is true, have to fight his way through hordes of fierce natives. The California Indians, as a rule, received the white adventurers gladly, and entertained them ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... duke, "this seems to me a somewhat exaggerated idea of heroism. It seems to me that you have, in your own person, already paid your share. Believe me, take the word of a man who is a good judge in affairs of honor; you are absolved in the eyes of the whole world, my ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... recall any notable act of heroism or self-sacrifice performed by Snarley on behalf of his flock; but perhaps we shall not err in regarding his whole life as such an act. When, in his old age, physical suffering overtook him—the result of a lifetime ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... completed his Xenophon and the 10,000 first seeing the Sea from Mount Theches—a brilliantly glowing page of Grecian heroism, and a splendid specimen of the highest order of historical painting. It represents the celebrated retreat of the 10,000 valorous Greeks, with Xenophon at their head, whose only hope of release from one of the most perilous situations—was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... and the manners of chivalry, by bringing great enterprises, bold adventures, and extravagant heroism into fashion, inspired the women with ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... these belated prophets was, of all men, Thomas Carlyle. Soured and embittered, in the same spirit which led him to find more heroism in a marauding Viking or in one of Frederick the Great's generals than in Washington, or Lincoln, or Grant, and which caused him to see in the American civil war only the burning out of a foul chimney, he, with the petulance natural to a dyspeptic eunuch, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... when they get inside odds and ends of military wearing apparel is something appalling. They swagger around amongst the civilian niggers, and treat them as beings of a very inferior mould, whilst the lies they tell concerning their individual acts of heroism would set the author of "Deadwood Dick" blushing out of ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... have not been crazy, unless acts of heroism and suffering for the sake of others can be described as crazy! The knitting women wish now that there had been "crazy" women in Germany to direct the thought of the nation to the brutality of the military system, to have aroused the women to struggle for a human civilization, instead ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... no pockets allowable in which he can put his hands. If a man is in a costume he forgets the sufferings of the coat and pantaloon. He has a sense of being in a fortress. A military man once said that he always fought better in his uniform—that a fashionably cut coat and an every-day hat took all heroism out of him. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... Scott held himself to Scottish history, giving us in nine remarkable novels the whole of Scotland, its heroism, its superb faith and enthusiasm, and especially its clannish loyalty to its hereditary chiefs; giving us also all parties and characters, from Covenanters to Royalists, and from kings to beggars. After reading these nine volumes we know Scotland and Scotchmen as we can know them in no other ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... Nineteenth century, (as grandly poetic as any, only different,) with steamships, railroads, factories, electric telegraphs, cylinder presses—to the thought of the solidarity of nations, the brotherhood and sisterhood of the entire earth—to the dignity and heroism of the practical labor of farms, factories, foundries, workshops, mines, or on shipboard, or on lakes and rivers—resumes that other medium of expression, more flexible, more eligible—soars to the freer, vast, diviner ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... But this seemed like sneaky, unfair fighting to him. There was nothing about it of the glory of warfare. He was learning for himself that modern warfare is an ugly thing. He was to learn, later, that it still held its possibilities of glory, and of heroism. Indeed, for that matter, he was willing to grant the heroism of the men who dared these things that seemed to him so horrible. They took their lives in their hands, knowing that if they were caught they would be hung ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... timidly. He seemed to be not quite sure whether Reginald was luring him in to his own destruction. But at any rate the sight of the fire roused him to heroism, and, reckless of all ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... left but to concentrate my whole moral existence in my intellectual work, a precious but inadequate compensation; and so I must give up, if not the most dazzling, still the sweetest part of my happiness.' We cannot help admiring the heroism which cherishes great ideas in the midst of petty miseries, and intrepidly throws all squalid interruptions into the background which is their true place. Still, we may well suppose that the sordid cares ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... now. I hope I feel duly grateful for the young lady's heroism, though it is not exactly my intention to record my gratitude in a ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... home to his mother with a black eye, and bragged prodigiously to his parent and his delighted old grandfather about his valour in the fight, in which, if the truth was known he did not behave with particular heroism, and in which he decidedly had the worst. But Amelia has never forgiven that Smith to this day, though he is now a peaceful apothecary near ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... place, any other would have struck his forehead violently, so as to crush the enticing insect, or at least to put it to flight. To feel six feet moving on his skin, without speaking of the fear of being bitten, and not make a gesture, one will agree that it was the height of heroism. The Spartan allowing his breast to be devoured by a fox; the Roman holding burning coals between his fingers, were not more masters of themselves than Cousin Benedict, who was undoubtedly descended from ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... thrilled Cameron to the heart. "All in the day's duty!" The sheer heroism of it, the dauntless facing of Nature's grimmest terrors, the steady patience, the uncalculated sacrifice, the thought of all that lay behind these simple words held him silent for many minutes as he kept turning over ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... previous ideas of men marching to war have had a touch of heroism, crudely expressed by quick-step and smart uniforms. To-day I see tired dusty men, very hungry looking and unshaved, slogging along, silent and tired, and ready to lie down whenever chance offers. They keep as near their convoy as they can, and are keen to stop and cook something. ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... now past all suffering, being no more a motive for heroism than so much mutton, the girl's blood was too hot with triumphant indignation to let her think of such an unimportant point as that. She was victor. She had outfaced and routed the foe. She had saved one victim. She ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... taught by colonial literature, by men like Bradford, Winthrop, Edwards, and the New England clergy in general, is moral heroism, the determination to follow the shining path of the Eternal over the wave and through the forest to a new temple of human liberty. Their aspiration, endeavor, suffering, accomplishment, should strengthen our faith ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... subject which I really took up my pen to write about. I am very glad that you speak of letting Lydia visit her sister before long. I remember well how much they are to each other. It has been no less than heroism in Thyrza to submit to practical separation for so long a time, at your mere bidding, without ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... to perceive their advantage, while the courage of the patriots at last began to ebb with the tide. The day was lost. In the hour of transitory triumph the leaders of the expedition had turned their backs on their followers, and now, after so much heroism had been exhibited, fortune too had averted her face. The grim resistance changed to desperate panic, and a mad chase began along the blood-stained dyke. Some were slain with spear and bullet, others were hunted into the sea, many were smothered in the ooze along the edge of the embankment. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... where gaps existed and gallantry went blindly forward, unable in the fog of shell-smoke to see whether the units on the right or the left were up, that these sacrifices of heroism were made; but where command was held over the line and the opposition was not of a variable kind counsel was taken of the impossible and retreat was ordered. That is, the units turned back toward their own trenches under direction. They had to pass through the same curtain of shell fire ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... admiration. They behold her as already translated into the paradise of Vishnu and seem to envy her happy lot. The women run up to her to receive her blessing, and she knows that afterward crowds of votaries will daily frequent her shrine. The Brahmans compliment her on her heroism. (Sometimes drugs are administered to stifle her fears.) She knows, too, that it is useless to falter at the last moment, as a change of heart would be an eternal disgrace, not only to herself but to her relatives, who, therefore, stand around ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... of the wanderings of the nations, nor Le Regiment du Baron Madruce as an adequate embodiment of the spirit of the eighteenth century. The Reformation, and, what is stranger still, the French Revolution, are not handled at all, though the heroism of the Napoleonic era finds fitting description in Le Cimetiere d'Eylau. The truth is that Hugo set himself a task which was perhaps beyond the power of any single poet to accomplish, and was certainly one for which he was not altogether ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... all the Gentiles might hear; [155:8] and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion." [155:9] The prospect, however, still continued gloomy; and he had no hope of ultimate escape. In the anticipation of his condemnation, he wrote those words so full of Christian faith and heroism, "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight—I have finished my course—I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me in that ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... contributed their quota of filthy jokes, and there was no religious instruction or influence at all except the parade service at the garrison church on Sunday, if one happened not to be on leave. But as to my heroism I am reluctantly compelled to be sceptical. I went as far as I felt my inclination, and stopped after a time because instinct was too strong the ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... Atkins, who was responsible for her education, realized the equivocal good of these things, and saw moreover that the girl had grown to be a beauty, she offered to adopt her; but Judith, with the pitiful heroism of youth that understands little of what it is renouncing, thought herself strong enough to hold together a family, uncertain ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... education or of intellectual endowment who would not travel many miles to look upon the exhumation of the remains of some one famous in his time, whether for his vices, his virtues, his knowledge, his talents, or his heroism; and, if this feeling exist in the minds of the educated and refined in a sublimated shape, which lends to it grace and dignity, we may look for it among the vulgar and the ignorant, taking only a grosser and meaner form, in accordance with their habits of thought. The rude ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... wailing on the road knew well enough who was the murderer, but no one would tell in this accursed, unhallowed, godless country. The honour and honesty of one man did not, in these days, prompt another to abstain from vice. The only heroism left in the country was the heroism of mystery, of secret ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... to rise by the faults of others, were loud in their censures of the rashness of the count. The queen defended him with prompt generosity. "The enterprise," said she, "was rash, but not more rash than that of Lucena, which was crowned with success, and which we have all applauded as the height of heroism. Had the count de Cabra succeeded in capturing the uncle, as he did the nephew, who is there that would not have praised him ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... whose names have never been remembered, or even recorded, and who were yet heroes of a quality not inferior to their commanders and leaders. All men of that age whose calling led them to adventure and enterprise could scarcely fail to find opportunity for heroism, self-denial, and sacrifice, and thus the Elizabethan Englishman of whatever station stands out to us of these later days as a great figure—the type and emblem of the England that was to be. It ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... bias of originality, therefore, may lie to the side of censure; and whoever among us shall step forward, with such knowledge as our common critics have of Goethe, to enlighten the European public, by contradiction in this matter, displays a heroism, which, in estimating his other merits, ought nowise ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Adversity, with the sudden Shocks, and unexpected Blows of Fortune; then, (when all human Efforts must yield to inevitable Necessity) sinking in the irretrievable Plunge of Sorrow and Calamities, with that calm Resignation ever attendant on true Heroism; must convince any judicious Spectator of his being born a Tragedian. I must here declare, that what I have advanced on this Subject neither ariseth from Prepossession on one Side, or Prejudice on the other; having no Manner of Connection, nay, not even a personal ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... a crowd will assume all the characteristics of a psychological entity. As Gustave Le Bon has pointed out, a crowd will do collectively what none of its constituent units would ever dream of doing singly.[164] It becomes capable of deeds of heroism or of savage cruelty. It will sacrifice itself or others with indifference. Above all, the mere fact of moving in a mass gives the individual a sense of power, a certainty of being in the right that he can—save under exceptional circumstances—never ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... pictures have their value, as well as service in giving food and clothing to those in need. The special gift does require special conditions, and it is not selfish to insist on those conditions, when the special work is held as unto the Lord. It often requires more heroism, more faith, more love to deny than to accede to a given request. To yield is often easy; to be steadfast to one's own purpose, shining like a star upon the horizon, is ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... by citizens of Oswego, N.Y. to their esteemed fellow citizen Genl. John Porter Hatch as a testimonial of their appreciation of the gallantry and heroism displayed by him in the service of his country especially on the battle fields of Mexico and in the Army of the Potomac ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... range of children's observation, a very common defect of child nature and is, by the force of these illustrations, a good lesson in practical ethics. The appeal of the second is to that inherent ideal of disinterested heroism which is so strong in children. The setting of the story amidst the ever-present threat of the sea affords a good chance for the teacher to do effective work in emphasizing the geographical background. This should be done, however, not as geography merely, but with the attention ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... victories—Mametz, Contalmaison, Pozieres, Guillemont, Thiepval, Beaumont-Hamel—and the writer is able to associate with each immortal name the regiments there engaged, all heroes, for "there were no stragglers." Indeed, if there is a weakness in the book it is that the insistent recording of the individual heroism of different battalions tends to become monotonous. But what a fault! It is a monotony of British valour crowned by a monotony ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... a personal favor to me, to read the order slowly and distinctly, so that the audience can grasp the fact that they've witnessed a deed of heroism and its ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... in too many instances, nursed imbecility and treason; but in our honest contempt for the small men of whom, in common with other institutions, she has had her share,—we must not ignore those bright pages of our history adorned with the skill and heroism of her nobler sons. McClellanism did not follow its chief from Warrenton; or Burnside's earnestness, Hooker's dash, and Meade's soldierly stand at Gettysburg, backed as they were by the heroic fighting of the Army of the Potomac, would have had, ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... enough, and observed and conversed with enough of eminent and splendidly-cultured minds, too, in my time; but I assure you, I have heard higher sentiments from the lips of poor UNEDUCATED men and women, when exerting the spirit of severe yet gentle heroism under difficulties and afflictions, or speaking their simple thoughts as to circumstances in the lot of friends and neighbours, than I ever yet met with out of the Bible. We shall never learn to feel and respect our real ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... in detail the story of my struggle with Durnief, the rescue of Zara, her heroism in assisting me, and I told of the final capture and imprisonment of the captain. But his majesty shook his head in ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... raged, fierce and dreadful, for sometime in the hall: but heroism soon found it wanted elbow-room, and the two armies by mutual consent sallied forth. Numbers were in our favour, for the very maids, armed with mop-handles, broomsticks, and rolling pins, acted like Amazons. I was far from idle, for I had singled out ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... somewhat reserved in manner and undemonstrative. Both were conspicuous for their gallantry, but the one impelled by that exuberant physical courage which is distinctive of the leonine type; the other an exemplar of that moral heroism which leads men to brave danger for a principle. They gave everything—even ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... curious, just as the favourite literature of a cripple is almost always that which treats of force and action, so upon our sick-bed we turn most gladly to scenes of heroism and adventure. The famous ride in 'Geoffrey Hamlyn,' where the fate of the heroine, threatened with worse than death from the bush-rangers, hangs upon the horse's speed, seems to us, as we lie abed, one of ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... is idealization, which can act conjointly with the other. Popular imagination incarnates in a real man its ideal of heroism, of loyalty, of love, of piety, or of cowardice, cruelty, wickedness, and other abnormalities. The process is more complex. It presupposes in addition to mythic creation a labor of abstraction, through which ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... are forms of Heroism that belong to the old ages, make their appearance in the remotest times; some of them have ceased to be possible long since, and cannot any more show themselves in this world. The Hero as Man of Letters, again, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... irons used in this barbarous punishment, the Swiss are fond of saying, went deeper than the tyrant intended, and penetrated to the hearts and aroused the sympathies of their ancestors to perform such acts of heroism that tyranny fled in fear from the land. The conduct of Arnold, however, can hardly at this period of his life warrant the eulogies bestowed upon his memory, though he subsequently figures as one of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... true aim of romance is to find beauty and laughter and heroism in odd places, then Mr. Wells is a great romantic. His heroes are not knights and adventurers, not even members of the quasi-romantic professions, but the ordinary small tradesmen, whom the world has hitherto neglected. The ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... in war-time—how they left hundred-bottle cases of champagne, at five guineas a bottle, on the veldt and so on. Besides, she preferred to see how Edward was spending his five hundred a year. I don't mean to say that Edward had any grievance in that. He was never a man of the deeds of heroism sort and it was just as good for him to be sniped at up in the hills of the North Western frontier, as to be shot at by an old gentleman in a tophat at the bottom of some spruit. Those are more or less his words about it. I believe he quite distinguished himself over there. At any rate, ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... in their too brief records, teeming with interest for all their scantiness, many a tale of patient heroism."—Tablet. ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... of endurance of pain and heroism was one occurring in Italy, which attracted much European comment at the time. A young woman, illegitimately pregnant, at full term, on March 28th, at dawn, opened her own abdomen on the left side ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... dubbed him the Storm Centre. And so he was, in every tempest of arms. The very joy of living—in killing, alas!—always flung him true to the centre. But once there, he was like a calm and busy workman, and had as little self consciousness of the thing—of the gallantry and the heroism—as the prosiest blacksmith. He had grown into a man of dangerous fibre, but he was less aware of it ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... beheaded on August 22, and in the following November Lady Jane and her husband were also condemned. Mary long hesitated, but at length issued the fatal warrant on February 8, 1554, and four days later both were executed. Lady Jane was but a delicate girl of seventeen, but met her fate with the utmost heroism. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... imagination, a little abstracted and exalted by grief, dwells on the fond hope, that the eyes which her trembling hand closed, may still see how she subdues every wayward passion to fulfil the double duty of being the father as well as the mother of her children. Raised to heroism by misfortunes, she represses the first faint dawning of a natural inclination, before it ripens into love, and in the bloom of life forgets her sex—forgets the pleasure of an awakening passion, which might again have ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... them, and he knew by heart their history. He knew the heroism of Prince Zilah Sandor falling in Mohacz in 1566 beside his wife Hanska who had followed him, leaving in the cradle her son Janski, whose grandson, Zilah Janos, in 1867, at the very place where his ancestor had been struck, sabred the Turks, crying: "Sandor ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... expedition, planned, administered, equipped and carried out with a definite objective. It is characteristic of the race of men that the first design should have centred on the Pole—the top of the earth, the focus of longitude, the magic goal, to reach which no physical sacrifice was too great. The heroism of Parry is a type of that adamant persistence which has made the history of the conquest of the Poles a volume in which disaster and death have played a large part. It followed on years of polar experience, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... permit, and grasping her basket she set bravely forth. The trip alone to the Camp, under the most auspicious circumstances, would have been a trying ordeal for her, but under the existing conditions it required nothing less than heroism. The snow had drifted in places as high as her knees, and again and again she stumbled and almost lost her footing as she staggered forward against the force of the ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... church of Holland was in this deplorable condition, God raised up a few men to be the instruments of new life. They were endowed with great talents, moral heroism, and a steady purpose to elevate every department of ecclesiastical organization. The Holy Spirit accompanied their labors. The leaders of the group were Bilderdyk, Da Costa, Dr. Capadose, and ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... murmur reached me not. Only my neighbors, the Ursuline nuns, were up and awake. With shrinking delicacy, dreading the look and touch of the profane even more than the walls of their prison-house, they had stood their ground with the heroism of true faith, and reared their temporary asylum under their vine-canopied bowers, within the shade of the cloisters. A high garden-wall alone separated me from the holy virgins. They were watching and kneeling. Every note from their silver voices sank deep in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... through and through with the never failing spirit of public heroism, and staunch loyalty to existing standards, and all will stand for beauty, romance, and nobility of purpose ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... or thrown into the city moat.[1096] But it is, after all, not the numbers of nameless victims whose honorable deaths leave no distinct impression upon the mind, but the individual instances of Christian heroism, teaching lessons of imitable human virtues, that speak most directly to the sympathies of the reader of an age so long posterior. The records of French Protestantism are full of these, and one or two of the most striking that occurred in Orleans deserve mention. M. de Coudray—whom ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... in a moment? Should he show the coward's side of the shield after all his effort toward vicarious heroism? Another moment of hesitancy and as Cap'n Amazon Silt he would never be able to hold up his head in the ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... scattered but thinly over the galleries of Europe, in which the fortune or selection even of the chief masters has given to art a face at once young, grand, and beautiful, where, if there is any melancholy, it is no feeble passivity, but enters into the foreshadowed capability of heroism. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... in so touching and pathetic a manner, and interspersed with so many sentiments of tenderness and of heroism, that I could scarcely believe I was not actually listening to a Clelia, or a Cassandra, recounting ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... rightful share of practical good sense, but still she was human; and to be human is to have one's little modicum of romance secreted away in one's composition. One never ceases to make a hero of one's self, (in private,) during life, but only alters the style of his heroism from time to time as the drifting years belittle certain gods of his admiration and raise up others in their ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... who come to visit you. I made a point of getting the most exact information of all the relations of any lady before I invited her; for if she had only a cousin who wanted a place, or had one, it was demanding an act of Roman heroism to expect her to come and dine with me; At last, in the month of March 1811, a new prefect arrived from Paris. He was a man admirably well adapted to the reigning system: that is to say, having a very general acquaintance with facts, coupled with a total absence ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... of food and water was nearly gone. Emil proposed to keep it for the sick man and the women, but two of the men rebelled, demanding their share. Emil gave up his as an example, and several of the good fellows followed it, with the quiet heroism which so often crops up in rough but manly natures. This shamed the others, and for another day an ominous peace reigned in that little world of suffering and suspense. But during the night, while Emil, worn out with fatigue, left the watch to the most ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... great sympathy for the poor, and a capacity for judging people independently of rank. Charles Napier himself, born in Whitehall, was three years old when they moved to Ireland. He was a sickly child, the one short member of a tall family, but equal to any of them in courage and resolution. His heroism in endurance of pain was put to a severe test when he broke his leg at the age of seventeen. It was twice badly set. He was threatened first by the entire loss of it, next with the prospect of a crooked leg, but he bore cheerfully ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... days there were acts of incomparable heroism. From three sides at a time we made way where the Germans had dug formidable shelters, ten meters under ground. The enemy artillery continued firing ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beautiful young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers, life along the frontier, attacks by Indians, Betty's heroic defense of the beleaguered garrison at Wheeling, the burning ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... authors. With eager, happy hearts, they looked forward to the celebration in New York which awaited the arrival of this foremost of the world's floating palaces. Alas, it was never to be! The story is too horrible for repetition. The fatal collision with the great iceberg—the heroism, the sacrifice, the loss of hundreds of precious lives as the vessel plunged into the depths of the ocean, are known in all their horror. [Add lines to produce Fig. 65.] The few in the lifeboats, looking toward the sinking vessel, heard the ship's band playing 'Nearer, My God, to Thee,' ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... has been and will again be chanted, that we, being a luxurious nation, must by force of good logical dependency be liable to many derivative taints and infirmities which ought of necessity to besiege the blood of nations in that predicament. All enterprise and spirit of adventure, all heroism and courting of danger for its own attractions, ought naturally to languish in a generation enervated by early habits of personal indulgence. Doubtless they ought; a priori, it seems strictly demonstrable that such consequences ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Hume was still her favorite author. And it happened that, while the gallantry of the loyal champions of Charles I. was fresh in her memory, a casual conversation threw in her way an opportunity of doing honor to the self-devoted heroism of a French soldier whom the proudest of the British cavaliers might have welcomed as a brother, but whose valiant and self-sacrificing fidelity had been left unnoticed by the worthless sovereign in whose service he had perished, and by his ministers, who thought only of securing the ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Dr. Opimian. When we are at war, naval and military heroism abundantly; but in time of peace these virtues sleep. They are laid up like ships in ordinary. No doubt, of the recorded facts of civil life some are good, and more are indifferent, neither good nor bad; but good and indifferent together are scarcely more than a twelfth part of the whole. Still, ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... "I take off my hat to you. When anybody tells me about a deed of heroism hereafter, I'll tell them about you and how you hovered over your young ones while the flames were slowly roasting you. I'm certainly glad I got here when I did. You would have been burned in another five minutes and ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... can't even do that," murmured the little school teacher. She was really so much in awe of this imperious, clever old Aunt Isabel that it was positive heroism on her part to venture even this ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... waiting to take us down the river—if we could make it before navigation was closed by the ice. His great barns were cleared out for tables, and the house was open, and there were flags and transparencies expressing the heroism of those who were willing to do anything to get us ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... Grochow and Ostrolenka, show themselves more powerful than under the dictatorship of the disciple of Washington, and in 1863, fighting without a leader, without a centre, without arms, surprise the world with a heroism, a self-sacrificing devotion, unexampled even in the history of their former insurrections? Who has never heard of Russian batteries assaulted and carried by Polish scythes? Whose bosom is so devoid of the divine cords of justice and sympathy as never yet to have revibrated the strain of the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... the augurs, who said that he would be chosen king, if he ever entered the city again. As the royal power was abhorred in Rome, he preferred a voluntary banishment to revisiting Rome on those terms. Struck with this heroism, the Romans erected a brazen statue with horns over the gate by which he departed, and it was afterwards called 'Porta raudusculana,' because the ancient Latin name of brass was 'raudus,' 'rodus,' or 'rudus.' The ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Indians and to the storm, and notwithstanding the unspeakable importance of every day, that they might prepare for the severity of winter, now so rapidly approaching, these extraordinary men resolved to remain as they were, that they might "remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy." There was true heroism and moral grandeur in this decision, even though it be asserted that a more enlightened judgment would have taught that, under the circumstances in which they were placed, it was a work of "necessity and of mercy" to prosecute their tour without ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... is strangely and swiftly adaptable. Ruth's heart fluttered with pleasure as she described the heroism of the young man, and next moment it throbbed with deepest sadness as she told of Mrs Bright's woe, and the paper on which she wrote became blotted with ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... bring the whole family together. Guido, however, was of opinion 'that the most impressive spectacle of all would be to see the whole military force of Perugia collected in a body,' whereupon the Pope abandoned his project. Soon after, the exiles made another attack in which nothing but the personal heroism of the Baglioni won them the victory. It was then that Simonetto Baglione, a lad of scarcely eighteen, fought in the square with a handful of followers against hundreds of the enemy: he fell at last with more than twenty wounds, but recovered himself ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... of my enlistment had no remotest connection with the bounty offered. I joined the Army simply out of that green-sickness of the mind from which so many young men suffer, and some nebulous notions of heroism in falling against a savage foe in some place not geographically defined. But in the printed terms of the agreement which I signed it was promised that I should receive a three pound bounty and a free kit. As a matter of fact, I received neither one nor the other. I was served out, ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... certain of the accuracy of the term "hard-a-lee" in this connection, but what a fine sense of stedfast heroism that run of aspirates awakened. "With helm ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... believed himself a bubble of gas instead of the son of a god, he would not have changed the face of the world. Negation cannot be the parent of heroism, though it will produce an indifference that counterfeits it not ill, since Petronius died quite as serenely as ever did the martyrs of ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... fight! How sourly we looked upon Plooie continuing his peaceful rounds. Whence arose the rumor, I cannot say, but it was noised about just at that time of wrath and tension that Plooie was born in Liege. Liege, that city of fire and slaughter and heroism, upon which the eyes and hopes of the world were turned in wonder and admiration. Somebody had seen the entry on the marriage register! The Bonnie Lassie told me of it, pausing at my bench with a little furrow ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... read it through, he will see it differently. The fact is that it is all a great human drama in which these things are the acts that mean grief, suffering, revenge upon somebody, loss or gain. The reporter who is behind the scenes sees the tumult of passions, and not rarely a human heroism that redeems all the rest. It is his task so to portray it that we can all see its meaning, or at all events catch the human drift of it, not merely the foulness and the reek of blood. If he can do that, he has performed ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... no means of telling how long our two plucky Wau-Wau Girls were in the water, because they themselves cannot tell when they reached the shore—but, think of it! cast away on a dark and stormy ocean in a black night such as that was. That is a triumph, an act of courage and heroism that should be held up as an example to every Camp Girl in America. However, I should not advise any of you to attempt to emulate the example set by our two young friends," added the Chief ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... yet, as you see, all are bright, pleasant, and the picture of neatness, marvelous contrasts indeed to the disorder and wretchedness prevailing among many, who might, by making an effort, be as bright and as comfortable as they are. There are, as you will find, many brilliant examples of female heroism and self-devotion exhibited here; but in some instances women seem to try how helpless, how foolish a silly woman can be. Ah," he broke off, as a terrific crash followed by a loud scream was heard, "I fear that shell ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... catch it, you won't get back. You just leave such a ship there forever, like an asteroid, and it's a damn shame about the men trapped aboard. Heroes all, no doubt—but the smallness of the widow's monthly check failed to confirm the heroism, and Nora was bitter about the price ...
— Death of a Spaceman • Walter M. Miller
... to side. There is something colossal, something strangely stirring in the suggestion of purpose in the figure. There is something to inspire wonder in the most sluggish mind. It tells a story of some sort of heroism. It tells a story of a master mind triumphing over bodily weakness and suffering. It tells a story of superlative ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... four years old on that fatal day when in one swift moment his father lay dead beside him and vengeance had been exacted by his resolute boy brother. It was such experiences as these that made of the pioneers the sturdy men they were. They acquired habits of heroism. Their sinews became wiry; their nerves turned to steel. Their senses became sharpened. They grew alert, steady, prompt and deft ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Heroism grander than that of the battlefield, which can calmly meet an ignominious death, was not lacking. Captain Nathan Hale, a quiet, studious spirit, just graduated from Yale College, volunteered to enter the British lines on Long Island as a spy. He was caught, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... us in full—in all reasonable or desired completeness—the great man's own record of his troubles, his emotions, and his toils, we find it, from the opening to the close, a record, not only of dauntless endurance, but of elastic and joyous heroism.... It is no longer pity that any one may presume to feel for him at the lowest ebb of his fortunes or his life; it is rapture of sympathy, admiration, and applause. ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... inferior evils, properly improved, furnish a good moral discipline, and might well, in the days of ignorance, have superseded pilgrimage and penance." Another remark of the same author is also excellent: "To sustain a fit of sickness may exhibit as true a heroism as to lead an army. To bear a deep affliction well, calls for as high exertion of soul as to storm a town; and to meet death with Christian resolution, is an act of courage in which many a woman has triumphed, and many a philosopher, ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... magnificent physical strength and active energy of Felix, and the strong bent to heroic effort and Christian devotion given to him in his earliest years, were thrown away in this tranquil English village, where there was clearly no scope for heroism. How was it that Canon Pascal could not see it? His curacy was a post to be occupied by some feebler man than Felix; a man whose powers were only equal to the quiet work of carrying on the labors begun by his rector. Besides, Felix would have recovered from ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... the flames; Of Latimer, and of Cranmer who for cowardice heroically atoned— Who thrust his right hand into the fire Because it had broken plight with his heart And written against the voice of his conviction. With such memories they exalted and cherished The heroism of their tried souls, And ours are wrung with doubt ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... never used his understanding of his fellow men to cultivate by trickery or device their favour and praise. He loved and idealised the ancient days of romance and chivalry, when men lived the wonderful tales of heroism that are now discredited and fading before the materialism of modern civilisation, and in this respect he had an affinity with the English composer, Elgar. He derived enjoyment from fairy tales and folk-lore, and these were his apparent consolation ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... dining-room Miss Munns had been consulting with Whitey as to how the patient was to be prepared for the ordeal of to-morrow, and by whom the news should be broken. Whitey had taken the task upon herself with the unselfish heroism of her profession, but her pretty face was worn with the strain of this long anxious case, and Bridgie's heart had ached for her in her painful task. Now, in the midst of her own agitation, she felt a thrill of unselfish joy that she had been able to take one ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a vice? Though this question will be laughed down, as if to ask it were to stultify the asker; but not so fast, since bigotry is not all bad. To hold an opinion is considered a virtue. To hold an opinion of righteousness against all odds for conscience' sake, we rightly account heroism. Is not a lover or a patriot a bigot? Or if not, where does he miss of being? We are to hold opinion and not become opinionated, a thing discovered to be difficult ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... claims upon your sympathy. It is said by some of your friends, I hope truly, that you are going to England. There can be none from the Crimea more welcome there, for your kindness in the sick-tent, and your heroism in the battle-field, have endeared you ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... said, "don't give me credit for any kind of heroism. That noblesse oblige attitude of yours doesn't suit me a bit. It ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... O bull among men, his host equipped with all kinds of arms, skilled in all weapons, consisting of a dense display of cars and elephants and cavalry abounding in banners, and well-paid and well-fed foot-soldiers possessed of great strength and bearing every mark of heroism and furnished with wonderful chariots and bows. And beholding the army of Salwa, the youthful princes of the Vrishni race resolved to encounter it sallying out of the city. And, O king, Charudeshna, Samva, and the mighty warrior Pradyumna, O descendant of the Kuru race, sallied out, ascending on ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... affability, courtesy, and sweetness of her natural temper." Her portrait fits with this description, showing a bright face in a small, dark hood, with a white kerchief over her shoulders. Both her ancestry and her breeding would dispose her to appreciate heroism, especially such as was shown in the cause of religion. She found the hero of her dreams in William Penn. Thus at Amersham, in the spring of 1672, the two stood up in some quiet company of Friends, and with prayer and joining of hands were united ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... forgotten in a dozen years. Besides, it is surely plain enough to everybody that there are thousands of men and women within a mile of us, apathetic and obscure, who, if, an object worthy of them had been presented to them, would have shown themselves capable of enthusiasm and heroism. Huge volumes of human energy ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... thinking more of my discourse; I learned it had gained the premium at Dijon. This news awakened all the ideas which had dictated it to me, gave them new animation, and completed the fermentation of my heart of that first leaven of heroism and virtue which my father, my country, and Plutarch had inspired in my infancy. Nothing now appeared great in my eyes but to be free and virtuous, superior to fortune and opinion, and independent ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... against, as privately professing christianity, suffered martyrdom with great heroism. The persecution continued many years, when the remnant of the innumerable christians, with which Japan abounded, to the number of 37,000 souls, retired to the town and castle of Siniabara, in the island of Xinio, where they determined to make a stand, to continue in their faith, and to ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... silence, with only a casual interjection, until Obed had finished his story. Then he made some appropriate remarks, very coolly, complimentary to the heroism of his friend; which remarks were at once quietly scouted ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... skeletons of the Serbian leaders, who were slaughtered for their ideals of freedom; and there again is the spot where were hanged several voivodas and bishops. Bones upon bones, blood upon blood, sin upon sin, heroism upon heroism! Kossovo, Scutari, Kumanovo, Skoplje, Prilep, Bitolj, Adrianople—all these names were well known by every Serbian soldier. In their childhood and boyhood they sang these very names, they sang them and knew the ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... such a proposition is true, the world must efface its habit of admiration for the martyrs and heroes of the past, who embraced violent death rather than defile themselves by a lying confession. Or is present heroism ridiculous, and only past heroism admirable? However, nobody has a right to demand the heroic from all the world; and if to publish his dissent from the opinions which he nominally holds would reduce a man to beggary, human charity bids us say as little as may be. We may leave such men ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... those statements, which fill heaven with ecstasy, rehearsed to vacant, listless hearers! How many weep at fictitious woes, who contemplate the bloody scene of Calvary without a tear! How many hearts glow in admiration of the benevolence or heroism of a fellow worm, while entirely unaffected alike by the sacrifice or the triumph of the Son of God! How often do men express sentiments of the most fervent gratitude towards earthly benefactors, who would ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin
... beneficent, than even the mood of disinterested study. In the world to which sincerity would condemn him, only the worst elements of his character found nourishment and range; here he was humanised, made receptive of all gentle sympathies. Heroism might point him to an unending struggle with adverse conditions, but how was heroism possible without faith? Absolute faith he had none; he was essentially a negativist, guided by the mere relations of phenomena. Nothing easier than to contemn the mode of life represented by this wealthy ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... the tidings glad.' This is a common argument: 'If you only knew the comfort of belief!' My reply is that I choose the nobler part of Emerson, when, after various disenchantments, he exclaimed, 'I covet truth!' The gladness of true heroism visits the heart of him who is really competent to say this. Besides, 'gladness' is an emotion, and Mr. Martineau theoretically scorns the emotional. I am not, however, acquainted with a writer who draws ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... rather wonderful to them that a man should admit the thing, and in the tone of their laughter there was probably more admiration than if old Fleming had declared that he had always been a lion. Moreover, they knew that he had ranked as an orderly sergeant, and so their opinion of his heroism was fixed. None, to be sure, knew how an orderly sergeant ranked, but then it was understood to be somewhere just shy of a major general's stars. So, when old Henry admitted that he had been ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... have merged into obligations that not one man in fifty is free to disregard. While it is called your day—before you are compassed behind and before with a commonplace that locks up so many lives like a numbing fate—signalize your record by some bit of heroism. If you would have posterity call you wise, seize your chance, while you have it, to be God's fool. Find the faith that can help you to play a man's part in the world; find in your faith the power which can grasp you by your weakness and sin, ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... circumstance that attended this dispute deserves to be transmitted to posterity, as an instance of that courage, mingled with humanity, which constitutes true heroism. While the French and English were hotly engaged in one of the streets, a little child ran playfully between them, having no idea of the danger to which it was exposed: a common soldier of the enemy, perceiving the life ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... done by the U. S. Coast Guard, to depict the indomitable men who overcome dangers greater than are known to any others who traffic on the sea, to point to the manly boyhood of America this arm of our country's national defense, whose history is one long record of splendid heroism, is the aim and ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... is wonderful fascination. The mythic period under kings; the contests with Latins, Etruscans, Volscians, Samnites, and Gauls; the legends of Porsenna, of Cincinnatus, of Coriolanus, of Virginia; the heroism of Camillus, of Fabius, of Decius, of Scipio; the great struggle with Pyrrhus and Hannibal; the wars with Carthage, Macedonia, and Asia Minor; the rivalries between patrician and plebeian families; the rise of tribunes; the Maenian, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord |
