"Invulnerable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in without a tremor. He felt himself invulnerable—raised far above the shallowness of common judgment. Though he saw the Prince looking at him with black displeasure, the lucidity of his mind, of which he was very conscious, gave him an extraordinary assurance. He was not asked ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... for ophthalmia; and the Canaches have a collection of stones with a special superstition connected with each. But why seek examples so far away and in a past so remote? In our own day anti in our own land we find men who think themselves invulnerable and their cattle safe if they are fortunate enough to ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... sprung from ash-trees, the last left among the sons of the gods; and the son of Cronos gave him to Europa to be the warder of Crete and to stride round the island thrice a day with his feet of bronze. Now in all the rest of his body and limbs was he fashioned of bronze and invulnerable; but beneath the sinew by his ankle was a blood-red vein; and this, with its issues of life and death, was covered by a thin skin. So the heroes, though outworn with toil, quickly backed their ship from the land in sore dismay. And now far from Crete would they have been borne in wretched plight, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... discontent, the unhappy bane Of life, and blackener of each brighter scene. Why to thy votaries dost thou give to feel So keenly all the scorns—the jeers of life? Why not endow them to endure the strife With apathy's invulnerable steel, Of self-content and ease, each torturing ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... these invulnerable envelopments, his worship had rested content, although severed from his own death-doing weapons, of rapier, poniard, and pistols, which were placed nevertheless, at no great distance from his chair. One offensive implement, indeed, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... struggled in mortal agony, were sometimes seen to roll over the sheer sides of the precipice together. Cortes himself had a narrow escape from this dreadful fate.... The number of the enemy was double that of the Christians; but the invulnerable armor of the Spaniard, his sword of matchless temper, and his skill in the use of it, gave him advantages which far outweighed the odds of physical ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... rout! Let thunder break, Let lightning blast me by the way! Invulnerable Love shall shake His aegis o'er ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... resembled that of the iron pot borne down the stream in company with the earthen one, it was the object of her choice. Poor pipkin that Gilbert was, the contact had cost him a smashing blow, and for all clay of the more fragile mould, the best hope was to give the invulnerable material a wide berth. Talk of influence! Mr. Dusautoy might as well hope that a Wedgwood cream-jug would guide a copper cauldron and ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... themselves to such diet as the soul would dispense with, save for some necessity of the body; and which even so ought to set up no disturbance. (15) But for himself, it was clear, he was prepared at all points and invulnerable. He found less difficulty in abstaining from beauty's fairest and fullest bloom than many others from weeds and garbage. To sum up: (16) with regard to eating and drinking and these other temptations of the sense, the equipment of his soul made him independent; he could boast ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... coach, watched grimly the tide of battle. Things had gone worse than he had anticipated. He had not hoped for too much—a tie would have satisfied him; a victory for Hillton had been beyond his expectations. St. Eustace far outweighed his team; her center was almost invulnerable and her back field was fast and heavy. But, despite the modesty of his expectations, Gardiner was disappointed. The plays that he had believed would prove to be ground-gainers had failed almost invariably. Neil Fletcher, the left half, on whom the head coach had placed ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... a scene-shifter. Tinkham, Deacon Pelatiah, story concerning, not told, alluded to, does a very sensible thing. Toms, Peeping. Toombs, a doleful sound from. Trees, various kinds of extraordinary ones. Trowbridge, William, mariner, adventure of. Truth and falsehood start from same point, truth invulnerable to satire, compared to a river, of fiction sometimes truer than fact, told plainly, passim. Tuileries, exciting scene at, front parlor of. Tully, a saying of. Tunnel, Northwest-Passage, a poor investment. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... castle; and the ground surrounding it, within the great palisade, was divided into as many yards as there were doors; so that each kind of animal had its own proper enclosure. In one of these enclosures the rhinoceros was walking about, clothed in his plated and invulnerable hide; and in the next there were two elephants. The crowd of people were chiefly occupied in looking at the elephants. The palisade was very heavy and strong, being formed of timbers pointed at the top, ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... Cloncurry, Mountjoy, Glentworth, and Caledon, were founded for as many convenient Commoners, who either paid for their patents, in boroughs, or in hard cash. It was the very reign and carnival of corruption, over which presided the invulnerable Chancellor—a true "King of Misrule." In reference to this appalling spectacle, well might Grattan exclaim—"In a free country the path of public treachery leads to the block; but in a nation governed like a province, to the helm!" But the thunders ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... coldness, he had mixed[gp] Again in fancied safety with his kind, And deemed his spirit now so firmly fixed And sheathed with an invulnerable mind, That, if no joy, no sorrow lurked behind; And he, as one, might 'midst the many stand Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find Fit speculation—such as in strange land He found in wonder-works of God and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... purpose. They would have to be endowed, cared for, or confined. There is the quite considerable class, who, while normal with respect to sensory and motor discrimination, seem to be seriously and irremediably defective in their powers of judgment. These also seem to offer invulnerable resistance to education, and their original natures would not be subject to modification even by an education perfectly adapted to the needs ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... Lycidas; "one which makes the souls of those who hold it invulnerable as was the body of Achilles, and without the one weak point. It inspires even women and children with the courage of heroes, as I witnessed this day. The seventh of the Hebrew brethren was of tender years, and goodly. Even the king pitied his ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... On the whole, however, there is agreement. The character of Gudmund the Great, for example, is well drawn, with zest, and some irony, in his own Saga (Ljsvetninga); he is the prosperous man, the "rich glutton," fond of praise and of influence, but not as sound as he looks, and not invulnerable. His many appearances in other Sagas all go to strengthen this impression of the full-blown great man and his ambiguous greatness. So also Snorri the Priest, whose rise and progress are related in Eyrbyggja, ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... hideous howls heralding the approach of the spectre. When it appeared, the Marshal first discharged his pistol point-blank at it without effect, and then struck it with his sabre, which was shivered in his hand. The invulnerable spectre then beckoned the amazed Marshal to follow, and preceded him to a spot where the floor of the gallery suddenly yawned, and they sank together through it to sepulchral depths. Here he was surrounded by a band of desperate ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... be an established fact that the day for the glory of cavalry has passed. Once the mailed knight, mounted on his mailed charger, could overthrow by scores the poor, pusillanimous pikemen and crossbow men who composed the infantry; he was invulnerable in his iron armor, and could ride them down like reeds. But gunpowder and the bayonet have changed this; and now the most confident and domineering cavalryman will put spurs to his horse and fly at a gallop, if he sees the muzzle of an infantryman's rifle, with its glittering bayonet, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... kind of work and no other. When a mere imp of a boy, the heartless tormentor of a large and sententious stepmother, the despair of schoolmasters, the most ingenious of truants, a humorous ragamuffin invulnerable to punishment, it was already revealed to him that his mission in life was to be the observation and reproduction of human character, particularly in its humorous aspects. To this end Nature had ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... Marraboo caused a wall to be erected, commencing from the sea shore, and extending towards the Cape; which, in the estimation of the natives, and in consequence of his sacerdotal office, incantations, and charms, was rendered invulnerable: the hypocritical priest well knew the natural disposition of his countrymen, and the effect his exorcisms would produce upon their minds; which operated so effectually, that when his army was beaten by the powerful Damel, ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... this period in the career of youth, the financial condition of whose parents or sponsors is unequal to their further pursuit of scholastic studies, it is not without an anxious solicitude they depart from the parental roof. For the correct example and prudent advice may not be invulnerable to the temptation for illicit pleasures or ruinous conduct. Happy will he be who listens to the admonitions of age. Unfortunately by the action of response, sad in its humor, too often is: I like the advice but prefer ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... capacity of the town seemed weaker for holding out, and as the prospect of reinforcements seemed to grow fainter and fainter, the opinion of Hanoverian Edinburgh concerning the clans changed mightily. Had the Highlanders been a race of giants, endowed with more than mortal prowess, and invulnerable as Achilles, they could hardly have struck more terror into the hearts of loyal ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... have we heard of defeat," cried Stephen. "Hereafter shall children show mailed warriors and proud barons how invulnerable are youths ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... been cast down when we hauled the boat ashore. With this, he went down so far as seemed safe, and prodded the creature in one of its tentacles—the weapon entering easily, at which I was surprised, for I had understood that these monsters were near to invulnerable in all parts save their eyes. At receiving this stab, the great fish appeared to feel no hurt for it showed no signs of pain, and, at that, the bo'sun was further emboldened to go nearer, so that he might deliver a more deadly ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... his voice could be heard, he commenced by admonishing them to rejoin the standard of the Czarina. He was fired at more than 2,000 times from the windows of the factory, but when they saw that he was invulnerable they suddenly threw open the gates and joined his forces. From them he discovered the whereabouts of the mock Czar, who had at the time once more recovered himself, had captured three strongholds, Magitnaja, Stepnaja, and Petroluskaja, and was just then besieging Troiczka. This place he took before ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... rage which bedewed our continent in behalf of the "average American girl" supposed to be satirized in Daisy Miller, and prevented the perception of the fact that, so far as the average American girl was studied at all in Daisy Miller, her indestructible innocence, her invulnerable new-worldliness, had never been so delicately appreciated. It was so plain that Mr. James disliked her vulgar conditions, that the very people to whom he revealed her essential sweetness and light were furious that he should have seemed not to see what existed ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... out: there was, in the first place, a pardonably human sense of aggrievedness that the eldest-born should cross their plans and wishes; that, after the year-long care and thought they had bestowed on him, he should demand fresh efforts from them; and, again, most harassing of all and most invulnerable, such an entire want of faith in the powers he was yearning to test—the prophet's lot in the mean blindness of the family—that, at times, it threatened to shake his hard-won faith in himself.—But before the winter drew to a close ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... possibilities of the telephone business; and its already busy agents had little time or knowledge or enthusiasm to give to the new enterprise. With all its power, it found itself outfought by this compact body of picked men, who were young, zealous, well-handled, and protected by a most invulnerable patent. ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... the conviction it expressed was absolute. Sweetwater recognised the tone, as one of truth, and inwardly laid down his arms. He could never like the man; there was too much iron in his fibre; but he had to acknowledge that as a foe he was invulnerable and therefore admirable to one who had the good sense ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... men were they, as ever went forth armed and determined for premeditated crime; stout in frame, stout of heart, invulnerable by any physical apprehension, unassailable by any touch of conscience, pitiless, fearless, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... by honors and emoluments; and some fortunate accidents soon introduced an opinion, that as long as the guards of the labarum were engaged in the execution of their office, they were secure and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. In the second civil war, Licinius felt and dreaded the power of this consecrated banner, the sight of which, in the distress of battle, animated the soldiers of Constantine with an invincible enthusiasm, and scattered terror and dismay through the ranks of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... regret to say that I was never able to ascertain if She was invulnerable against the ordinary accidents of life. Presumably this was so, else some misadventure would have been sure to put an end to her in the course of so many centuries. True, she offered to let Leo slay her, but very probably this was only an experiment to try ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... he is not dead, he doth not sleep— He hath awaken'd from the dream of life— 'Tis we, who, lost in stormy visions, keep With phantoms an unprofitable strife; And in mad trance, strike with our spirits' knife, Invulnerable nothings!" ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... M. de Marivaux, who reviewed, as I am doing, the spirits of the mighty dead, you "conceived, on the strength of your reputation, a great and serious veneration for yourself and your genius." Probably you were protected by the invulnerable armour of an honest vanity, probably you declared that mere jealousy dictated the lines of Boileau, and that Chapelain's real fault was his popularity, and ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... known, by the protection of his mother, who was always at hand to guide and support him in the conflict, and to succor him in danger. Achilles, on the other hand, possessed a charmed life. He had been dipped by his mother Thetis, when an infant, in the river Styx, to render him invulnerable and immortal; and the immersion produced the effect intended in respect to all those parts of the body which the water laved. As, how ever, Thetis held the child by the ankles when she plunged him in, the ankles remained unaffected ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... assumed by the Empress Dowager towards the Boxer superstitions of 1900, and their pretentions to be able at will to call to their aid legions of spirit-soldiers, while at the same time they were themselves invulnerable to the bullets ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... hearty laughs while Madame Hanska could work at his comedies. In spite of this friendly correspondence, the Marechal probably hinted to his wife that her admiration for the author was too warm, for Balzac asked her to reassure her husband that he was not only invulnerable, but immune from attack. Balzac spoke of dedicating one of his books in the Comedie humaine to M. de Hanski, but no dedication to him is found in this work. His death, which occurred some months after this suggestion, doubtless prevented ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... parting blessing gave, 210 The tear that glistened in his eye Drowned not his purpose fixed and high. My soul, though feminine and weak, Can image his; e'en as the lake, Itself disturbed by slightest stroke, 215 Reflects the invulnerable rock. He hears the report of battle rife, He deems himself the cause of strife. I saw him redden, when the theme Turned, Allan, on thine idle dream 220 Of Malcolm Graeme in fetters bound, Which I, thou saidst, about him wound. Think'st ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... internecine work of that kind: things fitter for me, under the bright Sun, on this green Mother's-bosom (though the Devil does dwell in it)! For the present, really, it is like a Nessus' shirt, burning you into madness, this wretched Enterprise; nay, it is also like a kind of Panoply, rendering you invulnerable, insensible, to ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... literature, raise all your arms and heels, your daggers, masks, and hatchets, to revenge the daring of an open foe, who thus boldly defies your base and selfish views; for, basking at his ease in the sunshine of public patronage, he feels that his heart is rendered invulnerable to your poisoned shafts. Read, and you shall find I have not been parsimonious of the means to grant you food and pleasure: errors there are, no doubt, and plenty of them, grammatical and typographical, all of which I might have corrected by an errata at the end of my volume; ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... to try anything against you tonight, Major. I should say they'd give you a miss in baulk, for they must believe you invulnerable. Still, I'm going with you to ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... and vividness of colour in his countenance. At the foot, was a tall young gentleman, with high cheekbones and a Celtic nose, who had lately joined from Tipperary. The colonel sat in the centre of one side of the table, stiff in attitude, sententious in discourse, invulnerable in vanity; a fierce-looking navy captain, and the meek mayor of the town, supported him to the right and left. A few diners out, fathers of families, and men who played a good game of billiards, and preferred the society of ensigns, were the remainder of the guests; the other gentlemen in red ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, For ever shattered and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came), Here let the billows ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... disturbance in all this matter; and I was as perfectly easy as to the lawfulness of it as if I had been married to the prince and had had no other husband; so possible is it for us to roll ourselves up in wickedness, till we grow invulnerable by conscience; and that sentinel, once dozed, sleeps fast, not to be awakened while the tide of pleasure continues to flow, or till something dark and dreadful brings us to ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... the subject of it, and whose approbation, therefore, must ensure it credit and success, the Life of Dr. Johnson is, with the greatest propriety, dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was the intimate and beloved friend of that great man; the friend, whom he declared to be 'the most invulnerable man he knew; whom, if he should quarrel with him, he should find the most difficulty how to abuse[54].' You, my dear Sir, studied him, and knew him well: you venerated and admired him. Yet, luminous as he was upon the whole, you perceived ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... obtaining her hand, as she eluded him by assuming various forms. Her children were all destroyed by fire through her attempts to see whether they were immortal, and Achilles would have shared the same fate had not his father rescued him. She afterwards rendered him invulnerable by plunging him into the waters of the Styx, with the exception of that part of the heel by which she ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... leopard skin worn by the African warriors to render them invulnerable to spears, it would seem as if the manner in which Chaacmol met his death, by being stabbed with a spear, had been known to their ancestors; and that they, in their superstitious fancies, had imagined that by wearing his totem, it would save them from being wounded ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... purpose for the moment, secure that no detection or subsequent exposure will have the slightest effect with those over whose minds and passions he rules with such despotic sway. He cares not whom he insults, because, having covered his cowardice with the cloak of religious scruples, he is invulnerable, and will resent no retaliation that can be offered him. He has chalked out to himself a course of ambition which, though not of the highest kind—if the consentiens laus bonorum is indispensable to the aspirations of noble minds—has everything in ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... loveliness. In the Middle Ages hardly anything but vice could be caricatured, because virtue was always visibly and personally noble: now virtue itself is apt to inhabit such poor human bodies, that no aspect of it is invulnerable to jest; and for all fairness we have to seek to the flowers, for all sublimity, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... and careless of defence, Invulnerable in his impudence, He dares the world, and eager of a name He thrusts about and justles into fame; So fond of loud report that, not to miss. Of being known (his last and utmost bliss), He rather would be known for what ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... no greater than Achilles. No one is. There is bound to be a spot. The Somebody-or-Other must take hold of us somewhere when she dips us in the Something-or-Other that makes us invulnerable. He read aloud this ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... and not meet for females. The men pulled themselves together, remembering that their proudest quality was a stoic callousness that nothing could overthrow. They refilled pipes, ordered more beer, and resumed the mask of invulnerable solemnity. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... body, shattered by the agitations he had gone through since the last evening, made him feel abjectly in the power of this loud invulnerable man. At that moment he snatched at a temporary repose to be won on any terms. He was rising to do what Raffles suggested, when the latter said, lifting up his finger as if with a ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... who professed to find in it a kind of diabolical oracle, and used it with much effect in disseminating their teaching. One of these prophets, or preachers, however, had a short career. Three weeks after Lloyd's death, this man, having persuaded himself and his dupes that they were invulnerable, led them against a strong and well-garrisoned redoubt at Sentry Hill, between New Plymouth and Waitara. Early one fine morning, in solid column, they marched deliberately to within 150 yards of the fort, and before straight shooting undeceived them about the value of their charms and passes, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... placed about the Duke of Gloucester. If the High Churchmen, by reviving old stories, succeeded in carrying a vote against the Preceptor, it was by no means unlikely that some malicious Whig might retaliate on the Governor. The Governor must have been conscious that he was not invulnerable; nor could he absolutely rely on the support of the whole body of Tories; for it was believed that their favourite leader, Rochester, thought himself the fittest person to superintend the education of his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is this? he bears Nothing that warrants him invulnerable: Shall I then shrink to smite him? shall my fears Be greatest at the blow that ends them all? Fears? no! 'tis justice—fair, immutable, Whose measured step, at times, advancing nigh, Appalls the majesty of kings themselves. Oh, were he ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... and by different methods they claimed attention. They claimed it incessantly, Louie, the eldest, by an attitude of assurance and superiority so stiff and hard that it seemed invulnerable; Emmy by sudden jerky enthusiasms, exaltations, intensities; Edie by an exaggerated animation, a false excitement. Edie would drop from a childish merriment to a childish pathos, when she would call herself "Poor me," and demand pity for ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... is," I said, "just conceivable that I have that power. I do not recollect my immersion in the Styx, but it is, I suppose, not impossible that, although I am not actually invulnerable, my sterling qualities may yet be so apparent to the bee mind that, even were I so indiscreet as to lay hands upon their hive, they would not so far forget themselves as to assail me. At the same time, ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... left of the folk-lore of these people, before they are utterly demoralised by missionaries and the military, and all I find are a lot of impossible legends about a sandy-haired scrub of an infantry lieutenant. How he is invulnerable—how he can jump over elephants—how he can fly. That's the toughest nut. One old gentleman described your wings, said they had black plumage and were not quite as long as a mule. Said he often saw you by moonlight hovering over the ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... plains into the sea," cried Ahmed Ismail. "The angels will fight by our side—so the Mullahs have said—-and no man who fights with faith will be hurt. All will be invulnerable. It is written, and the Mullahs have read the writing and translated ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... I asked him about charms. 'Are there not charms that will prevent you being hurt if you are hit, and that will not allow a sword to cut you? We hear of invulnerable men. There were the Immortals of the King's ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... for that one cry, "I want my mother!" The persistency of the child, in spite of her youth and her distress, was almost invulnerable. She came of a stiff-necked family on one side at least, and sometimes stiff-neckedness is more pronounced in a child than in an adult, in whom it may be tempered by experience and policy. "I want my mother! I want my mother!" Ellen repeated in her gentle wail ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ideas at the basis of Emerson's philosophy, and it is fair to speak of them in this place because they antedate everything else which we know of him. They had been for years in his mind before he spoke at all. It was in the armor of this invulnerable idealism and with weapons like shafts of light that he came forth ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... acknowledge, by a resignation of Louisiana, that England is sovereign mistress of the seas, that she is there invulnerable, and that no one can possess colonies except at her good pleasure! It does not become you to fear the kings of England! If they should seize Louisiana, as some would have you fear, Hanover would be immediately in your hands, as a certain pledge of its restoration. France, deprived of ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... such guise I should have adored her. I endowed her with all the pride she lacked, stripped her of her virtues, her natural simple charm, and frank smile, in order to plunge her heart in our Styx of depravity that makes invulnerable, load her with our crimes, make of her the fantastical doll of our drawing-rooms, the frail being who lies about in the morning and comes to life again at night with the dawn of tapers. Pauline was fresh-hearted and affectionate—I ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... Still it doesn't matter; I have never been coward enough to hide my feelings. I'm in love, my dear baron, as madly in love as a young collegian—sufficiently in love to watch my lady's house at night even when I have no possible hope of seeing her. I thought myself blase, I boasted of being invulnerable. Well, one fine morning I woke up with the heart of a youth of twenty beating in my breast—a heart which trembled at the slightest glance from the girl I love, and sent purple flushes to my face. Naturally I tried to reason with myself. I was ashamed ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... whether it be that it is directed by the inscrutable will of destiny, or by the malice of some jealous enchanter. Now it is an established fact that all or most famous knights-errant have some special gift, one that of being proof against enchantment, another that of being made of such invulnerable flesh that he cannot be wounded, as was the famous Roland, one of the twelve peers of France, of whom it is related that he could not be wounded except in the sole of his left foot, and that it must be with the point of a stout ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... then To pay that duty which you truly owe To him that owes it, namely, this young prince: And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear, Save in aspect, hath all offence seal'd up; Our cannons' malice vainly shall be spent Against the invulnerable clouds of heaven; And with a blessed and unvex'd retire, With unhack'd swords and helmets all unbruis'd, We will bear home that lusty blood again Which here we came to spout against your town, And leave your children, wives, ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... upon them. Through the closed doors resounded the tempestuous roar of the multitudes assembled around the Seraglio. Those within it trembled, and Halil Patrona stood there among them like an enchanter who knows that he is invulnerable, immortal. ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... chap—Rutton Singh, from Jullunder-way. He only grinned, and said it was all right. Stalky had been out of the fort twice before, somewhere or other, accordin' to him. He said Stalky 'ud come back unchipped, and gave me to understand that Stalky was an invulnerable Guru of sorts. All the same, I put the whole command on half rations, and set 'em to ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... merciless but well-meaning scientist, or hordes from a foreign planet, wipe out thousands of American citizens at one blow. Hundreds of airplanes are disintegrated before they discover that the enemy is invulnerable. An ultimatum in domineering tones gives the terror-stricken populace forty-eight hours in which to surrender. But, all unknown to the dastardly villains, an obscure young scientist labors to save his country and the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... the first onset, Cygnus, dashed by Achilles against a stone, is changed by Neptune into the swan, a bird of the same name, he having been vulnerable by no weapon. At the banquet of the chiefs, Nestor calls to mind Caeneus, who was also invulnerable; and who having been changed from a woman into a man, on being buried under a heap of trees, was transformed into a bird. This Caeneus was one of the Lapithae, at the battle of whom with the Centaurs, Nestor ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... own life, and in the manifestations of his own moral temper, and who was not by possibility liable to any impulse or 'shadow of turning' from another man's suggestion, it was not eventually an injury that he was dishonored by some of his connections; on him, invulnerable in his own character, neither a harlot for his wife, nor a gladiator for his son, could inflict a wound. Then as now, oh sacred lord Diocletian, he was reputed a god; not as others are reputed, but specially and ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... indulgence of a bootless rage? I know in my own breast that I am pained By what thou griev'st at, and if I had power, My censure of their deeds would soon be known. But in misfortune I have chosen to sail With lowered canvas, rather than provoke With puny strokes invulnerable foes. I would thou didst the like: though I must own The right is on thy side, and not on mine. But if I mean to dwell at liberty, I must obey in all ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... they were not bowed; and through the mazes and briers of this weary life, their bleeding footsteps strayed not, for they had a clew! The mind seemed, as it were, to become visible and external as the frame decayed, and to cover the body with something of its own invulnerable power; so that whatever should have attacked the mortal and frail part, fell upon that which, imperishable and divine, resisted ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... farm was self-sufficing, producing only what its own occupants could consume, and that consequently there was comparatively little external trade in farm produce. From these facts he would readily understand that the rural communities in the year 1500, numerous yet isolated, were invulnerable strongholds of ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... goes, plunged her son in the waters of Styx to make him invulnerable. The truth of this allegory is apparent. The cruel mothers I speak of do otherwise; they plunge their children into softness, and they are preparing suffering for them, they open the way to every kind of ill, which their children will not fail ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... wonderful feat of the Shoshone, and also of the Comanche and Apache, is the facility with which he will hang himself alongside his horse in a charge upon an enemy, being perfectly invisible to him, and quite invulnerable, except through the body of his horse. Yet in that difficult and dangerous position he will use any of his arms with precision and skill. The way in which they keep their balance is very simple; they pass their right arm, to the very shoulder, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep! He hath awakened from the dream of life. 'Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife Invulnerable nothings. WE decay Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief Convulse us and consume us day by day, And cold hopes swarm like worms within ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... they will be steerable. Moreover, when the wind admits, there will be freely-moving steerable balloons wagging little flags to their friends below. And so far as the resources of the men on the ground go, the balloons will be almost invulnerable. The mere perforation of balloons with shot does them little harm, and the possibility of hitting a balloon that is drifting about at a practically unascertainable distance and height so precisely as to blow it to pieces with a timed shell, and to do this in the little time before it ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... knives, and good leggings. There are people around the world eating our people (the Navajo). Some of these people are great giants and some are as small as flies; we wish to kill them with lightning." The sun gave the youths clothing that was invulnerable, and he gave them lightning with which to destroy all enemies, and a great stone knife. They then went over the world. Naiyenesgony killed with the lightning arrows and Tobaidischinni scalped with his knife. After all enemies had been destroyed ...
— Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis and Mythical Sand Painting of the - Navajo Indians • James Stevenson
... to have learned the advantage of misapprehension, which, if well handled by any man, helps him, in the cunning of paltry things, better than a truer estimate. But without going into that, he was pleased with the fancy of being invulnerable, which not only doubled his courage, but trebled the discipline of his followers, and secured him the respect of all tradesmen. However, the worst of all things is that just when they are establishing themselves, and earning true faith by continuance, out of pure opposition the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... 75). Among the Yuki Indians of California, "the 'poison-doctor' is the most important member of the profession. The office is hereditary; a little child is prepared for holding it by being poisoned and then cured, which, in their opinion, renders him invulnerable ever afterward" (519. 131). Among the Tunguses, of Siberian llussia, a child afflicted with cramps or with bleeding at the nose and mouth, is declared by an old shaman ("medicine-man," or "medicine-woman") to be called to ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... even died of the effects experienced at the greater heights, yet neither Manuela, nor Lawrence, nor Quashy was affected in the slightest degree. We can assign no reason for their exemption—can only state the fact. As for the guide, he was in this matter—as, indeed, he seemed to be in everything—invulnerable. ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... was begun, the lookouts reported that the great Confederate ironclad was steaming down, to do battle, single-handed, with the Union fleet. She was commanded by Buchanan, a very gallant and able officer, who had been on the Merrimac, and who trusted implicitly in his invulnerable sides, his heavy rifle guns, and his formidable iron beak. As the ram came on, with splendid courage, the ships got under way, while Farragut sent word to the monitors to attack the Tennessee at once. The fleet surgeon, Palmer, delivered ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... seizure of the Danish fleet gave occasion for Alexander to declare war against England. The war, however, which ensued between the two countries, amounted chiefly to a cessation of trade. England, protected by her fleet, was invulnerable; and Napoleon and Alexander both agreed that the only possible way of compelling England to assent to peace, was to shut her out from commerce with the rest of Europe. This was the origin of the famous continental system, by which it was ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... two queens have quarreled, and Hagen, as the faithful liegeman of Brunhild, seeks the life of Siegfried, who is invulnerable except in one spot on his back. At the end of a day's hunt in the Odenwald (across the Rhine from Worms) the thirsty Siegfried races with Gunter and Hagen to a spring. 9: The silken cross which the unsuspecting Kriemhild has sewn upon her husband's corselet, in order that Hagen may protect him ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... and neither has the right to jeopardise that life which belongs to the other. To say, 'I shall not catch the disease, because I have no fear,' is as idle as it would be for the soldier to say, 'Because I am brave, therefore I am invulnerable.' ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... make astrology invulnerable to the blows of reason and of common sense, was the fact that in reality, the apparent rigor of its calculus and its theorems notwithstanding, it was not a science but a faith. We mean not only that {170} it implied belief in postulates that could not be proved—the same thing ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... of operations. She will successively fight him at every important point with a strong army, supported by large reserves, tire him out, and ruin him in detail. This plan she will adhere to until her great ally approaches from Siberia—grim Winter, covering Russia with an invulnerable defence, so that her sons may at last take the offensive, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... into oblivion. The room thundered with a great shout of laughter that went to the ceiling. I could see Bobbs making angry shouts against an invulnerable bank of uncontrolled merriment. And amid his victory old Fullbil sat with a vain smile on his ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... Indian mythology ends in the same ethics; and it would seem impossible for any fable to be invented to get any currency which was not moral. Aurora[117] forgot to ask youth for her lover, and though Tithonus is immortal, he is old, Achilles[118] is not quite invulnerable; the sacred waters did not wash the heel by which Thetis held him. Siegfried,[119] in the Niebelungen, is not quite immortal, for a leaf fell on his back whilst he was bathing in the dragon's blood, and that spot which it covered is mortal. And so it must be. There is a crack in everything ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... interruptions from the Angekoks, who tried more than once to bewitch him, but finally gave it up, convinced that he was a great medicine-man himself, and therefore invulnerable. But before that they tried to foment a regular mutiny, the colony being by that time well under way, and Egede had to arrest and punish the leaders. The natives naturally clung to them, and when Egede had mastered ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... manicurist to keep them so, but she was too righteous to powder her nose. She was the sort of person a man would like his best friend to marry. Lady Arabel was older: she was virtuous to the same extent as Achilles was invulnerable. In the beginning, when her soul was being soaked in virtue, the heel of it was fortunately left dry. She had a husband, but no apparent tragedy in her life. These two women were obviously not native ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... every night he performed. Mr. Forrest appeared to be possessed of the perfection of physical form, more especially conspicuous when arrayed in some peculiar costumes which tended to display it to the best advantage. He had a stentorian voice, and must have had lungs not less invulnerable than one of Homer's heroes. He had a fine masculine face and prepossessing countenance, much resembling many of the notable Greeks and Romans whose portraits have come down to our time, and a keen intellectual eye. His countenance at times assumed an air of hauteur which doubtless had become a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... representative image and within six feet of it. His signalling will be supposed to be perfect, and he will communicate with his subordinates by shout, whisper, or note, as he thinks fit. I suggest he should be considered invulnerable, but Colonel Sykes has proposed arrangements for his disablement. He would have it that if the General falls within the zone of destruction of a shell he must go out of the room for three moves (injured); and that if he is hit by rifle-fire or captured ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... tresor! I said you were a beautiful chatelaine besieged by an army of lovers, but the knight errant Fortunatus had alone won your favor, and would receive your hand! The brave Colonel! I could see he winced at this. His steel cuirass was not invulnerable. I drew blood, which is more than you would have dared to do, Amelie! But I discovered the truth hidden in his heart. He is in love ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... greater faith in his potent protection than Soames had in that of his unseen master. What should a servant of Mr. King fear from the officers of the law? How puny a thing was the law in comparison with the director of that secret, powerful, invulnerable organization whereof to-day he (Soames) ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... Valkyrs, or battle maidens, were either his daughters, like Brunhild, or the offspring of mortal kings, maidens who were privileged to remain immortal and invulnerable as long as they implicitly obeyed the god and remained virgins. They and their steeds were the personification of the clouds, their glittering weapons being the lightning flashes. The ancients imagined that ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... a number of fine prints, and with a whole length picture of Lord Errol, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. This led Dr. Johnson and me to talk of our amiable and elegant friend, whose panegyrick he concluded by saying, 'Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir, is the most invulnerable man I know; the man with whom if you should quarrel, you would find the most difficulty how ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... one of the favorite subjects of the old Spanish minstrels. The other two were The Cid and Lara's Seven Infants. Bernardo del Carpio was the person who assailed Orlando (or Rowland) at Roncesvalles, and finding him invulnerable, took him up in his arms and squeezed him to death, as Hercules did Antae'os.—Cervantes, Don Quixote, II. ii. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... as such attempts are like playing with a dynamo, and the person attempting such things will be surely punished by the result of the act itself. However, no person of impure motives ever acquires a great degree of psychic power, and a pure heart and mind is an invulnerable shield against improper psychic power. Keep yourself pure and nothing can ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka
... repulsed; they were not invulnerable. They had retreated to their triangle of cylinders again, in the circle about Woking. Signallers with heliographs were pushing forward upon them from all sides. Guns were in rapid transit from Windsor, Portsmouth, Aldershot, Woolwich—even ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... so. On the other hand, there is a carelessness as to dress and diet, to which the strongest constitution must at length yield; and the intense consciousness of strength and vigor, which tempts one to deem himself invulnerable, not infrequently is the cause of life-long infirmity and disability. Of the cases of prolonged and enfeebling disease, probably more are the result of avoidable than of unavoidable causes, and if we add to these the numerous instances in which the failure of health is to ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... Sanhedrin was unseizable and invulnerable. It carried the roots of evil from France into Scotland, where under a different name it entered into a league with united England, with whom, after having let it in behind the curtain of its secret and having declared deadly war to papism, it cooperates even to the present day, helping out England ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein
... 9th to 13th, 1917, the Canadian corps, with some British support, captured Vimy Ridge, a point which had hitherto proved invulnerable. When a year later, the Germans, north and south, swept the British line to one side in gigantic thrusts they were unable to disturb this key point, Vimy Ridge, which served as an anchor to the sagging line. The Canadian corps was engaged at Arleux and Fresnoy in April ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... robe of justice outrages his garment is it to remain an invulnerable shield against our righteous condemnation? He who doles justice, must ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... could be thought of for the possession of Mary Masters? If she were in danger would he not go down into the deep, or through fire to save her? Were not his old instincts of honesty and truth as strong in him as ever? Did manliness require that his heart should be invulnerable? If so he doubted whether he could ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... quiet strength of character would, in a measure, keep her safe from this troublesome spring disorder, but my uncle's account of her doings led me to fear that perhaps her wholesome armor of self-conceit was not so invulnerable as I had hoped. ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... of the Boxers on discovering that they were not invulnerable formed a sight which none of the defenders will ever forget. Every man was seized with a desire to escape from the foreigners' bullets, and they turned ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... share of mishaps. Wims is an individual who can make an accident prone of anyone who threatens his well being and survival. This boy, who, as indicated by the tests, hasn't an unkind thought for any creature on this planet, has an unconscious, reactive, invulnerable defense against persons who exhibit even the slightest hostility toward him. The energies of their own hostility are turned against them. The greater the hostility, the more accidents they have and the more serious ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... have struggled with him in the street, or to have exacted any lower recompense from him than his heart's best blood, would have been futile and degrading. Moreover, he was a boy whom no man could hurt; an invulnerable and dodging serpent who, when chased into a corner, flew out again between his captor's legs, scornfully yelping. I wrote, however, to Mr. Trabb by next day's post, to say that Mr. Pip must decline to deal further with one who could so far forget what he owed to the best ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... strong friendship in a letter designed, beyond doubt, as an argument in disfavour of all merely sentimental ties between men and women, and as a frank confession of his own inability to sustain any relation of the kind? How often had he maintained an opposite opinion—seeming contemptuous, indolent, invulnerable, unconscious of her beauty, amused rather than attracted by her brilliant spirit. Every instinct of the coquette, jealous of her own power and wretched from the sterile suffering of wounded pride, resented bitterly the unpardonable ease ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... sonata does the same in melody. In the "whirling circle" of the drama, not a word or an act that is not indissolubly linked with before and after. Thus the unity of a work of art makes of the system of suggested energies which form the foreground of attention an impregnable, an invulnerable circle. ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... Mrs. Brooks exhibited any extravagant joy over the occurrence, and she almost instantly retired with her daughter into the sitting-room, linking her arm in Cherry's, and, as it were, empanoplying her with her own invulnerable shawl. Herbert went to his room more dissatisfied ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... prize money among the crew. But think of it, man! I tell you it is an absolute impossibility for a shot to strike any ship which is provided with my apparatus. And then look at the cheapness. You don't want armour. You want nothing. Any ship that floats becomes invulnerable with one of these. The war ship of the future will cost anything from seven pound ten. You're grinning again; but if you give me a magnet and a Brixton trawler with a seven-pounder gun I'll show sport to the finest ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... Napoleon. In the Crimean War, three floating batteries covered with iron slabs, and each mounting eighteen fifty-pounders, silenced the Russian fort at Kinburn. This was a lesson it would seem that any one might learn. Louis Napoleon did not fail to learn it. If a ship can be made invulnerable, or nearly so, in every part, then of what avail is that strategy which secures choice of position, and which, of old, almost decided the battle? Will not he come off victor who can produce guns from which the heaviest shot may ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various |
