"Subaltern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... father Daubenton, received an order to quit Madrid, where his restless nullity had lost itself in a maze of intrigues. Authorised in a manner to form her ministry, she nominated the President Amelot as Ambassador for Spain, a diplomatist although very high minded, yet of somewhat subaltern ability, one of the lights of that magistracy from which Louis XIV. loved to recruit the staff of his government, and whence Madame des Ursins herself sprung on her mother's side. The Marshal de Tesse was appointed to the command of the army, and Orry, a pupil of Colbert and a ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... subalterns extended his hand and laid it on his sleeve. Plessy turned upon him angrily, and the subaltern withdrew his hand. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... military affairs; and still more, to find his reasonable request, after a long course of severe duty, for a temporary leave of absence to attend to his private concerns peremptorily refused, and that with as little courtesy as though he were a mere subaltern seeking to absent himself on a ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... months before this period, submitted to the government, and at this very time had a protection in his pocket, was put to death without question. A boy of eight years, who fell at Campbell's feet imploring mercy, and offering to serve him for life, was stabbed to the heart by one Drummond a subaltern officer. Eight-and-thirty persons suffered in this manner, the greater part of whom were surprised in their beds, and hurried into eternity before they had time to implore the divine mercy. The design was to butcher ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... what was the secret of her manifest agitation? A sudden inspiration flashed across his mind; a smile came upon his lips. She was in love! The enemy's line contained some sighing Strephon of a young subaltern with whom she was in communication, and for whom she had undertaken this quest. The flower was their language of correspondence, no doubt. It explained also the young girl's animosity against the younger officers,—his adversaries; ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... gentlemen, says he, let us make bold with your fire-arms too, for you see we make more use of them than you. So, seizing a brace of pistols inlaid with silver, and two fine brass blunderbusses, Will and his subaltern ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... say the least, problematical. However, she is on good terms with the curate of her parish, and is very particular about the arrangement of her dinner on the days she honours him with an invitation to her table. She seems to consider him a subaltern, very useful to her salvation, and capable of opening the ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... impossible," continued this gentleman, "that I should assist in procuring Mr Arnott such a renovation? Is there no subaltern part I can perform to facilitate the project? for I will either hide or seek with any boy in the parish; and for a Q in the corner, there is ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... rose, but I have lived with her," responded Forrester, sententiously. "That's the principle of the thing. When a subaltern arrives laden with gold, the barrack-yard is a perfect garden of Bendemeer ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... said fussily, relighting his cigarette at every instant; there was always a litter where he stood, for he wasted dozens of matches, lighting one cigarette. "Listen, my life now is the nastiest possible. The worst of it is any subaltern can shout: 'Hi, there, guard!' I have overheard all sorts of things in the train, my boy, and do you know, I have learned that life's a beastly thing! My mother has been the ruin of me! A doctor in the train told me that if parents are immoral, their children are ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... enters another fatal effect, the mother of ever-new mischiefs, which renders well-doing or improvement impossible, and drives bad everywhere continually into worse. The work being what we see, a stupid subaltern will do as well as a gifted one; the essential point is, that he be a quiet one, and do not bother me who have the driving of him. Nay, for this latter object, is not a certain height of intelligence even ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... in one glorious constellation, the great and little luminaries of New Amsterdam. There were the lordly Schout and his obsequious deputy, the burgomasters with their officious schepens at their elbows, the subaltern officers at the elbows of the schepens, and so on, down to the lowest hanger-on of police; every tag having his rag at his side, to finish his pipe, drink off his heel-taps, and laugh at his flights of immortal dulness. In short—for a city feast is a city feast all ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... and battery crowned also the eastern extremity of the island, and both, provided with a flag staff for the purpose of communication by signal with the fort, were far from being wanting in picturesque effect. A subaltern's command of infantry, and a bombardier's of artillery, were the only troops stationed there, and these were there rather to look out for, and report the approach of whatever American boats might be seen stealing along their own channel, than ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... part, I am in no particular hurry to exchange comfortable quarters, and good living, and such adventures as may fall to the lot of a humble subaltern, for roughing it in the field; where, as has been the case ever since the Brigade was formed, we get a good deal more than our fair share of hard work ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... to the doors of the sorcerers and filled their pockets in return for magic potions, philtres, and, in certain cases, insidious poisons. Thus La Voisin must be placed in the second category; "in spite of her luxury, her profits, and her fame," she "is only a subaltern agent in this vast organization of criminals. She depends entirely for her great enterprises on the intellectual chiefs of ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... himself up into a laudable heat of righteous indignation before the arrival of the prodigal. Yet he contrived to be out when the dog-cart conveying the said prodigal, and Mr. Decies of the 101st Lancers—a friend of Guy Quayle, home on leave from India, whence he brought news of his fellow-subaltern—actually drove up to the door. When, pushed thereto by an accusing conscience, he did at last come in, Lord Fallowfeild easily persuaded himself that there really was not time before dinner for the momentous conversation. Moreover, being very full of the milk of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... of prolonging their existence, joined those who wished to preserve the raft, and armed themselves: of this number were some subaltern officers and many passengers. The mutineers drew their sabres, and those who had none, armed themselves with knives: they advanced resolutely against us; we put ourselves on our defence: the attack was going to begin. Animated by despair, one of the mutineers lifted his sabre against ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... established the Ecole Militaire at Saint Cyr, from which are graduated each year more than four hundred subaltern officers. ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... could not discern his face ; but I was instantly certain he was not Bonaparte, on finding the whole commotion produced by the rifling crew above mentioned, which, though it might be guided, probably, by some subaltern officer, who might have the captive in charge, had left the field of battle at a moment when none other could be spared, as all the attendant throng were evidently amongst the refuse ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Many young men in the army, I believe, adopt this system, from motives both of moral and of economical prudence. A pint, or even half a pint, of wine per day, makes a considerable hole in the pay of a subaltern, or in the stipend of a country curate, or in the allowance of a briefless barrister. Avoid acquiring factitious wants. Do not by habit make wine necessary to your comfort. It is wise, when young, not to indulge in luxuries which in any future ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... declared insolvent by the tribunals. It appears to me that money would then be lent with more confidence, and borrowed with greater circumspection. Another advantage which would accrue from such a regulation, would be, that the subaltern orders of men, who imitate the customs and the prejudices of the higher class of citizens, would soon be apprehensive of incurring the same disgrace; and that fidelity in engagements would become one of the characteristic ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... an absolute Sovereign are not such as are demanded from or likely to be developed in the subordinate ruler of a dominion however important, and that functions like those of a Regent, at least as important as those of the Viceroy of India, ought not to be entrusted to men trained in subaltern administrative duties. Among the youths of greatest promise, in their eighth year, a certain small number are selected by the chiefs of the University, who visit for this purpose all the Nurseries of the kingdom. With what purpose these youths are separated from their fellows is not explained ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... Czar inflamed the Cossacks, and the German or Polish captives, who sighed for liberty, considering Siberia the road to their fatherland. Iermak began by organizing his little army. He named the hetmans, subaltern officers, and appointed the brave John Koltzo as second in command. Long-boats were laden with munitions of war and food, light artillery and long arquebuses. He procured guides, interpreters, priests, had prayers said, and received the final instructions of the Stroganoffs. The latter were conceived ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... Irish fishing-stories, and other stories of adventures in Ireland, hazarding wild opinions about the war, and generally manifesting a cheerful disregard of the fact that the tired man opposite him was not a subaltern as irresponsible as himself. Somehow, the weariness died out of Major Hunt's eyes. He began to joke in his turn, and to tell queer yarns of the trenches: and presently, indeed, the whole party seemed to be infected by the same spirit, so that the old walls of the Cheshire ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... himself, between whiles, with kisses, touches and embraces I could not refuse myself to. Yet he happily returned to his master before he was missed; but, at taking leave, I forced him (for he had sentiments enough to refuse it) to receive money enough to buy a silver watch, that great article of subaltern finery, which he at length accepted of, as a remembrance he was carefully ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... favorably compared to the greatest captains of past ages, sometimes at the head of different bodies of troops; sometimes united more indeed by the concord of their thoughts than by the orders which the subaltern received from his superior; sometimes at the head of opposing forces, and each redoubling his customary activity and vigilance, as tho God, who, according to the Scriptures, often in His wisdom makes a sport of the universe, had desired to show mortals ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... the enemy were between Laspur and Mastuj. We knew that they had not crossed the pass, or we should have seen them before this, so we were pretty hopeful of a fight soon after crossing the pass, and we were not disappointed. At Ghizr we also found Oldham, a Sapper subaltern, who had preceded us by a few days. He had with him a party of Kashmir Sappers and Miners, who were now armed with Snider carbines. The post, which consisted of a block of isolated houses, had been fortified and surrounded with a thorn zareba, and was only sufficiently ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... are sorcerers, and that it punishes them severely when they are convicted. He proves it by a decree issued in 1601 against some inhabitants of Campagne accused of witchcraft. The decree wills that they shall be sent to the Conciergerie by the subaltern judges on pain of being deprived of their charge. It supposes that they must be rigorously punished, but it desires that the proceedings against them for their discovery and punishment may ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... to how to economise effort, what force and how composed and equipped was necessary for a particular enterprise, whether in given conditions of roads, weather, supplies, and previous fatigue, a movement was practicable, and how long it would take any clever subaltern with actual experience of campaigning ought to have been a better judge than he. The test, which the reader must be asked to apply to his conduct of the war, is whether he followed, duly or unduly his own imperfect judgment, whether, on the whole, he gave in whenever ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... family and large fortune affected; and so far the priest was correct, for the young Gorman was wasteful and extravagant from disposition, and his quarter's allowance disappeared almost when it came. His money out, he fell back at once to the penurious habits of the poorest subaltern about him, and lived on his florin-and-half per diem till his resources came round again. He hoped—of course he hoped—that this momentary fit of temper would not extend to ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... looked down the road at the little body of brown men. They were nearer now, and I could see the face of the officer leading them—a boy subaltern, rather pale though the sun was hot. He halted ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... subaltern once met the Duke of Wellington coming out of Westminster Abbey. 'Good morning, your Grace,' he said, 'rather a wet morning.' 'Yes' said the Duke, with a very rigid bow, 'but it was a damn sight wetter, sir, on the morning of Waterloo.' The young subaltern, ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... the boy had said to himself, he'd stick to the field, and the troop that had the roughest work to do was the one that best suited him, and so it had happened that by the second spring of his service in the regiment no subaltern was held in higher esteem by senior officers or regarded with more envy by the lazy ones among the juniors than the young graduate, for those, too, were days in which graduates were few and far between, except in higher grades. Twice had he ridden in ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... remainder of the officers, had drunk his fair share of wine. He never liked his royal subaltern, and took no pains to conceal his sentiments. The arrogance of the prince's utterances, as well as his assumption of superiority, exasperated him beyond measure, and, breaking into the conversation, he exclaimed in tones that ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Others, more hopeful, think that we might be kept for "exchanges," in case the enemy make any notable captures. For instance, five of us might be considered the equivalent of an artillery mule; a platoon would balance a Territorial subaltern; and the whole bunch could be offered for (say) the return of the Albert Memorial. But the most popular impression is that we shall be asked to give some sort of display in the centre, in order to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... restrictions which a Royal man, in conversing with a commoner, is not supposed to forget. In fact, he forgot that he was Royal, or that she was not, and his voice grew unsteady, his tone eager, as if he had been some poor subaltern with the ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... chaplain—there was no regular padre in that ship, and we were likely to have no church parade until there was discovered amongst the reinforcement officers one little subaltern who was a padre in Tasmania, but who was going to the front as a fighting man. We had heard other padres speak to troops on the eve of their plunging into a great enterprise, when the sermon had made some of us wish that we only had the power and gift to seize that wonderful opportunity as it ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... tertiary plain as it widens southward beneath the granite bench that divides all the great rivers south of the Hudson into an upper and a lower reach. Detachments of them extend their tour to the Gulf. Readers of "A Subaltern on the Campaign of New Orleans in 1814-15" will recall his mention of the assemblage of robins hopping over the Chalmette sward that were the first living inhabitants to welcome the weary invaders on emerging from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... Bench to congratulate him, smiling, on his really admirable little speech; to the youthful dramatist, reading in his bed-sitting-room the managerial note asking him to call that morning at eleven; to the subaltern, beckoned to the stirrup of his chief—the moment when the sun breaks through the morning mists, and the world lies stretched before ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... different degree—the Emperor of China, the King of the Belgians, the Premier of Cape Colony, the Khedive of Egypt—competed to secure his services. The importance of his offices varied no less than their nature. One day he was a subaltern of sappers; on another he commanded the Chinese army; the next he directed an orphanage; or was Governor-General of the Soudan, with supreme powers of life and death and peace and war; or served as private secretary to Lord Ripon. But in whatever capacity he laboured he was true to his reputation. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... carriage with their masters. The two descendants, as they call themselves, of the house of Chatillon, insist that this Chatillon, who married an attorney's daughter, is descended from the illegitimate branches of that family. His son was a subaltern in the Body Guard. In the summer time, when the young officers went to bathe, they used to take young Chatillon with them to guard their clothes, and for this office they gave him a crown for his supper. Monsieur having taken this poor ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... such management evinced the correctness of Marion's judgment. The young lieutenant became remarkably polite, and also attentive to duty. In short, no subaltern behaved better. And this very happy change in his manners, was soon succeeded by as pleasing a change in the sentiments of all around him. The officers of the regiment grew fond of him — Marion spoke of him with pleasure, as an excellent ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... such a force, the young officer, aided by the one subaltern, made the best disposition possible for defence, trusting to hold the building until the fugitives should return with aid from Brunswick. Those who had their muskets were stationed at the few windows, while the dragoons ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... When they found that those who were to have paid them appropriated to themselves the profits of their labors, they demanded justice: it was denied them, and they determined to assert their right. As the depredations had been shared between the chief persons of the colony and the subaltern officers, the soldiers could obtain no redress. They had, in consequence, lived in open rebellion for above six months when the English appeared before the place. This was the time to conciliate the minds of both parties; the soldiers made the first advances, but their commanders distrusted a ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... the crowd pushed forward instantly, newspaper men as a matter of business, others from curiosity, as Kenyon opened his despatch. A burly, gray-haired major was quickly at his side, and a tall young subaltern, the adjutant of the regiment. One brief glance over the paper, and the commander turned to his right. "Clear the station," was all he said. Major Cross touched his hat, an eager light shooting across his frank, soldierly face, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... Letter have come for you by that Steamer; for I wrote one duly, and posted it in good time myself: I will hope therefore it was but some delay of some subaltern official, such as I am told occasionally chances, and that you got the Letter after all in a day or two. It would give you notice, more or less, up to its date, of all the points you had inquired about there is now little to be ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Markgraf of SLESWIG grows into Markgraf of DITMARSCH and STADE; retiring over the Elbe, if Norse Piracy get very triumphant. ANTWERP falls obsolete; so does MEISSEN by and by. LAUSITZ and SALZWEDEL, in the third century hence, shrink both into BRANDENBURG; which was long only a subaltern station, managed by deputy from one or other of these. A Markgraf that prospered in repelling of his Wends and Huns had evidently room to spread himself, and could become very great, and produce change in boundaries: observe ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... the question, made in a tone which dropped suddenly and significantly from the proud address of the officer to the humble request of the subaltern, brought a very tender smile to Mrs. Thorndyke's lips, as she gave her brother a grateful glance. "Yes," she said, "I think you certainly ought to wear your ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... He could not bear the pain and terror in the eyes of the slender English youth, who, though he wore the uniform of a subaltern, seemed so much out of place there in the deep woods. Yet the forester meant to take no ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to see the war, a fellow writer. He is a journalist let loose. Two-thirds of the junior British officers I met on this journey were really not "army men" at all. One finds that the apparent subaltern is really a musician, or a musical critic, or an Egyptologist, or a solicitor, or a cloth manufacturer, or a writer. At the outbreak of the war my guide dyed his hair to conceal its tell-tale silver, and having been laughed to scorn by the ordinary ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... amounting to two hundred thousand men. They showed the same skill and respect for order in their military organization, as in other things. The troops were divided into bodies corresponding with out battalions and companies, led by officers, that rose, in regular gradation, from the lowest subaltern to the Inca noble, who was intrusted with the general command. ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... on the road,—arm fallen powerless, early in the day, head dim and heavy; obviously an alarming case. But he refused to stop anywhere; refused any surgery but such as could be done at once. "Osnabruck! Osnabruck!" he reiterated, growing visibly worse. Two subaltern Hanover Officials, "Privy-Councillor von Hardenberg, KAMMERHERR (Chamberlain) von Fabrice, were in the carriage with him;" [Gottfried, Historische Chronik (Frankfurt, 1759), iii. 872. Boyer, The Political State of Great Britain, vol. xxxiii. pp. 545, 546.] ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... intention of treating you with ceremony. [She sits down: a liberty which gives him a perceptible shock.] I am quite at a loss to imagine why I should treat a perfect stranger named Duval: a captain! almost a subaltern! with the smallest ceremony. ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... purpose of borrowing money from M. Le Gros. And for his sake she regretted much that the attempt had been made. She had already learned one or two details with reference to M. Le Gros. Though his manners and appearance were so pleasant, he was only a subaltern about the theatre; and he was a subaltern whom this lord and lessee called simply Le Gros. And from the melancholy nature of his face when the application for money was made to him, she had learned that he was both good-natured and impecunious. Of herself, in regard to the money, she thought very ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... order of battle on the rising ground. The sun at mid-day flashed its brilliant radiance over their military casques and arms. The cannonade then became general; the Duke of Wellington exposed himself like a subaltern; his personal venture in the strife excited anxiety; it was in vain that the officers of his staff urged him to be less conspicuous, that the fate of the battle hung upon his life: it was evident that he had determined to conquer or die: we knew it in Bruxelles, and we knew ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... gossip. There was danger of an explosion any moment. Madame Dunoyer gave it out that the brilliant subaltern was to marry the girl. The Madame was going to capture the youth, either with her own charms or those of her daughter—or combined. Rumblings were heard on the horizon. The Ambassador, fearing entanglement, bundled young Arouet back to Paris, with a testimonial as to his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... Captain Gronow—a subaltern of the 1st Guards at Waterloo—gives us the following glimpse of the Duke and his Staff, on the morning of the 18th, before ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... soon will, I trust you will not add one to the idle followers of the Court, but reside on your patrimonial estate, cherish your ancient tenants, relieve and assist your poor kinsmen, protect the poor against subaltern oppression, and do what our fathers used to do, with fewer lights and with less means than ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... animals the idol was creating, to prevent which, certain of his priests hourly flung in pieces of the uninformed mass or substance, and sometimes whole limbs already enlivened, which that horrid gulph insatiably swallowed, terrible to behold. The goose was also held a subaltern divinity or Deus minorum gentium, before whose shrine was sacrificed that creature whose hourly food is human gore, and who is in so great renown abroad for being the delight and favourite of the Egyptian Cercopithecus {72b}. Millions of these animals were cruelly slaughtered ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... carriages in swarms, ranging from the spider-wheel gig of a British subaltern to the four-in-hand of Rajput nobility—kept pretty carefully apart, though. The conquerors of India don't mix with the conquered, as a rule, except officially. And there were half a dozen shuttered carriages that might have contained ladies, and ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... tendency, which is observable in good society now-a-days, to prefer personal courage to the possession of any other quality. The fact is that personal courage is really a very subordinate virtue,—merely the distinguishing mark of a subaltern,—a virtue, indeed, in which we are surpassed by the lower animals; or else you would not hear people say, as brave as a lion. Far from being the pillar of society, knightly honor affords a sure asylum, in general for dishonesty and wickedness, and also for ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... interval a young subaltern of the enemy's infantry, followed by his eager men, burst into this reeking interior. But just over the threshold he halted before the scene of blood and death. He turned with a shrug to his sergeant. "God, I should have estimated them at least one ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... broken, and that unwittingly, by the humour of one of the officers. In the course of the evening, the train stopped at a small station, and the compartment in which the officers were settled drew up in front of the Buffet. Some one asked where we were, and a subaltern, anxious to display his newly-acquired knowledge of French, replied, "Bouvette," which called forth no response. Shortly afterwards the train proceeded on its way, and the occupants of the carriage settled themselves ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... He and his guard pored over it in succession. Still it was unintelligible. It was a mysterious affair altogether. The Frenchman and I begged equally in vain to be allowed to interpret. Impossible. At length the subaltern on duty was found; and on his arrival I was released, with all due apologies, and carried off the captive and his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... any picture extant of Gibbon in the character of subaltern in the South Hampshire Militia? With his small frame, his huge head, his round, chubby face, and the pretentious uniform, he must have looked a most extraordinary figure. Never was there so round a peg ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... scarcely can fail to be impressed by the pertinacity with which men, after one experience in the polar regions, return again and again to the quest for adventure and honors in the ice-bound zone. The subaltern on the expedition of to-day, has no sooner returned than he sets about organizing a new expedition, of which he may be commander. The commander goes into the ice time and again until, perhaps, the time comes when he does not come out. The leader of a rescue party becomes the leader of an ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... General, my father-in-law, had married his Molly, when he was a subaltern of a foot regiment, and had a purse scarce better filled than my own. They had had their ups and downs of fortune. I think (though my wife will never confess to this point) they had married, as people could do in their young time, without ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... however, no threat of invasion in this quarter, and the natural strength of the position being considerable, a mere handful of men, with two subaltern officers, were allotted for this duty—such being conceived ample to maintain it till the arrival of succour from head-quarters, then at Little York, on the opposite side of the lake. The officers of this party were our old ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... old man," the coach said, "but on the other hand here's the direct good of sitting tight and playing the game. I've heard you speak about Kipling. Well, you're like a young officer—a subaltern they call it, don't they?—in a Kipling story, a fellow that's under orders, and it's part of his game to play hard and keep his mouth shut and to not criticize ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... was his best policy not to drive his subaltern to extremity, lowered his tone somewhat in reply to the uncourtly note of the soldier, as if allowing something for the rude manners of one whom he considered as not easily matched among the Varangians themselves, for ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the brave young subaltern, "if my Company Commander curses my men for having long hair, I'll whip off his own hat and show him to be three weeks overdue at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... and live laborious days." It is to the honour of the wealthier ranks in this country that they are not idlers; for they do their fair share of the work of the state, and usually take more than their fair share of its dangers. It was a fine thing said of a subaltern officer in the Peninsular campaigns, observed trudging alone through mud and mire by the side of his regiment, "There goes 15,000l. a year!" and in our own day, the bleak slopes of Sebastopol and the burning soil of India have borne witness to the ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... were friends before either of you were born," he said simply. "I was a cornet in his old regiment. Little Lady Mary played at the knee of the poor young subaltern." ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... lasted, he had come constantly to her dressing-room, and afterwards she promised to find other pleasant reading; but after such excitement, it was not easy to find anything that did not appear dry. As the daughter of a Peninsular man, she thought nothing so charming as the Subaltern, and Gilbert seemed to enjoy it; but by the time he had heard all her oral traditions of the war by way of notes, his attendance began to slacken; he stayed out later, and always brought excuses—Mr. Salsted had kept him, he had been with a fellow, or his pony ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... malspritigi. Stupefaction mirego. Stupendous mireginda. Stupid malsprita. Stupidity malspriteco. Stupor letargio. Sturdy harda. Sturgeon sturgo, huzo. Stutter balbuti. Stye (pig) porkejo. Style stilo. Style (fashion) fasono. Stylish stila. Subaltern subulo. Subcutaneous subhauxta. Subdivide redividi. Subdue submeti, venki. Subject (gram.) subjekto. Subject regato, regnano. Subject objekto. Subject (lit.) temo. Subject submeti, subigi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... was his ready wit which remembered it, and his persistence which forced the war department to use it. Yes, and his heroism which led the ship and all but gave his life. And when he had fulfilled his mission he stepped back into the place of a subaltern; he was modest, even embarrassed, at the great people who thronged to him. England was saved; that was all his affair; nothing, so the books say, could prod him into prominence—though he rose to be a General later—after that, after being the first man ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... came to the conclusion that he had had enough of military life in the West. He applied for his discharge, as the compulsory term of service was at an end. When his papers came he was able to get about with the aid of a crutch. One morning his colonel entered his subaltern's bachelor quarters. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... a job like fighting the battle of Waterloo, or Sedan, or Bull Run, I knew all about that, as I had crammed it up and been examined in it, too. I also knew how to take up a position for a division, or even an army corps, but the stupid little subaltern's game of the defence of a drift with a small detachment was, curiously enough, most perplexing. I had never really considered such a thing. However, in the light of my habitual dealings with army corps, it would, no doubt, be child's-play after a ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... the old Major, eyeing his eighteen-year-old subaltern son with a shrewd affectionate glance, "a little well-placed courtesy goes a long way. For instance, if a Sergeant should call you 'Sir,' never forget to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... the Major led us over sandy hills and along sandy valleys and so to a dingy and weatherworn hut, in whose dingy interior we found a bright-faced subaltern in dingy uniform and surrounded by many dingy boxes and a heterogeneous collection of things. The subaltern was busy at work on a bomb with a penknife, while at his elbow stood a sergeant grasping a screwdriver, who, perceiving the ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... Drusus accompanied him to the palace. Neither of the two, general nor subaltern, spoke for a long while; at ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... but an invasion; and it would be almost as rational to wait the growth of an oak, as to wait the signing of your commission; but it shall be done in my own way. I have means which can make the tardy quick, and open the eyes of the blind. You shall be a subaltern in the Guards, unless you are in too much haste to be a general, and get yourself shot by some Parisian cobbler in the purloined uniform of a rifleman. But, let me tell you one fact, and I might indorse this piece of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... sufficiently miserable. King Richard was absent a prisoner, and in the power of the perfidious and cruel Duke of Austria. Even the very place of his captivity was uncertain, and his fate but very imperfectly known to the generality of his subjects, who were, in the meantime, a prey to every species of subaltern oppression. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... managed by a thrifty mother, who had in due course married him to a thrifty wife. Tony Cornish's business affairs had been narrowed down to the financial fiasco of a tailor's bill far beyond his facilities. Major White had, in his subaltern days, been despatched from Gibraltar on a business quest into the interior of Spain to buy mules there for his Queen and country. He fell out with a dealer at Ronda, whom he knocked down, and returned to ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... a fortune has been more than once a bankrupt, if the truth were known," said Albion Tourgee. "Grant's failure as a subaltern made him commander-in-chief, and for myself, my failure to accomplish what I set out to do led me to what I ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... what is taken from them is applied to any uses of local public utility, as roads, irrigation, encouragement of commerce and industry and the like; what is not sent home to the Sultan goes into the private pouches of the pasha and his many subaltern officials. This is like taking the milk and omitting to feed the cow. The consequence is, the people lose their interest in work of any kind, leave off striving for an increase of property which they will not be permitted to ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... Commons. She was the daughter of Lord Longford, who was not so easily won over to the young man's suit. In fact, the nobleman gave him a curt "no." He was looking for a more brilliant match for his daughter than a subaltern. ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... fought from attachment to its ancient masters, but with a great contempt for such of the Austrian ministers as had advised the abandonment of men compromised by their attachment to their sovereign. It is said that a subaltern diplomatist, head of the spy department in Austria, thought proper one day, during the war, to maintain at the emperor's table, that the Tyrolese should be abandoned: M. de H., a gentleman of the Tyrol, counsellor of state in the Austrian service, who in his actions and writings has exhibited ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... talking to the commandant of one of the great French army supply depots one morning. He was a man of forty; a colonel in the regular French army. An erect, sturdy-looking man with white hair and mustache, and who wore the single star of a subaltern on his sleeve, came up, saluted, delivered a ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... police called his subaltern and placed in his hands the peculiar descriptions. The word vintner caused him to give vent ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... of the Villele ministry, Monsieur Louis-Jerome Thuillier, who had then seen twenty-six years' service as a clerk in the ministry of finance, became sub-director of a department thereof; but scarcely had he enjoyed the subaltern authority of a position formerly his lowest hope, when the events of July, 1830, forced him to resign it. He calculated, shrewdly enough, that his pension would be honorably and readily given by the new-comers, glad to ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... position he remained motionless so long that Lieutenant Johnson, who had been firing steadily with a wounded soldier's rifle until twice hit himself, went to see if he could give any help. He found his brother subaltern dead in the act of binding up a wound as he knelt over the dying field-officer's body. At that moment Lieutenant Johnson received his third wound, and had to be carried from ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... that has made you and Thaddeus such good friends," said Clementine. "The difference in the lives you lead comes from your tastes and from necessity; from your likings, not your positions. As far as one can judge from merely seeing a man once, and also from what you tell me, there are times when the subaltern might become the superior." ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... original was Lord Cromer, and he had not had a classical education. He left a private day-school in London to go straight to Chatham, where he was prepared for entry into the artillery. And at Chatham they did not teach Greek. Therefore when, as a gunner subaltern, he went to the Ionian Islands on the staff of Sir Henry Storks, he was without any knowledge of Greek. He wanted, however, as he told me, to know modern Greek, as the language of the islands. Also, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... Professor L. von Stein published a book,[68]—a work, be it said in passing, that corresponds ill with its title—in which he gives a poetically colored picture of modern marriage, as it supposedly is. Even in this picture the subaltern position of woman towards the "lion" man is made manifest. Stein says among other things: "Man deserves a being that not only loves, but also understands him. He deserves a person with whom not only the heart beats for ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... how they run!" exclaimed Lieutenant Brown of the Grenadiers, who supported him. "Who run?" demanded the General like one roused from sleep. "The enemy, sir," responded the subaltern. "Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned Wolfe, with an earnestness that detained the spirit in his almost lifeless body; "tell him to march Webb's regiment down to the St. Charles to cut off their ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... asked divers questions concerning the art of war, to which I returned such answers as convinced him that I was not wholly ignorant in that particular. In short, I was enlisted as a volunteer in his own regiment, and soon after promoted to the rank of a subaltern, and the office of equerry to his own son, who, at that time, had attained to the degree of colonel, though his age did ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... beholding the audacity of his designs, and the miracle of their execution. Skepticism bowed to the prodigies of his performance; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity became commonplace in his contemplation: kings were his people; nations were his outposts; and he disposed of courts, and crowns, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... odor of myth about him; absolutely bourgeois, he lacked even that atmosphere of burlesque that surrounded Claud; he was not even vicious. But he was a soldier, a brave one; and if, with the acquired economy of a subaltern who has been obliged to live on his pay, he kept his purse-strings tight, they were loose enough if a friend were in need, and he paid no one the compliment of a lie. He was projected sheer out of the republic. The better part of his life had been passed under ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... attendant of his, to put away: "Go back," he enjoined him, "and give it to His Excellency Mr. Chao, at the head of the Board of Revenue, and tell him, that I present him my compliments, and would like him to draw up a warrant for subaltern of the Imperial Body Guard of the fifth grade, and to also issue a commission; that he should take the particulars from this statement and fill them up; and that to-morrow I'll come and have the money ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... copy of Sir Robert Peel's famous system was introduced in 1861, when hosts of inspectors, sub-inspectors and head constables were let loose on Bengal. The new force was highly unpopular, and failed to attract the educated classes. Subaltern officers, therefore, used power for private ends, while the masses were so inured to oppression that they offered no resistance. There has been a marked improvement in the personnel of late years; and Mr. Banerjea's lurid pictures of corruption and petty ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... the subaltern answered, "it was nothing but a dog. It came down from Montmorenci, and some ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... asked for a word of mature judgment of the expedition of a kind that was impossible when we were all close up to it, and when I was a subaltern of 24, not incapable of judging my elders, but too young to have found out whether my judgment was worth anything. I now see very plainly that though we achieved a first-rate tragedy, which will never be forgotten just because it was a tragedy, tragedy was not our business. In the broad ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard |
