"Formidable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... south bank of the Rappahannock, and though his forces were only a little more than half as strong, there was no uneasiness at Confederate headquarters. On the 12th of December Burnside crossed the Rappahannock and attacked Lee, who held the formidable hills on the southern bank of that stream. Another bloody battle ensued. After a vain and hopeless sacrifice of 12,000 men, Burnside withdrew to the northern bank of the river. The active fighting of 1862 ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... mark: viz.—his glove, attached to the branch of a tree, which he shot at with such precision as to send his bullet, at every successive trial, through the aperture in the glove made by the first. Monsieur was, in truth, a splendid and formidable marksman. Mr. G——, in preparing for the duel, happening to cast his eyes on his adversary, perceived that he had slily placed his arm in such a position, as must ensure, on the honourable gentleman's fire, the fulfilment of his vaunt to make him "a dead man." No time ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... Jack answered, with a sudden burst, as if he knew all my story. "Una, I may as well relieve your mind all at once on that formidable point. You shot that man"—he pointed to the white-bearded person in the photograph,—"but it was not parricide: it was not even murder. It was under grave provocation...in more than self-defence...and he was ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... line went backward and forward, ran this way and that way. Men got lost in the fog, and men were found again. Once they got too close to the formidable ridge, and the thing burst out as if repulsing a general attack. Once another blue regiment was apprehended on the very edge of firing into them. Once a friendly battery began an elaborate and scientific process of extermination. Always as busy as brokers, ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... surprise by the Indians. He had more than once warned Braddock of this danger, and Benjamin Franklin had warned him too before the expedition started, but Braddock, with perfect British contempt, had replied that though savages might be formidable to raw Colonials, they could make no impression on disciplined troops. The surprise came and thus ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... broad, the supply of water in them is bad, in many parts undrinkable; habitation with its provision for armies and roads extremely rare. It is necessary to insist upon all these details, because the greater part of civilian readers find it difficult to understand how formidable an obstacle so comparatively unimportant feature in the landscape may be to an army upon the march. It was quite impossible for the guns, the wagons, and therefore the food and the ammunition of the invading ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... the speaker, standing stockstill in the cloven path below him, not twenty feet away. In his relief, he laughed. He beheld a slim figure in riding-togs. Nothing formidable or ghostlike in that! Nevertheless, a pair of dark blue eyes transfixed him with indignation. They looked out from under the rim of a black sailor hat, and ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... Propertius and Ovid. Hercules, journeying through Italy after his victory over Geryon, stops to rest by the bank of the Tiber. While he is taking his repose, the three-headed monster Cacus, a son of Vulcan and a formidable brigand, comes and steals his cattle, and drags them tail-foremost to a secret cavern in the rocks. But the lowing of the cows arouses Hercules, and he runs toward the cavern where the robber, already frightened, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... began to see as it were with new eyes; I was enabled to make several necessary discriminations, to reconcile things before seemingly contradictory, and to answer many objections which had hitherto put on a formidable shape. But most of all was I rejoiced at the thought that I should soon be able to prove that which I had never doubted, but which had hitherto been beyond my power in this case, that Providence, in ordaining laws relative to the agency of man, had never made that to be wise which ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... of dialectics, it must be admitted that this sort of reasoning is not very formidable to those who are not to be frightened by consequences. It is an argumentum ad ignorantiam—take ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... might secure some kinematograph pictures of the ship breaking through the ice. The young ice did not present difficulties to the 'Endurance', which was able to smash a way through, but the lumps of older ice were more formidable obstacles, and conning the ship was a task requiring close attention. The most careful navigation could not prevent an occasional bump against ice too thick to be broken or pushed aside. The southerly breeze strengthened to a moderate south-westerly ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... were reared the Titanic stone-works on the White Caterthun, and the formidable stone and earth forts and walls on the Brown Caterthun, on Dunsinane, on Barra, on the Barmekyn of Echt, on Dunnichen, on Dunpender, and on the tops of hundreds of other hills ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... of her glance. Suddenly she opened her bared arms and threw them up rigid above her head, as though in an uncontrollable desire to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shadows darted out on the earth, swept around on the river, gathering the steamer into a shadowy embrace. A formidable ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... Fanland had done his utmost for her. Still, she must have looked really engaging in a thin pattern of tattoo, a gauze work of oil and camwood, a dwarf pigeon tail of fan palm for an apron, and copper bracelets and anklets. The much talked of gorilla Burton found to be a less formidable creature than previous travellers had reported. "The gorilla," he, says, in his matter-of-fact way, "is a poor devil ape, not a hellish dream creature, half man, half beast." Burton not only did not die at Fernando Po, he was not even ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... only among young fellows, whose years may excuse their folly, or persons of the meanest education and stamp; here they are the fruit of deliberation in a very grave body of people, who are not less formidable to the minister in place than to the theatrical writers." But the Abbe relates that on a subsequent occasion, when another new play having been announced, he had looked for further disturbance, the judicious dramatist of the night succeeded in calming ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... incongruous enough was the information that we gleaned, and in some details requiring a simple credulity that nine months of active campaigning had quite jostled and worried out of us. It seemed settled, however, that our comrades up the river were a host formidable in numbers and of magnificent armament and material; altogether very well able to take care of themselves, at least until we could join them ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... beauty, don't shrink," he said, as the poor fox backed at his approach as far as the chain which fastened the trap to a log of wood, would permit, and then, standing at bay, showed a formidable row of teeth. That grin was its last; another moment, and the handle of the accountant's axe stretched it lifeless ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... at these words, and wondered how the soldier could have found out that he was a Yankee; but when he recalled the fact that he had entertained him with Yankee Doodle at their last meeting, the mystery became less formidable. ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... up into his face with a smile innocent as that of an infant, while the crimson tinge covered her forehead, "if the formidable word must be uttered, who is doing all he can to increase a self-esteem that is already so much greater than it ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... worth twenty-four hours' purchase. Never was there a single hound in Lord Darlington's packs, since his lordship became a mighty hunter, with nostrils so fine as those of that feathered fiend, covered though they be with strong hairs or bristles, that grimly adorn a bill of formidable dimensions, and apt for digging out eye-socket and splitting skull-structure of dying man or beast. That bill cannot tear in pieces like the eagle's beak, nor are its talons so powerful to smite as to compress—but a better bill for ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... who had married Richard's half-sister, put out to sea with a fleet which swept the east coast and entered the Channel. Pirates from Britanny and Navarre soon swarmed in the narrow seas, and their ravages were paid back by those of pirates from the Cinque Ports. A more formidable trouble broke out in the north. The enmity of France roused as of old the enmity of Scotland; the Scotch king Robert the Third refused to acknowledge Henry, and Scotch freebooters cruised along the ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... were not men-of-war; their cool and determined behaviour certainly warranted the suspicion. It was now to be decided whether the Indiamen should take advantage of the darkness of the night to escape, or wait the result of the ensuing day. The force opposed to them was formidable and concentrated; their own, on the contrary, was weak from division, each ship not having more than sixty English seamen on board; the country ships none at all, the few belonging to them having volunteered ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... other parties began to appear. A good many of the trading towns, and manufactures of various kinds, took the alarm. Petitions crowded in upon one another, and the bar was occupied by a formidable body of council. Lord N. was staggered by this new battery. He is not of a constitution to encounter such an opposition as had then risen, when there were no other objects in view than those that were then ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... years sufficed for the fruits of this generous hospitality to reveal themselves. The influx of wealth and the increased population helped to render the German army a match for the combined land forces of her rivals, a formidable navy was created, which ranked immediately after that of Great Britain, and a large part of Europe was so closely associated with, and dependent on, Germany that an extension of the Zollverein was talked of in the ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... and is the most formidable obstacle to the regeneration of China. While it teaches some great truths, it ignores others that are vital. It has lifted the Chinese above the level of barbarism only to fix them almost immovably upon ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... by me faithfully, we shall easily repulse the strongest efforts the cruelest enemy can make against me and these kingdoms. If I am only supported by the valour of the English nation, all the weak threats of the Normans will no longer seem formidable to me." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... though I have no distinct recollection that it was so, Plowden may have also been smitten by the lady. Now, whether the Irishman imagined that the young banker was his most formidable rival, or whether there may have been some previous cause of ill-will between the two men, I cannot say, but so it was that the chamberlain sent a challenge to the banker. The latter declined to accept it on the ground that he was a banker and ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... said to have been at work. Michael Angelo, with the first place as a sculptor, was inexperienced in fresco painting; while Raphael, who was taking the place of Lionardo as Michael Angelo's most formidable rival (yet whom it is said Michael Angelo pointed out as the fittest painter of the ceiling), and who was then engaged in painting the Vatican chambers, had already achieved the utmost renown. It was anticipated by secret hostility, so records tradition, that Michael ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... lands and a more congenial sky. They were bent on conquest, rapine, and violence. They were called the Northern Hordes— barbarians—and even their vices were exaggerated. They were, indeed, most formidable and terrific foes; and when conquered in battle would rally their forces, and press forward ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... librarian. Diderot fought hard to obtain a hearing for his philosophical opinions; his first book was burnt by order of the parlement of Paris, while for his second he was clapped in jail; and all along he had to front the most formidable opposition, so formidable that all his fellow-workers were ready to yield, and were only held to their task by his indomitable resolution and unquenchable ardour. "A deist in his earlier writings," says SCHWEGLER, "the drift of his subsequent writings amounts to the belief that all is ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... her sex. Her small head and tiny resolute mouth and chin; her haughty crispness of speech and trimness of carriage; the ruthless elegance of her equipment, which includes a very smart hat with a dead bird in it, mark a personality which is as formidable as it is exquisitely pretty. She is not a siren, like Ann: admiration comes to her without any compulsion or even interest on her part; besides, there is some fun in Ann, but in this woman none, perhaps no mercy either: if ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... was subjected to the usual onslaught from the strong-minded. A small but formidable committee entered my office one morning and demanded a categorical declaration of my principles. What my views on the subject were, I knew very well; they were clear and decided; and yet, I hesitated to declare them! It wasn't a ...
— Who Was She? - From "The Atlantic Monthly" for September, 1874 • Bayard Taylor
... Protectionist party is smashed for the present Parliament; but I must say I think Protectionist principles and policy are likely to come into repute again far sooner than was expected; and though Peel's party be a compact body, and formidable in the House of Commons, I cannot think that there appears that in the working of his measures to make it likely that he should be soon again carried into power on the shoulders of the people. I think his political reputation must ebb further before it can rise again, if it should ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... look so formidable as when last we saw him, and this is perhaps owing to our no longer being hunched with others on those unfeeling benches. It is not because he is without a wig, for we saw him, on the occasion to which we are so guardedly referring, both in a wig and out of it; he passed behind a screen without ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... across the depot grounds and away down a smaller street in the direction of the little canon, as predicted by her. A stillness and lack of excitement in the neighbourhood encouraged the hope that, as yet, the inhabitants were unaware that so formidable a guest traversed their highways. The heat had driven them indoors, whence outdrifted occasional shrill laughs, or the depressing whine of a maltreated concertina. In the shade a few Mexican children, like vivified stolid idols ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... mirror of some curiosity or admiration or wonder—some spectatorship that she perceived or imagined in the people about her. Interested as he had ever been in the profession of which she was potentially an ornament, this idea startled him by its novelty and even lent, on the spot, a formidable, a really appalling character to Miriam Rooth. It struck him abruptly that a woman whose only being was to "make believe," to make believe she had any and every being you might like and that would serve a purpose and produce a certain effect, and whose ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... have been trained by the elder veterans, and, though not so well seasoned, are good horsemen, expert with the rifle, and competent in the field. As to the Transvaalers, the men have all had plenty of field practice before the previous war with England and since, in subduing formidable Kaffir rebellions, the last being the operations against the Magato chief, which terminated just before the outbreak ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... consigned the Republic to lasting disgrace. It is to be said, however, that Mr. Adams but yielded to a public sentiment that was controlling in the city of Washington in the winter of 1860-61, and which was then formidable in all parts of the country. The concession or surrender was accepted by many Republicans, including Mr. Corwin of Ohio who was chairman of ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... had for Johnson 'a great terrour.' (Boswelliana, p. 216.) Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 329) says:—'It is a fact that a certain nobleman, an intimate friend of Reynolds, had strangely conceived in his mind such a formidable idea of all those persons who had gained great fame as literary characters, that I have heard Sir Joshua say, he verily believed he could no more have prevailed upon this noble person to dine at the same table ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... when the wagons, well drawn together now, at last turned down the precipitous decline which took them from the high plateau to the water, level. Here a halt was called. Bridger took full charge. The formidable enterprise confronting them was one of the ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... paleness in his cheek than usual; but his look was keener, and his knees involuntarily clasped the saddle more firmly. No other symptom of anxiety was perceptible. It would be no impeachment to Dick's valor were it necessary to admit that a slight tremor crossed him as he scanned the formidable array of his opponents. The admission is needless. Dick himself would have been the last man to own it; nor shall we do the memory of our undaunted highwayman any such injustice. Turpin was intrepid to a fault. He was rash; apt to run into risks for the mere pleasure ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... dont tu avais vu les restes de la terrasse de St. Florent, etait redevenue formidable par son recrutement dans les departements envahis. Je les ai bien vus, bien examines, j'ai reconnu meme de mes figures de Chollet et de Laval, et a leur contenance et a leur mine, je l'assure qu'il ne ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... before him a wide lagoon, on the shores of which appeared a few buildings. His attention was occupied chiefly by seeing four vessels anchored almost in the centre; one of them a frigate, the other three of smaller size, but still somewhat formidable craft. Roger determined to attack the frigate, Bates having before agreed to board the same vessel, while the other boats he knew would attack the remainder of the pirate's squadron. That they were the vessels they were in search of there could be ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... I fired. The explosion was followed by a terrific roar. The bullet had not touched a vital part; I had only succeeded in dangerously wounding him. I had now an angry and formidable foe to encounter. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... that this formidable armament was destined for an attack upon Eimio, whose chief had revolted against the Tahitan yoke, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... best Method to preserve Peace on all Sides. At that time these Toteros, Saponas, and the Keyauwees, 3 small Nations, were going to live together, by which they thought they should strengthen themselves, and become formidable to their Enemies. The Reasons offer'd by the Toteros being heard, the Sapona King, with the Consent of his Counsellors, deliver'd the Sinnagers up to the Toteros, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... and he professes that he would willingly do what he can for the good of both. But he sees great difficulties attending the affair—which he frankly professes to consider as an altogether unfortunate one. With respect to the marriage, he seems to see the most formidable objections to it, on both sides; but yet he by no means decidedly says that it cannot, or that it ought not to take place. These, mind you, are his own feelings on the subject: but the most important point I learn from him is this, that he is not prepared to use ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... life in the earth again. I found the very hole that I left last month. Nothing has been done while I was away; a formidable attack was attempted, but it failed. The regiments ordered to engage had neither our dash nor our perfect steadiness under fire. They succeeded only in getting themselves cut to pieces, and in bringing upon us the most atrocious bombardment that ever was. It ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... to say for my book? Caleb and Joshua brought back from Palestine a formidable bunch of grapes; alas! my book produces naught so nourishing; and for the matter of that, we live in an age when people prefer a definition to any quantity ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... coolness and dexterity. At home, on an operating table, with everything at hand that antiseptic surgery could provide, with highly trained surgeons and highly trained nurses in goodly numbers, it would have been a formidable undertaking; but there, among those savage surroundings, in that awful loneliness which a white man feels so far away from all his kin, it was a ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... sent up new battering-rams by brigades and divisions. There was no evidence that I could find of high directing brains choosing the weakest spot in the enemy's armor and piercing it with a sharp sword, or avoiding a direct assault against the enemy's most formidable positions and leaping upon him from some unguarded way. Perhaps that was impossible in the conditions of modern warfare and the limitations of the British front until the arrival of the tanks, which, for a long time, ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... off to the University on their lame longs and shorts about the Calydonian Boar." But, when it came to practical dealing, he had a tenderness for the "cock-pit"—even for the playing-fields—almost for the Calydonian Boar—which hindered him from being a very formidable or effective critic. Rugby, with which he was so closely connected, and to which he was so much attached, owes nothing, as far as one knows, to his suggestions or reproaches. At Harrow he lived for five years, on terms of affectionate intimacy with the Head Master and the staff; and, though ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... was, of course, religiously observed by this increasing and formidable party. During the previous year (1714) the Jacobite gentry had met at Lochmaben, under pretence of a horse-racing; and, although it does not appear that the Earl of Nithisdale was among those who assembled on that occasion, yet several of his kinsmen attended. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... comfortably. Moreover, the Germans, having received reinforcements and heavy artillery, undertook the siege systematically, first of Barchon, which it was unable to take by storm any more than Boncelles, but which it subjected to a formidable deluge of shells. Barchon could only reply haphazard to heavy guns the position of which it could not tell. It was, indeed, deprived of its observation posts, and was in the position of a blind man desperately ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... to the same weight here which Arber gives them in other relations. Dr. Neill is clearly of opinion that the Captains of the MAY-FLOWER and the DISCOVERY were identical, and this belief is shared by such authorities in Pilgrim literature as Young, Prince, Goodwin, and Davis, and against this formidable consensus of opinion, Arber, unless better supported, can ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... time turned of fifty, and though by a much younger man he would not have been regarded as any object of jealousy in love, yet by Augustus, now in his sixty-ninth year, he might be deemed a formidable rival. This passion, therefore, concurring with that which arose from the interruption or disappointment of gratification, inflamed the emperor's resentment, and he resolved on banishing to a distant country a man whom he considered as his rival, and whose ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... and co-operate occasionally with admiral Vernon across the isthmus of Darien. The scheme was well laid, but ruined by unnecessary delays and unforeseen accidents. But the hopes of the nation centered chiefly in a formidable armament designed for the northern coast of now Spain, and his catholic majesty's other settlements on that side of the Atlantic. Commissions had been issued for raising a regiment of four battalions in the English colonies ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... antes famosa y ya poco nombrada villa de Aldeire forma parte del marquesado del Cenet, o como si dijeramos, del respaldo de la Alpujarra,[76-1] hacia Levante,[76-2] y esta medio colgada, medio escondida, en un escalon o barranco de la formidable 05 mole central de Sierra Nevada, a cinco o seis mil pies sobre el nivel del mar y seis o siete mil por debajo de las ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... though there were no great waves at sea, yet breakers, formidable to such a craft as theirs, were seen foaming over long disjointed reefs ahead, that grinned black and dangerous here ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... be allowed, taking him kindly by the other, and they all set off as fast as they could to the house. They could not go quite straight for fear of being seen; they had to "dodge" once or twice, but in the end they got safely there without meeting anyone more formidable than a tradesman's cart driving away from the stables, or an under-gardener laden with ...
— The Christmas Fairy - and Other Stories • John Strange Winter
... uterine appendages such as would ordinarily be considered hopeless, except for surgical treatment, have in their hands recovered to all appearances entirely; and my own list of patients condemned to the removal of the ovaries but recovering and remaining well has now grown to a formidable length. Playfair observes also that he believes it possible that in even very severe and extensive disease the health of the patient may be sufficiently ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... the colony sooner or later; and if so what can be a better time than the present? Hundreds of years may pass away before parliament will make such a number of acts in violation as it has done of late years, and by which it has excited so formidable an opposition to the measures of administration. Besides, the longer the contest is delayed, the more administration will be strengthened. Do not you observe how the government at home are increasing their ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... or the sable will escape and the urson will treat them in a way they are not likely to forget." The sable was evidently bent on having some porcupine meat for breakfast, and kept moving backwards and forwards, meditating a spring at the nose of its formidable antagonist; but, aware of the power of the latter's tail, was waiting for a favourable opportunity to seize it. The porcupine, though so much larger, and naturally moving only at a slow pace, seemed aware of the superior agility of the sable, which would enable it to spring ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... must please to go away," began the formidable housekeeper in her shrillest key; "it is too late to show visitors over. Why, bless us, it's you, Miss Beatrice, with a strange ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... as there's no complication, that's all we can expect." The Countess jumped at an excuse to breathe freely. But there were other formidable contingencies. How about Constance and Cousin Percy? "Yes—they've got to be got married, somehow," said her ladyship. "It's impossible to shut one's eyes to it. I've been talking to Constance about it, and what she ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... taken in hand the collection, transcription, or scription of such a volume, and may do the enormity before New Year's day. Fear not, dear friend, you shall not have to read one line. Perhaps I shall send you an official copy, but I shall appeal to the tenderness of Jane Carlyle, and excuse your formidable self, for the benefit of us both. Where all writing is such a caricature of the subject, what signifies whether the form is a little more or less ornate and luxurious? Meantime, I think to set a few heads before me, as good texts for winter evening entertainments. I wrote a deal about ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... it was impossible he should long resist a sentiment which is at the bottom of every heart, and which, if it is true that this sentiment increases in proportion to the inheritance we leave our children, no one could experience more fully than Napoleon, for no one had yet possessed so formidable a power on the earth; that the course of nature having made her sterility a hopeless evil, it was her duty to be the first to sacrifice the sentiments of her heart to the good of the state, and the personal happiness of Napoleon sad but powerful ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... had spoken with entire courtesy and a marked lack of amity. There was a moment's pause, a feeling as of the edge of things. Cleave, not tall, but strongly made, with his thick dark hair, his tanned, clean shaven, squarely cut face, stood very straight, in earnest and formidable. The other, leaning against the pillar, was the fairer to look at, and certainly not without his own strength. The one thought, "I will know," and the other thought, "I believe you to be my foe of foes. If I can make ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... nothing. When the vessels met they were both damaged by ice. As, in addition, the sea to the north and east was barred by compact masses of ice, the captains, after deliberating with the inferior officers, determined to return. They had, also, during the return voyage, to contend with formidable ice obstacles, until, on the 25/15th August, in Lat. 69 deg. 49' north, near the southeastern extremity of Vaygats they met with open water. They sailed along the east coast of Vaygats through the Kara Port, which was ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... stay in the House of Commons, I saw no danger, as Lord John would be able to maintain himself successfully, and Lord Palmerston would not like to be in opposition to him, whilst he would become most formidable to anybody who was to gain only the leadership in the House; moreover, Lord John, having done so much for Lord Palmerston, could expect and demand a return of sacrifice, and a variety of posts might be offered ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... credulous than its credulity, no other beliefs more monstrous than those by which it strives to fill up the void created by its own unbelief: this is my present thesis, and this I propound, not unaware what formidable antagonists I am thereby challenging, but not without something of the same confidence, and something withal of the same ground for it, as David had when, in equal strait, exclaiming, 'The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... midst of which they lived. But before any portion of the city, except that facing the river, could boast of a fortified enclosure, hostile enterprises were directed against it. Birman pirates, ascending the Meinam in formidable flotillas, harassed it. Thrice they ravaged the country around; but on the last of these occasions great numbers of them were captured and put to cruel death by P'hra Rama Suen, successor to Thibodi, who pursued the routed remnant to the very citadel of Chiengmai, ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... of Peronist authoritarian rule and interference in subsequent governments was followed by a military junta that took power in 1976. Democracy returned in 1983, and has persisted despite numerous challenges, the most formidable of which was a severe economic crisis in 2001-02 that led to violent public protests and the resignation of several interim presidents. The economy has recovered strongly ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... himself had not that keen and far-sighted intellect nor that grandeur of purpose which afterward distinguished the military founder of another soldiery that became formidable to kings. The Templars were unintelligent and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... called Sclavonians; and yet it appears that these Sclavonians consisted of many nations, rude and warlike, with various distinctive names. They soon began to crowd upon the Roman empire, and became more formidable than the Goths or the Huns had been. Wading through blood they seized province after province of the empire, destroying and massacring often in mere wantonness. The emperor Justinian was frequently compelled to purchase peace with them ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... will not attempt it. I not only know the man, but how formidable are his means of resistance. A short half hour will put us in the necessary condition, and do no discredit either to our spirit or to ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... were best patronized and had the ablest personnel in New England, where all three, but particularly the clergy, were strong and honored. Outside of New England, till 1750, lawyers and physicians, especially in the country parts, were poorly educated and little respected. Each formidable disease had the people at its mercy. Diphtheria, then known as the throat disease, swept through the land once in about thirty years. Smallpox was another frequent scourge. In 1721 it attacked nearly six thousand persons in Boston, about half the population, killing some nine hundred. The clergy, ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... looking ill and harassed, was poor Mrs McDonald, with a little wailing baby on her knee, and her other little ones clustering round her, while her husband, the formidable John himself, was doing his best to prepare dinner for all of them. It was long past dinner-time, and it promised to be longer still before these little hungry mouths would be stopped by the food their father was attempting ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... would be said by him, I knew, temperately, loftily, and wisely. Three strenuous objections he made. One was that his work as a Catholic missionary demanded all his thought and all his time; another that he was not historically equipped to deal with so formidable an antagonist; and a third that America ought not to be a battle-ground of Irish contentions. It was upon the last that he dwelt most tenaciously; nor did he give way until he had satisfied himself, ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... the thoughtless lad; "he is a younker, like myself, and would hardly dare run down upon such a formidable force ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... oranges and three dozen little candles for the birthday cake. And then I was cleaned out—every blessed cent gone! But Percy (we have, you see, been unable to escape that name) ordered a box of cigars and a pair of quilted house-slippers, so it was a pretty formidable array. ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... that the weapons and horses would soon be ready. He was sure that Jurand would accompany him. His heart was burning with rage, pain and sorrow,—but at the same time he did not lose hope; it seemed to him that he and the formidable knight of Spychow together would be able to accomplish everything—and that they were equal to attacking ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... consciousness of self-esteem which dwelt, like a perpetual spring, upon the mind of Mr. Stubbs. Mr. McCrab was himself an amateur actor; he had also written a tolerably successful comedy, as well as an unsuccessful tragedy; and he was, besides, a formidable critic, whose scalping strictures, in a weekly journal, were the terror of all authors and actors who were either unable or unwilling to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... people to think of, their villages, their flocks and herds and horses; therefore, I shall go and see this great man, and hear what he says, and shall, if I can, keep on terms of peace with him. An army so strong and so fierce that it has captured Alexandria after four hours' fighting is too formidable for an Arab chief to resist; but, assuredly, I have no thought of fighting on ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... of Iron from 3 to 4 feet long which hang by the heads of their beads; the blade of this weapon is thickest in the center tho thin even there. all it's edges are sharp and it's greatest width which is about 9 inches from the point is about 4 inches. the form is thus. this is a formidable weapon. they have heavy bludgeons of wood made in the same form nearly which I presume they used for the same purpose before they obtained metal. we purchased a considerable quantity of wappetoe, 12 dogs, and 2 Sea otter skins of these people. they were ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... as well as congratulations. Such a union was, as might be expected, distasteful to the Protestant party in England, and particularly distasteful to Elizabeth, who foresaw the disastrous consequences that might ensue to England from the union of two such formidable Catholic ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... important fortress of Czehryn, the capital and key of the Ukraine, and the repulse of the serasker Ibrahim before its walls in the following year, showed the necessity of vigorous measures: and, in 1678, the grand vizir in person appeared at the head of a formidable force in the Ukraine, bringing with him George Khmielnicki, son of the former ataman, who had long been confined as a state prisoner in the Seven Towers, but was now released to counteract, by his hereditary influence with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... sent for her decision a formidable document, an appeal to the court, to compel the father's consent. Clara wrote her father an ultimatum on the subject, and received a long letter in reply, in which he consented to the marriage under such terms that they were better off before. For his consent ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... centuries, and it will go on echoing through the centuries till the end of time. It is like the march of the elements to battle, like the heaving of mountains and the surge of oceans. In nothing else is the sense of Power so embodied in the pulse of song. And the words are as formidable as the tune. Carlyle caught their massive, rugged ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... dear friend, that every literary lady would be equally fortunate in finding in a husband a man who would sympathize in her tastes, I should diminish my formidable catalogue of evils. But, alas! M. Dacier is no more; "and we shall never live to see his fellow." Literary ladies will, I am afraid, be losers in love, as well as in friendship, by the superiority.—Cupid is a timid, playful child, and is frightened at the helmet of Minerva. It has been ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... oilfield development, should generate the funds needed to spur future industrial development. Oil production under the first of these PSAs, with the Azerbaijan International Operating Company, began in November 1997. Azerbaijan shares all the formidable problems of the former Soviet republics in making the transition from a command to a market economy, but its considerable energy resources brighten its long-term prospects. Baku has only recently begun making progress on economic reform, and old economic ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... on the subject was between Everett and Lady Beauchamp; and the mother of Rosa was, it must be admitted, a rather formidable person to encounter in such wise. She was a busy, clever, worldly woman,—kind-hearted, too, and with both a strong will and strong affections. She was one of those people in whom even an astute observer might often be deceived, by failing to give her credit for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... lime salts are taken into the system during an average lifetime to form a statue the size of the individual. Of course, the greater part is eliminated by the natural processes, but enough is retained to make ossification a formidable fact. Of the disastrous effects of a preponderance of these mineral salts in the system we have a notable example in the Cretins, a people in the Swiss Alps, who are the victims of premature ossification, their bodies being stunted, rarely attaining a greater height than four feet, and exhibiting ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... and thirty feet. At irregular intervals there are towers, in one of which was a pile of antique carronades about two feet long, of equal size all the way down and bound round with iron hoops for additional strength. Much resembling old rain-pipes, they had not a very formidable appearance, and were probably more dangerous to those who fired ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... lined up at the mouth of the cave, with guns in their hands. At the sight of this small, but formidable force, the Indians halted. They were armed with guns of ancient make, while some had spears, and others bows and arrows. A few had grabbed ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... encourage you to go on. Go on, and finish your studies. You are poor enough, but there are greater evils than poverty. Live on no man's favor. Pursue your profession; make yourself useful to your friends and a little formidable to your enemies, and you ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... the intention of Aerssens to return to the embassy in Paris whence he had been driven, in his own opinion, so unjustly. To render himself indispensable, he had begun by making himself provisionally formidable to the King's government. Later, there would be other deeds to do before the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... intimate land-scents as he ran, and describing a jerky and eccentric course as he made short dashes and good-natured snaps at the coconut crabs that scuttled across his path to the safety of the water or reared up and menaced him with formidable claws and a spluttering and foaming of the shell-lids of ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... against the bourgeoisie, or even against capitalism, but against the newly created democracy. In the movement to create a democratic government resting upon the basis of universal, direct, equal, and secret suffrage they saw a peril to their scheme far more formidable than militarism or capitalism. It was for this reason that they set themselves to the task of suppressing the Constituent Assembly. Only political simpletons will seriously regard the Bolshevik attempt to camouflage their motive by pretending that they determined to crush the Constituent Assembly ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... armed with swords and staves—the former weapon belonging perhaps to the Roman soldiers and the latter to the temple police—and they carried lanterns and torches, probably because they expected to have to hunt for Jesus and His followers in the recesses of His retreat. Altogether it was a formidable body: they were determined to make ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... time distracted by internal dissensions. The profits of the Indian trade were so tempting, that private adventurers had often, in defiance of the royal charter, fitted out ships for the Eastern seas. But the competition of these interlopers did not become really formidable till the year 1680. The nation was then violently agitated by the dispute about the Exclusion Bill. Timid men were anticipating another civil war. The two great parties, newly named Whigs and Tories, were fiercely contending in every county and town of England; and the feud ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... by different means. It holds its own, not merely by brute force, but by justice, humanity, and intelligence, while, it may be added, the possession of such qualities does not weaken the brute force, where such a quality is still required. The most civilised races are, of course, also the most formidable in war. But, if we take the opposite alternative, I must ask how any quality which really weakens the vitality of the race can properly be called moral. I should entirely repudiate any rule of conduct which could be shown to have such a tendency. ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... back to Great Britain. Still others claimed that the persons who had suffered indirectly by the loss of voyages, the increased rates of insurance, and the breaking up of business, were justly entitled to the money. Still others, perhaps the most formidable and persistent of all, claimed that the underwriters who had paid insurance on vessels or cargoes destroyed, were entitled to the money on the familiar principle that an insurer who pays a loss is subrogated ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... tense in speaking of the practical men—for although they were very formidable thirty years ago, I am not sure that the pure species has not been extirpated. In fact, so far as mere argument goes, they have been subjected to such a feu d'enfer that it is a miracle if any have escaped. But I have remarked that your typical practical man has an unexpected resemblance to one ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... We must take it, I suppose. But what is the last news about it? You spoke this morning of Indians, I believe. Not that I suppose they are very formidable." ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... veritable Titan with a dial fifty feet in diameter and hands measuring thirty-seven and a quarter feet and twenty-seven and a half feet in length. For miles down New York harbor it is visible, a formidable contestant ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... of the troop looked, as they came trotting to the scene, with the coolness of umpires: but they witnessed something other than what Schwartz Thier proposed. This was the sight of a formidable staff, whirling an unfriendly halo over the head of the Thier, and descending on it with such honest intent to confound and overthrow him, that the Thier succumbed to its force without argument, and the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... before the war, and as I never felt about any other Hun. The men we fought at the Front and the men I had run across in the Greenmantle business, even old Stumm himself, had been human miscreants. They were formidable enough, but you could gauge and calculate their capacities. But this Ivery was like a poison gas that hung in the air and got into unexpected crannies and that you couldn't fight in an upstanding way. Till then, ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... occurred to me, that the occult causes of his lady's separation from him, round which herself and her legal advisers have thrown such formidable mystery, may have been nothing more than some imposture of this kind, some dimly-hinted confession of undefined horror, which, though intended by the relater to mystify and surprise, the hearer so little understood as to take ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... good blue duck shooting on the Waimakiriri river, but 50 per cent. of the birds were lost for want of a retriever bold enough to face that formidable river. Wide as was the beautiful reach, on whose shore the sportsmen stood, and calmly as the deep stream seemed to glide beneath its high banks, the wounded birds, flying low on the water, had hardly dropped when they disappeared, sucked beneath by the strong current, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... has been perfectly successful; and the conquest of the extensive and fertile countries, which, in the reign of Candace, repulsed the formidable legions of Rome, has been effected at an expense not greater than the blood of about ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English |
