"Cuirass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Hippogrif descended; and his feet no sooner touched the ground than Prince Roger leaped from his back, and made fast his bridle to the stem of a spreading myrtle-bush. Then he took off his helmet and cuirass, and went to bathe his face and hands in the cool waters of the brook; for his pulses were throbbing from his swift ride, and he wanted nothing so much as an hour or two of repose. Such rapid flying through the air is ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... about to begin; the horses fall into line. Tall plumes fixed between their ears sway in the wind like trees; and in their leaps they shake the chariots in the form of shells, driven by coachmen wearing a kind of many-coloured cuirass with sleeves narrow at the wrists and wide in the arms, with legs uncovered, full beard, and hair shaven above the forehead after the fashion of ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... augment the fray, Wheeled full against their staggering flanks, The English horsemen's foaming ranks Forced their resistless way. Then to the musket-knell succeeds The clash of swords—the neigh of steeds - As plies the smith his clanging trade, Against the cuirass rang the blade; And while amid their close array The well-served cannon rent their way, And while amid their scattered band Raged the fierce rider's bloody brand, Recoiled in common rout and fear, Lancer and guard and cuirassier, Horsemen ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... and apart as the lattice-work of a garden summerhouse, represents the texture of a human face; but the face cannot be painted so. A smear upon the paper may be understood, by virtue of the context gained from what surrounds it, to stand for a limb, or a body, or a cuirass, or a hat and feathers, or a flag, or a boot, or an angel. But when the time arrives for rendering these things in colours on a wall, they must be grappled with, and cannot be slurred over in this wise. Great misapprehension on this head seems to have been engendered ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... such danger never slept without his steel gauntlets and thigh-pieces, with his cuirass by his side, was soon armed, and mounted his horse, which was already saddled. Then, with five or six of his own men-at-arms, he rode straight to the barrier, and was joined by de Lorges and some of his foot-soldiers, who made a good fight. The village was already surrounded, and eager search ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... sword and dagger; but to be found with a gun or pistol in the palace, or even in the town, subjected them to a sentence of death. To wear a casque or cuirass was punished with imprisonment. The laws of politeness were equally strict. If one man used insulting words to another, the offense was construed as being given to the king; and the offender was obliged to solicit pardon of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... they bite. Apuleius, Petronius, and Lucian have similar stories. The Emperor Sigismund convoked a council of theologians in the fifteenth century who decided that wer-wolves did exist. (2) Byrny (A.S. "byrne"), corslet, cuirass. (3) "Norns came to him." Nornir are the fates of the northern mythology. They are three—"Urd", the past; "Verdandi", the present; and "Skuld", the future. They sit beside the fountain of Urd ("Urdarbrunur"), which is below one of the roots of "Yggdrasil", ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... mechanism was capable. Its bulk precluded quickness and agility. It must have been designed to attack and prey upon the ponderous and slow moving Horned and Armored Dinosaurs with which its remains are found, and whose massive cuirass and weapons of defense are well matched with its teeth and claws. The momentum of its huge body involved a seemingly slow and lumbering action, an inertia of its movements, difficult to start and difficult ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... master's hand. The Condottiere was in raptures. He pronounced it as perfect a weapon as Gonzalo de Cordova himself could possess; showed off its temper and his own dexterity by piercing and cutting up an old cuirass, and invited the bystanders to let him put it to further proof by letting him slice through an apple placed on the open palm of ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... suffered so great loss, and they began to give way. And my Cid, seeing King Fariz, made towards him, smiting down all who were in his way; and he came up to him, and made three blows at him; two of them failed, but the third was a good one, and went through his cuirass, so that the blood ran down his legs. And with that blow was the army of the Moors vanquished, for King Fariz, feeling himself so sorely wounded, turned his reins and fled out of the field, even to Teruel. And Martin ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... eyes, as keen as swords, the haughty outline of her curved lips, her massive shoulders and deep chest, her domineering expression, and listened to her imperious voice, doubts assailed me. I could believe that she had led an army of amazons in cuirass and buckler, but my imagination refused to picture her in a silken train smiling at gallants from behind her fan; and surely, I thought, no one in the whole world ever went tripping to a ball in such ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... do you think that he who has taught you that English coldness, under the veil of which men of worth would conceal their feelings, was not aware of the transparency which belongs to this cuirass of pride? Try concealment with others, but not with me. Dissimulation is more than a blunder, for in friendship ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... spent, and the Roman camp slept on, secure in all its grim array; silent, but for the tread of the patrols, as they paced the streets and exchanged the watchword, post with post, or but for the clang of sword upon greave, or shield against cuirass, as some sentry at gate, rampart or praetorium shifted his arms in weary waiting ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... and most of the military weapons known afterward to the Greeks,—especially the spear and bow, which were the most effective offensive weapons known to antiquity or the Middle Ages. Some of their warriors were clothed in coats of brass equal to the steel or iron cuirass worn by the Mediaeval knights of chivalry. They had the battle-axe, the shield, the sword, the javelin, the metal-headed arrow. One of the early Egyptian kings marched against his enemies with six hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and twenty-three ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... lesson for those misguided people who dare expose themselves to the fire of a British broadside and the attack of our torpedo and submarine boats. Let the steel plating of the vessels be as it will, the best cuirass of Great Britain is the firm, true ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... war! Look to that tilting helmet with the tall Caxton crest, and look to that trophy near it,—a French cuirass—and that old banner (a knight's pennon) surmounting those crossed bayonets. And over the chimneypiece there—bright, clean, and, I warrant you, dusted daily—are Roland's own sword, his holsters and pistols, yea, the saddle, pierced and lacerated, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... getting them acclimatized to the trials and vicissitudes of wind and weather. This step leads of course to a number of little pleasantries. In one cartoon we see an officer of household cavalry parting his hair in front of his cuirass, whilst a soldier servant brings him his shaving water in a bucket; another, entitled A Cold in the Head, represents an officer in this melancholy condition, who requests his servant to bring him his bucket of gruel as "sool as he has tallowed his loze." John, in fact, had been aroused ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... the shock of his submarine monitor? What cuirass, however thick, could withstand the blows of his spur? No man could demand from him an account of his actions; God, if he believed in one—his conscience, if he had one—were the sole judges to whom ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... was gone. Cheever had bent his neck just enough to escape the fist. He met the weight of Dyckman's rush with all his own weight in a short-arm jab that rocked Dyckman's whole frame and crumpled the white cuirass of his shirt. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... you would find as full of accoutrements as an old armoury. Under the roof hung four immense helmets, the ornaments of martial brows; to-day the birds of Venus, the doves, cooing, fed their young in them. In the stable a great cuirass extended over the manger and a corselet of ring mail served as a chute through which the boy threw down clover to the colts. In the kitchen the godless cook had spoiled the temper of several swords by sticking ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... sensibilities became more exquisite, he grew rapidly more ingenious and experienced in the art of murdering his fellow beings. He invented a thousand devices to defend and to assault—the helmet, the cuirass, and the buckler, the sword, the dart, and the javelin, prepared him to elude the wound as well as to launch the blow. Still urging on, in the career of philanthropic invention, he enlarges and heightens his powers of defense and injury. The aries, the scorpio, the balista, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Is but a useless mass, It's made of steel, And weighs a deal, This tight-fitting cuirass Is but a useless mass, A man is but an ass Who fights in a cuirass, So off, so ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... cuirass protecting the front of the body; brigantine, a jacket quilted with iron (also spelt 'brigandine'); gorget, a metal covering for the throat; mace, a heavy club, plain or spiked, designed to ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... god in the shoulder, so that he feared the mortal; and when Hercules then asked whether he might lead away the dog of Hades he did not longer oppose him. But he imposed the condition that Hercules should become master of Cerberus without using any weapons. So the hero set out, protected only with cuirass and ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... in bright arms, proud Tarquitus in scorn, Whom Dryope the nymph, if fame be true, To Faunus, ranger of the woods, had borne, Leaped forth, and at the fiery Dardan flew. He, drawing back his javelin, aimed and threw. And through the cuirass and the ponderous shield Pinned him. Then, vainly as he strove to sue, Much pleading, even while the suppliant kneeled. Lopt off, the lifeless head went ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... guards. But when Zoroaster's hand went out to seize him, he was ready. With a spring like a tiger, he flew at the strong man's throat, and sought to drag him down, striving to fasten his grip about the collar of his cuirass, but Zoroaster slipped his hand quickly under his adversary's, his sleeve went back and his long white arm ran like a fetter of steel about the king's neck, while his other hand gripped him by the middle; so they held each other like wrestlers, one arm above the shoulder and one ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... individual admitted. A handsome face always went through John's cuirass. It was all nonsense, for his wife could not have adored him more openly had he been the twin to Adonis. But, there you are; a man always wants something he can not have. John wasn't satisfied to be one of ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... cuirass and gorget so severely simple that it might have been mistaken for the guise of one of Cromwell's ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... opinion, ought to wear the cuirass; this is the only relic of ancient defence which we are advocates for keeping up, and we do so upon the score of utility. It is rather heavy for the men, but only so because they are not accustomed to wear it in a judicious manner; it is of real service ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... public monuments by neglect or violence were rapidly effaced. The pyramids could take care of themselves. They had seen the plains at their feet covered again and again with hordes of barbarians, and yet had lost not an inch of their height or a stone of their polished cuirass. Even in the temples the setting up of a few fallen columns, the reworking of a few bas-reliefs, the restoration of a painting here and there, was all that was necessary to bring ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... Elizabeth de Gorlitz, Madame de Luxembourg. And at Arlon she was in October 1436, as the town accounts of Orleans have proved. Thence, says the Metz chronicle, the 'Comte de Warnonbourg'(?) took her to Cologne, and gave her a cuirass. Thence she returned to Arlon in Luxembourg, and there married the knight Robert des Hermoises, or Armoises, 'and they dwelt in their own house at Metz, as long as they would.' Thus Jeanne became 'Madame des Hermoises,' or 'Ermaises,' or, in the town accounts of ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... Thus he lied, the odious man, to the monarch, for Uther was gone forth with his army, nor ever him saw Uther, nor thither him sent! And the king weened that it were sooth, and believed him enow. Who would ween that he were traitor!—for on his bare body he wore a cuirass, thereupon he had a loathly hair-cloth, and then a cowl of a black cloth; he had blackened his body, as if smutted with coal! He kneeled to the king, his speech was full mild: "Hail be thou, Aurelie, noblest of all ...
— Brut • Layamon
... her daughter, dressed in black crape, had just seated themselves opposite each other, for breakfast, in the large dining-room at Roncieres. The portraits of many ancestors, crudely painted, one in a cuirass, another in a tight-fitting coat, this a powdered officer of the French Guards, that a colonel of the Restoration, hung in line on the walls, a collection of deceased Guilleroys, in old frames from which the gilding was peeling. Two servants, stepping softly, began to serve the two silent women, ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... to the endurance of the Roman, everything depended on a sudden and desperate effort, he threw himself fiercely on Eumolpus; the Roman warily retreated—Lydon thrust again—Eumolpus drew himself aside—the sword grazed his cuirass—Lydon's breast was exposed—the Roman plunged his sword through the joints of the armor, not meaning, however, to inflict a deep wound; Lydon, weak and exhausted, fell forward, fell right on the point: it passed through and through, even to the back. Eumolpus drew forth his blade; Lydon still ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... heads are also covered with a sort of helmet, the neck is almost the only part in which they can be wounded. They have another kind of corslet, made like the corsets of our ladies, of splinters of hard wood interlaced with nettle twine. The warrior who wears this cuirass does not use the tunic of elk-skin; he is consequently less protected, but a great deal more free; the said tunic being ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... the armour with which they were able to furnish themselves for war. The first class were they that had one hundred thousand pounds of brass or more; and these had for armour a helmet, a long shield, a cuirass, and greaves upon their legs, of brass all of them, and for warfare a spear and a sword. In this class there were eighty companies of a hundred, forty of the elders that should defend the city, ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... while in the Old World saurian the teeth interlock, so that the two jaws are brought close together, the teeth in the upper jaw of the Amazonian cayman pass by the lower series outside of them. The latter has therefore much less power. It has a ventral cuirass as well as dorsal, and it is web-footed, while the crocodile has the toes free—another mark of inferiority. Sluggish on land, the alligator is very agile in its element. It never attacks man when on his guard, but ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... What was she to do? Best go back where she had come from. But the sight of the giant in the doorway held her in a spell. He seemed to be lost in revery. He stood gazing out upon the moon-washed landscape, his head tilted slightly forward, his chin propped on his hand. How his golden cuirass gleamed in the moonlight! Something in the way he stood there ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... considering at the same time that his palace was already in possession of the insurgents, and that his own troops had abandoned him, he determined to proceed to the church, and to give himself up to the oydors who there waited for him. They carried him directly, in his coat of mail and cuirass, to the house of Cepeda; where, seeing Ortiz along with the other judges, he exclaimed: "Is it possible that you, in whom I had so much confidence as one of my best friends, have joined with the rest in making me a prisoner." To this the licentiate replied, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... to be a soldier. The double-barred doors of iron, the lofty, protected windows, the military pictures on the walls of his home—all spoke to the Chaviniac child of warfare and conflict. There was the portrait of his father in cuirass and helmet. There were far-away ancestors in glistening armor and laced jackets. There was also the military portrait of that Gilbert Motier de Lafayette who was marshal in the time of Charles VII, and whose motto "Cur non" (Why not?) was chosen by Lafayette for his own when he started on his ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... prayer, the king mounted his horse, placed himself at the head of the right wing—the left being commanded by Bernard of Weimar—and cried, 'Now, onward! May our God direct us!—Lord, Lord! help me this day to fight for the glory of thy name!' and, throwing away his cuirass with the words, 'God is my shield!' he led his troops to the front of the Imperialists, who were well entrenched on the paved road which leads from Luetzen to Leipsic, and stationed in the deep trenches on either side. A deadly cannonade ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... but wait, and mark who strolled Of evenings up the hill-path and made halt This side the coppice at a certain gate? For by that chance which ever serves ill ends, Within the slanted shadow of The Towers The maid Griselda dwelt. Her gray scarred sire Had for cloth doublet changed the steel cuirass, The sword for gardener's fork, and so henceforth In the mild autumn and sundown of life, Moving erect among his curves and squares Of lily, rose, and purple flower-de-luce, Set none but harmless squadrons ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... ships beside the mole began to thrust back, lest the enemy seize them. The terrified legionaries rushed from their ranks, cast away shield and cuirass, sword and dart. Every man cared but to save himself, the spirit of mere fear uppermost. Caesar and Drusus rushed into the press, and commanded and exhorted; they might have better striven to turn the flight ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... looking round them to see if the watch is coming. Who is the man who will set the example? Well, it is I, Jacques Gorenflot; I, unworthy brother of the order of St. Genevieve, poor and humble purveyor of the convent. It shall be I, who with a cuirass on my back, a helmet on my head, and a musket on my shoulder, will march at the head of all good Catholics who will follow me. This I would do, were it only to make those chiefs blush, who, while defending the Church, hide, as if their cause was ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... side, a challenge which brought them to their senses; and he did it in the following way. He painted a naked man with his back turned, at whose feet was a most limpid pool of water, wherein he painted the reflection of the man's front. At one side was a burnished cuirass that he had taken off, which showed his left profile, since everything could be seen on the polished surface of the piece of armour; and on the other side was a mirror, which reflected the other profile of the naked figure; which was a thing of ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... double-soled description, which ought more properly to be called brogues; and into them, on the evening previous to his departure, his father had driven tackets and sparables innumerable, until they became like a plate of iron or a piece of warlike workmanship, resembling the scaled cuirass of a mailed knight in the olden time; "for," said he, "the callant will hae runnin' about on the causeway and plainstanes o' Carlisle sufficient to drive a' the shoon in the world aff his feet." When, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... but most real, Presence wrapping us round! It is only when our faith in it has fallen asleep that any earthly good allures, or any earthly evil frightens us. To be sure, in our thrilling consciousness, that we dwell with Jesus is an impenetrable cuirass that blunts the points of all arrows and keeps the breast that wears it unwounded in the fray. The world has no voices which can make themselves heard above that low sovereign whisper: 'I am with you always, even ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... feathers, and a shield, and a lance, and a sword. His armour and his weapons were all, I am almost sure, of quite different periods. The shield was thirteenth-century, while the sword was of the pattern used in the Peninsular War. The cuirass was of the time of Charles I, and the helmet dated from the Second Crusade. The arms on the shield were very grand - three red running lions on a blue ground. The tents were of the latest brand and the whole appearance of camp, army, and leader might have been a shock to ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... brought forward some delicately wrought mats, and laid upon them the various articles they had brought. A shield, helmet, and a cuirass, all with embossed plates and ornaments of gold; a collar and bracelets of the same metal; sandals and fans; crests of variegated feathers, intermingled with gold and silk thread, sprinkled with pearls and precious stones; imitations of birds ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... nothing special is noted save attention to civil affairs, occasional conquests, and "a great plague." The twentieth sovereign, called Huascar-Titupac, "gave all the provinces new governors of royal blood, and introduced in the army a cuirass made of cotton and copper." The twenty-first, Manco-Capac-Amauta, "being addicted to astronomy, convened a scientific council, which agreed that the sun was at a greater distance from the earth than the moon, and that they followed different courses." In the next twelve reigns, wars, conquests, ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... Saffredent; "it is because our worth is often tried. Still our shoulders are sensible of having worn the cuirass so long." ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... showed me pieces of armour, that is, a vizored headpiece or armet, with cuirass, backplates, pauldrons and vambraces, all very richly gilded, the which it seemed he ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... happened that the Lord Bishop, allied with the Guelphs of Pisa against the Ghibellines of Florence, was at that moment waging war with such right good will that for a whole month he had not so much as unbuckled his cuirass. And that is why, without saying a word to anyone, Fra Mino made profound researches on the tomb of San Satiro and the Chapel containing it. Deeply versed in the knowledge of books, he investigated many texts, both ancient ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... were heavy cavalry wearing helmet and cuirass (two plates fastened together for the protection of the breast ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... ul Dowlah, part by part, exactly according to the ancient formula by which a degraded knight was despoiled of his knighthood: they took, I say, from him all the powers of government, article by article,—his helmet, his shield, his cuirass; at last they hacked off his spurs, and left him nothing. Mr. Hastings laid down all the premises, and left the judges to draw ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... Chemerant: "Sir, you have been, doubtless, a soldier; you can understand that we live a little carelessly; for, without further parley and asking pardon for the great liberty, I will remove my vest, if you please; it is embroidered in cloth and as heavy as a cuirass." ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... eleven of cuirassiers, six of carabineers, and the Bed Lancers of the Guard—into the whirlpool of his renewed assault, and this time the mass, though it came forward more slowly, was almost double in area. Gleaming with lance and sword and cuirass, it undulated as it crossed the broken slopes, till it seemed a sea, shining with 10,000 points of glancing steel, in motion. The British squares, on the reverse slope, as they obeyed the order, "Prepare to receive cavalry!" ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... them repeatedly to change their form of arms. They sloughed their skins like reptiles, but on account of their cylindrical shape were able to perform this operation with the facility of a leg that abandons its stocking. When it begins to crack, the crustaceans have to withdraw from out their cuirass the multiple mechanism of their members and appendages,—claws, antennae and the great pincers,—a slow and dangerous operation in which many perish, lacerated by their own efforts. Then, naked and disarmed, they have to wait until ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... splendid than the rest. He was young, very tall and broad, most handsome in face, and having eyes like those of an eagle, while his whole aspect breathed majesty and command. His body was encased in a cuirass of gold, over which hung a mantle made of the most gorgeous feathers, exquisitely set in bands of different colours. On his head he wore a helmet of gold surmounted by the royal crest, an eagle, standing on a snake fashioned in gold and gems. On his arms, and beneath his knees, he ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... Legion's pace is altogether different. It is a long, slow stride, that never varies from sunrise to sunset. "Rome's Race—Rome's Pace," as the proverb says. Twenty-four miles in eight hours, neither more nor less. Head and spear up, shield on your back, cuirass-collar open one hand's breadth—and that's how you take the Eagles ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... Gabriella," scolded Miss Polly; "but when you come to think of it," she conceded after a minute or two, "I reckon we're all made like that in the beginning. Why, I remember way back yonder in the 'seventies how I was always tryin' to persuade a woman with a skinny figure not to wear a cuirass basque and a woman with a stout figure not to put on a draped polonaise. I got to know better presently, and you will, too, before you've been at it much longer. They all think they can look like fashion plates—the skinniest and the stoutest alike—and ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... Hebrew with his black cap and anxious countenance; the Armenian Christian, with his dark flowing robes, and mild demeanour, and serene visage. Here strutted the lively, affected, and superfine Persian; and there the Circassian stalked with his long hair and chain cuirass. The fair Georgian jostled the ebony form of the merchant ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... Amadeus, I am no longer the same as before.... Or perhaps I have always been the same as I am now, but didn't know it merely. And something has fallen away, that used to cover me up in the past.... Yes, that's it: for now I can feel all those desires that used to pass me by as if deflected by a cuirass of insensibility.... Now I can feel how they touch my body and my soul, filling me with qualms and passions. The earth seems full of adventure. The sky seems radiant with flames. And it is as if I could see myself stand waiting ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... this bald account of one of the greatest Pageants ever celebrated in the City, you must fill it up by imagining the long procession, every one in his place. Trumpeters, bowmen in leather jerkins, men-at-arms in shining helmet and cuirass, horsemen in full armour, knights, nobles, heralds all in full panoply, banners and bannerets, the Bishop and all the clergy, the King and his retinue, the Lord Mayor and his four hundred followers. Imagine the blare of ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... dressed in simple attire, but composed of excellent materials. His vest was of dark velvet, slashed, but not embroidered; and on his breast he wore a jazeran, or mailed cuirass, which was not only lighter than a steel corselet, but was equally proof against poniard or pike. In his broad leather belt were stuck two pairs of pistols, and a long dagger; a heavy broadsword also hung by his side. His black boots came up nearly ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... of grass, let him pluck it, but without breaking ranks, without dropping out of the squadron of which the leader must always keep his eyes on the flaming sonorous star. But if he put the little flower in the strap above his cuirass, not to look at it himself, but for others to look at, away with him! Let him go with his flower in his ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... an oath. Yet now the custom of the world is otherwise, and a Prince who should never shine in the array of a soldier might justly be held odious and contemptible. That very German Emperor of whom I have spoken, won the applause of the multitude by cuirass and helmet, and having donned a British Admiral's uniform, was held of great account amongst a people apt for the rule of the sea. This honour in truth falls not to all; but others, and yourself among the number, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... a battle, he would electrify his soldiers by a motion of his sword. He would climb the walls of a citadel with a knotted rope, at night, rocked by the storm, while sparks of fire clung to his cuirass, and molten lead and boiling tar poured ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... his doublet of fine cloth, overlaid with his coat-of-arms embroidered in silk or gold thread, and an outer surcoat of velvet, often crimson slashed with white or violet satin, made without sleeves if worn over the cuirass and finished with a short fluted skirt of velvet. Over this a short cloak of velvet or satin, even sometimes of cloth of gold, was worn ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... fellow officers on his good fortune in escaping from the dangers which had beset him. The suit of armour was a handsome one, and had been doubtless stripped off from the body of some knight or noble murdered by the freebooters. The leg pieces Malcolm laid aside, retaining only a cuirass, back piece, and helmet, as the full armour was too heavy for service ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... qualities of virtuous maturity. He bore a real affection toward the citizens, was parsimonious of the moneys of the Commune, prodigal of his own; while a foe to vice, he was not too severe on those who erred. Though he began his military life at twenty-three, he always bore the cuirass of a man at arms upon his shoulders day and night on active service. He slept very little, was sober in his diet, temperate in love. The Florentines did not love him, because it is not possible for men used to freedom to love a ruler; ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... monument it supports. The pedestal made by Leopardi for the Colleone monument is both more decorative and dignified. On Donatello's pedestal there are two marble reliefs of winged boys holding the general's helmet, badge and cuirass. The reliefs on the monument are copies of the maimed originals now preserved in a dark passage of the Santo cloister. There must be many statues elsewhere, now taken for originals, which are nothing more than replicas of what had gradually perished. If one closely examines the ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... mortal eyes have seldom seen. A hundred and fifty thousand men were marshaled on the plain. It was the morning of the 8th of September, 1380. Thousands of banners fluttered in the breeze. The polished armor of the cavaliers, cuirass, spear and helmet, glittered in the rays of the sun. Seventy-five thousand steeds, gorgeously caparisoned, were neighing and prancing over the verdant savanna. The soldiers, according to their custom, shouted the prayer, which rose like the roar of many waters, "Great God, grant to ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... trimmed with gold embroidery. The king rode forward at the head of his nobles to receive her. He was dressed in a crimson doublet, with chausses, or breeches, of yellow satin. Over his shoulders was thrown a cassock or mantle of rich brocade, and a sopravest of the same materials concealed his cuirass. By his side, close girt, he wore a Moorish scimitar, and beneath his bonnet his hair was confined by a cap or ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... placed round the throat, completely protecting the jugular vein and the carotid artery. The right arm, which in this peculiar fencing is used to parry the cut in tierce, is also protected by bandages, and the body is covered by a leathern cuirass, heavily padded, from the middle of the breast to the knees. It will be seen that the whole head, excepting the eyes, is exposed, as well as the chest and shoulders. Thrusting is forbidden as well as the cut in second, below guard, but the latter is permitted when either of the ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... by the great cause whose issue hung upon their swords, to fight well for that cause, for their country and their God. His heart was uplifted at Lutzen, with that Hebrew fervour which uplifted the heart of Cromwell at Dunbar. Old wounds made it irksome to him to wear a cuirass. "God," he said, "shall be my armour ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... have been exposed, without the protection of even a scale, and there survives in the better specimens only the internal skeleton of the fish and the ray-bones of the fins. It was armed, like a French dragoon, with a strong helmet and a short cuirass; and so we find its remains in the state in which those of some of the soldiers of Napoleon's old guard, that had been committed unstripped to the earth, may be dug up in the future on the fatal field of Borodino, or along the banks of the Dwina or the Wap. The cuirass lies still attached ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... their parrot-feathered arrows. Over the mould, swarming among the venomous fruit, innumerable crabs make a sound almost like the murmuring of water. Some are very large, with prodigious stalked eyes, and claws white as ivory, and a red cuirass; others, very small and very swift in their movements, are raspberry-colored; others, again, are apple-green, with queer mottlings of black and white. There is an unpleasant odor of decay in ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... child screamed at his father's glittering casque and nodding crest; and here was a mediaeval babe charmed with a polished cuirass, and his griefs assuaged. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... he would shine. Self-possession depends on its environment. We don't speak on the first floor as on the fourth; and the wealthy woman seems to have, about her, to guard her virtue, all her banknotes, like a cuirass in ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... Raymond. This fact certainly ought to make you decide to share our solitude. Our friend is so poetical, so witty, so charming. He has but one fault, that of being a civilized Don Quixote de la Mancha; instead of the helmet of Mambrino he wears a Gibus hat, a Buisson coat instead of a cuirass, a Verdier cane by way of a lance. Happy nature! in which the heart is not sacrificed to the intellect; where the subtlety of a diplomate is united to the ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... their meeting in the chapel of Engaddi sent a thousand recollections through Sir Kenneth's brain, and convinced him that the message delivered by the dwarf was genuine. The rosebuds, withered as they were, were still treasured under his cuirass, and nearest to his heart. He paused, and could not resolve to forego an opportunity, the only one which might ever offer, to gain grace in her eyes whom he had installed as sovereign of his affections. The dwarf, in the meantime, augmented his confusion by insisting ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... he had slain the laidly worm, And her offspring all had kill’d; Escaped the knight to the morning light, With heavy cuirass and shield. ...
— King Diderik - and the fight between the Lion and Dragon and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... And behold a cavalier rode single handed into the plain, mounted on a steed of purest strain, and for foray and fray full ready and fain. And that Knight had limbs of might and he was clad in an iron cuirass made for stress of fight. On his breast he wore a jewelled mirror and in his hand he bore a keen scymitar and his lance of Khalanj wood,[FN446] the curious work of the Frank, weighing a quintal. Then the rider uncovered his face and cried out, saying, "Whoso knoweth me verily hath enough ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... bevy of staff officers, all green and gold and blue and silver, clustered about a huge man in the full regalia of a general, his crimson plumes nodding above his golden helmet, his crimson cloak dangling about his golden cuirass, his gilt kilt-straps gleaming over his crimson tunic-skirt. There was no mistaking that incredible expanse of face, seemingly as big as the body of an ordinary man, those bleary gray eyes under the shaggy eyebrows, their great baggy lower ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... such as you have found me hitherto." On the seventeenth Lewis paid in return a farewell visit to Saint Germains. At the moment of the parting embrace he said, with his most amiable smile: "We have forgotten one thing, a cuirass for yourself. You shall have mine." The cuirass was brought, and suggested to the wits of the Court ingenious allusions to the Vulcanian panoply which Achilles lent to his feebler friend. James set out for Brest; and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... more than half out of her window in the Vicolo one bright April morning of her sixteenth year, to exchange lively banter with a friend below, and been seen by Messer Alessandro del Dardo, who within the cuirass of Sub-Prefect of Padua nourished the heart of an approved Poet; been seen of him for the miracle of young beauty she really was. Chance sparks kindle chance tinder; and so here. I am far from alleging the heart of Messer Alessandro to be dry tow; but I do repeat it, Padua was a freakish cityful, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the corridor, and the armour in the hall, where, as the sacred and central object, hung the breastplate Sir George Warner wore when he fell at Hopton Heath, dinted by sword and pike, as the enemy's horse rode him down in the melee. His orange scarf, soiled and torn, was looped across the steel cuirass. Papillon admired everything, most of all the great cool dairy, which had once been a chapel, and where the piscina was converted to a niche for a polished brass milk-can, to the horror of Angela, who could say no word in praise of a place that had been created by the profanation of holy things. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... lifeless, or at least the unconscious, man, through the shadows of hollow road. He was a cuirassier, an officer, and even an officer of considerable rank; a large gold epaulette peeped from beneath the cuirass; this officer no longer possessed a helmet. A furious sword-cut had scarred his face, where nothing ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... clothed in flame, and lead on the giants to the storming of Asgard. Heimdall sounds his trumpet, which echoes through all worlds; the gods fly to arms; Odin appears in his golden casque, his resplendent cuirass, with his vast scimitar in his hand, and marshals his heroes in battle array. The great ash tree is shaken to its roots, heaven and earth are full of horror and affright, and gods, giants, and heroes are at length buried in one ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... (weep) plori. Cry out ekkrii. Cry (of animals, etc.) bleki. Crypt subterajxo. Crystal kristalo. Crystallise kristaligi. Cub (of lion) leonido. Cube kubo. Cuckoo kukolo. Cucumber kukumo. Cudgel bastonego. Cuff manumo. Cuirass kiraso. Cull kolekti. Cullender kribrilo. Culpable kulpa. Culprit kulpulo. Cultivate kulturi. Culture kulturo. Cunning ruzo. Cunning ruza. Cup taso. Cupboard sxranko. Cupidity avideco. Cupola kupolo. Curable kuracebla. Curacy ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... on not doffing your cuirass, you may find an opportunity of wearing it. The storm thickens. The city of London are ready to hoist their standard; treason is the bon-ton at that end of the town; seditious papers pasted up at every corner: nay, my neighbourhood is not unfashionable; we have had them at Brentford and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... embossed blade. A sixteenth century German poniard is shown in Fig. 6. The blade and ornamental crossbar is of steel, with both edges of the blade sharp. The handle is of wood. A German stiletto, sometimes called cuirass breakers, is shown in Fig. 7. This stiletto has a wood handle, steel crossbar and blade of steel with both ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... was a painting of a girl over the mantel and that the girl was Mary Ogden. He stepped forward eagerly, almost holding his breath. The portrait ended at the tiny waist, and the stiff satin of the cuirass-like bodice was softened with tulle which seemed to float about the sloping shoulders. The soft ashen hair, growing in a deep point on the broad full brow, was brushed softly back and coiled low on the long white neck. The mouth was soft and pouting, with a humorous quirk at the ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... of the time; tall, brawny, gray-headed, rough, full of strange oaths acquired here and there and yonder in the wars and treasured as if they were decorations. He had been used to the camp all his life, and to his notion war was God's best gift to man. He had his steel cuirass on, and wore boots that came above his knees, and was equipped with a huge sword; and when I looked at this martial figure, and heard the marvelous oaths, and guessed how little of poetry and sentiment might be looked for in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and presently from Baiae to Puzzoli, over the waters of the bay, he galloped on horseback, the cuirass of Alexander glittering on his breast. The intervening miles had been spanned by a bridge of ships and on them a road had been built, one of those roads for which the Romans were famous, a road like the Appian Way, in earth and stone, bordered by ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... unknown and the divine? Was it Alexander III, who defended the Holy See against the Empire, and at last conquered and set his foot on the neck of Frederick Barbarossa? Was it, long after the sorrows of Avignon, Julius II, who wore the cuirass and once more strengthened the political power of the papacy? Was it Leo X, the pompous, glorious patron of the Renascence, of a whole great century of art, whose mind, however, was possessed of so little penetration and foresight that he looked on ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... signal from the captain, two negroes assisted our heroes to put on their apparel, and clothed them in thick waterproof made of India rubber, which formed trousers and vest, the trousers terminating in a pair of shoes with lead soles; a cuirass of leather protected the chest from the pressure of the water, and ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... looked at both, replied, "Oh, kings! an old man of my time can cope With two much younger ones of yours, I hope. To mortal combat I defy you both Singly; or, if you will, I'm nothing loth With two together to contend; choose here From out the heap what weapon shall appear Most fit. As you no cuirass wear, I see, I will take off my own, for all must be ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... by so many dangers; favor our enterprise, and prove, by protecting the oppressed, that tyranny is offensive to thee." To the duke, on the other hand, when intending to go to the church, many omens occurred of his approaching death; for in the morning, having put on a cuirass, as was his frequent custom, he immediately took it off again, either because it inconvenienced him, or that he did not like its appearance. He then wished to hear mass in the castle, and found that the priest who officiated in the chapel had gone to St. Stephen's, and had taken with him the ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... believe, excepting the young girl, who has not a story of the heart to tell, if one could only get the secret drawer open. Even this arid female, whose armor of black bombazine looks stronger against the shafts of love than any cuirass of triple brass, has had her sentimental history, if I am not mistaken. I will tell you my ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... Jesuit influence. You recollect the quarrel between the Tablet and the Jesuits, over Faber's unlucky honesty about St. Rose of Lima? . . . But, really, as long as you honour asceticism as a means of appeasing the angry deities, I shall prefer to St. Dominic's cuirass or St. Hedwiga's chilblains, John Mytton's two hours' crawl on the ice in his shirt, after a flock of wild ducks. They both endured like heroes; but the former for a selfish, if not a blasphemous end; the latter, as a man should, to test and ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... the woods. It was late in the night. Fourneaux, with twenty men armed to the teeth, knocked fiercely at the commandant's door. Forcing an entrance, they wounded a gentleman who opposed them, and crowded around the sick man's bed. Fourneaux, armed with steel cap and cuirass, held his arquebuse to Laudonniere's throat, and demanded leave to go on a cruise among the Spanish islands. The latter kept his presence of mind, and remonstrated with some firmness; on which, with oaths and menaces, they dragged him from his bed, put him in fetters, carried him out to ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... steel cap was a privy pallet, from Fr. palette, a barber's bowl, a "helmet of Mambrino." To a brilliant living monarch we owe the phrase "mailed fist," a translation of Ger. gepanzerte Faust. Panzer, a cuirass, is etymologically a pauncher, or defence for the paunch. We may compare an article of female apparel, which took its name from a more polite name for this part of the anatomy, and which Shakespeare uses even in the sense of Panzer. Imogen, taking ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... the Bogumils scattered through Bosnia and the Herzegovina. Huge monolithic gravestones often curiously carved. The sun, the moon and the cross appear as symbols, and portraits of warriors kilted and armed with bows and arrows and a cuirass, which give a good idea of the chieftain of the Middle Ages. The kilt is still ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... sensibility which brought to the front all the qualities of her soul and mind, tenderness, courage, delicacy, pride, modesty, gave her face at the same time an expression so varied, so winning in all its moods, that the grave, sombre assembly of judges let fall the brazen cuirass of impassive integrity and the leaden cope of hypocritical virtue. If Edmee had not triumphantly defended me by her confession, she had at least roused the greatest interest in my favour. A man who is loved by a ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... [body armor] bulletproof vest, armored vest, buffer, corner stone, fender, apron, mask, gauntlet, thimble, carapace, armor, shield, buckler, aegis, breastplate, backplate[obs3], cowcatcher, face guard, scutum[obs3], cuirass, habergeon[obs3], mail, coat of mail, brigandine[obs3], hauberk, lorication[obs3], helmet, helm, bassinet, salade[obs3], heaume[obs3], morion[obs3], murrion[obs3], armet[obs3], cabaset[obs3], vizor[obs3], casquetel[obs3], siege cap, headpiece, casque, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... pierced by a storm of small projectiles. She bore the brunt of the engagement, losing nearly half her crew. Her tonnage is only four thousand two hundred and eighty; and her immediate antagonists were two Chinese ironclads of seven thousand four hundred tons each. Outside, her cuirass shows no deep scars, for the shattered plates have been replaced;—but my guide points proudly to the numerous patchings of the decks, the steel masting supporting the fighting-tops, the smoke-stack,—and ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... do so. Sometimes it would be a case where ignorant and ribald blasphemies would have to be met in the power of the peace of God. Sometimes a really wistful heart would at once betray its presence under the Roman cuirass. Perhaps the man would attack the Apostle with ridicule, or with enquiries, after some long day of religious debate, such as that recorded in Acts xxviii., and the silent night would see St Paul labouring on ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... knights, a puny race In stays, with locks en papillote, While cuirass, cuisses, greaves give place To silk-net Tights, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... Don John's galley when Colonna rammed him on the poop, penetrating as far as the third oar, and delivered a withering fire from his arquebuses. The Christians had all the advantage of armour and firearms, and fired behind bulwarks; the Turks were unprotected by cuirass or helmet or bulwark, and most of them had bows instead of guns. Colonna's volleys decided the fate of the Fanal, and 'Ali Pasha departed this life. An hour and a half had sufficed to disperse the Ottoman right and to overpower the flagship in chief. When ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole |
