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More "Rubicon" Quotes from Famous Books



... hero, warmed by the difficulty, dilates, and rises in proportion to that, and in some sort makes use of his very fears to disarm it. A remarkable instance of this we have in the great Caesar, when he came to the Rubicon, and was entering upon a part, perhaps, the most hazardous he ever bore (certainly the most ungrateful), a war with his countrymen. When his mind brooded over personal affronts, perhaps his anger burned with a desire of revenge. But when more serious reflections ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... this idea I felt curious to see whether Armelline would discover any jealousy if I shewed myself really in love with Scholastica, and if the latter pronounced me to be too daring, for hitherto my hands had not crossed the Rubicon of their waistbands. I was just going to work when the shoemaker arrived, and in a few minutes the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... modico parvisque impellitur undis Puniceus Rubicon, cum fervida canduit aestas— Tunc ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... returned with his triumphant legions to Rome, passed the Rubicon, won the battle of Pharsalia, trampled upon the liberties of his country, and expired by the patriot hand of Brutus. But Rome ceased to be free. War and conquest had enervated and corrupted the masses. The ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... and decided. The time for him to consider whether he would encounter the hostility of the Roman empire, aroused to the highest possible degree, was when his army was drawn up upon the banks of the Iberus, before they crossed it. The Iberus was his Rubicon. That line once overstepped, there was to be no further faltering. The difficulties which arose from time to time to throw a cloud over his prospects, only seemed to stimulate him to fresh energy, and to awaken a new, though still a calm and steady resolution. It was so at the Pyrenees; it ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... without being aware of it, Mrs. Armine crossed a Rubicon. She crossed it when she came out of the big tent into the sands to go back to the camp by the lake. While she had been with Baroudi the sky had partially cleared. Above the tents and the blazing fire some stars shone ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... dignify what nature has neglected; and that renown which cannot be claimed by intrinsick excellence or greatness, is, sometimes, derived from unexpected accidents. The Rubicon was ennobled by the passage of Caesar, and the time is now come, when Falkland's ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... the Alps, his mighty soul Great tumults pondering and the coming shock. Now on the marge of Rubicon, he saw, In face most sorrowful and ghostly guise, His trembling country's image; huge it seemed Through mists of night obscure; and hoary hair Streamed from the lofty front with turrets crowned: Torn ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... the predicates also. Many of the predicates of things express only the relations of the things to us and to our feelings. Such predicates of course are human additions. Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and was a menace to Rome's freedom. He is also an American school-room pest, made into one by the reaction of our schoolboys on his writings. The added predicate is as true of ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... on several occasions heard gentlemen talking of "passing the Rubicon," and she wants to know whether this is a Bill in Parliament about the Ruby Mines, or whether it is a modern expression for what was many years ago, as she was informed by her grandfather, a slang after-dinner phrase—"Pass the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 1, 1893 • Various

... themselves or their significance. I do not now recall any of the facts connected with the great epoch-making events of classic times; I cannot tell as I write, for example, who fought in the battle of the Allia; why Caesar crossed the Rubicon, or why Cicero delivered ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... that none of her own people were near to see the patronising manner in which Arthurine introduced her to Mr. Foxholm, a heavily-bearded man, whose eyes she did not at all like, and who began by telling her that he felt as if he had crossed the Rubicon, and entering an Arcadia, had ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... easier to forge a letter than to avow himself penniless. Detection? Impossible! Two or three tradesmen in Harrow would advance the money if he showed them this letter. Next Christmas they would be paid. Within a quarter of an hour he made up his mind to cross the Rubicon, and crossed it with undue haste. He forged the letter, placed it in an envelope which had come from Rome, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... Dewsbury, there would have been nothing remarkable in it; but Utica at once revived the scenes at school long past and half-forgotten, and carried me with full speed back again to Italy, and from thence to Africa. I crossed the Rubicon with Caesar; fought at Pharsalia; saw poor Pompey into Larissa, and tried to wrest the fatal sword from Cato's hand in Utica. When I perceived he was no more, I mourned over the noble-minded man who took that part which he thought would most benefit his country. There is something ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... Alps with 25,000 men and marching by Lyons and Paris was known in the capital, and discussions arose respecting the consequences of this passage of another Rubicon. On the 17th of August 1797 Carnot wrote to him: "People attribute to you a thousand absurd projects. They cannot believe that a man who has performed so many great exploits can be content to live as a private ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... builds: 1250 To Crows the like impartial grace affords, And Choughs and Daws, and such republic birds: Secured with ample privilege to feed, Each has his district, and his bounds decreed; Combined in common interest with his own, But not to pass the Pigeon's Rubicon. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... PREVAILING EPIDEMIC.—Our excellent friend is now convalescent. "Like CAESAR or CAESAR's wife, I forget which it was," she says, "I have passed the Barbican!" Some one having suggested that probably she meant "the Rubicon," Mrs. R. thanked him politely, but added, that she perfectly well knew what she was talking about, and that everyone who was acquainted with history would ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various

... how important a part the ferry and the ford have played in human affairs? How differently would history read without its Caesar crossing the Rubicon, its Xerxes crossing the Hellespont, and its Washington crossing the Delaware, its Paul Revere wherried across the Charles, and its Burr and Hamilton ferried over to Weehawken,—not to speak of the Hebrews going over Jordan, Jacob at the brook Jabbok, and John the Baptist at the fords ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... principle and restless activity of hand and eye. His father had died in 1847; and when Morris came of age he inherited a fortune of about L900 a year and was his own master. Before the end of 1855 he imparted to his mother his decision about taking Orders. The Rubicon was crossed; but on which road he was to reach his goal was not settled for many years. Twice he had to retrace his steps from a false start and begin a fresh career. The year 1856 saw him still working at Oxford, in the office of Street, the architect. Two more years ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... her body, from head to foot. I stopped her, took time to bring her again to a quiet state, and then repeated the question. Again the nervous movement began, but this time the child exclaimed, "Why, isn't it funny? I cannot think without moving all over!" Here was the Rubicon crossed. She had become alive to her own superfluous tension; and after that to train her not only to think without moving all over, but to answer questions easily and quietly and so with more expression, and then to study with greatly ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... species as rising from matter upward. How then is the material species main- 172:9 tained, if man passes through what we call death and death is the Rubicon of spirituality? Spirit can form no real link in this supposed chain of material being. 172:12 But divine Science reveals the eternal chain of existence as uninterrupted and wholly spiritual; yet this can be realized only as the false sense ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... countries engaged in war, by reason of their knowledge of what was passing in the way of policy, exerted an influence on the strategy of the forces on both sea and land; Caesar, for instance, was embarrassed in many of his operations by the Roman Senate, and it was for this reason that he crossed the Rubicon and passed from Gaul into Italy. When William I and Napoleon III went to war in 1870, however, Von Moltke had foreseen the effects of the telegraph and of rapid-mail communications, in giving to the headquarters of the army information of a much greater scope and ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... the great grey gleaming sea They swept with their rich booty, night and day. Five other prizes, one for every ship, Out of the seas of Spain they suddenly caught And carried with them, laughing as they went— "Now, now indeed the Rubicon is crossed; Now have we singed the eyelids and the beard Of Spain; now have we roused the hornet's nest; Now shall we sail against a world in arms; Now we have nought between us and black death But our own hands, five ships, and ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... the line of the outposts and their supports. Such was the case with Stewart's regiment far out toward the waterworks at the east. Such was the case with the Primeval Dudes on the other side of the Pasig, lining the banks of the crooked estuary that formed the Rubicon we were forbidden to cross. Such was the case with Canker and the —teenth in the dense bamboo thicket to the south, and so it happened that at first Armstrong and Billy Gray saw nothing of each other, and but little of the White Sisters, probably a ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King

... have thought over this matter with all the seriousness which befits it. You will never know how great and how fierce the struggle has been. I am feeling an older and a tired man. But now that is all over! I have crossed the Rubicon! The mists have rolled away, and the truth is very clear indeed to me! I shudder when I think to what misery I might have brought you, if I had yielded to that sweetest and most fascinating impulse of my life, which bade me accept your ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the picturesque entry into Dunkirk, with its drawbridge and mediaeval towers and grey city wall; here our passes were again examined, and there was a long queue of cars waiting to get through as we drew up. Once "across the Rubicon" we sped through the town and in time came to Furnes with its quaint old market place. Already the place was showing signs of wear and tear. Shell holes in some of the roofs and a good many broken panes, together with ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... those which perpetually recur in daily conversation, and with the greatest emphasis. Thus we have:—'He has played his cards well or ill,'—applied to the management of fortune or one's interest; jacta est alea, 'the die is cast,' as exclaimed Julius Caesar before crossing the Rubicon; 'he has run his RACE—reached the GOAL' a turf adage applied to consummate success or disastrous failure; 'a lucky throw or hit;' 'within an ACE,' meaning one point of gaining a thing; 'he HAZARDS everything;' 'chances are for and against;' 'he was PIQUED,' ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... at this time as anxious about Caesar, and as desirous of reaching the truth as to his character, as we have all been in regard to Bismarck in these latter days. I lived in Caesar, and debated with myself constantly whether he crossed the Rubicon as a tyrant or as a patriot. In order that I might review Mr. Merivale's book without feeling that I was dealing unwarrantably with a subject beyond me, I studied the Commentaries thoroughly, and went through a mass of other reading which the ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... the German peace action had failed, the definite decision to declare unrestricted submarine war was taken in Pless on the 9th January. In this way, as the Chancellor said, the Rubicon was crossed. War with the United States seemed inevitable, unless it were found possible at the eleventh hour to annul the decision of the German Government. Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg has declared before the Commission of the National Assembly that he had not sufficient faith ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... continued the use of the Greek language. When it became a Roman colony is doubtful.1 It was occupied as a naval station in the Illyrian war of 178 B.C. (Liv. xli. 1). Caesar took possession of it immediately after crossing the Rubicon. Its harbour was of considerable importance in imperial times, as the nearest to Dalmatia,2 and was enlarged by Trajan, who constructed the north quay, his architect being Apollodorus of Damascus. At the beginning of it stands the marble triumphal arch with a single ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... length, perceiving that he stood upon the brink of a legal Rubicon, "you may do whatever seems advisable ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... fierce joy that burned without consuming, and a consciousness of having crossed a rubicon. Points of view are left behind in a moment, although the proof may not be apparent for days or weeks, and I reckon our mental change from being merely hunters of an ancient castle and big game-tourists-trippers, from that hour. As we galloped behind Kagig the mesmerism of respect for ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... said the boy, turning his sling-shot at an Italian yelling strawberries. "Wait till I hit that dago on the side of the nose, and you will hear a noise that will remind you of Garibaldi crossing the Rubicon." ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck

... Anxiety for his mistress had been too much for him, and had snapped the bonds of obedience; and knowing full well that he was misbehaving, he had come up furtively, unperceived. But now, having crossed the Rubicon, the rogue must brazen things out— which he did by starting a cat out of one of the dingy laurels, chivvying her some way into the house, and returning to shake himself on the front doorstep and bark ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... as the friend of man. The cat, an animal of franker appetites, preserves his independence. But the dog, with one eye ever on the audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and patted into the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting[9] and became man's plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of leisure; and except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew more and more self-conscious, mannered and affected. The number of things that a small dog does naturally is strangely small. Enjoying better spirits and not crushed under ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... life. This of course meant that Caesar was to be placed on the list of the "retired officers," and the idea did not appeal to him. He remembered that he had begun life as a follower of Marius. He decided to teach the Senators and their "dictator" another lesson. He crossed the Rubicon River which separated the province of Cis-alpine Gaul from Italy. Everywhere he was received as the "friend of the people." Without difficulty Caesar entered Rome and Pompey fled to Greece Caesar followed him and defeated his followers near Pharsalus. Pompey sailed across ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... seems possible. What has never, perhaps, as yet been made sufficiently plain is, who it was that Gracchus especially meant to benefit. Much of the public land previously described lay in the north and south of Italy from the frontier rivers Rubicon and Macra to Apulia. It formed, as Appian says, the largest portion of the land taken from conquered towns by Rome. [Sidenote: Agrarian proposals of Gracchus.] What Gracchus proposed was to take from the rich and give to the poor some of this land. It was, in fact, merely the Licinian law over again ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... killing the republic had the republic been already dead. There was still respect for the law and the constitution. Pompey's hesitation when supreme power was within his grasp, Caesar's own pause at the Rubicon, are proofs of it. The civil wars of Marius and Sulla had fearfully impaired, in the eyes of Romans, but they had not utterly destroyed, the majesty of Rome. There were still great characters—characters which you may dislike, but of which ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... closing events in his life should have been recorded for us by his great patron, Caesar, in his narrative of the Civil War. On the 18th or 19th of January, within ten days of the crossing of the Rubicon, we hear of his being sent with a body of troops to occupy Iguvium,[140] and a month later he is in charge of one of the investing camps before the stronghold of Corfinium.[141] With the fall of Corfinium, on the 21st of February, Caesar's rapid march southward began, which ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... make some vast and all-important decision. He strove to speak, hesitated, choked, coughed apologetically, and acted as fussed as Hicks had done, until Butch was wild; then, as if resolved to cast the die and cross the Rubicon, he decided, and plunged ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... by themselves and sold, and every year Frauds and corruption in the Field of Mars; Hence interest and devouring usury sprang, Faith's breach, and hence came war, to most men welcome. Now Caesar overpass'd the snowy Alps; His mind was troubled, and he aim'd at war: And coming to the ford of Rubicon, At night in dreadful vision fearful[594] Rome Mourning appear'd, whose hoary hairs were torn, And on her turret-bearing head dispers'd, 190 And arms all naked; who, with broken sighs, And staring, thus bespoke: "What mean'st thou, Caesar? Whither goes my standard? Romans if ye be, And bear true ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... might better have yielded. The Tiers Etat with dignity and firmness insisted that they should meet and vote together as one body, or they would constitute themselves a separate body, and act independently of the other two. This was the Rubicon. On one side compromise, and possible co-operation of the three legislative bodies; on the other, revolution, in charge of ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... in the world? Has it built any cities? Has it invented any telephones, any telegraphs? Has it built any steamships, established any universities, any asylums, any hospitals? Was there any chance in Caesar's crossing the Rubicon? What had chance to do with Napoleon's career, with Wellington's, or Grant's, or Von Moltke's? Every battle was won before it was begun. What had luck to do with Thermopylae, Trafalgar, Gettysburg? Our successes we ascribe to ourselves; ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... Once the Rubicon crossed, they ate heartily. The basket was emptied. It still contained one pate de foie gras, one pate de mauvette, a piece of smoked ham, Crassane pears, a Pont-l'Eveque cheese, assorted petits-fours, and a cup full of pickled gherkins and onions, Boule de Suif, ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... autumn of the following year a new play, written by Martin Hillyard and named "The Dark Tower," was produced at the Rubicon Theatre in Panton Street, London. It was Hillyard's second play. His first, produced in April of the same year, had just managed to limp into July; and that small world which concerns itself with the individualities of ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... the Saxon dynasty of England; or further back when Charlemagne was hanging heathen by the great great gross to make good Christians of them; or even when old Julius Caesar came and saw and conquered, on either side of the Rubicon, this same old structure may have sheltered rulers in a world unknown. They told us of the old, old church of San Miguel, a citadel for safety from the savage foes of Spain, a sanctuary ever for the sinful and sorrowing ones. And of the Plaza—sacred ground whereon by ceremonial ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... uses, and finally to become an object of veneration, "as holy as Westminster Abbey" some one says of her in "The Sphere". For the 2100 of us on board there was to be no retreat whatever happened. We had crossed the Rubicon and ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... and Egra. Yield thyself to it. We act as we are forced. I cannot give assent to my own shame 150 And ruin. Thou—no—thou canst not forsake me! So let us do, what must be done, with dignity, With a firm step. What am I doing worse Than did famed Csar at the Rubicon, When he the legions led against his country, 155 The which his country had delivered to him? Had he thrown down the sword, he had been lost, As I were, if I but disarmed myself. I trace out something in me of his spirit. Give me his luck, that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Fayette. He left the Assembly while they as yet formed but one party. His attachment to both is equal, and he labors incessantly to keep them together. Should he be obliged to take part against either, it will be against that which shall first pass the Rubicon of reconciliation with the other. I should hope, in this event, that his weight would be sufficient to turn the scale decidedly in favor of the other. His command of the armed militia of Paris (thirty thousand in number, and comprehending the French guards, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... the lines of battle form. When John Brown crossed the Nation's Rubicon, Him Freedom followed in the battle-storm, And John Brown's soul in ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... trouble. The leaders on both sides armed their followers, and bloody battles were fought in the streets. Generals led their armies to Rome, although, according to the laws, to bring an army into Italy south of the Rubicon River was to make war on the republic and be guilty of treason. Once in the city these generals put to death ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton

... answered with cries, not unlike those of goats and the neighing of horses. This monster had a human body, but the thighs, legs, and feet of a goat. To the above stories may be added that of the Satyr who passed the Rubicon in presence of Caesar and ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... province between the Alps and the Rubicon was called Gallia Citerior, or Oisalpina, from its situation, also Togata, from the inhabitants wearing the Roman toga. The other was called Ulterior, and by Cicero often Ultima, or Transalpina, ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... plunder of the public treasury commanded votes. The people had no choice; and long before the time of Caesar, nothing remained of republican government but the name and the abuse. Read Plutarch. In the 'Life of Caesar,' and not three pages before the crossing of the Rubicon, he paints the ruined state of the elections,—shows that all elective government was gone,—that the hereditary form had become a necessary relief from the contests of the corrupt,—and that in choosing between Pompey and Caesar, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... as the imperishable monument of those tragic centuries that we rightly look upon Ravenna: before the empire was founded she was already famous. It was from her silence that Caesar emerged to cross the Rubicon and all unknowing to found what, when all is said, was the most beneficent, as it was the most universal, government that Europe has ever known. In the first years of that government Ravenna became, and through the four hundred years of its unhampered ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... of the evening Mollie and the camellias shone forth with resplendence. Those of Phil's masculine friends who had known her since her babyhood felt instinctively that to-night the Rubicon had been passed. Unconscious as she was of herself, she was imposing in the maroon silk, and these free-and-easy, good-natured fellows were the very men to be keenly alive to any subtle power of womanhood. So when they ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... is no longer a lad, a pretty boy to be trifled with for the amusement of an idle hour. The Cupid's bow had faded forever from his lip and childhood's innocence from his eye; he has crossed life's Rubicon, has passed at one stride from the Vale of Youth with its trifles and its idle tears, its ignorance of sex and stainless love, to Manhood's rugged mountains, where blazes Ambition's baleful star and the fires of passion ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... him governor of Gaul. Gaul was a troublesome place to be, and they were quite willing he should go there. For a priest to go among the fighting Gauls—they smiled and stroked their chins! Gaul had definite boundaries on the south—the Rubicon marked the line—but on the north it was without limit. Real-estate owners own as high in the air and as deep in the earth as they wish to go. Caesar alone guessed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... however, he could, even now, (before the Rubicon of the cup was passed,) fully justify his high reputation for agreeableness and wit; and a day which it was my good fortune to spend with him, at the table of Mr. Rogers, has too many mournful, as well as pleasant, associations connected ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... situation, also, admitted of no other alternative than to confide herself to Elizabeth or surrender to Murray,—a step not to be thought of. Time pressed; fear urged; and resolved to throw herself at the feet of her kinswoman, she crossed, never to return, the Rubicon of her destiny. A common fishing-boat, the only vessel that could be procured, landed her on May 16th 1568, with about twenty attendants, at Workington in Cumberland, whence she was conducted with every mark of respect to Carlisle-castle; ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... states, the South deluded herself that it was simply an exposition of the power of the government—a sort of Chinese warfare of gongs and tom-toms. The passage of the Potomac and seizure of a city under the aegis of the Confederate Government was actually crossing the Rubicon and carrying the war directly into the southern territory. Fortress Monroe and other fortified points still held by the United States, in the South, were conceded to be in a measure hers, at least by the right ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... Rubicon. 2. Morse invented the telegraph. 3. Ericsson built the Monitor. 4. Hume wrote a history. 5. Morn purples the east, ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... papers with you.' She held them out to me as she spoke. 'The Prince has crossed the Rubicon now, and nothing can bring him back. You can return these to the Emperor, and tell him that we refused to receive them. No one can accuse you then of having lost your despatches. Good-bye, Colonel Gerard, ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... invited him; but they soon saw that Monk was not likely to be their obedient servant, and would fain have induced him to return. Monk none the less advanced; but it was with the utmost deliberation and circumspection, crossing no Rubicon, and breaking no bridge behind him. No word in favour of a royal restoration passed his lips. He frowned on all who ventured to suggest such a course. At each stage in his advance he pronounced, with ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... "The Rubicon is forded," thought Rosa, complacently, the while her compassion for him was sincere and strong. "He can never shut his heart inexorably against me ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... brought to fever heat the agitation failed because the orator proved to be a voice and nothing more. He yielded meekly to the proclamation of the government forbidding further meetings, and his followers forsook him when they saw that he would not cross the Rubicon and take arms after words had failed. The society called "Young Ireland," formed about 1840, took up the agitation for Irish nationality, and carried it to greater lengths than O'Connell had dared. Its ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... all," Lyle answered, with an eagerness somewhat deeper than the mannish pride of youths who have just crossed the Rubicon that divides them from their much-scorned 'teens.' "I have advanced, and you seem to have stood still; there is scarcely any difference between us now." And Olive, somewhat amused, let her ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... thyself to it. We act as we are forced. I cannot give assent to my own shame 150 And ruin. Thou—no—thou canst not forsake me! So let us do, what must be done, with dignity, With a firm step. What am I doing worse Than did famed Csar at the Rubicon, When he the legions led against his country, 155 The which his country had delivered to him? Had he thrown down the sword, he had been lost, As I were, if I but disarmed myself. I trace out something in me of his spirit. Give me his luck, that other ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Welsh accent. The last day of his holiday was spent in fishing in the company of two friends; but unfortunately the newspapers failed to supply any details of the scene, a lack of enterprise which it is difficult to understand, especially on the part of the journals known to employ Rubicon experts on their staff. Happily we are able to give information which we have reason to believe will not be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 14, 1920 • Various

... thought, of course, would be that the old mountain-lion, Steve's grandfather, had come roaring down from his place in the north. Terry tossed up her head so that they might see and know and marvel and speculate and do and say anything which pleased them. Having crossed her Rubicon, she didn't care the snap of her pretty ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... I mean that there was nothing poetic to Hercules about the Augean task, when the pungent smell of ammonia filled his nostrils, and he bent a sweat-dewed face to that mighty scavenging once more: that there was nothing poetic to Caesar about the Rubicon: nothing poetic to Clive about India. The world seems to have an invincible prejudice against men who see the romance in the work they are doing. The footballing, cigarette-smoking clerk, who lives at Hornsey or Tufnell ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... no means to protect themselves against an injured people, if they persist in their unconstitutional career.... There are not military enough to uphold a bad government for an hour, if the Rubicon has been passed; and well does Sir John Colborne know that although he may hire regiments of priests here, he may expect no more red-coats from Europe in those days of economy.... He also knows that if we are to take examples from the Mother Country, the arbitrary proceedings of the officers of ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... unspeakable emotion. The eloquent blood flushed cheek and throat with a keen sense of shame. She had read and heard of such painful stories, but to be face to face with a creature who had crossed the Rubicon, overpassed the great gulf, which separates the sheep from the goats was something so unexpected, so terrible, that she could not restrain a passionate burst of tears. "Ah," she murmured at last, "you were cruelly deceived, ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... can be met in the same way. As with nervous pain it seems at first impossible to "relax to it;" but the Rubicon once crossed, we cannot long be irritable,—it is so much simpler not to be, and ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... of about 18,000 souls, famous for its Stabilmento de' Bagni and its antiquities, seated upon the coast of the Adriatic, a little to the south-east of the world-historical Rubicon. It is our duty to mention the baths first among its claims to distinction, since the prosperity and cheerfulness of the little town depend on them in a great measure. But visitors from the north will ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... with his triumphant legions to Rome, passed the Rubicon, won the battle of Pharsalia, trampled upon the liberties of his country, and expired by the patriot hand of Brutus. But Rome ceased to be free. War and conquest had enervated and corrupted the masses. The spirit of true liberty was extinguished, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... crossed the Rubicon Julius Caesar was staggered at the greatness of the undertaking before him. The more he reflected and took counsel of his friends, the greater loomed the difficulties of the attempt and the more ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton

... of my later life. And I may say that I became at this time as anxious about Caesar, and as desirous of reaching the truth as to his character, as we have all been in regard to Bismarck in these latter days. I lived in Caesar, and debated with myself constantly whether he crossed the Rubicon as a tyrant or as a patriot. In order that I might review Mr. Merivale's book without feeling that I was dealing unwarrantably with a subject beyond me, I studied the Commentaries thoroughly, and went through ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... the Field of Mars; Hence interest and devouring usury sprang, Faith's breach, and hence came war, to most men welcome. Now Caesar overpass'd the snowy Alps; His mind was troubled, and he aim'd at war: And coming to the ford of Rubicon, At night in dreadful vision fearful[594] Rome Mourning appear'd, whose hoary hairs were torn, And on her turret-bearing head dispers'd, 190 And arms all naked; who, with broken sighs, And staring, thus bespoke: "What mean'st thou, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... with her own hand, she drew the heavy bolts across the doors that he had closed behind him, and returned to the King, whose gesture of surprise and annoyance she affected not to remark. She had passed the Rubicon, and she felt that she had no time to lose if she did not desire to become herself the victim of the struggle in which she was engaged; and thus having announced to her son the dismissal of Richelieu and his relatives from her personal service, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... and finally to break with the Afrikaner Bond—a forlorn hope indeed, considering the perfection which that formidable organization had reached. Its cherished objects were not meant to be abandoned. The advice of "Bond" leaders prevailed. War was declared and the Rubicon crossed in enthusiastic expectations of soon realizing the long-deferred Bond motto: "The ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... garret—still he never yet had seen occasion to screw his courage to the sticking point, and boldly place his bliss at hard Sir Thomas's disposal. Some day—not yet—perhaps next week, at any rate not exactly to-day—these were his natural excuses; and they availed him even to the other side of that social Rubicon, engagement. Nevertheless, now at length something must decidedly be done; and, within half an hour, Finsbury's deserted square echoed to the heroic knock of Mr. Henry Clements, fully determined upon claiming his Maria at her ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... "I know Great Britain has determined on her system, and that very determination determines me on mine. You know I have been constant and uniform in opposition to her measures. The die is now cast. I have passed the Rubicon. Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish with my ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... alarming. Caesar and Pompey were in antagonism. He must choose between them, and he distrusted both. Caesar was the more able, accomplished, and magnanimous, but he was the more unscrupulous and dangerous. He had ventured to cross the Rubicon,—the first general who ever dared thus openly to assail his country's liberties. Pompey was pompous, overrated, and proud, and had been fortunate in the East. But then he sided with the Constitutional authorities,—that is, with the Senate,—so far as his ambition allowed. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... grades the human species as rising from matter upward. How then is the material species main- 172:9 tained, if man passes through what we call death and death is the Rubicon of spirituality? Spirit can form no real link in this supposed chain of material being. 172:12 But divine Science reveals the eternal chain of existence as uninterrupted and wholly spiritual; yet this can be realized only as the false sense of ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... in its first attempt. If Caesar comes once to pass the Rubicon, he will be sure to march further on, even till he enters the very bowels of Rome, and breaks open the Capitol itself. He that wades so far as to wet and foul himself, cares not how ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... very different result, had not political and personal considerations been permitted to outweigh those of a military character. Politicians are pests in a camp. Caesar was in his fifty-first year when he crossed the Rubicon and began his wonderful series of campaigns in the Civil War,—campaigns characterized by an almost superhuman energy. The most remarkable of his efforts was that which led to his last appearance in the field, at the Battle of Munda, where he fought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... The Rubicon was crossed. But the hardships thereby incurred were but just beginning. The two sisters were obliged to keep in hiding as if they had been criminals, for they dared not risk a chance meeting with Bishop. They had barely money enough to pay their immediate expenses, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... done in the world? Has it built any cities? Has it invented any telephones, any telegraphs? Has it built any steamships, established any universities, any asylums, any hospitals? Was there any chance in Caesar's crossing the Rubicon? What had chance to do with Napoleon's career, with Wellington's, or Grant's, or Von Moltke's? Every battle was won before it was begun. What had luck to do with Thermopylae, Trafalgar, Gettysburg? Our successes we ascribe to ourselves; our failures ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... Alps, his mighty soul Great tumults pondering and the coming shock. Now on the marge of Rubicon, he saw, In face most sorrowful and ghostly guise, His trembling country's image; huge it seemed Through mists of night obscure; and hoary hair Streamed from the lofty front with turrets crowned: Torn were her locks and naked were ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... soldiers, wherever he can. For he is a man who has at all times despised the judgment and authority of the senate, and your inclinations and power. Will he do what it has been just now decreed that he shall do,—lead his army back across the Rubicon, which is the frontier of Gaul, and yet at the same time not come nearer Rome than two hundred miles? will he obey this notice? will he allow himself to be confined by the river Rubicon and by the limit of two hundred miles? Antonius is not that sort of man. For if ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... Baby Olympic Games One Old Cat Over the Barn Pass It Pelota Plug in the Ring Polo Potato Race Prisoner's Base Push Ball Quoits Racquets or Rackets Red Line Red Lion Roley Boley Roque Rowing Record Rubicon Sack Racing Scotland's Burning Skiing Soccer Spanish Fly Squash Stump Master Suckers Tether Ball Tether Tennis Three-Legged Racing Tub Racing Volley Ball Warning Washington Polo Water Water Race Wicket Polo Wolf and Sheep Wood ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... marry a King than fling a bomb at him, and I have met several young ladies almost as pretty as you who were ready enough to adopt the latter alternative. At any rate you will take no harm by crossing the Danube. It is not the Rubicon, you know, and you have Saint Peter to lean on in case ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... to cross your Rubicon, Maskull. But what a Rubicon!... Do you know that it takes light a hundred years or so to arrive here from Arcturus? Yet we shall do it ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... some anxiety, and that he was not sorry when the carriage was at the door to bear him away, before (shall it be confessed?) his tears had got the mastery over him. As it was, by the judicious help of his sisters, he passed the Rubicon in courageous style, and went through the form of breakfast with the greatest hilarity, although with several narrow escapes of suffocation from choking. The thought that he was going to be an Oxford MAN fortunately assisted him in the preservation of that tranquil ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... boy, turning his sling-shot at an Italian yelling strawberries. "Wait till I hit that dago on the side of the nose, and you will hear a noise that will remind you of Garibaldi crossing the Rubicon." ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck

... friend of man. The cat, an animal of franker appetites, preserves his independence. But the dog, with one eye ever on the audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and patted into the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting[9] and became man's plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of leisure; and except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew more and more self-conscious, mannered and affected. The number of things that a small dog does naturally ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to disagreeable prophecies, please! Besides, it's too late to draw back, or to even think of retreat. The Rubicon is passed." ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... half clothed at their master's expense, have put by for forty years, and yet not even by aid of interest and compound interest and perquisites and commissions squeezed out of little tradesmen and other time-honored embezzlements, have reached the rubicon of four figures. Five thousand little shopkeepers, active, intelligent and greedy, have bought wholesale and sold retail, yet never mounted so high as this above rent, housekeeping, bad debts and casualties. Many a writer of genius has charmed his nation and adorned her ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... ladies and married people. To a bachelor, to whom she has just been introduced, she will chatter away nineteen to the dozen; but, even in her own, house, she has no idea of the social duties. Marriage, in her opinion, is a Rubicon, which, once crossed, if it does not altogether debar from the pleasures of maiden and bachelorhood, at least makes it necessary for married folk to shift for themselves. To talk or dance with a married man would be a terrible waste of time; and as for married ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... step only costs. Once the Rubicon crossed, they ate heartily. The basket was emptied. It still contained one pate de foie gras, one pate de mauvette, a piece of smoked ham, Crassane pears, a Pont-l'Eveque cheese, assorted petits-fours, and ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... only was difficult. The Rubicon once crossed, they fell to with a will. They emptied the basket, which contained, besides the provisions already mentioned; a pate de foie gras, a lark pie, a piece of smoked tongue, some pears, a slab of gingerbread, mixed biscuits, and a cup of pickled onions ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... the most delicate manner possible. The first few thrusts, till the upper part of the pillar got fairly inserted within the cheeks, were even worse than before. But as soon as this was accomplished, and the hollow part at the junction of the pillar with the head had passed the Rubicon, all feeling of uneasiness vanished and was succeeded by the most delicious sensations, as inch by inch he gradually fought his way into my interior, the intense pleasure increasing at every thrust he gave, ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous

... equal to Caesar's! And yet this magnificent freethinker, rejecting a soul and a Deity, habitually entered his chariot muttering a charm; crawled on his knees up the steps of a temple to propitiate the abstraction called 'Nemesis;' and did not cross the Rubicon till he had consulted the omens. What does all this prove?—a very simple truth. Man has some instincts with the brutes; for instance, hunger and sexual love. Man has one instinct peculiar to himself, found universally (or with alleged exceptions in savage ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... it is a noble, sprightly sound, The trumpet's clangor, and the clash of arms! This noise may chill your blood, but mine it warms. [Shouting and clashing of swords within. We have already passed the Rubicon; The dice are mine; now, fortune, for a throne! [A shout within, and clashing of swords afar off. The sound goes farther off, and faintly dies; Curse of this going back, these ebbing cries! Ye winds, waft hither sounds more strong and quick; Beat faster, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... itself alone. She was not just the same girl she was when she had entered Florence a few months ago, nor ever again would be; and between her and Bettina,—the sisters who before this had been "as one soul in two bodies,"—ran a mysterious Rubicon, the outer shore of which Bettina's feet ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt

... styled Travelling-companion, is kind Sister Elizabeth; she had sworn, long since, when the Insurrection of Women was, that only death should part her and them. And so they rush there, not too impetuously, through the Wood of Bondy:—over a Rubicon in their ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... was postponed; and on the 29th McClellan desired Banks to ascertain the intentions of the enemy as soon as possible, and if he were in force to drive him from the Valley of the Shenandoah. Thus spurred, Banks at last resolved to cross the Rubicon. "Deficiency," he replied, "in ammunition for Shields' artillery detains us here; expect it hourly, when we shall push Jackson sharply." It was not, however, till April 2, four days later, that Mr. Lincoln's protege crossed ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... a conversation with Jonathan Sewall in 1774, says: "I answered that the die was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon. Swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country was my unalterable determination."—JOHN ADAMS: Works, vol. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... long and well, That saw'st the unfledged eaglet chip his shell! Ye Alps which viewed him in his dawning flights Hover, the Victor of a hundred fights! Thou Rome, who saw'st thy Caesar's deeds outdone! Alas! why passed he too the Rubicon— The Rubicon of Man's awakened rights, To herd with vulgar kings and parasites? 140 Egypt! from whose all dateless tombs arose Forgotten Pharaohs from their long repose, And shook within their pyramids to hear A new Cambyses thundering in their ear; While the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... uncomfortable quarters and to rejoin his companions, who were awaiting him some little distance off. All were in high spirits over the success of the strategy of the Mohawk, but they could not shut their eyes to the fact that in one sense they had crossed the Rubicon. As there was no turning back, ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... passion became painful; but she did not protest or try to draw away, thinking of his hold in no personal sense but as a part of his self-revelation. "All—all is at stake there!" he continued, staring toward the range. "It's the Rubicon! I have put my career on to-night's cast! Victory means that the world will be at our feet—honor, position, power greater than that of any other two human beings! Do you realize what that means—the honor and the power ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... as tardily as if he had had to cross a Rubicon in the back room. Two were lighted, and the Surgeon settled himself for ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... queen-mother, in dismay, carried off the king to Melun at first, and then to Fontainebleau, whilst the Prince of Conde, having retired to Meaux, summoned to his side his relatives, his friends, and all the leaders of the Reformers, and wrote to Coligny, "that Caesar had not only crossed the Rubicon, but was already at Rome, and that his banners were beginning to wave all over the neighboring country." For some days Catherine and L'Hospital tried to remain out of Paris with the young king, whom Guise, the Constable de Montmorency, and the King of Navarre, the former being members ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... force to garrison Tarentum, the baffled and disappointed king set sail for Epirus. He had scarcely embarked before Tarentum surrendered to the Romans (272 B.C.). This ended the struggles for the mastery of Italy. Rome was now mistress of all the peninsula south of the Arnus and the Rubicon. It was now her care to consolidate these possessions, and to fasten her hold upon them, by means of a perfect network of colonies and military roads. [Footnote: "Colonies were not all of the same character. They must be distinguished into two classes—the colonies of Roman citizens ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... rest of his forces were on the other side of the Alps, and he would not wait for them, choosing rather to put his adversaries in confusion by a sudden and unexpected attack, than to fight them when better prepared. When he came to the river Rubicon, which was the boundary of his province, he stood silent a long time, weighing with himself the greatness of his enterprise. At last, like one who plunges down from the top of a precipice into a gulf ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... special reference attaching to it, as the neuter relative: 'Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, which was in effect a declaration of war.' The antecedent in this instance is not Rubicon, but ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... could not but feel towards the inventor, &c. &c. The flattery was so delicately and so seriously insinuated, that the worthy citizen could only receive it as an honest expression of sincere admiration. The Rubicon was passed; a little lively conversation, artfully made attractive by Hook, followed, and the watchmaker was more and more gratified. He felt, too, what an honour it would be to entertain two real gentlemen, and remarking that they ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... arms of a lover she secretly enjoys the solace which she cannot derive from her legal owner. Then, if she is detected, how the world holds up its ten thousand hands in pious horror!—Wives who have young husbands are eloquent in their censure; old women who have long passed the rubicon of love and feeling, denounce her a shameless hussey; while the old reprobate who calls himself her husband, says to his indignant and sympathizing friends—'I took her from a low station in life; I raised her to ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... already drafted. The work was completed on the 4th of July, when Jefferson's draft was adopted and published to the world. Five days afterward the state of New York declared her approval of these proceedings. The Rubicon was crossed, and the thirteen English colonies had become the United States ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... with Stewart's regiment far out toward the waterworks at the east. Such was the case with the Primeval Dudes on the other side of the Pasig, lining the banks of the crooked estuary that formed the Rubicon we were forbidden to cross. Such was the case with Canker and the —teenth in the dense bamboo thicket to the south, and so it happened that at first Armstrong and Billy Gray saw nothing of each other, and but little of the White Sisters, ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King

... shall be millions worse than we were at that enviable period. Such a request, had it been complied with a year ago, would have won the heart and soul of the Continent—but now it is too late, "The Rubicon is passed." ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine

... remember the events themselves or their significance. I do not now recall any of the facts connected with the great epoch-making events of classic times; I cannot tell as I write, for example, who fought in the battle of the Allia; why Caesar crossed the Rubicon, or why Cicero delivered ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... banished from Rome, fled to Caesar delaying to cross the Rubicon, and urged him on, with the argument, according to Lucan, "Tolle moras, semper nocuit differre ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... and eye. His father had died in 1847; and when Morris came of age he inherited a fortune of about L900 a year and was his own master. Before the end of 1855 he imparted to his mother his decision about taking Orders. The Rubicon was crossed; but on which road he was to reach his goal was not settled for many years. Twice he had to retrace his steps from a false start and begin a fresh career. The year 1856 saw him still working at Oxford, in the office of Street, the architect. Two more ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... emerged upon the cleared area of the temple. There Felix, without one moment's hesitation, with a firm and resolute tread, stepped over the white coral line that marked the taboo of the great god's precincts. That was a declaration of open war; he had crossed the Rubicon of Tu-Kila-Kila's empire. Toko stood trembling on the far side; none might pass that mystic line unbidden and live, save the Korong alone who could succeed in breaking off the bough "with yellow leaves, resembling a mistletoe," of which Methuselah, the parrot, had told Felix and Muriel, ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... Satyr only answered with cries, not unlike those of goats and the neighing of horses. This monster had a human body, but the thighs, legs, and feet of a goat. To the above stories may be added that of the Satyr who passed the Rubicon in presence of ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... year 1265 became for the first time a representative body, when Simon de Montfort summoned not alone the lords and bishops—but two citizens from every city, and two burghers from every borough. A Rubicon was passed when the merchant, and the shopkeeper, sat for the first time with the noble and the bishops in the great council. It was thirty years before the change was fully effected, it being in the year 1295 (just 600 years ago now) that the first true Parliament met. But the "House of ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... always—when he finds himself face to face with the inevitable. I am not speaking of what men talk about in such cases, or of what they do, but of what they feel,—of the fact that, in too many instances, Nature not having meant men for bondage, after they have passed the Rubicon to that spot from which the code of civilized honor does not permit them to turn back, they usually have a period of regret, and are forced to make a real effort to face the ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich

... than in that of Romulus; and Zumpt acknowledges that we have no satisfactory knowledge of the state of Italy at that early age. Zumpt, in my opinion with some reason, takes the period just before the first Punic war, as that in which Roman Italy (all south of the Rubicon) was most populous. From that time, the numbers began to diminish, at first from the enormous waste of life out of the free population in the foreign, and afterwards in the civil wars; from the cultivation of the soil by slaves; towards the close of the republic, from the repugnance ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... of passing the Alps with 25,000 men and marching by Lyons and Paris was known in the capital, and discussions arose respecting the consequences of this passage of another Rubicon. On the 17th of August 1797 Carnot wrote to him: "People attribute to you a thousand absurd projects. They cannot believe that a man who has performed so many great exploits can be content to live as a private citizen." This observation applied ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... such a position as to insure his falling into the water, if he attempted such a piece of gymnastics. Tom wore nice clothes, and he did not run the risk of soiling them by a possible accident. He paused on the brink of the stream, and feared to cross the Rubicon. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... he naturally remembers the hardships which Hannibal's army endured, and proceeds to cite, not the authentic narrative of Polybius, not the picturesque narrative of Livy, but the languid hexameters of Silius Italicus. On the banks of the Rubicon he never thinks of Plutarch's lively description, or of the stern conciseness of the Commentaries, or of those letters to Atticus which so forcibly express the alternations of hope and fear in a sensitive mind at a great crisis. His only authority for the events ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... expressing a hope that good consequences might arise from its adoption. It was opposed by Mr. Burke, Mr. Charles Fox, and Colonel Barre, the latter of whom reprobated the violence of both houses. "In the lords," said he, "the phrase is, 'We have passed the Rubicon!'—in the commons, 'Delenda est Carthago!'" But opposition was of no avail. The bill was carried by an overwhelming majority in the lower house; and when it was taken into the upper house, though it was severely criticised, opposed, and denounced by a few lords, most of the peers ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... monarch in Rome, would Caesar but be as good a monarch as he now seems disposed to be! How, too, could Brutus say that he found no personal cause—none in Caesar's past conduct as a man? Had he not passed the Rubicon? Had he not entered Rome as a conqueror? Had he not placed his Gauls in the Senate?—Shakespeare, it may be said, has not brought these things forward—True;—and this is just the ground of my perplexity. What character did Shakespeare ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... the word and crossed the Rubicon before reason could begin to lecture. Besides, wasn't reason treating her shabbily in withholding the key to the riddle? "Johnny Two-Hawks, I will go as far as Harlem if ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... his Rubicon. Either he must enter the unknown to seek, to strive, to find, or turn back and fail and never know and be always haunted. A friend's strange story had prompted his singular journey; a beautiful rainbow with its mystery and promise had decided him. Once ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... of his devotedly loyal veterans he crossed the Rubicon. His rapid and successful advance caused Pompeius to abandon Italy and fall back on the Eastern Provinces. The discipline preserved, and the moderation displayed by Caesar won him unexpected favour. Having secured Italy, he turned next on Spain, and secured that. Swift and decisive action was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... conduct of our modern ecclesiastical services is the disappearance and painless extinction of the old parish clerk who figured so prominently in the old-fashioned ritual dear to the hearts of our forefathers. The Oxford Movement has much to answer for! People who have scarcely passed the rubicon of middle life can recall the curious scene which greeted their eyes each Sunday morning when life was young, and perhaps retain a tenderness for old abuses, and, like George Eliot, have a lingering liking for nasal clerks and top-booted clerics, ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... Macdonald, and by so doing won for Nova Scotia the better financial terms which removed her {148} most tangible grievance. By this time most of the leaders of the repeal party were ready for this step, even though their followers were not. Had Howe sunk his egoism and consulted them before he crossed the Rubicon, had there been no telegraph between Ottawa and Halifax, so that he could have come personally and have been the first to explain to them the improved financial terms which he had won, and the necessity of his entering the Cabinet as a pledge of his sincerity, they ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant

... cheerfulness of Raleigh, when with his small English ships he cast himself against the navies of Spain; or at Xenophon, conducting back from an inhospitable and hostile country, and through unknown paths, his ten thousand Greeks; or Caesar, riding up and down the banks of the Rubicon, sad enough belike when alone, but at the head of his men cheerful, joyous, well dressed, rather foppish, in fact, his face shining with good humor as with oil. Again, Nelson, in the worst of dangers, was as cheerful as the day. He had even a rough but quiet humor in him just as he carried his ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... revival, which, in those days, thrilled through our river-towns and took the place of the theological revival, which the churches seemed too feeble to produce. And—but this is addressed only to simple souls who think that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and Luther instituted the Reformation—the settlement of Miss Patience Hurribattle in a Foxden boarding-house produced the social upheaval which shook the place. Of course, the enlightened reader of the "Atlantic" is well aware that the mighty personages of history may be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... look from the outside only; that he looked with a charity of which he had never dreamed, and that he was amazingly content. And as he got into bed he thought that when next he slept in town he would not be alone. He would have crossed Tommy's Rubicon. ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... do without friends, and to crush enemies. The Senate vainly commanded him to disperse his army by a certain day, on pain of being considered an enemy of the country. He continued to advance till he came to the boundaries of Italy, a little river, whose name, the Rubicon, was then made famous forever, which separated Cisalpine Gaul from Umbria. To cross this was practically to declare war, and even the resolute Caesar hesitated awhile. He thought his course over by himself; he even consulted ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... exist for a round dozen years without my love—or doubting it—so long as she had her cavaliere servante. It was only when he deserted her that she found life a burden. And now she has crossed the Rubicon. She belongs to her age—the age of Kings' mistresses and light women. And she will be happy, I dare swear, as they are. It is not an age of tears. And when the fair Louise ran away to her Convent the other day, in a passion of penitence, be sure she only went on ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... reconciliation, they still refused to abandon the pleasing delusion, and talked over the old plans for redress of grievances, and a constitutional union with the mother country. With little or no belief in the possibility of either, they stood shivering on the banks of the Rubicon, that mythical river of irretrievable self-committal, hesitating to enter its turbid waters. A few of the bolder "shepherds of the people" tried to urge them onward; but no one was bold enough to dash in first and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... of January 1831, the Rubicon was passed. The step, though momentous in any case to Madame Dudevant, was one whose ultimate consequences were by none less anticipated than by herself, when to town she came, still undecided whether her future destiny were to decorate screens and tea-caddies, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... some food. He was received by the notables of the town, among them a young intellectual, who took from his pocket a long address. Bolvar listened to the beginning and at once knew that it was going to be not only long but tedious. The young man came to a sentence reading: "When Caesar crossed the Rubicon...," at which point Bolvar interrupted him, saying, "My dear friend, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon he had had his breakfast, and I have not yet had mine. Let us first have breakfast." Generally, he respected everyone's feelings, and was much inclined to praise others, the living ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell

... great grey gleaming sea They swept with their rich booty, night and day. Five other prizes, one for every ship, Out of the seas of Spain they suddenly caught And carried with them, laughing as they went— "Now, now indeed the Rubicon is crossed; Now have we singed the eyelids and the beard Of Spain; now have we roused the hornet's nest; Now shall we sail against a world in arms; Now we have nought between us and black death But our ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... consider the shot across my bows as an attack," said he, and he slapped on every stitch of canvas, so that the Emilie was soon abreast of the Britisher. Boom! A broadside roared into her and she struck her colors. Bold Robert Surcouf had passed the Rubicon,—he had seen the English flag lowered to him, for the first time; and his heart swelled with patriotic pride, in spite of the fact that this was an act of piracy, for which he could be hanged ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... on the banks of the Rubicon, he halted for a while, and, revolving in his mind the importance of the step he was on the point of taking, he turned to those about him and said, "We may still retreat; but if we pass this little bridge, nothing is left for us but to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... head. It missed her, and he then snatched up a stick, and, for the first time in his life, struck her. He was her only son. She quietly took up all her things, and, walking off towards a temple, said she would leave him for ever; and he, having passed the Rubicon, declared that he was resolved no longer to submit to the parental tyranny which she had hitherto exercised over him. My water carrier, however, prevailed upon her with much difficulty to return, and take up her quarters with him and his wife and five children ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... read the letter again very carefully, folded and put it away. What had come to Violet? This was so unlike her. Still, he had to confess to himself that he was relieved at not yet having to cross the Rubicon. Perhaps she was right; it might be better to wait. He was glad to know that for a time at least she was away from the uncongenial surroundings of Rohar and again enjoying life. He went through the ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... the ape. Nevertheless, even in Pithecanthropus, the brute is passing into the man. We note the erect attitude, to be inferred from his thigh-bone, and the considerably enlarged, though even so hardly human, brain. The Piltdown individual, on the other hand, has crossed the Rubicon. He has a brain-capacity entitling him to rank as a man and an Englishman. Such a brain, too, implies a cunning hand, which doubtless helped him greatly to procure his food, even if his massive jaw enabled him to dispose of the food in question without recourse to the adventitious aids of knife ...
— Progress and History • Various

... Kansas will soon find out that no one but prohibition officers can be trusted to enforce prohibition statutes. I am glad at the present writing there is said to be not a dive in the beautiful city of Topeka, and that she has passed the Rubicon. God grant that no more criminal dens be opened by Republicans, ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... out of a hundred or more in sailor rig, from an industrial or reformatory ship on the Thames, suddenly rose. It seemed to me such a wonderfully courageous act—for I knew perfectly what it would mean to him—that I immediately found myself on my feet, and went out feeling that I had crossed the Rubicon, and must do something ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... that, though the process is sound—must be sound—pursuit is probably hopeless because it must take twenty lifetimes—of a sudden, I say, this new way is revealed. Put it that I've come, all of a start, upon a little stream called Rubicon. Put it that I've burnt—no, put it that Farrell's myrmidons have burnt, at a stroke, every ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... That made his horse a senator: each brim Look big as mine: the gallant, jolly beast Of all the herd—you'll say—was not the least. Now crown the second bowl, rich as his worth I'll drink it to; he, that like fire broke forth Into the Senate's face, cross'd Rubicon, And the State's pillars, with their laws thereon, And made the dull grey beards and furr'd gowns fly Into Brundusium to consult, and lie. This, to brave Sylla! why should it be said We drink more to the living ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... citizen had been asked whether he did not fear that the conqueror of Gaul might establish a throne upon the ruins of public liberty, he would have instantly repelled the unjust insinuation. Yet Greece fell; Caesar passed the Rubicon, and the patriotic arm even of Brutus could not preserve the liberties of his devoted country. The celebrated Madame de Stael, in her last and perhaps her best work, has said that in the very year, almost the very month, when the president of the Directory declared that monarchy would ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... with success; yet as I quitted the examination- room and descended into the quadrangle of the Ecole, crowded with sauntering groups of garrulous students, my spirit was heavy within me, and the expression of my face could hardly have been that of a young man who has safely passed the Rubicon of scientific apprenticeship, and who sees the laurels and honors of the world within his reach. The world? The very thought of its possible homage repelled me, for I knew that its best successes and its loudest praise are accorded ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... placed on the list of the "retired officers," and the idea did not appeal to him. He remembered that he had begun life as a follower of Marius. He decided to teach the Senators and their "dictator" another lesson. He crossed the Rubicon River which separated the province of Cis-alpine Gaul from Italy. Everywhere he was received as the "friend of the people." Without difficulty Caesar entered Rome and Pompey fled to Greece Caesar followed him and defeated his followers ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... so," the latter answered quickly. "We change. Read First Corinthians, seventh chapter, and if you take Paul's advice and don't pass the Rubicon, then you 'll be free to change ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... the line of French garçons: cuc—cucchi,—give me our Anglo-Saxon monosyllables for such things as spoons, knives, and forks,—at last I blurted out cucchiaio, in all its quadrosyllabic fulness. The Rubicon was passed (by the way, it was on the carte of my route); after that I stuck at nothing, though for some time it was the lingua Toscana—in bocca—Inglese.—But how did you ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... quartier between the Boulevard des Italiennes and the Tuileries; here, at all events, he should soonest learn the worst: and every day, as he took up the English newspapers, a sick feeling of apprehension and fear came over him. No! till the seal was set upon the bond, till the Rubicon was passed, till Miss Cameron was the wife of Lord Vargrave, he could neither return to the home that was so eloquent with the recollections of Evelyn, nor, by removing farther from England, delay the receipt of an intelligence which he vainly told himself he ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... 'Is Rubicon Bezique still played in England? There was a mania for it at that time. The floor of Keeb's Palladio-Gargantuan hall was dotted with innumerable little tables. I didn't know how to play. My hostess told me ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

... severing his connection with the former Confederation. He was, therefore, free in honour to have taken no part in the insurrection, since it was begun by men from whom he had withdrawn. But when the voice in the night whispered through his window that his former colleagues had crossed the Rubicon, Doheny, like the man he was, rose and rode forth to make the fatal passage and stand or ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... them to the small river Bidassoa, the Rubicon of their journey. It formed the boundary between France and Spain. On reaching its southern bank they stood on the soil of the land of the dons, and the truant prince danced for joy, filled with delight at the success of his runaway prank. Gresley afterwards reported ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... briefer report, which he was moved to make different and, for some reason, less vivid. Meanwhile he learned from Miss Wenham how Addie had introduced him. It took time to arrive with her at that point, but after the Rubicon was crossed they went ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James

... Constitution, in favor of sustaining the laws of the land, denying the existence of any real grievance; and standing thus with that consciousness of strength which integrity imparts, you must strike the first blow, cross the Rubicon, commit the foul and damning crime of treason, and bring upon your people ruin, devastation, and destruction, and call down upon your guilty heads the curses of your children and the disapprobation of the ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... slowness to grasp the situation). Well, we shall now know who your foes are. The name of every man who has plotted against you since you crossed the Rubicon may be in these papers, for all ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... Millicent's good looks, if they did not amount to beauty, did, nevertheless, add something to the attractiveness of her vast pecuniary prospects. Chip had obtained the young lady's decided favor without absolutely crossing the Rubicon himself, for he had no notion of taking her without any of the funds her father had to bestow. It was arranged between them that his paternal consent should be asked, and the die or live of matrimony ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... came across the Alps into Cisalpine Gaul, which as yet had not been legally taken from him, and in the autumn sat himself down at Ravenna, which was still within his province. It was there that he had to meditate the crossing of the Rubicon and the manifestation of absolute rebellion. Matters were in this condition when Cicero returned to Italy, and heard the corroboration of the news as to the civil war which had reached ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... ruin all your life by going on with these ways—it is unthinkable!" and his deep voice vibrated with feeling. "It is a mistake, that is all, and can be rectified,—if you were already married to this man I would not plead so, because then you would have crossed the Rubicon, and assumed responsibilities which you would have to accept or suffer the consequences. But this preliminary bond can be broken without hurt to either side. A man of the good clergyman's type will not suffer in his emotions at the loss of you—he suffices ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn

... dramatically. "We have crossed the Rubicon and found the Golden Fleece! This is the place of all others for our Tea Club meeting, and it doesn't matter what the rest of the house may be like. Patty, you will kindly consider the ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells

... the misconception just mentioned is preposterous in its perversity. The great if not incomparable power displayed in Webster's delineation of such criminals as Flamineo and Bosola—Bonapartes in the bud, Napoleons in a nutshell, Caesars who have missed their Rubicon and collapse into the likeness of a Catiline—is a sign rather of his noble English loathing for the traditions associated with such names as Caesar and Medici and Borgia, Catiline and Iscariot and Napoleon, than of any sympathetic interest in such incarnations of historic crime. ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... body of his army, which lay beyond the Alps, choosing rather to fall in on a sudden upon his enemies, while they were in confusion, and did not expect him, than to give them time, and fight them after they had made preparations. For when he came to the banks of the Rubicon, a river that made the bounds of his province, there he made a halt, pausing a little, and considering, we may suppose, with himself the greatness of the enterprise which he had undertaken; then, at last, like men that ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... in England. He was a man of that uncertain period of life which enemies call middle age, and friends call youth. That he would never see a five-and-thirtieth birthday again was certain; but whether he had passed the Rubicon of forty was open to doubt. It is possible that he was enjoying those few golden years between thirty-five and forty, which for the wealthy bachelor constitute verily the prime and summer-tide of life. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... attempt to describe the commotions of love, of happiness, of rapture, which filled Reilly's bosom as he took his departure. As for Cooleen Bawn, she had now passed the Rubicon, and there remained nothing for her but constancy to the truth of her affection, be the result what it might. She had, indeed, much of the vehemence of her father's character in her; much of his unchangeable purpose, when she felt or thought she was right; but not one of his unfounded ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... the fly smiling, Morton thought, superciliously. It seemed to him stupid to put his arm round her waist and try to kiss her. But, sooner or later, he would have to do this. Once this Rubicon was passed he would know where he was.... As he debated, the tall trunks rose branchless for thirty or forty feet; and Mildred said that ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... the weapons they could find when the sale of arms, ammunition, and salt was prohibited. Detachments were despatched to the Mansu and Prahsu stations; the latter is upon the Bosom (Abosom, or Sacred) Prah, the frontier between Ashanti and the Protectorate, to cross which is to 'pass the Rubicon.' Here, as at other main fords and ferries, defensive works were laid out. Arrangements were made for holding nine out of the eighteen forts, abandoning the rest; and Accra was strengthened as the central place. The 'companies,' ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... of costume is startling, but the laughter rouses our courage. We stand on the brink of our Rubicon. Shall trousers deter us from the passage? Shall a coat be synonymous with cowardice? No,—we rise superior to the occasion; we pant to be free; we in-breathe the spirit of liberty, as we don our blouses. We loop our long tresses under such head-coverings as would drive ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... defective in narrative power. He can give us brilliant pictures as in the lines describing the vision of Caesar at the Rubicon[282] or Pompey's last sight of Italy.[283] But such passages are few and far between. Of longer passages there are not perhaps more than three in the whole work where we get any sustained beauty of narrative-the parting of Pompey and his wife,[284] Pompey's dream before Pharsalus,[285] and ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... distribution over a wide surface. The very phrase gold mine is delusive. Secundo: Gold is a metal that cannot be worked to a profit by a company for this reason: workmen will hunt it for others so long as the daily wages average higher than the amount of metal they find per diem; but, that Rubicon once passed, away they run to find gold for themselves in some spot with similar signs; if they stay, it is to murder your overseers and seize your mine. Gold digging is essentially an individual speculation. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... battle with himself, struggling to make some vast and all-important decision. He strove to speak, hesitated, choked, coughed apologetically, and acted as fussed as Hicks had done, until Butch was wild; then, as if resolved to cast the die and cross the Rubicon, he decided, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... Treasury, reorganize the whole governmental machinery, get it to working dependably and smoothly, and at the same time prepare for a civil war which I hope to win, but of which I can foretell the outcome no better than could the Divine Julius be sure of the outcome of his when he crossed the Rubicon. Amid all these cares and occupations I must keep fit and must do all I can to win the confidence and respect of all classes by rectifying, as far as I may, the consequences of the inattention of my predecessors and of the knavery and venality of their subordinates. And I must hurry off ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... nothing more decided than taking the Riverston coach. He came back again by it while it was still daylight, having made up his mind that he must go to Lydgate's that evening. The Rubicon, we know, was a very insignificant stream to look at; its significance lay entirely in certain invisible conditions. Will felt as if he were forced to cross his small boundary ditch, and what he saw beyond it was not empire, but ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... wolf in the face,"—or perhaps in the tail too, before all end! "Botta urged and entreated that at least there should be some delay in executing this project. But the King gave him to understand that it was now too late, and that the Rubicon was passed." [Friedrich's own Account (OEuvres, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... one was felled by Clifford, and the other, catching against a stump, was forced to relinquish his hold; he then sprang back into the road and prepared for Clifford, who now, however, occupied himself rather in fugitive than warlike measures. Meanwhile, the moment the other rescuers had passed the Rubicon of the hedge, their flight, and that of the gentlemen who had passed before them, commenced. On this mystic side of the hedge was a cross-road, striking at once through an intricate and wooded part of the country, which allowed speedy and ample ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be shirked, must be ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... element known, or knowable, in physical analysis, which will be the point of departure as well as your ultimate truth behind which you can not go, then, of course, you are where you must rest satisfied or dissatisfied; you have come to the Rubicon beyond which you will never pass. The mere physicist finds, as a legitimate result of his hypothesis of but one substance, his rest in the ultimate of eternal matter and blind force. The Christian, recognizing spiritual substance also, finds ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various

... the imperishable monument of those tragic centuries that we rightly look upon Ravenna: before the empire was founded she was already famous. It was from her silence that Caesar emerged to cross the Rubicon and all unknowing to found what, when all is said, was the most beneficent, as it was the most universal, government that Europe has ever known. In the first years of that government Ravenna became, and through the four hundred years of its unhampered life she remained, one of its greatest bulwarks. ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... in the decline of his life, intoxicated by his magnificent position or led astray by ambition, made serious political errors. What then? All great men have made errors, both in judgment and in morals,—Caesar, when he crossed the Rubicon; Theodosius, when he slaughtered the citizens of Thessalonica; Luther, when he quarrelled with Zwingli; Henry IV., when he stooped at Canossa; Elizabeth, when she executed Mary Stuart; Cromwell, when he bequeathed absolute power to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... west side of the Square, out of the way of the main stream of traffic. A postman, clearing the letter-box at the office, stopped his work momentarily to read the contents of a postcard. For the moment I understood Caesar's feelings on the brink of the Rubicon, and the emotions of Cortes "when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific." I was on the threshold of great events. Behind me was orthodox London; before ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... terror, and the plunder of the public treasury commanded votes. The people had no choice; and long before the time of Caesar, nothing remained of republican government but the name and the abuse. Read Plutarch. In the 'Life of Caesar,' and not three pages before the crossing of the Rubicon, he paints the ruined state of the elections,—shows that all elective government was gone,—that the hereditary form had become a necessary relief from the contests of the corrupt,—and that in choosing between Pompey and Caesar, many preferred Pompey, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... organized espionage continued to flourish in the French capital. Thereupon Herr Jagow urged Buelow to bestir himself without delay. But the Prince was hard set. On the Italian Cabinet he had lost his hold. It had already crossed the Rubicon and passed over to the Entente. True, the Cabinet was not Italy, was not even the Government of Italy. It was hardly more than a group of mere place-warmers for Giolitti and his partisans. At any moment it could be upset ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... a woman greater than ordinary, beckoned to Julius Caesar to pass over the Rubicon, L. Flor. lib. 4. Satyres appeared to Alexander when he besieged Tyrus; Alexander asked the divines, what was the signification of it; they told him the meaning is plain, {Greek Text: Sa Turos} (i.e.) Tyre is thine. Alexander ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... Britain, and "pacified" Gaul. But Cicero, in common with most of the senatorial party, failed to see in Julius Caesar the great man that he was. He hesitated a little—Caesar would gladly have had his support, and made him fair offers; but when the Rubicon was crossed, he threw in his lot with Pompey. He was certainly influenced in part by personal attachment: Pompey seems to have exercised a degree of fascination over his weakness. He knew Pompey's indecision of character, and confessed that Caesar was "a prodigy of energy;" ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... radiant,—I should think so. Too much by half!" exclaimed Vance. "Ten shillings! Spendthrift!" "Too much! she looked as you might look if one offered you ten shillings for your picture of 'Julius Caesar considering whether he should cross the Rubicon.' But when the manager had declared her to be his property, and appointed you to call to-morrow,—implying that he was to be paid for allowing her to sit,—her countenance became overcast, and she muttered sullenly, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... His declaration is overheard by Maria and her sister, who are watching over his couch. He wakes, and Maria is there, alive before him. In his sleep he has become aware of the true condition of his own heart; nay, he has leapt the Rubicon,—he has declared it. He ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... and a small retinue. The lights going out, he lost his way, and (22) wandered about a long time, until at length, by the help of a guide, whom he found towards day-break, he proceeded on foot through some narrow paths, and again reached the road. Coming up with his troops on the banks of the Rubicon, which was the boundary of his province [58], he halted for a while, and, revolving in his mind the importance of the step he was on the point of taking, he turned to those about him, and said: "We may still retreat; but if we pass this little bridge, nothing is left for ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... she would stay until she heard from the King.[196] His message has not been preserved, but fears were never more strangely belied than when the pair crossed their Rubicon. So far from any attempt being made to separate them, their marriage was publicly solemnised before Henry and all his Court on 13th May, at Greenwich.[197] In spite of all that happened, wrote the Venetian ambassador, Henry retained his friendship for Suffolk;[198] and a ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... dwelling with righteous indignation on the "terrible poverty in our midst." She raised her head and looked round the room. No, there was nothing left to sell or pawn—for her dire necessity had driven her to the pawnshop, that last refuge of the destitute, that dire rubicon which, having passed it, a girl like Celia feels is the last ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice

... she spurned at mean revenge, Or stayed her hand for conquered foeman's moan; As when, the fates of aged Rome to change, By Caesar's side she crossed the Rubicon. Nor joyed she to bestow the spoils she won, As when the banded powers of Greece were tasked To war beneath the Youth of Macedon: No seemly veil her modern minion asked, He saw her hideous face, ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott

... contrast between them and the laywomen of Society, peevish, hysterical, neurotic, sensual, and bored. But before these chastened, temperate bodies, these serene and well-balanced minds attained the state of self-control and crossed the Rubicon of resignation, what struggles their owners must have undergone!—what ordeals of anguish they must have endured! Did ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... divorced woman is like a rudderless ship at sea, at the mercy of wind and wave and current. She could not go back to her life in St. Louis: her situation there would be unbearable: her friends would not be the same friends. No, she had crossed her Rubicon and destroyed the bridge deep within her she felt that delay would be fatal, both to her and Chiltern. Long enough had the banner of their love been ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... sensation is created, even among these grave young gentlemen, by a visit from the emancipated Toots; who is regarded with a kind of awe, as one who has passed the Rubicon, and is pledged never to come back, and concerning the cut of whose clothes, and fashion of whose jewellery, whispers go about, behind hands; the bilious Bitherstone, who is not of Mr Toots's time, affecting to despise the latter ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... die was cast. The Rubicon was crossed. The bridges were burnt. The irrevocable step was taken. Dr. Murdoch turned up the next morning with his prescription for physical training. And then Doggie trained assiduously, monotonously, wearily. He grew appalled ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... summoned to hand over his province and army to a nominee of the Senate, on pain of being declared a public enemy, and when the tribunes who had reversed the resolution of the Senate were obliged to fly for their lives to his camp, he suddenly crossed the river Rubicon, the boundary of his province, and marched ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... in his speech on Lincoln's election which may cast light on Wendell Phillips' socialistic views. He says, "Caesar crossed the Rubicon borne in the arms of a people trodden into poverty and chains by an oligarchy of slaveholders; but that oligarchy proved too strong even for Caesar and his legions." This was a bold and original opinion in those days, for ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... cadit modico parvisque impellitur undis Puniceus Rubicon, cum fervida canduit aestas— Tunc vires ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... for eternity is proportioned to the state of preparation or unpreparation in which we leave this world. Instead of many a man, I might have said most good men; and of the others, all who have not passed the rubicon of hope and grace. The vista of the past, however, appears a long and dreary retrospect, and any future is hailed as a relief: yet on second and deeper thought, we would mount again the rugged hill of life, and try for a brighter prospect, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various

... the deed still remained to be done, the conflict between the conscience and the evil intentions of Rainscourt had been dreadful; but now that it was done, now that the Rubicon had been passed, to listen to the dictates of conscience was useless; and, worn out as it had been, in the struggle, and further soothed by the anticipation of continued prosperity, it no longer had the power to goad him. In short, conscience for the time had ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... one occasion it arrived before the jury under the name of the "Passage of the Rubicon!" but Pharaoh, poorly disguised under Caesar's mantle, was recognized and repulsed with all the honors that ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... disturbing notes into the swelling hymeneal chant to which Claude felt himself to be marching. There were practical reasons, too, why he should have preferred to hold no intercourse with Fay till after he had crossed his Rubicon. He nodded absently, therefore, and, passing to the far end of the little straggling line, prayed that the car would ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King









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