"Impregnable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not impregnable, nothing could be. It was the last word in defence system and it had taken something like two years ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... "That's what I expected as a first question. No, I carried very little insurance. You see, I thought the safe, one of those new chrome steel affairs, was about impregnable. I never lost a moment's sleep over it; didn't think it possible for anyone to get into it. For, as you see, it is completely wired by the Hale Electric Protection—that wooden framework about it. No one could touch that when it was ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... Earl of Clare's regiment, which, with Lee and Dorrington's battalions, was stationed with the force in Oberglau in the centre of our position. It seemed to us, and to our generals, that our position was almost impregnable. It lay along a ridge, at the foot of which was a rivulet and deep swampy ground. On the right of the position was the village of Blenheim, held by twenty-seven battalions of good French infantry, twelve squadrons, and twenty-four pieces of cannon. ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... wall so impregnable or so vulgar, but a summer's grass will attempt it. It will try to persuade the yellow brick, to win the purple slate, to reconcile stucco. Outside the authority of the suburbs it has put a luminous touch everywhere. The thatch ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... swamp and forest, battling with Lee's victorious troops. But there was no further disaster. Under the most adverse and dispiriting circumstances the Army of the Potomac fairly held their own until {15} they reached the impregnable position of Malvern Hill. There McClellan turned at bay and repulsed with heavy slaughter the disjointed attacks of the Army of Northern Virginia. He had withdrawn his army intact and had effected a change of base, unknown to the Confederate General ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... turned back again. The Boers, too, have more than once threatened to destroy him, for it is unpleasant to them to have so intelligent a witness in their midst, but they have never dared to try. The place is really impregnable to Basutus and Boers; Zulus might carry it, with their grand steady rush, but it would be at a terrible sacrifice of life. In fact, Dr. Merensky has been forced, by the pressure of circumstances, to teach his men the use of a rifle, as well as the truths of Christianity; ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... on reading, "declares that the Dardanelles are impregnable and that the city is perfectly quiet, but the Sultan and half of his harem have moved ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... Countrey.] He hath no Artificial Forts or Castles, but Nature hath supplied the want of them. For his whole Countrey of Cande Uda, standing upon such high Hills, and those so difficult to pass, is all an Impregnable Fort: and so is more especially Digligy-neur his present Palace. These Places have been already described at large; and therefore I omit speaking any further ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... child you are, Rafael!... Is that what you call a friendly good-bye?... How little you know me, silly! You force matters, you do, I see. Well just understand, I'm impregnable, unless I choose to be otherwise. Why, men have died without being able to kiss so much as the tip of my fingers. It's time you were going, Rafael. We'll still be friends, of course.... But in case we are to see each other again, don't forget ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... yourself." The earl drew back, and his hardy countenance grew a shade paler. The prelate resumed: "You have carried Edward from his camp, and severed him from his troops; you have placed him in the midst of your own followers; you have led him, chafing and resentful all the way, to this impregnable keep; and you now pause, amazed by the grandeur of your captive,—a man who leads to his home a tiger, a spider who has entangled ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... force was the revolution which was taking place in the art of war. The introduction of gunpowder ruined feudalism. The mounted and heavily-armed knight gave way to the meaner footman. Fortresses which had been impregnable against the attacks of the Middle Ages crumbled before the new artillery. Although gunpowder had been in use as early as Crecy, it was not till the accession of the House of Lancaster that it was really brought ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... was, from the excellent state of it's ancient fortresses, the different batteries recently constructed, and the numerous well-disciplined troops by which they were manned, considered as absolutely impregnable. ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... through a perpendicular jungle or crawling over jagged and sunbaked rock, the only way to ascend the hill is from the south-western side, from the upper portion of which still frown the outworks and bastioned walls which once rendered the fortress impregnable. The road from the town of Junnar is in tolerable repair and leads you across a stream, past the ruined mud walls of an old fortified enclosure, and past the camping-ground of the Twelve Wells, until you reach a group of trees overshadowing ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... works and it was kept filled with water. It was dry when we visited and has been so for many years, as a moat would be but as slight obstructure in modern warfare. But it made the city well nigh impregnable in the mediaeval days before gunpowder was invented and when most fighting was of the hand to hand kind. We entered the city through an arched gate and crossed the moat on a bridge which could be drawn up in case of attack. At present the gate is always kept lowered, but it could be drawn ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... been no impregnable steel barrier between them, it is hard to say which would have triumphed in the end, the ponderous weight and fury of Last Bull, or the ripping prongs and swift wrath of the moose. The buffalo charged down the knoll at a thundering gallop; but just before reaching the fence he ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... deficient in data for accurate forecasts. The erroneous military conception which colored much of his thought, the propositions for ex-centric movements in an enemy's rear, by bodies comparatively small, out of supporting distance from the rest of the army, and resting upon no impregnable base, contributed greatly to the faulty anticipations entertained and expressed by him from time to time. When applied to operations directed by the consummate and highly trained genius of Bonaparte, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... beyond our range and then bring the fight back by some other means. Shooting fast I heard Doloria give several quick gasps of excitement as I knocked up the ash dust close to them, and although, their number was not reduced we gained a feeling of greater security to find the fort more impregnable than I had prophesied. ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... battery upon a tour of inspection, during which the latter pointed out what he had done, and was still doing, to strengthen the defences of the place; and the young captain was greatly gratified to see that a few hours' more work would render the place practically impregnable to assault, and that all that they then need fear was a protracted siege, which, however, did not ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... mystery—that such can know A life impregnable to woe! O paradox that God alone In secret proveth to ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... condescend even to parley with a thought derogatory to its object; was lifted above all consciousness of the possibility of any other course. This is a sort of organic integrity of affection, which is to those who receive it a tower of strength, that is impregnable to all assault except that of death itself. It is a rare type of love, the best the world knows; but the men and the women whose hearts are capable of it are often thought not to be of a loving nature. The cheaper and less lasting types of love are ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... explanation of the misrepresentation, and of his strong grounds for assuming his rights, with his persuasion that his wife would readily join the English church—a consideration that he knew would greatly smooth the way for her. Indeed, his own position was impregnable: nobody could blame him for taking his own wife to himself, and he was so sure of her charms, that he troubled himself very little about the impression she might make on his kindred. If they loved her, it was all right; if not, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... no mariner has ever sailed, so far remote are they. I have made rivers to flow where I would have them, in the places where they were needed; thus did I render fertile the barren soil by watering it with my rivers. I raised up impregnable fortresses, and cut roadways through the solid rock with the pick. I opened a way for the wheels of my chariots in places to which even the feet of wild beasts had never penetrated. And, amidst all these labours, I yet found time for my pleasures and for the society of my friends." ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... me. He was born before the days of historic doubt. He tells a true story. To allege an authority is with him to prove a fact, and to cite all writers who repeat the original source is to render truth impregnable. Rarely does he show any symptom of the modern malady of incredulity. Scripta littera is reason enough, unless the fair fame of his city chances to be at stake. He was really learned, and I do wrong to seem to diminish his authority. He was ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... partriches; 45 Venting their quintessence as men read Hebrew— Let me but hawlk at him, and like the other, He shall confesse all, and you then may hang him. Shew me a lawyer that turnes sacred law (The equall rendrer of each man his owne, 50 The scourge of rapine and extortion, The sanctuary and impregnable defence Of retir'd learning and besieged vertue) Into a Harpy, that eates all but's owne, Into the damned sinnes it punisheth, 55 Into the synagogue of theeves and atheists; Blood into gold, and justice into lust:— Let me but hawlk at him, as at the rest, ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... election campaigner. He was a tall, lean man, with bright penetrating eyes, and a delightful suspicion of an Irish brogue, a man with hands horny from the plough and a brain that belongs only to the rulers of men. He represented a political party that had its stronghold in Glenoro and its impregnable fortress in the Oa; so he took his place upon the platform amid uproarious ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... comers. Doing his duty as sheriff of the Duchy, Sir John Arundell was killed in attacking them, and they resisted till a pardon was granted them. In those days almost the only danger in such a spot was the risk of famine; apart from that the place was practically impregnable. Yet during the religious rebellion of 1549 it twice yielded to attack, being taken for the King during the absence of its governor, Arundell of Lanherne, and retaken by the Cornish; in both cases we must suspect that the defence was half-hearted ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... that to attempt to storm the heights unsupported by adequate gun-fire was merely to make a useless sacrifice of whole brigades of sorely needed men; one or two officers, indeed, ventured to express their conviction that the heights were impregnable. ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... and to a citizen of a threatened country a disquieting one. Nine high-sided battle-ships of ten-gun type—nine floating forts, each one, unopposed, able to reduce to smoking ruin a city out of sight of its gunners; each one impregnable to the shell fire of any fortification in the world, and to the impact of the heaviest torpedo yet constructed—they came silently along in line-ahead formation, like Indians on a trail. There were no compromises in this fleet. Like the intermediate batteries ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... clearly in their own affairs. They say that faint heart never won fair lady; and it is amazing to me how fair ladies are won, so faint are often men's hearts! Were it not for the kindness of their nature, that seeing the weakness of our courage they will occasionally descend from their impregnable fortresses, and themselves aid us in effecting their own defeat, too often would they escape unconquered if not unscathed, and free of body if ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... Assyria in north Syria and Cappadocia. King Sharduris was unable to protect his frontier or hamper the progress of the advancing army, which penetrated to his capital. Dhuspas was soon captured, but Sharduris took refuge in his rocky citadel which he and his predecessors had laboured to render impregnable. There he was able to defy the might of Assyria, for the fortress could be approached on the western side alone by a narrow path between high walls and towers, so that only a small force could find room to ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... the regicide himself, was more formidable to him than all his other foes united. Warring there, we should have led our arms to the capital of Wrong. Defeated, we could not fail (proper precautions taken) of a sure retreat. Stationary, and only supporting the royalists, an impenetrable barrier, an impregnable rampart, would have been formed between the enemy and his naval power. We are probably the only nation who have declined to act against an enemy, when it might have been done in his own country; and who having an armed, a ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... and kept telling her that things were not all right with her; that she ought not to be afraid, yet had good reason for being afraid; that she knew of no essential safety. There must be some refuge, some impregnable hiding-place, for the thing was a necessity, and she ought to know of it! There must be a human condition of never being afraid, of knowing nothing to be afraid of! She wondered whether, if she were quite good, went to church twice every Sunday, ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... more imposing of its kind than this great Norman Castle remains in England. Having a base of seventy feet square, and consisting of walls twelve feet thick and one hundred and twenty feet high, it still seems what in fact it was, almost impregnable by any arms but those of the modern world. Its great weakness lay always in the matter of provision, but it was perfectly supplied with water, by means of a well sixty feet under ground, in which stood always ten feet of water. From this well a stone pipe or tunnel, two feet nine ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... Montfort's successor as Earl of Leicester, and in 1267 also Earl of Lancaster, a new earldom, deriving its name from the youngest of the shires.[1] Reduced to the Staffordshire estate of Chartley, the house of Ferrars fell back into the minor baronage. Kenilworth was still unconquered. Its walls were impregnable except to famine, and before his flight to Axholme young Simon had procured provisions adequate for a long resistance. The garrison harried the neighbourhood with such energy that the whole levies of the realm ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... being secure within their own territory, at length compel the recognition of their independence. They certainly presented to the North a most formidable front, a line of defenses which was indeed impregnable to any means of assault which the Government at first possessed. No army could be moved into Tennessee by land alone, because the line of communication with a Northern base could not be held secure, and a defeat far from the Ohio would be the ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... appearance of being intended as a strong box rather than a traveling receptacle. It was ribbed by four heavy bands of copper, and the corners and edges were reinforced with the same metal. The lock itself seemed to be impregnable to one without a key. Conniston's name was heavily engraved on a copper tablet just ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... alwayes to be the true port and sure refuge of all afflicted persons. For since that God willeth it, nature permitteth it, and my heauie fortune consenteth to it, I will receiue it with righte good will, knowinge that the graue is none other but a strong rampier and impregnable cartel, wherein we close our selues against the assaults of life, and the furious stormes of fortune. It is farre better (as appeareth manifestly by me) with eyes shut to waite in graue, than no longer to experimente life (the eyes beinge open) liuing with so many troubles vpon earth. But ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... for the idea that the blockhouse would be impregnable with such a garrison at once crossed her mind. "O Pathfinder! what has ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... know how hopeless your quest has been. You have found Miss Guggenslocker, but she is held behind a wall so strong and impregnable that you cannot reach her with the question you came to ask. You have come to that wall, and now you must turn back. I have ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... I got Bob to show me the spot, which I found, on personal inspection, to be fully as impregnable as he had declared it to be; and I also ascertained, as he had done, that it was quite impossible to get round the mountain ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... to her merits, and she had many; the cause of my gallant French friend was perfectly safe in my hands. I never had much vanity in these matters, and even if I had, the impression already made by another had made me impregnable, for the time, to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... crumbling island of Heligoland for some millions of square miles of undeveloped territory hitherto held by Germany. While Heligoland was being protected by massive concrete walls and armed by huge guns to form a practically impregnable bulwark to the North Sea coast of Germany, England was by peaceful methods developing her new African acquisition. Germany could then afford to wait until the favourable opportunity and by force of arms seize and hold the territory that was once hers ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... the frightful truth. Hippolytus can feel, but not for me! Aricia has his heart, his plighted troth. Ye gods, when, deaf to all my sighs and tears, He arm'd his eye with scorn, his brow with threats, I deem'd his heart, impregnable to love, Was fortified 'gainst all my sex alike. And yet another has prevail'd to tame His pride, another has secured his favour. Perhaps he has a heart easily melted; I am the only one he cannot bear! And shall I charge myself with ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... fulfilling these purposes and succeeded in all. The Greeks let him alone, often even aided him; in every city he bribed partisans who spoke in his favor. "No fortress is impregnable," said he, "if only one can introduce within it a mule laden with gold." And by these means he took one after another all the ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... into two parties and, in divergent directions, disappeared from view. After this the trappers were not again disturbed by the Indians. Indeed they feared no molestation. No Indian band would think of attacking a fortress which a thousand warriors had declared impregnable. ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... more easy than for such a one as he to make acquaintance with a young lady in Paradise Row. But now, when he came to look at it, he found that Marion Fay was environed with fortifications and a chevaux-de-frise of difficulties which were apparently impregnable. He could not call at No. 17, and simply ask for Miss Fay. To do so he must be a proficient in that impudence, the lack of which created so many difficulties for him. He thought of finding out the Quaker chapel in the City, and there sitting ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... into the ever-open maw of the Casino, or in the drawing-room games of the bon-ton in Paris or Petersburg. One brave youth, an officer in the Prussian Guards, had, in his infatuation for the Countess, and impregnable, as he thought, against bankruptcy by reason of his great fortune, tried to satisfy her cravings for splendor of entourage and her infatuation for gambling. The result was that one day the crack of a pistol-shot was heard in the Countess' chamber, and the servants rushing ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Quinton Edge sat secure and at his ease. A cold misgiving suddenly struck at Constans's heart. How could he hope to make way alone against a host? How could he think to reach an enemy protected by these impregnable walls? For such a task he would need to wield the thunderbolts of the gods, and he had only his useless pistol and his long bow. He sighed and let his head droop for a moment, then felt ashamed of his weakness and straightened up again. The way was ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... could not crawl into the crack of a rock to escape from his pursuers. But the venomous population of Rattlesnake Ledge had a Gibraltar for their fortress that might have defied the siege-train dragged to the walls of Sebastopol. In its deep embrasures and its impregnable easemates they reared their families, they met in love or wrath, they twined together in family knots, they hissed defiance in hostile clans, they fed, slept, hibernated, and in due time died in peace. Many a foray had the towns-people made, and many a stuffed skin was shown ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Regent occupy the precipitous hill that overhangs the harbour, and completely command Elizabeth Castle, and indeed the whole bay. They are of great strength, and immense masses of rock have been blown away from the cliff in order to render it impregnable. The barracks are bomb-proof, and scooped in the ramparts; and the parade ground, which in shape exactly resembles a coffin, forms the nucleus of the fortifications. This fortress had been completed since the peace, and we found the 12th regiment of the line garrisoning ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... Unfortunately, the people who need them aren't up on them. Try it. Plant yourself, penniless, in the middle of State Street on a busy day, dive into the howling, scrambling, pushing maelstrom that hurls itself against the mountainous and impregnable form of the crossing policeman, and see what you'll get out of it, provided ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... reach the goal. In other words, young ladies, that is termed being a coquette. Men, who are very silly in most things, are particularly so in confounding, under the term of coquetry, a woman's pride, and love of changing her sentiments as she does her dress. I, for instance, am proud; that is to say, impregnable. I treat my admirers harshly, but without any pretention to retain them. Men call me a coquette, because they are vain enough to think I care for them. Other women—Montalais, for instance—have allowed themselves ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... three sides of a parallelogram, the open portion of the court in the centre, facing the cliff. A strong picket served to make a defence against bullets on that side; while the dead walls of solid logs were quite impregnable against any assault known in forest warfare, but that of fire. All the windows opened on the court; while the single outer door was picketed, and otherwise protected by the coverings of plank. I was glad to see by the extent of this rude structure, which was a hundred feet long by fifty in depth, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... three-class system of voting that makes Prussia, and the Prussian cities as well, impregnable against any assault from the democratically inclined. In addition to this system, the old electoral divisions of forty years ago remain unchanged, and consequently the agricultural east of Prussia, including east and west Prussia, Brandenburg, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... argued, he would certainly have written, if it were only a line of reassurance, for there his isolation was impregnable. Only the fact that he had stayed on in London could account for the need of this second arm of silence, as well as of solitude, to enforce his complete withdrawal ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... him thoughtful; but where there was no tirade, no declamation, no loud emphasis, no vague speculation, a style of writing quite unknown to the islanders and contrary to their genius. When they returned of an evening to their huge and impregnable castles, in perfect security and in good humour, they liked to hear recited stories in prose, some of which are still extant and will never be read without pleasure: the story of Floire and Blanchefleur, for instance, or perhaps, also that of Aucassin, who preferred "his gentle love" ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... intermitted its wrath only to increase its strength; soon the sounding squadrons of the air returned to their attack, and renewed their ravages with redoubled fury; and the stately dome rocked amidst the wheeling clouds. The impregnable clouds tottered on its basis, and threatened to overwhelm those whom it was intended to protect, the vessel was almost rent in pieces, and scarcely secure; where then was a place of safety? Sleep affrighted flew, diversion was ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp
... without any protection against the day, when the fire will consume these perishable materials. That others, however are building safely and securely, with divinely appointed materials, on the Rock of Ages and the unchanging, impregnable Word of God. That the indwelling Spirit, commonly called the Comforter, is the occupant, strength and life of their temple; and their conscientious observance of the Sabbath, is to them the pledge of Divine favor and the visible sign of their ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... the factor as John Ivrey, a young man of fine presence, Alfred de Courtenay walked beside McElroy up the gentle slope of the river bank, entered the great eastern gate of the post, not without an appreciative glance at its massive strength and at the well-nigh impregnable thickness of the stockade, the well-placed surveillance of the towering bastions, and thus up the way between the cabins to the door of ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... of the staff of the great army. Such an operation as that of Yorktown, anywhere else, would be considered as the highest disgrace; here, glorifications of strategy. McClellan's bulletins from Yorktown describe the rebel fortifications as being almost impregnable. Of course ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... invaders was brief. When sore pressed in a pitched battle on the plateau above St. Peter's Port, the inhabitants would retreat behind the buttresses of Castle Cornet, when, as in the invasion by Charles V. of France, the fortress proving impregnable, the besiegers would collect their ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... before the endless war began and Germany became isolated from the rest of the world. The mines were captured by the World in the year 2020, and were profitably operated for a couple of decades. Meanwhile the German lines were forced many miles to the rear before the impregnable barrier of the Ray had halted the ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... viper like Casorans satisfied me in every way. Evidently the place was not taken; impregnable, ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... sides of which open out in lattice windows through which, if your eye wanders, you see the rounded Swabian hills densely clad in beech and pine. On the summit of one of the nearest of these hills stands the grim fortress of Hohen-Urach, an impregnable stronghold of mediaeval days turned prison in the eighteenth century. The Golden Hall is decorated, as its name portends, with gilded devices on the wall, with stately golden pilasters and formal green-painted trees, whose ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... position which, if attacked in front with musketry alone, might be called impregnable. But would Abercromby so attack it? He had several alternatives. He might attempt the flank and rear of his enemy by way of the low grounds on the right and left of the plateau, a movement which the precautions of Montcalm ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... not to conquer, must not fall like a bomb against another bomb of instantaneous moral explosions, but against the strong walls of an impregnable fortress strongly built up, stone by stone, beginning at that distant day when the foundations were first laid. Persistent work, clarity of ideas, the habit of sifting conflicting motives in the consciousness, even in the minutest ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... patch on the distant hills—Spello, "mountain built with quiet citadel," quiet enough now. There was always a Baglione at Spello with his eyes set on chance comers from Foligno and Rome. Seen from thence, Augusta Perusia hangs like a storm cloud over her cliffs, impregnable but by strategy, as wicked and beautiful as ever her former masters, the Seven Deadly Sins, grandsons of Fortebraccio. The place is like its history, of course, having, in fact, grown up with it: you might say it ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... Silverbridge she had heard much about him, and had wondered how he had gained possession of such a girl as Emily Wharton. And now, as she looked about, her wonder was increased. She knew enough of such people as the Whartons and the Fletchers to be aware that as a class they are more impregnable, more closely guarded by their feelings and prejudices against strangers than any other. None keep their daughters to themselves with greater care, or are less willing to see their rules of life changed or abolished. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... well in the Dominion field. Among the election occurrences which they regarded as specially providential was the defeat of Tarte in Beauharnois. If he had been elected it might have been necessary for Laurier to do something for him, but now that he had fallen upon the glacis of the impregnable fortress he had elected to assail, who were they to repine over the doings of fate? "The Moor has done his work; the Moor can go!" Moreover, had he not been for long an inveterate Bleu? Had he not actually been the organizer of Bleu victory when ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... should live—good seamen are welcome everywhere. He spoke Italian like a Tuscan, and Spanish like a Castilian; he would have been free, and happy with Mercedes and his father, whereas he was now confined in the Chateau d'If, that impregnable fortress, ignorant of the future destiny of his father and Mercedes; and all this because he had trusted to Villefort's promise. The thought was maddening, and Dantes threw himself furiously down on his straw. The next morning at the same ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Colenso at 5.30 a.m. with the 73rd Field Battery for Ladysmith. We were much interested on the Grobler's Hill road to see the Boer trenches and shelters, which were simply marvellous and made the place impregnable. The trenches were blasted out of solid rocks, some 6 feet, and some 6 to 8 feet thick, of solid rock and boulder; these were all sandbagged, fitted with shelters with burrowed-out holes, and were extended for a front of half ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... have brought them hither from all parts of the world. I was at first induced to join with those who derived them from the Hebrews. It seemed impossible for me to doubt that, by so doing, I should be building on an impregnable foundation." He then proceeds to prove their Asiatic origin by many ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... our Lord has ceased to supply its ministers with the Spirit of Grace and the powers of healing? But this is where you are mistaken! The Church—the Roman Church—remains as it always was and always will be; impregnable!—the source of inspiration, the seat of miracle, the only clue and road to everlasting life! And as for its power—" here he closed his hand and dropped it on the table with a silent force which was strangely expressive, "its power is immeasurable! It reaches ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... wave of hair from the forehead, was repeated in grotesque exaggeration on the wall at her back. The iron will in her lent a certain metallic hardness to her features, and her shadow resembled in outline the head on some ancient coin that had lain buried for centuries. Intrenched behind an impregnable self-esteem, she had never conceded a point, never admitted a failure, never accepted a compromise. "It ain't no wonder that a new comer thinks he can knock you down an' set on you for shootin' a few birds," she ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... clearly defined defensive plan with utilization of one of the most inaccessible sites in the vicinity, producing altogether a combination that would seem to have been impregnable by any of the ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... the other on a dale; a wonderful place and to any purpose convenient. On one side it is quite inaccessible; a road gives right through the town, and as the mountain rises high with a ravine below, the town is impregnable. ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... further ravages, Arcadius had no alternative but to appoint Alaric master-general or duke of Illyricum. This obliged Stilicho to retire. Raised upon the shield, and thus made king by his followers, Alaric led them to the conquest of Italy. Honorius fled for refuge from Milan to the impregnable fortress of Ravenna. Stilicho came to his relief, and defeated the Visigoths at Pollentia (402). But Honorius copied the example of Arcadius, made Alaric a general, and gave him the commission to conquer Illyricum for the Western Empire. After his defeat, he ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... found this hyperborean veteran ensconced in a fort which crested the whole of a rocky promontory. It mounted one hundred guns, large and small, and was impregnable to Indian attack, unaided by artillery. Here the old governor lorded it over sixty Russians, who formed the corps of the trading establishment, besides an indefinite number of Indian hunters of the Kodiak tribe, who were continually coming and going, or lounging and loitering ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... our fort with considerable satisfaction. One side we might consider impregnable; the second, that along the edge of the ravine, was not likely to be attacked, and we had a sufficient force of rifles to defend the other two against a whole horde of savages ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... also those who occupy a strong city mock the besiegers (and say): What trouble these men are now taking for nothing; our wall is secure, we have food for a very long time, and all other resources. These are the things which make a city strong and impregnable; but nothing else than his opinions makes a man's soul impregnable. For what wall is so strong, or what body is so hard, or what possession is so safe, or what honor (rank, character) so free from assault (as a man's opinions)? All (other) things everywhere are perishable, easily ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... persecuting malice raged, yet the gospel shone with resplendent brightness; and, firm as an impregnable rock, withstood the attacks of its boisterous enemies with success. Turtullian, who lived in this age, informs us, that if the christians had collectively withdrawn themselves from the Roman territories, the empire would ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... chief characteristic. But this very fact that it pervades—that it is as conspicuous in the Tentation and in Saint Julien l'Hospitalier as in Madame Bovary and the Education—at once throws up a formidable, I think an impregnable, line of defence against those who would claim him for "Realism" of the other kind—the cult of the ugly, because, being ugly, it is more real than the beautiful. He has no fear of ugliness, but he cultivates the ugly because it is the real, not the real because it is the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Plato and Christ created angles by running vertical lines through the ecclesiastical and hypocritical conventionalities of their day. The new angles and curves thus produced by the bold philosophy of the humble Nazarene have confronted with impregnable firmness during the intervening ages the ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... orange light flared upon the panel, and Seaton gasped as he swung his visiplate upon his defenses, which he had supposed impregnable. His outer screen was already down, although its mighty copper generator was exerting its utmost power. Black areas had already appeared and were spreading rapidly, where there should have been only incandescent radiance; and the inner screen was ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... amazed eyes from the dread spectacle of the roads that he journeyed. Then he was taken by Loker, and found by very sure experience that every point of the prophecy was fulfilled upon him. So he assailed Handwan, king of the Hellespont, who was entrenched behind an impregnable defence of wall in his city Duna, and withstood him not in the field, but with battlements. Its summit defying all approach by a besieger, he ordered that the divers kinds of birds who were wont to nest in ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... position for a city!" Geoffrey said at last. "Standing on this rocky tongue of land jutting out at the entrance to this splendid bay it ought to be impregnable, since it can only be attacked on the side facing that sandy isthmus. What a number of ships are lying up the bay, and what a busy scene it is with the boats passing and repassing! Though they must be two miles away I fancy I can hear the ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... means Of Service, Courtship, Presents, that might win her To be at his devotion: but in vain; Her Maiden Fort, impregnable held out, Until he promis'd Marriage; and before These Witnesses a solemn Contract pass'd To ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... power in America. Here the French colonies reached out their arms to the mother country. Here began that great chain of fortresses, which ran up the valleys of navigable rivers, and connected with the great fortress of Quebec the almost impregnable outpost of Ticonderoga, and the posts of Montreal Island. From these the chain of military occupation extended itself towards the south, through the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, until they were connected with the flourishing colony ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... day which said that that nearly impregnable structure, of the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, as they call it, reached to the level of the first floor, were mistaken. The fact is, that it did not exceed an average height of six or seven feet. It was built in such a manner that the combatants ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... night's fray. Bayard was to attack on the main road in front, but not until Kilpatrick had commenced operations on their right flank by a detour through a neglected and narrow wood-path. As the Heights were considered well nigh impregnable, it was necessary to resort to some stratagem, for which ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... Krondrachinko, the commander of the general defenses, vetoed most of his suggestions. The vast sums of money which the Russian central government appropriated for the fortification of Port Arthur, honestly used, would have made the place completely impregnable. It is not too much to say—and this will be borne out by any trained observer and student of the conditions then existing in and around Port Arthur—that sixty per cent. of the money for ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... different points of it, the facility this gave us of attacking him, on the same day, on all his points, from the extremity of the lakes to the neighborhood of Quebec, and the perfect indifference with which this last place, impregnable as it is, might be left in the hands of the enemy to fall of itself; whether, I say, he could see and prepare vigorously for all this, or merely wrapped himself in the cloak of cold defence, I am uninformed. I clearly ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... with one heave till the five-foot spears were pointed out, and then sprang to climb. Nothing but pikes and blazing brands in a dozen ruthless hands could hold him back. The keepers watched him night and day till a stronger cage was made, impregnable with steel above ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Normandy. I make no doubt, that, whenever built, the sea almost washed its base: for it is known to have occupied the whole of what is called the Valley of Arques, running as far as Bouteilles. Its position, in reference to the art of war, must have been almost impregnable. Other hypotheses assign its origin to the ninth or tenth century. Whenever built, its history has been fertile in sieges. In 1144, it was commanded by a Flemish Monk, who preferred the spear to the crosier, but who perished by an arrow in the contest. Of its history, up to the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... position was much stronger when she left him than it was when he opened his office door to her. She now knew, said Pratt, with what a strong and resourceful man she had to deal: she would respect him, and have a better idea of him, now that she was aware of his impregnable position. ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... adjectives and adverbs do not vary in degree?— Absolutely, brave, cloudless, cold, conclusively, continually, entirely, essentially, extreme, faultless, French, fundamental, golden, happy, impregnable, inaudible, incessant, incredible, indispensable, insatiate, inseparable, intangible, intolerable, invariable, long, masterly, round, sharp, square, sufficient, unanimous, unbearable, unbounded, ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... object with him, therefore, in accordance with his reputation, was to devise some plot, by which not only to destroy the inequality of chances between the party assailing and that defending a post now almost impregnable, but to draw the latter entirely out of their defences. Still, it was deemed but courteous, or prudent at least, to see what could be done in the way of negotiation; and their leader, with a white handkerchief attached ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... destiny. We are now, as you know, on the bosom of a vast lake. Water of an unknown depth is beneath us. Overhead is a vaulted dome of great height, probably the hollowed interior of a mountain; on all sides are massive and perpendicular walls of rock, impregnable and insurmountable. ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... city, proud and harsh; but impregnable because it was built upon a high rock. The host of the Visigoths had besieged it for months in vain. Then came a fugitive from the city, at midnight, to the tent of Alaric, the Chief of ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp; Allowing him a breath, a little scene To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life Were brass impregnable; and humored thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... political boss of the city at that time, apparently entrenched, with an organization that seemed impregnable. I knew him as a big, bullnecked fellow, taciturn to the point of surliness, owing his influence to his ability to "deliver the goods" in the shape of graft of all sorts, the archenemy of Carton, a type of politician who ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... war was not excepted from the quick and thorough transformation that all earthly and spiritual things were undergoing. Gunpowder, long invented, was being applied. Armour, that, since the beginning, had saved both man and horse, had now lost the half of its virtue. The walls of fortresses, impregnable for a thousand years, became as matchwood ramparts. The mounted man-at-arms was found with wonder to be no match for the lightly-armoured but nimble foot-man. The Swiss were seen to hold their own with ease against the knighthood of Austria and Burgundy. ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... confident of victory when he should again take the field, and in the meantime he felt himself quite secure in one or other of his strong places, which had recently undergone extensive repairs and seemed to be impregnable. In this anticipation he was deceived, for he had not reckoned with the new and more potent weapons of attack which were replacing the battering-ram and other mediaeval besieging appliances. Franz retired to his strong castle of ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... everything to the extreme pretensions of naturalists, the question comes up again whole and entire? When by dint of confusions and sophisms such theorists imagine that they have extinguished the intelligence which radiates from nature, that intelligence again confronts them in man, and there, as in an impregnable fortress, sets all attacks at defiance. Mark then where lies the real problem. Whether the eternal God formed the body of the first man directly from the dust of the earth; or whether, in the slow series of ages, He formed the body of the first man of the ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... said on all sides that Nidderdale was doing very well for himself. The absolute money was not perhaps so great as had been at first asked; but then, at that time, Melmotte was not the strong rock, the impregnable tower of commerce, the very navel of the commercial enterprise of the world,—as all men now regarded him. Nidderdale's father, and Nidderdale himself, were, in the present condition of things, content with a very much less stringent bargain than that which they had endeavoured ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... his return, and the face from the portrait beamed out a glad welcome. There are tears in the bachelor's eyes as they meet the blue orbs so fondly fastened upon him, for his thoughts are upon the gentle and confiding embrace that was once his. Woe unto you, Mrs. Kinalden! If there were a single impregnable spot in the good man's bosom, that tear would never have found ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... a city of the ancient inhabitants, populous, wonderful and impregnable, from the character of its position, situated in this valley (of Chimaltenango), on an elevated and cool site. It lies eight leagues in a straight line from New Guatemala. Around this ancient and dismantled town, ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... castle of Hesdin also, sent thither MM. le Duc de Bouillon, le Duc Horace, le Marquis de Villars, and a number of captains, and about eighteen hundred soldiers: and during the siege of Therouenne, these Seigneurs fortified the castle of Hesdin, so that it seemed to be impregnable. The King sent me to the Seigneurs, to help them with my art, if they should come to have ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... attack, for which Grant has been much criticised, on the strongly intrenched rebel lines at Cold Harbor. If he could have dislodged Lee here he could have compelled him to retreat into the immediate fortifications of Richmond. But Lee's position was impregnable: the assault failed. In less than an hour Grant lost 13,000 men killed, wounded, and missing, ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... the vast region of Berar. The Guicowar, which is, being interpreted, the Herdsman, founded that dynasty which still reigns in Guzerat. The houses of Scindia and Holkar waxed great in Malwa. One adventurous captain made his nest on the impregnable rock of Gooti. Another became the lord of the thousand villages which are scattered among the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... has never had to display so much skill and so many ruses de guerre; he has never had to use more tremendous efforts to reduce and storm an impregnable citadel, as the confessor who wants to reduce and storm the citadel of self-respect and honesty which God Himself has built around the soul and the heart of ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... faces, set and lean, every man watching the forest. But after the lightning, the night, heavy with clouds, swept down again, and it seemed to Henry that it was darker than ever. He longed for the dawn. With the daylight disclosing the enemy, and helping their own aim, their log fortress would be impregnable. Elsewhere the battle seemed to be dying. The shots came in irregular clusters, and the war whoop was heard only at intervals. Directly in front of them the silence was absolute and Henry's rapid mind divined the reason for all these things. Girty and Timmendiquas were ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Asia, which originally belonged to the Persian monarch, places were to be found—such as the little state of Temnos, or Aegae, and others, capable of administering their affairs, unsubjected to the king of Persia. "But," he added, "if you want a strong impregnable position, I cannot conceive what better you can find than Sestos. Why, it would need a combined naval and military force to invest that port." By these and such like arguments he rescued them from the ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... curves held sound and firm. She beat against it with fierce little fists; she leaped against it with all her trifling weight. It did not yield an inch. Was there iron in all that delicacy? Or was that old wood impregnable in ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... the acts of such obscure and almost forgotten men as these. For, through them, Napoleon was now teaching the world that a fortified place might be made stronger than any had hitherto suspected. That he should turn round and teach, on the other hand, that a city usually considered impregnable could be taken without great loss of life, was only characteristic of his splendid genius, which, like a towering tree, grew and grew until ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... vault-like door, leading to the subterranean steel chambers where Herzog eventually counted on storing some hundreds of thousands of tons of liquid oxygen—the reserve-chambers, impregnable to lightning, fire, frost or storm, to man's attacks or nature's—the chambers blasted from the living rock, deep as the Falls themselves, vacuum-lined, wondrous achievement of the highest engineering skill the world ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... character, good habits, and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of the ill luck that fools are dreaming of. There is no luck, for all practical purposes, to him who is not striving, and whose senses are not all eagerly attent. What are called accidental discoveries are ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... two renowned capitals, which are almost wholly of water, make them the admiration and terror of all mankind—that of Europe dominating the old world, and that of America the new. For of the former it would appear that her riches are infinite, her position impregnable, her government most wise, the abundance of her products inexhaustible; in a word, she is herself, as a whole, and in all her parts, entirely worthy of that fame for greatness and majesty which has penetrated to all the regions of the world: the justice of the praise bestowed on Venice is, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... attack upon that proud Jericho (more impregnable because of the obstinacy of its inhabitants, than by the wall of its inaccessible mountains) by ordering that it be assaulted at the same time by several parts by different soldiers of so holy a militia with the bugles of the divine word. One began the conquest ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... constantly giving way. The elements incessantly lay siege to these fortresses and take advantage of every flaw or unguarded point, so that what stands has been seven times, yea, seventy times seven times tested, and hence gives the impression of impregnable strength. The angles and curves, the terraces and foundations, seem to be the work of some master engineer, with only here and ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... her choice of standing silent, of pushing passed Peter, or of speaking. If she had done the first, or the second, her position was absolutely impregnable. But a woman's instinct is to seek defence or attack in words rather than actions. So she said: "You had no right, and you were very rude." She did ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... saving the hay—even Liddy had left the house for the purpose of lending a hand—Bathsheba resolved to hive the bees herself, if possible. She had dressed the hive with herbs and honey, fetched a ladder, brush, and crook, made herself impregnable with armour of leather gloves, straw hat, and large gauze veil—once green but now faded to snuff colour—and ascended a dozen rungs of the ladder. At once she heard, not ten yards off, a voice that was beginning to have a strange ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... deaths of Captain Bacon and Lieutenant Henry and the N.C.O.'s and men killed in action at Colenso on Friday last, desires to place on record his high appreciation of the admirable spirit displayed by all ranks in unflinching pressing forward under a very heavy fire to the attack of a practically impregnable position. ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... rebellion, he could starve his people into submission, or lay waste the land in time of foreign invasion. I have seen in an impregnable position the traces of an ancient fort, evidently erected to defend the pass to the main water-course from ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Fields, so lately rich with waving grain, were blasted into subsidences and cavities, bisected by crumbled trenches before which the wreckage of barbed-wire entanglements—a fortnight since forming barriers so impregnable as to resemble from a distance walls of red rust—lay snarled and tied into a million knots by ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... more dear to the Mormon rulers. They do not care for all the sentiment or law against this one fruit of the tree, if the tree itself is left to stand. The tree—the prolific cause of so many and so great evils in Utah, the greatest curse of the territory, the strength of Mormonism, and its impregnable wall of defence against Christianity and civilization, is that arbitrary, despotic, and absolute hierarchy ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Credit, which must be supported by every Tradesman. These Possessions in Fame are dearer than Life to these Characters of Men, or rather are the Life of those Characters. Glory, while the Hero pursues great and noble Enterprizes, is impregnable; and all the Assailants of his Renown do but shew their Pain and Impatience of its Brightness, without throwing the least Shade upon it. If the Foundation of an high Name be Virtue and Service, all that is offered against it is but ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... for that, and so do you; besides, it is far more perilous to venture out into the open, as you are about to do, than to remain here, where, united together as we are in a phalanx of stout, able-bodied men, in an almost impregnable position, we could resist any formidable attack in force. No, no, my boy; you may tell that to the marines. But do inform me, Wilton, what is your real motive in wishing to go yourself? I consent certainly to your going, as you press the ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... Not a whisper was heard or a light seen. After long weeks of grumbling under the steady control of Regular officers, the Volunteers are learning what discipline means. The Cemetery was passed, the gorge of Bell's Spruit, the series of impregnable defences built by the Liverpools and Devons along the Helpmakaar road. At the end of those low hills the Devons were found drawn up in support, or to cover retreat. General Hunter then took command of the whole movement, and the march went on. Three-quarters of a mile ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... fortified place, and was regarded as impregnable by the Spaniards; and it was from this port that they directed their attacks upon Chili from the south, just as they did on the north from Callao. To reach it he therefore had to sail south from the Guayaquil along the coast of Peru ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty |
