"Invulnerable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... profit from her English honors: what has she had to do with these Transatlantic Colonies of England? An unfortunate Country, if the English would but think; liable to be strangled at any time, for England's quarrels: the Achilles'-heel to invulnerable England; a sad function for Hanover, if it be a proud one, and amazingly lucrative to some Hanoverians. The Country is very dear to his Britannic Majesty in one sense, very dear to Britain in another! ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... not but think of the refrain of a song we have all heard, "Oh, but what a difference in the morning." They had sweet, pretty sayings, clothed in all the softness of modulation and earnestness of gesture of the French people. My American friend, like myself, was Frenchless, and as a consequence invulnerable. The appearance of the occupants of the front row of seats very forcibly reminded me of a similar locality at the Capital Theater in the City of Roses, on similar occasions, where many of my old friends ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... and frocks of fine texture and beautiful colour that seemed strange and exotic on Lashnagar. But these were worn out and never replaced—except for her mother's funeral she never wore shoes, summer or winter. Her feet and legs were brown and quite invulnerable to stones or brambles. Her father did not realize that she needed clothes; her aunt was too much sunk in shadows to notice the child's appearance. And, reading her legends and romances, it was natural that Marcella should live them ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... the violent persecutions of his enemies. Among other frivolous crimes objected to him, he was accused of gaining the king's affections by enchantment, and of purloining from the royal treasury a gem, which had the virtue to render the wearer invulnerable, and of sending this valuable curiosity to the Prince of Wales [k]. The nobility, who hated Hubert on account of his zeal in resuming the rights and possessions of the crown, no sooner saw the opportunity favourable, than they inflamed the king's ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... re-ascend that rapid declivity, so many forces failed him! After reaching these icy regions of Europe, he was precipitated from their very summit. The North, victorious over the South in her defensive war, as she had been in the middle ages in her offensive one, now believes herself invulnerable ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... flat bandeaux, separated by a faultless parting. The forehead seemed like the protecting rampart of this delicious face. Mlle. Hocquigny was adored and made much of by every one, but she remained invulnerable to all homage. She was happy in being beloved, but she would not allow any one to express ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... belched forth flames and ear-breaking noise at a distance of a man's body from the recruit's person, they have seen, and with them thousands of others, that no harm came. It is astounding, miraculous, but it is true; henceforth, the Boxer is officially invulnerable and must remain so as long as the ground is parched. That is what our Chinese ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... thrice the Saxon blade drank blood: No stinted draught, no scanty tide, The gushing flood the tartans dyed. Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain, And showered his blows like wintry rain; And, as firm rock or castle-roof, Against the winter shower is proof, The foe invulnerable still Foiled his wild rage by steady skill; Till, at advantage ta'en, his brand Forced Roderick's weapon from his hand, And, backward borne upon the lea, Brought the proud Chieftain to his knee. "Now, yield thee, or, by Him who made The world, thy heart's blood dyes my blade!"— ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... his matchless valour bears him forward, With ardour too heroic, on his foes, Fall down, as she would do, before his feet; Lie in his way, and stop the paths of death; Tell him, this god is not invulnerable; That absent Cleopatra bleeds in him; And, that you may remember her petition, She begs you wear these trifles, as a pawn, Which, at your wisht return, she will redeem [Gives jewels to the Commanders. With all the wealth of Egypt: This to the great Ventidius she ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... desire that your shrouds should be prepared? Obey me, or I will slay ye all, as a kite swoops upon little chickens! What is your power, and what are your stratagems, and how can ye prevail against me? I who am invulnerable, I whom even the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... to rid themselves of such persevering and long-abiding guests, began to make their preparations long before the usual time for closing their house and going to the country, and the Misses Fairland, invulnerable as they proved all winter to anything like a hint, were obliged to take this intended removal of their friends as a "notice to quit," which ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... rigid; impregnable, strong, invincible, invulnerable, fortified; steadfast, faithful, true; permanent, durable; rapid, swift, fleet, quick, expeditious, speedy; unrestrained, dissolute, dissipated, rakish, wanton, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... very first love which in her checkered career was really worthy of the name. She had supposed that all such things were passed and gone, that her heart was closed for ever, that she was invulnerable; and yet here she found herself clinging about the neck of this impetuous soldier and showing him all the shy fondness and the unselfish devotion of a young girl. From this instant Adrienne Lecouvreur never loved another man and ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... had a feeling that all these threats did not affect him and that, protected by his fetish, he believed himself to be invulnerable. But his wife fell on her knees at ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... heaviest and the most keenly felt, for it touched Lucien where he thought himself invulnerable—in his heart and his love. Coralie might not be clever, but hers was a noble nature, and she possessed the great actress' faculty of suddenly standing aloof from self. This strange phenomenon is subject, until it degenerates into a habit with long practice, to the caprices of character, ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... sovereign remedy for rheumatism; and in the popular pharmacopoeia of Ireland they have been employed with success for ophthalmia, pleurisy, and many other painful diseases. If finely powdered and swallowed piecemeal, they render the person who swallows them invulnerable for the rest of his lifetime. But they cannot conscientiously be recommended for dyspepsia ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... have been seen arriving in detachments. D'Artagnan had shut himself up, without being willing to speak to anybody. Two such heavy deaths falling upon the captain, so closely after the death of Porthos, for a long time oppressed that spirit which had hitherto been so indefatigable and invulnerable. Except Grimaud, who entered his chamber once, the musketeer saw neither servants nor guests. He supposed, from the noises in the house, and the continual coming and going, that preparations were being made for the funeral of the comte. He wrote to the king to ask for an extension ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... entirely abandoned his intentions against the place: and, on the 24th, by approaching and anchoring to the northward of the town, and making every apparent disposition for assailing the heights, he drew the notice of the Spaniards entirely to that quarter; who, consequently, left less invulnerable the objects of his real attention. The design of this meditated assault was certainly desperate; and so conscious did he feel of it's danger, though nothing could deter him from the attempt, that he has been frequently heard to declare ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... undertake and achieve such hardy enterprises because he wore enchanted arms, that accusation in the first place must fall on Homer ere it can reach Virgil. Achilles was as well provided with them as AEneas, though he was invulnerable without them; and Ariosto, the two Tassos (Bernardo and Torquato), even our own Spenser—in a word, all modern poets—have copied Homer, as well as Virgil; he is neither the first nor last, but in the midst of them, and therefore ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... Let thunder break, Let lightning blast me by the way! Invulnerable Love shall shake His aegis ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... visitor without special explanation. Here the Centaurs are endeavouring to crush an enemy with huge blocks of stone. This particular enemy is the Caeneus of Greek fable, whom Neptune had rendered invulnerable to the effect of swords and clubs, and whom Centaurs are endeavouring to overcome by crushing his body with masses of rock. The fifth slab (5) presents a more cheerful view of the battle for the Lapithae; here two Centaurs are being overcome by two of their enemies in revenge for their ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... Bohemian, says Mr. Conway, "thinks he can make himself shot-proof for twenty-four hours by finding on St. John's Day pine-cones on the top of a tree, taking them home, and eating a single kernel on each day that he wishes to be invulnerable." In Sicily it is customary, on Midsummer Eve, to fell the highest poplar, and with shouts to drag it through the village, while some beat a drum. Around this poplar, says Mr. Folkard,[4] "symbolising the greatest solar ascension and ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... offer no hint of its plot and meaning. A great imaginative apathy has fallen on the mind. One-half the learned world is amused in tinkering obsolete armour, as Don Quixote did his helmet; deputing it, after a series of catastrophes, to be at last sound and invulnerable. The other half, the naturalists who have studied psychology and evolution, look at life from the outside, and the processes of Nature make them forget her uses. Bacon indeed had prized science for adding to the comforts of life, a function still commemorated by positivists ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... pains they have taken not to be so. On the other hand, there is a carelessness as to dress and diet, to which the strongest constitution must at length yield; and the intense consciousness of strength and vigor, which tempts one to deem himself invulnerable, not infrequently is the cause of life-long infirmity and disability. Of the cases of prolonged and enfeebling disease, probably more are the result of avoidable than of unavoidable causes, and if we add to these the ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... an edge in all firm belief, and with an easy metaphor we may say, the sword of faith; but in these obscurities I rather use it in the adjunct the apostle gives it, a buckler; under which I conceive a wary combatant may lie invulnerable. Since I was of understanding to know that we knew nothing, my reason hath been more pliable to the will of faith: I am now content to understand a mystery, without a rigid definition, in an easy and Platonic description. That allegorical description of Hermes* ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... rough seas, upon whose surface little to nourish can be found, they seize greedily upon the hook, which fastens itself readily in their crooked bills. All these sea birds are clothed with a coat of feathers so thick and elastic that except in one or two places they are invulnerable to a bullet. ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... hardly tell you, my dear. Perhaps I am rather difficult to please—just a little stony-hearted and invulnerable. I know that since I was a boy, and got over my schoolboy love affairs, I have never seen the woman who could touch my heart. I have met plenty of pretty women, and plenty of brilliant women, of course, ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... that from Miss Montandon's comments." Entlore fell silent and Garlock watched his somber thoughts picture Margon Base and his nation's capital being attacked and destroyed by a fleet of invincible and invulnerable starships ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... extraordinary man, who, with the solitary exception of England, exacted homage from every crowned head of Europe. This man, in the plenitude of his power, felt that something was still wanting to enable him to grapple with one little island, invulnerable by its maritime strength, the sinews of which he knew to be derived from its colonies: he felt that, deprived as he was of "ships, colonies, and commerce," England was able to stand alone among nations, and to bid defiance to his overwhelming ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various
... were in the cover fix'd, Or, often blunted and recoil'd, On Plutarch's Moral struck, were spoil'd. The Queen of Wisdom could foresee, But not prevent, the Fates' decree: And human caution tries in vain To break that adamantine chain. Vanessa, though by Pallas taught, By Love invulnerable thought, Searching in books for wisdom's aid, Was, in the very search, betray'd. Cupid, though all his darts were lost, Yet still resolved to spare no cost: He could not answer to his fame The triumphs ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... it won't," said Nora; "there's not a person in this place I could not get to help me in a cause like this. The one who is absolutely invulnerable, who cannot be moved, because she imagines herself to ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... religion—your strange, self-reliant, invulnerable creed, whose influence seems to clothe you in, I know not what, unblessed panoply. You are good—Pere Silas calls you good, and loves you—but your terrible, proud, earnest Protestantism, there is the danger. It expresses itself ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... us suppose that because Christ, in His anticipation of suffering and death, knew Himself invulnerable, with not even a spot on His heel into which the arrow could go, therefore the conflict was an unreal or shadowy one. It was a true fight, and it was a real struggle that He was anticipating, thus calmly in these solemn words, as knowing Himself the Victor ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... in her argument, but arguments would not have any effect on a character like his, which losing esteem once, was not to be deceived again. He had not required Hedwig's revelation about the web of treachery spun around him to be invulnerable to the pleading one. Her murder of her infant had ruined her irredeemably. Over it he had shed tears, though it was more in her image than his and, she ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... indication of great abilities. An indifferent poet is invulnerable to a repulse, the want of sensibility in him being what a noble self-confidence was in Milton. These excluded suitors continue, nevertheless, to hang their garlands at the gate, to anoint the door-post, and even kiss the very ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... empire are unpeopled, that provinces are involved in mourning and tears, your armies are in mutiny, your senate full of suspicion and alarms, and the islands are crowded with exiles. It is not for myself that I speak, my soul is invulnerable to your enmity; and it is not given to you by the Gods to become master of my body." And, having thus given utterance to the virtuous anguish of his spirit, he suddenly became invisible in the midst of a full assembly, and was ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... breast that I am pained By what thou griev'st at, and if I had power, My censure of their deeds would soon be known. But in misfortune I have chosen to sail With lowered canvas, rather than provoke With puny strokes invulnerable foes. I would thou didst the like: though I must own The right is on thy side, and not on mine. But if I mean to dwell at liberty, I must obey in all ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... should certify by their signatures their readiness to sustain the government. The insurgents suddenly awakened to the knowledge that they had now the whole power of the United States against them, directed by that arm invulnerable alike to Indian, Frenchman and Briton. Multitudes came to their senses, and signed the pledge that saved them from punishment. Among these were many who had committed the gravest disorders. The United States forces, however, marched into the western counties, ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... (witness that colossal oil-painting of the "Triumph of Bacchus,") to make speeches, and to march at the head of his company as a captain of volunteers, he will give you at once the why and because. He is the most zealous, the most conscientious, and the most invulnerable of total abstainers. There were days when he took tobacco: witness that portrait of himself, smoking a very long meerschaum pipe in "Love's Triumph," etched about 1845. There were times when he heard the chimes at midnight, and partook of that "richt gude willie waucht" which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... remorse, he avowed his iniquities. His confession was, of course, attributed to its efficacy. He was banished. The next important talisman is a cube of amber, which, we are told, fell from heaven in Mohammed's time. It is supposed to render the Shah invulnerable, and he wears it about his neck. Another is a little box of gold, set in emeralds, and blessed by the Prophet. It renders the Royal Family invisible as long as they are celibates. Another is a diamond set in one of the Shah's scimitars, which renders its possessor ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... you; you can't very well admit to me what you have studiously denied to yourself. But what is, is. We don't say of a man, 'A sort of magnetism issues from him, one feels his eye without meeting it'; we don't cry out, 'I am invulnerable on the side of love,' without having had some prickings ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... is," I said, "just conceivable that I have that power. I do not recollect my immersion in the Styx, but it is, I suppose, not impossible that, although I am not actually invulnerable, my sterling qualities may yet be so apparent to the bee mind that, even were I so indiscreet as to lay hands upon their hive, they would not so far forget themselves as to assail me. At the same time, it is equally ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... guarded coldness, he had mixed Again in fancied safety with his kind, And deemed his spirit now so firmly fixed And sheathed with an invulnerable mind, That, if no joy, no sorrow lurked behind; And he, as one, might midst the many stand Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find Fit speculation; such as in strange land He found in wonder-works ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... one could make mock of her, because she stood among the first, and those that were against her were below her, either in rank, or in wealth, or in high association of thought and progress and understanding. So, she was invulnerable. All her life, she had sought to make herself invulnerable, unassailable, beyond ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... when he thinks of me, must feel anything but pride. I have taught him what spirit is, humbled him with my own spirit that rose invulnerable, triumphant, above all his tortures. I sit here in Folsom, in Murderers' Row, awaiting my execution; Warden Atherton still holds his political job and is king over San Quentin and all the damned within ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... proved to be an advance party of the main body of Blackfeet, which had been upon the trail of Sublette's party. Five white men and one halfbreed were killed, and several wounded. Seven of the Nez Perces were also killed, and six wounded. They had an old chief, who was reputed as invulnerable. In the course of the action he was hit by a spent ball, and threw up blood; but his skin was unbroken. His people were now fully convinced that he was proof against ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... episode in the Trojan war; it was the struggle of Ajax, Ulysses, and other Greek warriors to obtain the dead body of Achilles, which was held by the Trojans. The story is that the goddess Thetis had dipped her son Achilles in the river Styx for the purpose of making him invulnerable, or safe from wounds by weapons. But as she held him by the ankles they were not wetted, and so he could be wounded in them. During the siege of Troy Apollo guided the arrow of Paris to this spot, and the great leader of the Greeks was killed. It is believed that the warrior in this picture ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... remains the irresistible opponent of Western religion; and the foreign zealots who would strive against it are astounded to find the power that foils their uttermost efforts indefinable as magnetism and invulnerable as air. Indeed the best of our scholars have never been able to tell us what Shinto is. To some it appears to be merely ancestor-worship, to others ancestor-worship combined with nature-worship; to others, again, it seems to be no ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... succession of water could be conveyed to every part of the structure, a number of pumps being adapted to afford an unlimited supply. It was thus believed that these terrible machines, capable of inflicting destruction, would themselves be invulnerable. The largest carried 21 guns, and their complement of men was 36 for each gun in use, exclusive of officers and ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... son of Nectan," said Laeg, "and there is not one in the world with whom it is more difficult to contend both in other respects and chiefly in this, that there is but one weapon wherewith he may be slain. To all others he is invulnerable. That weapon is an iron ball having magic properties, and no man knows where to look for it, or where the man hath hidden it away. And O my dear master, thou goest forth to certain death going ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... smile curved her lips, all the confusion died out of her eyes, and they filled with a limitless arrogance and self-reliance. I had my answer in her face. It was the face of a woman whose virtue is absolutely invulnerable, and whose honour is unshadowed, and who has suffered too acutely in the maintenance of both to hear the faintest hint of weakness without a smile. A fierce, delighted satisfaction ran through me before ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... men each. They wore little defensive armor, and their principal weapon was the pike, eighteen feet long. Formed into these solid battalions, which, bristling with spears all around, received the technical appellation of the hedgehog, they presented an invulnerable front on every quarter. In the level field, with free scope allowed for action, they bore down all opposition, and received unshaken the most desperate charges of the steel- clad cavalry on their terrible array of pikes. They were too unwieldy, however, for rapid or complicated manoeuvres; ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... in the hands of the enemy, and the whole line was sagging under the impact of the German hordes. Somehow that trench had to be recaptured—to be recaptured before the Germans had converted the parados into an invulnerable parapet and had constructed a nest of machine-guns to sweep with a crossfire the right and left flanks, where our line curved in like a gigantic horse-shoe. Of all this Sergeant Stokes knew as little as is usually given to one platoon to know on ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... was the less willing to lose the one that had done him such good service: with a long and a strong pull, he drew it from the brute's chest. Could he believe his eyes? There lay—no wolf, but Watho, with her hair tied round her waist! The foolish witch had made herself invulnerable, as she supposed, but had forgotten that, to torment Photogen therewith, she had handled one of his arrows. He ran back to ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... for time to reflect, for strength to be her better self. She was angry with herself, and grieved because she had fought Dan with his own weapons, and it did not occur to her for her comfort that she had only done so because he was invulnerable to that which she would naturally have used—earnest, reasonable, calm discussion—and that fight him she must with something, somehow, or sink for ever down to the degraded level required of their wives by husbands of his way ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... there obtained celestial weapons from Indra himself then, O Sanjaya, I had no hope of success. When I heard that afterwards Arjuna had vanquished the Kalakeyas and the Paulomas proud with the boon they had obtained and which had rendered them invulnerable even to the celestials, then, O Sanjaya, I had no hope of success. When I heard that Arjuna, the chastiser of enemies, having gone to the regions of Indra for the destruction of the Asuras, had returned ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... draw their swords. You fools! I and my fellows 60 Are ministers of Fate: the elements, Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish One dowle that's in my plume: my fellow-ministers 65 Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt, Your swords are now too massy for your strengths, And will not be uplifted. But remember,— For that's my business to you,—that you three From Milan did supplant good Prospero; 70 Exposed unto the sea, which hath requit it, Him and his ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... could, Charlton kept Katy at Glenfield. He amused her by every means in his power; he devoted himself to her; he sought to win her away from Westcott, not by argument, to which she was invulnerable, but by feeling. He found that the only motive that moved her was an emotion of pity for him, so he contrived to make her estimate his misery on her account at its full value. But just when he thought he had produced some effect there would come one of ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... bullets had fallen about us as thick as hail. We could not account for this. Many of us had been hit by the balls, but a bruise or a graze of the skin was the worst consequence that had ensued. We were in a fair way to deem ourselves invulnerable. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... cast down when we hauled the boat ashore. With this, he went down so far as seemed safe, and prodded the creature in one of its tentacles—the weapon entering easily, at which I was surprised, for I had understood that these monsters were near to invulnerable in all parts save their eyes. At receiving this stab, the great fish appeared to feel no hurt for it showed no signs of pain, and, at that, the bo'sun was further emboldened to go nearer, so that he ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... help him in a war which he pretended his old enemy Ludeger was about to bring upon him. Siegfried consented, and Kriemhild, because she loved her husband very deeply, was much troubled. In her distress she confided to Hagen that Siegfried was invulnerable except in one spot, between the shoulder blades, where a lime leaf had rested and the dragon's blood ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... of the Princess Mave, and Congal went to his quarters; but not to sleep or dream, for the Druid who had provoked the contest came to him bringing his golden wand, and all night long the Druid was weaving spells to charm the shield and spear and helmet of Congal, to make them invulnerable in ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... from a dozen wounds and yet his activity was unabated. He was like a grizzly bear at bay. His men began to believe that his league with Satan, of which he obscenely boasted, had made him invulnerable. He was all that he had proclaimed himself to be, the wickedest and most fearsome pirate of the Western Ocean. And all the while, the slender, boyish Lieutenant Maynard, sailor and gentleman, had one aim in mind, and that was to slay Captain Edward Teach with his own hand. Nor was he at all content ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... battlement; and the combatants, as they struggled in mortal agony, were sometimes seen to roll over the sheer sides of the precipice together. Cortes himself had a narrow escape from this dreadful fate.... The number of the enemy was double that of the Christians; but the invulnerable armor of the Spaniard, his sword of matchless temper, and his skill in the use of it, gave him advantages which far outweighed the odds of ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... I am bound, to whom I shall never fail, on whom I strive to shed a healing dew and the light of my own soul without withdrawing or adulterating a single particle? Do not embitter the mother's milk! though as a wife I am invulnerable, you must never again speak thus to me. If you do not respect this command, simple as it is, the door of this house will be closed to you. I believed in pure friendship, in a voluntary brotherhood, more real, I thought, than the brotherhood of blood. I was mistaken. I wanted a friend who was not ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... insurgents, like their leaders, provided with hosts of flour, or of paper, pieces of candles of the holy-week matins, holy water, pieces of consecrated stones; of vestments belonging to a miraculous Saint or with some other Anting-Anting or talisman or amuletos, will make themselves invulnerable to bullets; also have power to convert into any of the four elements, like those personages of the Philippine legends and comedies,—Ygmidio, Tenoso, ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... still resisting it, is for the poor human soldier to have done right well. To ask to see some fruit of our endeavor is but a transcendental way of serving for reward." This is not pessimism, it is the first step toward a sound and invulnerable optimism. We must recognize once for all that this world is not the world of our dreams, and cease to be so pathetically surprised and hurt when it falls short of them. Were we to be rebellious at life for not being built after ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... wise is to be invulnerable. You see what I am, I have never shed a tears. This is the result of my wisdom. Do you think that occasion for tears has been wanting, had I ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... arrived from London, the dunes were an unexpected assurance that the earth has an integrity and purity of its own, a quality which even man cannot irreparably soil; that it maintains a pristine health and bloom invulnerable to the best our heroic and intelligent activities can accomplish, and could easily survive our extinction, and even forget it once ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... comfortable feeling in sitting listening to all this uproar and knowing the strength of our ship. Many a one would have been crushed long ago. But outside the ice is ground against our ship's sides, the piles of broken-up floe are forced under her heavy, invulnerable hull, and we lie as if in a bed. Soon the noise begins to die down; the ship sinks into its old position again, and presently all is silent as before. In several places round us the ice is piled up, at one spot to a considerable height. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... foiled violences, and, more swift Than any blow which man aims against time, The invulnerable, motion that shall rift All dimness with the ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... station was marked by honors and emoluments; and some fortunate accidents soon introduced an opinion, that as long as the guards of the labarum were engaged in the execution of their office, they were secure and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. In the second civil war, Licinius felt and dreaded the power of this consecrated banner, the sight of which, in the distress of battle, animated the soldiers of Constantine with an invincible enthusiasm, and scattered terror and dismay ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... never been coward enough to hide my feelings. I'm in love, my dear baron, as madly in love as a young collegian—sufficiently in love to watch my lady's house at night even when I have no possible hope of seeing her. I thought myself blase, I boasted of being invulnerable. Well, one fine morning I woke up with the heart of a youth of twenty beating in my breast—a heart which trembled at the slightest glance from the girl I love, and sent purple flushes to my face. Naturally I tried to reason with myself. I was ashamed of my ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... intellectually a little flexible in his morality Naturally as deceived as he wished to be Official wrath at sound of footfall or a fancied one Optional marriages, broken or renewed every seven years Pessimy is invulnerable Repeatedly, in contempt of the disgust of iteration Satirist is an executioner by profession Semblance of a tombstone lady beside her lord The banquet to be fervently remembered, should smoke The homage we pay him flatters us We must have some excuse, ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... against Cromwell, having, by his zealous lectures inflamed his own imagination and that of his followers, issued forth at their head into the streets of London. They were, to the number of sixty, completely armed, believed themselves invulnerable and invincible, and firmly expected the same success which had attended Gideon and other heroes of the Old Testament Every one at first fled before them. One unhappy man, who, being questioned, said, "he was for God and King Charles," ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... and elevation of Emerson's character show themselves in all that he writes. His life corresponded to the ideal we form of him from his writings. This it was which made him invulnerable amidst all the fierce conflicts his gentle words excited. His white shield was so spotless that the least scrupulous combatants did not like to leave their defacing marks upon it. One would think he was protected ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... a flutter of successive excitements, now certain that it was invulnerable, now fearing an immediate descent of the enemy, and always longing for peace. In England the Orders in Council which provoked the war were now revoked, and Malcolm Fraser wrote that this must soon bring peace in America, ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... in the air and both fell on the besiegers. Flaming torches and firepots were hurled from the walls. The Christian towers did their work in the midst of flames, particularly the Tower of Godfrey, on whose roof a golden cross shone. The leaders fought amidst piles of their dead and seemed to be invulnerable themselves. Breaches were made in the walls behind which stood a living barricade of Saracens. An Egyptian emissary was caught, his message to the besieged squeezed from him, and his body was then hurled from a catapult into the city. The wooden machines of the Christians began to burn, ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... Monte Reale, Monte Velino, and the giant of the whole chain, the "Gran Sasso d'Italia," look down upon it from their exalted thrones. Within the shelter of that massive armor, the town might well seem invulnerable to time and man. But now, as I gazed despondingly round, the very hills everlasting seemed rocking from their foundation, and their crests nodding to destruction. Which of those mighty peaks was to open the fire of hell's artillery upon us? Was not Etna once as still and dark ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the brave until midnight, when he was awakened by hideous howls heralding the approach of the spectre. When it appeared, the Marshal first discharged his pistol point-blank at it without effect, and then struck it with his sabre, which was shivered in his hand. The invulnerable spectre then beckoned the amazed Marshal to follow, and preceded him to a spot where the floor of the gallery suddenly yawned, and they sank together through it to sepulchral depths. Here he was surrounded by a band of desperate coiners who would forthwith ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... wonderful feat of the Shoshone, and also of the Comanche and Apache, is the facility with which he will hang himself alongside his horse in a charge upon an enemy, being perfectly invisible to him, and quite invulnerable, except through the body of his horse. Yet in that difficult and dangerous position he will use any of his arms with precision and skill. The way in which they keep their balance is very simple; they pass their right arm, to the very ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... bore him to Peleus, king of Thessaly, and was so fond of him, that she charged herself with his education. By day she fed him with ambrosia, and by night covered him with celestial fire, to render him immortal. She also dipped him in the waters of Styx, by which his whole body became invulnerable, except that part of his heel by which she held him. He was afterwards committed to the care of Chiron the Centaur, who fed him with honey, and the marrow of lions and wild boars; whence he obtained that strength of body and greatness of soul which ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... seven-headed dragon is a commonplace in folk-tales; a seven-headed man is not so usual. Cabagboc, after both of his comrades have been given royal wives, journeys alone. He comes to a river guarded by a seven-headed man who proves invulnerable for a whole day. Then a mysterious voice tells the hero to strike the monster in the middle of the forehead, as this is the only place in which it can be mortally wounded. Cabagboc does so and conquers. (F6) The hero's wagering his strong men against a king's ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... the search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death! Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfilment of which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own inexperience ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... which quite settled the question. Nevertheless, he said, there WAS a gentleman present (and here he looked very hard at a tall farrier), who, having been engaged all his life in the manufacture of horseshoes, must be quite invulnerable to the power of witches, and who, he had no doubt, from his own reputation for bravery and good-nature, would readily accept the commission. The farrier politely thanked him for his good opinion, which ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... could not blind. When in such tender tone, yet grave, Douglas a parting blessing gave, The tear that glistened in his eye Drowned not his purpose fixed and high. My soul, though feminine and weak, Can image his; e'en as the lake, Itself disturbed by slightest stroke. Reflects the invulnerable rock. He hears report of battle rife, He deems himself the cause of strife. I saw him redden when the theme Turned, Allan, on thine idle dream Of Malcolm Graeme in fetters bound, Which I, thou saidst, about him wound. Think'st ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... this air of the spotless sky, where shone so much glory, where glistened so many swords, that the youth of the time breathed. They well knew that they were destined to the slaughter; but they believed that Murat was invulnerable, and the Emperor had been seen to cross a bridge where so many bullets whistled that they wondered if he were mortal. And even if one must die, what did it matter? Death itself was so beautiful, so noble, so illustrious, in its battle-scarred purple! It borrowed ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... powers, which he claimed the Great Spirit had bestowed upon him. He had also a mystic torch, the gift, as he said, of Manabozho, keeper of the sacred fire. He had also singular belt made of beans, which he assured his credulous followers had grown from his flesh and would render invulnerable all who touched it. To widen his influence the Prophet had this belt carried by Indian runners ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... and whoever rules it, that I must always be. I, who am the chief of wizards; I, the reader of men's hearts; I, the hearer of men's thoughts! I, the lord of the air and the lightning; I, the invulnerable. If you would murder, Prince, then do the deed; do it knowing that I have your secret, and that henceforth you who rule shall be my servant. Nay, you forget that I can see in the dark; lay down that assegai, or, by my spirit, prince as you are, I will ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... this thing! To fight this cruel, invulnerable, resistless giant that went roaring down the world with a huge uprooted oak tree in its mouth for a toothpick! This yellow, sinuous beast with hell-broth slavering from its jaws! This dare-devil boy-god that sauntered along with a town in its pocket, and a steepled church under ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... serpents and other fauna of legendary history; but in certain country districts there are some animals that no amount of Board School information, nor countless Science Siftings from penny papers can ever destroy, and to this invulnerable class belongs the Laidley ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... make what they deem to be the most powerful potion of all to enable men to be strong against their enemies. This potion is mixed up with their ugali and rice, and is taken in this manner with the most perfect confidence in its efficacy, as an invulnerable protection against bullets and missiles of ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... no greater than Achilles. No one is. There is bound to be a spot. The Somebody-or-Other must take hold of us somewhere when she dips us in the Something-or-Other that makes us invulnerable. He read aloud this verse in ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... difficult to see what was happening. Lord Meton saw, and understood; but he knew that the proud blood in Lady Isobel was an invulnerable armor that would protect her from indiscretion. And as ...
— Thomas Jefferson Brown • James Oliver Curwood
... the story goes, plunged her son in the waters of Styx to make him invulnerable. The truth of this allegory is apparent. The cruel mothers I speak of do otherwise; they plunge their children into softness, and they are preparing suffering for them, they open the way to every kind of ill, which their children will not fail ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... any considerable disturbance in all this matter; and I was as perfectly easy as to the lawfulness of it as if I had been married to the prince and had had no other husband; so possible is it for us to roll ourselves up in wickedness, till we grow invulnerable by conscience; and that sentinel, once dozed, sleeps fast, not to be awakened while the tide of pleasure continues to flow, or till something dark and dreadful brings us ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... been stolen, but, in consequence of this, he ordered his men to shoot any thieves who came near. A short time afterwards, another band approaching, one of the men was shot, who turned out to be a magician, and was till then thought invulnerable. He was tracked by his blood, and afterwards died of his wound. The next day some of Speke's men were lured into the huts of the natives by an invitation to dinner, but, when they got them there, they stripped them stark-naked and let them go again. At night the same rascals stoned ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... distinguished himself at the siege of Constantine, fighting side by side with the Duc de Nemours and that other French officer of Irish descent, Marshal Niel. At forty-four he was a general of division, and had seen twenty-seven years of service. The Arabs called him the Invulnerable. ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... occupants could consume, and that consequently there was comparatively little external trade in farm produce. From these facts he would readily understand that the rural communities in the year 1500, numerous yet isolated, were invulnerable ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... risen Lord mine is "an inheritance incorruptible." It is not exposed to the gnawing tooth of time. Moth and rust can not impair the treasure. It will not grow less as I grow old. Its glories are as invulnerable as ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... and left it as casually as her bright hazel eyes left the glance of his faded blue ones. Bob, watching, grinned at Uncle Timothy meaningly, and received in return the mild sparkle of amusement with which the "antique" was accustomed to show himself invulnerable to neglect from young ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... to be invulnerable to Cupid's arrows, showed by her warm praises, after he had left that evening, that she was not proof ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... love you. I loved you always. I loved you invulnerable, wise, fortified beyond the wiles of men. How much more do I love you now with your one weak spot—so weak, so absurd that it can only be kissed, and laughed at ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... they, as ever went forth armed and determined for premeditated crime; stout in frame, stout of heart, invulnerable by any physical apprehension, unassailable by any touch of conscience, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... was as common as it was possible for a very unnatural custom to be, and, in fact, gave the real instances of the Marphisas and Bradamantes, whom the writers of romance delighted to paint, assigning them sometimes the advantage of invulnerable armour, or a spear whose thrust did not admit of being resisted, in order to soften the improbability of the weaker sex being frequently victorious over the male part ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott |
